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On Fake Documentaries and Why Giorgio Tsoukalos Doesn't Want to Know Where the Aliens Come From

8/6/2013

28 Comments

 
It looks like there’s finally starting to be a little bit of a backlash against the rampant fakery in cable documentaries, thanks to, of all things, extinct sharks. On Sunday the Discovery Channel aired a fictional pseudo-documentary on the megalodon, a prehistoric shark. Called Megaladon: The Monster Shark Lives, program claimed that the long-extinct creature was still alive, and a team of actors portrayed scientists and others commenting on the existence of the creature, sightings of the creature, and legends of large sharks. The documentary had a very small, poorly-worded disclaimer that “certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized.”

The program aired during Discovery’s annual “Shark Week,” and apparently the high-profile fakery spawned a backlash from viewers and the media alike, including a complaint in Discover magazine and outraged reaction on Twitter. The sanctity of Shark Week violated, the same people who have had no trouble with Ancient Aliens on A+E’s H2 network are shocked, simply shocked to find fakery and lies going on in cable television. Consider Wil Wheaton’s reaction: “Discovery Channel betrayed its audience.”

Now why is it that an hour of fiction on a shark produces international outrage, but a weekly series asking us to worship aliens or one claiming Jesus’ miracle kids are the secret rulers of America garner no such protests?

I’m also surprised that so few commentators are aware that Discovery is also the parent company of Animal Planet, whose two fake mermaid documentaries in 2012 and 2013 were among the channel’s biggest ratings successes. No wonder Discovery imported the technique to its main channel. Last night Discovery’s other channel, the Military Channel, showed a documentary that advocated the existence of the imaginary Vril Society, a fake Nazi-era occult group whose existence was promoted by ancient astronaut theorists like Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels. They also showed another hour on the Nazis’ secret meetings with extraterrestrials. These documentaries were intended seriously, and their makers believed them to be true or simply did not care whether they were true.

The problem, of course, is that Discovery aired their fake documentary in the middle of nonfiction programming and they did nothing to suggest it was anything but truthful. Sure, Animal Planet had done the same thing, but they made their mermaid show into an event rather than burying it amid similarly-themed truthful programs.

The selective media outrage, though, is disheartening. At the same time that Discover asked readers to protest Discovery, the Gannett newspaper chain published a lengthy new article on UFOs in which they gave Ancient Aliens star Giorgio Tsoukalos a platform to promote the youth appeal of fake science and the “Contact in the Desert” ancient astronaut-UFO conference:

“This is a really, really great conference to attend if you’re interested in talking in person to the people that have appeared on ‘Ancient Aliens,’” said Tsoukalos, an associate of “Chariots of the Gods” author Erich von Daniken. “I am always incredibly grateful to be not only invited to speak at these things, but also to go to them and meet people interested in these topics because, back in the early ’90s, the average age of conferences like this was in the 80s. Now there are young people coming and that to me clearly indicates a craving for knowledge — knowledge that clearly exists.”

I will generously assume he meant that the conference-goers of the 1990s were in their 80s, not the conferences themselves. So far as I know, he is also wrong, though conference-goers twenty years ago were largely in late middle age.

The article provides no balance, or even an attempt to suggest that ancient astronautics has detractors. Instead, Tsoukalos informs us—and this blows my mind—that he doesn’t care about the actual facts about the aliens!

Tsoukalos doesn’t necessarily believe we’ve had contact from Venus. He doesn’t want to know where the aliens are from because, he said, “That to me adds another level of speculation that actually turns off the general public to our ideas. I think it is better to approach the general public with just the idea that we’ve been visited.”

HE DOESN’T WANT TO KNOW! Surely the reporter must have gotten this wrong. There’s no way that anyone could possibly devote his life to the ancient alien idea and not care who the aliens are. Besides, Tsoukalos is on record on Ancient Aliens as supporting the notion that the aliens’ home world is in the Orion nebula. In fact, he told us that bird-headed men from Orion staffed a space station that orbited earth in the Babylonian period (Ancient Aliens S05E04, “Destination Orion,” January 11, 2013). Isn’t it a bitch having your every weird claim on record?

So, to recap: Suggesting the aliens came from a particular planet “turns off” audiences, but telling Ancient Aliens viewers that bird-headed aliens from the Orion nebula built a space station to monitor Babylon is perfectly fine. Conclusion: Ancient Aliens viewers are not the general public.

