Review of Ancient Aliens S15E09: The Shapeshifters

California’s statewide shelter-in-place order halted production on most entertainment programs, but Kevin Burns, the aging Prometheus Entertainment executive behind Ancient Aliens, The UnXplained, and Curse of Oak Island, ordered his staff to continue churning out fake history programs from their Los Angeles office or lose their jobs and health insurance, according to a disturbing report in the Hollywood Reporter. Burns, 64, admitted telling staff that he was unconcerned about the virus and told them they shouldn’t be either because they were all much younger. He told many staffers that they could not work from home and their choice was to continue delivering History Channel fake history shows from the office or quit. Several staffers quit rather than risk infection, and even History’s parent company, A+E Networks, expressed concern. “I can only say that this feels like it’s bigger than a basic cable TV show,” a Prometheus employee told THR. “At some point you’re going to be on the wrong side of history.” Well, that ship sailed with the launch of Ancient Aliens.

In defiance of orders from the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, Burns claimed that Ancient Aliens was a “news” program and therefore exempt from shelter-in-place and work-from-home requirements. On Friday, Prometheus had UnXplained host William Shatner release a homemade video, looking for all the world like a hostage tape, declaring that History’s fake history shows would continue to “be there for you” during the crisis, but undercutting Burns’s claims by identifying the shows as “entertainment” rather than news.

All of us at @TheUnXplained and @HISTORY are #HereForYou. Stay safe, stay healthy. pic.twitter.com/d3uJbyd1sH

— Ancient Aliens (@AncientAliens) March 20, 2020

Shortly before Ancient Aliens went to air, Giorgio Tsoukalos released his own video recorded in front of a poster tacked to a door in which he promised to keep the polluted stream of fake history flowing during the pandemic:

All of us at Ancient Aliens and HISTORY are #HereForYou. Stay safe, stay healthy. pic.twitter.com/kXYj2nZpw9

— Ancient Aliens (@AncientAliens) March 21, 2020

Given Burns’s reprehensible behavior and callous disregard for science and safety, I don’t feel it is appropriate to give Ancient Aliens the same detailed attention that I have traditionally given its episodes, or to help the show promote its vile drivel masquerading as science. This is, after all, a show that last year claimed pandemics were created by aliens to control the human population. It offers dangerous misinformation and does not deserve to be classified as news, or even as nonfiction, or to take priority over health and safety in a time of crisis.
 
My reviews of Ancient Aliens are my most-read blog posts, attracting five times the readership of an average post. It’s the devil’s bargain any review makes: publicize a piece of media in exchange for using that media to create the content that brings in audiences. However, the Hollywood Reporter story is enough for me not to want to continue to make that bargain. “What I can’t stand,” one staffer told THR, “is that there’s someone who has a lack of regard for employees to put them in harm’s way.” So, for this week, I will offer only a truncated list of key points from the show so they are available for the record. I will not offer the lengthy discussion and analysis I typically provide. They do not deserve the publicity.

Segment 1

• The first segment recounts Travis Walton’s long-debunked “abduction.” Again.
  
• Nick Pope says that Walton’s alien abductors could shape-shift into human form.
• The show cites a public opinion poll that 12 million Americans believe in shape-shifting aliens.
• Pope suggests aliens in human disguise are infiltrating society to take over.
• In an own-goal, the narrator notes this is basically the plot of a science fiction movie.
• The show next cites ancient myths of gods who changed form to interact with humans, specifically Zeus.
• The talking heads allege that such myths reflect actual eyewitness accounts of aliens changing shape through an “invisibility cloak” or a “cloak” that creates holograms of different shapes.

Segment 2

• The second segment profiles the mimic octopus, which mimics several species, and then the show repeats false claims from earlier episodes that octopodes are from another planet.
• The show mistakenly identifies the octopus’s movement of limbs to mimic other species as “shape-shifting.” The octopus does not turn into other species.
  
• Islamic legends of jinn taking other forms are alleged to be literally true. The show is horny for jinn this season, apparently since its producers just discovered them this year.
• The show discusses trickster gods and their disguises, and Nick Pope alleges that space aliens are “deceiving” us for “seduction” and fraud.

Segment 3

• The third segment alleges that a medieval painting in Vlad the Impaler’s hometown shows a UFO, while it seems to show a flying shield sent from heaven, a common iconographic element in the early modern period, often seen on French tokens and medals.
  
• Lynn Picknett alleges that vampires were real until the 1700s, though she is clearly taken out of context and probably tried to say people believed them to be real.
• The show describes rituals to “kill” suspected vampire corpses.
• The show claims alien abductions compare to demon and vampire attacks, and David Childress claims ETs must consume human blood.

Segment 4

• The fourth segment finally gets around to shamans and their imagined ability to shape-shift into animals.
• They gave shamans only seconds and devote more time to werewolves and their alleged connection to UFOs, a connection made primarily in recent years. (There were some 1960s claims.)
• The show returns to the idea that ETs need human blood, and Linda Moulton Howe baldly states that aliens “mix and match” genes they consume from human blood with their own DNA to change shape.
• No one explains how aliens’ bones changes size and shape; it seems unlikely, especially for the skull, which would turn the brain to pulp in shrinking.
• The show confuses gene-editing embryos with shape-shifting.
  

Segment 5

• The fifth segment examines the Paleolithic cave painting known as “The Sorcerer,” which depicts a creature with human and animal elements, often thought to be a shaman.
  
• The segment segues into a promotion for Prometheus Entertainment’s new series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, with a description of imagined paranormal events on the infamous ranch.
• The segment describes skinwalkers, shapeshifters from Southwestern native lore.
• It ought to be obvious that any Navajo claim that skinwalkers manipulate their own DNA to change shape cannot be older than the middle twentieth century, but the show pretends this modern gloss is a prehistoric piece of wisdom.
• A Navajo police officer tells some supernatural stories about disappearing people he thinks might be aliens, but no evidence is given to document any of them.

Segment 6

• The final segment describes a lattice invented at Harvard that changes shape in response to heat.
  
• The show claims that DNA can be edited to cause human bodies to instantaneously shape shift, though it seems not to understand the differences between genetic modification and mechanical changes in size, shape, or color.
• The show confuses camouflage patterns and light-diffusing “invisibility” technology with shape-shifting.
• William Henry claims “millions” of humans are secretly space aliens in disguise.
• The narrator endorses this stupid notion.