Giorgio Tsoukalos Appears on KTLA: "This Is Silly, Very Silly," Anchor Declares

6/22/2018

A couple of days ago, Giorgio Tsoukalos from Ancient Aliens appeared on KTLA’s weekend morning newscast to promote Alien Con. The fawning local anchors were overjoyed to be speaking with Tsoukalos, praising him effusively and giggling with excitement to be speaking with him. “You have your own meme!” one anchor, Lynette Romero, gushed. “I bet everybody wants to sit next to you at the dinner party!” she added later. Her co-anchor, Mark Mester, had trouble taking the whole thing seriously and at one point skipped his turn to question Tsoukalos and just laughed quietly.

But even in the puff piece, Tsoukalos still had trouble offering coherent unscripted thoughts about the intellectual underpinning of the ancient astronaut theory. Romero asked him what the “biggest revelation” about ancient astronauts to “come out of the convention so far” had been. Tsoukalos, seemingly surprised to be asked about evidence, instead said that “The convention has been tremendous” and declining to provide examples of actual new evidence. “It just goes to show how a TV show like Ancient Aliens has resonated with a lot of people,” Tsoukalos said.

It is telling that the segment did not involve any substantive discussion of ancient astronauts, only the cult of celebrity surrounding the cable TV staple.

The segment ended with Romero arranging a “hair-off” between Tsoukalos and her co-anchor. Mester asked Tsoukalos what product he uses in his hair. “The electric socket,” Tsoukalos replied.

“This is silly, very silly,” Mester said.

I think that just about summed up the intellectual impact of the ancient astronaut theory. But it is also a powerful example of how the media serve to normalize extreme and even harmful ideas by recasting them as “fun.” As far as the KTLA producers were concerned, this was little more than a celebrity appearance to promote a fan convention, and the actual content of Ancient Aliens or the message it delivers about history, science, and scholarship were irrelevant. This was just grist for the mill. By normalizing Tsoukalos as a celebrity, and letting him squirm out of having to defend, even minimally, his positions, KTLA contributed to the impression that the ancient astronaut theory is merely a kooky entertainment option and lifestyle choice, not a serious postmodern attack on the integrity of historiography, archaeology, and the scientific method.

It is in his capacity as celebrity that Tsoukalos is most dangerous. He lacks the intellectual chops to create his own material—he steals it all from his mentor, Erich von Däniken—and lacks the talent or the drive to produce books like other ancient astronaut theorists. Instead, he has made himself into a living cartoon, a cuddly avatar of a hypothesis born of a mixture of colonialist, imperialist, and racist beliefs; Soviet propaganda; and postmodern and New Age discontent with midcentury science. It is precisely by being goofy, lightweight, and superficial that Tsoukalos renders bad ideas safe for mass audiences.

Sure, this sounds hyperbolic, but it’s exactly the method that extremists have used for decades to recruit a following. They create a media-friendly, sunny face to gain approving media coverage, and then they use it to slip in the darker, more disturbing parts of their agendas. Alien Con might have been a “fun” place where David Duchovny posed for photos with Tsoukalos, but the stars of Ancient Aliens and their colleagues are the same people who have accused Black people of being a racial failure (von Däniken), speculated that a white master race ruled over the ancient Earth (David Childress), cited approvingly books by a writer with neo-Nazi affiliations and a hate crime conviction (Tsoukalos), claimed Jews were working with Obama and the Chinese to conquer America (the late Jim Marrs), alleged that the Jews and liberals are working with evil aliens to enslave and murder children (David Wilcock), and worse. And those are just the ancient astronaut theorists who appear on Ancient Aliens. The sight of smiling doofuses parading about in homemade tinfoil hats while wearing Tsoukalos t-shirts hides the fact that this is only a mask over a steaming cauldron of identity politics, political grievance, and hate.

42 Comments

Scientific method

6/22/2018 09:51:53 am

And pyramids were built by using ropes and pulleys (laughter in the audience).

Joe Scales

6/22/2018 11:41:16 am

And what a bunch of low-rent aliens they must have been. I mean... with all their vast technology they travel all the way here to pile rocks on top of rocks. Of course we don't have the equipment today to do the same. That's admitted. It's also not needed, as technology has advanced to the point that piling massive rocks on top of each other doesn't get you to that high-rent district. So why build a machine to do so?

Scientific

6/22/2018 12:17:32 pm

This “pile of rocks” has withstood the test of time (it could well be tens of thousands of years because anybodys guess is as good as any other) remarkably well and may thus well served its purpose. And it could well be that with all the chambers and passages the Giza pyramids are some kind of machinery the purpose of which we are still too stupid to understand.

