|
Yesterday was certainly one for the angels. Donald Trump’s new favorite COVID-19 doctor, who recently lobbied Congress, turned out to be a paranormal believer with ancient astronaut and occult ideas. According to the Daily Beast, Dr. Stella Immanuel is a believer in David Icke’s Reptilians, among other things: She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.
28 Comments
  Day 13 is a middling thriller that takes the basic story of the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy The Burbs and plays it completely straight, adding a large dash of Hitchcock’s Rear Window without any of Hitchcock’s archness. In fact, the movie plays the story so straight that it becomes stiff and wooden, right up to its bizarre climactic effort to transform a classic Twilight Zone episode into a crass, vulgar five minutes of exploitation. At the same time, it manages to fail at failing, never descending so far into sheer incompetence that it becomes interesting on its own. Instead, it’s a technical exercise in making a movie without passion or purpose, in which it seems that nobody is having any fun but everybody is pretty sure the film will make back its money once it ends up in some streaming service’s back catalog next year.
The high school drama is a staple of modern American television and movies, but the genre’s audience understands that its stories cannot be taken literally. To do so would invite troubling, dangerous thoughts. And so, the high school drama exists in two superimposed states. The surface level tells stories about teenagers barely into puberty navigating the trials and tribulations of adolescence. But the high school drama as a genre demands its audience look beyond the surface. It uses attractive actors of college age or older and asks the viewer to lust after them as they move through stories more appropriate to adults and reach levels of romantic ecstasy and agony that are on the surface absurd. Anyone who has had to look up the age of an actor on one of these shows to determine how guilty to feel about the sexualization of high schoolers recognizes that tension. Viewers understand, however, that the high school drama isn’t really an exercise in training potential pedophiles. Instead, we are supposed to look past the surface level to a mythic representation of archetypical ideals.
I am going to make a few notes here about yesterday’s New York Times article by Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal about the government’s UFO investigation program. I wasn’t planning to write anything today, but these notes will primarily serve to remind me when I do my year in review that this happened.
This past week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) made some controversial statements about UFOs when questioned about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s insertion of a requirement in legislation that the U.S. intelligence community produce a detailed reported about flying saucers. Rubio’s comments attracted a lot of attention an also served the more important purpose of distracting media attention from the ongoing catastrophe of Florida’s COVID-19 response and the Republican senate conference’s failure to reach an agreement on a plan to prop up the economy as the disease spreads uncontrollably. But, hey, a space alien! Over there! Look!
As most of you know, I am currently working on assembling some materials for a book proposal about the various moral panics that flared up in 1947 and burned through the 1950s. As part of that research, I am invariably forced to deal with the so-called Roswell crash, even though the incident was of no particular importance in 1947, except as an illustration of how the flare-up in anti-communist panic in the preceding weeks led military officials to use that summer’s UFO flap as cover for operations aimed at the Soviet Union. I was, however, amused to read this week that Michael Salla and Corey Goode are flogging a new claim, that Donald Trump has been briefed on the Roswell crash and that the flying disc that the military claimed to capture was in fact a time-traveling military vehicle from the future.
I had intended to write a full blog post today, but this week turned into a series of bad news leading to worse. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on my household's employment and finances, and a literal midnight email about mandatory pay cuts and furloughs will only make it worse. I was not in the mood to blog. However, I did feel up to working on the proposal for a new book I have decided to write, based on my recent article about Rebel without a Cause and the three 1947 national panics over communists, gays, and UFOs that turned out to be deeply interconnected.
Note: As I said yesterday, I am not quitting blogging entirely. I will be posting less frequently, when news happens. The Mutual UFO Network has had its share of controversies, from John Ventre's wildly racists 2018 social media screed (a controversy repeated in racist comments by Rhode Island MUFON official Ken Pfeiffer just last month) to the fake documents it pushed on its History Channel series, and the charges that Robert Bigelow served as a middleman to buy MUFON records to help the Pentagon research UFOs. Now MUFON is experiencing another black eye as its executive director Jan Harzan faces charges that he attempted to solicit sex from a police detective he thought was a 13-year-old girl. The Huntington Beach Police released information on the July 3 arrest yesterday:
For the past ten years, I have written this blog anywhere between five and seven days per week. For almost ten years before that, I produced regular content for the predecessor site to this one. When this blog was at its peak in 2013, I had 100,000 readers, regular appearances in media coverage, a number of TV opportunities, a literary agent, and a growing writing career in both fiction and nonfiction. None of that is the case today, and I don’t see a way to justify continuing to devote so much effort to this endeavor. Several recent posts had readership so low that I could have just emailed all of you a few bullet points and saved myself the trouble.
