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Posted: 09-08-2005 09:36 Post subject:

greets

obit of mark chorvinsky here:

http://lorencoleman.com/Chorvinsky_obituary.html

also monica sjoo has died

Posted: 11-08-2005 05:37 Post subject: Philip J. Klass R.I.P.

Death of a Skeptic
Philip J. Klass, well known UFO debunker, has passed away at his home in Maryland after a long illness. Born in 1919, he was a senior editor at Aviation Week and Space Technology for 35 years. While Klass was at odds with many in the study of ufology, he'll be missed as the field's most legendary skeptic.
Philip J. Klass
1919-2005
Phil Klass was a senior editor at Aviation Week and Space Technology for 35 years. After his retirement, he continued to write technical articles for the magazine, until the 1990s.

Inside the UFO community, he was best known as a debunker and became something of a legend. He was known not only for pointing out the obvious hoaxes, but for taking some logically untenable stands on issues where even the facts were not in his favor. But, regardless of the positions he took on UFO-related matters, Klass made a name for himself in the field and, at the very least, tried to keep ufology honest even as he denied that such a field of study should exist.
Phil died at his home in Maryland last night, after a long illness. Whatever the truth is about UFOs, aliens, or life after death, Phil Klass now knows that truth.

Biography from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia which has his archive of UFO papers.
Philip J. Klass Collection
1948-2000
(36 linear feet)

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.

American Philosophical Society
An eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, the American Philosophical Society promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and community outreach.
The American Philosophical Society, this country's first learned society, has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life for over 250 years.

Posted: 11-08-2005 05:46 Post subject: MORE ON Mark Chorvinsky

Mark Chorvinsky (1954 -2005)
Too brief a life
by Loren Coleman

Mark Chorvinsky was born in Philadelphia, on March 4, 1954. A magician from the age of seven, Chorvinsky acquired an interest in mysteries, and a desire to explain them, in his childhood. As an adult, Chorvinsky became a filmmaker and bookstore owner.

Chorvinsky's film productions were independent and usually not feature length. His short motion picture Strange Tangents was screened at the American Film Institute, the Library of Congress and film festivals at Cannes, Berlin, and Los Angeles. "It's about a young sorceress who tries to save her dying master with the help of her friend, a 3-foot-tall talking salamander," Chorvinsky told a reporter in October 1989. (Later, he would create short video documentaries on his debunking investigations, such as Strange World, in the mid-1990s.)

In the early 1980s, Chorvinsky devoted endless hours categorizing the data collection of the International Fortean Organization, while running his commercial bookstore, Dream Wizards, in suburban Rockville, Maryland. Displeased with the administration of INFO, Chorvinsky broke with the group, then founded and became the editor of Strange Magazine in 1987. His magazine reflected Chorvinsky's journey in Fortean investigations, at first publishing detailed overview articles on phenomena, but then slowly moving to more skeptical and debunking articles on cryptozoological and unexplained subjects, as well as the occasional sympathetic pieces.

Chorvinsky was one of the first to discuss the possible role of Washington state construction magnate Ray Wallace in the seminal hominological events in 1958, when Jerry Crew found the now-famous "first" Bigfoot prints -- or, at least, the first to be labeled as such. Chorvinsky, an outspoken skeptic of the 1967 Roger Patterson-Bob Gimlin Bigfoot film footage, suspected that the clip was a hoax. In columns in Fate Magazine and in essays in Strange Magazine, Chorvinsky tied his theories especially to the Hollywood special-effects award winner John Chambers (although Chambers denied his role to investigator Bobbie Short). Another favorite debunking focus of Chorvinsky's was the Loch Ness and Owlman work of fellow magician, Englishman Doc Shiels. Chorvinsky carried on decades-long debates on these topics with his critics.

Chorvinsky had a light side, and it appeared most often when he was able to share his passion for the magic of the movies as seen in cryptozoological topics. He contributed an appendix to my book, Tom Slick and the Search for Yeti (1989), on the role of Abominable Snowmen in the cinema, and he often described how he enjoyed writing that essay. In his later years, Chorvinsky seemed to return, as with the piece he wrote on the truth behind The Exorcist, to reflective examinations that overlapped his deep interests in film and Fortean topics.

One of Mark Chorvinsky's favorite Charles Fort quotations was from New Lands: "There is not a physicist in the world who can perceive when a parlor magician palms off playing-cards."

On Saturday, July 16, 2005, Mark E. Chorvinsky of Rockville, Maryland (the son of Irma and Milton Chorvinsky), passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was a devoted father and family man. He left behind his wife Laurel Chiat, his son David S. Chorvinsky, and brother Ted and sister Pamela. Mark Chorvinsky was a fellow of a tight-knit group of Forteans in Maryland and the District of Columbia, including his good friends Doug Chapman and Mark Opsasnick. Before he fell ill, Chorvinsky maintained an extensive network of international colleagues via email contact and his publishing efforts.

July 28, 2005

Posted: 12-09-2005 11:48 Post subject:

Posted: 12-09-2005 12:06 Post subject:

I remember reading the back cover blurb of his book Alien Abduction - A Dangerous Game. It was a brilliant piece of mis-direction.

I wonder how many people bought it thinking it uncovered a vast government conspiracy to cover up UFO abductions?

Not a terribly Fortean stand, I know, but it was funny.

Posted: 13-09-2005 03:24 Post subject:

Did he make it over here in ther Eighties? Sounds like a top bloke.

Posted: 13-09-2005 10:11 Post subject:

For many in the UFO community, he was the personification of evil, but I had the opprotunity to meet him on a few occasions, and he was actually a pretty nice guy, and far from being an unreasonable, arch-skeptic.

For example, he was impressed by the video footage he'd seen of alleged "rods", and suggested that there might actually be something there (an opinion which I do not necessarily share), provided that the same "rods" could be caught simultaneously on both video and standard film cameras, and the celluloid compared to the tape, to ensure that one wasn't looking at either digital artifacting or insect motion blur.

He hadn't a closed mind, as he was often accused by his detractors. He was open to the possibility of the unknown - he just needed to see proof. I realize that for many in the saucer camp, his departure is no big loss, however the man that I met was a friendly, highly intelligent gentleman, far from the image of the seething, hateful killjoy propagated by the UFO faithful.

So long, Mr. Klass.

Posted: 16-10-2005 09:22 Post subject:

Posted: 16-10-2005 09:48 Post subject:

Posted: 16-10-2005 09:55 Post subject:

And if you did have a fish birth certificate, some cynic would claim it was forged, or that it belonged to a different fish. Skeptics, eh!

My next goldfish will be microchipped. Although if it lives longer than Goldie, and I'm still around, I'd be approaching some sort of record age myself by then! Cool

PS: There is a thread on fishkeeping:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23495

Posted: 14-11-2005 13:22 Post subject:

Could we keep Posts here to people that it might be even slightly interesting to know about?

Thankew. Smile

Posted: 14-11-2005 14:25 Post subject:

Posted: 14-11-2005 14:48 Post subject:

Posted: 14-11-2005 14:55 Post subject:

This is the 'Chat' thread though, where anything goes (I suppose). People who are particularly relevant to Forteans could be remembered in 'Fortean News Stories', if they aren't already...

Posted: 14-11-2005 14:55 Post subject: