David Hatcher Childress

David Hatcher Childress (1957–) is an American self-described "rogue archaeologist" and "real-life Indiana Jones" who has written on more crank topics than most people can name. He appeared on a number of pseudoscience documentaries such as Ancient Aliens, Sightings and Encounters, and The Mysterious Origins of Man.

Style over substance
Pseudoscience
Popular pseudosciences
Random examples
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Works and claims

The full list of crank ideas he has supported over the years is vast and is quite well illustrated by the categories Childress' publishing company, Adventures Unlimited Press, proudly proclaims that it stocks: "Atlantic Studies, Alternative Health, Alternative Science, Ancient Aliens The Series, Ancient Science, Anti-Gravity, Conspiracy & History, Cryptozoology, Egypt & the Pyramids, Free Energy Systems, Geometry & Math, Holy Grail & Templar Studies, Lost Cities Series, Mysterious Phenomena, Mystic Travelers Series, Native American Studies, Philosophy & Religion, Strange Science, Tesla Technology, UFO's & Extraterrestrial and more."[1] Among those topics not explicitly on this list have been the Bermuda triangle, pole shifts, hollow Earth, and secret societies.

Jason Colavito, in a sort of retrospective review of Childress' work in 2012, pointed out that Childress will pursue whatever bit of pseudohistory and related woo is currently in vogue, tracking Childress' switch from pseudohistorical claims about mysterious ancient civilizations tens of thousands of years old[note 1] to aliensdidit as the latter branch became more popular around 2010. Colavito concluded that Childress is simply an opportunist who will latch onto any trendy pseudohistorical crankery, illustrating this approach by contrasting Childress' dismissive statements about ancient astronaut claims between 1988 and 2005 with his enthusiastic support of such claims in 2011-2012.[2]

His 2000 book Technology of the Gods was an exercise in self-plagiarism.[3]

Conflict of interest

Childress takes a hyper-permissive view of a publisher's duty to the public interest. On 16 June 2015 he posted a five-star Amazon review of one of his own books.[note 2] The author was the error-prone Mike Bara.

Education

He doesn't hold any credentials on any subject and he refers to himself as a rogue archaeologist, though given his (lack of) credentials he's more of a rogue than an archaeologist—just like his fellow "experts" on Ancient Aliens.

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See also

Notes
  1. Akin to Michael Cremo's nonsense or the bullshit claims about the Sphinx of Giza being 10,000 years old.
  2. More good stuff from Bara - review of Ancient Aliens and Secret Societies (link dead because Amazon gave it what it deserved, the boot)

References
  1. On its front page — at least he's not beating around the bush.
  2. Jason Colavito, 2012, David Childress and the Aliens
  3. part1 part2 part3 part4
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