JASON COLAVITO
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean >
      • Jimmy Excerpt
      • Jimmy in the Media
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
      • James Dean, The Human Ashtray
      • James Dean and Marlon Brando
      • The Curse of James Dean's Porsche
    • Legends of the Pyramids
    • The Mound Builder Myth
    • Jason and the Argonauts
    • Cult of Alien Gods >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Foundations of Atlantis
    • Knowing Fear >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Hideous Bit of Morbidity >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Cthulhu in World Mythology >
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
      • Necronomicon Fragments
      • Oral Histories
    • Fiction >
      • Short Stories
      • Free Fiction
    • JasonColavito.com Books >
      • Faking History
      • Unearthing the Truth
      • Critical Companion to Ancient Aliens
      • Studies in Ancient Astronautics (Series) >
        • Theosophy on Ancient Astronauts
        • Pyramidiots!
        • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • Fiction Anthologies >
        • Unseen Horror >
          • Contents
          • Excerpt
        • Moon Men! >
          • Contents
      • The Orphic Argonautica >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • The Faust Book >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • Classic Reprints
      • eBook Minis
    • Free eBooks >
      • Origin of the Space Gods
      • Ancient Atom Bombs
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Ancient America
      • Horror & Science
  • Articles
    • Newsletter >
      • Volumes 1-10 Archive >
        • Volume 1 Archive
        • Volume 2 Archive
        • Volume 3 Archive
        • Volume 4 Archive
        • Volume 5 Archive
        • Volume 6 Archive
        • Volume 7 Archive
        • Volume 8 Archive
        • Volume 9 Archive
        • Volume 10 Archive
      • Volumes 11-20 Archive >
        • Volume 11 Archive
        • Volume 12 Archive
        • Volume 13 Archive
        • Volume 14 Archive
        • Volume 15 Archive
        • Volume 16 Archive
        • Volume 17 Archive
        • Volume 18 Archive
        • Volume 19 Archive
        • Volume 20 Archive
      • Volumes 21-30 Archive >
        • Volume 21 Archive
        • Volume 22 Archive
        • Volume 23 Archive
        • Volume 24 Archive
        • Volume 25 Archive
        • Volume 26 Archive
    • Television Reviews >
      • Ancient Aliens Reviews
      • In Search of Aliens Reviews
      • America Unearthed
      • Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar
      • Search for the Lost Giants
      • Forbidden History Reviews
      • Expedition Unknown Reviews
      • Legends of the Lost
      • Unexplained + Unexplored
      • Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
      • Ancient Apocalypse
    • Book Reviews
    • Galleries >
      • Bad Archaeology
      • Ancient Civilizations >
        • Ancient Egypt
        • Ancient Greece
        • Ancient Near East
        • Ancient Americas
      • Supernatural History
      • Book Image Galleries
    • Videos
    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Eridu Genesis
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Resurrection of Marduk
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Atlantis as Biblical History
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
  • About Jason
    • Biography
    • Jason in the Media
    • Contact Jason
    • About JasonColavito.com
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Search

Review of Ancient Aliens S07E02 "The Tesla Experiment"

8/1/2014

53 Comments

 
In reviewing Ancient Aliens there are many levels of consideration I have to weigh in putting together my take on an episode. One is the theoretical: Which claims are worth discussing, and how much detail do I provide in evaluating what they say? The other is quite practical: The show is an hour long, and if I am reviewing it in real time, there is only so much I research I can do during the commercial breaks. This episode, S07E02 “The Tesla Experiment,” falls into the category of practical problems. I don’t know much at all about Nikola Tesla, and it’s hard for me to have much to say about an episode that attempts to expand earlier episodes’ segments on Tesla into a full hour. I can say this: Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) certainly stretches the definition of “ancient” in the show’s title.
Before we begin, it’s worth noting that this episode is modeled closely on S05E05 “The Einstein Factor,” which also claimed that a modern figure had revelations from space beings—and which also featured a long segment on Tesla himself. Tesla has been a frequent subject of Ancient Aliens despite not being ancient.

The episode starts with claims that the FBI seized all of Tesla’s materials at his death (which is true), with the strong suggestion that they did so to suppress high technology and alien secrets (which is most likely not true). The FBI apparently worried that Tesla’s material might fall into communist hands because Tesla was Serbian by birth and therefore might have connections to the Communist or Nationalist movements in occupied Yugoslavia.

The show backtracks to suggest that there was a prophecy given at his birth that he would be a “Child of Light.” It then gives a potted history of Tesla’s work with alternating current (they attribute to him work first done by George Westinghouse) and his various scientific and technological interests. The show is clearly playing for time in an effort to generate a full hour of content out of what they previously treated as a 10-minute segment on past episodes. Ten minutes into the hour, aliens haven’t been mentioned. Instead, we hear about pollution, environmentalism, and futurism. One speaker even suggests that Tesla is a figure of Gothic horror by claiming (falsely) that he was born near Transylvania (Smiljan, Croatia is nowhere near Transylvania), while the ancient astronaut rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok claims he fulfills a prophecy from the Zohar about opening the gates of wisdom.

