Thomas Dalton's identity revealed (by Kevin Barrett) as David Skrbina

[SanityCheck]

My weekly Google Alert for Holocaust denial highlighted a SPLC piece from March 17 confirming the identity of "Thomas Dalton" as philosophy lecturer David Skrbina - he was inadvertently outed on 9/11 Truther Kevin Barrett's podcast/radio show. Skrbina corresponded with the Unabomber, has written a book on the Jesus myth, taught at Michigan and Helsinki (to 2023) and is approaching 65, so was probably not renewed for his most recent position or took early retirement. Skrbina has also advocated for BDS, in his Skrbina public persona.

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hat ... ic-author/

"Dalton" has arguably put in more work as "Dalton" in recent years into publishing texts by Hitler, Goebbels and various examples of antisemitica, rather than into historical revisionism. His revisionist 'work' is at least a robust consensus summary compared to say Kollerstrom's drivel, but other than updating Debating the Holocaust and penning some articles and op-eds, he's not really developed a bigger oeuvre; sort of like a 21st Century Arthur Butz. He's still one of now a handful of authors left who has written a revisionist book, especially after the death of Juergen Graf. And now likely has too much time on his hands if he's retired or been retired.

It's unlikely he'd secure a new academic post after being outed as a denier aged 64. Looking for a new academic gig aged 64 in the current climate (inflation-eroded tuition fees in the UK and elsewhere, major cuts to science funding which the Trump administration has just unleashed) would be rather difficult even without this. But this outing would have almost certainly derailed his academic career had it happened earlier. The decision to use a pseudonym was the right one - as it was for Samuel Crowell before him - unless one has very robust tenure protection a la Butz and a few others in recent decades.

This solves a few puzzles - "Dalton" claimed a PhD from his debut in 2009, and Skrbina has one in philosophy (from the University of Bath in the UK, in 2001), "Dalton" claimed to be a professor of humanities, and Skrbina was a lecturer in philosophy at Michigan at the time to 2018, after other temporary gigs. I was always certain he was not a historian by background, but also fairly sure he wasn't a professor or lecturer in English, film or drama, based on his style. His proper philosophy work is in the philosophy of mind and technology, rather than, say, philosophy of science. Germar Rudolf is more explicit for the latter (albeit rehashing Popper) than "Dalton".

There had been some speculation about two Daltons - likely caused by Michael Santomauro or someone else standing in for him in some interviews - but this can be laid to rest.

Skrbina's profile suggests he's written or co-edited up to a dozen books as Skrbina between 2005 and 2025, on top of a slew of books as "Dalton", a number with respected academic publishers (MIT Press, Routledge). So he has been quite prolific, but this now casts the revisionist output in a different light - with hindsight, he was obviously squeezing it in between other projects and interests. A fox rather than a hedgehog. Which is fine in and of itself, but nobody was treating "Dalton" as another Mattogno or even a Rudolf. From a revisionist perspective one can point to other US-based academics either in post (with tenure) or who recently retired who've endorsed revisionism, but compared to hundreds of thousands of faculty and adjunct professors, it means relatively little if one or two venture out of their credentialled expertise to endorse this or that and summarise the work of non-academic researchers like Mattogno.

To reiterate, the outing was inadvertent on Kevin Barrett's radio show/podcast fairly recently, which was then followed up by the SPLC. Other monitoring groups had no idea, nor did the HC blog team, nor were we especially fussed about "Dalton"s real identity, although some did then speculate about multiple Daltons.

The timing of this, when Skrbina-"Dalton" is 64 going on 65, probably works out well for his publicity work as "Dalton" for Unz and other platforms, and for revisionism, since he will have more time on his hands. But no doubt some will be annoyed at Skrbina - writing a book on the "Jesus Hoax" might irritate more religiously-inclined revisionists.

[SanityCheck]

To clarify: based on the first few pages of The Jesus Hoax, Skrbina-Dalton doesn't come out as a full Jesus myth advocate straight away, but is going to debunk Christianity's origins and supernatural claims, and talks of a lie. So he seems less radical than, say, Richard Carrier.

[Callafangers]

The timing of this, when Skrbina-"Dalton" is 64 going on 65, probably works out well for his publicity work as "Dalton" for Unz and other platforms, and for revisionism, since he will have more time on his hands. But no doubt some will be annoyed at Skrbina - writing a book on the "Jesus Hoax" might irritate more religiously-inclined revisionists.

As a fairly new Christian myself, this does not bother me at all. I have shared similar views as Dr. Skrbina's in the past and, in fact, this same form of skepticism is part of what brought me into Holocaust revisionism (and questioning other major events) in the first place.

Although I empathize for the challenges he is undoubtedly now facing, I am also grateful that I get to know the name of the man whose outstanding contributions over the years have been attributed to a name other than his own.

I hope that Dr. Skrbina will first take care of himself and his family and then, perhaps, one day consider this as a liberation; an opportunity to present his wealth of knowledge live and in-person to a widespread and receptive audience.

[SanityCheck]

The timing of this, when Skrbina-"Dalton" is 64 going on 65, probably works out well for his publicity work as "Dalton" for Unz and other platforms, and for revisionism, since he will have more time on his hands. But no doubt some will be annoyed at Skrbina - writing a book on the "Jesus Hoax" might irritate more religiously-inclined revisionists.

As a fairly new Christian myself, this does not bother me at all. I have shared similar views as Dr. Skrbina's in the past and, in fact, this same form of skepticism is part of what brought me into Holocaust revisionism (and questioning other major events) in the first place.

Although I empathize for the challenges he is undoubtedly now facing, I am also grateful that I get to know the name of the man whose outstanding contributions over the years have been attributed to a name other than his own.

I hope that Dr. Skrbina will first take care of himself and his family and then, perhaps, one day consider this as a liberation; an opportunity to present his wealth of knowledge live and in-person to a widespread and receptive audience.

To complicate the picture, Skrbina has a statement on his website denying being Dalton and calling this an attack because of his pro-BDS statements in recent years.
https://www.davidskrbina.com/info

The list of publications as Skrbina does give pause since he has clearly been extremely busy with his interests in technology, Christianity and Kaczynski. I'm not sure he could have managed to write so much as Skrbina, teach and then write so much as Dalton.

On the other hand, the intro to The Jesus Hoax struck me as quite 'Daltonesque' in style. I'd have to read more of Skrbina before deciding. I bought the book just now on Kindle, since I'd previously detoured to explore the Jesus myth arguments and rebuttals.

In any case, the public and prompt denial by Skrbina has to be acknowledged, and the SPLC while pointing to evidence doesn't show it directly.

Skrbina published with counter-currents.com in 2021 and 2023, following publishing as far back as 2005 about BDS in Detroit/Michigan area publications as well as Arab American News, presumably also MI-based? This would not seem especially odd compared to other pro-Palestine/anti-Israel academics, but going with Counter Currents would have marked him as right-leaning. Which probably did not help his academic career. Not sure that it would have been a great idea as Skrbina to wade into the Jesus myth debate when he had several good strands on technology and Kaczynski, that would have also marked him out as odd, whereas anti-Zionism is perfectly compatible with being a successful professor in other fields.

The denial of being Dalton might well stem from needing to preserve his bona fides in academic publishing; this is where the contrast with Kollerstrom should be remembered. Kollerstrom's identity was puzzled out because he used a common nym - astro3 - across several interests, and then when outed (by 7/7 victim support campaigners outraged at his theories about the 7/7 London bombings) he was frozen out of history of science (early modern astronomy) publications. So Kollerstrom then acknowledged the overlap and published revisionist work under his own name, while also publishing and talking more on conspiracy theories in addition to other interests. There is a similarity in that the outings happened at roughly the same age, but Skrbina has had a much more successful academic career, albeit with idiosyncratic elements, and one that was coming to a close for regular teaching gigs, with a gap from 2018-2020 between Michigan and Helsinki. Kollerstrom was much older when he completed his PhD.

