David Childress

David Hatcher Childress (born June 1, 1957) is a French-born 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". 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. 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, 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. In 1992, Childress founded the World Explorers Club, which occasionally runs tours to places he writes about, and publishes a magazine called World Explorer.Childress has appeared on NBC (The Mysterious Origins of Man), Fox Network (Sightings and Encounters), Discovery Channel, A&E, and History (e.g. Ancient Aliens), to comment on subjects such as the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, and UFOs. Since first entering the industry in 1984, Childress has been involved in two lawsuits regarding publishing; one, concerning the Kennedy assassination, failed after expiry of a statute of limitations and the other, involving an unpublished master's thesis about UFOs written in 1950, was settled out of court. Childress writes humorously about these suits in his 2000 autobiography A Hitchhiker's Guide to Armageddon. Childress has been interviewed on several radio programs.