Segment 1
We open with Adam Frank’s 2018 paper claiming that an advanced civilization could, in theory, have existed on Earth tens of thousands of years ago, since the evidence of such a civilization would have vanished. Frank was wrong in that such a civilization would have left traces in the environmental record, such as evidence of plant and animal domestication. Ancient Aliens, though, is a bit slippery on the term “civilization,” which they seem to equate with state-level polities, but they never really define it. Instead, they talk about the myths of various “ages” of human kind going back tens of thousands or even millions of years. This leads to a discussion of the pre-Adamites, whom they attribute to Jewish mythology and “Enochian” literature, though the pre-Adamite speculation is primarily associated with early Islamic discourse before they show up in Jewish or Christian discussions. The show seems to be conflating them with the Nephilim, since the “Enochian” literature doesn’t mention pre-Adamites, only Watchers and Nephilim. Naturally, the show returns to the well of Sitchin Studies to describe false claims about the Anunnaki, whom they misidentify as a winged bird-headed deity, and which they conflate with the Seven Sages, for no good reason. Based on this, they claim that any picture of a person with a bird head is evidence of a worldwide beaked alien Anunnaki culture. David Childress says it is impossible for humans to have imagined themselves as birds so all people must be imitating Anunnaki bird-aliens. I’m not sure what that says about my toddler when he flaps his arms and yells “I’m a bird!” Segment 2 The second segment attempts to revise the construction dates for famous ancient sites to push them back tens of thousands of years. This idea comes to us from Mark Carlotto, a believer in the “face on Mars” who wrongly believes that ancient sites always targeted the cardinal direction perfectly. Therefore, he concluded that the Earth’s crust slips around the Earth catastrophically, misaligning sites which were once perfectly aligned about 50,000 years ago. Carlotto bases his work on Charles Hapgood of the “Earth-crust displacement” nonsense. The show falsely claims that Einstein endorsed Hapgood and was reading his book at his death, and they bizarrely want to rehabilitate a scientifically unsupportable idea. Hapgood, incidentally, was building on an original claim made by Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1873 based on his own misunderstanding of a mistranslated Aztec text. All of this is pointless, however, since Carlotto is wrong that the ancient sites were always aligned to the north pole. Many ancient peoples cared about other alignments, and sometimes they just built things where they could, given geological constraints. During the break, History teased The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, which they are billing as “the next big dig” from “the producers of Curse of Oak Island”—who are also the producers of Ancient Aliens. One of the Skinwalker hosts is a frequent Ancient Aliens talking head. Well, the good news is that giving Skinwalker Ranch the Oak Island treatment will guarantee that nobody will ever find any “answers” or even much of a mystery, as it descends into infinite boredom. Of course, Shatner is also piggybacking on Oak Island’s high ratings with a season premiere devoted to explore Templars on Oak Island, so I guess we’ll see even more cross-pollination as the History Channel turns its programs into the lunatic pseudo-historian version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Segment 3 The third segment relates Robert Schoch’s false claim to have discovered “writing” at Göbekli Tepe. I’ve analyzed and debunked that claim before. The show doesn’t bother to explore the claim, as though conceding it is too flimsy even for them to spin into a segment. Then they are off to repeat their own previous discussions of a 2001 claim that a “pyramid city” exists off the coast of Cuba. The show falsely labels a computer-generated image of the site as the “actual” radar image of the city. Archaeologists saw nothing special in the images. This leads to Schoch’s discussion of the age of the Great Sphinx of Giza, which Schoch believes to have been eroded by rain at the end of the last Ice Age. His claim emerged from a gut feeling and a desire to prove John Anthony West and Schwaller de Lubicz right in their desire to support some wrongheaded ideas from nineteenth-century French archaeologists, based in turn on their misidentification of a Ptolemaic text as one from the Fourth Dynasty. I’ve laid all this out before, and I summarized it in the link at the beginning of this paragraph. The more interesting thing is that Schoch is repeating revised stories about his early 1990s experiences dating the Sphinx almost verbatim from an interview he gave in January. He may not be right, be he is consistent, once he settles on a new and revised “official” story. Segment 4 I loved Irving Finkel’s book The