 In 1976, as the only astronomer on the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, he looked into the so-called Mars effect.In 1996 he made headlines when page one of the "New York Times" covered his report to Ohio State University which concluded that in 1926 Richard E. Byrd's airplane flight towards the North Pole turned back 150 miles from the pole.Rawlins's third book, his detailed report on Byrd's trip and on the competence of lingering defenses of it, was co-published simultaneously in 2000 by "DIO" volume 10, 2000 and by the polar research center at the University of Cambridge.