{{Short description|Italian journalist and writer}} {{Infobox writer|image=File:Peter_Kolosimo_Torino_1972-73.png|birth_name=Pier Domenico Colosimo|birth_place=Modena, Italy|birth_date=15 December 1922|death_place=Milan, Italy|death_date=23 March 1984|occupation=writer|subject=pseudoarchaeology<br/>ancient astronauts|notable_works=''Astronavi sulla preistoria''<br/>''Not of This World''}}
'''Peter Kolosimo''', pseudonym of '''Pier Domenico Colosimo''' (Modena, 15 December 1922 – Milan, 23 March 1984), was an Italian journalist and writer. He is ranked amongst the founders of pseudoarchaeology (in Italian: ''fantarcheologia''), a controversial topic in which interpretations of the past are made that are not accepted by the archaeological science community, which rejects the accepted data-gathering and analytical methods of the discipline. He also popularised ancient astronaut theories of contact between extraterrestrial beings and ancient human civilizations.<ref>Peter Kolosimo, ''Non è terrestre'' (1969); ''Astronavi sulla preistoria'' (1972).</ref>
During the late 1950s and the 1960s, he was published in some of the first Italian science fiction magazines, such as ''Romanzi del Cosmo'' ("Cosmic Novels"), and his articles were regularly featured in the science/science fiction magazine ''Oltre il Cielo'' ("Beyond the Sky").<ref>{{Cite book|last=Iannuzzi|first=Giulia|title=Fantascienza italiana. Riviste, autori, dibattiti dagli anni Cinquanta agli anni Settanta|publisher=Mimesis|year=2014|isbn=9788857521503|location=Milan (Italy)|pages=87, 107, 131}}</ref> He published many more books, all widely popular and translated in 60 countries,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.wumingfoundation.com/giap/2014/03/peter-kolosimo-30-anni-across-the-universe-1984-2014/ | title=Peter Kolosimo, 30 anni "across the universe" (1984 - 2014) | date=20 March 2014 }}</ref> including Russia, Japan, and China. In the 1970s and early 1980s until his death, he was the editor of many magazines, including ''Pi Kappa'', a "fantarchaeologia" magazine covering the same topics that Kolosimo did in his books. In later life, he wrote a few books with his wife, Caterina, by whom he had a daughter, Alessandra (born 1970).
Kolosimo also founded and coordinated the Italian Association for Prehistoric Studies (ASP).<ref>[http://www.eremonedizioni.it/catalogo/dei_del_cielo_dei_della_terra_prefazione_alfredo_lissoni.html "Dei del Cielo, Dei della Terra"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140309091906/http://www.eremonedizioni.it/catalogo/dei_del_cielo_dei_della_terra_prefazione_alfredo_lissoni.html |date=2014-03-09 }}. Retrieved 2015-05-12.</ref>
He died in Milan in 1984.