David Childress suggests that Tesla received messages from ET through his subconscious. Childress once claimed to be Nikola Tesla’s posthumous coauthor in The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla (1993), in which Childress claimed that Tesla got ideas from Atlantis, but the show only acknowledges this in an onscreen identifier marking him as the author of The Tesla Papers, which appears to be a retitled version of the older book.

As we roll into the first commercial, the parallel to the “Einstein Factor” episode is clear: The show is going to claim that invisible aliens set up spiritual wi-fi in the genius’ brain and gave him all his ideas. It’s the idea that humans are too dim to come up with ideas on their own. I wonder if the aliens get a cut of the profits from Ancient Aliens since there’s no way any of the people on this show could come up with their ingenious theories on their own—at least not by their own admission.

The next segment describes Tesla’s plan for global wireless energy, and Nick Redfern suggests that corporations suppressed his wireless electricity experiments to preserve their profits. I guess he’s thinking of the plot of the 1977 David Mamet play The Water Engine and its 1992 TV-movie adaptation.

Anyway, the show repeats the idea that space aliens were able to project blueprints and scientific plans into Tesla’s brain, and then Tsoukalos suggests that Tesla was merely reusing alien plans first used in Egypt. The Dendera light bulb (incandescent, not CFL or LED, mind you) is brought up again, and we get a brief recap of the Tesla segment of S05E03 “Alien Power Plants,” which already covered Tesla’s alleged connection to energy-generating obelisks, pyramid power plants, and a supposed alien world energy grid. Seriously, people: Get some new material.

After the break, we get a discussion of Tesla’s claim to have received radio signals from an unknown source, which Tesla speculated might have been from extraterrestrials on Mars or Venus. Here he was likely building on the then-popular claims of Percival Lowell that Mars had an advanced civilization, but rather than imagine Tesla was influenced by the broader scientific world around him, the show instead decides that Tesla really did have radio contact with aliens. But I thought the aliens had a direct line to his brain, so what did they need the radio and mysterious beeps for? Nothing ever makes sense on this show. The program’s experts assert that Tesla’s ET interests made him a scientific pariah and therefore his peers unfairly denied him a Nobel Prize.

The show suggests that Tesla was an ancient astronaut theorist, but his own words belie this claim. In his 1901 article on extraterrestrial communication, which the show cites, Tesla takes no position on the ancient astronaut theory in discussing his radio beeps: “How long these attempts have been going on is, of course, problematic. It is possible they have just begun. It is possible, also, that they have been going on for centuries.” The show quotes only the last sentence in order to claim Tesla as Giorgio Tsoukalos’s spiritual godfather.

Tsoukalos claims Tesla could have worked on an antigravity device because of vimanas from the Mahabharata, which he claims had antigravity powers and were the same as modern UFOs. But he is wrong and the narrator is confused and claims that these flying spaceships were depicted in that epic. The illustration shown is actually from the Vaimanika Shastra, an early twentieth century fraud that falsely claimed to be an “ancient” text channeled psychically from the past. The Mahabharata has no flying UFO-like spacecraft. It has flying chariots and floating cities, and the Ramayana even has flying palaces that transport monkeys.

After the break, we get more biography and hagiography of Tesla and his infinite beneficence, which Tzadok claims derives from ideas given to him from incorporeal beings. After the third or fourth repetition, even Jason Martell’s point-blank claim that Tesla operated “under the influence of extraterrestrials” has just become boring. We’ve heard it all before. David Wilcock tells us that Tesla’s late-life obsession with the numbers 3, 6, and 9 must relate to the pyramids of Giza, which are three, and honeycombs, which are six sided. The point, he says, is that the universe is encoded with multiples of 3. In fact, Ancient Aliens did a whole episode about Wilcock’s interest in the number 3, S06E01 “The Power of Three,” so this claim is yet another repeat. The claim hasn’t become any truer since it first aired in October. I will point out that Ancient Aliens manages to be wrong about Giza twice, once in S06E01 when it claimed that there were only three Giza pyramids, and again here when Wilcock claims there are six. There are in fact nine, three major pyramids and six satellite pyramids.

In the next segment, following another break, we finally get the TESLA DEATH RAY. Tesla claimed to have invented a particle beam weapon capable of bringing down enemy aircraft, but very little of this work survives. In fact, Tesla claimed that he never wrote down any of the plans at all—he kept them all in his head! The plans—whatever they were—died with him. The show asserts that Tesla was responsible for the so-called Philadelphia Experiment, in which a Navy vessel allegedly left this dimension and returned with the crew embedded in the ship’s metal. Even the show acknowledges this is widely believed to be a hoax. David Wilcock asserts it really happened, despite there being no missing sailors, no mangled ship… Ah, but conspiracies are really good at covering all their tracks except for those intrepid heroes like Wilcock so easily uncover. He cites “leaked documents” as proof, but fails to mention that most accounts from fringe figures assign the Philadelphia Experiment to an effort to prove theories from Albert Einstein, not anything to do with Nikola Tesla. Oh well.

