High on Fire Releases "Black Plot" Ancient Astronaut Song

Ancient astronauts are everywhere, and apparently they’re now going into the music business. The thrash band High on Fire is about to release their new album Luminiferous, and in anticipation they’ve released their first single from the album, “The Black Plot,” about how prehistoric extraterrestrials have secretly manipulated human history. According to band member Matt Pike, the song is designed to expose audiences to ancient astronaut conspiracies that have been hidden from the public until Ancient Aliens and related media brought them to light.

“It’s about aliens abducting people and manipulating our past, present and future. It’s about the top of the pyramid, so to speak,” Pike told Rolling Stone magazine last month. “And it’s also about alien hybrids, and how we’ve been immersed amongst this culture of E.T.s for thousands of years, and how no one has woken up to it until recently.”

You probably wouldn’t guess any of that from the song’s lyrics, which speak nebulously of “Poison gifts giving death every time now / Rename ourselves as the gods take the blood oath.” Perhaps an earlier reference to “raping” in the dark alludes to aliens’ midnight anal probes, but it appears that the lines quoted above are meant to refer to the oath of Fallen Angels from 1 Enoch 6:4-5 as interpreted through Zecharia Sitchin’s idea of the aliens purposely posing as gods to manipulate humanity into worshiping them.

Pike told Rolling Stone that he subscribes to the ancient astronaut theory in its most classic form, including popular claims that ancient astronaut theorists have rejected, such as aliens physically constructing ancient wonders like pyramids and ziggurats. He claims that the Epic of Gilgamesh documents the achievements of the extraterrestrials, and he cited Genesis 6:4 as proof that humans and aliens engage in frequent sexual intercourse, as Erich von Däniken long maintained. According to Pike:

“Even the Bible talks about it, the giants — the Nephilim — loving human women,” he maintains. “Who wouldn’t love human women? Dude, if I was some sort of alien or fallen angel who disagreed with God, I’d be like, ‘Dude, I’m going to fuck every girl on this planet that I can! Because they’re hot!’” he adds with a laugh.

I’d laugh back at the silliness of Pike’s claims, but they quickly devolve in to the serious when Pike tells Rolling Stone that conspiracy theories have changed the way he sees the world. “When conspiracy theories become conspiracy facts, it’s kind of an amazing thing, because it fucks with your brain, and it fucks with my being on this earth.”  He intends to advocate for the ancient astronaut theory in order to bring about social change in a world he considers to be politically, socially, and economically corrupt:

At the same time, man, the only weapon I have, as far as being a good human being, and sticking up for my race, is my voice. I was given a voice to say something, and I’m doing just that. I gotta say something, man! Look at the world around you and tell yourself it's OK, because it’s really not, dude; it’s so fucked up.

Here we see that the ancient astronaut theory is once again serving as a pseudoscientific covering for what in another era might have been a religious or cultural revitalization movement.