Nick Cook (writer)
Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Nicholas Julian Cook is a British aviation journalist turned defence consultant, former CEO of the defence industry consultancy Dynamixx,<ref name="LinkedInDynamixx">Template:Cite web</ref> and author, whose interest in consciousness studies led him to become a director at Robert Bigelow's Institute for Consciousness Studies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Journalism
In the 1990s, Cook was the aviation editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, the international defence journal.<ref name="salon">Template:Cite news</ref> He was an aerospace consultant and contributor to the journal from 2002 to 2008.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
He won four Journalism Awards from the Royal Aeronautical Society in the Defence, Business, Technology, and Propulsion categories.<ref name="atlantic">Template:Cite news</ref>
Books
The Hunt For Zero Point,<ref name="atlantic"/> published by Century Random House in the UK in 2001 and Broadway Books in the US in 2002, details Cook's ten-year investigation into anti-gravity technology.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It focuses on Igor Witkowski's conspiracy theory that the Nazis developed a UFO-like device which allegedly became the basis for US research.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Skeptoid</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Cook has also written two novels, Angel Archangel<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Aggressor,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> as well as ghostwriting a number of books predominantly on military subjects.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Television
The 1999 Discovery Channel documentary Billion Dollar Secret followed Cook's investigation into secret US military spending and experimental aircraft that may have been mistaken for UFOs.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also wrote and presented the 2005 documentary UFO's: The Secret Evidence, known as An Alien History of Planet Earth in the US.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Other media appearances
He has been a frequent guest on Coast To Coast AM, a radio show that deals with the paranormal and conspiracy theories.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Other work
Cook was the founder and CEO of Dynamixx, a consultancy that brought together the defence industry and the search for solutions to climate change.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His current focus is on writing and corporate storytelling.
Consciousness and afterlife research
In 2014, Cook's wife Ali experienced what she described as a shared-death experience during her mother's death. She told Cook, “I was there. I knew the meaning of life and the secret of the universe but I couldn't bring it back with me.”<ref name="Podcast2024">Template:Cite video</ref> The experience prompted Cook to begin researching consciousness, eventually inspiring his novel The Grid.
Some years later, Cook was contacted by an anonymous philanthropist—unfamiliar to him but a reader of The Hunt for Zero Point—who offered to fund two years of Cook's research into consciousness, with no conditions attached.<ref name="Podcast2024" />
In late 2020, American businessman Robert Bigelow launched an essay competition on the topic: "What is the best available evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death?" Cook submitted an entry, which was awarded a $20,000 prize.<ref name="BigelowContest">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="CookEssay">Template:Cite web</ref> Following this, Bigelow invited him to become director at the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies.