​After thirteen episodes and sixteen hours of television—since three episodes were double-length—the thirteenth season of Ancient Aliens comes to a close with an episode devoted to killer robots. This has nothing to do with space aliens, really, but it is symptomatic of the slow mission creep that has infected Ancient Aliens over the many years since it ran out of ways to repackage the thin gruel of Chariots of the Gods over and over again. Originally, Ancient Aliens was a show about the ancient astronaut theory. More recently, as producer Kevin Burns confirmed to the New York Times, it became a pseudo-Gnostic search for God. More recently still, with the rise of its Alien Con sci-fi convention spinoff and the transformation of Ancient Aliens into a lifestyle brand, the show has become a sort of all-purpose dumping ground for geek culture as filtered through a theosophical, pseudo-spiritualist lens.

​Two centuries ago, there were still scientists who doubted that rocks could fall from the sky. It was a matter of grave interest for several decades until it was finally discovered that meteors existed and that such rocks—known then as aerolites—could fall from the heavens and reach the earth below. It took until the 1860s for scientists to establish a consensus that meteors not only fell from the sky but originated in outer space, rather than from the ejecta of volcanoes or other earthlier explanations. Surprisingly, however, it took a very short time for antiquarians to begin suggesting that famous rocks from history were cosmic in origin. The Rev. Basil Henry Cooper, writing in 1867, correctly intuited that the Egyptians made use of meteoric iron, a fact not confirmed archaeologically for half a century. In a paper delivered in 1895, Arthur Harvey spoke about “Aerolites and Religion” and declared that “It would be surprising if in the earlier ages of the world men had not seen in the meteorite not merely a message from the gods but a messenger, a very god himself.” He concluded, most likely correctly, that many ancient divine statues and sacred rocks said to have fallen from heaven were meteors, such as the black stone at the corner of the Kaaba, the divine black stone of Emesa (modern Homs) in Syria, and many other examples besides.

​All About History magazine is out with its September edition, and I am proud to announce that I have the cover story, on “Hitler’s Super-Weapons,” known as the wunderwaffen. The magazine is on newsstands in the U.K. (assuming those still exist), and it is available worldwide through All About History’s website.
 
The article discusses the Nazi regime’s efforts to create fantastical weapons in a last-ditch effort to regain military advantage over the West, including Germany’s rocket program, its nuclear program, and even Himmler’s team of psychic remote viewers. In the final couple of paragraphs, my article briefly outlines some of the ways that these weapons became embedded in popular culture, expanding in popular memory into nearly supernatural exemplars of demonic power. However, while this was an important point, there wasn’t space to go into detail about the connection between the wunderwaffen and some of the extreme views of history popular among the fringe.

​This week, a new report found that Russian trolls and bots helped spread the Pizzagate and Q-Anon conspiracies, conspiracies that have found favor with ancient astronaut theorists affiliated with Ancient Aliens. David Wilcock, who has not appeared on the show for several months, has boasted of receiving “intel” from Russia and continued to endorse the reality of the fake Pizzagate story as recently as last month. Richard Dolan delivered a Facebook Live session in which he refused to denounce the Q-Anon conspiracy theory (he called it “interesting”) and instead said that if Russians were responsible for cybercrimes against Democrats, Americans should thank them. He added that Russian propaganda is good thing as long as its information is “accurate.” Now, for the second time in two years--the first came just weeks before the 2016 election--Ancient Aliens devotes a troubling episode to praising Russia. Following on the heels of a two-hour documentary on Sunday that heavily implied that America needed to ally itself with Russia for the sake of restoring Christendom in preparation for the End Times, this episode left a sour taste in my mouth. Why is the History Channel embracing Russia, if not because its audience of older, white, conservative men now see Putin as a hero?

​In circling the world for material to fill the empty hours of Ancient Aliens, it is no wonder that every so often they alight on the Polynesian areas of the Pacific. Remote, largely unknown in America, and home to haunting stone statues, Polynesia provides a hint of the exotic that recalls the thrill of old pulp adventures, mixed with the unfortunate legacy of Mu, the fictitious lost continent ruled by a vanished white master race that was supposed to have connected the Polynesian islands before it sank into the waters. But the funny thing about old myths and legends is that you can make them seem to support whatever you want. In this episode we hear how Polynesian tales reflect allegations of alien contact—or “ultimate proof” as the episode description falsely claims. But consider this: You can also make the legends seem to support not the ancient astronaut theory but H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.” Take this point that I brought up many years ago, on an earlier occasion when Ancient Aliens tried to impose extraterrestrials onto Polynesian myths: “In fact, several Pacific cultures have an octopus god who lives in a stone palace under the sea, is resurrected on occasion, and brings terror and madness to those who meet him. His name is, in Tonga, Tutula. Does this mean that Cthulhu is also real?”