6/22/2018 12:45:09 pm

Fair point. You're too stupid to understand what a pile of rocks is for...

6/22/2018 12:49:08 pm

And what exactly is it for? A tomb? Again laughter in the audience:)

6/22/2018 01:28:15 pm

In a word, vanity.

Naghtiys

6/22/2018 02:09:10 pm

They needed to store the grain to feed the aliens after their long flight.

An Anonymous Nerd

6/22/2018 09:26:03 pm

A good bit is known about how the pyramids (and the Great Pyramid in particular) were built, and why.

We'll start with Mr. Colavito's own write-up, since you're on his site. (It's got a more specific purpose but, still. His site, his links should come first.)

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/who-built-the-great-pyramid.html

Also "Ancient Mysteries" by James and Thorpe has a good writeup.

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Mysteries-intriguiging-Scientifically-explinations/dp/0345434889

Also see National Geographic's writeup.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/01-02/egypt-great-pyramids-giza-plateau/

Also Romer's "The Great Pyramid."

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Pyramid-Ancient-Egypt-Revisited/dp/0521871662

Also Wilkinson's "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt."

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Ancient-Egypt/dp/0553384902

Here's an article about the discovery of writings by the actual builders. Awesome stuff.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping-mining-farming-economy-pyramids-180956619/

Ropes definitely were involved. I think pulleys too as I recall. Also ramps. Back-breaking labor. Good management. Planning. And, really, whatever looked like it would work.

As to motives: Mr. Scales's explanation of vanity isn't too far from reality. Think "mine is bigger than yours" but with death monuments and religious symbolism.

People tend to look at it and be awed by it and think humans couldn't have built it. Consider this, though. Imagine Ancient Egyptians who worked on the pyramids beholding, say, the Empire State Building in New York City. They wouldn't comprehend it any better than we comprehend the Great Pyramid. Especially if they had some idea how much we'd advanced since the 1930s.

At least until they saw some of the plans, materials, etc., then they'd start to understand how we had pulled off such a monumental achievement.

Just like we can understand the Great Pyramid now if we but put a little thought and reading in.

I know nothing will stop folks from scoffing at reality. Can't help that. But I can provide links and reading suggestions and save Mr. Colavito a little time.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Bezalel

6/23/2018 11:01:25 pm

Ignorant audience

6/24/2018 11:01:35 am

It's not the audience's fault. I mean... they are in his head.

Beverly Goldberg

6/22/2018 12:09:46 pm

Do you have to make? When was the last time you made?

IM-PO-TENT

6/22/2018 01:12:44 pm

Thanks for asking. I used to make whoopee, but then I became IM-PO-TENT. However, my farting.was not affected, so now I make whoopee-cushions outside Cairo for Ancient Alien theorists who worship at the Great Pyramid, which was designed by my older brother, IM-HO-TEP. Even the camels laugh at them.

(If you’ll excuse me, I have a spacetime wormhole portal to catch so I can return in due time to my proper Millennium. BTW, your “new” Millennium is really starting to suck big time, so I’m glad I’ll be out of here faster than you can say Giorgio Tsoukalos. May the fart be with you. TTYL — when I return to sell cushions to William Henry and his Giza tour group!)

Hal

6/22/2018 03:29:22 pm

Hi Bev. This is a hate blog so asking something reasonable isn’t reasonable.

Machala

6/22/2018 03:21:08 pm

Giorgio Tsoukalos IS a silly little man. Inconsequential, except in his own mind. He is nothing more than a television presenter who adopted the "bad hair day" look as his attention getting trade mark much the way Salvatore Dali cultivated his waxed mustache. The difference being, of course, Dali was a tremendously talented artist and Tsoukalos is a silly man, on a sophomoric television show, aired on a television channel that no one takes seriously, anymore.

No matter how much legitimate information debunking UFO's sightings, Alien Abductions, or Ancient Astronauts - or skewering Atlantis, Knight Templars, Viking Rune Stone etc. - you will have about as much chance of changing their minds as you would convincing them that there is no Deep State Conspiracy, Immigration is actually good for the U.S., and Emperor tRUMP and his minions and cohorts are only xenophobic, greedy, dogmatists bent on destroying the America, not "Making it Great, Again".

Jim

6/22/2018 05:13:19 pm

Making it grate again.

6/22/2018 05:24:56 pm

And more people recognize Giorgio and have heard of Giorgio than Dali.

6/22/2018 07:27:23 pm

Perhaps among the ill-informed, semi-literate, xenophobes that you associate with, but not in my Circle of Hell.

huh? what?

