John Geiger (author)

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John Grigsby Geiger CM is a Canadian journalist, author, and shipwreck hunter. He is best known for The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible, which popularized the idea of a “third man” — an unseen helper that appears to people in deadly or extreme situations. The book inspired a National Geographic Channel video, Explorer: The Angel Effect, in which Geiger appears, and a second book on the topic published in 2013 that shares its title with the video.

Geiger’s other major work is Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, an international bestseller. In 2024, he led a Royal Canadian Geographical Society expedition that located Ernest Shackleton’s last ship, Quest, in the Labrador Sea. He has been a long-time leader at the society, serving on the Board of Governors beginning in 2002, as its 13th President from 2010 to 2013, and then as Chief Executive Officer of both the Society and Canadian Geographical Enterprises. He was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2020.

Geiger was born in Ithaca, New York, and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, where he studied history at the University of Alberta. He has worked as a journalist and editor, including as editorial board editor for The Globe and Mail, and as a senior fellow at Massey College. He has spent decades in exploration and publishing, contributing to projects ranging from Arctic field work with the Knight Archeological Project to documentary films and scholarly studies. His other books include Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine (2003), which inspired the film FLicKeR, Nothing Is True Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin (2005), and collaborations like The Sensed Presence as a Coping Resource in Extreme Environments (2008). The Third Man Factor has been published in many countries and features a foreword by Vincent Lam, with numerous famous explorers cited as having experienced the third man phenomenon.