Review of Ancient Aliens S20E09: “Mysteries of Scotland”

​The morning that this episode aired, the government’s UFO office, AARO, released the unclassified version of the first volume of its historical survey of UFOs. Unsurprisingly, AARO concluded that there is no evidence of aliens, has never been any evidence of aliens, and the rumors and conspiracies attributing to the U.S. government a massive cover-up of space aliens are nothing more than fantasies born of science fiction, misunderstandings, and paranoia. “The proliferation of television programs, books, movies, and the vast amount of internet and social media content centered on UAP-related topics most likely has influenced the public conversation on this topic, and reinforced these beliefs within some sections of the population,” AARO wrote. The report went on to report what I have long told you in these pages, that nearly all of the claims made since 2017 about “off-world technology” and “beings” originate with “the same group of individuals” with ties to AAWSAP and To the Stars, i.e. the various phases of the Skinwalker Ranch spook crew. Overall, the report is a massive win for reason, history, and science, and in a sane world it would crush demand for UFO content for a generation. That we now turn to Ancient Aliens’ claim that the Loch Ness monster is a space alien tells you about everything you need to know.

Segment 1
This episode immediately calls to mind the similar show they did on Ireland in 2022, covering some of the same material—standing stones, mythological fairy folk, etc. The show goes into the fake lore of Princess Scota, which I discussed in 2017. The show doesn’t bother to discuss it in detail, trusting that the name “Manetho” can substitute for evidence, so we move on to a potted history of Scotland and its geology, including its seismic activity. It’s all a bit disorganized and rather pointless. Kathleen McGowan slips occasionally into a faux Scottish accent as she speaks, and the show subtitles Scots speaking in English for fear that History’s audience won’t recognize a non-American voice, even when the person is speaking perfectly clearly. After this, UFO sightings are referenced, but not discussed in any detail, and William Henry continues last week’s theme by repeating the assertion that earthquake faults are associated with UFOs and portals to another dimension.
 
Segment 2
The second segment discusses the so-called Falkirk Triangle, a location in central Scotland that allegedly has the highest volume of UFO reports (per capita, not in absolute numbers) in the world. Since 1992, the area around Bonnybridge has roughly 300 UFO sightings per year, and no conclusive evidence of aliens in any of those roughly 9,600 sightings. Some evidence-free stories of sightings follow, including Bob Taylor’s story of a dematerializing ship and an assault with tiny robots that sounds much like a hallucination or dream. Taylor admitted he was unconscious during part of the incident. Andrew Collins and Hugh Newman travel to the site to look for clues. Collins investigated it 44 years ago as a stripling, and now he is an old man who still has no answers.
 
Segment 3
The Ministry of Defence said there was no threat to national security in the skies above the Falkirk Triangle, leading ufologists to cry conspiracy and coverup. With no real connection to this, the third segment goes on to repeat claims from the first segment and from last week about crystals and fault lines creating piezoelectric portals to a higher-level UFO dimension. The show claims that Loch Ness, with its quartz, is a portal letting the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot (!), and UFOs move in and out of our reality. (They’ve made this claim before, on their spinoff show, In Search of Aliens.) Even for Ancient Aliens, this episode is particularly disorganized and repetitive.
 
Segment 4
The fourth segment begins with a recap of fairy lore and stone circles the show already covered in its Ireland episode. The show links stone circles to interdimensional portals, though of course none actually contains any documented portal. Robert Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth, a 1691 compendium of paranormal lore, is cited as proof that there is a parallel fairy dimension. We then watch Newman and Collins march around some standing stones and talk about “energy” and “piezoelectricity.” Somehow, despite this, neither is electrocuted nor transported out of this dimension.

Calvine UFO Photo

Segment 5
The next segment rehashes the 2022 rediscovery of the so-called Calvine Photo, an image of an alleged angular UFO taken in 1990. The photo was repeatedly debunked over the last two years, with a number of plausible prosaic explanations offered for what the photo really showed, everything from a distant cloud-covered hill to a reflection of a rock in water to a kite, and even a hoax. A secret government aircraft remains another popular theory. The show, however, says nothing about any of this and instead calls it a “craft of non-human origin,” based on … vibes, I guess.
 
Segment 6
The final segment discusses Prince Philip’s UFO interests, which the show covered before, on the grounds that the late prince consort was Duke of Edinburgh, and therefore part of a Scottish UFO conspiracy. They suggest he and Elizabeth II were “guardians of the UFO secret” through their Scottish interests. Uh-huh. So that’s why Philip tried and failed to get good UFO stories—because he already knew them?