◆ SpookStack

ne et pate ah betes tage yb Te ‘Approved For Release 3001/04/02 : CIA. RDP96- 00789R001001420001 “3 LOE BER ORR ibe Owe rte QIK, DR Bas vggastrozphysicist..Dennis Rawlins, formed the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) to refute all claims of paranormal events. This committee was later rebuked by Rawlins himself, a co- founder of the committee, because of the integrity of some of those who make a career of opposing anomaly research. He said, I now believe that if a flying saucer —_ landed in the backyard of a leading anti-UFO spokesman, he might hide the incident from the public (for the public’s own good, of course). He Might swiftly convince himself that the landing was a hoax, a delusion, or an “unfortunate” or mundane phenomena which could be explained away with “further research" (33: 171). This mentality is even more disturbing when we see the debilitating affects it can have. Case in point--A February 1987 article in OMNI states: In one strange incident CSICOP official Philip J. Klass, learning of a forum on anomalies research that the University of Nebraska was sponsoring, called the school to protest that CSICOP’s views were not being represented and that, moreover, in questioning the United States government’s word on the nonexistence of UFOs, speakers at the conference were seeking “what the Soviet Union does--to convey to the public that our government cannot be trusted, that it lies, that it falsifies....As a patriotic American, I very much resent [this].° After Klass threatened legal «action against the university, it canceled its sponsership of future conferences of this kind. Klass withdrew the threat and pronounced himself satisfied with the university’s action. Since then satellite groups of debunkers have proliferated all around the country, determined to do battle with “pseudoscience"” real and imagined. Not content simply to argue the issues on their merits, they have harassed colleges and universities into dropping (usually noncredit) courses in parapsychology, conducted vituperative campaigns against anomaly proponents, and Gone — 20 the words of Philadelphian Drew Endaco Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP96- 00789R001001420001 -3 90