[dmitrybrant]

In what sense were any of them nut jobs? All of these were traditionally pedigreed scientists, doing groundbreaking research at their institutions, under their own names. I'm asking for a historical parallel of a researcher who published an earth-shattering result anonymously, from their home lab, in a field unrelated to their day job, on a random night off chilling and watching movies?

[semi-extrinsic]

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. I was thinking of traditional scientists who turned out to be partially crazy. The context here should have made me catch your logic better.