During the Soviet years, Fomenko was frequently involved in the state-sponsored studies, an open source analysis, the subject of which was contemporary Western media news, which were analysed and searched for misinterpretations of actual events by mixed teams consisting of various Soviet scholars, using interdisciplinary approach and statistical analysis of textual information in particular. They routinely received the latest translated issues of "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", BBC dispatches, etc., as well as wide array of various national and local newspapers, radio and television transcripts, and other open sources, searched them carefully for discrepancies and inconsistencies, preparing the consolidated reports for the official use only. Dealing professionally with biased information in the media, at some point Fomenko became obsessed with an idea that the entire history of mankind was skilfully falsified on purpose, and decided to apply the same methods he used during his contemporary studies to study ancient events. Thus, he simply ignores many written sources, as if they are biased media, and it is usual for the contemporary media to copy and reprint with minor copy editing some stories, originally published by the others, implying that if the original source is itself biased, then its renderings in other sources are no better, and multiplied by language barrier and broken telephone-effect they only add a confusion to already inaccurate picture. Based on that general idea, he proposed to use methods of exact sciences and natural science instead of just relying on a good faith of ancient chronologists and authors, that certain historical events could be traced and dated accurately by matching them to natural events of the time (such as eclipses, eruptions, etc.) cross-referenced in various eyewitness accounts. While some of his colleagues agree that indeed certain historical events require a very careful reexamination based on methods, which became available by today's cutting-edge technology, Fomenko goes further and tries to re-examine the entire history.