Ark Before Noah and his exploration of the Mesopotamian cultural background of the Great Flood myth, but for fuck’s sake, what is he doing on Ancient Aliens? It is always incredibly disappointing to see great scholars either stoop to appearing on this show or get hoodwinked into appearing on it. After Finkel talks about the flood myth, the show tries to prove that the Flood and the Conflagration happened by giving Schoch time to claim that a solar flare burned the Earth, which somehow is “proof of a global flood.” As per usual when they discuss the Flood, they allege that the gods who warn the flood-hero of the coming Flood in world mythology are extraterrestrials and that the ETs instigated the Flood. Giorgio Tsoukalos claims Noah was a child of space aliens, even though this directly contradicts the beginning of this very segment, which claimed the Jewish Flood story to be a derivative of a Mesopotamian original. Segment 5 The fifth segment discusses Noah’s Ark as a pyramid, a subject I just covered a few days ago and originally discussed in 2016. It’s an ancient belief derived from the biblical notion that the Ark rose up to its window at the top. Ancient people were sometimes too literal. From this, the show blathers on about Egyptian pyramids and asserts, without evidence, that the Great Pyramid is “the oldest” pyramid and all the others are inferior copies. Erich von Däniken cites al-Maqrizi’s Al-Khitat of 1400 CE to claim that the pyramids are from before Noah’s Flood. You can read what al-Maqrizi said for yourself. After this, the show speculates about pyramidiocy, including whacky claims that the pyramids were “technology” and “power plants”—all ideas we’ve heard many times before. It’s strange, though, that despite citing al-Maqrizi, the show doesn’t seem to have read him, and therefore doesn’t understand that the bizarre claims they throw out about the pyramids are all medieval Arab-Egyptian stories—or that the Arabs originally told those stories of the Egyptian temples, before recycling them for the pyramids centuries later. The proof is that early Arabic-language writers like al-Mas’udi in his Meadows of Gold tell the same stories but say they are about the great temple at Akhmim while later writers like al-Maqrizi know the same stories as those told of the pyramids. I’ve covered all that before, and I’m writing a book on the subject which is due out probably around Christmas, or maybe early next year. Segment 6 The final segment describes efforts to preserve life in the event of a global cataclysm by shooting genetic material into space. They ask whether space aliens and/or ancient people escaped the Flood via space travel to the Moon and Mars, where they built pyramids. David Childress calls them a “super-civilization,” but they don’t offer even a moment of reflection on what that would mean, or the logistics of building a lunar or Martian pyramid. The same people who assert that humans couldn’t have built ancient structures because the rocks were too big also think that a human “super-civilization” flew to the Moon, which has no air, and built a rock pyramid in the bottom of a crater. As stupid as this episode was, it was nice to have a return to classic Ancient Aliens, which is a bit more in my wheelhouse and better aligned with my interests than all the military UFO crap.
53 Comments
Crash55
2/29/2020 10:19:16 pm
I was sad to see Bettany Hughes on this week’s episode. I am used to seeing her on serious archaeological type shows and not drivel like Ancient Aliens
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Joe Scales
3/7/2020 05:51:40 pm
Well, so long as she sports her famous low-cut tops... she can come to Oak Island anytime as well.
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Gusg
3/1/2020 01:48:35 am
“. . . and I’m writing a book on the subject which is due out probably around Christmas, or maybe early next year.”
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3/1/2020 06:57:32 am
No, they have not, though the pilot episode put my name on the screen, turned it blood red, and played over-dramatic music over it while the narrator berated the "skeptics" who unfairly attacked von Daniken.
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Joe Scales
3/1/2020 09:58:48 am
Shatner showed up in the lyin' Lagina's "War Room" on a special edition of the insider show that repackages Curse of Oak Island episodes. He was actually skeptical and left without fully buying in. Then his own show comes on and accepts all the lies told throughout the history of the Oak Island hoax as fact. So there goes that...
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Frank
3/1/2020 11:20:47 am
Maybe one of them was the evil Captain Kirk from the episode “Mirror, Mirror”?
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Joe Scales
3/1/2020 10:28:38 pm
Yes. Where is "good" Spock when we need him most. He always saw right through that. But I suppose you're on to something Frank. And it must have been "evil" Spock that did In Search of...
