| David Hatcher Childress | |
| Birth Date: | June 1, 1957 |
| Birth Place: | France |
| Occupation: | Author |
David Hatcher Childress (born June 1, 1957) is an American author, and the owner of Adventures Unlimited Press, a publishing house established in 1984 specializing in books on unusual topics such as ancient mysteries, unexplained phenomena, pseudohistory, and historical revisionism. His own works primarily concentrate on pseudoarchaeological and pseudoscientific topics such as "UFOs, secret societies, suppressed technology, cryptozoology [and] conspiracy theory." Childress, having no degree, refers to himself as a "rogue archaeologist".[1]
Born in France to American parents, and raised in Colorado and Montana, United States, Childress went to University of Montana–Missoula to study archaeology, but left college in 1976 at 19 to begin travelling in pursuit of his archaeological interests. After several years in Asia and then Africa, Childress moved in 1983 to Stelle, Illinois, a community founded by New Age writer Richard Kieninger; Childress had been given one of Kieninger's books while touring Africa.[1] Childress chronicled his explorations in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in his Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries series of books.
Childress's first book, A Hitchhikers Guide to Africa and Arabia, was published in 1983 by Chicago Review Press. In 1984, Childress moved to Kempton, Illinois, and established a publishing company named Adventures Unlimited Press,[1] [2] which is a sole proprietorship. His company published his own works and then those of other authors, presenting fringe-scientific theories regarding ancient civilizations, cryptozoology, and little-known technologies.[1] [2] In 1992, Childress founded the World Explorers Club, which occasionally runs tours to places he writes about, and publishes a magazine called World Explorer.[1]
Patrick D. Nunn, a professor of geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast has noted that Childress is a proponent of pseudoscientific claims such as the lost continent Mu and megaliths on the Pacific islands built by levitation. Nunn wrote that "the disappearance of Mu is very convenient because it means that theorists like Childress can say what they like and appear convincing to people who are comparatively uninformed, as many naturally are, of the huge body of scientific information on Pacific geology and cultures."[3]
Historical archaeologist Charles E. Orser (editor of International Journal of Historical Archaeology) has criticized Childress's writings:
Childress's company has published nearly 200 books (many translated into foreign languages) over the course of two dozen years. Childress himself has authored and co-authored over a dozen books, from his first in 1983 to his most recent in 2013. His influences include Erich von Däniken, Thor Heyerdahl, and Charles Berlitz.