Jason Colavito

Jason Colavito is a freelance writer who enjoys writing (about) horror fiction as much as dissecting various pseudohistorical claims, including those of ancient astronauts proponents. If you've watched the original 2009 Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, you may have caught a glimpse of his article Charioteer of the Gods around the 8:40 mark, which was presented as an example of the reactions to von Däniken and his buddies. The article itself traces the origin of the "ancient contact with aliens" idea back to H.P. Lovecraft. It was published in the Skeptic magazine in 2004 (volume 10, number 4) and its full text is available online at Skeptic.com and Jason Colavito.com.

As with his digging into the “intellectual” (as much as it is) history behind the ancient astronauts idea, Colavito seems to enjoy digging into the background material underpinning today’s pseudohistory to try to find out which ideas are original, which are simply rehashing of old material and where those ideas originated. Examples include Colavito’s foray into the pseudohistory surrounding the Great Sphinx and pyramids of Giza, the various conspiracy theories/pseudohistory involving the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail, as well as the ideas related to the chupacabra. Similarly, he also wrote a sort of retrospective overview of David Hatcher Childress’ changing opinions and switches from one branch of pseudohistory to another over time. Colavito’s blog is also a fairly good running update on the pseudohistory du jour.