Category: Ufos

Review of Ancient Aliens S19E09: “Aliens in Our Airspace”

3/10/2023

The longer Ancient Aliens has been on the air, the less time they spend on “ancient” material. It’s been many years since the title accurately described the series, and at this point, the show is more or less a catch-all garbage dump for whatever UFO or paranormal material they can shovel into the void. This week’s episode revolves around supposed mysteries involving airplanes, ranging from pilots witnessing UFOs to the disappearance of whole planes. As you might notice, airplanes are not terribly ancient (the show’s claims about prehistoric flying contraptions notwithstanding), and I am growing increasingly tired of UFO stories. Forgive me, but I don’t have the energy to detail every UFO sighting in this week’s episode. Aerial paranormal paranoia is not my area of expertise, so this review may be more of a list than an analysis.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S19E08 “The Mysteries of Alasksa”

3/3/2023

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Maybe we aren’t supposed to remember Missing in Alaska, a History Channel series about paranormal happenings in Alaska from almost a decade ago. Or the episode of The Proof Is Out There from last year in which Ancient Aliens’ sister show looked at the so-called paranormal “Alaska Triangle.” Or maybe we were also supposed to forget The Alaska Triangle, a Travel Channel series from 2020. And we probably aren’t supposed to remember Aliens in Alaska, a 2021 Discovery+ series. Alaska’s paranormal UFO mysteries are growing a little stale after so many televised romps through their fraudulent fantasies, and everyone knows that overripe fake mysteries are exactly the sweet spot for Ancient Aliens, which consistently brings up the rear of the supernatural circus train. This episode, though, is more of a clown car, stuffed with made-up mysteries that aim to be amusing but come across as unpleasant.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S19E07: “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind”

2/24/2023

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Two seasons back, American Horror Story fantasized for half a season that ufology’s fever dreams of alien contact were all true. In Ryan Murphy’s telling, space aliens crashed their UFO into the Earth, Dwight Eisenhower established the Majestic-12 to negotiate an agreement with the aliens that involved selling humans for experimentation in exchange for technology, and he and Richard Nixon worked with alien ambassador Valiant Thor while keeping the aliens secret from Democrats. Or something like that. It seems that somebody at Ancient Aliens was watching because they decided to make their own version of the same set of familiar lies, recycling claims from earlier episodes into a narrative of U.S. government direct involvement with space aliens—with no concern whatsoever for the blatant contradiction between this set of fantasies and the allegation from past weeks that a Pentagon UFO office is a major achievement because we have no knowledge of or contact with space aliens.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S19E05: “The MUFON Files”

2/10/2023

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After the United States shot down a Chinese balloon last week, and even before the U.S. shot down an unidentified aerial object over Alaska Friday afternoon, media outlets from the New York Times on down reported that the government had been unaware of certain kinds of aerial incursions because no one had thought to look for them and that the UFO office run by space poltergeist and cosmic werewolf believer Jay Stratton had classified previous incursions as UFOs and failed to identify them as foreign balloons. As we well know, this is because they were looking for alien spaceships and interdimensional ghost monsters. Insiders blamed the “stigma” of UFOs for the military’s incompetent response to foreign incursions, and UFO believers declared it a great victory for ufology, for if ufologists hadn’t convinced Congress to hunt space aliens, no one would have found the evidence of balloons overlooked due to (checks notes) the stigma and humiliation caused by ufology’s ridiculous alien and space ghost beliefs.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S19E02 “The Crop Circle Code”

1/13/2023

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You will have to forgive me if this review comes in a little shorter than usual. Unfortunately, my shoulder froze up on me due to shifting calcium deposits in my torn rotator cuff, causing inflammation and pain. While I have regained most of my range of motion, my arm is sore, and typing is hard. As a result, I didn’t get to write all of the pieces I intended to post this week. You’ll have to settle for a quick note that the New York Times published a credulous story today about Jacques Vallée’s ridiculous claims about the Trinity UFO crash of 1945, with no contrary views, giving credence both to the tall tales about an avocado-shaped UFO piloted by tiny beings recalled seven decades after the fact by people who were first graders at the time, and to Vallée’s claim that federal UFO legislation was purposely altered to incorporate these asinine ideas. Chris Mellon pops in to the piece and is the obvious instigation for the Times’ return to uncritical UFO propaganda—just in time for Mellon and friends to use the new legislation to put pressure on the Pentagon to give them lucrative sinecures.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S19E01 “The Hotspots Connection”

