Review of Ancient Aliens S20E08 “The UFO Superhighway”

​Back in 2016, Harvard-educated nonfiction author Ben Mezrich, best known for writing the book Aaron Sorkin turned into The Social Network as well as the books that became the films Dumb Money and 21, published The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway. Mezrich courted controversy in his books with an unfortunate tendency toward composite characters and what several of his subjects claimed were falsifications. Ufology was, of course, a natural fit. His 37th Parallel related the claim of ufologist Chuck Zukowski that cattle mutilations and UFO sightings happened with statistically significant frequency along that line of latitude. Zukowski had speculated about a latitude connection to UFOs on the Science Channel’s Unexplained Files, and a movie producer saw the show and told him to turn it into a book, helping connect him with Mezrich. As later research showed, the claim was bullshit. 

An analysis of MUFON UFO reports found ten other lines of latitude with more sighting, and no significant differences occurred in cattle mutilation or paranormal encounters strictly by latitude. A planned 2017 movie version of 37th Parallel starring Robert Downey, Jr. never happened, and instead we have … this, timed to the release of Mezrich’s new book about Elon Musk and Twitter.

I am currently deep into the editing my new book, so you will forgive me if I pay minimal attention to this patently absurd episode of Ancient Aliens and the subjects I care so very little about: UFO sightings and cattle mutilation. 

​Segment 1
The first segment opens with a 2011 Colorado earthquake in Trinidad, Colo. and second in Piedmont, Virg. This coincidence introduces us to Zukowski, who began collecting paranormal activity along the 37th parallel. (He appears only in a couple of snapshots.) Ryan Sprague appears on the show to outline Zukowski’s story, apparently unaware that it is a cherry-picked confirmation bias. Zukowski’s sister is a director in MUFON. The map Ancient Aliens shows, which is not of any particular value since we don’t know what information is included or excluded (it is later claimed to be an earthquake map), is nevertheless also unconvincing as the dots are not terribly close to 37° N. The infamous Thomas Mantell UFO chase is then discussed, though the reality of the situation—that Mantell was chasing a military balloon (covered up with a story about it being “Venus or a comet”)—is omitted. Various other UFO sightings are discussed to no particular end, including he “Piedmont sightings” of 1973. The Roswell Incident is roped in, too, even though it is 100 miles away from 37° N, a distance farther than the 69-mile tolerance (34.5 miles north and south) the show originally claimed for the degree of latitude. I guess we can stretch the distance as far as the aliens like, so long as it looks sort of close on a zoomed-out map.
 
Segment 2
The second segment focuses on cattle mutilation, with plenty of disturbing photos of dead cows, including the Miller Ranch in Trinidad, Colorado. A previously shot, but apparently never aired, segment from 2020 with Nick Pope and Travis Taylor investigating dead cows and alleged paranormal events follows. The ranchers claim that the U.S. government told them their cows were “laser cut” and that 16 cows had been mutilated over the past thirty years. The ranchers also claim to see floating orbs. The old man says an orb paralyzed his leg in his sleep until a doctor gave him a shot. Big deal. That happened to my shoulder once, and it wasn’t due to aliens. My muscles seized up and wouldn’t loosen. Travis Taylor waves an instrument around, declares the reading anomalous, and then takes off with Nick Pope to play with a long-dead cow. Four people, none of whom is an expert in animal deaths, declare that it must have been dropped from the sky after its guts were surgically removed.
 
Segment 3
The third segment covers the Hopi myth of so-called Star People—yes, again—and the Black Mesa of Arizona, which is close to 37°N latitude. Some of the material appears to be unused footage from 2022’s episode about Native American stories of Star People. A similar Apache story follows, but the show seems to simply assume viewers are familiar enough with Star People that there is no reason to explain them. Instead, we return to cattle mutilation, now in Dulce, N.M. This involves a rehash of claims (and some repeat footage) from a 2019 episode that there is a secret U.S./alien base beneath Dulce.
 
Segment 4
The fourth segment returns to an old favorite of Ancient Aliens, the idea that the earth is covered in an energy grid and the lines of flowing energy serve as invisible guides for alien spaceships. Those with long memories might recall a 2011 episode when Ancient Aliens claimed this energy grid allowed ancient people to float large rocks. As I mentioned back then, no one has ever proved an energy grid exists, and no two researchers agree where the lines run. Travis Taylor says that the 37°N phenomenon is due to the release of piezoelectricity from underground quartz following earthquakes, and Nick Pope says that the aliens can read that energy. The narrator claims that such energy opens interdimensional portals, including one at Skinwalker Ranch, leading to a cross-promotion with sister show The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.
 
Segment 5
The fourth segment tries to link the 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO flap—which didn’t involve any space aliens, only faulty radar and bad weather—to the 37th parallel by claiming Washington is “just north” of 37°N. In reality, it’s at 38.9°N, nearly two full degrees north. It’s a stretch. The show claims that there is a government conspiracy to make use of 37°N earth energy by noting that some government facilities, including Fort Knox (37.9°N), Cheyenne Mountain (home of NORAD) (38.7°N), and Area 51 (37.2° N), are located there, within varying degrees of tolerance. But there are hundreds of government facilities, located across the country, so it’s something of a cherry picking expedition to select a few that are more or less close to an arbitrary point.
 
Segment 6
The final segment tries to extend the claim worldwide, citing Göbekli Tepe standing at 37.2°N. The show neglects to note that their chosen parallel is about smack in the middle of the northern hemisphere’s temperate zone, where the climate favored human habitation and thus attracted many early settlements. Tsoukalos tries to link this to Graham Hancock’s claim that the temples around Angkor Wat was a star map of Draco, and Andrew Collins tries to claim that a prehistoric Turkish statue of a masturbating man is proof that aliens encoded a map to Cygnus in it. I didn’t really follow the logic, which seems to draw on Collins’s previous claims that various carvings at Göbekli Tepe are birds in the shape of the constellation of Cygnus, a constellation that can’t be shown to have existed in the Ice Age. The show ends with some mutterings about consciousness and teleportation before summarizing the preceding hour.