Preparing for Tonight's Ancient Astronaut Extravaganza on H2

7/25/2014

Oh, it’s getting ridiculous. The New York Daily News ran a tongue-in-cheek piece about the alleged UFO cave art in India reported in the Times of India, and rather than suggest that maybe the story isn’t quite solid, they decided to take the opposite tack and tell readers that the find had been “confirmed.” The paper then suggested that Ancient Aliens would be the right place to “investigate” it. At least they got that right.

The Times of India reported that archeologists in Chhattisgarh have confirmed that cave paintings of UFOs and aliens (of the outer space kind) decked out in space suits are about 10,000 years old. Since, shockingly, Chhattisgarh doesn’t have any UFOlogists on er, board there, they are bringing in NASA. What? Why don’t they call on Giorgio Tsoukalos and Erich von Daniken? Not only would “Ancient Aliens” pay for the research, we loyal viewers could discover once and for all whether Giorgio’s hair is alien or human. Better: If that shirt that “Aliens” contributor David Childress never takes off is also 10,000 years old.

The Daily News misread the Times of India report and suggested falsely that NASA was actually planning to investigate the cave art. The original report said only that the archaeology department of Chhattisgarh “plans to seek” help from NASA, which is a far different thing.

The funniest part is when the paper suggested that Ancient Aliens would ever pay for original research! That’s hilarious!

Speaking of Ancient Aliens, the H2 network is launching the show’s seventh season tonight as part of a three-hour block of original ancient astronaut programming. Well, sort of original. The first hour will be an Ancient Aliens Special Edition clip show, followed by the season premiere, covering (but of course) “The Reptilians.” Suggested by Theosophy, developed by Robert E. Howard, and popularized by He-Man and V, the Reptilians are the go-to aliens for anti-government conspiracy theorists. I’m surprised that Ancient Aliens hadn’t gotten to them before.

But the climax of the evening is going to be Giorgio Tsoukalos’s new show, In Search of Aliens. The six-part series will send the Ancient Aliens star on field excursions to find “evidence” for subjects not typically associated with aliens so he can then assert a relationship with aliens. The topics are to include such well-worn saws as Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot. The show hits the sweet spot between America Unearthed and Ancient Aliens, as though the two had an alien love child.

But the best part of the show must be the instant-rerun factor: It’s built out of spare parts, so it already feels like we’ve seen it all before. Giorgio Tsoukalos is an over-exposed figure reprising his Ancient Aliens schtick. The subject matter is so well-worn that it will already be familiar to all but the most naïve H2 viewers. Even the title of the show is recycled: In Search of Aliens instantly recalls the 1980s syndicated series In Search Of…, and its progenitor In Search of Ancient Astronauts. This is doubly appropriate since In Search of Ancient Astronauts was an authorized adaptation of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods, and Giorgio Tsoukalos began his ancient astronaut career as von Däniken’s spokesperson and disciple.

So, I’ve been trying to come up with a plan for how I want to deal with this. I obviously can’t sit through three hours of this crap all in a row. My plan is to do a brief summary of Special Edition, but since my Ancient Aliens reviews have suffered declining readership since they peaked in season four, for season seven I think I’ll have shorter reviews that highlight key claims rather than exhaustively chronicle everything the show says. If I can type fast enough, these two reviews will go up tonight. Then, tomorrow I will spend more time analyzing Tsoukalos’s new show, both because it is new and also because Atlantis is more interesting to me than lizard people. To do, this, however, I’ll need more time, so that review will likely run tomorrow. I don’t think that in future weeks, however, I’ll be doing separate reviews of the two shows and might combine them as a fringe block omnibus.

28 Comments

Clint Knapp

7/25/2014 06:16:17 am

You're doing Grodd's work, Jason: watching humans do stupid things, then smashing them.

In all seriousness, though, I don't think anyone would begrudge you skipping the clip show reviews now that the main series is back. That hour of torture could spent peacefully meditating, or pounding shots to steel yourself against the rising tide of bullshit to come.

Only Me

7/25/2014 06:24:26 am

Pounding shots? Like hell! Both series could be turned into a drinking game that will have your liver seeking a new address. Just make the rules up as you go.