After a final break this turkey comes in for a landing on the back of an Israeli laser defense system, which Childress likens to some of Tesla’s more grandiose plans. Wilcock claims that Israel’s laser beams are the same as Tesla’s particle beam death rays and that Tesla was aware of Israel’s plan through an alleged time travel device or time window he supposedly developed. The narrator suggests that the U.S. government stole Tesla’s particle beam plans and gave them to Israel seven decades later. I’m still not seeing the connection. Mark Seifer, Tesla’s biographer, calls him an avatar of space aliens and/or gods, a veritable savior. Wilcock tells us that Tesla would have been a savior who would have reversed climate change, made deserts habitable, and made all energy free. But once again the show’s lack of logic is problematic: If the all-powerful aliens gave Tesla all this “wisdom” to save us, why is it that they are so ineffective that a few FBI agents could somehow undo all their work—while also delivering it to Israel? The inconsistencies may not register beneath the soaring music and paeans to a coming technological Millennium of peace and glory—but they are there.

53 Comments
Curt Collins link
8/1/2014 04:27:11 pm

Ancient Aliens is very good at delivering their (commercial) message. Where they are failing is in fulfilling their promise to science and answering questions, whether asked or unasked, such as: Who would win a sack race between Galileo and Thomas Edison?

Sure, they speculate, where are the facts? They cowardly dodge the tough questions. It's like a farce covered in a joke wrapped in a Bazooka Joe comic!

Reply
Gregor
8/1/2014 05:10:44 pm

True Fact of "Science": Bazookas fire rockets... rockets can enter outer space... Joe used bazookas... Therefore, the Bazooka Joe comics are just a lapsed cultural memory encoded in our xeno-ape DNA of a time when our ancestors - who from the heavens came! - descended to earth, ploughed every hominid they could find (with their syringe-phallus-trident-things), and created people like Tesla to fill the world with strange contrivances in order to bring about the spiritual awakening and the fulfillment of [insert bullshit pseudo-religious "prophecy" here], as carried to us by the prophets Jason "Tiger Stripe" Martell and Giorgio "My Life is a Lie" Tsoukalos.

Reply
EP
8/1/2014 05:16:37 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40

Gregor
8/1/2014 05:53:48 pm

"Oh, how convenient! A theory about God that doesn't require looking through a telescope. Get back to work!" - Futurama ("Godfellas")

Only Me
8/1/2014 07:04:42 pm

Watched the video, EP. The first comment was the best I've read on Youtube in a long time.

"Still more informative than watching Ancient Aliens on the History Channel."

Hmmm
8/3/2014 02:36:42 am

Get over yourself....please. Trust that you're not at the top of the food chain. That's all I wanna say to u folks who say "and unicorns do not exist".

Duke of URL
8/3/2014 06:00:06 am

Admit it, Gregor - you just got a job writing for MSNBC "News", didn't you?

Brian M
8/3/2014 07:32:22 am

..or, more likely, Fox News.

EP
8/1/2014 04:28:13 pm

In case anyone's interested, Tesla's article on interplanetary communications can be found here:

http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1901-02-09.htm

A couple of quotes, which should dispel the notion that Tesla was a misunderstood genius way ahead of his time:

"One of the most interesting results, and also one of great practical importance, was the development of certain contrivances for indicating at a distance of many hundred miles an approaching storm, its direction, speed and distance traveled."

"I had perfected the apparatus... so far that from my laboratory in the Colorado mountains I could feel the pulse of the globe, as it were, noting every electrical change that occurred within a radius of eleven hundred miles."

As for his reasoning for his claim that he received a message from aliens, it was basically this:
(1) My devices are absolutely immune to external interference or internal malfunction.
(2) I know all the possible natural causes of such a phenomenon.
(3) It cannot be random.
(4) Therefore, aliens.

I think I see why Childress is a huge fanboy... :)

Reply
Gregor
8/1/2014 05:04:54 pm

Childress would be a "huge fanboy" of Idi Amin or Pol Pot if there was a paycheck to be had in it.

Reply
charlie
8/2/2014 02:00:48 pm

Oh Gregor, you speak the truth sir. That he would, and you can bet the farm on it.

Only Me
8/1/2014 06:56:46 pm

Oh, he's a "huge fanboy" alright. His nugget alone wouldn't fit on anything less than a wide-screen monitor.

Reply
charlie
8/2/2014 02:02:05 pm

He IS rather full of himself isn't he.

