A Tuesday Ancient Astronaut Roundup

9/9/2014

On Twitter, Giorgio Tsoukalos denied one of the key arguments he pretended to make on In Search of Aliens on Friday. During the episode, he suggested that Cyclopes were the same as Giants, and that the Giants were the Nephilim, the offspring of Fallen Angels and human women. On Twitter, Tsoukalos unintentionally revealed that his show is a bunch of hokum when he stated that he “personally” doesn’t buy into the argument he himself made:

Personally, I don't think so. No. RT @Ms_Lipps Is a Cyclops a Nephilim? #InSearchOfAliens @PrometheusEnt @More2History @AncientAliens
— Giorgio A. Tsoukalos (@Tsoukalos) September 6, 2014

Tsoukalos also expressed his belief that Cyclopes were misunderstood fossil elephant skulls, as Othenio Abel proposed in 1914 (albeit without evidence)—an argument never presented on In Search of Aliens:

So far. RT @alexander_d_gr8 #InSearchOfAliens weren't #Cyclops proven to be nothing more than elephant skulls? @PrometheusEnt @More2History
— Giorgio A. Tsoukalos (@Tsoukalos) September 6, 2014

That’s why ancient astronaut theorists always use so many qualifiers—they don’t even believe the crap they expect their audience to buy into!

It’s refreshing, therefore, when a TV personality has something direct to say about aliens without the qualifiers and backtracking, even if that personality is just a reality TV star who doesn’t seem to really have any idea what he’s saying.

The British reality soap opera The Only Way Is Essex made what I gather is something of a star out of cast member Joey Essex, who received a spin off series, Educating Joey Essex, which airs on ITV2. In last week’s episode of the series, the reality star, who also did stints on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here and Splash, traveled to Nevada to search for space aliens at Area 51. He also spoke with a woman named Tina Marie who claims to be an alien abductee. In an interview with STV, Essex was asked whether he encountered some actual extraterrestrials during his trip: “I think so. Basically aliens looks like us humans, they just don’t have blood.” That’s a new one on me.

What isn’t new is Mike Bara’s offensive and insulting blog posts, which reach new depths of odiousness whenever I think that the ancient astronaut theorist and television personality has hit rock bottom. I would like to know how it is that H2 allows the man on the air on Ancient Aliens and Discovery Communications made him the star of the Science Channel’s Uncovering Aliens when the man writes things like this for public consumption:

For some reason last week, Phil "Dr. Phil" Plait, that grotesque little toad of a man, decided to bring up theFace on Mars in his blog on Slate.com. As we all know, Slate is popular destination for political liberals, who love it for it's [sic] dysentery-like stream of attacks on anyone who believes in God or actually seeks the truth, as opposed to groveling at the altar of scientific materialism.

I'm not clear exactly why Plait chose to attack the Face again. Maybe it's because he ran out of things to lie to his readers about (like man-made Global Warming), or maybe it's just because my Mars books are selling too well....

[…]

He's a well established [sic], inveterate liar who never argues science, logic or facts, but rather prefers to use the time honored debunking techniques of character assassination and personal attack. In my new book Ancient Aliens on Mars II, I cover how he deliberately lied to his readers about the THEMIS thermal infrared images of Cydonia, and he has been caughtflat out lying about Global Warming by climate scientists on several occasions.

Note: Plait’s blog post was actually a brief promotional piece directing readers to a Slate video about the Face on Mars produced independently of Plait. Bara seems not to understand this.

Bara tries to defend the reality of the Face on Mars by arguing that it is half human and half feline, and that it also is an exact visual double for the ruins of a collapsed sports arena.

When media personalities in fields other than fringe conspiracies say things like this, their networks either fire them or demand apologies and sensitivity training. Yet somehow fringe studies exempts individuals from having a modicum of politeness or professional decency. Compare, for example, the outrage even at Fox News when then-Fox employee Glenn Beck accused Barack Obama of being an anti-white racist with the silence that met Jim Marrs’s assertion last year that the president is planning a Russian-led military coup followed by genocide. Marrs, a frequent cable TV guest, is published by HarperCollins, which was owned by News Corp. (now owned by the new and legally distinct News Corp.), the then-parent of Fox News (now owned by 21st Century Fox).

Mike Bara, intemperate and egotistical, acts more like an Ann Coulter-like agent provocateur than the seeker of “the truth” he pretends to be on television, where editors can excise his offensive remarks. I can’t see how it does any good to either H2 or Science to have their “stars” acting like teen cyberbullies, but it’s their choice. Giorgio Tsoukalos mostly learned his lesson, and as his star rose he largely purged his Twitter feed of his frequently obnoxious, insulting, and vulgar attacks on his critics. Though not entirely:

3 boring hrs negate 90hrs of tv & 1000s of books & reports. My ass. RT @96Triple just watched AncientAliensDebunked. very disappointed in AA
— Giorgio A. Tsoukalos (@Tsoukalos) September 6, 2014

Remember: With the ancient astronaut theory, it’s all about quantity, not quality.

42 Comments

666

9/9/2014 04:37:33 am

It's all about people
People

9/9/2014 04:40:56 am

"With the ancient astronaut theory, it’s all about quantity, not quality."

Hey, Tsoukalos did work in bodybuilding :)

Only Me

9/9/2014 04:47:18 am

Just do a background search on Mike Bara, Jason. I'm almost positive you'll find a membership to the I.B.O.P.A.--the International Brotherhood of Pretentious Assholes.

"maybe it's just because my Mars books are selling too well...."

To quote Giorgio, "My ass."

9/9/2014 04:54:44 am

I cry every time Bara sells a copy. It's that important to me.

9/9/2014 05:45:46 am

Jason, "aliens don't have blood" was popularized by The X-Files back in the day (S03E09 "Nisei"):

Mulder: It's widely held that aliens don't have blood, Scully.
Scully: I guess this begs the question; if this is an alien autopsy -
Mulder: - where's the alien. But what so intriguing to me is the striking lack of detail here.

Jason Colavito link

9/9/2014 06:01:56 am

That was a long time ago... I was 14 at the time and have only a fuzzy memory of it, mostly for taking on the Fox "Alien Autopsy" show.

9/9/2014 06:13:44 am

One of the interesting things about this idea is that it is yet another parallel between the Greys and the Jews of anti-Semitic myths: that in place of blood they have some vile green substance.

9/9/2014 06:23:47 am

The Greek gods were thought to have golden ichor rather than blood flowing through their veins.

9/9/2014 06:37:18 am

Somehow I doubt that's what Joey Essex had in mind :)

Diana

9/9/2014 10:23:00 am

Jason --- was the gold-like color of the blood of the Gods
and Goddesses literally like the golden sheen the well
oiled shin the true nobles of Carthage had? literally we
see a subtle Plato linkage of "golden icor" with the old
power elite first families of Carthage. did Plato assume
that many Atlantis nobles had had the same skin tone
and color as Hannibal Barca? Carthage's Dido is like
her kinsman. Plato has gold above silver(some of us) and
copper, brass and bronze. If you take Plato's value system
and go to the statue Daniel the Prophet talks about, is the
face slightly modified once again? Carthage had rules that
do not stem from Athens, Troy or Jerusalem... and they
were an offshoot of the Phoenicians or their ancient ancestors.

typo (diana)

9/9/2014 10:27:05 am

skin, not shin

Clint Knapp

9/9/2014 05:47:20 am

Clearly the Face was originally a sports arena that collapsed conveniently into the shape of a human/feline hybrid which happened to so resemble the native Martians that they just left it that way.

Or Mike Bara is full of shit. You decide.

Anyone else find it terribly amusing how the top of his blog features comic-book style images of himself and his compatriots? Shameless appeal to to a younger generation, or delusional hero-fantasy?

9/9/2014 05:55:36 am

I don't mind the last part, actually. Me, I always picture Jason and this blog's regulars as the protagonists of Outpost. The trolls are the Nazi zombies - no matter how many times you destroy them, they keep coming back :)

asertus link

9/9/2014 08:26:18 am

The 'Emoluments of Mars' blog presents a riposte to Mike Bara:

http://dorkmission.blogspot.com/2014/09/refacing-face-on-mars-by-mike-bara.html

PaulN. link

9/9/2014 09:51:21 am

Half-human and half-feline!? Sounds like the Tiger men of Mars from the old Buck Rogers comic strips of the 1930's to the1950's. Not to be confused with the lousy T.V. series from the late 1970's.
The Tiger men were a cruel and vicious species who a sport out of war and killed for fun. Not exactly the kind of benevolent beings who went around spreading civilization and good feelings. Unless it was done only so they could come back later and take pleasure in destroying it. Compared to the Tiger men the Klingons were nice guys.

9/9/2014 09:54:21 am

Nah, I say it's Thundercats :)

9/9/2014 01:53:40 pm

I'm sorry, but Thundercats (whether new or old) are nothing but a poor feline rip-off of He-Man Masters of the Universe. You have got to do better.

