#961 - Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson & Michael Shermer

Graham Bruce Hancock (born 2 August 1950) is a British author known for promoting pseudoscientific explanations of ancient civilizations and hypothetical lost lands. Hancock argues that an advanced society with spiritual technology thrived during the last Ice Age until comet impacts triggered the Younger Dryas about 12,900 years ago. He maintains that survivors of the disaster shared their knowledge with hunter-gatherer communities in regions such as ancient Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, sparking the earliest known civilizations. Born in Edinburgh, Hancock studied sociology at Durham University before joining British newspapers and magazines as a journalist. His first three books examined international development, including Lords of Poverty (1989), a well-received critique of corruption in the aid system.

Randall Carlson is an architectural designer, geological researcher, and "renegade scholar" best known for his theories on ancient civilizations and catastrophic earth history. He has gained significant public attention through multiple appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and as a featured expert in the Netflix docuseries Ancient Apocalypse.

Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The author of over a dozen books, Shermer is known for engaging in debates on pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism. Shermer was the co-producer and co-host of Exploring the Unknown, a 13-hour Fox Family television series broadcast in 1999. From April 2001 to January 2019, he contributed a monthly Skeptic column to Scientific American magazine. Shermer was raised in a non-religious household, before converting to Christian fundamentalism as a teenager.