Immanuel Velikovsky’s theories about our planet’s history, which came into vogue during the 1970s, are catastrophist nonsense but a whole lot of fun if you recognize they’re fictional. Philip Kaufman realized this and used them to forward the plot of his excellent version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, which was released in 1978, the year before the scientist died at age 84. Below is an amusing 1972 BBC doc about the Velikovsky phenomenon.

A 1950 Popular Science note about Velikovsky: “Astronomers at Harvard consider the sensational theory of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky that the earth stood still a couple of times in Biblical days sheer nonsense.”