Ian Ridpath
| Ian Ridpath | |
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Ian Ridpath in 2015
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| Born | Ian William Ridpath May 1, 1947 Ilford, Essex |
| Occupation | Writer, editor, encyclopedist, broadcaster |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | British |
| Notable works | Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy; Norton's Star Atlas; Star Tales |
| Notable awards | Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific |
| Website | |
| http://www.ianridpath.com | |
Ian William Ridpath (born 1 May 1947, Ilford, Essex) is an English science writer and broadcaster best known as a popularizer of astronomy and a biographer of constellation history. As a UFO sceptic, he investigated and explained the Rendlesham Forest Incident of December 1980.
Ridpath attended Beal Grammar School in Ilford where he wrote astronomy articles for the school magazine. Before entering publishing he was an assistant in the lunar research group at the University of London Observatory, Mill Hill. He now lives in Brentford, Middlesex.
He is editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy and Norton's Star Atlas, and author of observing guides such as The Monthly Sky Guide and the Collins Stars and Planets Guide (the latter two with charts by Wil Tirion, and both continuously in print for over 25 years). His other books include Star Tales, about the origins and mythology of the constellations, and the children’s book Exploring Stars and Planets, now in its fifth edition. He is a contributor to the Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia Universe, and a former editor of the UK quarterly magazine Popular Astronomy.
His early books on the subject of extraterrestrial life and interstellar travel – Worlds Beyond (1975), Messages from the Stars (1978) and Life off Earth (1983) – led him to investigate UFOs. But he became a sceptic, a position reinforced by his findings about the Rendlesham case. He was one of the first to offer an explanation for the so-called Sirius Mystery involving the supposedly advanced astronomical knowledge of the Dogon people of Mali, west Africa.
He was a space expert for LBC Radio from the 1970s into the 1990s, and was also seen on BBC TV’s Breakfast Time programme in its early years. It was for Breakfast Time that he first investigated the Rendlesham Forest UFO case.
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