==Reception==
Kolosimo's claims about ancient astronauts influencing human civilizations are considered to be pseudohistory.<ref>Bullard, Thomas E. (1996). ''Ancient Astronauts''. In ''The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal''. Edited by Gordon Stein. Prometheus Books. pp. 25-32. {{ISBN|1-57392-021-5}}</ref>
In a review of Kolosimo's ''Not of This World'', Jason Colavito has alleged that the book fabricates evidence, mistranslates sources and conflates science fiction and fact.<ref>Colavito, Jason. (2014). [http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-peter-kolosimos-not-of-this-world-pt-1 Part 1], [http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-peter-kolosimos-not-of-this-world-pt-2-in-which-the-cthulhu-mythos-is-taken-as-real Part 2], [http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-peter-kolosimos-not-of-this-world-pt-3 Part 3], [http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-peter-kolosimos-not-of-this-world-last-part Last Part]. Retrieved 2019-06-29.</ref>
Wu Ming, an Italy-based collective of writers, considered Kolosimo a "fellow novelist" and wrote about him on several occasions, including a story published in GQ (Italian edition), where they stated, "we like to think he just left the planet, and is still travelling across the universe."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/wumingblog/?p=845 |title=UFOs and Revolution: In Memory of comrade Peter Kolosimo | Wu Ming Foundation |website=www.wumingfoundation.com |access-date=12 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100918071631/http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/wumingblog/?p=845 |archive-date=18 September 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> He is remembered lovingly as well by the writer Massimo Pietroselli in Fantascienza.com, an Italian science fiction online magazine, as a dreamer who was writing for the people, and encouraging the Soviet alternative to regular, conservative science, and did so successfully.<ref>{{Cite web | title=PK: Peter Kolosimo, sognatore patafisico - pagina 2 | url=https://www.fantascienza.com/6391/pk-peter-kolosimo-sognatore-patafisico/2 | access-date=2025-11-24 | website=www.fantascienza.com}}</ref> Pagine 70, another Italian magazine, described ''Non è terrestre'' as his "first official revenge on the academic world" that tended to reject his ideas. The author goes on to describe Kolosimo as "an affable man, perhaps a great conversationalist, certainly an uncommon man." He describes Kolosimo’s work as undeterred against the repeated "snobbery of the academic world" and argues that it demonstrates that "imagination is a social weapon, which can break down regimes, give birth to states, and think … even manage to land on the moon."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pagine70.com/vmnews/wmview.php?ArtID=470|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120605150643/http://www.pagine70.com/vmnews/wmview.php?ArtID=470|archive-date = 2012-06-05|title = PAGINE 70 - anni 70 - anni settanta, 70's, investigatori privati.Confronta i prezzi degli hotel}}</ref>
==Selected bibliography==
=== Books === *''Il pianeta sconosciuto'' (1957) {{ISBN|9788842539803}} *''Terra senza tempo'' (1964; translated into English as ''Timeless Earth'') {{ISBN|9788842533177}} *''Ombre sulle stelle '' (1966) {{ISBN|9788842534235}} *''Psicologia dell'eros'' (1967) *''Non è terrestre'' (1968; translated as ''Not of this World'') {{ISBN|9788842534129}} *''Guida al mondo dei sogni'' (1968) *''Il comportamento erotico degli europei'' (1970) *''Cittadini delle tenebre'' (1971) *''Astronavi sulla preistoria'' (1972; translated as ''Spaceships in Prehistory'') {{ISBN|9788842532149}} *''Odissea stellare'' (1974) {{ISBN|9788842542414}} *''Fratelli dell'infinito'' (1975) *''Polvere d'inferno'' (1975) *''Italia mistero cosmico'' (1977) {{ISBN|9788842547013}} *''Civiltà del silenzio'' (1978) *''Fiori di luna'' (1979) *''Io e l'indiano'' (1979) *''Viaggiatori del tempo'' (1981) *''I misteri dell'universo'' (1982, with Caterina Kolosimo)
=== Novels === *''Fronte del sole'' or ''I cavalieri delle stelle'' (''From Outer Space''; 1979, with Caterina Kolosimo) *''Missione uomo'' (1982, with Oscar Warner)
=== Editor === * ''Pi Kappa, rivista di mistero, archeologia ed esobiologia'' (director), I-II, (1972-1973) * ''Dimensione X, enciclopedia del mistero'' (coordinator), 1-10, (1982) * ''Italia misteriosa'' (editor, 1984) * ''Scrutando nel futuro'' (editor, 1984)
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100918071631/http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/wumingblog/?p=845 UFOs and Revolution], an article on Kolosimo by Wu Ming, published on GQ magazine (Italian edition), July 2009. * [http://www.fantascienza.com/magazine/speciali/6391/2 Review of Kolosimo's works] {{in lang|it}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolosimo, Peter}} Category:1922 births Category:1984 deaths Category:Writers from Modena Category:Italian non-fiction writers Category:Italian male journalists Category:Ancient astronauts proponents Category:Pseudoarchaeologists Category:Pseudohistorians Category:20th-century Italian male writers Category:20th-century Italian journalists