Blog Archives

The Fiery Vision over Uxbridge in 1322

3/11/2015

I know that many readers no longer find it surprising when a fringe author gets caught making things up or failing to do legwork, but I find it fun to find out the truth behind these claims. I selected another passage from Jacques Vallée and Chris Aubek’s Wonders in the Sky (2009) today because this one surprised me for how the authors’ laziness undercut their argument. The following text is what the two authors purport to be an account of a UFO in England in 1322, taken from the Flowers of History, from the continuation of the medieval work of that name by Roger of Reading:

11 Comments

Did Hannibal Encounter Space Aliens in 216 BCE?

3/10/2015

21 Comments

I want to thank “nablator” for sharing in the comments to yesterday’s blog post the impressive critical analysis of ufologists’ claims for ancient accounts of marvels in the sky by French UFO skeptic Dominique Caudron. Unfortunately, this very thorough research is available only in French, and I sincerely hope that Caudron will someday make the same pages available in English. Caudron does journeyman’s labor exposing the slipshod research and outright fraud that goes into creating modern legends about ancient UFO sightings. Today I’d like to highlight Caudron’s terrific research into the alleged occupied spaceship seen by Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE. It’s a bizarre story of fraud and mindless copying.

21 Comments

Jacques Vallee and the Trouble with Copying: "Gelatinous Matter" Edition

3/9/2015

11 Comments

Some of you will remember that a long time ago I did a series in which I reviewed the ancient textual evidence presented by ufologists Jacques Vallée and Chris Aubeck in their 2009 compendium Wonders in the Sky. I stopped when I came to the Middle Ages because at the time I was most interested in ancient texts. In revisiting the book, I noticed that the more recent material collected in the volume is no more accurate than their fatally flawed earlier material. One of the key problems, as I outlined in the past, is that the two authors rely on faulty translations and secondary summaries rather than consulting the original texts. Thus, for example, because they know Charlemagne’s sorcery law only from its citation in the Rosicrucian novel Comte de Gabalis rather than the original Latin text, they present the law as though it banned space aliens and UFOs rather than weather-magic.

11 Comments

Watch the Trailer for a Weird New Documentary on the Vinland Map

3/8/2015

40 Comments

Today I need to spend some extra time working on finalizing the entry on Chariots of the Gods that I’m writing for Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore, so in lieu of a lengthy blog entry allow me to present the following trailer for a forthcoming documentary on the Vinland Map produced by David Bradbury called The Vinland Map: Hoaxes within Hoaxes. The documentary is set to be released on October 10, and Bradbury personally emailed me the YouTube link to make sure all of my readers saw it. I have to say that I have no idea what to make of it. The production values leave much to be desired, and the accompanying website is primitive to the point of uselessness.

40 Comments

Gunnar Thompson Claims to Have Identified Medieval Scottish Lime Kiln Near Newport Tower

3/7/2015

69 Comments

Many of you will likely remember (Joe) Gunnar Thompson, the self-described “chief archaeologist” for the New World Discovery Institute who uses his Ph.D.—in studies related to rehabilitation counseling (his dissertation was on affirmative action compliance systems)—to give an air of academic legitimacy to diffusionist theories. (Thompson holds a master’s degree in anthropology, where he focused on linguistics, and a bachelor’s in anthropology.) Thompson, writing in his capacity as the “chief archaeologist” for the institute he operates himself, alleged in a recent letter to the Ancient America website that a medieval lime kiln has been identified in Newport, Rhode Island near the site of the colonial-era windmill fringe historians believe to be a medieval construction.

69 Comments

Friday Grab Bag: Expedition Unknown, Dig, and the Roswell Slides Redux

3/6/2015

16 Comments

Today I’d like to offer two quick TV reviews and then a brief look at Nick Redfern’s latest extraterrestrial pronouncement.