6/22/2018 07:56:05 pm

Why is it harder for me to legally emigrate to Mexico than for a beaner to illegally invade mi Estados Unidos?

6/22/2018 09:07:49 pm

Huh ? What ?

It is far easier for a gringo to immigrate to Mexico than for a Mexican to legally immigrate to the United States.

Many people in the U.S. confuse citizenship and visas - apples and oranges when it comes to living in a foreign country.
You can, as an expat, live quite comfortably ( assuming you can generate an income ) in Mexico, Central and South America, on a permanent or temporary visa without ever becoming a citizen. The same is true in the States.

The MAJORITY of non-citizens living in the U.S. are NOT illegal immigrants but expats from their respective countries living and working in the States on very difficult to obtain visas.

Huh? What?

6/23/2018 12:50:49 am

Machala, what part of the difference between "illegally invade mi Estados Unidos" and "legally immigrate to the United States" do you not understand? You seem to have purposely changed my question, which was:

"Why is it harder for me to legally emigrate to Mexico than for a beaner to illegally invade mi Estados Unidos?"

I know you're old but try to keep up.

6/23/2018 01:24:51 pm

Huh ? What ?
I prefer the term undocumented immigrant to your racist "beaner" and "alien invaders". I simply chose to offer a slightly different perspective, rather than respond to your obvious, ignorant, and xenophobic screed.

6/23/2018 01:49:45 pm

If they're undocumented they're by definition not immigrants. So "alien invaders". "Beaner" is no worse than "gringo" or "haole".

Unidentified Submersible Object

6/22/2018 07:18:51 pm

I'm pretty sure that Tsoukalos is anti-Trump tho, going by his twitter.

Jason Colavito link

6/22/2018 07:47:20 pm

Yes, he is politically liberal. That actually puts him at odds with most of the ancient astronaut theorists.

Shane Sullivan

6/22/2018 09:15:22 pm

Strange, I've been trying to post a link all day, but I kept getting an error message.

Well, pretend I posted a link to an image of a plastic jug in the dirt with what look like vaguely alien facial features, and the caption, "Ancient skull found on archaeological dig is proof of our alien origins."

Titus pullo

6/22/2018 11:16:51 pm

The price we pay for free speech and a free market of ideas and exchange. The only problem I see is Jason’s descent into intolerence and the natural end to call for censorship. If hate speech becomes everything u hate well there u go. My experience is the people screaming for tolerance and diversity (whatever the hell that Marxist bs is) are the most intolerant of all. Honestly who the hell cares if Georgia peddles bs for a living. So do most politicans and social scientists

Americanegro

6/23/2018 01:20:52 am

I think Jason is just having a week where everything seems to confront him with the sadness that bad speech and the bad thought behind it drives out good.

For perspective, Mark Mester usually gets the fluff assignments and it sounds like Tsoukalos was too crazy even for him.

However I do get worried when I hear the term "extremists" bandied about. Not about the "extremists" mind you...

6/23/2018 06:54:42 am

I'm not calling for censorship, Titus, but you know darn well that ancient astronaut theories and ufology have long been used as a wedge issue for extremist antigovernment, rightist, and racist politics. The media should be treating these ideas with the understanding that they are connected to vile ideas. It isn't just "fun."

6/23/2018 09:51:35 am

"... but you know darn well that ancient astronaut theories and ufology have long been used as a wedge issue for extremist antigovernment, rightist, and racist politics."

Still going with that wishful thinking thought experiment, eh?

6/23/2018 10:00:33 am

Michael Barkun, an expert on political extremism, literally wrote a whole book about it, "A Culture of Conspiracy," which documents this in detail.

6/23/2018 10:43:09 am

Well, let's see what Professor Barkun has to say then...

"My research has focused on the extreme right, so I have not looked at the extreme left, though I know they exist, and they share the same characteristics. Conspiracism is not exclusively a right-wing phenomenon. A main characteristic is a deep suspicion of authority—religious, political, academic, etc. As a result, it doesn’t matter whether the political authority is Democratic or Republican. Conspiracy theorists are as suspicious of Republican presidents as they are of Democrats. For example, a tremendous amount of conspiracy developed around the figure of George H.W. Bush. So there is a non-partisan aspect to conspiracism. Their tendency is not to believe any authority."

6/23/2018 09:55:10 am

Sadly it's an effective tactic to cry "censorship" whenever one's ideas are challenged -- as though the challenge itself constituted "censorship." The Right and the Fringe are great at this tactic.

They're also great at labeling their opponents with negative words, substituting for actual argument: [[My experience is the people screaming for tolerance and diversity (whatever the hell that Marxist bs is) are the most intolerant of all.]]