9/9/2014 02:31:10 pm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/%C3%89dition_Curmer_%281843%29_-_Le_Chat_bott%C3%A9_-_1.png

Screaming Eagle

9/9/2014 03:58:26 pm

My man!!! Way to go EP!

9/10/2014 12:27:45 pm

Okay, if you are going to go French, then no one can be as badass as Reynard the Fox. He would not only convince Le Chat that the botts were his, but he would wear them while making kitty chow out of Le Chat.

BillUSA

9/9/2014 01:35:23 pm

Mike Bara will say anything to get his name mentioned and Phil Plait never struck me as someone who would stoop to his level. That's what I like about finger-pointers, in their haste to accuse anyone of this or that, they inadvertently reveal themselves. When you point a finger at someone, there are three pointing back at you.

9/9/2014 04:13:40 pm

Unless you're pointing at Bara with THE finger, in which case, he'll convince himself you're telling him he's number one :)

9/9/2014 05:55:24 pm

It's funny you should compare reception of Glenn Beck's remarks on Obama to Marrs's. Mike Bara has claimed in the past that Obama is impersonating an American and is in league with al-Qaeda.

9/9/2014 07:09:21 pm

Ah, birthers. You know you've hit dirtbag rock-bottom when even the duly elected President of the United States isn't safe from having racist slander/libel hurled at him for inheriting his father's name- the middle one in particular, which happens to have been his grandfather's name. As though that weren't an entirely common practice worldwide.

I can't say I've heard much of Bara's Obama conspiracies, but I've certainly had more than enough of Marrs's through Coast to Coast. How that shitheel keeps getting airtime to spout such blatantly racist vitriol is beyond my ken.

9/9/2014 09:03:27 pm

Unfortunately, Clint, controversy sells...almost as much as sex. It's truly pathetic that Don Imus was taken off-air for the "nappy-headed hos" remark, but a sleazy rat bastard like Marrs can spew his hate speech without raising so much as an eyebrow.

9/9/2014 09:21:56 pm

Yeah, look at the success of the Bible, full of paranormal activity, resurrections and the afterlife.

Someone explain to me what makes the Bible any different to what you're all complaining about here.

The Bible comes from the same place as Chariots of the Gods,

9/9/2014 09:23:36 pm

One more thing - people have as much right to believe in the ancient astronauts as they do in the Bible.

9/9/2014 09:24:38 pm

Mike Bara and the author of the Gospel of John,
No difference.

9/9/2014 10:15:25 pm

"Mike Bara and the author of the Gospel of John,
No difference."

I'm an atheist and even I find this comment vile and offensive.

9/9/2014 10:19:26 pm

Here's where I get my hands dirty taking out the trash:

One, no one has ever stated on this blog that no one had the right to believe in ancient aliens, so that non sequitur is done.

Two, no one owes you an explanation. You would not listen anyway. Bigots are pathetic like that.

Three, you're unsolicited, hate-fueled rants are tiresome.

9/10/2014 06:11:02 am

"The Bible comes from the same place as Chariots of the Gods"

I'm assuming you mean from aliens. 666 is a confessed AA theorist, everybody!

Harry

9/10/2014 12:25:18 am

So, "that grotesque little man ... prefers to use the time honored debunking techniques of character assassination and personal attack." Quite aside from the amusing irony of that description of Plait, Bara's evidence that Plait is an "inveterate liar who never argues science, logic or facts" is easy to disprove by reading the arguments Plait actually makes in the blog posts to which Bara links directly or indirectly.

For instance, Bara claims that Plait was "caughtflat [sic] out lying about Global Warming by climate scientists on several occasions," but he only cites two posts from a single climate denialist's blog. More importantly, when one reads the articles to which the climate denialist links, rather than the selection from the article that the denialist quotes in his blog, the denialist does not disprove anything Plait says - rather, he proves a point Plait admits is "technically true" but argues is irrelevant for reasons the denialist does not address.

9/10/2014 05:35:29 am

I am really surprised that (unless I'm mistaken) no one has sued Bara for libel yet.

9/10/2014 01:43:34 pm

Maybe it's because someone like Bara can use lawsuits to generate buzz for his "cause".

If he's the subject of a lawsuit, he can scream, "See, I'm right! They're trying to suppress the truth!" If he brings a lawsuit against one of his critics, he can then say, "I've decided to fight back. They will no longer get away with suppressing the truth!" And of course, his supporters will eat it up without hesitation.

