分类: - JASON COLAVITO

Review of Ancient Aliens S22E01 “Skulls of the Gods”

1/16/2026

After a break of more than two months, Ancient Aliens returned Thursday night, as it has each January, for the start of a new season, its twenty-second over seventeen calendar years, counting from the 2009 pilot episode. I suppose that it is only appropriate that Ancient Aliens returns the same week that its guiding spirit, Erich von Däniken, died at the age of ninety. As long as the series, which was originally an adaptation of Chariots of the Gods, remains on the air, it’s almost like von Däniken is still with us, lying and fabricating shamelessly. Unlike the past two seasons, this one opens with an “original” episode rather than a “Top Ten” clip show. I suppose that is something like progress. On the other hand, the series began its new season with a rehash of familiar material about elongated skulls that the show has repeated for a decade and a half. In a week where Giorgio Tsoukalos was actively posting on X that the supposed “alien” mummies of Peru were nothing but desecrated human bodies made into “dolls,” it is a bit ironic that he is also appearing here to declare some skulls from Peru are in fact extraterrestrial. But that’s where we stand.

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Remembering Erich von Däniken, 1935 – 2026

1/12/2026

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When Erich von Däniken died in Interlaken, Switzerland, at the age of 90 on January 10, I was offline for the weekend. My parents had come to visit their grandson after a major snowstorm had delayed their usual Christmas trip, and we were busy celebrating a somewhat belated holiday. I did not find out about the ancient astronaut theorist’s death until twelve hours after his daughter announced it in conjunction with his disciple, Giorgio Tsoukalos.

It was, perhaps, appropriate that my parents were in town when Erich von Däniken died since it was due to my father that I had any idea who von Däniken was in the first place.

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Erich von Däniken Dead at 90

1/11/2026

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Ancient astronaut theorist Erich von Däniken has died in Switzerland at age 90. The author of Chariots of the Gods (1968) and dozens of other bestselling books died of natural causes in a Swiss hospital, according to his daughter Cornelia. In reporting the controversial author's death and the 70 million copies he sold, the Associated Press credited him with "spawning a literary niche in which fact and fantasy were mixed together against all historical and scientific evidence," In addition to his books and his failed ancient astronaut theme park, von Däniken's legacy includes the adaptation of Chariots of the Gods in 1973 that launched the In Search of... franchise and the adaptation of Chariots of the Gods in 2009 that launched the Ancient Aliens franchise.

I will have a longer write-up about von Däniken and his dubious influence on history and pop culture later in the week.

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A Dark Carnival: 2025 in Review

12/27/2025

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When I started writing year in review columns in 2017, I intended those columns to be an amusing look back at the follies of the year. But somehow, they have grown into a chronicle of an incipient Dark Age, with each year’s rundown becoming a bit gloomier than that of the year before. This year was an especially depressing chronicle of the growing influence of irrational, paranormal, and conspiratorial thought at the highest levels of power, with Congress, the White House, and the billionaire class joining the major media in promoting—and apparently believing—insane notions ranging from space alien visitation to the imminent arrival of the Antichrist. By contrast, the traditional sources of occult and pseudohistorical claims—cable TV and book publishing—all but closed up shop, conceding the ground to Washington, D.C.

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In Brief: Number of Americans Who Believe Aliens Visited Earth Reaches New High

12/19/2025

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The percentage of American who believe that space aliens have visited Earth in the past or are currently visiting has reached a new high, according to a recent YouGov survey. The survey of 1,114 adults conducted last month found that 47% of Americans think aliens have already existed, while 56% are sure aliens exist. This places alien visitation above belief in the existence of Bigfoot (28%), the Yeti (23%), the Loch Ness monster (22%), and Chupacabra (16%). The survey found that belief was roughly even across demographics of age, gender, and ideology, though Republicans were slightly more skeptical of alien visitation than Democrats. Similarly, liberals tended to see potential alien contact as unifying for humanity while conservatives are more likely to see it as a threat. The numbers are a small but significant rise since the 2018 Chapman University survey that found 41% of Americans believed in ancient alien visitations and 35% in current alien arrivals. Most interesting, Americans seem to be polarizing on alien beliefs, with more people expressing strongly pro or con opinions and fewer claiming not to know. While there is no indication of why the numbers have risen, as they have steadily for a decade, the propaganda campaign to promote ufology currently running through Congress and the mainstream media is the most obvious source, amplified through waves of podcasts, YouTube videos, TikTok videos, and other social media platforms that reinforce and harden beliefs.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S21E16: “Mysteries of the Norse Gods”