On the plus side, though, the White Mountain Independent published this editorial opposing the ancient astronaut theory in yesterday’s paper.

I am of the opinion that the ancient peoples of the world do not get the credit they deserve for innovation and intelligence. The ancient Greeks built self-propelled, steam-driven three-wheeled carts and other things that can only be described as machines full of gears that drove mechanisms. But alien visitors imparting that knowledge to them is just not fair to the human inventors of long ago who actually deserve the credit for thinking outside the box.

So, it’s not all bad. But the selective outrage in the media is strange. It seems that the bottom line is that cable TV can get away with lying outrageously about anything so long as it doesn’t infringe on the sanctity of … sharks? What makes Megalodon different from Mermaids, Ancient Aliens, or America Unearthed? I think the difference is that Megalodon was too easily debunked because the facts were too well-known and too easily verified. The other shows are harder to pick apart because they require historical background that the average viewer, even many educated viewers, don’t have. Megalodon was easy to attack and thus created a critical mass of outrage. Ancient Aliens and America Unearthed are false but are made by people who believe they are true (or don’t care) and therefore get a pass.

And as Tsoukalos notes, that free pass has helped the ancient astronaut theory influence a whole new generation via the Ancient Aliens TV show, bringing thousands upon thousands of young people into the fold. 

28 Comments
Derrick
8/6/2013 06:14:06 am

What really sad is the fact that new episodes of Ancient Aliens were announce on the show Facebook page just after the Megalodon documentary. You sorta wonder if the networks are competing to outdo each other or the producers of Ancient Aliens are taking advantage of the outrage with Megalodon to announce new episodes while their critics are spending all their time on the Discovery Channel.

Reply
Tara Jordan
8/6/2013 06:38:56 am

Jason,I was wondering.The sleazy & tacky snake oil peddler Giorgio Tsoukalos ever commented or interacted on your blog?.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/6/2013 06:42:08 am

Nope. The last I heard from him was almost 10 years ago when he sent me an email to inform me that he would warn all ancient astronaut theorists of my "malevolent" intentions. When we were both scheduled to be interviewed for National Geographic last year, he demanded his own separate filming date to make sure he would not have to speak with me or any other skeptic. He would only attend a shoot with other believers, so they had to schedule skeptics for one day and believers for later in the week.

Reply
Tara Jordan
8/6/2013 07:38:29 am

I was thinking about yesterday`s post,you mentioned the career opportunity you missed & the very issue about what you "almost became".You are not a millionaire,you "didn't make it" as a big time media celebrity,but you can watch yourself in the mirror.I am probably old fashion but I consider there is something more important than money, it is dignity,self-esteem & integrity.These miserable cartoonish charlatans & professional crooks don't have an ounce of dignity.I wish i could pray to Bacchus the god of alcoholics, to rid us from this blathering pestilence.

The Other J.
8/6/2013 11:40:27 am

So has Will Wheaton previously come out in support of Ancient Aliens? I honestly don't know -- I don't really track Will Wheaton, or many people who follow Ancient Aliens beyond this blog. I'm just not sure if the same people who are watching Ancient Aliens are the same people who are watching Shark Week, giving one a pass and one extra fact-checking scrutiny. Maybe they are.

But I think you hit it on the head near the end of your post: It's far easier to be convincing (if not correct) when the actual facts up for debate are in question, and opinion and speculation are uncritically passed on as fact. There aren't many facts up for debate with regard to megaladon, so it's just far easier to A.) shut down the speculation, and B.) call bullshit without the need for a dedicated website to break down where the bullshit begins.

If more people applied the same kind of critical thinking to these areas as they do to baseball and football, there would be far less fanciful speculation passed off as documentary. That's not a crack at sports fans; it's just an observation that critical thinking skills do exist in the general populace, but they're not evenly applied. It's probably because sports tends to hit people where they live more readily -- people played a sport growing up, or had a relative who did, or just enjoyed a local or state team and fell into the culture.

