Immanuel Velikovsky. In 1950 he demonstrated an interdisciplinary,
comparative technique for uncovering hard evidence of planetary
catastrophe from the recorded memories of the earliest civilizations. His
method was forensic in that he looked for reports of physical events of a
highly unusual nature that were nonetheless corroborated globally by
totally separate cultures. Then by applying scientific knowledge of cause
and effect, it was possible to build a very detailed model of the sequence
of those events. Finally, the model enabled specific predictions to be
made and confirmed - a requirement of a good scientific theory. Some of
the predictions he made were outrageous at the time: Venus would be near
incandescently hot, Jupiter would emit radio noise, the Moon rocks would
be magnetised, and so on. Velikovsky was right, astronomers of the day
were wrong.

-- Thornhill website