Comedian and macadamia nut farmer Roseanne Barr suggested that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a “Nephilim,” which the former sitcom star used as a synonym for space alien: “I think he’s an alien from another planet,” Barr told The Star. “He doesn’t seem fully human. Was this guy invented in a lab?” The reporter wasn’t able to follow Barr’s reference to Nephilim and so discussed it parenthetically as “fallen angel, son of god or space alien.” Barr meant this as a joke, but it reinforces the idea that the ancient astronaut theory and Ancient Aliens is seeping into everyday discussion in weird ways. Specifically, the weird way seems to be through the good offices of the History Channel. They are the ones who are actively driving the demand for bad ideas and sparking still more. Our case in point today comes from our friend L. A. Marzulli, who is recovering from his recent admission that the “demon fairy” he hyped in both his Watches X DVD and his newest book is a fake. He has now capitalized on the hoax by portraying his admission that he had rushed to market with half-assed research as a brave stand toward integrity. Marzulli posted a 40-minute video outlining how he discovered the hoax but neglected to apologize for not having done the research before selling thousands of Watchers X DVDs and companion books based on unfinished research (over several years!) and his bottomless credulity. In his video analysis, the narrator says that this is “another example of how Watchers sweats the details to bring you the truth!” Just not before charging you cash money for the lies. Similarly, Marzulli ought to be reeling for a fascinating, thorough, and powerful analysis of the flaws in his DNA tests of elongated skulls from the Paracas people of Peru. Jennifer Raff offered an extraordinary critique yesterday through the expedient method of reading Marzulli’s own book, Nephilim Hybrids. You must read the piece for yourself for all the details, but the bottom line is clear: Marzulli’s team left too many opportunities to contaminate the samples, and the resulting discovery of “European” DNA is almost certainly due to contamination from Marzulli’s team. I was surprised to learn that despite the implication in Marzulli’s publicity materials for Watchers X, his tests were conducted not on skulls in Peru but on remains in a private collection in Oregon, for which no provenance was provided. But to return to the issue at hand: Just before the demon fairy admission, Marzulli posted a new video about America’s Stonehenge, also known as Mystery Hill, and it represented a moment of cross-pollination between fringe historians united through History Channel patronage. Marzulli, who has appeared on History Channel shows like Search for the Lost Giants, said that he first learned of Mystery Hill from a very familiar source: “I first heard about this very enigmatic site while watching the History Channel’s show America Unearthed.” America Unearthed, hosted by geologist Scott Wolter, aired on both the History Channel and its now-defunct secondary channel H2. Wolter is currently hunting giants and Nephilim with his business partner under the Xplrr Media LLC banner. Marzulli described the episode of America Unearthed about Mystery Hill as “mind-blowing.” He was particularly taken by the “complex” astronomical alignments of the site. “In my opinion,” Marzulli writes, “and that of several other Native American people that I have talked to, Native Americans did not create these types of earthworks or sites.” He is indeed correct, but not for the reason he thinks. Virtually every archaeologist who has written about the site agrees that the site, as currently constructed, is a modern reconstruction of stone buildings that were originally made in the colonial period, likely as cold cellars or storage units. Historical photographs demonstrate that the “ancient” alignments and features were largely created by the owners of the site in the middle twentieth century as they rebuilt the site according to their belief in its ancient astronomical function. Marzulli, however, is not content merely to accept Scott Wolter’s TV show as factual at face value; he also has to attribute the site to the Nephilim. In the program Wolter endorsed the speculative idea presented by Kelsey Stone, the son of the site’s current owner, that one of the stones on the site aligns with both Stonehenge and Beirut, Lebanon, “proving” a Phoenician connection to both sites. Because the stone is (a) irregular in shape, making an exact alignment subjective and (b) was repositioned in modern times, this alignment is entirely fictitious. However, Marzulli doesn’t care and determined that Satan is behind it. From his partial transcript: I discussed this with a surveyor who was taken aback by the information I presented to him. He told me that the only way this could be done would by triangulation from the air. That statement immediately led me to think: who is the prince of the power of the air? […] It is contention of the Stone and his father [that] this site is about 4000 years old and was created by the Phoenicians. What Stone didn’t know was [that] the Phoenicians are the descendants of the Canaanites who were, in my opinion a Nephilim Tribe. Note that Marzulli claims in his video that the Nephilim are “soulless.” He admits that killing descendants of Nephilim would be “genocide,” but he says that he supports their eradication because these people’s lack of souls means that they can be killed