Who wrote the 2005 open letter that introduced the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Bobby Henderson wrote the 2005 open letter that introduced the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Henderson was a 24-year-old Oregon State University physics graduate when he sent the satirical letter to the Kansas State Board of Education. He was protesting proposals to allow intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution in school science classes. Henderson argued that if an unsupported supernatural explanation received classroom consideration, his own equally imaginative creator—the Flying Spaghetti Monster—should receive equal treatment.

The letter became widely known after Henderson posted it online in 2005. Its humorous argument helped turn the Flying Spaghetti Monster into a symbol of opposition to teaching religious creationism as science. The associated parody movement became known as Pastafarianism, a name blending “pasta” with “Rastafarianism.”

James Randi, P. Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins are associated with skepticism, science communication or criticism of creationism, but none of them wrote the founding open letter. Henderson later expanded the idea in The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, published in 2006.