X-Zone Broadcast Network - Mike Rogers (Walton Abduction and the Phoenix Lights)

This week I talked with Mike Rogers to get his take on the Travis Walton abduction, since he was one of the main players. He was completely candid in his responses and didn’t even mind my somewhat snarky question about them leaving Travis behind after being struck by the light beam. According to Mike, once the beam hit Travis, the other six took off in the truck. To their credit, they did stop and turn around to go back, but by that time, Travis was gone. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19005838

Although I had planned to talk about Mike’s involvement in the Phoenix Lights, we stayed with the abduction. I got his personal take on some of the events around that, learned that there had been a large-scale search for Travis and then the ultimate ending to the search when the sheriff suggested that they had murdered Travis. The lie detector said otherwise, and, of course Travis’ reappearance some five days later put that theory to bed.

We also talked, briefly, about Philip Klass’ involvement in the case, and his attempts to convince Steve Pierce, another of those with Travis that night, to admit the hoax. I had interviewed Pierce a number of years about this. You can read that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/07/steve-pierce-and-travis-walton.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/03/philip-klass-travis-walton-and-

steve.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-aquarius-steve-pierce-and-other.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/07/travis-walton-and-me.html

One of the things that did intrigue me was the paintings that Mike had done based on the information supplied by Travis. I had thought that the beings described by Travis didn’t look much like the Grays of fame and Zeta Reticuli, but Mike thought they did look similar. I asked for, and was granted permission to reproduce his paintings here so that you might make up your own mind.

Travis Walton abduction as painted by Mike Rogers. Painting copyright by Mike Rogers, reprinted here by permission.

Given the timing, as the show wrapped up, we had not gotten to the Phoenix Lights, so I told him that we’d to that another time. Fortunately, the was a hole in the production schedule so that I had the opportunity to continue the interview right there. Now I learned that Mike had been on the scene of the Phoenix Lights, but what he saw was something different than what had been reported in the major of the stories. He saw a craft and not just lights in the distance.

I had been of the opinion that there had been two events on that night in 1997. One of them was of some kind of a structured craft that traveled the length of Arizona and the other was of the lights over Phoenix. We agreed that the Lights were flares dropped as part of military training, and that one formation of lights was of aircraft. Although Mike had no explanation for the structured craft, he did believe that it was of terrestrial manufacture. You can listen to all that here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19005920

Next week, I’ll talk with Nick Redfern about his latest UFO book. He seems to be intent on writing more UFO books than either me or Brad Steiger. Given his age and mine, I’m sure that he’ll grab this “honor” at some point in the near future.

If you have questions for Nick, send them in the form of a comment and I’ll try to get them asked. For Mike, there were a couple of questions, but they came in while I was interviewing him, and didn’t have the chance to find them until the show ended.

The Roswell Festival 2019

The Roswell Festival might be considered the highlight of the tourist season in New Mexico. Tens of thousands of people make it to Roswell for the Festival and hundreds of thousands visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center during the year. Top of the line hotels are found in the city and the downtown area reflects the economic boom that UFOs have created.

I made it to the festival for the first time in seven years and saw that much has changed. There is now a big display from The Day the Earth Stood Still and people lined up to have their pictures taken with Gort. Science fiction, though not a huge part of the museum, does have its place and I’m not sure that is such a bad thing. After all, I have written a number of science fiction novels, something that a few in the UFO field never failed to mention.

The Day the Earth Stood Still in the Roswell Museum. All photographs copyright by Kevin Randle.

One of the first things I did, on the first morning before the Festival began, before the opening “Meet and Greet” took place, was approach Derrell Sims. I mentioned something about a fellow Vietnam Veteran and he was quick to point out that he was a Vietnam Era Veteran. That means he served in the military during the war but that he had never deployed incountry (which is how we say served in Vietnam). He then launched into his resume of military service which has been well publicized over the years.

My plan was to interview six of the men and women who had been invited to give presentations. There were troubles with this from the very beginning. It started with getting the microphone, computer and WiFi connection operating. I had planned to use Skype video, but we just couldn’t get a good signal strength for it to work properly. I finally settled for four shows using only audio.

I, along with several others including Paul Davids, Tom Carey, Don Schmitt, Don Burleson and Frank Kimbler, were on two panels about the Roswell case. There were some interesting nuggets dropped there. I had mentioned that there were avenues of investigation to be followed, including research into the Ramey Memo. I did say that we hadn’t found any metallic debris but Frank said that wasn’t exactly accurate.

Don Schmitt, Kevin Randle and Frank Kimbler on the Roswell Panel. In the interest of full disclosure, this picture
is from an earlier Festival panel discussion on the Roswell case.

Frank, in his work with the Roswell case, had been finding bits and pieces of metallic debris out on the Foster (Brazel) ranch. Much of it is still being analyzed. Frank did say it was difficult to find labs to do the analysis when they learned that it related to the Roswell case.

This is something that I think all of us have encountered. Don and Tom said that as they attempted to interest anthropologists in certain aspects of the Roswell investigation, they would bail at the first mention of Roswell.

In researching the Ramey Memo, I have run into the same thing. Photo analyses and other experts backed away the moment Roswell was mentioned. Others who helped didn’t want their names associated with anything to do with Roswell.

All this means is that Frank’s trouble in finding labs for the analysis rings true. And, it is too bad that Roswell has become something of a problem for scientists and technicians who would like to investigate but fear for their professional reputations. 

Frank told me something else that I found important but that has nothing to do with UFOs. Back in the 1970s I saw a movie, McKenna’s Gold about the Lost Adams Diggings. That was a very rich placer gold deposit that had been guarded by the Apache. Adams, and several others, were taken to that hidden canyon and told not to venture above the waterfall. Of course, they did, and found a hard rock gold mine. The Apaches, angered by this violation, killed the miners except for Adams, who through good fortune, escaped to tell the tale.

I had pretty well decided that this was just another fabled gold mine story that dots the old west. There are those who believe it and spent time searching for it. Frank told me that he had found the right canyon, that it does exist, and strangely, he told me where it is… southwestern New Mexico. He’d been there, seen the landmarks that Adams had described, seen the gold of the placer deposit and knew he had found the right place. Then, to compound the story, he told me specifically where it is… Apache Box Canyon, which you can basically drive to… and Google Earth will show you the way.

But I digress.

I did talk briefly with Travis Walton, who seemed to be surrounded by fans most of the three days of the Festival. I didn’t interview him while in Roswell (though that had been part of my plan), he did agree to do the radio show later. I plan to interview him in August.

The real question was if anything new about the Roswell case turned up during the Festival. While on a panel to discuss all things Roswell I had mentioned that we were running out of avenues to explore. There was the investigation into the Ramey memo, but at this stage is seemed a long shot to think we’d ever come to a consensus. Out technology isn’t quite there and given the circumstances might never get there.

Tom and Don also mentioned additional witnesses but the problem here is that we’re now dealing with the descendants of those who were there. Such interviews

Tom Carey signing books in Roswell.

do present some problems since we’re not dealing with just old memories, but with old memories that could be misinterpretations of what was said by those telling the tales to their children. We’re moving far away from the primary sources which is not a good thing.

I gave two presentations. One was “Roswell in the 21^st Century,” which was derived from my book by that name.  It was a look at some of the evidence that had collapsed in the last 20 years, but also look at some of the positive things uncovered in that same time frame.