I'd think if Skrbina is fully blackballed because of this then if he is in fact Dalton he would drop the denial after a while, but if Skrbina really is focused on the Unabomber and other tech and philosophy themes and not that interested in history, then yeah, maybe not.

Or maybe this radicalises Skrbina and there really would be two "Daltons". Backfire effect?

[Stubble]

we are alpharius, we are legion...

Seriously though, if this fella turn out to be Dalton, I'll buy him a coffee, or a beer, his choice.

That reminds me Mr Check, I still owe you a beer for the recommended reading.

/cheers

[SanityCheck]

Skimming through Skrbina's book The Jesus Hoax, it is *very* Daltonesque - lots of bullet points, italics, the tone is very similar, and Skrbina also cites Hitler's Mein Kampf from Dalton's edition, as well as Dalton's Debating the Holocaust in one footnote.

Skrbina also reviewed Dalton's book The Jewish Hand in the World Wars for the Barnes Review
https://barnesreview.org/product/the-je ... orld-wars/

Meanwhile, Dalton wrote an article 'Jesus the Jew' for the Occidental Observer with similar arguments, following a 2010 article for TOO as Dalton rehearsing Nietzsche's thesis on Christianity, which Skrbina says is basically what he is updating.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2 ... s-the-jew/
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2 ... istianity/

The SPLC piece pointed to documents on Dalton's website whose metadata had them authored by David Skrbina, including this file. When downloaded and checked for document properties that turns out to be completely correct.
https://www.thomasdaltonphd.com/_files/ ... cded3c.pdf

So... make of that what you will.

[bombsaway]

This is from his own site, so it must have been the Mossad (or whatever) hacked him? We also know they must have hacked his zoom too, because the name came up in the interview, or that guy he was talking to was an agent. Probably very unlikely this is the case, which means Skrbina is a real dummy (for his concealment efforts) and kind of a shitty person, even within the hard revisionist community.

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

[PrudentRegret]

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

Being publicly accused of heresy is a difficult thing, something that neither you nor SanityCheck would understand- being slaves to the dumbest lies imaginable. You aren't going to find denunciations here for any denials like that.

I am quite sure SanityCheck privately doubts core aspects of the narrative he would never verbalize in order to protect his own reputation and the sanctity of The Narrative etc. So he and you can dance on the publicity grave of others but you're just bad intellectuals and weak people with no standing to judge someone like Dalton.

[bombsaway]

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

Being publicly accused of heresy is a difficult thing, something that neither you nor SanityCheck would understand- being slaves to the dumbest lies imaginable. You aren't going to find denunciations here for any denials like that.

I am quite sure SanityCheck privately doubts core aspects of the narrative he would never verbalize in order to protect his own reputation and the sanctity of The Narrative etc. So he and you can dance on the publicity grave of others but you're just bad intellectuals and weak people with no standing to judge someone like Dalton.

People used to do things like this for their beliefs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Skrbina not only didn't say he believed in these things, he called the beliefs vile (which he in his heart of heart likely holds as true).

None of this will make any difference because it's obviously him, and he would have to argue for or prove a large scale hacking or intelligence operation against him. With that word, vile, he sold out his movement for nothing.

[fireofice]

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

Being publicly accused of heresy is a difficult thing, something that neither you nor SanityCheck would understand- being slaves to the dumbest lies imaginable. You aren't going to find denunciations here for any denials like that.

I am quite sure SanityCheck privately doubts core aspects of the narrative he would never verbalize in order to protect his own reputation and the sanctity of The Narrative etc. So he and you can dance on the publicity grave of others but you're just bad intellectuals and weak people with no standing to judge someone like Dalton.

People used to do things like this for their beliefs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Skrbina not only didn't say he believed in these things, he called the beliefs vile (which he in his heart of heart likely holds as true).

None of this will make any difference because it's obviously him, and he would have to argue for or prove a large scale hacking or intelligence operation against him. With that word, vile, he sold out his movement for nothing.

Not everyone is a Bruno. In fact, it's pretty clear that Church threats of violence to enforce its orthodoxy worked on most of the population for a long time. People like Bruno were an exception.

