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Writing my annual year in review article used to be amusing, if not actually fun, because there was at least some entertainment value in seeing the wild claims and fantastical speculations that passed for history and science. But each year has been a little darker than the one before, and the job is less an exercise in tut-tutting foolishness than it is a depressing reminder that wealthy and powerful people are pushing conspiracies whose real-life consequences are no longer hypothetical but manifest every day in ways large and small, from the halls of Congress to hospital ICUs.
In a recent podcast interview, former television personality Scott Wolter made a bizarre assertion about prehistoric space aliens, a part of his ongoing conversion to full ancient astronaut theorist. Wolter discussed the documents he has asserted to be medieval records from the Knights Templar for the past several years, and in “new” Templar documents conveniently mirroring his own conversion to ancient alien enthusiast, he claims to have discovered evidence that space aliens intervened in human history.
Over the summer, Paolo Chiesa published an article in Terrae Incognitae describing a passage in a medieval Italian chronicle briefly mentioning the land west of Greenland which the Norse had named Markland, and it made the rounds of online news sources a couple of weeks ago. Chiesa said that this passage, from around 1340 CE, is the oldest mention of North America known from the Mediterranean region. On its own, this is not earth-shattering news since the northern European peoples had been speaking of these lands since Adam of Bremen described Vinland around 1035 CE. But it does have interesting implications for the notorious Zeno Narrative and its role in fringe history’s elaborate narrative about Henry Sinclair learning of and visiting North America.
More than three years after Yale University announced that it would put the infamous Vinland Map through a through a series of high-tech tests to determine once and for all whether the allegedly medieval depiction of Greenland and the Canadian coast was in fact a fake, the results are in. It is, in fact, a fake, as has long been suspected. New analysis of the ink used to draw the map found that, as earlier researchers has concluded, the ink is modern. It dates no earlier than the 1920s. While the identity of the forger is not known, and the exact time of forgery hasn't been determined, the new evidence should (but probably cannot) put to rest claims that the map is the oldest cartographic depiction of part of North America in European history.
Last week, viewers fled Hunting Atlantis, with the show's ratings falling even as its lead in, Expedition Unknown, gained viewers. Last Wednesday's episode drew just 605,000 live plus same-day viewers, down 45,000 from the week before. The demo collapse was worse. Only 90,000 adults 18-49 watched. By contrast, Expedition Unknown rose significantly, to nearly a million viewers. It's clear: Viewers aren't into Atlantis.
Another discontented viewer of cable pseudo-documentaries was none other than Erich von Däniken, the Chariots of the Gods author who is feeling a little ignored these days, as his protégé Giorgio Tsoukalos reported: This week, Discovery launched a new series called Curse of Akakor, in which a team traveled to South America in search of a supposed underground lost city and the explorers who died in the 1980s in quest of it. I was surprised to learn that this “new” show was in fact originally produced in 2019 for Facebook Watch and is now being recycled for Discovery. I have not seen the original 2019 broadcast to know what, if any, changes were made, but the titles, cast list, and episode storylines are the same. The “lost city” of Akakor is quite patently a fake, and it’s rather annoying that the show plans an entire series to get to a point that can be made in a couple of paragraphs.
This week, Graham Hancock appeared alongside his self-described protege, author Brian Muraresku, on The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss spirituality, archaeology, and psychedelic topics. Truthfully, I don’t really have a lot to complain about in the general thesis that ancient people were aware of and used mind-altering substances, or that such substances may have impacted their experiences of the divine. However, I feel like Muraresku overstates the case, particularly when he argues that scholarship has forbidden any discussion of the subject since a damnatio memoriae pronounced on the 1978 book The Road to Eleusis and its argument about psychedelics in Greece. For decades, dozens of books have covered the subject, so it is not a forbidden topic, or at least hasn’t been in thirty years.
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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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