Steuart Campbell (born 1937) is a British writer and skeptic who lives in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Career

Campbell was born in 1937 in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

. He trained as an architect and worked as one until the mid-1970s. He obtained a BA in mathematics and science from the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

in 1983. He wrote ''The Loch Ness Monster: The Evidence'' which argues against the existence of the

Loch Ness Monster The Loch Ness Monster (), known affectionately as Nessie, is a mythical creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or more humps protrud ...

. The book examines eyewitness reports, as well as photos and instrumental evidence. Campbell concluded that the alleged sightings are best explained by logs,

otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among ...

s, ripples,

seiche A seiche ( ) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves, and seas. The key requirement for formatio ...

s, wakes and hoaxes. In 1994 Campbell's book ''The UFO Mystery Solved'' was published by Explicit. The work was reviewed in the Journal of Meteorology as "a well-researched book" that will assist in dispelling the mysteries surrounding

unidentified flying objects An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shape ...

. Campbell is a former Christian who later authored a sceptical work on Christianity, ''The Rise and Fall Of Jesus'' published in 1996. The book was republished in 2019. Campbell has written articles for ''

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' (S.I.) is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle "The Magazine for Science and Reason". The magazine initially focused on investigating clai ...

'', '' The Skeptic'' magazine and ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

''.

Selected publications

*''The Loch Ness Monster'': The Evidence. 1986 The Aquarian Press (Thorsons Publishing Group) Wellingborough: ; Revised ed. 1991 Aberdeen University Press (Macmillan Pergamon Publishing Corporation) Aberdeen: ; 1996 Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh: ; 1997 (without subtitle);

Prometheus Books Prometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by the philosopher Paul Kurtz (who was also the founder of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). The publ ...

, Amhurst: ; 2002 Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh 1997: ). Argues against the existence of the

by analysis of the purported evidence. *''The UFO Mystery Solved'' 1994 Explicit Books, Edinburgh: . A critical examination of UFO reports and their explanation in terms of meteorological and astronomical phenomena; *''The Rise and Fall of Jesus'' with a foreword by Prof. James Thrower 1996 Explicit Books, Edinburgh: ; 2009 Revised and updated ed. WPS (WritersPrintShop): ; 2019 Revised 3rd ed. Tectum Verlag (Nomos Publishing Company), Marburg: (print), (ePDF). Exploration of the origins of Christianity, asserting that Jesus wanted to be crucified. *''Chinook Crash'' (The crash of RAF Chinook helicopter ZD576 on the Mull of Kintyre) 2004 Pen & Sword Aviation ( Pen & Sword Books Ltd, Barnsley) (print) (ebook). An examination of and an explanation for the fatal crash on 2 June 1994.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Steuart 1937 births Alumni of the Open University British sceptics Critics of cryptozoology Living people Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands UFO skeptics British former Christians