As for the kind of language used, do I like it? No, of course not. But at the same time, it's hard for me judge someone in his situation. I'm just not someone who holds grudges like that nor am I someone who gets angry easily. After all, among those who research the holocaust from a revisionist perspective, we come across quite a few Nazis who affirm, from our perspective at least, false orthodox holocaust narratives for their own self preservation. We of all people are very familiar with that.

[SanityCheck]

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

Being publicly accused of heresy is a difficult thing, something that neither you nor SanityCheck would understand- being slaves to the dumbest lies imaginable. You aren't going to find denunciations here for any denials like that.

I am quite sure SanityCheck privately doubts core aspects of the narrative he would never verbalize in order to protect his own reputation and the sanctity of The Narrative etc. So he and you can dance on the publicity grave of others but you're just bad intellectuals and weak people with no standing to judge someone like Dalton.

On the contrary, I noted in the OP that "Dalton" was quite justified in using a pseudonym, unless he had very robust tenure:

But this outing would have almost certainly derailed his academic career had it happened earlier. The decision to use a pseudonym was the right one - as it was for Samuel Crowell before him - unless one has very robust tenure protection a la Butz and a few others in recent decades.

"A few others" includes Kaukab Siddique, an associate professor of literature at Lincoln University, PA, who publicly stated revisionist views after getting tenure; he still seems to be in post there and is much criticised for his stances, which obviously include criticising Israel. The Deir Yassin Remembered circle all had tenure and then moved towards espousing revisionism, some after retirement it would seem.

I also noted once I read Skrbina's denial that

The denial of being Dalton might well stem from needing to preserve his bona fides in academic publishing

Skrbina was already edgy enough for his profile and publications as Skrbina that he had probably run out of road as a teaching academic. (Note that Dalton claims to be a 'retired' professor of humanities now, whereas when he first appeared he was claiming to be a pseudonymous current professor of humanities.) But in transitioning away from teaching, he does have an incentive to keep publishing in academic venues if he can, alongside non-academic platforms. He has a co-edited book due out with Routledge in May of this year. So there are good reasons for him to deny the identification.

Note that Skrbina did not publish his book on the Jesus Hoax in an academic context, and after reading the book I would not imagine that any academic publisher would have accepted it; it is too popularising and simplifying in style and content to have qualified. Also note that outright Jesus mythicists like Richard Carrier have published in academic journals on other themes but their main efforts did not appear in such imprints. Skrbina clearly could master the academic style for some themes and went elsewhere for others. That's his right.



One criticism of how pseudonyms are handled is that they can lead to self-citation circles or cases where one nym interviews a real identity - as happened with Paul Rassinier in the 1960s and Germar Rudolf in the 1990s. Skrbina-Dalton seems to have fallen for this with both reviewing each other, and echoing each other for some common themes. The basic act of using a pseudonym for self-protection when addressing a controversial topic is 100% understandable. But the temptation to abuse this with self-reviews, self-interviews and so on has to be resisted. What Rassinier, Rudolf and now Skrbina-Dalton did by way of self-promotion is not on its own disqualifying - one still has to contend with the arguments, but the effects are unwelcome.

Another criticism of using pseudonyms depends on the authority claims made. "Thomas Dalton, PhD" emerged in 2009 claiming to be a professor of humanities. For 15 years that claim could not be verified, and the inclusion of the PhD on the cover page of Debating the Holocaust looked tacky. It turned out to be true if we accept Skrbina is "Dalton", but also if we take Dalton at his word on his website when he noted having to turn to regular academic work from time to time. Germar Rudolf had pseudonyms claiming doctorates and expertise in fields he never studied, which is arguably much more damaging and dishonest. Rudolf largely learned from this mistake and hasn't done that for almost thirty years, although it left such an impression that some wondered if Dalton was Rudolf (as I heard from someone yesterday).

[fireofice]

I've known about Skrbina for a while, and while not always convinced by all of his theories, I have nonetheless found his work pretty interesting. Along with his book which was already mentioned, here are some interesting interviews he's done. Two on a pretty mainstream Youtube channel called MythVision which regularly interviews many mainstream academics.

