Category: Projects

Was Osiris from Mesopotamia? Plus: Unveiling the Cover of My New Pyramid Book

6/11/2020

Later this month, independent scholar Willem McLoud plans to hold a webinar to teach members of Ancient Origins that the Egyptian god Osiris was actually a Mesopotamian king. McLoud is going to base the claim on two papers he published over the past year, in which he argues for a new understanding of ancient history based on the self-aggrandizing “McLoud Chronological Model” of Egyptian history. Basically, he wants to rejigger the Middle Kingdom of Egypt to better fit with his preferred period of Mesopotamian history—questions of more import for Biblical history than anything else, really.

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No Blog Today

6/5/2020

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Due to prior commitments, I will not be posting today or tomorrow. I will return next week.

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Celebrating Ten Years of My Blog

5/9/2020

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With so much happening in the world this year, and all of the work I had been putting into getting two books ready for publication at the same time, I let pass an important milestone. This year is the tenth anniversary of my blog and this website. I started it in the winter of 2010, and I have published most days ever since. It has been a long decade, but one that paradoxically seems to have flown by far too fast.

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Researcher Discusses How the Media Weaponize Conspiracy Theories and Fake History

5/5/2020

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Last week I receive a request from someone who is consulting on a documentary to take a meeting with a producer who works with Netflix about adapting one of my books into a documentary or potential documentary series. Normally, I don’t let this sort of thing get very far because it is always a huge waste of time, but since I have been stuck in quarantine, I figured it would serve as a bit of a distraction. So, we set up the meeting, and before the appointed day, I suggested that the producer should probably be aware that my work is not pro-alien. Regular readers of this blog can guess the rest. There was no meeting at the appointed hour. It wasn’t unexpected, but even so, it is disconcerting.

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Nothing New Today

5/2/2020

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As COVID-19 continues to limit the amount of history-themed material being published and broadcast, I will be taking the weekend off again this week. I will try to have something new next week. In the meantime, buy my book. It makes a great read while sheltering at home.

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Praise for "The Mound Builder Myth" in the Midwest Book Review

4/22/2020

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With many of the popular pseudo-historians silent and conspiracy theorists focused on COVID-19, there is not a whole lot to talk about relevant to this blog today. I thought I would instead share a rave review of my Mound Builder Myth by Jack Mason that ran in the Midwest Book Review this month. The review excerpt is reprinted by permission of MBR.

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No Blog Today

3/27/2020

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Due to an increase in workload thanks to COVID-19, needing to watch my son much of the day while we are confined to quarters, and a general slowdown in fringe history claims due to the virus drowning out most other discussion, I did not have time write a blog post today. I hope to return tomorrow to review Ancient Aliens, if only in abbreviated form.

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Listen to me on the Hero Paranormal Podcast

3/24/2020

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After two weeks of near record-low timeslot ratings for Rob Riggle: Global Investigator, the Discovery Channel pulled the show from its desirable Sunday timeslot and benched it until next month. The show will return on Thursday nights in April to burn off the remainder of its season. The misbegotten series wasn’t funny enough for comedy fans, and it offered nothing new to fans of fake history, putting it in the uncomfortable position of alienating two audiences at the same time.

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Changes Are Coming to My Blog Comments Section

3/13/2020

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As much as I don’t want to waste more time on this, the state of the comments section on my blog has degenerated to the point that changes have to be made. For the first ten years I ran this blog, I kept comments open to anyone, for close to real-time conversations. However, the toxic, combative nature of the comments on nearly every blog post have driven away dozens of people who used to make substantive, thoughtful comments. I have tried culling toxic comments, but the flood of them comes faster than I can handle them, given that this is not my actual day job and I can’t spend hours each day reading aggressive, inane, or abusive posts. I have tried IP blocking, but many posters simply generate a new IP address and continue on, while Weebly, which provides my blogging software, has restricted my access to IP addresses in their latest redesign.

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No Blog Post Today

2/28/2020

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I have no blog post for you today because, for the second time this year, my boiler failed. This time it began leaking water and apparently has a crack inside that would cost more to repair than replacing the boiler. I spent the entire day yesterday dealing with the boiler failure, which is the second one I have now gone through in five years, across two different houses. When you add that to the broken toilets, dead washing machine, faulty door knobs, and myriad other problems, it makes for a very long and expensive half year of living in this house.

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