Roy P. Basler, IIIAugust 12, 1935 - November 17, 2016Resident of Menlo ParkRoy Prentice Basler, III, a physicist with expertise in ionospheric radio propagation and over-the-horizon radar, died on November 17, 2016 from heart failure at Stanford Hospital. Basler, known to many as "Prent," was born on August 12, 1935 in Florence, Alabama to parents Roy P. Basler, Jr. and Virginia Anderson Basler. After graduating from Springfield High School in Springfield, Illinois in 1952, he attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He graduated with an A.B. in physics in 1956 and began graduate studies in geophysics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. He completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1964 at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Alaska. While in Alaska, he built his own home out of timber logs cut from a plot of land he bought, and began to raise his young family. The simplicity and challenges of this rustic life near the Arctic Circle developed the independence and self-reliance that shaped his character. Following graduate school, Basler worked for the Electro-Physics Laboratory at International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) near Washington, D.C. before moving to Menlo Park, California in 1973. From 1973 until 1994, he worked as a Senior Research Physicist at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International. In addition to his special expertise in communications systems technology and design, he carried out research in extrasensory perception, the colonization of space, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.Basler's interests included music, especially classical music and the music of the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, as well as philosophy, literature, politics, psychology, and film. He spent his life pursuing rigorous interrogation of the nature of our universe and the meaning of life. His greatest joy, however, was his family. Although preceded in death by his beloved wife, Sally Diane Ferris Basler, he is survived by one daughter, Elizabeth Basler; sons Ethan, Jason, Julian, and Joshua Basler; their spouses William, Julie, Susan, and Vanessa; sisters Mary Dahlgren, Andrine Cleaver, and Virginia Davidson; brother Christian Basler; and ten grandchildren: Nicole, Sean, Evelyn, Alexander, Melanie, Amelia, Caroline, Eleanor, Beech, and Annie. Basler will be missed by many lifelong friends he made in California. His descendants carry on his legacy through their intellectual curiosity and annual reunions with their extended family, a tradition he encouraged and which has continued for nearly fifty years. A memorial gathering will take place in Los Angeles, California in January 2017. For further information please email [email protected]. View the online memorial for Roy P. Basler, III