I think one of the best things was the value of the Jim Ragsdale story. He was the guy who said that while out in the desert, with a woman to whom he was not married. They had seen the object fall and crash near them. Ragsdale was later said that he had seem dummies or bodies, he wasn’t sure which. He repeated the word “dummies” several times. James McAndrew who wrote the anti-Roswell book, Case Closed for the Air Force, used Ragsdale’s testimony to prove that what was seen were anthropomorphic dummies dropped years after the Roswell crash. But, if Ragsdale was lying, as now seems to be the case, then his testimony about dummies or bodies is irrelevant, and a conclusion based on his testimony is fatally flawed. In other words, the Air Force used a lie to prove that these anthropomorphic dummies were what Ragsdale and others had seen. There were no alien bodies at all.

Kathleen Marden chatting with a visitor.

I did chat with Kathleen Marden for an hour, which was recorded there in Roswell to be broadcast on my radio show/podcast in the near future. We discussed the Barney and Betty Hill abduction, the star map, and other aspects of the abduction phenomenon. She seemed to have a good grasp on the topic, though I wasn’t in complete agreement with her on many of the points.

While there I did have the opportunity to speak with dozens of people. Although many seemed to understand that we lack the proof positive of an alien event, too many others seemed to embrace all the craziness from the Philip Corso story to the MJ-12 nonsense. There were some who were quite well versed in UFOs and others who were there because, well, there was a festival going on and it sounded like fun. I even saw a few people dressed as Storm Troopers (the Star Wars kind) and a couple of others in costumes from other science fiction universes. (But since I write science fiction myself on occasion, I didn’t mind chatting with those people.)

Most of my time was spent either arranging interviews for the radio show or conversing with those who were visiting the museum. I was there, at the museum, from the moment it opened until it was closed. But I just didn’t have a chance to sit in on other presentations. There were three tracks of programming, not to mention the special sessions held by some of the presenters. Too much to do and too little time to do it which, for a Festival, is probably a good thing.

I should note that the museum staff worked very hard to put on a good Festival, but had time to help me with my problems in setting up for the radio interviews. I never heard an angry word from any of them. They worked to keep everything flowing smoothly and the crowds happy. They did a great job and I never heard anyone complain about the programming, the presentations or the availability of the staff to help out.

The last thing was a tribute dinner for Stan Friedman who had died several weeks earlier. Given my experiences with Stan, some of the things he said about me, and his attempts to stop the publication of Don’s and my book, UFO Crash at Roswell, I just didn’t feel the need to attend. Instead I had Church’s Fried Chicken.

Main Street closed for the vendors during the Festival.

For those interested in analysis, I think the Festival has gone in the direction of creating a festival in recent years. While there was programing that related to UFO research, there were many other activities that had nothing to do with that. Main Street near the museum was shut down for all sorts of vendors, some of which had little or nothing to do with UFOs. Not that I’m criticizing that, just noting it in passing.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center.

For those interested in UFOs in general and Roswell in particular, the annual Festival is one of those must attends. The opportunity to talk with the researchers, those who have spent decades investigating Roswell, and others who have spent the same kind of time researching other aspects of the UFO field, is the big plus. I was able to answer lots of questions about the case that might not have been explained in detail in books, magazine articles and TV documentaries.

As for the Festival, it is something that those interested in UFOs should attend, at least once.

Steve Pierce and Travis Walton

Several months ago the story that Philip Klass had attempted to bribe one of the witnesses to the Travis Walton abduction made its rounds. I took a somewhat middle of the road stance, suggesting that I could believe that Klass might attempt something like that, but that the evidence for it was rather thin. I now have additional information.

Steve Pierce

There were, in essence, two people who know the truth about this. One, Philip Klass is dead and the other, Steve Pierce had not been readily available for comment. However, on July 1, 2012, at the Roswell UFO Festival, I had the chance to sit down with Steve and get his side of the story. What follows is what he told me then.

Although my real interest in this was Steve’s interaction with Phil Klass, he did tell me part of the story from his perspective as one of the wood cutters in the truck driven by Mike Rogers.

They had seen a bright light and thought it was something that hunters in the area had set up. It was a solid light and a very bright white. One of them, Alan Dalis, thought that it was a spaceship.

Travis, outside the truck, began to walk toward it with everyone yelling for him to come back. A beam of light hit him in the chest and he flew backward. Rogers, and some of the others thought that Walton had been killed, and they took off in the truck. Some of them, Steve Pierce included, wanted to return. Rogers was talking about how he had left his best friend behind.

And one of them, Dwayne Smith, thought that Walton had been incinerated by the beam.

But they did return only they couldn’t find Walton. They drove into town and called the sheriff. Steve said that the cops looked for beer bottles, thinking that they all had been drinking. Rogers, Kenneth Peterson, and Dalis, to face his fears, went back out. Steve went on home.

He told me that the next morning, the police arrived and he heard them talking with his mother. He slipped out the back door and went over to his girlfriend’s house. The police thought that Walton was dead and the others were covering up the crime.

Eventually, the police convinced them all to take lie detector tests to try to learn the truth. They drew straws to see who would go first and Steve apparently lost. The polygraph operator asked if they had done bodily harm to Walton, and Steve answered that they hadn’t. He, as well as the others, passed the test, which wasn’t about the UFO and abduction, but an attempt to learn if a crime had been committed.

Walton, of course, showed up five days later, and told his story of the abduction and what he had experienced. It was then that so many UFO researchers, including the Lorenzens of APRO, the National Enquirer, and others began their search for the truth.

Steve Pierce ready to answer questions.

Steve didn’t have a large role in that. Eventually a local deputy named Jim Click, came to his house. Click said that Klass had called him and wanted him to relay a message to Steve. Klass was willing to pay ten thousand dollars if Steve would say that the whole thing was a hoax.

Once that offer had been made through Click, Steve said that he began to get regular phone calls from Klass reinforcing the offer. When he moved away from Arizona, he was surprised that Klass could track him down. He said that his name wasn’t Steve Pierce, but Jeffrey Steven Pierce. He had begun to use his middle name after his fellows in elementary school began to tease him about his first name.

It turned out that Klass had a copy of that first polygraph examination that listed his name as Jeff S. Pierce, so Klass had that information. That was how Klass could find him.

After Steve moved to Texas, and after hearing from Klass on a regular basis, Steve said that he told his wife that he just might take the money. He said that he had some bills and that much money had an appeal to him.

His wife asked if the story was a hoax and Steve said, “No.” She said that he couldn’t take the money. In fact, if he did, she would never spend any of it.

Steve told me that after three years, and the once a month telephone calls from Klass, he finally told Klass, “Yes, it’s hoax.” He then wanted to know how to get the money.

Philip Klass

According to Steve, he met Klass once in Texas. Ironically, Steve said that he found Klass to be a nice man when he wasn’t on the trail of a UFO story. He seemed to have gotten along well with Klass when they weren’t talking about the abduction.

This is an observation that I do not find hard to believe. Over the years I had many discussions, meetings, communications and telephone calls with Klass. Though he didn’t remember it, while I was in Washington, D.C. at a DIA school, Klass took me sailing on the Potomac River one afternoon. It wasn’t a long trip, just a little run about the area.

At the dinner meeting, Steve wanted to know how to get the money. Klass said that he needed to find some evidence, find the generator used to create bright light. Find “stuff” to prove it was a hoax.

Steve asked, “When do I get the money?”

And Klass said, “After you find the stuff to prove it was a hoax.”

