Scientific establishment debunkheads have no shortage of words to describe British author-journalist Graham Hancock – pseudoscientist, pseudo-historian, pseudo-archaeologist, fanatacist, charlatan, and “pyramidiot,” to name but a few – but the prize goes to Scientific American, which branded him an “audacious autodidact.”

 

We prefer to think of Graham Hancock as he describes himself – an “unconventional thinker who raises questions about humanity’s past.”  Hancock does not purport to claim everything he says is a scientific fact.  Rather, he proposes plausible and intriguing scenarios that challenge conventional thinking and invite further inquiry.

 

Hancock has at the very least led an unconventional life.  His family moved to India when he was three, and he is married to a woman from Malaysia who specializes in photographing ancient monuments.  They have six children.  Hancock’s writings, however, were quite conventional until he neared the age of 40 – at which time he became fascinated with the possibility that advanced human civilizations existed during the Ice Age, thousands of years before the dawn of our recorded history.

 

If you think about it, the idea is not far-fetched.  The end of the Ice Age was a massive global warming event that caused ocean levels to rise 400 feet and submerge a substantial portion of the planet’s land area.  Is it not possible that once-thriving civilizations were destroyed without a trace?  Why does nearly every culture around the world tell tales of a great ancient flood?  Does the story of the mystical lost city of Atlantis not have a familiar ring to it?