PFLOCK, Karl T. 1943-

PERSONAL: Born January 6, 1943, in San Jose, CA; son of Ernst H. (a book retailer) and Eleanor (a retired school teacher; maiden name, Bracey) Pflock; married Mary E. Martinek, (a government affairs director), February 7, 1986. Ethnicity: "Human." Education: San Jose State University, B.A. (cum laude; philosophy and political science), 1964.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—P.O. Box 1569, Bernalillo, NM 87004-1569. Agent—Cherry Weiner, 28 Kipling Way, Manalapan, NJ 07726-3711. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, intelligence officer, 1966-72; House Republican Conference, Washington, DC, publications director, 1981-83; senior legislative assistant to Congressman Ken Kramer, Washington, DC, 1983-85; Department of Defense Office of the Secretary, Washington, DC, deputy assistant secretary, 1985-89; BDM International, senior strategic planner, 1989-92; writer, UFO researcher, and consultant, 1992—. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and U.S. Air Force Reserve, 1960-66.

MEMBER: Society for Scientific Exploration, Center for UFO Studies, Reagan Alumni Association, Mutual UFO Network.

AWARDS, HONORS: Defense Outstanding Public Service Medal, 1989; named Ufologist of the Year, 1998.

WRITINGS:

Roswell in Perspective, Fund for UFO Research, 1994.

Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, Prometheus Books (Amherst, NY), 2001.

(With James W. Moseley) Shockingly Close to theTruth!: Confessions of a Grave-robbing Ufologist, Prometheus Books (Amherst, NY), 2002.

Contributor of short fiction and articles to periodicals, including Cuadernos de Ufologia, Fate, Fortean Times, International UFO Reporter, MUFON UFO Journal, Omni, and Anomalist.

WORK IN PROGRESS: With James W. Moseley, Grave-robbing for Fun and Profit: The Conceits and Follies of Archaeology.

SIDELIGHTS: Author and researcher Karl T. Pflock has had a lifelong interest in unidentified flying objects (UFO's), and has no doubt, despite his Roswell investigation findings, that UFO's are real. After years of government service as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy, and senior staff assistant to a ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Pflock decided to begin investigating his interests more thoroughly. He began by researching the circumstances that gave the town of Roswell, New Mexico, such notoriety, and in 2001 he published his first book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe.

Roswell provides readers with "a meticulously researched look" at the New Mexico region that witnesses claim was the site of a crashing of an alien spacecraft during the late 1940s, explained a reviewer for the Skeptical Inquirer. While theories on the UFO crash seem to constantly saturate bookstores, periodicals, and television shows alike, George Eberhart in Booklist stated that Pflock's well-researched, clearheaded accounting "will definitely need a place on the shelf." Pflock disagrees with commonly voiced UFO theories, and has developed his own idea of what happened, centering around a balloon accident during a government-sponsored research project—dubbed "Mogul" that was ongoing in the area at the time of the Roswell "sightings." "Step by step, he identifies the weak points in supporters' arguments, picks apart ambiguous evidence, reexamines critical testimony, and finds little more than wishful thinking for an alien scenario," stated Eberhart. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Pflock's work "the definitive book on facts and fantasies surrounding the now-familiar series of 1947 events at Roswell."

While Pflock is quick to question the validity of Roswell's UFO, he does not for a moment believe that Earth has never been visited by alien intelligence. In his second book, Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-robbing Ufologist, he joins co-author James Moseley in am examination of the fascinating world of "ufology" and the individuals who have dedicate their lives to the study of UFOs. Dubbing Moseley the "problem child" of ufology, Booklist reviewer George Eberhart credited the pair with "pulling no punches with Moseley's own behavior" when they openly discuss the coauthor's attempt to perpetrate a hoax by faking a UFO landing site—one of a series of ploys Moseley designed to prove that government cover-ups do exist.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albuquerque Journal, July 31, 2001, John Fleck, review of Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, p. A1.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March, 2002, Tom Easton, review of Roswell, p. 132.

Booklist, June 1, 2001, George Eberhart, review of Roswell, p. 1801; February 15, 2002, George Eberhart, review of Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-robbing Ufologist, p. 972.

New Scientist, June 9, 2001, Wendy Grossman, review of Roswell, p. 47.

Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2001, review of Roswell, p. 69.

Skeptical Inquirer, September, 2001, review of Roswell, p. 76.