Jocie
5/12/2018 12:41:38 pm

The Law of One:
https://www.lawofone.info/results.php?c=People&su=Nikola+Tesla

Reply
Mike
8/1/2014 05:44:36 pm

Given that Tesla has been deified on the internet including countless made up claims I'd say he fits in quite well.

For example, just to start, he didn't invent AC; while there was lots of building on electricity Faraday was making pronouncements of AC's functionality at least a year before Tesla was even born.

Reply
Gregor
8/1/2014 06:00:48 pm

>>Given that Tesla has been deified on the internet including countless made up claims I'd say he fits in quite well.


A person is not the same as what others say he / she is. You seem content with punishing (or at least, dismissing) a dead man because people who never knew him exaggerate his accomplishments for profit or popular culture. The only things Tesla deserves are to be accurately remembered, to be respected for his innovations and to have his failings taken as examples.

Reply
EP
8/1/2014 06:11:35 pm

You should read what Tesla himself actually wrote. No one has ever exaggerated Tesla's accomplishments more than Tesla himself.

Gregor
8/1/2014 06:35:03 pm

@EP

I was specifically addressing the claim I quoted (which implies that what happens on the internet accurately reflects upon, and is intrinsic to, the individual) - Tesla was self-aggrandizing, but so was virtually every other "scientist" or "inventor" of the era (and more than a few of our own). Nothing you've said refutes my argument that he should be remembered accurately, respected for things he did well, and taken as an example for the things he did incorrectly... which, honestly, should apply to any "historical" figure.

EP
8/1/2014 07:02:42 pm

Wait, how exactly does the claim you quoted imply that "what happens on the internet accurately reflects upon, and is intrinsic to, the individual"?

Tesla was *exceptionally* self-aggrandizing, which is what my post *did* imply. And not only wasn't what I said meant to refute you, it wasn't even meant to be incompatible with it :)

Mike
8/1/2014 07:58:05 pm

I meant fits as a topic for the show; he was a great engineer and helped push the ball of science forward, but the stories of his accomplishments have been greatly exaggerated on the intertubes. In some cases elevating him to a sort of mythical figure, not unlike when Ancient Aliens (and similar shows) tackle real historical figures who are alleged to be aliens, time travellers, indigo children, etc.

EP
8/2/2014 02:24:21 am

@ Mike

If by "helped push the ball of science along" we mean "dabbled, with relatively little to show for it, in a lot of the same things as other people during his day". He certainly had great instinct for where the action was, and he was very good at dazzling journalists and industrialists. That - and not any actual accomplishments, the extent of which is questionable at best - is what secured his place in history.

EP
8/1/2014 06:08:02 pm

In spite of being a really clever inventor, Tesla was scientifically illiterate. He was also a near-pathological liar and/or insane.

It really pisses me off that his ignorant ramblings are treated as prophetic utterances of a superhuman genius.

Reply
Gregor
8/1/2014 06:44:48 pm

A minor quibble... but it strikes me that it should read "In spite of being scientifically illiterate, Tesla was a really clever inventor". Personally I'd be more inclined to think that a scientifically skilled individual would also be good at inventing, rather than that an "inventor" / "tinkerer" would be intrinsically a skilled scientist as well. You probably chose this phrasing because it ends negatively, but still.

As for being pissed off about Tesla's pop-culture status... shouldn't you feel that way about *any* misleading individual in the scientific realm? The field's so full of them you could throw a stone at random and hit *two*.

In any case, I guess it's just the way things go these days - you can't simply admire a man or woman for their genuine scientific achievements. Instead, you have to lionize them with idiotic claims and make memes depicting their quota of badassery. Sometimes I wonder if it's the result of good intentions gone awry. It's important to get the populace at large interested in science... but (at least in the US) no one seems to care unless you can spin a story that's often literally too good to be true.

EP
8/1/2014 07:13:06 pm

Who says I don't feel this way about other cases? Though, again, Tesla is a bit exceptional in these regards. Just like Ted Bundy is not just another killer...

And no, I meant to write the sentence that means what I meant and not some other thing. I'm sorry if you can't tell the difference :P

Tesla, as the passages I quoted should indicate, often made public statements that are patently absurd. Like, more so than anyone I'm inclined to respect as a scientist.

Titus pullo
8/2/2014 01:51:53 am

AA. Has the throw some crap up and then move to something else so fast one doesn't have a chance to use their brain cells to question the ridiculous claims. After an episode I honestly can't recall much other than georgics hair and some nice pictures of far away places. Tesla, didn't he cause the Tunguska event?

Reply
Chris
8/2/2014 05:54:26 am

This has already been mentioned in the replies, but I think it bears repeating: Jason, you say that Tesla "invented" (or discovered) Alternating Current in your post, but this is a common misconception (and I did not watch the episode so I don't know if you are repeating what AA claimed). Tesla was important in the adoption of AC with his invention of the first AC electric motor and his part in the "Current Wars" between Edison and Westinghouse, but his significance is often overstated in this regard. A number of other people made important discoveries about AC as well, and in reality Westinghouse played a more important role in implementing AC as the primary electrical current in the US as compared to Tesla. Tesla made some important contributions but it seems that his legacy has become almost mythic and ripe use in pop culture (see the movie "The Prestige") as well as in fringe ideas (both of which only serve to enhance this mythic image of Tesla).