Steve told me, “Phil Klass is the only person I ever told it was a hoax. I wanted the money.”

Steve said that not long after the incident he had a falling out with Walton and Rogers over things that had nothing to do with the UFO sighting or the abduction. He also said that he was annoyed about the way he was portrayed in the movie Fire in the Sky. He said that he wasn’t one of those crying as they fled the scene.

After this, Steve became a long haul trucker and stayed away from the UFO arena for several decades. It was only recently that he got back in touch with Walton (or maybe it was the other way around). He said that he had been to three of the UFO conventions or symposiums in the weeks prior to the 2012 Roswell Festival.

Here’s the thing. I sat there listening to his story, taking my notes, watching his face and his body language, and I have no reason to suspect he is lying. He said that you could prove that Click had come out to his house, but I’m not sure you would be able to prove the substance of the conversation.

He did know Klass and described his personality correctly. I had noticed the same things. Klass was quite charming when he wasn’t in the middle of a UFO debate, but that he would color things by his wording and descriptions to give a misleading impression. As I have said in the past, Klass wasn’t above writing letters to witness employers and causing trouble for those who didn’t agree with his analysis.

The question becomes, “Did Klass offer him ten thousand dollars?” and if he did, was it a bribe to get him to say it was a hoax? Clearly Klass believed that to be the case, so, to Klass, it would have been a payment to someone for finally telling the truth.

My impressions were that Steve Pierce was telling the truth about his experiences. If the Walton abduction was some kind of an elaborate hoax, Steve was not a part of it. He did say to Klass that it was a hoax, but there is that cloud of ten thousand dollars hanging over that claim. Steve has since repudiated it on a number of occasions.

I had wanted to get his take on this one aspect of the story. He answered my questions without hesitation, he explained the circumstances of his admission that it was a hoax (which he said he only said to Klass), and he explained how the falling out between him and Walton took place.

I have no reason to doubt his story.

Roswell Festival - 2012

The Roswell Festival, sponsored by the International UFO Museum and Research Center, was held over the first weekend in July. The July 4^th holiday, falling as it did in the middle of the week, created a situation where there was no real three-day holiday, which meant for many that both Friday and Monday were work days.

One of the landing sites near Levelland.

After a detour through Levelland, Texas (where I looked at the stretch of road where a number of the close encounters or landings took place in 1957) I arrived in Roswell early on Thursday afternoon. I checked into the hotel and headed down to the museum to see what was going on the day before the festival started. You might say it was a bad idea because Don Schmitt and I got involved in helping to set up the museum floor for the festival (oh, I didn’t do all that much, but did provide a little commentary on how things should be arranged).

The next morning started with a breakfast before the doors opened. Julie Schuster, the museum director, who is ill, managed to show up to greet many of us. It was her only appearance at the festival and I fear it took a toll on her. She stayed to complete some work for the museum, though nearly everyone wanted her to go home to rest. They had the situation well in hand and didn’t want her to worry.

Almost at the moment the museum opened, one fellow came in to suggest that he wanted to take Stan and me to dinner so that Stan and I could hash out our differences. I told him absolutely not. I would not be a part of such a thing, though he did promise to pay for the meal. Any meal with him around would have been quite unpleasant.

I spent the day talking to people about UFOs, my philosophy of research, and early on, had a brief talk with Steve Pierce of Travis Walton abduction fame. As noted, I had a nice chat with Travis about his abduction experience, my philosophy of alien abduction which does not mirror his, naturally, and UFO research in general.

Tom Carey had arrived by then, with his wife, Doreen, as had David Rudiak with his wife, Roberta. While setting up the tables, I suggested that David could share my table, which he did throughout the festival.

Combat assault in Vietnam

I did several programs about my journey through UFO research, but in keeping with some of the complaints about my book, Reflections of a UFO Investigator, (that there wasn’t enough about my activities outside UFO research), I added some of that material to the presentation. If nothing else, people got to see some photographs that I had taken in Vietnam and learn that the vast majority of Vietnam Vets were “normal.”

On Saturday night, there was the Roswell investigators panel that included Stan Friedman, Tom, David, Frank Kimbler, Don and me. Don acted as the moderator, though he let some of those in the audience ramble on with their questions a little longer than I thought necessary, which is probably why no one asked me to moderate. After all, the title was “moderator.”

Frank Kimbler, David Rudiak and Tom Carey

The fellow, who thought that Stan and I should go to dinner, attempted to create some controversy with his “question.”  As he talked, I whispered to Don that I wasn’t going to be dragged into the fight. I wasn’t going to say a word in response. Apparently Stan wasn’t going to either.

His point seemed to be that we all should agree on everything because those at the far end of the spectrum, the debunkers, just loved it when we didn’t. He seemed to think that we all should embrace a common theme regardless of the evidence, or our interpretation of that evidence.

This seemed like an idiotic stand to take. If we all agreed on everything, regardless of the evidence, then wouldn’t the Skeptics have a field day with that? … And rightly so. There is no point in it, and no rational reason that I should accept everything that leads to UFOs as being extraterrestrial, and there is no point in Stan (or anyone else for that matter) doing the same. To get to a proper place, whether it is the extraterrestrial or somewhere else, we must be free to examine the evidence without worrying about agreeing with the opinions, interpretations, and beliefs of everyone else.

Talking to Stan later (he wasn’t dragged into the discussion either) I noted that he had the same opinion. There is no point in agreeing to agree with everything regardless of the evidence. All that would do was drag the whole discussion down with it.

Interestingly, a woman asked if we were all locked into the extraterrestrial explanation and there was a certain amount of agreement among us all. I suggested that given the evidence, it was the most likely solution, but there was a chance we were talking about something that might be interdimensional, intradimensional, or that we were talking about time travelers. I believe, given the other responses, the others on the panel tended to agree. We weren’t going to eliminate any possible explanation, but there were some solutions that seemed more likely than others.

Denise Crosby

While at the festival, I did have a chance to talk, briefly, to Denise Crosby who had been in Star Trek: The Next Generation and who had done a couple of interesting documentaries about Star Trek. I thought it interesting that she traveled the world, literally, talking to people about Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry’s vision of world harmony. National origin, ethnic origin or religious belief didn’t seem to matter when it came to Star Trek. It is a common bond throughout the world.

Sunday night a number of the speakers were invited to dinner, which I wouldn’t mention except for a bit of irony. As we made our way to the table, I selected a chair and someone commented that it was as far from Stan as I could get. Well, that hadn’t been on my mind, and I hadn’t really noticed, but I walked to the other end of the table and selected a chair across the table from Stan.

Earlier, when no one was around, he had said to me that he appreciated my service to the country. I thought that was a nice thing for him to mention, especially since some of our beliefs about UFOs are at the opposite of the spectrum.

Proving that Stan and I are at opposite ends, I had said to him, at the hotel one morning, “Aztec? Really?”

We had a brief, but not acrimonious debate about the case, with Stan saying, “Yes, Aztec.”

Anyway, we sat down there and about five or ten minutes after we had, someone said, “You seem to be getting along.”

Stan said, “Of course. We are gentlemen.”

At the meal, we avoided the topics we knew that could grow heated and discussed some points in general, a little about the Levelland sightings, and some of the history that seems to interest us both.

Those at the table, who expected some fireworks, were probably disappointed in that. But hey, we were there to eat and socialize and not debate the reality of MJ-12 or the Aztec UFO landing.

