S P E C I A L C O L L E C T I O N
“There are only a few of us working on my theory,
and it’s like a war we have to win.”
Erich von Däniken
Interview with Playboy, 1974
The runaway success of the History Channel's "documentary" series Ancient Aliens, with two million weekly viewers, has breathed new life into the Ancient Astronaut Theory (also called Paleo-SETI after the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). This controversial hypothesis, which holds that aliens visited prehistoric earth and influenced early civilizations, was popular in the 1970s but had been eclipsed in the 1990s and 2000s by the so-called "alternative" archaeology, Atlantis theories, and UFO madness. Now, ancient astronauts are back. And with the return of the ancient astronaut theory there also returned the falsehood, misinterpretations, distortions, and outright lies that so-called "ancient astronaut theorists" (AATs) use to support their unproven hypothesis.
This special collection brings together in one place all of my essays, articles, and blog posts refuting and criticizing the AATs most outrageous claims and outright frauds. I will keep this special collection updated as I post new material on the ignorance and lies AATs attempt to pass of as knowledge and truth.
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The Secret History of Ancient Astronauts Many have noted the apparent similarities between the horror fiction of 1930s writer H. P. Lovecraft and the ancient astronaut theories promoted in the work of Erich von Daniken and the History Channel's Ancient Aliens series. In 2005, my The Cult of Alien Gods proved that the ancient astronaut theory originated in Lovecraft's horror fiction, the so-called "Cthulhu Mythos." This article is a new, updated summary of the path from Lovecraft's fiction to the History Channel's "fact." |
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Of Atlantis and Aliens: Alternatives to History as Cultural Mirror The ancient astronaut theory, as depicted on Ancient Aliens, had collapsed in on itself. The twentieth century version of the theory had argued that ancient gods were really aliens; its modern religious version told Ancient Aliens' 1.5 million weekly viewers that the aliens were in fact their true gods. At least the Raëlians and Scientologists had the courtesy to admit upfront that their ancient astronaut theories were alternative religions. (This article first appeared in Swans magazine.) |
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Profiles in Ancient Astronautics Alternative history programs like Ancient Aliens feature a rotating cast of ancient astronaut theorists whose many ideas are difficult to keep straight. In this section of my site, I'll be posting brief profiles of ancient astronaut theorists, their major ideas, and the specific credentials, conflicts of interest, and other important factors necessary for understanding their unique world views. |
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Aliens and Ancient Texts: What Taking Ancient Texts Literally Really Means The value of what ancient astronaut theorists (AATs) refer to as “ancient texts” (in reality a stew of poetry, prose, oral history, and later missionary or anthropological reports) cannot be underestimated. AATs believe that these ancient texts are a literal record of prehistoric events. But such speculations are supportable only if we are justified in taking “ancient texts” literally. |
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Those Lying Ancient Texts! I previously discussed the elastic definition of “ancient texts” employed by the History Channel documentary series Ancient Aliens. Now I’d like to look at the use of a specific set of Babylonian “ancient texts” in the ancient astronaut theory in order to show the way AATs somehow manage to undercut their own theory due to their misunderstanding or ignorance of the ancient texts they purport to cite. |
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Ancient Aliens and the Case of the False Quotations AATs have spent fifty years arguing that ancient Hindu texts present firsthand reports of prehistoric nuclear explosions. Here, I’d like to focus on a problem with texts used by the AATs to show exactly how a false belief arises, how it is sustained, and how a mixture of ignorance, half-truths, and misrepresentation creates fanciful new extraterrestrial “texts” out of very different originals. Our sample text will be an alleged "quotation" from the Mahabharata "reporting" on a nuclear explosion and its aftermath. |
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Alternative Authors' Quotation Fraud Authors of alternative history and ancient astronaut theories routinely employ slipshod scholarship to make their case for the existence of Atlantis, aliens, and other nonsense. In some cases, their sloppy methods cross the line into outright distortion and fabrication of the historical record. This page will collect examples of alternative authors manipulating, distorting, or hoaxing material they present as direct quotations in support of their theories. New examples will be added as they are uncovered. |
