Klass, Philip J.

Philip J. Klass has published widely in the field of scientific explanation of UFOs.

From the description of Papers, [ca. 1965-1982]. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122474135

American author of science and fantasy fiction; b. 1919.

From the description of Philip J. Klass collection, 1968. (Boston University). WorldCat record id: 70968410

Philip J. Klass was born in Des Moines, Iowa on November 8, 1919 to Raymond and Ann Klass, and was raised along with his younger sister in Cedar Rapids. Attending Iowa State University, Klass graduated in 1941 with his bachelors of science in electrical engineering and went to work that same year as an engineer at General Electric's facility in Schenectady, NY.

In 1952 Klass became a technical journalist for Aviation Week & Space Technology (AWST) magazine, one of the leading publications for the aerospace industry. He remained with the magazine for 34 years, eventually becoming senior avionics editor. Taking semi-retirement in June 1, 1986, he continued on as a contributing editor working from home. During his time with the magazine, Klass kept a workaholic schedule putting in over forty-plus hours a week researching and writing articles. He wrote some of the first articles on inertial guidance technology, infrared missile guidance and detection, and the development of microelectronics. As a result of his work at AWST, he earned the distinction of being only one of two journalists to be named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received awards from the Aviation/Space Writers Association in 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, and 1986; and the Lauren D. Lyman Award in 1989 for his distinguished career. From the Royal Aeronautical Society (London) Klass received the Boeing Decade of Excellence Award for lifetime achievement in 1989.

In addition to his distinguished career as an aerospace journalist, Klass developed a career investigating UFO sightings. Klass began investigating UFOs in 1966 after participating in a panel discussion for the IEEE. Unfamiliar with the subject, he read John G. Fuller's Incident at Exeter: the Story of Unidentified Flying Objects Over America Today (New York: Putnam, 1966), which contained reports of glowing fireballs near high-tension power lines, and began looking at the possibility that UFOs could be nothing more then freak atmospheric electrical phenomenon such as ball lighting. When he entered the field of UFO investigation he held the premise that people were honestly reporting what they believed they saw. He soon learned that people sometimes held ulterior motives when reporting UFO sightings. His first investigation in 1966 of a sighting two years earlier near Socorro, NM showed that the report was merely a hoax in an attempt to bring tourism to the economically depressed town.

Klass has gone on to investigate numerous UFO sighting and abduction cases, including the 1975 Travis Walton "UFO Abduction" case, which he concluded was a hoax. Klass also investigated the MJ-12 Papers, which alleged that President Harry Truman created a top secret group called Majestic-12 to deal with the 1947 saucer crash. Klass' investigation demonstrated that the documents were counterfeit. In return Klass has been accused of being an agent of the U.S. government disseminating disinformation in a UFO cover-up, however, Klass doubts the ability of the government to cover up something as large as a crashed saucer in light of the failure to maintain secrecy around events such as Watergate and the Iran-Contra Affair. Admitting that if he obtained information that UFOs did exist he would not hesitate to write the article himself. Klass has the distinction of being labeled one of the leading UFO skeptics, along with Edward Uhler Condon and Donald Howard Menzel.

Out of his investigations, Klass has published seven books, his first being UFOs-Identified in 1968. He has also participated in UFO lectures and programs sponsored by both skeptics and pro-UFOlogists. In 1976 Klass was a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) along with Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Paul Kurtz, Ray Hyman, James Randi, Martin Gardner, and Sidney Hook. The purpose of CSICOP is to support the analytical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view, and provide information to the general public.

Klass began donating his papers to the APS in 1988 with the view that the collection would one day help historians of pseudo-science understand how UFOlogy became so popular in the late-Twentieth Century. Philip Klass died on August 9, 2005 in Cocoa, FL.

From the guide to the Philip J. Klass Collection, 1948-2000, (American Philosophical Society)