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Review of "Confessions of an Egyptologist" by Erich von Däniken

9/25/2021

Confessions of an Egyptologist:
Lost Libraries, Vanished Labyrinths and the Astonishing Truth Under the Saqqara Pyramids
Erich von Däniken | trans. Bernard Sulzer | September 2021 | New Page Books | ISBN: 978-1-63265-191-4

Confessions of an Egyptologist is at least somewhat unusual by ancient astronaut theorist Erich von Däniken’s standards. It is framed not as his usual grab-bag of medieval, Victorian, and midcentury pseudoscience but as a discussion of an Egyptian tour guide he calls Adel H., who died in the 1997 Luxor terrorist attack near the temple of Hatshepsut. His full name, in standard English transliteration (rather than the German used in this book) was ‘Adil Hummam, and the pair had been friends since 1984. I will refer to the man in the book as Adel, however, because it is never clear how much the literary version resembles the actual man. This conceit lasts barely a page before von Däniken (henceforth EVD) winds off on a tangent, asking if Hatshepsut was the “world’s first transgender person.” He can’t write a sustained discussion of anything, even the death of his friend.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S17E05 "The Human Experiment"

9/24/2021

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On the day this episode of Ancient Aliens aired, the new UFO think tank Skyfort associated with Lue Elizondo released its plans for “Phase II” of its efforts to influence the government, academia, and media to investigate UFOs. The plans were heavy on assuming UFOs are otherworldly technology and short on any effort to probe the psychological or perceptional issues associated with sightings. Not long before, the House of Representatives passed the first-ever legislation referencing “unidentified aerial phenomena” by name as part of a directive creating a permanent office of UFO investigation. Also on Friday, Ralph Blumenthal, the ex-New York Times reporter who broke the 2017 AATIP story, published his new article on alien abductees that Blumenthal claimed the Times had refused to run because its new editors are biased against UFOs. The resulting piece was an embarrassment—rehashed UFO stories from old books, biased and uncritical thinking, and poor and unclear writing. It only served to reinforce the degree to which Blumenthal has become a UFO believer who thinks himself immune to conventional standards of evidence, reasoning, and reporting.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S17E04 "The Mystery of Mount Shasta"

9/17/2021

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been eight years since Ancient Aliens devoted a significant segment to Mt. Shasta in California, a New Age hotspot that has long been associated with supernatural, antediluvian, and extraterrestrial phenomena. While there had been stories about mystical mountain mysteries associated with Mt. Shasta, the modern conspiracy theory version comes directly from A Dweller on Two Planets by Frederick Spencer Oliver, a late nineteenth century book inspired by Theosophy that identified Mt. Shasta as a secret base for Atlanteans who had a base in tunnels beneath the mountain:

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Review of Ancient Aliens S17E01 "The Lost City of Peru"

8/6/2021

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It has been nearly five months since Ancient Aliens signed off for its sixteenth season, and over those months, the field of fantastical alien conspiracies has changed markedly. With the New Yorker and 60 Minutes leading the way, the mainstream media burned through a major UFO flap, and the U.S. government made a lot of noise about flying saucers right up until the release of the intelligence community UFO report Congress ordered last year. Its noncommittal, largely half-assed summary of America’s lack of UFO knowledge wasn’t enough to sustain a media and political frenzy that saw high-profile journalists openly fantasizing about alien revelations.

The flap fizzled, even before more pressing concerns turned media focus toward the delta variant of COVID-19. Cable TV and streaming efforts to cash in on the frenzy saw little success.

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Erich von Däniken Blasts Cable TV Shows for Pilfering Claims He Stole First

8/5/2021

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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:

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Scott Wolter Tries to Psychically Contact E.T., Claims U.S. Has Treaties with Aliens

7/29/2021

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Since losing his Travel Channel TV series, former America Unearthed host has been on a downward slide into the depths of conspiracy culture in search of revelation and relevance. Because he no longer has a media platform, I haven’t been covering his antics as much as in the past, but because he is a former three-time cable TV show host and likely to return to TV in some capacity in the future as the demand for filler content grows among streaming services, it’s worth noting some of the extremes Wolter embraced in his latest podcast interview.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S16E10 "The Harmonic Code"

3/13/2021

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On Friday, a few hours before this episode of Ancient Aliens aired, The Atlantic magazine informed me that they would not be going forward with a planned article in which I would report on the influence QAnon conspiracies have taken from conspiracy theories airing on cable television shows like Ancient Aliens. (As per an agreement I signed with The Atlantic on March 15, I am contractually restrained from sharing additional information after that date.) They did, however, invite me to write something else for them in the coming months.

And then Ancient Aliens did an hour about sound waves vibrating connections to space aliens. So, it was that kind of a day.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S16E08 "The Space Travelers"

2/27/2021

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Last week, Ancient Aliens rose total audience, climbing to 998,000 viewers, an increase of almost 50,000 viewers over the previous week’s William Shatner special. But the number of younger viewers watching ticked downward, knocking the show out of the top twenty for the night. I continue to remain amazed that about a million Americans will watch Ancient Aliens even when it simply repeats old material from previous episodes and shamelessly copies and pastes. But people also pay good money to stream reruns of The Office they’ve seen many times before, so I guess it’s to be expected. However, since Ancient Aliens is putting no effort into sewing together Frankenstein’s monster episodes from cadaverous parts, I won’t put that much effort into reviewing it. According to my blog traffic statistics, reader engagement with Ancient Aliens has collapsed. In past years, thousands, often tens of thousands, of people would research the show and find their way to my reviews in the first week after publishing them. This past week, 602 people read my review—fewer than read archival reviews! It just isn’t worth the effort.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S16E07 "Impossible Artifacts"

2/20/2021

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Last week’s heavily hyped experiment in breaking format did not result in exceptional ratings. William Shatner might have done promotional interviews across the internet, but all the puffery in the world couldn’t lift Ancient Aliens beyond its typical audience. About 950,000 viewers tuned in for last week’s two-hour special “William Shatner Meets Ancient Aliens,” a bit below the show’s usual million-viewer audience and about even with the weekly audience for Shatner’s sister show The UnXplained. This week, Ancient Aliens moves to a new, later time slot, running after Shatner and extending past the top of the eleven o’clock hour and out of prime time. But some thing never change. This is yet another episode made up of recycled material we’ve seen over and over for sixteen seasons.

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William Shatner: Moving Large Rocks Is an Inexplicable Cosmic Mystery

2/10/2021

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This Friday, Ancient Aliens presents a two-hour special in which The UnXplained host William Shatner meets with the various talking heads from Ancient Aliens and interviews them about space aliens, science, and futurism. The crossover between Ancient Aliens and sister program The UnXplained is made possible by the two shows’ shared production company. The special runs more than two hours, and it continues well past how late I can stay up as the father of an energetic three-year-old. As a result, I won’t review it until sometime Saturday, when I have had a chance to watch it.

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