I did sit in on one of David Rudiak’s presentations about the Ramey memo, which I found interesting. He went to the trouble to point out other interpretations of it and why he accepted, or rejected, the conclusions drawn by others. This seemed to be a presentation that gave the facts and though I knew what he believed, I thought the program was fair. His history of the events leading up to the Roswell crash and the newspaper articles about it from around the country was fascinating.

Random Thoughts and Observations:

The vendors, out in the parking lot, and there seemed to be fewer this year, complained that the people were not spending their money as freely as in years past. Inside they seemed a little more cautious about what they bought as well but I found many who were interested in my books.

I did notice that gas, on the north side of Roswell was selling for about $2.96 but on the south side and out west, it was going for $3.13 to about $3.21. I don’t know why it was so much more on one side of town, but the difference was enough that I would think you’d drive over to the other side to buy it cheaper.

It seemed that it was hotter this year and the hotel was a different one. If asked, I don’t know if there was anything significantly different between the two, though this year’s inn was just off Main Street which might have made it a tad quieter.

Frank Kimbler and Martin Dreyer

I also met a fellow, Martin Dreyer, from New Zealand, who I have been talking to on the telephone for a decade and a half. It was nice to put a face to the voice, and he has a real interest in the Roswell case, often asking the difficult questions. He did take pictures of the Saturday night panel for me.

Frankie Rowe, having moved to Roswell, showed up a number of times and I have a number of nice chats with her. She wanted to show me a “magazine” from 1938 proving that her father had been a firefighter. She seemed to think that I questioned this… I told her that I have a page from one of the logs at the fire station dated June 1947 that proved her father had worked there. It had never been a question for me.

I did see Yvonne Smith briefly, said hello, and that was about it. We were on opposite sides of the museum and our schedules seemed to conflict slightly.

Derrel Sims and I were on opposite sides of the museum as well. He came up to me and said that he had appreciated my service. Again, I thought that was a nice thing to do.

And I did see Dr. Frank Thayer who is listed as one of the co-authors of the book about the Aztec crash. We spoke briefly and he told me that Scott Ramsey hadn’t wanted to send me a copy of the book because I would negative about it. I don’t know if that means that Scott thought his information weak (doubtful) or that he thought I wouldn’t give it a fair reading. I did read it and found the evidence to be weak, so Scott was right but for the wrong reasons.

The main thing, though, seems to be Julie’s illness. There was a lot of concern for her by many there. She had done such a good job of organizing everything that her staff could step right in without missing a beat. I can’t think of a thing they might have overlooked, which is a testament to Julie’s organizational skills.

Travis Walton and Me

While at this most recent Roswell Festival (2012), I had a chance to sit down with Travis Walton. I knew that he had been more than a little annoyed with The Abduction Enigma and our reporting on the Walton abduction case. In fact, last year, he wouldn’t even speak to me, not that I really attempted to engage him in conversation. Had I done so then, he might well have talked to me.

This year, however, he was with Steve Pierce who had been one of those on the wood cutting crew and who had witnessed the abduction. Steve had become the center of a small controversy about the case in recent months, and I thought this would be a good time to talk with him about that. In fact, I engaged him in conversation the first opportunity that I had.



Travis Walton at the 2011 Roswell Festival.

I worried, however, that Travis might have seen this and think I was digging for dirt on the abduction. I was more interested in what Steve had to say about Philip Klass and Klass’ attempt to induce Steve to say it was a hoax. With that in mind, I walked over to Travis’ table and sat down in the vacant seat.

I opened the conversation by asking, “Are you still mad at me?”

Travis explained that he thought I (and by I, I mean Russ Estes, Bill Cone and me) had relied too heavily on Klass’ arguments about the case. Travis, I think, didn’t believe we had given him a fair shake.



Russ Estes in Roswell in 1997.

That might well be, and of course, we were writing about the alternative explanations for alien abduction, meaning we were writing from the point of view that alien abduction had terrestrial explanations. We used many of the sources available, but Travis didn’t think we had used his book and explanations enough in our reporting.

I did tell him early on in our conversation that my interest in talking to Steve was to get his side of the Klass story and I wasn’t looking for new information on the abduction. That said, we talked a little more about the case.

Yes, it does seem that the first, failed lie detector test might have been more about the operator’s observations of Travis’ reactions to the questions and not anything the machine showed. It might be that the first operator was injecting his own personal bias into his interpretation of the results. I do know that often the lie detector is used as a way to encourage the guilty to confess.

So, the results of that first test might have been skewed by Travis’ reactions to the events of that week and by the operator’s belief that there is no alien abduction. To him anything to suggest otherwise must be a lie. In other words, he based his opinion, not on the results of the machine but on his opinions about UFOs.

And there was the second, passed lie detector test which I mention here in the interest of fairness. And a third test, some twenty or so years later that was also passed.

Anyway, the riff that I had created in the late 20^th century had been repaired now, early in the 21^st. We shook hands and Travis understood that I was not seeking information about the abduction but about Klass’ communication with Steve Pierce.

We did talk about the efficacy of the polygraph and I suggested that I knew a way to test if a lie told over a long period became so ingrained that the machine would not detect it. He said that such experiments had been done by giving lie detector tests to prisoners in an attempt to gauge the way a lie might become, for the teller, the same as the truth.

I was surprised that Travis could discuss such a thing at such a high level, which is not to say that I was surprised by his intelligence. I was surprised that he had been reading, or had access to, psychological journals. These are usually quite expensive and often not “light” reading, not to mention easily available.

And, I’m not sure the validity of those tests. I think a better experiment would be to use Vietnam “wannabes.” These are guys who tell horrific tales of Vietnam combat to families, friends and to support groups. They clog the VA system taking up spaces for real veterans who have real needs.

But there are records that can be checked and by accessing those records we can compare their tales with the facts. In some cases those men were clerks or cooks and while they did serve in Vietnam, they did not have a combat role. Some of these wannabes had served in the Army but not in Vietnam. And in more than a few extreme cases, they didn’t even serve in the military.

The point is that they have been telling the stories for decades and might have become so comfortable with their tales of combat that their lies won’t register… Or maybe, sitting hooked up to the machine, their body would betray them, revealing their lies. I think this might be a more accurate way to test the theory and is something that hasn’t been done, as far as I know.

Kathleen Marden

So, as I say, Travis and I shook hands. If there had been a “feud” it was now over. Later, and by later I mean Sunday evening, I was having dinner at the Cattle Baron (which I mention only because a. I get to plug the Cattle Baron and b. I can mention that I was sitting at a table with Stan Friedman, Kathleen Marden and Stan’s son) when Travis walked up to the table to say, “Hello,” to me. We shook hands again, proving what a class act Travis is.

I asked if he remembered when we met in Germany and he said he did. We didn’t see much of each other because of the schedules, but he did remember. Just a little aside to suggest that we had met a long time ago.

If you ask me today what I think about the Walton abduction, I will tell you that if alien abduction is real, I would expect it to be more like that experienced by Travis, or Betty and Barney Hill. A one-time thing that is more of a target of opportunity than these decades long experiences told by so many others. I would tell you that I believe that alien abduction has a terrestrial explanation, or rather terrestrial explanations but that is just my opinion. I would concede that the Walton experience is quite strange.

But I would note here that most hoaxes are confessed eventually. In the Walton case, you have a number of young men, who are now much older, and yet they have not broken ranks. The Santilli film is an admitted hoax. I can’t tell you the number of UFO photographs that have been admitted to be hoaxes, including those that have fooled some very smart people. Or the number of hoaxes created by skeptics to prove that we are credulous. With this case, there have been no defections from the ranks (and we’ll explore my discussions with Steve Pierce about that later).