But I'm not sure how you'd make issues like alternative history more relevant to people, because it's hard to tell how seriously the majority of people tuning in take it. Obviously there's a critical mass who take it seriously enough to warrant conferences of true-believers, but the Venn diagram showing the overlap of true believers and people tuning in for entertainment might not be as large as we expect. The unfortunate thing is the network isn't looking at the side of the Venn that shows true believers; they're only interested in the numbers tuning in, for whatever reason.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/6/2013 11:46:36 am

I didn't mean to imply Wil Wheaton supported Ancient Aliens, only that the same news media jumping on Discovery for this show hasn't cared at all about Ancient Aliens or other History lies.

While you're right that many viewers treat these shows as entertainment, communications research has found that when people see things on TV--even things they know are untrue--they later recall them as though they were true, and the lies replace truth. That's why, for example, corrections to news media mistakes are all but worthless; in fact, studies have found that corrections actually make readers more likely to believe the original mistake because that's all they remember days or weeks later.

Reply
The Other J.
8/6/2013 01:29:34 pm

Okay, I've seen some of that research before, and seen politicians put it into action. It's crazy -- like if after a debunked scandal, a politician comes out and repeatedly says that their opponent wasn't unscrupulous, wasn't a crook, etc., and keeps going back to the thing that was debunked in their rhetoric, the thing that sticks in the passive audience's mind is the slur, not that the slur was being challenged.

Is that communications research part of the same research that showed if someone was confronted with facts that challenged a shaky political belief or conviction, they were more likely to retain their original position in spite of the countervailing evidence? I think that work showed that the more ardent someone was in their beliefs, the more firmly they held on to them when shown evidence against those beliefs. That study was about political positions, but it always comes to mind when seeing some of the debates about ancient aliens, lost white tribes in North America, and giants.

Martin J. Clemens link
8/6/2013 11:45:24 am

Frankly, I'm surprised there was outrage at all. Despite the ease with which viewers could debunk the Megalodon lies, it's surprising anyone did. That "general public" that Tsoukalos so highly reveres, is largely just a giant nest of hatch-lings with their mouths agape, waiting to be spoon fed whatever the magic-TV-box has to say.

As Rebecca Costa said in The Watchman's Rattle, as facts become more complex, and a deeper understanding of the issues begins to require specialized knowledge, the masses will turn to easy to find and easy to digest superstition and myth.

Reply
Tara Jordan
8/6/2013 04:07:06 pm

Quite an elegant way to imply that the general public is a brainless herd of congenital morons.I totally concur.

Reply
Varika
8/6/2013 06:16:04 pm

Sorry, but this attitude always bothers me. You're PART of the "general public," guys. Sorry you hate yourselves so much, then.

Seriously, people need to be TAUGHT how to think critically, and unfortunately, the vast majority of people not only aren't, they're taught not to try. Those of us who were are fortunate, and we should acknowledge that and not indulge in anti-intelligence bigotry that's just as nasty as any racism or sexism.

Steve Steele
7/25/2014 02:41:45 pm

Is this the same brainless heard that believes that a man lived inside a giant fish's belly for three days and lived to talk about it. Or maybe the same brainless herd that believes a man built a boat large enough to stow away 2 of each animal on earth.. Or perhaps it's the herd of dummies who think a man could part a sea. You see it's the idiots who put their entire faith in stories rather than understand that it's completely obsurd to think we are the pinnacle of life and that this entire universe was created just for us. It's the same crowd that believes anything that those in power will tell them like cave dwellers pulled off 911. You damn idiots. Ostriches!

Tara Jordan
8/6/2013 07:20:58 pm

Varika,
What bothers me is the cheap "humanism" & pedagogic posturing (which I assimilate to demagoguery).You have the right to be idealistic, & your desire to change the nature of man & the fabrics of society is quite an honorable endeavor,but I believe in self determination. All men are created equal by birth, but life demonstrates that they are not (& this has nothing to do with race,ethnicity,nationality,gender or religious affiliations).By the way,statistics are on my side.You only need to take a look at polls,more people believe in angels and the devil than believe in the theory of evolution.

Reply
Jim
8/7/2013 04:25:29 am

It is as if we are entering a modern dark age. Even when we as a society possess the requisite knowledge to explain a given phenomenon, a significant portion of the population prefers to indulge in superstition and magical thinking. The barrier of entry for acquiring knowledge has never been lower in human history; unfortunately, the same conditions that allow easy access to knowledge are also available for spreading nonsense.