666

7/25/2014 06:52:04 am

>>> rising tide of bullshit to come.

Don't people have the right to believe in what they want? Wasn't this your position, Clint Knapp

7/25/2014 07:38:42 am

No one said they didn't. Reading comprehension is really hard for you, isn't it?

Rlewis

7/25/2014 06:20:08 am

"Then, tomorrow I will spend more time analyzing Tsoukalos’s NEWS show."

- HA!, surely this is a typo

Jason Colavito link

7/25/2014 06:53:24 am

A most unfortunate typo. I've fixed it!

Gregor

7/25/2014 10:07:12 am

... or is it? <Twilight Zone music>

RLewis

7/25/2014 06:23:15 am

Any idea of the current viewership (season 6)? I have to believe it's falling faster than the readership of your reviews

7/25/2014 06:30:06 am

I wonder if the two are connected somehow...

RJR

7/25/2014 06:24:34 am

Courage!

Shane Sullivan

7/25/2014 06:32:40 am

I'm also surprised AA never covered Reptilians. Infact, when I read they were going to, I thought, "again?", before I realized that they hadn't.

Maybe they didn't want to, um, 'alienate' the people who embrace the (Howardian) idea that Reptilians aren't extraterrestrials but some pre-human species native to Earth. I personally find that approach more entertaining.

spookyparadigm

7/25/2014 07:30:13 am

I suspect a lot of those interested in Reptilians think they have something closer to do with cobbled together conspiratorial American folk Christianity (that makes room for jinn, Annunaki, etc., as versions of things in the Bible). That's more likely who they don't want to lose.

I am also surprised AA hasn't done something involving Reptilians before. Surely they've shown Ubaid figurines that are routinely called such, yes? Or did they just generically call them "aliens"?

7/25/2014 10:15:31 am

If I recall correctly, they *did* "cover reptilians"... at least insofar as season 4, which had an idiotic hodgepodge of various "alien types" (including reptiles).

As for why not a show of its own, etc. ... who knows, maybe they weren't ready to extend their little Joint-Stock operation to David Icke? Maybe David Hatcher Childress threw a fit and screamed "no! we already have a David! No more Davids!!"

7/25/2014 10:23:54 am

They've mentioned Reptilians off and on. They just never devoted an episode to them before. They also never devoted an episode to the Nordic/Aryan aliens, but I imagine we can guess why.

7/25/2014 03:06:24 pm

Jason... am hoping that Gunn's display of his age in a thread
a while back doesn't repeat itzself as i am about to have a few
very William Shirer thoughts on the brain. am a fan of the B-flic
CASABLANCA that is contemporary to FDR's wise leadership.
Dare i as WHY you are grumbling in these new blogs & dreading
fall as if it looms large? am i to be thought very Roaring Twenties
snarky if i dare ask for a calm articulation of thy theories about
race in light of the way the modren genome project has changed
the groundrules of Monsieur C.Linnaeus. a HERC movie looms.
http://www.biologyreference.com/La-Ma/Linnaeus-Carolus.html
i'm trying to think... does HERC ever battle sapient lizard-men in
classic very B.C Greek Mythology? was the Hyrda mammilian...
or even amphibian or reptile? even if modern DNA splicing can
create CHIMERAs in a lab, were they ever reaLLLL? didst the
great contient HOWARD creates exist several billion years ago
but his hero is almost Neolithic before itz own TYME? dannng!
can we have a near to human sapience in yesteryear's great
whales??? does the equivilency of the riddle of the SPHYNX
play out some 30 to 25 million years ago despite the ANIMAL
PLANET docudrama of "atlantean" mer-folk swimming about?
whales once had four legs, now we see only see hints in their
bones of this. i'd like to think the SATAN of Genesis was very
bipedal, and that THE ISLAND Of DOCTOR MOREAU is a work
of fiction. DNA splicing creates untidy rules i do assume. race
as in other than a foot or chariot race is a dated instance of
social darwinism the GREAT CHARLES would have detested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_of_Dr._Moreau_(1977_film)

7/25/2014 03:13:43 pm

dang my almost dyslexic tyPoes ---- Hydra, Modern ...and
Continent... i am often gonzo when under WEEBLYz rules.
August looms as a great and boring month. did you know
WWI broke out in August? our Civil War happens in April of 61
and tends to end in April/May of 1865. this Fall now looms....
HOUSE Of CARDz is a way cooool Brit or Yank teleplay series.

7/25/2014 02:44:24 pm

"Howardian" = R.E Howard, sci-fi writer, whose modern
"conans" are lesser beings than all brave B.C lads with
the birth-name Conan? Howardian is not a reference to
Leslie Howard, movie actor, who was in GWTW in 1938.
lets face it, i think Edgar Rice Burroughs created the way
better fanciful sci-fi landscapes and Arnold S's Conan is
a modern day kudos and homage to steroid abuse and
"roid" rage road rage. Pleez give me three vintage Viking
bersherkers and i won't trash the current HERC movie
for its excessive CGI, i prefer K.Sorbo's Herc and lust
for Xena even if it seems almost as if human female is
about to bed 20th Century human male quite often. Dang.
GT could end up with an AA spin-off if AU tanks this fall.

Erik G

7/25/2014 06:52:33 am

Ka nama kaa lajerama.

Screaming Eagle

7/25/2014 11:49:57 am

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I think the ancient lizard people believers may have been confused after reading this...http://www.taylorandersonauthor.com/2007/01/the-world-of-the-destroyermen/

7/25/2014 03:29:42 pm

duckies--- "V" the '80s tv series wuZ a rip~off of Gene R's
1975 teleplay version of EARTH FINAL CONFLICT? did U
know that the TAELONs are cyber and not reptoid? despite
their looks? they are a communal group-mind community
well past MATRIX of 1999 + are not at all like the VULCANs
of classic STAR TREK --- even though green, gray + blue
are very E.T colors if in a soft shade. yellowish could be
almost all too human, as is tan or brownish or pink etc.
and we know that reptiles tend to have way cool skin. we
humans are boring creatures. all other sapient beings are
way more interesting than we are. prime directive, yes...

7/25/2014 03:36:39 pm

JMS's BABYLON FIVE had very very intelligent reptile aliens.
Jason tosses V at us like he's into Phoenician alphabets as
he fails to opine on B-5 or STTNG or Voyager or Andromeda.
Robert Englund is rather clever in "V" despite the middlebrow
scripting of a story-arc. Babylon Five is often well scripted!!!!!

BillUSA

7/25/2014 05:32:52 pm

All I saw was "New York Daily News" and.....

7/26/2014 06:57:28 pm

the new GT blog just got up to 100 postings!
i just went back to May 1st and confirmed that
three blogs about Scott Wolter also did this let
alone one about him lecturing in a Mason hall
and one going over the guests EU has had on.