without consequence or sin. “So, is it genocide? No, it isn’t genocide. It goes back into this whole idea that we’re in a cosmic war between the fallen cherubim and the one-third of the angelic host which fell with them and the Most High God.” Marzulli, in earlier posts, alleged that the Nephilim were responsible for inducing homosexuality, and his colleague Steve Quayle claims that homosexuals are tainted with Nephilim genes. Do the math. It’s pretty clear what Marzulli is using his dog-whistle to say. The cider-pressing or lye-pressing table displayed at the site as the “sacrificial” table becomes for Marzulli proof that Mystery Hill was the site of human sacrifices akin to those performed by the Nephilim in Peru, at Stonehenge, and in the Phoenician lands. He claims to have “accessed” the “chamber” beneath the sacrificial altar and concluded that it must have been for containing the human victim. This “chamber” is another fake, constructed when the “sacrificial” table was repositioned decades ago. Photographs show that the “table” was flat on the ground in the 1940s, and has at various times since then been high up on tall legs or close to the ground on short legs. Marzulli says that he hopes the site will be excavated to search for human remains because he believes such remains will prove to be those of giants or fallen angels, whom he considers the builders of the site. He concludes his video thus: So we have a disparity between mainstream archaeologists and those of us, like Scott Wolter and myself, as well as the Stone family that believe the Americas were visited by people from the Europe and the Middle East long before the days of Columbus. Is this site the remains of what I have come to call Fallen Angel Technology and Nephilim architecture? Like much of what we explore, it only leads to further questions. Note the way that Marzulli is purposely tying himself to Scott Wolter, attempting to draw the History Channel’s cloak of “credibility” over himself. Those “further questions” are only question if you have a paranoid conspiracy mindset that is struggling to fit everything into a Nephilim framework and trying desperately to make every part fit, even when the facts are clearly against you.
35 Comments
Only Me
9/21/2016 11:12:57 am
I'm gonna say Marzulli's grip on reality is tenuous, at best. No rational mind, in my opinion, sees Nephilim, aliens, whatever fringe du jour, in *everything*.
Reply
Bob Jase
9/21/2016 12:03:12 pm
"Marzulli claims in his video that the Nephilim are “soulless.”
Reply
A Buddhist
9/21/2016 06:39:20 pm
Well, as per non-heretical Buddhism, no one has a soul. But few are wise enough to realize this without falling into the error of materialism.
Jim
9/21/2016 08:04:40 pm
It's my understanding that a cue-cat scanner can detect souls.
Reply
mike jones
9/22/2016 05:59:53 am
best comment
Kathleen
9/22/2016 11:17:07 am
Agreed
RiverM
9/22/2016 11:05:28 pm
Even the lobotomized would question the need for such a device, as it was intended. Maybe it does to souls what Bubba Ho-Tep did. 9/25/2016 02:51:09 pm
no one "has" a soul we ARE souls. Adam BECAME a living soul when the breath of life was breathed into him. "soul" is a portmanteau word that can mean the life, the well being, the immortal part and the whole body soul spectrum that is a living being. at death the denser part drops off and the being goes on in a reduced condition.
Reply
Kal
9/21/2016 12:04:49 pm
So the local Native Americans of that region, displaced from somewhere else and brought there by the US, obviously wouldn't know who built the colonial mounds.
Reply
David Brody
9/21/2016 02:22:44 pm
No reason to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a perfectly good diatribe, Jason. You yourself acknowledge that the "original" owner of the site excavated under the stone slab and found the legs. From your earlier post: "Goodwin, as noted in the comments below, claimed to have found the legs in situ while excavating beneath the stone." (And this was only added by you when a reader specifically pointed it out.) Other "historical photos" you rely on are far from conclusive. You are no better than the people you continually criticize: You cherry-pick the facts to support your argument. You are, of course, free to reach your own conclusions. But I think it is disingenuous to do so without disclosing all relevant facts.
Reply
9/21/2016 02:58:24 pm
You mean like Marzulli disclosed all the "relevant" facts? How then are the legs of different size in different decades? Why is there sometimes a monolith standing beside the "sacrificial" table and other times not?
Reply
David Brody
9/21/2016 03:19:48 pm
Obviously I'm not going to defend Marzulli. But there are so many open questions about this site, yet you dismiss it so, well, dismissively. For example, the carbon dating is much more complicated a question than you let on--see here http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/rothview.htm , bringing the age of the structures to before the Pattee family arrived. And the idea that these structures were built as root cellars. If so, why no doors? And why are the openings too narrow for wheelbarrows? The "apple cider press" conclusion is also shaky: Why carry the apples up the hill to press them, only to have to carry the cider back down? Of course the site was reworked. Nobody denies that. The question is, what was it and who built it originally if not the Pattee family?
Only Me
9/21/2016 04:20:54 pm
Two huge red flags from the article, David.