Not only has that not matched my experience (which tells me that Left-y intolerance exists but isn't as common, all-encompassing, or well-funded as Righty-y intolerance), or my reading (which tells me about the same thing), but my reading of Marx and related readings doesn't suggest much about diversity and things. The use of the label, therefore, clearly is akin to Newt Gingrich, PhD,'s use language throughout his political career. Find words folks don't like. Use them in conjunction with your enemies and ideas you don't like until the public remembers them together.

Great tactics, but no real substance. Oh well. That's the way of the world these days.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Causticacrostic

6/24/2018 08:49:10 am

If you had a penny for every time someone used the term "Marxist"...

GodricGlas

6/22/2018 11:33:38 pm

Hi,

The purpose of the rock-stacks has never been vanity.

Their value comes from creating a medium for economy; the foundation of “civilization” ( or something like Gor, or whatever).

The evidence of our earliest origins, when it comes to this sort of technology, can be found strewn across the deserts of Iraq.

Anyway.

Thanks, Jason! Your work is so deeply appreciated by many.

6/23/2018 09:53:55 am

"The purpose of the rock-stacks has never been vanity."

Says the guy with the short stack...

6/23/2018 03:11:53 pm

That was really funny: “short-stack”. I like you.

Listen though, I am I alignment with Jason: these #s aren’t interested in mysteries, they are interested only in solutions that will help them to remain in the same deep state of dissociation that the fiction they read has provided them with since they learned it could in their youth. It’s like masturbation, only with “literature”, and later with the web their “research”.

The utter mundanity of what the rock stackers have been up to is way more weird and mysterious than ancient aliens. We are the weirdest thing here and will only ever be.

You can totally tell it’s us from the trash piles we leave behind; like the ones I mentioned strewn across the Iraqi desert.

Anyhow, thanks for the dick-joke. I’m always up for that.

6/23/2018 03:54:57 pm

Thanks for that Godricglas. Good sports are hard to come by 'round these parts.

Bill

6/23/2018 02:54:32 am

Jason, You characterized the AAH (ancient astronaut hypothesis) as "born of a mixture of colonialist, imperialist, and racist beliefs; Soviet propaganda; and postmodern and New Age discontent with midcentury science." Please rethink this line of attack because you are rapidly losing your credibility with it. It's the same kind of conspiracy theorizing that you blame David Wilcox of doing, but from a different political perspective.

For thirty years I have been casually acquainted with people involved in ufology/ancient astronaut theory, and I have been to several conventions. The only consistency is that the people involved run the spectrum politically. I have met more left-of-center people than right-of-center. As you know, Erich von Daniken did not invent the AAH, he popularized it. When you look at the early AAH writers, there is little politicizing: it is mostly "gee whiz, I think those were ancient astronauts!" kind of stuff. The "standard" AAH, such as the version proposed by Sitchin, has black Africans as the "mother race" of modern Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago like science does. Also, not every UFO/AAH writer believes in Atlantis, but recognizes that the Fertile Crescent (which included the Levant, birthplace of the Jewish religion) was the birthplace of agriculture and urbanization, and those people were to a large extent Semitic speaking people. That means that the ancestors of the Jews were ahead in the urbanization game, and the Aryan/Indo-European tribes were primitive and had to play catch-up.

As for Soviet propaganda, sure, there have been some Soviet scientists who got interested in the UFO/ancient astronaut theory, but so what? We also have some U.S. scientists, and Australian scientists, and Peruvian scientists equally interested. So is the AAH a sinister American-Australian-Peruvian conspiracy as well?

Some people think that the AAH takes away the accomplishments of many ancient peoples because the AAH suggests that they were taught some of the arts of civilization by ETs. This is not just directed at indigenous peoples, because the basic AAH suggests that this scenario applies to the entire human species. And so what? It just means that humans have always been smart and able to learn things. If it is an insult to suggest that people learn important skills from others, then should we shut down all of our schools and universities, and leave everyone to figure out everything for themselves?

Jason, you're good when you focus on evidence, but don't let yourself fall into the trap of becoming a conspiracy theorist against an entire class of people you intellectually disagree with, namely the large number of people who are willing to consider and discuss a possible reality to UFOs and "ancient astronauts." Most of them are just people who like a good mystery.