Varika
8/7/2013 10:48:09 am

Tara, my point isn't that I think that no one person is any smarter than another. Hell, I'm smarter than most people I know--literally; my brother and I both qualify as geniuses. My point is that there is no cause for the kind of scornful hatred you were pouring out. That the majority of people believe in something or turn to some specific kind of explanation doesn't make them "congenital morons," it makes them IGNORANT. One is potentially correctable, and the other isn't.

I really don't see how self-determination means you have to be a nasty piece of work, basically. Doesn't that mean that you're CHOSING to abrogate logic and critical thinking for unthinking bigotry? "The general public" must be "congenital morons." But you're a MEMBER of the general public, so simple Boolean logic says that the premise MUST be false. Therefore, stating as fact that "The general public is a brainless herd of congenital morons" is strictly the kind of unthinking prejudice you are claiming makes people into idiots in the FIRST place.

Basically, if you're going to claim to be superior, BE SUPERIOR, don't be just another flavor of the same thing.

Tara Jordan
8/7/2013 06:34:11 am

Jim.I concur.There is no excuse.Nowadays even outside the educational system,people have the tools & the means to cultivate themselves, but most choose not to.Ignorance is the byproduct of laziness.

Reply
Tara Jordan
8/7/2013 01:51:28 pm

Varika.
1)People are created as equal but they make the decision to be what they eventually become, this explains my reference to congenital moronism. You are right,you are smarter than most people,& there is a reason for it,like most superiorly smart individuals,you decided to educate yourself,hence my reference to self determination.
2)I refuse the idea that I am part of the "general public". You may challenge the claim, but again I have the statistics to prove it,my IQ.
3)I am probably "intellectually racist" since I believe that some individuals are genetically superior than others.

Reply
Jabberjaw
8/6/2013 12:20:44 pm

That was fake?

Reply
The Other J.
8/6/2013 01:23:57 pm

nyuk nyuk nyuk

Reply
John McKay link
8/6/2013 04:15:38 pm

I don't think the selective outrage is that hard to parse. Check the ratings. Shark Week is a big ratings event for Discovery. For certain science geeks, this like the Oscars. They start counting the days till it starts weeks in advance. Teachers and actual shark scientists watch the shows. Check out @WhySharksMatter on Twitter. David Shiffman, a shark conservation expert (due diligence, and a friend of mine) was among those giddy with anticipation and outraged at the result. Paleontologists were similarly outraged.

Compare Tsoukalos. How many people watch his show? How many archeologists or astronomers count the days before each season? How many people, who are not already on the fringe, tune in expecting to be educated. People know what to expect with Tsoukalos. Fringies might be fascinated, but experts aren't caught off guard.

On the other hand, people tuning in to Shark Week might expect sensationalism, but they don't expect out and out lies and faked evidence. Mermaids was watched by the science crowd and did offend them, but it had a disclaimer saying it was a mockumentary. Megalodon did not. It had a statement saying things were "dramatized." Reenactments on Nova are "dramatizations." Made up shit is not.

All that aside, It really does come down to ratings. Discovery is on the radar screen for media critics; History 2 is not. Professionals in the field rising up in outrage and horror at a major channel for a major piece of programming is news in their world. Historians, for the most part, ignore H1 and probably don't even know H2 exists. You're really the only one holding them to account.That puts a lot of pressure on you. For people Googling megalodon, there are lots of responsible experts out there. For people Googling Tsoukalos' crap, except for NASA taking on Nibiru, you're the biggest game in town.

PS - By the way, megalodon, the shark, should be spelled in the lower case. It's a species of the genus Carcharocles. C. megalodon is the correct scientific way to refer to it. Megalodon, capitalized, is a genus of clams. My science friends find this hysterical.

Reply
John McKay link
8/6/2013 05:23:52 pm

I hope you don't mind, I pointed this conversation out to David Shiffman @WhySharksMatter. Maybe he can add to the discussion.

Reply
Tara Jordan
8/6/2013 05:30:11 pm

John.
Having spent more than 5 years so far,studying both in the UK & abroad,I can state unequivocally that most people I met,do not watch TV programs.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/6/2013 11:40:48 pm

While you're right that Shark Week is a big deal, it's mostly media buzz. "Megalodon" (capitalize to refer to the film, not the shark) had 4.8 million viewers out of the 114 million U.S. television homes and nearly 200 million potential TV viewers. By contrast, at its height Ancient Aliens pulled between 2-3 million weekly viewers. While a 1-2 million difference is nothing to sneeze at, in terms of the U.S. television audience, it's a rounding error. Neither show, in truth, has nearly enough viewers to warrant media buzz as something "everybody" is watching, since, numerically, almost no one is. (The same applies to most cable shows--and most network shows--which numerically speaking 90+% of Americans don't watch.)

