​Since the days of the Roman Republic, the island of Sardinia has been stereotyped as the home of bumpkins and rubes, and there is an ​almost equally long tradition of Sardinians trying to fight back against the misperception by imagining a far greater history for their island than its already impressive ancient past presents. So, too, have many European scholars fallen for the efforts to reimagine Sardinia as a land significant both the Classical and Biblical civilizations. Although virtually unknown in the English-speaking world until 1849, the since the days of Delisle de Salles in the eighteenth century, and continuing today, there has been a school of thought arguing that the impressive Bronze Age ruins of Sardinia were those of Atlantis, which Italian writers from the nineteenth century to the present have imagined them the work of the biblical Nephilim. More specifically, the argument ran that the defeated Canaanites, descendants of the Nephilim, escaped to Sardinia where they rebuilt their civilization. You can read the longest English account of the Italian theory, from 1849, here.

​To build excitement during the geek-fest of ComicCon, the History Channel recently released a trailer for its upcoming UFO conspiracy drama Project Blue Book, which is set to debut sometime in the winter of 2018-2019. Journalists and bloggers across the country and around the world immediately produced puff pieces celebrating the forthcoming series and speculating about the show. To be honest with you, I find it disingenuous since most of those reporters have access to the same press materials I do, and they’ve all seen the screener of the show’s pilot, just like I have. Pretending otherwise is just stupid. Yes, that’s how the sausage is made. The reporters have already seen the shows they pretend to wonder about, and everybody lies about it so the reporters can pretend to have “access” and the networks and producers can build up hype for their product by teasing upcoming revelations that have already been made

(Note: If you are interested in my take on tonight’s premiere of In Search Of, my pre-air review of the new series’ pilot episode can be found here.)

​I pride myself on having an immense tolerance for boredom, which lets me read reams of bullshit books about space aliens, lost white races, and Nephilim. It also gets me through weekly viewings of Ancient Aliens. But there are limits even to my engagement with television’s most notorious pseudo-historical Dumpster fire. An hour a week I can handle. Two hours, like tonight’s instant-rerun episode on space aliens in ancient Egypt, presses me beyond my tolerance, particularly when the History Channel insists on foisting this kind of trash on the audience at a time when the ancient astronaut theory is taking us to some very dark places.