[Archie]

This is from his own site, so it must have been the Mossad (or whatever) hacked him? We also know they must have hacked his zoom too, because the name came up in the interview, or that guy he was talking to was an agent. Probably very unlikely this is the case, which means Skrbina is a real dummy (for his concealment efforts) and kind of a shitty person, even within the hard revisionist community.

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

Get off your high horse, dude. The thing is, you don't even care. You're just attempting to sow discord. Don't be such a snake (too late).

Unnecessary martyrdom is admirable in some respects but it's generally unwise and counterproductive. Assuming the ID is correct, I have no problem with Skrbina putting out some boilerplate to buy himself some time or for whatever practical considerations (like not wanting the Jews to pulp all of his books out of spite).

Your feigned disgust at this statement is particularly rich coming from you, a person no one would describe as a straight-shooter. "Hey, guys, I'm just really curious to know what revisionists think," and all that BS which absolutely no one buys. And going back further on the old forum, you initially misrepresented yourself as a revisionist. And when I pointed out that bombsaway was not your true debut on CODOH, you denied it, just like Skrbina is doing.

https://archive.codohforum.com/20230609 ... e6#p110685

With your denial, you, like Skrbina, were implying a large number of coincidences (including some technical evidence that I never shared with you.) You were asking me to believe, in effect, that you and that prior poster were very close neighbors and that you were plagiarizing each other across multiple websites.

[Archie]

... I bought the book just now on Kindle, since I'd previously detoured to explore the Jesus myth arguments and rebuttals.
...

There are some parallels between Holocaust revisionism and so-called mythicism. The mythicists are the revisionists in that debate. Imo, mysticism is an example of revisionism going off the rails. I see it as a cautionary example for revisionists about not allowing unbridled skepticism to push your conclusions too far.

I have been tempted to do a post about mythicism but have held off. It could be interesting to discuss but there's more downside than upside as religion is a notoriously prickly topic yet at the same time it is at best tangential to the Holocaust debate. I might post something on RODOH about it (it would fit with the "case study" posts I was doing last year).

[bombsaway]

This is from his own site, so it must have been the Mossad (or whatever) hacked him? We also know they must have hacked his zoom too, because the name came up in the interview, or that guy he was talking to was an agent. Probably very unlikely this is the case, which means Skrbina is a real dummy (for his concealment efforts) and kind of a shitty person, even within the hard revisionist community.

"Now they attempt to connect my name to vile anti-Semitic writings, to white supremacy, and to Holocaust denial."

You guys stand for this?

Get off your high horse, dude. The thing is, you don't even care. You're just attempting to sow discord. Don't be such a snake (too late).

Unnecessary martyrdom is admirable in some respects but it's generally unwise and counterproductive. Assuming the ID is correct, I have no problem with Skrbina putting out some boilerplate to buy himself some time or for whatever practical considerations (like not wanting the Jews to pulp all of his books out of spite).

Your feigned disgust at this statement is particularly rich coming from you, a person no one would describe as a straight-shooter. "Hey, guys, I'm just really curious to know what revisionists think," and all that BS which absolutely no one buys. And going back further on the old forum, you initially misrepresented yourself as a revisionist. And when I pointed out that bombsaway was not your true debut on CODOH, you denied it, just like Skrbina is doing.

https://archive.codohforum.com/20230609 ... e6#p110685

With your denial, you, like Skrbina, were implying a large number of coincidences (including some technical evidence that I never shared with you.) You were asking me to believe, in effect, that you and that prior poster were very close neighbors and that you were plagiarizing each other across multiple websites.

I never expressed any doubt about the Holocaust. My interest in revisionists is psychological yeah, but this is different than feigning skepticism to get people on my side. Dalton is a public figure anyway, much different from me, so his statement has reverberation within the movement. I think it's cowardly to sell out a movement like he did, to "buy time". It's obvious it's not going to work anyway. He might be more low IQ than low character. I still would never label a movement that I whole heartedly believed in as vile. He didn't need to do this.