8/15/2014 07:53:49 am

1.) i really hope "EP" is not a Nazi spy whose great-uncle
recruited him into the old network. He tends to spell very
correctly SIEG*HIGH*ELLE and by the moods of the auld
creator being Goddess GAiA, mother of us all, i feel that
his stormFront links were abundant and redundant. they were
too open. Unfortunately H2 is very correct, our lil ole planet
is, was and has been visited by E.T aliens very often. The
older accounts are often more accurate due to their isolation.
The U.S government decided to lie about the source of some
of the older UFOs, even as it tested rockets, jump jets like the
British Harrier of 1985 and the large radar screen avoiding STEALTH bomber. By Drakes Equation logic I can state that
Jason is totally wrong about the statistical scattering of a
sapience like ours in the universe. Gene Roddenberry and
Christiaan Huygens are more correct and scientifically gifted
than is Jason. He can correctly footnote all divine or cosmic
thoughts of the great minds of the early Royal Society, but
adding perceptive insights onto theirs is perhaps slightly
beyond him if he doesn't loosen up his grammar to that of
Lord Rochester. He has been brilliantly doing film critic
levels of Ancient Aliens in a manner like and at the same
actualized culturally biased sophisticated level as Roger
Ebert. His science is only as good as his teachers at the
middle or high school level but his perceptiveness about
POE and LOVECRAFT transcend the dry and dated ideas
of the Ph.D people who inspired him or taught him. He is
very good with his modern footnotes unlike 99.99% of my
hippie/boomer peers. The trade wins are being ignored by
he, despite the fact that one Carthaginian ship near the
Equator took them. Gunn's insights hint that there are the
structures yet to be uncovered, our Ice Age coasts had very
active settlements. Our species may have been using vines
to string together branches and logs for 2 million years or
even fire to help carve dug-out canoes for an equal span of
time. Some 2 million years ago, our ancestors may have
communicated on an equal social level with the dolphins
and porpoises. these same ancestors could have built a
Roman Arch before the Romans did. i think Gothic Cathedrals
are actually an A.D fad, a basic arch shape is more needful
and important. these same ancestors also saw disques up
in the sky often enough so its wet-wired on an instinctual
level into their DNA. even if the last visit was some half
million years back, we still bring up a hologramic image
in our vast Ids. our collective unconscious. or maybe i am
too CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR. i think like Jean Aeul. i
know academia is often wrong when inside groupthink.
Jason... i'm not a total fool. i think you know that A&E
can angrily lash. try to be a film critic at Bosley Crowther's
or Pauline Kael's or Roger Ebert's level. H2 may back off.
they know they are tossing trash TV at us, mixed in with
adequate CGI not up to the standards of PBS. if there is
ever a "nutter" court case by A&E i can assume with a
degree of certainty your case may be sunk by the comments
made by your onsite friends. if they focus on poor EP he
may be in for the shock of his life, Only Me is at times a
close second. The stupid high school sophomoric humour
reads in a certain way to jury older than they. You can't
really restrain them, but you can set a tone. clearly they
like the sport of this and not the science. my insights were
not detrius, trash or garbage, they were a string of subjective
observations hoping to arrive at objective conclusions...

PLATO

8/15/2014 08:15:25 am

duckies ---- A&E could use all of your comments in a legal
matter in such a manner that vindicates PTOLOMY and
his wise EPICYCLES... you only hope Aristotle does not
return from the Ellusian Fields to supplant Newton more
than Leibniz ever did. Don't assume science dominates
or courtrooms or that virtue is at the heart and soul of our
Republic. Always dread the arrival of that future tyrant, even
if he is taught in an enlightened manner by a student of
mine. Dread any fool in the 21st Century who is said to
be Greater than Alexander the Great. try to be a little kinder
to all who think differently. if A&E and/or H or H2 keep
on recycling, Jason may simply bump up old posts like this.

A&E goin' litigious = SWORD OF DAMOCLES

Jason's defense fund needs to be started by a guy with
a Midas touch becuz lotz of "bread" can buy legal verdicts.

8/15/2014 08:28:09 am

if y'all think my gonzo is a difficult read,
picture the policy wonk types at A&E as
they wade thru it. they dare not drag me
into this, i may be more fair, lucid and
accurate as a witness than they want me
to be. Jason can deflect them all by honing
up the skill set of a better film critic. i am
willing to give him a few pointers. i just
namedropped EBERT, KAEL + CROWTHER.
duckies... if A.U s3 totally tanks, A&E lits into
poor Jason to make him poorer. if A.U s3 soars
above the competition, the monies rolling in
let them swat all good critics like house or horse flies.
they then dominate market shares. y'all can only
hope for a decreasing set of particulars where S.W
is slightly more mediocre than he was in the previous
week's episode. y'all who complain about my gonzo
should realize i'd have to explain who MarK Twain,
Marshall McLuhan and James JOYCE were, before
i talk about Johnny Depp and Hunter Thompson. I am
a stylist. heck... about one hundred years ago our local
book critics banned James Joyce and his obtuse words
in a half Gaelic half English chimera morph of a style.

8/15/2014 08:32:07 am

i wisely said 9000 SOLAR years...

yes... the end of the Minoan

civilization was and is tragic....

8/15/2014 08:35:32 am

you do know that the film version of
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LOS VEGAS
had both lounge lizards and reptile
aliens in it, plus intense special effects?

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Preparing for Tonight's Ancient Astronaut Extravaganza on H2

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