Richard Leslie Thompson, also known as Sadaputa Dasa[2] (IAST: Sadāpūta Dāsa; February 4, 1947 – September 18, 2008), was an American mathematician,[3][4] author and Gaudiya Vaishnava religious figure.
Historian Meera Nanda described him as a driving intellectual force of 'Vedic creationism' as co-author (with Michael Cremo) of Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (1993), a work that has attracted significant criticism from the scientific community.
[7] C. Mackenzie Brown, professor of religion at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, described him as "the leading figure" in ISKCON's critique of modern science.
[11] The coauthor Michael Cremo writes in the Preface to the first edition that the work's central claim, that anomalous paleontological evidence dating in many hundreds of thousands of years, with examples such as the Laetoli footprints (generally considered by paleontologists to have been made by bipedal hominins) potentially stretching possibilities toward the low millions, suggests that modern human beings "perhaps ... coexisted with more apelike creatures."
It also contends that the scientific establishment, influenced by confirmation bias, has suppressed fossil evidence of extreme human antiquity.