Reply
EP
8/2/2014 06:11:55 am

The vast majority of Tesla's work is pseudoscientific at best and downright fraudulent at worst.

Almost all the major innovations with which his name is associated were accomplished independently (and usually earlier and better) by others. Aside from a handful of clever tweaks to electric technology of the day, his claims of inventions and discoveries are based on his own unsupported assertions, which usually betray shocking scientific illiteracy.

Whenever he was left to his own devices (i.e., stole the investors' money to fund his hare-brained projects), he generally failed to produce anything other than impressive-looking photographs.

...Yes, I am butthurt about the whole Tesla thing. Sue me :)

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/2/2014 06:35:20 am

The show focused on him as the developer of AC and never mentioned Westinghouse. I can't recall if they specifically said he invented it, but it was the impression they tried to give. I'll add a clarification above.

Reply
EP
8/2/2014 06:43:08 am

Fun fact: AC was pretty much standard in Europe by the time Tesla came to America.

Chris link
8/2/2014 01:58:26 pm

To clarify, Westinghouse was more important to AC as an investor (though he was an engineer) and making AC and electricity commercially viable. The battle was over what would control the market, Edison's DC or Westinghouse's AC, with Westinghouse winning out because of the characteristics of AC which made it easier to transmit. In reality, Tesla played only a small role in this battle (though he did work for both Edison and Westinghouse at different times). The Wikipedia article on it (linked) has a reasonable and brief overview of it.

Zach
8/2/2014 06:46:43 am

America's founding fathers? Check. Leonardo da Vinci and his fellow Renaissance thinkers? Check. Einstein? Check. Tesla? CHECK! Boy these assholes are on fire in insulting our intelligence and saying that the only reason for our progress is due to aliens. Just remember, they aren't saying that humans don't have ingenuity - they are just saying that aliens do...and that they telepathically gave their "chosen ones" great ideas. Cause it's not like their have been a series of other underrated scientists, inventors and philosophers that have been swept under the carpet like the Great Tesla. Fuck these guys.

Reply
EP
8/2/2014 06:54:43 am

Far from having been "swept under the carpet", Tesla was a media celebrity for most of his life, with the press eagerly and uncritically reporting his nonsensical opinings (free energy, earthquakes, interplanetary communications, eugenics, how women belong in the kitchen, etc...).

Reply
Zach
8/2/2014 07:36:00 am

@ EP

That's been obvious for a long time now. I probably should have put that in quotations to emphasize that part in particular. There is a reason why all these myths behind Tesla gained ground on the internet. It really did all start in the papers back when he was alive. Especially the story on him planning out a death ray. Hell, I remember reading a biography on Tesla that said the main reason that he couldn't fully realize his inventions was mostly due to his lack of skills in drafting and his anti-social behavior which affected the way he worked with others. He could visualize them, and could do the math for the most part but never bothered with any real preparation that most scientific inventors would do. He just went right to building them. And it's why he lost a lot of his funding.

EP
8/2/2014 07:53:49 am

He was pretty sloppy with calculations as well. And I don't know what visualizing amounts to without good drafting or calculations. It smacks of all those nutjobs claiming they can visualize their perpetual motion machines. Or science fiction writers.

Far from being an unorthodox maverick, Tesla was great at developing ideas he picked up while working for others, typically without understanding the underlying science. That is why his own big initiatives led to little aside from chaotic experiments and absurd public pronouncements.

That is also the most obviuos reason it became more difficult for him to raise funds - his record of failure began to outstrip his preceding record of success.

Shane Sullivan
8/2/2014 10:47:14 am

So, plasma beam allowing a directed lightning strike (as Tesla's death ray was described at one point during the show) is the "same technology" as a laser? I know lasers can use plasma as a gain medium, but somehow I don't think that's what the AA commentators meant.

Reply
EP
8/2/2014 12:19:36 pm

Tesla's own description of his superweapon is, if possible, even more ridiculous than the AA version:

"My apparatus projects particles which may be relatively large or of microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey to a small area at a great distance trillions of times more energy than is possible with rays of any kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus be transmitted by a stream thinner than a hair, so that nothing can resist."

Reply
Kal
8/2/2014 03:01:29 pm

Aside from a TV movie in the early 1980s, the Philadelphia Experiment originally was nothing more than a WW2 legend dreamed up by some drunk Navy sailors in a bar on the east coast. They were talking about a supposedly invisible ship. It had nothing to do with 'dimensional travel' 'time travel' or anything that fanciful. According to actual veterans from that period, it was little more than a ship painted with radar reflecting paint. The same tech was later used on stealth boats and craft. It does not, did not, and never could travel in time or make people phase into the hull. Also the darn thing wasn't terribly stealthy. Ha.