I don’t plan to engage in a long debate about the details of the Walton abduction. I do have an autographed version of the updated book that Travis gave me a decade and a half ago, which might explain why he thought we should have used more of his information.

I am glad that Travis, who was once more than a little annoyed with me, and I have reached a new understanding. I really don’t like to offend people (though I seem to do it quite easily and much more often than I care to admit) and I have taken the sting out of some of my words written quite a while ago. I guess it just shows that sometimes you have to talk to one another in person so that everyone is on the same page.

Philip Klass, Travis Walton and Steve Pierce, Part Two

Once again Philip Klass has stirred controversy and he didn’t even have to do anything himself. All of this started, for me, with a column by Billy Cox in which he mentioned the story that Klass had offered Steve Pierce, one of the witnesses of the Travis Walton abduction, ten thousand dollars to say the case was a hoax.

Some have been angry at me for accepting the story. As I mentioned then, my first reaction was to reject it, but then I remembered some of the other things that Klass (seen here with his fans) had done in his efforts to debunk everything UFOlogical (yes, it is hyperbole, but what the heck, it’s not the first time that one side or the other has engaged in hyperbole).

I took a stroll over to “Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and the Universe” hosted by Robert Sheaffer so that I might read the other side’s take on this (though saying the other side here is something of a misnomer since I’m not a big fan of tales of alien abduction).

First, (well not first in his article but first in this piece) Sheaffer seemed so outraged that he wrote, “So, because of Travis Walton’s slanderous new charges against Philip J. Klass, I have performed a major Document Drop of papers in my files on Travis Walton...”

Slanderous new charges...?

More hyperbole. I just wanted to point out that both sides often engage in hyperbole and we, who are more or less outside of the particular debate, must be aware of this.

But then we do get to the meat of Sheaffer’s response. He points out that on a “website promoting the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina as a UFO ‘hotspot,’ Sky Ships Over Cashiers, there is a page titled Debunker’s $10,000 bribe to stop UFO truth.”

Sheaffer continued, writing, “Someone shouts on the Outpost Forum on February 5 [2012], “BRIBE BOMBSHELL! STEVE PIERCE WHO WAS WITH TRAVIS WALTON WHEN HE WAS ABDUCTED CLAIMS THAT HE WAS OFFERED A $10,000 BRIBE FORM (sic) THE LATE DEBUNKER PHIL KLASS TO STATE THE ENTIRE TRAVIS WALTON ALIEN ABUCTION CLAIM WAS A HOAX!”

Walton then replied, according to Sheaffer, “Yes, it is true. I even mentioned this in the 1996 edition of my book. But all I knew then was that Deputy Click had taken Steve the message when Steve still lived in the area. I didn’t know that Klass had also flown to Texas and spent hours taking Steve out to dinner and trying to get him to accept the bribe. And followed Steve to another state or two. Very curious... All this strongly supports the belief that Klass was a paid government disinformationist.”

Well, nearly everyone in the UFO field gets branded with that label regardless of what side you come down on. I have been accused of working with Hector Quintanilla and Project Blue Book, though I was in high school when Blue Book neared its end and was in the Army in Vietnam in the few weeks before it was finally closed. I have been accused of being a CIA agent and even a member of MJ-12. Stan Friedman suggested that I was a government agent attempting to divert attention from the crash on the Plains of San Agustin, so Walton’s allegation doesn’t really mean much in the greater scheme of things. You might say its just par for the course and an indication you have arrived in UFOlogy.

In fact, Klass often said he was a government agent. Oh, I know his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek and his claimed ten million dollar a year salary suggested that he was much richer than his lifestyle showed... and no, I don’t believe any of that, but the point is that Klass made the claim himself. I doubt he would worry about the allegation today, if he was alive to comment on it.

Sheaffer wrote, “In Bill Barry’s 1978 book about Travis Walton, Ultimate Encounter, it says, ‘According to Mike Rogers, ‘Steve told me and Travis that he had been offered ten thousand dollars just to sign a denial. He said he was thinking of taking it.’” (p. 160)

Sheaffer noted, as do I, that the accusation did not originate with Pierce, but was made by Mike Rogers, who Sheaffer described as “Travis’ best friend” (and I have no reason to doubt that... I have seen them traveling together) “and future brother-in-law.”

Sheaffer then wrote that Klass wrote, “...had Barry checked with me, I would have assured him that I never made such an offer to [Deputy] Click or to anyone seeking to ‘buy off’ a member of the Rogers’ crew.”

And while this piece is meant, mostly, to show the other side’s opinion on the Steve Pierce suggestion, I will note that Klass didn’t take his own advice. From his SUN Newsletter of November 1993, page 3, Klass wrote, “Kevin Randle has contracted to author a new book which will be a compendium of crashed-saucer tales dating back to the ‘Mysterious Airships’ of the 1890s and also include the 1908 Tunguska incident in Siberia. Publication in soft-cover is expected in the fall of 1984 [sic]. Randle recently told a friend that he received ‘a great deal of money’ from the publisher.”

Had Klass checked with me, he would have learned that I didn’t receive a great deal of money from the publisher... though I wish I had. I suppose Phil was suggesting a financial reason for writing the book, and a financial incentive for filling it with tales of crashed saucers with little interpretation or investigation. The point here is that Phil repeated the tale without checking with me, which is what he suggested Barry should have done with him.

Sheaffer then launches into the reasons he thinks the Walton abduction story is a hoax and I have no problem with his analysis or his conclusions. There are problems with the Walton abduction and like so much else in the world of UFOs, there really is no consensus. Hardcore UFO believers think the case is a hoax and Karl Pflock, something of a skeptic on much in UFOlogy, after a short analysis of the case, wrote, “I hasten to add that, while I think a hoax is possible, I have not yet made up my mind.”

As for the idea that Klass hounded Pierce, that too is a tough call, given Klass’ attacks on both James McDonald and Robert Jacobs (see Phil Klass and his Letter Writing Campaigns published here on September 11, 2011).

Klass apparently called Pierce on July 20, 1978, which can hardly be called hounding. According to the tape of that conversation, Pierce told Klass, “Uh, well, I thought it was something a deer hunter, you know, rigged up. You know, ‘cause it was deer season, you know, so you could see. You know? And, uh, but I couldn’t see the bottom or a top or sides, all’s I could see was a front of it, you know. You couldn’t tell if it had a bottom to ir or, you know, or a back to it or anything...”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the UFO, given by one of the witnesses to the abduction. This doesn’t read like the experiences of someone who was there making observations, but someone who is confused by what he saw and not sure what to make of everything that went on around him that night. It leaves the door wide open for various interpretations.

Sheaffer wrote, “Klass says that when he told Pierce that he believes Walton’s story to be a hoax, Pierce replied, ‘Me too. If I could ever prove it a hoax I’d damn sure do it.’”

So, the Pierce story of the attempted bribe is not as black and white as it has been made out to be by many of us. I will say here again, I don’t believe it beyond Klass to attempt something like this, given what he had done in the past... but, I will also say that the evidence that he did is extremely weak. Given all that, we’d have to conclude the tale is not true, unless and until we could find something stronger.

Over at his blog, Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe, found at:

http://badufos.blogspot.com/2012/02/travis-walton-vs-philip-j-klass.html,

you can find a link that will take you to some of the documents that Sheaffer believes should be reviewed before anyone makes up his or her mind about all this.

