Well, I tried. I almost managed to get the time write a blog post for today, but then Spectrum Cable happened. I had to return to the old equipment from my previous house to close out my account, so I went to the local Spectrum Cable store (which is 40 minutes from me, but, sure, "local") right when it opened to return it. The line was already out the door, and I had to wait 45 minutes until a bored customer service rep finally called me up to his podium to have my equipment scanned. It was my first time in a Spectrum store, and it was like a hellish cross between the Apple Store and a backed-up doctor's office 30 minutes before it closes. When I finally got home, I had a backlog of paperwork and problems and spent most of the afternoon on the phone with customer service robots trying to get through to a person. I had ordered living room curtains, and the description claimed that there were two panels per package. When I opened the package, I discovered that there was one curtain per package cut three quarters of the way through to look like two panels when tied back on a window. The "included" valence was just the top of the single split panel folded over the top of the panel. Even the customer service rep at the store I bought it from agreed that it was a deceptive bit of false advertising on the part of the manufacturer. I also had to speak with a claim representative for the moving company about the steps they broke at my old house in the hope of getting compensated for the repair costs. By the time I got through all this, I had a bunch of work dumped on me and ran out of time for writing. I'll be back later today with an Ancient Aliens review, so there is that. 

​Seeing as it is Memorial Day weekend and we are facing down the gauntlet of several months stacked with multiple fringe history and UFO TV shows airing each week, I am going to give myself a break today and spend the day correcting copyedited chapter pages instead. I need to get something done before trying to review America Unearthed, Ancient Aliens, and possibly that To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science show all in the same week. My publisher has suggested three possible titles for my Mound Builder book but remains open to suggestions. In the poll below, let me know which you prefer, and feel free to share your suggestions for a better title in comments below. 

​I should begin today with a note in passing about the passing of Stanton Friedman, the UFO researcher who devoted more than four decades of his life to researching—and failing to find—evidence of an alien presence on Earth. A familiar face on the UFO circuit, the 84-year-old Friedman supported the authenticity of the hoax Majestic-12 documents and thus helped to promote a culture of conspiracy in the UFO community by dressing it up in scientific garb. 

Merry Christmas to all those celebrating today! In order to spend more time with my family this holiday season, I will be blogging on a reduced schedule between now and New Year's. Depending on when my son falls asleep, I will review Legends of the Lost either this evening or tomorrow, and I will take most of the week off. This weekend I will post my annual year in review feature, and I intend to resume regular posting in the New Year. 

My son came down with a cold this week after contracting it from one of his toddler playmates. He is doing fine and is all better. However, he passed the cold on to me, and I am too sick and achy to write. I am going to take the day today to rest and to hope that I feel better before Christmas.

​I am happy to announce that the University of Oklahoma Press had extended an offer to publish my book about the Mound Builders. The book is currently scheduled for a Spring 2020 release, pending final contract approval. The 163,000-word volume will be priced affordably (most likely under $30) and will be available online and at fine retailers nationwide.

​Yes, it’s that time of the year again! Every Christmas season, I follow the lead of NPR, PBS, and the charity of your choice and ask my readers to help with the upkeep of this site and to help keep it commercial and ad-free. This year I have an extra incentive to do so: my tablet died, and my laptop’s hard drive is going into failure and the optical drive fell off. I’m facing down the need to replace all of my electronics!

​I am pleased to announce that I have received a commission from Red Lightning Books and Indiana University Press for a new book, tentatively titled Legends of the Pyramids, which will explore the mythical history of Giza pyramids, from Joseph’s granaries to antediluvian giants to space aliens. The short book will be written for a general mass-market audience and is intended to serve as an overview of the many ways people have imagined the history of the pyramids. It will incorporate material from my blog and focus on the importance of the medieval legend of the antediluvian pyramids from the Akhbar al-zaman in shaping popular understanding of the pyramids and Egyptian history down to the present. The book is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2020.
 
Here’s a brief overview of the book from my book proposal:

We live in strange times when even the purveyors of conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific nonsense gape in awe at the horrors they have wrought. Giorgio Tsoukalos has happily fronted a TV series that has reveled in all manner of conspiracy theories, from anti-government speculations to Russophile propaganda, and at once point he literally claimed that space aliens made a peace treaty with the coelacanth to spare it from extinction. But this week even Tsoukalos couldn’t fathom how it was that his fans could hold baffling conspiracy theories in their heads at the same time, namely that all of NASA’s visits to the moon were fake but that the U.S. secretly traveled to Mars and established a colony there.