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Oannes: The "Best Evidence" for Ancient Astronauts? Ancient Aliens pundit Philip Coppens claims the late Babylonian story of the fish-man Oannes is the “amongst the best evidence that we might have potentially been visited by” extraterrestrials in prehistory. This same figure served as the wellspring fro Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery and is clearly one of the ancient astronaut hypothesis' most important mythic beings. Does it surprise anyone that this fish man was not what ancient astronaut writers claim him to be? Here's the real story of Oannes. |
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Ethics and Ancient Aliens: Science, Hollywood, and Conflicts of Interest How can we trust a program that is allegedly presenting serious truths when these supposedly nonfiction truths are carefully manipulated to coincide with Hollywood’s movie release schedule? Ancient astronaut theorists and I will always disagree on the interpretation of the facts, but now I must seriously question their most basic motivations. Are they honestly deluded, or do they simply weave speculation for cash? |
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Erich von Däniken: The 1974 Playboy Interview In 1974, ancient astronaut theorist Erich von Däniken sat down with the science writer Timothy Ferris for three days of interviews for Playboy magazine. This was one of the rare occasions when an ancient astronaut theorist submitted to questioning from a well-informed skeptic, something that almost never happens today. I review this pivotal moment in ancient astronautics in seven parts. |
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Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan In The Gold of the Gods and the film of Chariots of the Gods we see a supposed ancient cave painting of an astronaut. It is rather astonishing that ancient cave dwellers from the Stone Age were using sophisticated types of composition, shading, and perspective not invented until the Renaissance in Europe. Perhaps the aliens taught art lessons? No, it's just another modern fake. Photo: Sputnik magazine
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Erich von Daniken, Alien Gold, and 40 Years of Lies & 2012 Follow-Up Article Ancient Aliens featured a lengthy segment on an alleged cave in Ecuador that ancient astronaut popularizer Erich von Daniken claimed had been carved by lasers and was filled with gold tablets written in extraterrestrial language. What disgusted me is that von Daniken was on TV in 2010 (repeated in 2011 without correction) pimping this story more than three decades after he admitted it was all a lie. Photo: © BankTrack.org via Wikimedia Commons
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Royal Crowns and Alien Sunbathing On Ancient Aliens, Giorgio Tsoukalos made a claim that is stupid even by that show's lax intellectual standards. Tsoukalos argued that aliens wore space suits that were very similar to those worn by Apollo astronauts, and therefore the origin of royal crowns happened when ancient people--and I am not making this up--saw the astronauts stand in front of the sun with the light reflecting and bouncing off the helmets of the astronauts. |
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Ancient Aliens and the Use of Known Hoaxes as "Evidence" The Ancient Aliens episode “Aliens and the Founding Fathers,” spent an hour suggesting that America’s founders were the recipients of extraterrestrial wisdom. However, to "prove" their case, the program's talking heads used two known hoaxes--including one debunked a century ago--to make the case that George Washington had repeated contact with extraterrestrials intent on influencing American history. |
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Ancient Aliens, Greek Myths, and Historical Ignorance “Ancient alien theorists” assert (I would say argue, but argument implies evidence) that the monsters of Greek mythology were in fact genetic experiments created by extraterrestrials. But here’s the thing. The “ancient descriptions” the “ancient astronaut theorists” rely upon to “prove” that the ancients were describing real genetic experiments are remarkably inconsistent—almost as though they were completely, I don’t know, made up. |
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Robert Temple, the Sirius Mystery, and the Misuse of Greek Mythology It is not my intention to review the case against Temple’s space-faring fish-men and their watery revelations. Such work has already been done, exhaustively, and, to most skeptics’ minds, conclusively. Instead, I would like to explore Robert Temple’s misuse of Greek mythology, specifically the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, to refute frequently repeated claims that, even if one doubts his most outrageous conclusions, Temple is “scholarly, careful, and scientifically honest.” |
