Robert Sheaffer
Robert Sheaffer is an American skeptic writer and researcher who has been examining UFO reports and stories for decades and looks for natural or mundane explanations for them. He is the author of the Bad UFOs blog.
Robert Sheaffer is an American writer and skeptical researcher who has been working on the UFO phenomenon since the 1970s, primarily through the critical examination of individual cases. He is an associate of CSICOP (now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry), and for a long time he wrote the "Psychic Vibrations" column of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
Work
Sheaffer's best-known book is The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence (1981), in which he analyzes well-known UFO cases and concludes that they can be traced back to identifiable phenomena, error or misunderstanding. He later also published the volumes UFO Sightings: The Evidence (1998) and Bad UFOs: Critical Thinking About UFO Claims (2015). On his blog, Bad UFOs, he comments on current UFO news, footage and statements.
One of his most frequently cited analyses relates to the 1969 UFO sighting of Jimmy Carter, who later became President of the United States: according to his calculations, Venus was shining brightly in the sky at the time and in the direction of the observation.
Position
According to Sheaffer, the overwhelming majority of UFO reports can be explained by ordinary objects and natural phenomena, such as stars, planets, airplanes, meteors and balloons, and the evidence so far does not support the hypothesis of craft of alien origin. He is also critical of public figures and stories that, in his view, are not sufficiently documented or verifiable.
Reception
He is a recognized, widely cited author in the skeptical community. Ufologists and supporters of the subject, however, consider him too dismissive from the outset and say he does not take sufficiently seriously the cases they regard as unexplained. He also takes a skeptical stance on the more recent UAP reports coming from government circles.