Reply
spookyparadigm
8/3/2014 07:27:13 am

I strongly suspect the entire thing sprang from Carl Allen's ravings.

Reply
Brian M
8/3/2014 04:43:01 am

"Seriously, people: Get some new material."

You would think since they just seem to make things up, their supply of new material would be infinite. One can only seem that they just aren't really all that bright since they are still using an incandescent light.

Reply
Gunn Sinclair
8/4/2014 04:41:40 am

"...a coming technological Millennium of peace and glory...."

I hope you're not making light of the Biblical prophecy concerning an upcoming technological Millennium of peace and glory, Jason. Or even worse, I hope you're not possibly confusing the authorship of said coming period of advancement and enlightenment...with aliens?

Also, the very definition of "alien" must shift if God, Satan and all angels good and bad came to earth from somewhere else. I hope you aren't confused, or confusing others in your search for I AM. Or maybe you're helping to distinguish between real angels and UFO/alien wantabes?

(I hope you aren't insinuating that nothing spiritual can be real.)

Reply
Paul
8/4/2014 07:56:14 am

AA failed to mention that Tesla invented teleportation while at Colorado Springs. It is well documented how Tesla successfully teleported Hugh Jackman.

Reply
Jason D.
8/8/2014 03:50:38 pm

That's just a myth, he really duplicated Hugh Jackman.

Reply
BB
8/5/2014 10:18:01 pm

Like UFO Hunters:46 minutes of chasing speculation and at the end of the chase no concrete answers. H2 should change it's title to NFYI.

Reply
CHF01
8/18/2014 10:01:17 am

I actually enjoyed the Tesla episode. I knew very little about him before I watched the AA episode. Very impressive that he was still inventing things into his late 70s. I don't with many of the theories expr3essed about the man. But I did enjoy learning about his legacy and the long list of incredible inventions.

Reply
CHF01
8/18/2014 10:02:32 am

* I don't agree with many of the theories expressed by the AA crew about the man.

Reply
Robert
9/24/2014 04:10:52 am

What a kick ass episode! I live in Thailand so there's a bit of a delay, and I just saw this episode tonight. But this episode of "Ancient Aliens" is the best bit of TV writing since the time I saw "Small Wonder" dunk a basketball.

Reply
Kevin P
12/21/2014 06:25:00 pm

Most people here are clueless and completely ignorant. Tesla was one of the greatest minds ever. Some imbecile above even accused Tesla of having sloppy math skills...yaaa...that's right....his math skills were so sloppy that NOT ONLY COULD NIKOLA TESLA DO CALCULUS IN HIS HEAD, BUT HE COULD DO INTEGRAL CALCULUS IN HIS HEAD! He also knew 6 languages by the time he was 17. What do you think HAARP is based on? It's all Tesla stuff. The guy was a genius even compared to most other geniuses (if that makes any sense). People here are way too ignorant and close-minded.

Oscillator:
- "In 1898, Tesla claimed he had built and deployed a small oscillating device that, when attached to his office and operating, nearly shook down the building and everything around it," says Shea Gunther at Revmodo. The device weighed just a few pounds, but Tesla was able to tune the timing of the oscillator at such a frequency that each little vibration added just a little more energy to the wave of flex in the building. "Given enough little pushes, even the largest structure could be shaken apart." Realizing the potential terrors such a device could create, "Tesla said he took a hammer to the oscillator to disable it, instructing his employees to claim ignorance to the cause of the tremors if asked."

"Tesla was fascinated with the power of resonance and experimented with it not only electrically but on the mechanical plane as well. In his Manhattan lab he built mechanical vibrators and tested their powers. One experiment got out of hand.
To a steel pillar Tesla attached a powerful little vibrator driven by compressed air. Leaving it there, he went about his business. Meanwhile, down the street, a violent quaking built up, shaking down plaster, bursting plumbing, cracking widows, and breaking heavy machinery off its anchorages. Tesla's vibrator had found the resonant frequency of a deep sandy layer of subsoil beneath his building, setting up an earthquake. Soon Tesla's own building began to quake, and, just at the moment the police burst into the lab, Tesla was seen smashing the device with a sledge hammer, the only way he could promptly stop it. In a similar experiment, on an evening walk through the city, Tesla attached a battery-powered vibrator, described as being the size of an alarm clock, to the steel framework of a building under construction and, adjusting it to a suitable frequency, set the structure into resonant vibration. The structure shook, and so did the earth under his feet. Later Tesla boasted that he could shake down the Empire State Building with such a device, and, as if this claim were not extravagant enough, he went on to state that a large-scale resonant vibration was capable of "splitting the Earth in half." No details of Tesla's vibrators are available, but they probably resembled one of Tesla's reciprocating engines (such as Patent No. 511,916). These exploited the elasticity of gases, just as his electrical vibrators, like the tesla coil, exploit the elasticity of the electric medium. a new power system "

Robotics:
- Tesla imagined that, in the future, a race of robots "would be able to perform labor safely and effectively," says io9's Davis. In 1898, he demonstrated a radio-controlled boat he'd invented, which many credit as "being the birth of robotics." He envisioned a world filled with "intelligent cars, robotic human companions, [various] sensors, and autonomous systems."