As I say, this is, sort of, the other side of this debate. I will note that Klass’ personal attitude has influenced this debate. Some of his activities were highly questionable (such as writing letter to the employers of UFO witnesses as noted in that earlier blog posting), which means that many of us see the idea of his attempting to bribe Pierce as a reasonable extension of these other activities.

But, as I said, the evidence to prove it seems weak and the various tales told about it are contradictory. Yes, I believe Klass might have tried something like this but I don’t think we have any proof that he actually did it.

Billy Cox and Philip Klass

Billy Cox, over at the Herald-Tribune has written a short piece called, “Klass act, no principles,” (see http://tinyurl.com/8793hjt). In it he suggests that Steve Pierce, a buddy of Travis Walton, he of Fire in the Sky and abduction fame (see here at the 2011 Roswell Festival), had been offered, by Klass, ten thousand dollars to say that they had hoaxed the whole thing.

My first reaction was to reject this idea because, even for Klass, it seemed a bit excessive. And then I thought back to the long article I had posted here about Klass and his attacks on witnesses and researchers and his attempts to make their lives miserable. For a full analysis, see my September 11, 2011 blog entry about Klass’ letter writing campaign.

Klass was one of those who knew that there had been no alien visitation and because there had been none, anything suggesting otherwise was a misinterpretation at best and an outright lie at worst. He was not above leaping to conclusions or providing information that was, at best, misleading. In the Socorro UFO landing case, he invented a plot between the mayor of the town and Patrolman Lonnie Zamora to create a UFO landing to boost tourism.

Oh, I suppose you could say that he just got the timing wrong, and that the attempt to promote tourism followed the UFO sighting rather than the other way around. It was an explanation that was weak to begin with and I don’t believe there are many who accept it today. But it is out there for those who don’t have much in the way of critical thinking skills.

So, given all that, it really isn’t much of a leap to believe that Klass (see here) would offer money to Pierce to “admit” to the hoax. I’m sure Klass just rationalized it by thinking that he wasn’t bribing him to make up a story, but paying him for his honesty in finally telling the “truth”... or rather what Klass wanted to believe was the truth.

The bottom line here is that Klass was certainly capable of trying something like this. Klass was rabidly anti-alien and anti-saucer, and for some reason thought everyone should believe as he did. He wanted to get his way, and this might just be another example of his zeal for his point of view... which is to say, that it is an example of what should not be done regardless of your belief structure. Klass wasn’t in search of the truth, he was attempting to bend us all to his way of thinking... and if he had to manipulate the data, the witnesses or the world, that was just the way it had to be. He was only protecting us from ourselves...

Philip Klass and His Letter Writing Campaigns

Lance objected to my word “routinely,” when I suggested that Philip Klass routinely contacted employers of UFO witnesses and investigators. Christopher Allen suggested that if I listed five examples, then that might cover the point.

What I should have said originally is that Klass (seen here) routinely caused trouble for the witnesses, researchers, investigators and believers in UFOs by writing letters to their families, friends and employers and that he harassed them periodically when they didn’t respond to him as he thought they should.

Here’s what we can prove.

Klass, using his power as an editor of Aviation Week (meaning he wrote his letters in the McDonald case on the magazine’s letterhead, suggesting the inquiry was not from Philip Klass private citizen, but from Philip Klass on the staff of the magazine) contacted the Office of Naval Research about Dr. James McDonald. He wanted to know if McDonald had been doing UFO research while on grant research in Australia.

The answer was yes, but the ONR knew about it and had tacitly approved what McDonald had been doing. Klass was not satisfied, though I don’t know why, or who he thought he was to object. He had raised what we all might agree was a legitimate concern about the misuse of government money for UFO research. ONR launched an internal audit and determined that what McDonald had done was not outside the rather wide scope of his research grant.

Klass, continued writing letters (no Lance, not one everyday), but enough to cause concern in the ONR. While the thinking at ONR is not known, it is known that the military, as well as others in Washington, D.C., respond quickly to inquiries from Aviation Week. Klass might claim that he was a private citizen concerned with taxpayer money, but he used the club of the magazine to get what he wanted. ONR decided not to continue funding McDonald’s research. We can guess why they made that decision, but it would only be a guess.

It is not clear if Klass’ superiors knew what he was doing or if they would have approved had they known in the beginning. By the time the question was raised about the legitimacy of Klass’ use of Aviation Week letterhead, the wagons were circled and other editors suggested they knew and approved of Klass’ action. Kind of the same circumstance that we find with McDonald and his superiors at ONR.

The point here is that Klass did contact McDonald’s superiors and slung allegations about the legitimacy of McDonald’s research. You can suggest that all Klass wanted to know was if McDonald had been conducting UFO research in violation of his grant, but once that question was answered, Klass should have moved on. Instead he continued to write letters. Obviously he had another agenda.

Had this been the only example of this sort of thing, then it could be overlooked. Maybe Klass had gone too far in his questioning and maybe he wrapped himself in the mantle of Aviation Week, but McDonald had used ONR funds to pursue his UFO research. When ONR didn’t complain, or rather announced that they found nothing improper, that should have been the end of it. Of course it wasn’t.

Klass did this again after Dr. Bob Jacobs wrote an article for the January 1989 issue of The MUFON Journal. In it, Jacobs said that he was a former Air Force officer and that he had been involved in a UFO sighting, which, I guess is now called The Big Sur UFO Filming. Jacobs said that the UFO was alien and that the Air Force had ordered him not to talk about what he had seen and what had been filmed. He wrote that he had been told, “Lieutenant Jacobs, this never happened.”

In his article, Jacobs referenced a paper, Preliminary Report on Image Orthicon Photography written by Kingston A. George. Klass, though he had all the information necessary, wanted Jacobs to send him a copy of the paper. Klass offered to pay for it but Jacobs didn’t like the tone of the letter. To him it seemed that Klass was ordering him to send the paper.

Jacobs refused, and Klass, apparently went ballistic. He wrote a two page report in his Skeptics UFO Newsletter (SUN) about Jacobs and the Big Sur sighting, suggesting somewhat unkindly that the whole thing was bogus.

Klass wrote, “JOURNALISM PROFESSOR (AND FORMER USAF OFFICER) ‘MANUFACTURED TALL UFO TALE, THEN ACCUSES THE GOVERNMENT OF COVERING IT UP.” (Those who have seen the SUN Newsletter know that Klass was in the habit of capitalizing, underscoring and using boldface type to emphasize his remarks, sometimes using all three at once.)

Jacobs suggested that he had cited his source properly, given Klass the name of it, the author and the date, and that was all he was required to do to properly source the document. Klass then wrote to Jacobs’ boss at the University of Maine in an attempt to discredit him.

Klass wrote:

Dear Prof. Craig:

I am writing to bring to your attention what seems to be to be unbecoming conduct on the part of a journalist and member of your faculty. One should expect a faculty member to serve as a role model for students in demonstrating the ethics and responsibilities of their profession. I refer to Dr. Bob Jacobs.

According to that letter, Klass introduced himself and then said he had become interested in Jacob’s claim that he had photographed a UFO. He wrote that he had offered to pay for the report mentioned earlier and that Jacobs had refused to send the document.

Klass then wrote:

I understand why Jacobs is reluctant to release this report. Based on my research, I’m confident the report would reveal that his ‘UFO tale’ is a cock-and-bull story.