6/23/2018 07:05:34 am

It's not a conspiracy, Bill, but there is no doubt that the ancient astronaut theory came out of a particular set of cultural influences. They said it themselves. The early ancient astronaut writers (and most today) drew on 19th century colonialist and imperialist works which were distinctly racist. This is documented. The ancient astronaut theorists merely swapped out white supermen for space aliens, but they didn't do it completely. A goodly number still refer to "white gods" and such. Similarly, Soviet propaganda efforts are a matter of public record. The Soviet research was published in English-language Soviet propaganda magazines aimed at Western audiences. This was done on purpose, by order of the Soviet government. Again, this is not a conspiracy, only a plain fact. Those propaganda articles were then used by Western ancient astronaut writers, typically uncritically, even though the Soviets themselves did not publicize the same material to Soviet citizens.

I don't think there is any question that attacks on the legitimacy of the scientific method and celebrations of alternative ways of knowing (such as ancient wisdom or hallucinogenic drugs) come out of New Age and postmodern philosophies.

You are correct that most ancient astronaut theorists today do not know where their own ideas came from and are not explicitly racist. I have also documented how they have expanded the Victorian speculation to include some European groups, though rarely Teutonic ones. This is the consequence of the telephone game, as copyists copy without understanding what they are copying. But when they lead their readers back to their sources, they lead right back to the original racism.

None of this changes the fact that the talking heads on "Ancient Aliens" have published racist claims and even cited the work of a neo-Nazi to defend their views.

6/23/2018 07:13:45 am

Just to be clear: There is no mastermind pulling the strings in a vast ancient astronaut conspiracy. It's just capitalism and opportunism ignorantly recycling Victorian racist ideas without considering the underlying message.

6/23/2018 10:13:05 am

[[Jason, you're good when you focus on evidence, but don't let yourself fall into the trap of becoming a conspiracy theorist against an entire class of people you intellectually disagree with, namely the large number of people who are willing to consider and discuss a possible reality to UFOs and "ancient astronauts."]]

Mr. Colavito has demonstrated capably, throughout this blog, the connections he writes about here. It doesn't require a conspiracy. Also

[[Most of them are just people who like a good mystery. ]]

No they aren't. Because if they were they would know that you can't solve mysteries by non-evidence-based preconception. Also many of the mysteries they posit have been solved (in another post I have some Great Pyramid-related reading suggestions), and have suggested other, more-awesome mysteries, that these folks never get to because of the flawed preconceptions they make.

So, no, they don't like a good mystery: They like made-up, mysterious solutions. One can get that from reading Tolkien or Lovecraft. No need to try to apply it to reality.

Your post seems to use the "strawman" argument: Using an obviously weak argument and pretending it's your opponent's view. (Paraphrased from Chris White's great formulation of that problem.)

[[Some people think that the AAH takes away the accomplishments of many ancient peoples because the AAH suggests that they were taught some of the arts of civilization by ETs. This is not just directed at indigenous peoples, because the basic AAH suggests that this scenario applies to the entire human species.]]

Not really -- it's mostly non-European cultures that are in for this. I'm unaware, for example, of Ancient Aliens folks attributing Medieval cathedrals to aliens, Closest I can find in some Googling is suggesting some of the imagery came from seeing aliens. Not the same as "these folks couldn't have done this on their own."

Same with castles. If the Ancient Aliens folks have invaded those at all, they're much quieter about it than, say, the Mayan or Egyptian cultures.

And what about Ancient Rome? Google suggests it comes up in the Ancient Aliens circles now and again but not like, say, the Pyramid. Or Mayan architecture.

Here's National Geographic's list of the top 7 Ancient sites folks think aliens built.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/travel-interests/arts-and-culture/ancient-sites-built-by-aliens/

1 is on Mars (they shouldn't have counted that one). 1 is in Europe (Stonehenge). 4 are from the Americas. 1 is from Africa. The pattern is pretty clear. And it is a fair summary of the Ancient Aliens mentality that I've seen based on books and television.

[[And so what? It just means that humans have always been smart and able to learn things. If it is an insult to suggest that people learn important skills from others, then should we shut down all of our schools and universities, and leave everyone to figure out everything for themselves? ]]

Not the same thing. The real, evidence-based explanation holds that people thought of original ideas, and/or learned things from other people who thought of original ideas. (People of comparable intelligences exchanging information on an equal footing intellectually -- if, sadly and depressingly, not always militarily.) Your ideas, though, would have us believe that the only way these Ancient mostly non-European people could conceive of these things was under the direction of a higher intelligence of some kind.

See the difference there?

-An Anonymous Nerd

6/23/2018 12:07:39 pm

"1 is on Mars (they shouldn't have counted that one). 1 is in Europe (Stonehenge). 4 are from the Americas. 1 is from Africa. The pattern is pretty clear."

And "the pattern" is that they predate written records, unlike Rome and the cathedrals of Europe. Pretty simple really, and not race-based.

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