Chan Thomas

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Chan Thomas (1920–1998) was an American engineer, ufologist, and writer who explored ancient cataclysms. He described himself as a polymath. In 1963 he published The Adam and Eve Story, which argued that the Earth experiences major disasters about every 5,600 years. He claimed poles flip, triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, and powerful winds that wipe out civilizations, and he warned another such event was coming. The book also claimed Jesus lived among tribes in what is now Nagaland and was taken away by aliens after the crucifixion.

In 1967, the aerospace company McDonnell Douglas hired a small team to study UFOs; Thomas was one of four full-time researchers. The team’s director, Robert M. Wood, later described Thomas as highly innovative and an “out of the box” thinker. Thomas also claimed to have ESP, wrote a handbook on it, and said he had contact with extraterrestrial life.

Critic James Randi noted that Thomas predicted a disaster for Los Angeles but placed it between 2000 and 2500, so Thomas would be gone by then to avoid comment.

CIA documents released in 2013 included large excerpts from The Adam and Eve Story. In later years, conspiracy theorists repeated the book’s ideas in viral videos and on podcasts. Media Matters for America argued that this trend helped fuel a view that climate change is an inevitable, uncontrollable catastrophe, a form of climate change denial.