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David Hatcher Childress and the Question of "Scholarship" In earlier articles, I implied that David Hatcher Childress was a slipshod scholar, and I linked to an article explaining the origin of a fake quote that appears in several of his books. Since Childress publicly accused me of being a poor scholar, I thought I would return the favor and point out something I discovered while researching something else entirely, something that comes close to plagiarism. |
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David Childress and the Aliens David Childress attacked me in print for calling him an ancient astronaut theorist, claiming he doesn't believe in alien intervention. However, he has taken two wildly different stances on the existence of extraterrestrial visitors. I will leave it to the reader to decide if Childress genuinely changes his beliefs ever few years, if he holds two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, or if he has ulterior motives for advocating divergent positions. |
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Jaw Bones, Giants, and a Surfeit of Stupidity On Ancient Aliens, David Hatcher Childress stood before a cabinet of Native American skulls and claimed they belonged to giants. They may look perfectly normal, he said, but viewers can see that they belong to giants when one compares the jaw bones of the skulls to a "modern dental impression." As most thinking people realize, this is exactly the wrong way to measure a jaw bone. |
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William Bramley and Fabricating Earth's Secret History William Bramley conjures the existence of the "Brotherhood of the Serpent" out of two parts: First, world mythologies feature frequent allusions to serpent worship, which he takes a unified cult symbol. Second, he then imagines that the Sumerian gods are flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials, meaning that Sumerian myths are minutes taken at the meetings of the Brotherhood, whose members masqueraded as gods. |
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The Ancient Astronaut Theory and the Problem of Circular Reasoning In poking around the Legendary Times site, I found an article, “Paleo-SETI: Interdisciplinary and Popularized,” that contained some rather stunning statements that are a master class in obfuscation and circular reasoning. The article is endless, and I have space and the stomach to touch on only some of the scientific illiteracy in the piece. |
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Ancient Astronauts and Atlantis: Having It Both Ways In an article on the Legendary Times website carrying the official byline of the Archaeology, Astronautics & SETI Research Association, the ancient astronaut theorists' own organization announced that Atlantis did not exist! And yet, Ancient Aliens devoted an hour to claims that Atlantis was an alien outpost--claims based on unsupported claims about flying bronze islands in Greek mythology. Why? |
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Intimations of Persecution Throughout the course of the pseudoscientific revolution of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the presumed or pretended threat of persecution formed the conspiratorial backbone of works dealing with so-called "alternative history" and ancient astronauts. (This classic article was first published in 2001 [updated 2003] on my old website.)
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Zecharia Sitchin's World Zecharia Sitchin says that he first realized aliens colonized earth when he discovered that the mythology of the Sumerian people spoke of real places and real things. For him the moment of discovery arrived when he came to a stunning conclusion about our familiar solar system. Too bad it was completely wrong. (This classic article was first published in 2001 on my old website.)
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Jesus' Alien Ancestors? Sir Laurence Gardner takes Biblical stories to be something more than fable and something less than truth. He seems to see them as a conspiracy designed to obscure the truth with a quasi-religious message superimposed over an ancient record of alien visits (This classic article was first published in 2001 on my old website.)
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Extraterrestrial Evolution? While Alan Alford supposedly rejected the ancient astronaut theory before his 1996 book Gods of the New Millennium, even today he claims on his website to show that man is not descended from apes, but is the product of Interventionism from above--from aliens. (This classic article was first published in 2001 on my old website.)
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Photo Gallery: Bad Archaeology Since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, human beings have sought to understand the vanished peoples who came before them. This has led to fraud, hoaxes, and outrageous theories as humans worked to fill gaps in their knowledge with imaginary and improbable ideas. This photo essay looks at some of the strange theories, outright frauds, and honest misinterpretations that have been proposed to explain the human past. |
Photo credits: Unless otherwise noted, all images are from public domain sources.