X-Rays:
Tesla's research in the field of electromagnetism helped give radiologists everywhere the ability to peer into a person's anatomy without cutting them open — a concept that, in the late 1800s, sounded far-fetched. Although German physicist Willhelm Röntgen is widely credited with the discovery of X-rays in 1895, Tesla's own experiments with the technology eight years prior highlighted some of the inherent dangers of using radiation on human flesh.

Patents:
Nikola Tesla held over seven hundred patents. A short list of some of his inventions include the following:

- Alternating current. (No, it was not Thomas Edison.)
- Radio (No, it was not Marconi.)
- Wireless communication. (Cell phones before there were ordinary phones.)
- Fluorescent lights.
- Induction motor.
- Radio-controlled vehicles.
- Rotating magnetic field principle.
- Tesla coil.

The induction motor alone is responsible for virtually every electric motor you have ever encountered: vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, washers, refrigerators, fans, and on and on. You have probably never heard of the Tesla coil, but it is widely used in radio and television sets.


Tesla discovered terrestrial stationary waves, proving the earth could be used as a conductor for electrical vibrations.

- Developed shadowgraphs, which were later used by Roentgen in his discovery of X-rays.
- Tesla created man-made lighting in the 1800s!!!!
- Tesla lit two hundred electric lamps 25 miles away without wires!!!!!
- Tesla designed the Niagra Falls power plant (the first bi

Reply
Kevin P
12/21/2014 06:28:24 pm

...Continued from above...

- Developed shadowgraphs, which were later used by Roentgen in his discovery of X-rays.
- Tesla created man-made lighting in the 1800s!!!!
- Tesla lit two hundred electric lamps 25 miles away without wires!!!!!
- Tesla designed the Niagra Falls power plant (the first big AC electricity project) without schematics!!!!!!!!

Death:
When Tesla died on January 7, 1943 in New York City, the FBI made an immediate trip to his apartment to gather all his notes. These notes have never been released. Even today, the FBI maintains an extensive file on Tesla's discoveries. To this very day a request for information on Tesla's files through the Freedom of Information Act will result in receiving numerous pages with blacked-out passages.

Some of the other things he invented:
- The Tesla turbine.
- The first remote(radio) controlled submarine.
- Various methods of free energy. (attach a wire to a pipe in the ground and another to a balloon about 50 to 100 feet in the air)

Apparently even Einstein once admitted he was most likely wrong about some stuff, and Tesla was correct after all, but by then Einstein was famous and this was never publicized. I can't remember the details; research it, you'll find it.

Tesla was talking about how everything is based on frequencies / waves. And what do you know, finally mainstream science is slowly going more and more in that direction (gravitational waves, String Theory / M-Theory, Quantum Loop Gravity, etc.).

If people think this guy was just "some inventor" they are either MASSIVELY ill-informed, ignorant, or simply sniffing too much glue, or just blinded by their pre-conceived ideas of everything based on mainstream academia.

Reply
Deano
9/14/2015 07:45:51 am

Kevin p,
How do you know tesla wasnt just getting US patents put on other peoples ideas? This is substantiated well by the fact that tesla could never explain science well to real scientists, and also, by the fact that when working by himself, he didnt do shit all except rip off investors and play science games with their monies. Plenty of scammers in the world and your obsessed with one of them. Do not respond to this until you have eaten ten litres of your own diarrhea and semen.

newsonlineap link
1/3/2017 07:08:37 am

To Know entire Latest Today Breaking AP online News, India, Telangana, Hyderabad, Amaravathi current News, Andhra Pradesh Politics headlines, AP Online Telugu Updates, Tollywood, Cinema News, Sports news etc at onlineap.com

Reply
cinema news in telugu link
5/13/2017 05:36:16 am

Nice Post keep updating like this,

<a href="http://www.moviemanthra.com/english/category/news/">cinema news in telugu</a>

Reply
telugu news updates link
5/31/2017 05:39:04 am

<a href="http://www.moviemanthra.com/english/category/news/">bollywood movie trailer</a>
Nice post. And it is very clear and informative.

