Blog Archives

Review of Ancient Aliens S15E04 "The Real Men in Black"

2/16/2020

Only a day before this episode aired, Tim McMillan published an article in Popular Mechanics which, in overblown language, claimed to have blown the lid off of U.S. government efforts to investigate UFOs. The article, however, provided no evidence that flying saucers are real alien spacecraft, but it did confirm what readers of this blog already knew: that the U.S. government, in thrall to Hal Puthoff and his friends, has devoted resources to researching the Puthoff group’s fantasies about space aliens, paranormal phenomena, and the like. From Puthoff’s time as a remote viewing consultant to his work for Robert Bigelow and then To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, he has been the hidden link tying the zany world of UFOs to government contracting. McMillan omitted the questionable research Puthoff has undertaken, and he did not share with readers the close connections between the “sources” he quotes in his article, most of whom are now affiliated with To the Stars, and nearly all of whom are paid conspiracy theorists for the History Channel. Popular Mechanics is owned by Hearst Communications, a 50% owner of A+E Networks, the parent company of the History Channel—not that Popular Mechanics would tell you that.

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Geologist Suggests Aboriginal Oral Tradition Is the World's Oldest Story

2/14/2020

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This past week geologist Erin Matchan, writing with colleagues in Geology, claimed that the Gunditjmara people of southern Australia preserve the world’s oldest oral tradition, dating back 37,000 years. Being conservative on such things, I find it difficult to accept that claim, since preservation over such long periods occurs nowhere else in the world, and the evidence is suggestive without being conclusive. Matchan alleges—while admitting that she does not have proof—that the Gunditjmara origin story for the Budj Bim (Mount Eccles) volcano records its catastrophic formation over a period of months tens of thousands of years ago. She bases this date on her dating of the volcano’s rocks, which, so far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the oral story since the oral tradition does not describe the formation of a volcano. Previous estimates placed the volcano’s origins around 25,000 BCE.

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Indian Writer Claims Ramayana Records Encounters with Homo Erectus

2/13/2020

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An Indian scholar claimed that the ancient Sanskrit epic The Ramayana features historical accounts of interactions between Homo sapiens and Homo erectus. Dr. Rangan Ramakrishnan made the claim in his ten-volume study of the Ramayana, its traditional author Valmiki, and its later reception and adaptation in Indian culture. He holds a doctorate in yoga (!) and produces content valorizing ancient India and the Vedas. An article in the South China Morning Post quoted the author on the bizarre claim. Here, Ramakrishnan speaks of Hanuman, a monkey god, and the Vanaras, his monkey retainers:

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Chris Aubeck Investigates the Taylorsville UFO Encounter of 1873

2/12/2020

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In the December 2019 issue of El Ojo Crítico, a Spanish-language magazine investigating the unexplained, Chris Aubeck has an article looking into the Taylorville UFO encounter of 1873, one of the sightings that he had alluded to in his December interview with Thomas Brisson Jørgensen that I wasn’t able to immediately identify at the time. The story is amusing, but as I thought when I read Aubeck’s description, it scarcely seemed credible. The December issue of El Ojo Crítico was recently posted online. Now, after seeing Aubeck’s much lengthier and more detailed take on the story, excerpted from a forthcoming book, I am even more confident that it just another hoax article, like so many of its era.

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Hal Puthoff Discusses Metamaterials, Flying Saucers, and More in West Virginia

2/11/2020

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On Saturday, To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science vice president Hal Puthoff gave a speech in West Virginia in which he discussed the Pentagon’s UFO research. According to a summary provided by Keith Basterfield, Puthoff had a few interesting things to say in the Q-and-A portion of his speech. The rest of the event was apparently a fairly standard Puthoff speech, very similar to the 2018 Las Vegas speech in which he announced TTSA’s investigation into so-called metamaterials, but with some key differences. You can read Basterfield’s summary for yourself, but I want to highlight a few key points.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S15E03: "Destination Chile"

2/9/2020

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As Ancient Aliens struggles to redefine itself after a decade on television, we’ve seen the show try different ways to repackage the same material. For a while, they tried thematic episodes centered on a specific ancient site or ancient culture. For a long, sad period in season 14 they focused on alien-human hybrids and modern ufology. This season, they seem to have decided to throw caution to the wind and openly admit that the show is basically a travel agency for ancient astronaut theorists. Season 15 seems to return to the geographical theme more prominent in season 13, with material repackaged around specific geographical locations, which the show’s stars can visit for a free vacation. This episode focuses on Chile, a country that became inseparable from the ancient astronaut theory thanks to occultist, fascist, and “esoteric Hitlerist” Miguel Serrano, who wrote extensively about ancient astronauts and the Theosophical-style supernatural beings posing as space aliens.

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Scott Wolter Claims His Research Will Reshape American Culture, Plans Trips to "Templar" Treasure Sites in America

2/7/2020

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This week, former America Unearthed host Scott F. Wolter spoke at the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles, and to promote his appearance, he gave an interview to the Truth Be Told online radio show. Like most of the outlets Wolter patronizes, Truth Be Told is soaked in fringe history and conspiracy theories. It also plays host to many regulars on the cable TV pseudo-history circuit. As per usual, Wolter delivered his canned comments on the Kensington Rune Stone and his upset with mainstream scholars for discounting his conclusions about the same. “I understand the scientific process, the scientific method pretty well,” Wolter said. “I really do understand the process.” Wolter claims that his conclusions constitute “winning” the argument and that the losers “just don’t like the results.”

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Author Claims Her Secret Knowledge of Sumerian Reveals Antediluvian Secrets

2/6/2020

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The Nielsen ratings held mixed news for Ancient Aliens in its second Saturday broadcast. The show’s viewership remained steady at 1.046 million, but the composition of the show’s audience is changing. Steep declines in the number of younger viewers have pushed it out of the top 50 broadcasts in the advertiser-favored 18-49 demographic for the day it airs. When the show aired on Fridays, it typically cracked the top 10 and to the best of my knowledge was always in the top 20.

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Deep Prasad Probes Magnesium Metamaterials in Project Serpo and To the Stars

2/5/2020

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If you have been following the Twitter discussions among ufologists, you probably saw that Silicon Valley entrepreneur and UFO nut Deep Prasad became quite excited to discover that the so-called “Project Serpo” shares a lot of fictitious DNA with the claims coming out of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, leading him to write a Reddit essay and to launch a lengthy Twitter thread in which he attempted to trace what he implied was a conspiracy involving TTSA executive Hal Puthoff, Project Serpo as promoted by its presumed hoaxer Richard C. Doty, and Ancient Aliens star Linda Moulton Howe. He kind of got it backward.

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Review of "The Stranger" (Netflix)

2/4/2020

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Before I begin today, a sad story from Europe: An archaeologist in Spain is facing potential jail time after fabricating a series of artifacts that he used to claim extraordinary connections among the ancient Basque people, the Roman Empire, and the Amarna period Egypt of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Eliseo Gil claimed that his finds, primarily ceramics bearing Basque or Latin inscriptions, “rewrote the history books,” but he got caught after scholars noticed that the ancient names in the “Latin” inscriptions used modern Spanish spellings and contemporary punctuation, such as “Eneas” for “Aeneas,” according to a report in the Telegraph. Gil allegedly took genuine Roman ceramics and added his own inscriptions, which were apparently intended to glorify Basque history.

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