Ernest Henry Taves (February 1, 1916 – August 16, 2003) was an American psychiatrist, author of three books, two on Mormonism and one on UFOs. He was a scientific skeptic and was a Technical Consultant for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Taves served in Yokohama, Japan after WWII as a Captain in the US Army Medical Corps, chief of the neuropsychiatric section. Early life and career Taves was born in Aberdeen, Idaho, where he attended Aberdeen High School. His mother's family was Mormon and his father's Mennonite. After high school he graduated from Oregon State University. He obtained his doctorate from Columbia University and his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine. After college, Taves joined the US Army Medical Corps from 1946 to 1948 "reaching the rank of Captain while he was chief of the neuropsychiatric section at the 155th Station Hospital in Yokohama, Japan". Taves moved to New York City after the military, establishing his medical practice in psychoanalysis and psychiatry, then eventually relocating to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1954. Author In 1969, Taves published his first story, "The Firefighters" in Playboy Magazine. As his writing career started picking up, he began to phase out of his medical career, eventually giving up his medical practice in 1972. His son Henry said that his father had been trying to get published from an early age and was "absolutely thrilled when his story (in Playboy) was actually published". Taves' skeptical book The UFO Enigma was published in 1977, and co-authored with astrophysicist Donald H. Menzel. The book argued that UFOs are a mixture of hoaxes and misinterpretations of natural phenomena. The subtitle of the book is "The definitive explanation of the UFO phenomenon". "The authors have analyzed a representative number of sightings and have found what they consider to be rational explanations for them in terms of the normal processes of perception combined with possible meteorological conditions and well-known astronomical phenomena. Some they consider to be downright hoaxes or equivalent cases of self-deception." Taves wrote two books about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their history, the first book Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon was published in 1984 and follows the history of Joseph Smith Jr. from the time Smith founded the church, to his assassination, and after until 1869. This is the Place: Brigham Young and the New Zion published