9/10/2014 02:22:50 pm

EP,

I will say one good thing about Bara: at least I didn't see him claim to be ten trillion times smarter than anyone.

9/10/2014 02:27:54 pm

@ Harry

You're being sarcastic, right?

@ Only Me

That could (possibly) be a case for why it's a good thing. But it doesn't explain why it hasn't happened yet. If I were in position of some of the people who have been targets of his abuse (and/or plagiarism) I almost certainly would have pursued legal action.

9/10/2014 03:08:33 pm

Yes.

Aimed at a certain engineer with peculiar notions about physics and his comically outsized ego, not at you.

9/10/2014 03:17:39 pm

Oh, I remember now! With all the abuse I get around here, the kooks kinda all blend together... :)

Misery Loves Company

9/11/2014 03:37:31 am

Our species as a whole is about to live through 120 years
where we are going to feel like the Creator Being enjoys
whizzing hardballs and softballs rather close to our ears...
If this story is not simply alarmist, expect a very articulate
and fatalistic Ancient Astronaut cult by mid-century in order
to explain a lack of a direct hit. Mars or the Stars, indeed!

http://www.sott.net/page/1-About-Sott-net

http://www.sott.net/article/285483-Shock-asteroid-warning-Earth-faces-100-years-of-killer-strikes-beginning-in-2017

Lets not be 100% Doom + Gloom

9/12/2014 11:39:23 am

"The downside of ion thrusters, though, is that the amount of thrust produced is minuscule: State-of-the-art ion thrusters can deliver a grand total of 0.5 newtons of thrust (equivalent to the force of a few coins pushing down on your hand), while chemical thrusters (which power just about every spacecraft ever launched) on a satellite or probe deliver hundreds or thousands of newtons. The flip side of this, though — and the reason ion thrusters are so interesting — is that they have a fuel efficiency that’s 10 to 12 times greater than chemical thrusters. Obviously, for long trips through space, fuel efficiency is very important.

With such puny thrust, a NEXT-based ion drive would need to run for 10,000 hours — just over a year — to reach a suitable speed for space travel. Dawn, a NASA probe that’s powered by previous-generation NSTAR ion thrusters, accelerated from 0 to 60 mph in four days. As a corollary, ion thrusters only work at all because of the near-vacuum of space; if there was any friction at all, like here on Earth, an ion drive would be useless. The good news, though, is that the (eventual) max speed of a spacecraft propelled by an ion drive is in the region of 200,000 miles per hour (321,000 kph).

Moving forward, it now remains to be seen if NASA will use the NEXT on an actual spacecraft. In 2011, NASA put out a request-for-proposals for a test mission that will likely use a NEXT engine, and presumably, following this successful engine test, we might soon hear more news about that. Other space agencies, including the ESA, are also working on spacecraft propelled by ion thrusters. " (NASA + NEXT drive)

SCIENCE IS ALMOST AT THE POINT OF SENDING A ROCKET
UP PAST JUPITER TO DEFLECT ANY ONCOMING METEOR...

Salon has a film review next to the article about H.P Lovecraft!

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/sean_hannity_and_glenn_beck_in_a_bizarre_ayn_rand_fever_dream/

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/09/extraterrestrial-impact-event-cause-of-earths-big-freeze-12000-years-ago.html

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/144296-nasas-next-ion-drive-breaks-world-record-will-eventually-power-interplanetary-missions

kalani

10/14/2014 06:07:33 pm

Followed this over from another cite and got this...Tue..AA roundup.
Hey BillUSA!
Read through the ..cyclopes thing and then"platt's"stuff then bara's
..."stuff's........and then:
666, EP, Onlyme, paul, screamingE, then JC, and EP,
and then..........I had to go to the kitchen to get a pot to put
over my heat to keep from any flying objects, that may come
through the screen.....just by scrolling down the rest of this...
"comment page."
Ya'all need to calm down just a bit....breathe.
Let me throw some .......in.
and we'll see what else hits the wall.
.....is it a face of a man laughing in the moon or
a bunny rabbit?

D&G..saw it on History Channel yesterday...the Universe,
Meteors, Comets, Asteroids. and their theories to defend
ourselves....in case of ....KaBoom!
and how much time...to prepare. they even had a Q & A
segment.
more later : ) !

11/3/2014 05:42:43 pm

Hello.(like that song...forgot the name of the artist)
Hello..(echo)...anybody out there?

Hope Ya'all had a great Halloweenie...
I was apart of a theme..group..Addams Family.
I was "Puggesly"!

Now just piece this together and find out how we came
above ground.
maybe to create another.......?