On Thursday, CNN’s website ran an article on the ancient astronaut theory by Jen Rose Smith. The piece frames questions about the origins of UNESCO World Heritage Sites like the Giza pyramids and the Nazca lines in terms of Erich von Däniken’s version of the ancient astronaut theory. It then devotes most of the article’s space to describing how “mainstream scientists” reject the ancient astronaut hypothesis, with lengthy quotes from archaeologist Sarah Parcak.
|
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
Enter your email below to subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my latest projects, blog posts, and activities, and subscribe to Culture & Curiosities, my Substack newsletter.
Categories
All
Terms & ConditionsPlease read all applicable terms and conditions before posting a comment on this blog. Posting a comment constitutes your agreement to abide by the terms and conditions linked herein.
Archives
November 2023
|
- Home
- Blog
- Books
-
Articles
-
Newsletter
>
- Television Reviews >
- Book Reviews
- Galleries >
- Videos
-
Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud
>
- Chariots of the Gods at 50
- Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
- Of Atlantis and Aliens
- Aliens and Ancient Texts
- Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
- Blunders in the Sky
- The Case of the False Quotes
- Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
- David Childress & the Aliens
- Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
- Intimations of Persecution
- Zecharia Sitchin's World
- Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
- Extraterrestrial Evolution?
- Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
- Collection: Ancient History >
- Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
- Collection: UFOs >
- Scholomance: The Devil's School
- Prehistory of Chupacabra
- The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
- Magicians of the Gods Review
- The Curse of the Pharaohs
- The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
- Whitewashing American Prehistory
- James Dean's Cursed Porsche
-
Newsletter
>
-
The Library
-
Ancient Mysteries
>
-
Ancient Texts
>
- Mesopotamian Texts >
-
Egyptian Texts
>
- The Shipwrecked Sailor
- Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
- The Papyrus of Ani
- Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
- Inventory Stela
- Manetho
- Eratosthenes' King List
- The Story of Setna
- Leon of Pella
- Diodorus on Egyptian History
- On Isis and Osiris
- Famine Stela
- Old Egyptian Chronicle
- The Book of Sothis
- Horapollo
- Al-Maqrizi's King List
- Teshub and the Dragon
- Hermetica >
- Hesiod's Theogony
- Periplus of Hanno
- Ctesias' Indica
- Sanchuniathon
- Sima Qian
- Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
- The Book of Enoch
- Slavonic Enoch
- Sepher Yetzirah
- Tacitus' Germania
- De Dea Syria
- Aelian's Various Histories
- Julius Africanus' Chronography
- Eusebius' Chronicle
- Chinese Accounts of Rome
- Ancient Chinese Automaton
- The Orphic Argonautica
- Fragments of Panodorus
- Annianus on the Watchers
- The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
-
Medieval Texts
>
- Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
- The Hunt for Noah's Ark
- Isidore of Seville
- Book of Liang: Fusang
- Agobard on Magonia
- Book of Thousands
- Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Power of Art and of Nature
- Travels of Sir John Mandeville
- Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
- Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
- Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
- The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
- Islamic Discovery of America
- The Aztec Creation Myth
-
Lost Civilizations
>
-
Atlantis
>
- Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
- Fragments on Atlantis
- Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
- Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
- Gómara on Atlantis
- Sardinia and Atlantis
- Santorini and Atlantis
- The Mound Builders and Atlantis
- Donnelly's Atlantis
- Atlantis in Morocco
- Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
- W. Scott-Elliot >
- The Lost Atlantis
- Atlantis in Africa
- How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
- Termier on Atlantis
- The Critias and Minoan Crete
- Rebuttal to Termier
- Further Responses to Termier
- Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
- Lost Cities >
- OOPARTs
- Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
- Caucasians in Panama
- Jefferson's Excavation
- Fictitious Discoveries in America
- Against Diffusionism
- Tunnels Under Peru
- The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
- Mound Builders
- Gunung Padang
- Tales of Enchanted Islands
- The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
- The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
- The Interglacial Period
- Solving Oak Island
-
Atlantis
>
- Religious Conspiracies >
-
Giants in the Earth
>
-
Fossil Origins of Myths
>
- Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
- Fossil Elephants
- Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
- Fossil Mammoths and Giants
- Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
- Fossils and the Supernatural
- Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
- Man During the Stone Age
- Fossil Bones and Giants
- American Elephant Myths
- The Mammoth and the Flood
- Fossils and Myth
- Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
- Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
- Fragments on Giants
- Manichaean Book of Giants
- Geoffrey on British Giants
- Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
- Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
- Book of Howth
- Purchas His Pilgrimage
- Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
- The Giants of Sardinia
- Giants and the Sons of God
- The Magnetism of Evil
- Tertiary Giants
- Smithsonian Giant Reports
- Early American Giants
- The Giant of Coahuila
- Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
- Index of Giants
- Newspaper Accounts of Giants
- Lanier's A Book of Giants
-
Fossil Origins of Myths
>
-
Science and History
>
- Halley on Noah's Comet
- The Newport Tower
- Iron: The Stone from Heaven
- Ararat and the Ark
- Pyramid Facts and Fancies
- Argonauts before Homer
- The Deluge
- Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
- Old Mythology in New Apparel
- Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
- Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
- Devil Worship in France
- Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
- The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
- The Mutinous Sea
- The Rock Wall of Rockwall
- Fabulous Zoology
- The Origins of Talos
- Mexican Mythology
- Chinese Pyramids
- Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
-
Extreme History
>
- Roman Empire Hoax
- American Antiquities
- American Cataclysms
- England, the Remnant of Judah
- Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
- Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
- Vestiges of the Mayas
- Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
- Origins of the Egyptian People
- The Secret Doctrine >
- Phoenicians in America
- The Electric Ark
- Traces of European Influence
- Prince Henry Sinclair
- Pyramid Prophecies
- Templars of Ancient Mexico
- Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
- The Faith of Ancient Egypt
- Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
- Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
- Book of the Damned
- Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
- Richard Shaver's Proofs
-
Ancient Texts
>
-
Alien Encounters
>
-
US Government Ancient Astronaut Files
>
- Fortean Society and Columbus
- Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
- The Skyfort Document
- Whirling Wheels
- Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
- Soviet Search for Lemuria
- Visitors from Outer Space
- Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
- "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
- UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
- Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
- The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
- Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
- Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
- Noah's Ark Cables
- The Von Daniken Letter
- CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
- Scott Wolter Lawsuit
- UFOs in Ancient China
- CIA Report on Noah's Ark
- CIA Noah's Ark Memos
- Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
- Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
- Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
- House UFO Hearing
- Ancient Extraterrestrials >
- A Message from Mars
- Saucer Mystery Solved?
- Orville Wright on UFOs
- Interdimensional Flying Saucers
- Flying Saucers Are Real
- Report on UFOs
-
US Government Ancient Astronaut Files
>
-
The Supernatural
>
- The Devils of Loudun
- Sublime and Beautiful
- Voltaire on Vampires
- Demonology and Witchcraft
- Thaumaturgia
- Bulgarian Vampires
- Religion and Evolution
- Transylvanian Superstitions
- Defining a Zombie
- Dread of the Supernatural
- Vampires
- Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
- Science and Fairy Stories
- The Cursed Car
-
Classic Fiction
>
- Lucian's True History
- Some Words with a Mummy
- The Coming Race
- King Solomon's Mines
- An Inhabitant of Carcosa
- The Xipéhuz
- Lot No. 249
- The Novel of the Black Seal
- The Island of Doctor Moreau
- Pharaoh's Curse
- Edison's Conquest of Mars
- The Lost Continent
- Count Magnus
- The Mysterious Stranger
- The Wendigo
- Sredni Vashtar
- The Lost World
- The Red One
- H. P. Lovecraft >
- The Skeptical Poltergeist
- The Corpse on the Grating
- The Second Satellite
- Queen of the Black Coast
- A Martian Odyssey
- Classic Genre Movies
-
Miscellaneous Documents
>
- The Balloon-Hoax
- A Problem in Greek Ethics
- The Migration of Symbols
- The Gospel of Intensity
- De Profundis
- The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
- The Bathtub Hoax
- Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
- Position of Viking Women
- Employment of Homosexuals
- James Dean's Scrapbook
- James Dean's Love Letters
- The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
- James Dean, The Human Ashtray
- Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
-
Ancient Mysteries
>
- About Jason
- Search
RSS Feed
© 2010-2023 Jason Colavito. All rights reserved.