If Jacobs were a young journalist working for the National Enquirer, or one of its even less scrupulous clones, I might be more tolerant of his behavior. But when a professor of journalism, who publicly accuses the USAF and the U.S. Government of ‘cover-up,’ resorts to intentional distortion of the facts to mislead his readers and then to cover-up, I am deeply distressed.

I hope you share my feelings.

It was signed by Klass.

This is akin to the tactic he used against McDonald and the ONR. But the University of Maine had no fear of Aviation Week or a UFO hobbyist (as Klass described himself in the letter) from Washington, D.C. Jacobs did not lose his job.

To read all of the article by Dr. Bob Jacobs, see:

www.nicap.org/bigsurrej.htm

But that’s not all.

When Stan Friedman (seen here in "lecture" mode) began to contemplate a move to Canada, Klass decided that he needed to save Canada from the foibles of Friedman. He wrote a letter that Richard Dolan found in Canadian archives in 2005.

According to Dolan:

The letter was dated August 15, 1980, and addressed to Dr. A. G. McNamara of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. It was unsolicited, and is a straightforward character smear of Stanton Friedman, who was at the time in the process of moving to Canada. According to Klass, Friedman was a “full-time UFO lecturer (of the ‘snake-oil salesman’ variety).” He was moving to Canada "to become its chief UFO Guru." Friedman was ‘quite a showman’ whose lectures were ‘so filled with half-truths and falsehoods that it would take me several hours to offer a rebuttal. And like wrestling with an octopus, when you manage to pin down one leg, the other seven are still thrashing about.

The letter disparages Friedman’s professional credentials as a nuclear physicist, twice refers to Friedman’s "mountainous ego," and calls him "something of an outcast" within the UFO "movement." All in all, a nasty and underhanded little letter. Better yet, Klass enclosed a "White Paper" he prepared on Friedman "that illustrates the man’s modus-operandi and his distortion of facts." (This White Paper was not included in the material I saw at the archives.)

But why send the letter at all? Klass said he wanted to warn the good people at NRC that Friedman would now in all likelihood be directing his focus on them.

"I can assure you," Klass wrote, "that you and your associates will be publicly accused of a UFO Coverup (or ‘Cosmic Coverup,’ as he is prone to say) that ‘dwarfs the Watergate scandal.’" Also, "to alert you to deal cautiously with him knowing he is inclined to distort the facts and exploit any ambiguity in your statements."

The final statement is illustrative. "Please treat this letter in confidence, sharing it with appropriate associates as you see fit."

Dolan concluded, “In other words, tell as many people as you can, but behind Friedman’s back, please.”

For those who wish to read Dolan’s complete analysis of this incident, see:

www.keyholepublishing.com/New%20Klass%20Letter%20Found.htm

But that’s not all.

In a similar vein, as I joined the Air Force Reserve as an intelligence officer, Klass was in communication with the man assigned to do the background investigation. I know this because the man happened to live across the street from my father and told him I was being investigated for a security clearance. All I know was that Klass thought that it ironic that as a UFO investigator I had written magazine articles that suggested the Air Force was engaged in a cover-up of UFOs. He suggested they read those stories before deciding if I was worthy of the trust of the Air Force. After all, I had already demonstrated that I thought little of the Air Force and if trusted with its secrets, might I not leak them into the public arena.

I do know that the investigator did obtain some of the stories I had written about the Air Force, including one about the opening of the Project Blue Book files while I was still in Air Force ROTC. That story, and the others, did not seem to worry the Air Force. I was both commissioned and then granted a top secret security clearance (I'm standing on a building at the Baghdad International Airport in 2004).

Klass, in a move that I never understood, mentioned that I drew a number of unnamed benefits based on my military service. We exchanged a series of letters over this with Klass harping on these benefits. I told him repeatedly that after using the G.I. Bill for college and to buy my first house, I knew of no other benefits to which I was entitled. At that point I had not completed twenty years of military service (active duty and reserve and National Guard). Since then I have retired from the military with more than twenty years and do receive various benefits.

He didn’t like my answer and kept asking the question. However, when I asked about his military service he responded, sarcastically, about his long military record. Yes, it was all tongue in cheek and I understood that, but if he expected a serious answer from me, shouldn’t he supply a serious answer to my question? He did avoid service during WW II and Korea and was probably considered too old for Vietnam, though the Army didn’t think I was too old for Iraq.

But that’s not all.

J. Allen Hynek, who had once been an Air Force consultant to Project Blue Book, learned that Klass called McGraw-Hill about Hynek’s UFO book. According to Allan Hendry, Klass wanted to know why McGraw-Hill had a “UFO nut” on its payroll and suggested that McGraw-Hill fire him.

And when he wasn’t attempting to interfere in the private lives by attacking our livelihoods or our plans to move, he was busy assassinating the characters of those who disagreed with him or who claimed UFO sightings. The Travis Walton case proves the point with Klass’ continued assaults on Walton’s integrity and his prying into Walton’s past.

Let’s be clear on this. Background checks are important and necessary. When Robert Willingham claimed to be a retired Air Force colonel, it was necessary to learn if that is the truth. If Willingham was not an Air Force officer, then his story of the Del Rio UFO crash collapses. But my investigation was limited to the public sources available, and not a search through his entire background to find any dirt that I could. The issue was Willingham’s military service and not what he might have done as a teenager.

And, if a witness has a long history of deceit, is known for his tall tales or practical jokes, then it is necessary to learn that. But there becomes a point where that sort of investigation can become intrusive and borders on harassment. Klass was unaware of the line, or maybe he knew where it was, but simply didn’t care.

While he should get credit for learning about the first lie detector test taken by Walton, the one Walton failed, getting into Walton’s juvenile record is going a step too far. I’m not sure that a juvenile indiscretion, a one time thing, should become part of a UFO investigation, especially if the circumstances are as Walton laid them out in one of his long responses to Klass. A very well written and intelligent response appears in the 1996 updated edition of Fire in the Sky.

Walton is an extreme case, with Klass spending years attacking not only Walton but the fellows with him and his family. I think that dragging his family into it is another step too far. Call the case a hoax, suggest that it is not grounded in reality, but do you really need to attack the family as well.

Klass (back to the camera in Roswell, New Mexico) attacked Minnesota police officer Val Johnson, after Johnson said his police car was damaged, and he was burned, by a UFO. Klass called the case a hoax, which was calling Johnson a liar, in national publications and various other forums. Fortunately, Johnson’s boss, and the others in the area didn’t buy Klass’ assessment, which had been based on Klass’ opinion that there are no UFOs and therefore Johnson must be lying.

In another case, that of Australian Frederick Valentich, who disappeared in a small aircraft after reporting that he was under aerial assault by some undefined UFO, Klass told Don Ecker that Valentich was a drug smuggler. There is no evidence of this, other than Valentich seemed to have had four life preservers on his light plane. I’m not sure how Klass determined this, or if it was true, but the smear was there.

For more information about this see the Wikipedia entry about Klass and see:

http://darkmattersradio.com/?tag=philip-klass

In fact, we can look at case after case in which Klass had decided that the witnesses were lying. He claimed he could prove them to be a hoax, but his proof often fell short. He just didn’t have the information to prove a case a hoax, but since there were no UFOs, then, in some cases, that was the only possible answer.

To some, labeling a case a hoax is not a big deal. But the bottom line is this, especially when the case has received national, or international, publicity, labeling it a hoax is calling the witness, or witnesses, liars. If there is evidence that the case is a hoax, then yes, it should be labeled as such and we all, skeptic, debunker, researcher or enthusiast, should spread that solution far and wide.