Kent
3/1/2020 11:55:15 am
A thorough and dare I say it, entertaining review. Probably more entertaining than actually watching the show. Thank you!
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Hal
3/1/2020 04:21:11 pm
Slurp slurp. Broken boiler boy bombs again. That was one of the best AA shows ever. Go back to writing your “bestselling” self published books boiler boy. And take that ugly pudgeball fat Sarah with you.
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jakester48
3/1/2020 12:20:21 pm
I have read suggestions that the Great Flood myths may derive from an event which breached the Dardanelles thus raising the level of the Black Sea. There is archaeological evidence in Bulgaria of buildings now submerged in that Sea.
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Jim
3/1/2020 02:44:44 pm
I have read that as well.
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Kent
3/1/2020 03:27:30 pm
You mean global warming like the Medieval Warm Period? Using your reasoning the damage has already been done.
Jim
3/1/2020 04:11:26 pm
Wow, after just being well and truly exposed for a liar with your bad faith arguing and trolling you a certainly have a lot of gall to flaunt your bad behavior in Jason's face by trolling me again.
Kent
3/1/2020 06:07:21 pm
Actually I didn't notice it was a post of yours, thought it was just a *random* idiot. What you call trolling I call pointing out the obvious. But it's good that Jason has you looking out for him. Jim.
Jim
3/1/2020 06:19:27 pm
Uh huh, Mr Lying Kent, you are full of it.
Kent
3/1/2020 07:39:09 pm
"Using this as proof to say that we cannot be causing current warming"
Jim
3/2/2020 01:13:16 am
Kent, you realize that the premise of your argument is completely asinine and is also completely in conflict of all known data don't you ?
Vicky
3/1/2020 12:46:25 pm
God: As I’ve said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink. I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet the technology you’d developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You’re approaching the same point in human history again. It’s vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology, rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself.
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Jim
3/1/2020 03:19:41 pm
https://outabouter.com/2020/01/06/god-wonders-how-many-more-bushes-he-has-to-appear-in-to-get-people-to-stop-ruining-planet/
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Joe Scales
3/2/2020 12:04:58 pm
"God: As I’ve said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink."
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Betty
3/2/2020 01:13:44 pm
We are unlikely to come out of this mess alive without the help of aliens. Alien contactees say that due to the law of free will at least 5% of the human population has to ask for help.
Piggy-eyed Donald
3/2/2020 07:55:03 pm
Yes. The world may be ending, but if you vote for us, we can burn lots of coal and make it a certainty.
Joe Scales
3/3/2020 02:01:52 pm
Sorry. If humans are affecting the climate, it's already too late. Your only solution is to get rid of them. So if you want to save the planet... well, why not take the noble first step.
Piggy-eyed Donald
3/3/2020 09:20:53 pm
" If humans are affecting the climate"
Joe Scales
3/4/2020 10:26:51 am
Any time.
Piggy-eyed Donald
3/4/2020 01:40:45 pm
" I'd be more concerned with reality."
Joe Scales
3/4/2020 11:51:57 pm
Are you running for election then? I suppose I could show my age and guess Dog Catcher? That such noble profession now frowned upon, though likely not above your qualifications.
Piggy-eyed Donald
3/5/2020 09:39:38 am
Please allow me to introduce myself
Joe Scales
3/5/2020 09:56:29 am
"I buried Paul..."
Jr. Time Lord
3/2/2020 06:45:08 am
"We open with Adam Frank’s 2018 paper claiming that an advanced civilization could, in theory, have existed on Earth tens of thousands of years ago, since the evidence of such a civilization would have vanished."
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"The Neolithic founder crops (or primary domesticates) are the eight plant species that were domesticated by early Holocene (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region of southwest Asia, and which formed the basis of systematic agriculture in the Middle East, North Africa, India, Persia and Europe. They consist of flax, three cereals and four pulses, and are the first known domesticated plants in the world."
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Jr. Time Lord
3/4/2020 05:46:14 am
Uhhh...Corn...AKA...Maize...Comes from MEXICO. Has been cultivated there for at least seven thousand years.
OR...
