John Philip Cohane, born in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

was an American author. He later moved to

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

where he wrote books on

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

and ancient astronaut themes.

Books

Cohane published ''The Indestructible Irish'' in 1968 in which he proposed that the

Irish people The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and Culture of Ireland, culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years ...

s were of 'Mediterranean origin’. In the book he claimed that the original blood stock in England,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

is Semitic. Cohane also published ''The Key: A Startling Enquiry into the Riddle of Mans Past'', which claimed that before Egyptian,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their hist ...

n and Carthaginian eras two major worldwide Semitic migrations took place from the Mediterranean and scattered across the earth. The American

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...

Cyrus Herzl Gordon was a friend of Cohane and wrote a preface to Cohane's book ''The Key'', Gordon was supportive of many of Cohane's theories. Cohane claimed that

geographical Geography (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, i ...

names in

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

have a Semitic origin. He also believed that six word roots are found in most place names of most languages. Another claim by Cohane was that the

Phoenicians Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histo ...

adopted the

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a sy ...

from a prior Semitic culture. In 1977 Cohane published ''Paradox: The Case for the Extraterrestrial Origin of Man'' in which he claimed man is a product of interplanetary colonization (see

ancient astronauts Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that thi ...

Reception

Cohane's controversial ideas were rejected by professional archaeologists and historians as "fantasy" and "

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

". Archaeologist Phil C. Weigand described ''The Key'' as a "fantasy masked as science" and suggested that the linguistic analysis is "methodologically unsound to be ever seriously considered."

Bibliography

* 1968 ''The Indestructible Irish'' * 1969 ''The Key: A Startling Enquiry into the Riddle of Mans Past'' * 1972 ''White Papers of an Outraged Conservative'' * 1977 ''Paradox: The Case for the Extraterrestrial Origin of Man''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohane, John Philip Ancient astronauts proponents Writers from New Haven, Connecticut Pseudoarchaeologists Pseudohistorians

Books

Reception

Bibliography

See also

References