But when there is no evidence of a hoax, but the only available answer left to explain a case in the mundane is hoax, then it should not be labeled as such. Klass had no evidence that Val Johnson had wrecked his police car on purpose and made up the story of the UFO, but Klass labeled it a hoax anyway.

A quick search in almost any reference will revel Klass’ investigations and his conclusions. Anyone will be able to see that Klass attacked not only the case, but the witness, or the investigator involved. His attitude seemed to be that if you can’t attack the case, then attack the witnesses.

Such conduct can be seen in the University of Nebraska seminar about UFOs to be held in 1983. According to Jerry Clark:

On August 23, 1983, an administrator at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln took a strange phone call from a man who had a complaint which he expressed at some length. When he finally got offf the phone, the administrator summarized the conversation in a memo to another university official:

“Mr. Phillip [sic] Klass ... is a member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal [CSICOP]. This committee has a much different view of unexplained phenomena than those groups we are working with as sponsors of "this conference [titled Exploring Unexplained Phenomena]. He was, in fact, quite adament [sic] in his position regarding the credibility of the conference presenters. Further, Mr. Klass has a personal feeling that the nature of this conference seriously questions the integrity of the United States Government. He feels that there is no scientific evidence to support the claims of the presenters and indicated that these organizations, by publicly questioning the government, lend support to the Communist movement."

On November 23 Klass wrote the administrator, who was startled to see large chunks of Klass' words from their three-month-old conversation quoted verbatim -- indicating, the administrator correctly surmised, that Klass had taped the two without informing him he was doing so. Klass said that since a "copy of your memo was 'leaked' to outsiders," he wanted to "clarify and expand upon statements" he had made. He said "we" -- presumably meaning himself and CSICOP -- did not seek to "prevent conferences or meetings by those who want to propose UFOs" but that he had some trouble with the university's sponsorship of a conference on the subject. What, he asked, would the university do "if the American Nazi Party came in and said they [sic] wanted to hold a conference?"

"I emphasize to you that I am not, repeat not, suggesting that any of the people or any of the organizations are in any way affiliated with Communist Fronts or with the Soviet Union. But as a patriotic American, I very much resent the charge of 'coverup', of lying, of falsehoods, charged against not one Administration, not two, but eight Administrations going back to a man from Missouri named Truman, a man named Dwight Eisenhower. Because if this charge is true -- Cosmic Watergate -- then all of these Presidents were implicated, and all of their Administrations.... [In making this charge, ufologists] seek what the Soviet Union does -- to convey to the public that our Government can not be trusted, that it lies, that it falsifies. Now I'm not so naive -- remembering Watergate -- to say that never has happened in history. But from my firsthand experience (i.e., 17 years in the field of UFOlogy), I know this charge is completely false. And I resent it as an American citizen."

Remarkably, Klass distributed copies of this letter to others, including me, on the evident belief that it would exonerate him, in other words demonstrate that when read in context his sentiments would sound rational. He would even charge that the administrator's paraphrase had been "inaccurate," when if anything it made Klass' charge sound marginally less nutty. As I wrote Klass on December 6, "In the past, when your critics have accused you of engaging in McCarthyism, they were using the term in a metaphorical sense. Now, it seems, they will be able to use it in the most literal sense."

For those who wish more information and to read all of Jerry Clark’s thoughts on this, see:

www.nicap.org/klassufo.htm

and

www.nicap.org/debunk1.htm

Phil Klass, of course, didn’t see it all quite this way. In an interview conducted by his friend, Gary Posner, he gave his own version of the events. Klass told Posner:

To the best of my aging recollection, I have never attempted to get any organization to cancel a pro-UFO conference or any of its selected speakers. But I know what you're referring to. Back in 1983 I received a phone call from a faculty member of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, who was embarrassed because the school was sponsoring a conference on the alleged "Cosmic Watergate Government UFO Coverup," and no skeptical speakers were on the agenda. So I decided to write a short article "needling" the university. But before doing so I needed to interview an appropriate official. So I called Prof. Robert Mortenson, the school's director of conferences, who expressed surprise to hear that no skeptics had been invited. He told me that he appreciated my concern, and that if they were to sponsor a UFO conference the next year, there should be a better effort made to balance the presentation. At one point during that telecon I did say that, although I am not suggesting that any of the people or organizations involved in the conference are in any way affiliated with communist fronts or the Soviet Union, nevertheless, their reckless "Watergate-type coverup" charges against eight administrations, going all the way back to President Truman, serve, not unlike communist propaganda, to foment distrust and suspicion of the integrity of our government. I also very distinctly remember telling Mortenson, "Let me emphasize to you that I am not, repeat not, suggesting that you cancel or terminate this conference." Again, that was in 1983. A newspaper article the following year quoted Mortenson as saying that the university had decided not to hold another UFO conference that year because the ones in 1982 and 1983 had lost money.

This was, of course, the excuse given for not holding another conference, though it came after the conference host demanded to know why the series had been cancelled.

Klass continued his version, saying:

...[F]ollowing our conversation, Mortenson wrote a brief memo about it to an assistant chancellor. But he misquoted me as having said that conferences like this "lend support to the Communist movement," which carries quite a different connotation -- I had been very, very deliberate in my choice of words to insure that I would not be misunderstood. Anyway, who leaked the memo I don't know. But photocopies of it were distributed at the conference. And the next issue of the MUFON UFO Journal said that I had tried to "scuttle" the conference because it, and others like it, were "aiding the Communist cause." In the same issue, MUFON's director, Walt Andrus, quoted the memo verbatim and even indicated that he had in his possession copies of Mortenson's original handwritten notes that he had jotted down during our conversation. So, armed with all that, one of my most vehement critics began to hurl the charge of "McCarthyism" against me -- even though I had earlier provided him with a verbatim quote of what I had actually said. Mortenson later denied in a letter to me that either he or his deputy had given his notes to Andrus, but he did say that copies of his memo had been sent to the program coordinator and the "file" for informational purposes. But as for exactly what I did say in that conversation, it is just as I told you. When I picked up the phone to call Mortenson, I was planning to write an article, but I never did because he sounded so gratified to learn from me that the panel was so biased, and even asked me if CSICOP would provide speakers for the next year's conference. And because I had planned an article, to assure accuracy I tape recorded that call and, fortunately, I still have that tape.

For those who wish to read all of Posner’s interview with Klass, see:

www.gpposner.com/Klass_inter.html

For all of this, I had a fairly cordial relation with Philip Klass over the years. We once went sailing on the Potomac and got stuck, momentarily, on a sandbar. In later years Klass didn’t remember this, but I did, probably because it is the only time that I went sailing.

We would speak at conventions, and as I have told others, on the last occasion that I saw him, I had to assist him up a couple of stairs to the elevators and then onto his hotel room. His health wasn’t as good as it had been in the past.

And for all the trouble he caused, he was not the worst of the lot. That distinction belongs to Kal Korff, who in today’s world attempts to market himself as a colonel and who has threatened to sue anyone who looks at him sideways. He is a vicious man filled with rage and makes up the most outrageous claims. When challenged with evidence, he quietly changes these claims, but never apologizes.

Of the two, I much prefer Klass who seemed to be a gentleman outside the UFO arena. Korff is just nasty. How you feel about all this is, I suppose, a matter of perspective.