Expedition Unknown S01E09 “Mayan Apocalypse”
In my continuing quest to find something interesting to say about Expedition Unknown I keep finding myself coming up short. Once again, this week’s episode was interesting, occasionally amusing, and in places quite beautifully shot on location among the Maya ruins of the Yucatan. Josh Gates toured various ruins and descended into the underground limestone caverns known as cenotes that the Maya used as both sources of fresh water and as ritual spaces thought to connect to the Underworld, Xibalba. The show did not exactly break new ground in suggesting that the Maya engineered the fall of their own civilization through deforestation and the consequent decline in rainfall and the water supply, but it provided a thoughtful and nicely illustrated tour through some of the evidence for how scholars reached those conclusions, including giving time to members of the Maya culture as well as archaeologists who work on questions related to the Maya. It is a welcome contrast to the ongoing hype about the fictitious “Ciudad Blanca” that some are trying to map onto genuine archaeological material in Honduras.

16 Comments

The X-Files, Conspiracy Theories, and the Weird Tradition

3/5/2015

13 Comments

I’m pleased to announce that my newest book, Foundations of Atlantis, Ancient Astronauts, and Other Alternative Pasts, an anthology of ancient texts used to support fringe history theories, has now been published! I did not know that the book was ready to be published, and I was surprised to discover that McFarland released the title yesterday, especially since the last corrections to the proofs were just finalized on Friday. I must confess that I am a bit disappointed to see that the price is set at $49.95 for a paperback or eBook, especially since the publisher had assured me that they had anticipated wider demand for this book. (Amazon is offering a $1.10 discount!) However, I hope you’ll find that the book is a useful research tool.

13 Comments

Alexander the Great and the Secret of the Gods

3/4/2015

60 Comments

I’m sure many of you remember the flap that emerged in 2013 when researchers claimed to have found Ciudad Blanca, a legendary lost city in Honduras known only from modern myths of twentieth century vintage. I wrote about the long and convoluted process that led to the development of the legend of Ciudad Blanca back in 2013. Well, the story is back again, and many popular archaeology and science publications, particularly National Geographic’s online news service, have proclaimed that the legendary city has been found. The Geographic article, by New Yorker archaeology correspondent Douglas Preston declined to note that the legend of Ciudad Blanca is of modern vintage and has little do with the genuine ancient history of Honduras. However, Rosemary Joyce has a terrific piece over on the UC Berkeley Blog in which she deconstructs the hype over the latest Ciudad Blanca claims. It’s well worth a read.

You might also be interested in the latest crazy claim, this time that the childhood home of Jesus has been uncovered in Nazareth. The evidence, presented by archaeologist Ken Dark, is that the house resembles one described in a seventh-century travelogue. This, logically, ought not to prove that it was the actual home of Jesus; at best, it proves that it was considered to be such in the 600s CE, which counts for pretty much nothing.

60 Comments

Some Thoughts on the Ancient Astronauts Episode of "Codes and Conspiracies"

3/3/2015

21 Comments

It’s always weird for me to watch myself on TV. It was weird when I was a student of broadcast journalism in college and was producing TV news reports regularly, and it’s still weird even today. I can never quite get over the way my voice sounds much different in real life than it does in my head. So, it is with trepidation that I sat down to watch the “Ancient Astronauts” episode of Codes & Conspiracies, to which I contributed an interview back in September. Since I am a participant in the show, I don’t consider what follows to be a formal review as much as my thoughts and impressions about how it all turned out.

21 Comments

After Watching Me on AHC's "Codes & Conspiracies," Here's Some More to Explore about Ancient Astronauts

3/2/2015

29 Comments

Tonight at 10 PM ET (9 PM CT / 10 PM PT) I will appear on the American Heroes Channel documentary series Codes & Conspiracies to discuss the ancient astronaut theory as part of an episode devoted to discussing the life and times of Erich von Däniken. The documentary will explore von Däniken’s popularity and some of the sources he drew upon in creating Chariots of the Gods, including Louis Pauwels’s and Jacques Bergier’s Morning of the Magicians (1960), and through it the extraterrestrial mythology of H. P. Lovecraft. I have it on good authority from the writer and director of the episode, James Goldin, that I appear throughout the hour and my views are well-represented.