Klass, Philip J.

Philip J.Klass (1920– ) Philip J. Klass is one of the leading sceptics in America and has written six books and numerous articles in which he dismisses or proposes earthbound explanations for a variety of paranormal claims. His books include UFOs: The Public Deceived (1986) and UFO Abduction: A Dangerous Game (1989), in which he pledged to give ten thousand dollars to anyone who the Federal Bureau of Investigation could confirm has really been abducted by aliens.

In 1989 he also began writing his own periodical, Skeptics UFO Newsletter. Klass decided to become a professional sceptic in the 1950s, when he learned that magazines were having trouble finding people qualified to say that UFOs were not spacecraft. He first stated this in 1953, in an article for Aviation Week magazine, arguing that most UFO sightings are actually of ordinary aircraft, stars, or planets. At the time this article was published, Klass was an electrical engineer working for General Electric. He eventually became a senior avionics editor for Aviation Week and Space Technology, and he has won the Aviation/ Space Writer’s Association Award five times.

SEE ALSO:

• Debunkers
• Sceptics
• UFOs

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning