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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E20: "Return of the Egyptian Gods"

9/16/2022

The History channel’s efforts to salvage Ancient Aliens by moving it to 8 PM have not panned out quite the way they might have expected. The same 671,000 people tuned in an 8 just as they had at 9 on previous weeks, and the additional 1.5 million people who once watched the show when it was in its prime stubbornly refuse to return to the fold. And why should they? Even the dullest viewer must have begun to notice that the series has nothing new to say. Having run through its usual subjects three or five times over, they have finally decided to go in a new direction, with an episode aping its A+E Networks sister show Biography with a full-hour biography offering a credulous account of the life of Dorothy Louise Eady, better known as Omm Sety, a British folklorist resident in Egypt who believed she was the reincarnation of an Egyptian priestess.

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Review of "How Antigravity Built the Pyramids" by Nick Redfern

9/14/2022

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It’s telling that Nick Redfern starts his book purportedly covering supposed sonic levitation used to build the Egyptian pyramids not with the original medieval Arabic legend of self-moving stones but with ancient astronaut theorist Peter Kolosimo’s reference to it decades ago, in Timeless Earth (1964): “According to an Arab legend, the Egyptians used scrolls of papyrus with magic words written on them, on which blocks for the pyramids came flying through the air!” Redfern frames his story around Kolosimo’s speculative revision of Arab lore and Bruce Cathie’s strange ideas about levitation and antigravity (derived from his own UFO encounter and reluctance to believe lazy humans would drag big stones) rather than the actual primary sources that previous generations of kooks built upon, often secondhand, from still other summaries.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E19: "Secrets of Inner Earth"

9/9/2022

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The idea of a subterranean realm is an ancient one, a mixture of real-life experiences of caverns and caves and ancient mythological ideas about planes layered above the flat earth and below it. The Zohar, an ancient Jewish mystical text, follows this old idea, positing seven planes of existence and claiming that some of the creatures below the surface have such bizarre traits as lacking noses or having two heads. In 1692 Edmund Halley—who also invented the claim that a comet strike destroyed the antediluvian world—proposed that the interior of the Earth featured concentric spheres moving at different speeds, an early scientific version of Hollow Earth theory that soon merged with stories colonial explorers brought back about various peoples’ belief in subterranean ancestors. A great deal of nineteenth century nonsense and twentieth century exploitation eventually gave rise to this episode of Ancient Aliens, culmination and refutation of Hollow Earth Theory.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E18 "Journey to Immortality"

8/26/2022

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Interest in space aliens and UFOs is inexorably intertwined with spiritualist ideas, in large measure because many of the first ufologists were either Theosophists themselves or heavily influenced by Theosophy. As ufology became enmeshed in the New Age, its connections to spiritualist ideas about reincarnation and eternal life became more prominent. It’s no surprise that a parallel track has tied space aliens to life-extension, from TV producer Allan Landsburg suggesting in the 1970s that aliens used cryogenic chambers to extend their lives across interstellar distances to conservative billionaire Peter Thiel studying UFOs as part of a quest for technology to extend his own lifespan closer to immortality. Ancient Aliens isn’t immortal—yet—but it certainly feels interminable.

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Capsule Review of Ancient Aliens S18E16: "Evidence of Alien Life"

8/12/2022

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Another week, another clip show. This episode’s theme is even looser than usual: “Evidence of Alien Life,” which after all is everything Ancient Aliens talks about. The repeats are as follows: 1. The first segment was the fourth of a 2017 episode on “The Alien Hunters,” covering SETI. 2. The second segment was originally the third of a 2019 episode, “The Alien Infection,” covering a Canadian ice cave. 3. The third segment was the third segment also of its original episode, “The Alien Protocols,” from 2018, on panspermia. 4. The fourth segment contains pieces of a 2017 episode, “The Science Wars,” about tests conducted on an elongated skull. The bits were originally strung out across the original episode as a runner. 5. The fifth segment was originally the second segment of a 2019 episode, “They Came from the Sea,” covering meteorites. 6. The last segment is, I think, from a 2019 episode, “Return to Mars,” in which Travis Taylor talks about Martian methane. However, I didn’t find it interesting enough to write about the first time, or now.

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Capsule Review of Ancient Aliens S18E15: "Mysterious Artifacts"

8/5/2022

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Another episode of Ancient Aliens, another clip show. This episode is about artifacts, but we can’t even pretend that the show is doing anything unique with its clip selection since this same topic showed up in the last two cycles of clip shows, which in turn used some of the exact same clips. These segments are barely worth recounting: (1) The Wedge of Aiut, from 2012 and previously recycled in 2021. (2) Copan’s Maya carvings, from 2020; (3) carved Nomoli figures from Sierra Leone, from 2019; (4) Polynesian carvings from the Marquesas, from 2019, a segment from the same show recycled two weeks ago; (5) crystal skulls, from a 2013 episode previously recycled in 2021; (6) the Fuente Magna bowl, from 2012 (with follow-up). There is nothing else to say; it is repeats of repeats all the way down.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E14 “The UFO Investigations”

7/29/2022

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Once again, Ancient Aliens is passing off a clip show as a new episode. Today’s theme is UFO sightings, so it is of some interest that Ancient Aliens and Secret of Skinwalker Ranch star Travis Taylor, formerly on the government payroll studying UFOs, said during a live stream for paid members of the Skinwalker Ranch super-fans site that during his time in government employ, he used his position to provide “cover” for the ranch and prevent “Men in Black” from visiting the ranch. In short, he apparently confessed to being a double-agent actively undermining his government employer’s efforts in order to benefit a cable TV show. Meanwhile, Lue Elizondo told a podcast that officials and governments that do not disclose the truth about UFOs are “not a legitimate government” and said that he “fought” against the ”tyranny” of such governments his whole life. I guess he’ll be at the next January 6-style insurrection.

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Ancient Aliens S18E13: "Decoding the Alien Glyphs"

7/22/2022

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Oh, what a surprise: Another clip show! This time, the topic is ancient paintings and carvings, and once again the episode is comprised of various segments from previous seasons. So, perhaps I should take the space to point instead to a new Popular Mechanics article purporting to discuss the supposed science behind the claim that UFOs are time-traveling future humans returning to our time. It’s ridiculous—we might equally invent scientific rationales for Marvel heroes’ superpowers (oh, wait—everyone does that, too)—but perpetuates the idea that the time-travel speculation in ufology circles is a serious enterprise and not science-fiction fantasy. But, on to the show, as hosted atop a rock by Giorgio Tsoukalos again this week:

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Ancient Aliens S18E12: Extraordinary Encounters

7/15/2022

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We can measure just how much corporate America really cares about UFOs from the fact that at the moment when Ancient Aliens should be experiencing its greatest triumph and maximum power, it’s throwing out a bunch of clip shows. Recently, an Ancient Aliens star was revealed to be the chief scientist for the government’s UFO investigation. This week, the Senate wrote legislation that would codify the Ancient Aliens/UFO Twitter grievance list, under obviously influence from Chris Mellon, Lue Elizondo, and other History Channel UFO stars. UFO amnesty? Check. Letting aggrieved UFO whistleblowers sue for big cash payouts? Check. Ordering a hunt for undersea objects likes those Ancient Aliens says come from Atlantis and Lemuria? Check. Requiring a comprehensive historical study of every intelligence community engagement with flying saucer-related topics since 1947? Double check. And yet, so little care goes into the Ancient Aliens mothership that not only is its “new” batch of episodes phoned-in clip shows, but unlike in the past when most clip shows were their own separate series, these are passed off as official episodes of the mothership.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S18E11: “Incredible Structures”

7/8/2022

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After a long, nearly four-month hiatus, Ancient Aliens returned with “new” episodes, starting with a clip show under the new “On Location” subtitle. This episode presents a series of rerun segments about ancient astronaut theorists’ all-expenses-paid vacations to various structures from around the world that they have repeatedly claimed were inspired or constructed by extraterrestrials. Since all of the material in this episode is repeated from earlier episodes, I have no desire to sit through this again. I will list the structures and link to the original reviews I wrote when they first aired.

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