David Brody
9/21/2016 04:54:46 pm
@ Only Me: Your second comment is a fair one. It would be nice to find ancient artifacts or tools at these sites. But the fact is that mainstream archeologists refuse to dig at them, often fearing being ostracized. So it becomes a Catch-22--how to find artifacts without a dig? That leads me to your first point. Yes, NEARA was founded by Robert Stone. It was not just "neat," it was a necessity if any work on the site was going to be done.
Reply
Only Me
9/21/2016 05:39:39 pm
You would have a point if refusal by mainstream archaeologists was as much a problem as has been claimed. As I recall, previous excavations at Mystery Hill have shown a lot of evidence of Native American activity going back to the Late Archaic or Early Woodland periods.
Thomas Schroeder
9/21/2016 05:56:02 pm
I hear, a lot, the argument that Archaeologists don't want to stick their necks out with respect to new discoveries and that is simple not supported by the facts.
David Brody
9/21/2016 06:10:23 pm
@Thomas Schroeder: I wish what you said were true. My experience (I am a member of NEARA and used to sit on its Board) is that many archeologists are intrigued by these "fringe" sites but are reluctant to get involved and face criticism from their peers. Stanford and Bradley got pummeled for their work.
Uncle Ron
9/21/2016 02:46:29 pm
Every time I read about one of these clowns saying what I think is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you manage to find one saying something stupider. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Reply
Kal
9/21/2016 03:00:39 pm
How do we know the guy didn't make the site himself to drum up some kind of publicity? After all, we have Car Henge, the Berkeley Stones, the old grain silo, and the KRS...Nobody is convinced Car Henge is really any kind of ancient site.
Reply
Bob Jase
9/21/2016 03:54:12 pm
Shoulda used older cars.
Reply
SouthCoast
9/21/2016 10:01:01 pm
Would be an interesting use for derelict Amish buggies.
Kal
9/21/2016 03:07:03 pm
Funny that this site is sometimes confused for journalism by posters. It is an opinion editorial site, not a fact finding research site. It looks at other peoples opinions on aliens and weird mysteries, and makes educated guesses. It therefore does not have to be concerned with getting everything right. Even real journals get some things wrong. It is hardly conclusive or a scholarly letter.
Reply
Patrick Shekleton
9/21/2016 08:23:18 pm
RE: Thomas Schroeder
Reply
Only Me
9/21/2016 08:55:08 pm
It would helpful to know the identities of the discoveries that were redacted. That might explain the responses, especially number one.
Reply
Patrick Shekleton
9/21/2016 10:28:41 pm
@Only Me
Only Me
9/21/2016 11:45:16 pm
"I am very specific in not broadening what I experienced out into a larger context." Really?
Mark L
9/22/2016 03:50:46 am
Have you got any evidence of these whispering campaigns against legit archaeologists making legit discoveries?
Ken Feder
9/21/2016 10:21:17 pm
Patrick and David:
Reply
Patrick Shekleton
9/21/2016 10:40:11 pm
@Ken Feder
Andy White
9/22/2016 06:52:35 am
I just wanted to briefly echo what Ken said, and also acknowledge that I understand where Patrick is coming from. While I think archaeologists do have a broad responsibility to mesh with the public, we indeed aren't a "service industry" that has the capacity to address every interesting idea from members of the public at the level they would like. Archaeologists often spend many years (if not decades) chipping away at specific questions with targeted research. That's how we typically generate knowledge, rather than through spectacular (or even press-worthy) discoveries. I wish I had the resources to throw at every problem that was interesting, but it just doesn't work that way. I can barely keep up with what I've got going on a day-to-day basis, and it's very difficult to find any discretionary time or resources to take an afternoon to go look at a new site, let alone turn on a dime and create and entire new research project.
Peter Geuzen
9/22/2016 09:21:43 am
I'm a bit confused. Are there not private sector consulting archaeologists that can simply be paid to dig, regardless of whether thy find anything. These are credentialed people that follow standard guidelines and use good science. In Canada we have plenty of arch consulting firms and plenty of requirements for them. Is the US different?
Gunn
9/22/2016 01:06:57 pm
I have come to know the feeling that David Brody expressed in an above comment about the seeming reluctance of professionals to become involved with what would be considered by the academic world as fringe history.
Gunn
9/22/2016 01:09:23 pm
http://www.norwegianamerican.com/opinion/in-defense-of-the-kensington-runestone-a-code-stone/
Gunn
9/23/2016 02:56:25 am
Hey Gunn, rather than post these long "woe is me" comments, why not work on that scientifically-argued article for Andy White? Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
Enter your email below to subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my latest projects, blog posts, and activities, and subscribe to Culture & Curiosities, my Substack newsletter.
Categories
All
Terms & ConditionsPlease read all applicable terms and conditions before posting a comment on this blog. Posting a comment constitutes your agreement to abide by the terms and conditions linked herein.
Archives
November 2024
|