10/24/2025

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After several weeks of episodes themed around modern ufology, this week Ancient Aliens returned to its classic style in two ways—Not only was this episode centered on the old-fashioned ancient astronaut theory but it was also a remake of a previous episode the covered the exact same subject. You would need a long memory to remember that back in 2013, Ancient Aliens devoted an episode to “The Viking Gods” and spent that hour doing what they do in this hour, claiming that the Norse gods were extraterrestrial beings. As I mentioned at the time, this is a deeply problematic claim because the texts they ask us to take literally as historical records of the gods’ activities also are euhemerizing texts that explicitly state that the gods were human kings wrongly worshiped as gods. You can’t have it both ways; either we take them literally or we don’t.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S21E13 “The Giants”

10/2/2025

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The History channel used to love giants. A decade ago, the network’s schedule was lousy with them. They had an entire series devoted to the Search for the Lost Giants. Three episodes of America Unearthed investigated alleged giants and their works. If you count knockoffs on other channels, like Forbidden History, Legends of the Lost, and Unexplained + Unexplored, you couldn’t escape Bible giants on cable TV back then. The spate of giant-themed programming faded during the pandemic and never recovered. Now, they are mostly the province of YouTube videos and Fox Nation pseudo-documentaries. Closer to our topic today, Ancient Aliens itself has done far too many episodes about giants, including “Island of the Giants” (2018), “Giants of the Mediterranean” (2020), “The Giants of Malta” (2023), and “Egypt’s Giant Tombs” (2024), just to name a few that have “giant” in the title. Many more reference giants. And now we have yet another to add to the collection.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S21E11: “The Birdman Mystery”

9/12/2025

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At the most basic level, the ancient astronaut theory is a form of euhemerism, the philosophy proposed by Euhemerus in the fourth century BCE which held that the wonders of mythology and the various divinities were corrupt and misunderstood retellings of the deeds of real people. Euhemerus himself tended to myths as masking very human truth—so, for him, the gods were simply human kings deified. However, his successors became increasingly fanciful in an attempt to take myths literally while eliminating the supernatural. Dionysius Scytobrachion, for instance, imagined that the Golden Ram that carried Phryxus and Helle through the air was a boat with a ram-shaped prow and the Golden Fleece the flayed skin of a man named Krios (Mr. Ram). Ancient astronaut theorists take this tendency in a sci-fi direction by attempting to be even more literal and find creatures—i.e. aliens—that can allow them to keep even more of the stories unchanged.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S21E10 “The Volcano Factor”

9/5/2025

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There is a secret myth about aliens and volcanoes whose revelation is apparently so sensitive that only the highest-ranking members of a controversial sect are allowed to hear of it. Millions of years ago, a space alien named Xenu brough billions of extraterrestrials to Earth in a spaceship shaped like a DC-8 airplane, affixed them to volcanoes, and then killed them all with H-bombs, releasing their souls to pester humans. Of course, this is the secret teaching of Scientology, in Operating Thetan Level III, so there is no chance that Ancient Aliens would risk the wrath of the alien gods’ lawyers by talking about the most notorious story of aliens and volcanoes on a show dedicated to … checks notes … aliens and volcanoes.

No, this episode is about public domain volcano myths and legends, along with a retread of the episode about why UFOs are attracted to mountains, rebranded with volcanoes.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S21E07: “Mysteries of the Aztecs”

3/21/2025

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After six weeks of clip shows, Ancient Aliens returns with original—well, let’s say “newly filmed”—material this week. Since the show has already done episodes devoted to the Maya, the Tiwanaku people, the early peoples of South America, and Teotihuacan, it’s only natural that they would eventually get around to the Aztecs. I am surprised that it took sixteen years, but I guess there isn’t as much to say about a culture that flourished for only two centuries and overlapped the start of the Renaissance in Europe. They seemed a little too recent and too well-known from the records of the Spanish conquest, which is probably why they were more likely to show up on History’s treasure-hunting shows than on its alien shows.

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<<Previous

Review of Ancient Aliens S22E01 “Skulls of the Gods”

Remembering Erich von Däniken, 1935 – 2026

Erich von Däniken Dead at 90

A Dark Carnival: 2025 in Review

In Brief: Number of Americans Who Believe Aliens Visited Earth Reaches New High

Review of Ancient Aliens S21E16: “Mysteries of the Norse Gods”

Review of Ancient Aliens S21E13 “The Giants”

Review of Ancient Aliens S21E11: “The Birdman Mystery”

Review of Ancient Aliens S21E10 “The Volcano Factor”

Review of Ancient Aliens S21E07: “Mysteries of the Aztecs”

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