Posthuman Blues

I was skimming the Washington Post's Philip Klass obituary and this paragraph immediately caught my eye:

"His first investigation, in 1966, was of a sighting two years earlier near Socorro, N.M. He found that it had been a hoax perpetrated in an attempt to bring tourism to the economically depressed town."

What the Post doesn't mention is that Klass' identification was -- and still is -- completely untenable. In fact, the Socorro incident (in which police officer Lonnie Zamora witnessed an egg-shaped vehicle accompanied by two occupants) has gone on to become an enduring chronicle in the modern history of close encounters. Various evidence, including physical traces, convinced Air Force investigator J. Allen Hynek to conclude that a landing had indeed taken place. Klass' pet "explanation" was strained at best, and the colorful tourism scheme he envisioned never materialized.

Recently, ufologists have offered several intriguing terrestrial theories for what Zamora saw. One possibility is that Zamora accidentally happened across a prototype craft developed by Hughes Aircraft. In any case, that he saw something is virtually undisputed.

But, as usual, the mainstream media has chosen to err on the side of ersatz debunkery. This is neither good journalism nor a particularly fitting tribute to Klass, who -- despite certain intellectual failures -- helped to advance a disciplined, evidence-based approach to UFO research.