Reply
Charles Verrastro link
12/4/2020 02:22:54 pm

Far be it from me to stir up conspiracy stuff, but watching our 'late' (sic) president dismantling our constitution and system of democracy about our ears as he flails about turning the White House into a modern version of the Berlin Führerbunker brings to mind a curious piece of historical coincidence.
Trump has on occasion claimed near omniscience in technical and scientific matters exceeding his specialist advisors (on economic, military and medical policies) based on his tenuous relationship to his paternal uncle John Trump, a distinguished scientist and MIT professor. Luckily even Trump nods occasionally and tells the truth when he said he had little contact with him and even less understanding what he did. Chilling to think he may have inherited a Death Ray along with his family millions.
His uncle, in fact, was given to review the contents of Tesla's papers and lab instruments confiscated by the FBI, and in a box found the only material link to a vital component of his vaunted 'Death Ray'. He worked closely with the military throughout his highly decorated career. James Melcher, Trump's lab director, is quoted as saying: "John, over a period of three decades, would be approached by people of all sorts because he could make megavolt beams of ions and electrons – death rays... What did he do with it? Cancer research, sterilizing sludge out in Deer Island [a waste disposal facility], all sorts of wondrous things. He didn't touch the weapons stuff."
Thank God for small favors.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Blog
    Picture

    Author

    I 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.

    Become a Patron!
    Tweets by JasonColavito
    Picture

    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
    Alternative Archaeology
    Alternative Archaeology
    Alternative History
    Alternative History
    America Unearthed
    Ancient Aliens
    Ancient Astronauts
    Ancient History
    Ancient Texts
    Ancient Texts
    Archaeology
    Atlantis
    Conspiracies
    Giants
    Habsburgs
    Horror
    King Arthur
    Knights Templar
    Lovecraft
    Mythology
    Occult
    Popular Culture
    Popular Culture
    Projects
    Pyramids
    Racism
    Science
    Skepticism
    Ufos
    Weird Old Art
    Weird Things
    White Nationalism

    Terms & Conditions

    Please 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

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    RSS Feed

Picture
Home  |  Blog  |  Books  | Contact  |  About Jason | Terms & Conditions
© 2010-2025 Jason Colavito. All rights reserved.

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean >
      • Jimmy Excerpt
      • Jimmy in the Media
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
      • James Dean, The Human Ashtray
      • James Dean and Marlon Brando
      • The Curse of James Dean's Porsche
    • Legends of the Pyramids
    • The Mound Builder Myth
    • Jason and the Argonauts
    • Cult of Alien Gods >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Foundations of Atlantis
    • Knowing Fear >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Hideous Bit of Morbidity >
      • Contents
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
    • Cthulhu in World Mythology >
      • Excerpt
      • Image Gallery
      • Necronomicon Fragments
      • Oral Histories
    • Fiction >
      • Short Stories
      • Free Fiction
    • JasonColavito.com Books >
      • Faking History
      • Unearthing the Truth
      • Critical Companion to Ancient Aliens
      • Studies in Ancient Astronautics (Series) >
        • Theosophy on Ancient Astronauts
        • Pyramidiots!
        • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • Fiction Anthologies >
        • Unseen Horror >
          • Contents
          • Excerpt
        • Moon Men! >
          • Contents
      • The Orphic Argonautica >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • The Faust Book >
        • Contents
        • Excerpt
      • Classic Reprints
      • eBook Minis
    • Free eBooks >
      • Origin of the Space Gods
      • Ancient Atom Bombs
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Ancient America
      • Horror & Science
  • Articles
    • Newsletter >
      • Volumes 1-10 Archive >
        • Volume 1 Archive
        • Volume 2 Archive
        • Volume 3 Archive
        • Volume 4 Archive
        • Volume 5 Archive
        • Volume 6 Archive
        • Volume 7 Archive
        • Volume 8 Archive
        • Volume 9 Archive
        • Volume 10 Archive
      • Volumes 11-20 Archive >
        • Volume 11 Archive
        • Volume 12 Archive
        • Volume 13 Archive
        • Volume 14 Archive
        • Volume 15 Archive
        • Volume 16 Archive
        • Volume 17 Archive
        • Volume 18 Archive
        • Volume 19 Archive
        • Volume 20 Archive
      • Volumes 21-30 Archive >
        • Volume 21 Archive
        • Volume 22 Archive
        • Volume 23 Archive
        • Volume 24 Archive
        • Volume 25 Archive
        • Volume 26 Archive
    • Television Reviews >
      • Ancient Aliens Reviews
      • In Search of Aliens Reviews
      • America Unearthed
      • Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar
      • Search for the Lost Giants
      • Forbidden History Reviews
      • Expedition Unknown Reviews
      • Legends of the Lost
      • Unexplained + Unexplored
      • Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
      • Ancient Apocalypse
    • Book Reviews
    • Galleries >
      • Bad Archaeology
      • Ancient Civilizations >
        • Ancient Egypt
        • Ancient Greece
        • Ancient Near East
        • Ancient Americas
      • Supernatural History
      • Book Image Galleries
    • Videos
    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Eridu Genesis
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Resurrection of Marduk
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Atlantis as Biblical History
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
  • About Jason
    • Biography
    • Jason in the Media
    • Contact Jason
    • About JasonColavito.com
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Search