3/4/2020 12:55:25 pm
Everyone knows that you retard. What's your point? "For seven thousand years" postdates the first known domesticated plants in the world from the Fertile Crescent.
Normandie Kent
3/5/2020 02:12:39 pm
Europe and Europeans never domesticated ANY grains. They inherited it from the Near East.
QuantPizza
3/2/2020 12:37:58 pm
Jason, nice dodge-fudge on the The Ark Before Noah. The real point is that the flood is not just a myth. Denying the flood is like denying the the climate change, pretty pathetic.
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Nope
3/2/2020 03:24:00 pm
The Mississippi floods. The Nile floods. Waters flooded into the Mediterranean basin at the end of the last ice age. Sure. Local floods everyone has seen and no one disputes.
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40 DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS
3/3/2020 07:02:50 am
The number forty is to be found in a great many instances in the Old Testament; for instance, at the end of forty days Noah sent out a raven from the ark. Isaac and Esau were each forty years old when they married. Forty days were fulfilled for the embalming of Jacob. The spies were forty days in search of the land of Canaan. The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness. The land "had rest" forty years on three occasions. The land was delivered into the hand of the Philistines forty years. Eli judged Israel forty years. King David reigned forty years. King Solomon reigned forty years. Goliath presented himself forty days. The rain was upon the earth forty days at the time of the deluge. Moses was on the mount forty days and forty nights on each occasion.
Jr. Time Lord
3/3/2020 01:43:18 pm
There is a big difference between 40 days and 40 years. Both one day, and one year represents the completion of a circle.
Forty Nights and 40 days
3/3/2020 02:13:21 pm
Another suspicious coincidence is that the number 40 also represents your IQ.
Kent
3/3/2020 06:38:48 pm
A complete circle is 2*Pi you stupid idiot. There's no reason it couldn't be 365 1/4 degrees. Two to five books a day, every day, for forty-two years.
Jr. Time Lord
3/4/2020 06:24:00 am
These people believed the orbits to be perfectly circular. The Earth to be a perfect sphere. These people were encoding TIME. The 40 has everything to do with the 144(1440) and the six days the Sun lies dead.
Warren, Anthony Warren
3/4/2020 01:00:02 pm
My name is Anthony Warren. People call me Anthony Warren. Do you like corn? I like corn.
Hey, J.R. Time Lord
3/4/2020 06:29:52 pm
Shut up
Bezalel has gills
3/5/2020 09:38:28 am
Read your bible heathen!
uillceal
3/5/2020 09:49:40 pm
I deny both. And also the Big Bang [see Halton Arp]. Not a big fan of meteoric death of dinosaurs either come to think on it.
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Bezalel
3/22/2020 11:36:19 pm
Did read Halton Arp, His arguments don’t hold water and he’s not familiar with relativity. Other non-big bang enthusiasts are better: Hans Alfven and his sycophant Michael J Lerner as two examples... look them up
David Childress
3/2/2020 03:29:28 pm
David Childress says it is impossible for humans to have imagined themselves as birds so all people must be imitating Anunnaki bird-aliens. I’m not sure what that says about my toddler when he flaps his arms and yells “I’m a bird!”
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3/3/2020 10:36:48 am
"Frank was wrong in that such a civilization would have left traces in the environmental record, such as evidence of plant and animal domestication" not necessarily. In the past decades sometimes,it was figured out that the oak tree population of California was partly the work of hunter gatherers who planted some of the acorns they harvested. (you have to drind them and soak them in several changes of water, or boil them for faster effect, to get rid of the tannins to make them edible, and probaby can use the tannin laden water to tan hides.)
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Sethi
4/18/2020 12:54:38 am
the darwinian threory is wrong, if not then pls inform which special species of the monkey did the human being originate from ? Has somebody ever asked this question?
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SINGLE DIMENSIONAL THINKING
3/3/2020 10:49:28 am
ALL WRONG
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uillceal
3/5/2020 09:42:32 pm
thank you for all your work. most people would have given up on these reviews long ago. your tenacity and purposefulness is to be recommended.
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3/6/2020 01:53:15 am
A very meaningful event, I hope everything will go well
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Sethi
4/18/2020 12:50:50 am
Please note that in Islam there are no PRE ADAM HUMAN BEINGS !
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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