Reply
Vonne
10/26/2013 05:41:15 am

Ancient aliens is a show based in theory. It's all speculation, and a person has the right to believe whatever they want. I watch Ancient Aliens, because I like science fiction, and it makes you think, but it's all up to the viewer to believe or not.

Reply
Travis
12/8/2013 09:50:51 am

Vonne, I can't speak for Jason, but my primary gripe with Ancient Aliens is that it's a collection of theories (which do not meet the actually definition of a theory) that consciously ignore proven facts and history to give credence to their ideas but almost never produce verifiable evidence of their own. For that matter they actively avoid making even declarative sentences. Count the number of conditional verbs they use instead - its staggering. If you used their methodology in a laboratory or university you would quickly be shown the door. That and the show has been on the HISTORY channel for six seasons.

Reply
Mike Kelley
11/15/2013 02:11:41 pm

COLIVITO, you are one sad sack of doo doo. MEGALADON? science says they one ruled the oceans. Around today? Dunno. Mermaids? As a 30 year USMC veteran who spent alot of times at sea, much of these two episodes is truthful, especially the Navys testing of sonar weapons. Was a a bit dramatic? A bit, but truthful enough to ponder. As far as Georgio is concerned, some of his idealogy I like, some I do not. If he, Daniken and the rest believe their theories, that is their right, as is yours to disagree. Say what ya like, but do not make it personal, else yee be just like the ones you accuse. BTW, you offer no authentication to your allegations aside from your vitriolic post.

Reply
Dr.-Know-It-All link
12/29/2013 05:16:41 pm

Nigga's be hatin and perpetrating up in the hood, YA DIGGGGGG!!!!!!!http://daily.greencine.com/Don%27t-Be-a-Menace-to-South-Central-While-Drinking-Your-Juice-in-the-Hood.jpg

Reply
LA Raber
11/11/2015 01:55:30 pm

The more I learn about the whole Ancient Aliens thing, the less I believe it. It is getting too absurd. And slamming any skeptics-that is just hubris.

Reply
Charles Austin Miller
2/10/2016 11:37:02 pm

Having been a science enthusiast for some 50 years, and having explored the pseudoscientific field of UFOlogy for decades (with increasing but tempered skepticism), I would like to add that Erich von Daniken was a very, very clever but cautious huckster from his earliest days as an "ancient astronaut" author. Perhaps because he simply didn't know or perhaps (more likely) for legal reasons, von Daniken always but always couched his theories in terms of honest questions, rather than in righteous declarations. "I only ask the questions" became his catch-phrase and always gave von Daniken an exit strategy; which, as it happened, he NEEDED on many occasions. After von Daniken became nebulously associated with Giorgio Tsoukalos in the 1990s -- Giorgio has repeatedly and without real evidence stated that Erich was his "mentor" -- it was apparent that Tsoukalos aspired to becoming another von Daniken. To that end, Tsoukalos eventually developed his own gimmick that was the diametric opposite of von Daniken's "I only ask the questions"... Instead, Tsoukalos chose to sell his snake-oil with righteous declarations such as "The answer can be nothing else but..." (insert "extraterrestrials" or "flesh and blood aliens" or any other absurdity). Tsoukalos, unlike von Daniken, didn't and doesn't leave himself an escape strategy from his ridiculous pronouncements. Tsoukalos simply chooses to condemn and slander his more rational detractors from afar, rather than confronting them in a public forum for a debate supported with real scientific evidence. Tsoukalos couldn't last two minutes in a real scientific debate; but I don't think he would ever concede that he was crushed under the weight of scientific fact. In fact, I'm sure Tsoukalos would falsely spin the outcome as a victory to his gullible groupies. I mean, I've heard even Erich von Daniken publically apologize for being wrong a few times in his career. But has anyone EVER heard Giorgio Tsoukalos apologize for purveying straight-up hoaxes and mean-spirited invective?

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