Thursday, September 24, 2020

X-Zone Broadcast - Robert Sheaffer Discusses Klass and Friedman

 

I invited Robert Sheaffer back on the program as a response to another radio show in which the host and the guest attacked Philip Klass. I didn’t think that it was a fair assessment of who Klass was and that his personality was similar to that of Stan

Robert Sheaffer

Friedman, who had partnered with that guest. You can listen to my show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41089664

and the second hour here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41089667

We did examine some of the things that Klass had done that were fairly nasty, but then we did the same thing with Friedman. You can get a better idea, along with some documentation here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/08/stan-friedman-vs-philip-klass-whats.html

And to learn a little about what Klass has done, in a somewhat similar vein, you can read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/09/philip-klass-and-his-letter-writing.html

I did look at other aspects of some of Klass’ UFO investigations and you can see them by typing his name into the search engine on the blog. I also looked at Klass’ investigation into the Travis Walton abduction and Klass’ attempts to convince Steve Pierce to “confess” to the Walton hoax. Pierce never did, even with an offer of a large amount of cash offered by Klass.

In other words, we looked at how Klass had operated in the past and compared it to some of the things that Friedman had done in his campaign to become the Number One Guy in the world of UFOs.

As we discussed this, we also looked at some of the famous UFO cases, such as the Coyne helicopter sighting. I explained why I found some of what Klass had said about it to be inaccurate based on my experience as an Army helicopter pilot who had been through the same training as Coyne and his co-pilot. Naturally, you can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Coyne

We also talked about the Lubbock Lights case and in a discussion that was reminiscent of our Levelland discussion on another edition of the radio show. That means, simply, that Robert offered a possible explanation for the Carl Hart photographs taken in Lubbock. He supplied a link to that analysis, which, with luck, you can read here (I say that because the link might not work for everyone):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/470983769757563/permalink/688177534704851

I am not a fan of the explanation but will note, as I did on the show, that there seems to be only two solutions here. Hart either perpetrated a hoax or he photographed something that is truly anomalous. Having interviewed Hart in the 1990s, I accept his statement to  me that “I still don’t know what I photographed.”

The best part of the show, I believe, is that you had two guys on it, who look at the UFO phenomenon from opposite sides of the room. We could agree on a number of points without the discussion devolving into insults and accusations. We might disagree, but we did look at the other side to see if there were good points to be made. We also, in the course of the show, tried to provide references for those who were interested to follow up on what we said.

We pretty much left it at that point. What we did prove, if that is the right word, is that Klass was no worse than Friedman, and Klass might have been more honest in his assessments. He might have been blinded by his bias but there seemed to be no evidence that he fabricated or suppressed evidence… the same can’t be said about Friedman.

Note: Before I published the article about Klass and Freidman, I invited Kathleen Marden on this program. She declined the offer.

5 comments:

Moonman said...

The first part had the guest repeating the claim that Klass invented the term "avionics". This is a common statement, but there are no references to support it.

The first usage of the term was on Sep 26, 1949 in Aviation Week. Klass started being listed as a part of the Aviation Week team on Feb 4, 1952 as shown in that issue's contents. The only other Aviation Week article that gives him credit for a story before he got a job there is on Jan 12, 1948 and does not mention "avionics".

JoeWhip said...

Good interviews although the stream kept freezing on me. I heard the Dolan interview referenced and was taken aback by the allegations. Mind you, I was never a fan of Mr. Klass but thought the allegations to be over the top. I have never been a fan of Mr. Dolan and his false flag 911 nonsense and the interview he conducted on Mr. Klass was enough for me to never take him seriously again.

John Steiger said...

I have a basic question: Where would the Roswell case be (would it even exist?) if not for Stanton Friedman's interaction with Jesse Marcel circa 1978 as -- at that point -- a potential UFO witness?

P.S. I have not yet found time to listen to this broadcast -- which I certainly intend to do soon -- so perhaps this is answered herein. But if not ...

KRandle said...

John -

Of course it would exist without Stan. Len Stringfield was already deeply involved in collecting data on crash/retrievals. The first mention of Marcel was by Len. Stan ignored the material for about a year, until Bill Moore found the picture of Marcel in the newspaper. And then Stan went off on the MJ-12 quest and only was reinvigorated in the Roswell case with Don and I began to ask questions about it.

Really, the basic question becomes, just how much of the material that Stan published was based on his will to believe, how much was fabricated, and what all did he do to derail the investigations of others.

Anonymous said...

Hello,

Is it possible Stanton was interested in and believed the work he was doing up until Bill Moore admitted to spreading disinformation?

I always thought that at point in his career he had invested a lot of time and energy in the topic. Perhaps he chose to carry on as his time in his past professional field was well behind him. He presentations and interviews were verbatim for 30+ years after all.