An astronomer whose name surfaces on the sceptical side of several cases. 1961. Reinhold Schmidt stood trial for fraud after taking more than $30,000 from elderly women with tales of cancer-curing crystals, and a 27-year-old Carl Sagan testified for the prosecution that Saturn could not support life. In the Betty and Barney Hill case, he and Steven Soter dismissed Marjorie Fish's Zeta Reticuli match as a chance alignment. Later, in The Demon-Haunted World, he used the Face on Mars as an example of pareidolia.
Stories3
Reinhold Schmidt and the Kearney Incident
28Thinly documented
Astronomer who testified for the prosecution at Schmidt's 1961 fraud trial that Saturn could not support life
The Face on Mars: Viking 1 photographs Cydonia (1976)
48Partially documented
Astronomer who used the Face as an example of pareidolia in The Demon-Haunted World