1/6/2023

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Videos circulating on social media contrasting what alleged “Secret Space Program” space cadet Corey Goode said on cable TV and streaming services with his statements under oath in footage from a September legal deposition provided plenty of laughs. Goode said that he could “create any reality.” Goode stated on the record that he never claimed to have lived on Mars, for example, a claim that he not only made at the Conscious Life Expo, as a viral tweet notes, but one that was also discussed right here on Ancient Aliens in a 2017 episode. The footage came out during the hiatus, but the way exposed Goode as a serial fabricator who does not believe many of his own claims is fairly emblematic of the Ancient Aliens ethos, and as of this writing, Ancient Aliens and the History Channel have neither noted Goode’s legal backtracking, nor corrected the falsehoods they broadcasted, nor apologized for celebrating Goode’s fantastical claims.

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Jacques Vallée Claims UFO Law Amended to Incorporate His Crashed UFO Claims

1/3/2023

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The text of the National Defense Authorization Act requiring the Pentagon to create a historical report investigating the U.S. government’s involvement with UFOs was quietly altered prior to final passage to change the dates covered by the report from 1947 to 1945 in order to force the government investigate ridiculous tall tales about miniature space aliens and an avocado-shaped flying saucer promoted by Jacques Vallée in his most recent self-published book, Vallée claimed in a Daily Mail interview after the bill was signed into law late last month. Vallée claimed that his “friends” in D.C.—by which likely means Chris Mellon, his top fanboy with government connections—pushed the change through on Vallée’s behalf.

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This Was the Year That Was: 2022 in Review

12/26/2022

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This year wasn’t quite as bad as 2021, so I can’t be too upset at a year that, if nothing else, did not get appreciably worse. On the other hand, nothing really improved either. Between inflation and further work cuts in my failing industry, it’s been hard. When a prominent astrologer said this year would be the best of my life, I wasn’t sure whether that was a promise or a threat. It’s a good thing astrology is bunk, or else I would be painfully depressed to think this was the best things will ever get.

In a more general sense, this was a year devoted mostly to UFOs, which dominated the paranoid paranormal discourse for the first ten months, until Atlantis made a late run for the crown.

Here, then, is the year that was, edited and condensed from my blog posts and newsletter.

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Midweek Update: "Ancient Apocalypse," UFOs, and Ghosts--Oh, My!

11/16/2022

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The success of Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse surprised me greatly. The show reached #2 on Netflix’s viewership rankings in the U.S. and U.K. and was in the top 10 worldwide. Consequently, it has become the most-watched speculative history series in a decade, likely outstripping the viewership for previous ratings titans in the genre, like History’s Curse of Oak Island (3 million at its peak), Ancient Aliens (2 million at its peak), and America Unearthed (1.5 million at its peak) and easily leapfrogging similar series on the Discovery, Travel, and Science channels, which averaged around 600,000 viewers. (Netflix does not release exact viewership figures.) Part of the reason is likely due to Netflix itself. Cable channels narrowcast. Viewership for the History or Science channels is primarily older white men, while Netflix, which has found success with other New Age shows like the Gwyneth Paltrow Goop series, can put Ancient Apocalypse in front of all four quadrants: men and women, young and old. Thus, they can appeal to a wider anti-establishment audience that would not tune in on cable.

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UFO Enthusiasts Push Back After Pentagon Concludes Most UFOs Are Drones, Debris

11/1/2022

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The annual UFO report the Department of Defense and Office of the Director of National Intelligence were due to deliver to Congress on Monday has been delayed a few days, but that didn’t stop Pentagon officials from leaking some of the key findings to media outlets including the New York Times and ABC News just weeks before Congress is set to legislate a Pentagon UFO office. The government’s major headline, quite clearly intended to reduce interest in the proposed UFO office’s paranormal possibilities, was that officials had solved a near-majority of sightings, that there is no evidence of space aliens, and that most sightings can be explained as foreign drones, balloons, and aerial debris. Naturally, this garnered significant pushback from the UFO enthusiasts who stand to gain the most from a robust UFO office and have been angling for its sweet, sweet government contracts.

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