This Charming Man

I was very pleased today to see Kevin Randle had published a thoughtful, meticulous takedown—my description, not his—of the late Phil Klass.

In the schism between skeptics and believers Klass long served as one of the chief debunkers of UFO claims, and as a long-time editor at Aviation Week, a very practical and scientifically oriented trade publication, he had a sturdy pulpit to preach from.

Problem is, Klass was himself something of a true believer, and as I write in Fringe-ology he seemed unable—or unwilling—to admit that any particular UFO sighting was simply unexplained. From my  point of view, to allow that a specific sighting has yet to be explained is not equal to saying ET has visited the earth. But professional skeptics tend to act as if admitting uncertainty on any paranormal claim is tantamount to declaring defeat.

The High Strung Skeptic Class, of which Klass was most certainly a card carrying member, is also, like the majority of us, often guilty of behaving badly. And it is into this particular stream that Randle steps. I've been offering some comments on the article and I highly recommend you  bop on over to Randle's site to check the whole piece out for yourself. A quick excerpt to whet your appetite, with a link at the end of the post, follows after the jump.

"Klass 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… 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."

*

As Randle's post unwinds, he reveals that Klass did this sort of thing on a fairly regular basis—looking for some sort of flaw not just in the data, or the stories, presented by UFO believers, but in the people themselves.

I highly recommend you click here for the rest.