Scott Wolter Says Narragansett Rune Stone Hoax Claims Might Be Based on Religious Opposition to Him7/12/2014 When a Providence man announced that he had carved the Narragansett Rune Stone during a fit of childhood boredom in the summer of 1964, the claim immediately challenged the deeply held beliefs of fringe thinkers across the country. Scott F. Wolter in particular has maintained that the handful of inscribed runic figures aren’t just older than 1964 but in fact are evidence that the Knights Templar brought the Holy Bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene to America.
“This stone is one of the very few artifacts that proves the Templars came to America,” Wolter asserted on America Unearthed in 2013.
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This week the Syfy channel announced that it plans to broadcast Aliens on the Moon: The Truth Exposed, a two-hour documentary from Robert Kiviat, the executive producer of the hoax documentary Alien Autopsy, that will explore whether ancient astronauts left structures on the moon and other solar system bodies. According to a press release, the special intends to challenge the “official” story of the moon by asking “what haven’t we been told about Earth’s closest neighbor?”
According to the press release, the special will assert the “undeniable existence of what look like installations, factories, saucers, hangers and huge satellite dishes, possibly trained directly on planet Earth.” Paradoxically, these dishes trained directly on the earth are also located “on the far side of our Moon,” according to the very next sentence. The special also intends to have plasma physicist Dr. John Brandenburg (identified here as a Defense Department expert even though the claim doesn’t appear in his biography) assert that the structures are threatening and that a military response is needed to protect earth from an imminent alien invasion. Unbeknownst to me, America Unearthed produced some brief “web exclusive” content for the past season, and a bunch of that material is now available on Hulu’s America Unearthed page and is now being promoted across various web platforms.
In one of these web exclusives, which was apparently released in October (to judge by Hulu’s dating), Scott Wolter discusses the Ark of the Covenant, which he wrongly believes was part of Adolf Hitler’s obsession with the occult. You can watch the video below, in which Wolter discusses the Ark and his belief that it held a treasure of “ancient texts,” but I have also transcribed the relevant part directly beneath the video. I apologize in advance if Hulu makes you watch a commercial first. Back when the documentary Killer Legends was broadcast on the Chiller channel, I wrote a blog post explaining a dispute I had with the filmmaker and explaining that I found his presentation to be a bit simplistic and superficial. The movie explored recent crimes that the filmmaker tied to famous urban legends, particularly those of the “Hook Man” and Killer Clowns. In writing about why I didn’t feel that the urban legends had an immediate origin in recent crimes, I wrote that “I don’t believe that most urban legends emerge from specific incidents from the recent past; if they did so, they wouldn’t be folklore and could easily have been verified by the original tellers of the stories.” I therefore presented some precedents for the urban legends in the myths and folklore of the nineteenth century.
In my coverage of Ancient Aliens and America Unearthed, I have been critical of the two shows’ treatment of Native Americans, particularly the lack of Native American perspectives outside that of controversial Zuni ET believer Clifford Mahooty, who has been a guest on both shows. Ancient Aliens has been slightly better in treating Native material than America Unearthed, but both take from Native American lore and culture bits and pieces they want to use to create a narrative focused on outsiders who supposedly taught them everything they know. Apparently someone in Canada noticed, and as a result we have the bizarre new series Indians and Aliens, a six-part documentary about UFO sightings among the Cree in northern Quebec.
The show apparently aired last fall on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the first and only Canadian First Nations/Native American broadcaster. I only learned about the show from internet chatter that arose when it started airing this week on Australia’s indigenous broadcaster, NITV. I watched the first episode for this blog post. Today I have two short pieces to discuss. The first is an update on a story I’ve been following for what seems to be years now, and the second… is also very depressing.
Did Rip Van Winkle get abducted by aliens? More importantly, why would anyone jump to that conclusion? The answer is a case study in how preexisting beliefs can prejudice an investigation and lead to false confirmation of an alien abduction narrative. This story is particularly interesting to me because it involves upstate New York, where I live and work.
UFO Digest published an unusual article earlier this week in which British author Nick Pope, the former UK Ministry of Defence official who oversaw UFO issues and bills himself as a leading UFO expert, asked whether there is a racist or sexist component to ufology and ancient astronauts. I figured it would be good to talk about Pope’s discussion because I have been criticized for making similar claims. You will recall that I criticized Pope last year for selling his UFO opinions to the highest bidder, and for his comments asking whether science fiction was designed to prepare humanity for the arrival of alien beings.
In that criticism, I faulted Pope for offering half-formed opinions about issues that he supposedly should have had expert knowledge of, since as the head of the British government’s UFO office, he ought to have been privy to the aliens’ agenda. The pattern continues here. Celebrate Independence Day with Fringe History's Craziest Claims about the United States of America7/4/2014 It’s the Fourth of July, and if you’re in the United States, you know that this is the day that America celebrates its independence from the United Kingdom. You also probably have heard that “The U.S. is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth,” as Fox News host Sean Hannity famously put it in 2008. Not to be outdone by conservatives, fringe historians have also adopted American exceptionalism and routinely argue that what is today the United States has always been at the center of a global—nay, universal—agenda by Altanteans, aliens, and Freemasons to control the universe, sort of like the way the villains on Doctor Who have the whole universe to work with but usually seem to end up trying to conquer the U.K.
I found it amusing when Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee created Jerry Springer: The Opera in 2003, but I didn’t think there would be much of a market for turning TV shows into musical extravaganzas. Movies? Sure. But TV? Then we got the Addams Family musical and plans for one based on The Honeymooners. But I draw the line at an America Unearthed musical. Sorry, there’s no way I’m paying to see that. However, since I don’t get to decide these things, we’re getting one anyway.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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