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Review of In Search of Aliens S01E01 "The Hunt for Atlantis"

7/26/2014

138 Comments

 
Giorgio Tsoukalos, I think it’s fair to say, is not a scholar or a researcher or even an investigator; instead, he is a showman. The Ancient Aliens star and consulting producer went to college (my alma mater, in fact) for sports information communication and spent his formative years as a promoter in the world of professional bodybuilding. His love for the threadbare mysteries of Erich von Däniken led to a position as the ancient astronaut theorist’s English language spokesperson and gatekeeper, in which capacity I interviewed him as a college student in 2002. In the interest of disclosure, I refer you to my 2011 essay on “My Alien Afternoon with Giorgio Tsoukalos” for an explanation of why Tsoukalos accused me of having “malevolent intentions” and as late as 2012 still refused to be in the same building with me.
Tsoukalos has never produced a book, nor has he published any original research on ancient astronauts so far as I can find. His reputation as a leading ancient astronaut theorist rests on his position as the editor of Erich von Däniken’s fan club newsletter, Legendary Times, and his appearances on Ancient Aliens, where he took a leading role by dint of his von Däniken connection, his unusual accent, and his increasingly exaggerated sense of style, which runs from his bouffant hairdo to his penchant for gossamer scarves and layers of jewelry. According to Tsoukalos’s own biographies, his greatest intellectual achievement is his “dynamic” PowerPoint presentation on the ancient astronaut theory.

By H2 standards, that more than qualifies Tsoukalos to head up (and serve as producer on) a new series in which he expands his minutes of commentary on Ancient Aliens into full, hour-long episodes of In Search of Aliens, a title that immediately recalls In Search of Ancient Astronauts (and its spinoff, In Search Of…), which directly adapted, like Tsoukalos himself, Erich von Däniken. It’s all very appropriate, but also rather disheartening. The show, and its host, are already in reruns before the first episode ever aired. The first episode is about that hoariest of saws, Atlantis, a topic that was last fresh and exciting when Ignatius Donnelly wrote about in 1882, and even then he was merely popularizing arguments that were already 300 years old.

But here’s the bigger issue: Tsoukalos, as showman, is more interested in the entertainment value of his claims than their intellectual coherence. As the head of the Ancient Alien Society (formerly the AAS-RA), Tsoukalos approved a series of mission statement articles in the first years of this century summing up what the AAS-RA believes. He published Ulrich Dopatka’s article “Paleo-SETI: Interdisciplinary and Popularized” asserting that “there could not have been any Atlantis (i.e. a very advanced civilization comparable to ours) either, or else we would find traces of its infrastructure worldwide…” This article was widely distributed by Tsoukalos’s AAS-RA as an introductory guide to ancient astronauts and republished on their website as an official AAS-RA position statement, identified only by corporate authorship. But despite this, Tsoukalos went on Ancient Aliens in 2010 to declare the Atlantis “lifted off” as a UFO!
In Ancient Greece we have a number of myths which describe islands—bronze, gleaming islands—that fell from the sky and landed in water. I don’t think that Atlantis therefore was an actual, stationary, physical island. Atlantis, according to Plato, disappeared in one night with a lot of fire and a lot of smoke. See, I don’t think that Atlantis sank. I think that Atlantis lifted off.
I explained why his 2010 claims of flying bronze islands were wrong years ago. Be sure to read it since these claims will come around again at episode’s end.

In the first episode of In Search of Aliens, Tsoukalos is once again happy to go in yet another direction when it comes to Atlantis, at least until consistency requires him to give lip service to his earlier views at the episode’s end. For this new series, Tsoukalos is not dressed in his usual brown suit or his flamboyant scarves. Instead, he is dressed as Indiana Jones, in keeping with publicity materials calling him (like channel-mate Scott F. Wolter) a “real-life Indiana Jones.” It’s all theater, of course, but it’s interesting to contrast the stylistic choices of Ancient Aliens with those of In Search of Aliens. I note that Tsoukalos is not as good at reading copy as he is at extemporaneous bloviating, and his delivery is, in places, stilted, especially since he was apparently instructed to stifle his accent as much as practicable. He doesn’t sound like himself. I wonder if he has been working with a vocal coach to sound more American.

The opening to the show is very similar to America Unearthed, which is clearly this program’s model. There are the same glamor shots of our heroic “investigator” parading about in Indiana Jones getup, but more to the point Tsoukalos echoes Wolter in saying “What we’ve been taught by mainstream scholars is not the whole picture.” This is H2’s theme: Academia is hiding things from you. Aesthetically, though, the show wants to connect itself to Ancient Aliens, and the title card reproduces the familiar (and trademarked) Ancient Aliens logo, using the same two typefaces separated by a double line to spell out the new show’s name.

Picture
Picture
Look familiar?
Right from the first minute of the show, we’re off to a bad start. Tsoukalos heavily implies that Plato wrote of advanced technology in Atlantis, but this is untrue. Even Ignatius Donnelly didn’t do that. The first accounts of advanced technology in Atlantis came in the 1890s, in the volume Dweller on Two Planets by Frederick S. Oliver (written 1894 and published 1905), itself heavily influenced by Theosophy. This text—allegedly channeled from ancient times through a modern pen—was cited explicitly by Edgar Cayce (reading 364-1), who popularized the idea that Atlantis has super-weapons—in the 1930s! There is no ancient text suggesting anything similar.

Tsoukalos claims he has always been fascinated with Atlantis since youth and dreamed he would find the city. He meets with a man identified as a classical archaeologist, who tells Tsoukalos that Poseidon was involved in genetic engineering of the people of Atlantis. Tsoukalos loves this comment and claims it as “mainstream” support for his views. We hear about Plato’s geography of Atlantis, which is familiar to most readers of this blog, I presume. Tsoukalos asks why Plato offered “incredibly detailed” descriptions of Atlantis if it were a mere myth. I’d like to see him apply that same logic to Euhemerus’ Panchaea, or to Lucian’s moon kingdom. Both are fictions and yet just as detailed.

Tsoukalos visits Silves, Portugal to meet with a British amateur investigator named Peter Daughtrey who thinks that the city in Portugal was Atlantis. His book, Atlantis and the Silver City, was one of the amateur books that was so crappy that even I didn’t bother to write about it since it had nothing useful in it to comment on when I read it last year. Daughtrey’s ideas are simply efforts to correlate various facets of Plato with his preferred location for Atlantis, ignoring what he doesn’t like. Today, he shows Tsoukalos a roughly egg-shaped six-foot stone on which a geometric pattern is carved in relief. It’s similar to an omphalos stone, but since it is not 11,000 years old, it can’t be from Atlantis, nor does Plato make any mention of egg-shaped rocks. It seems to be Greco-Roman, probably Orphic.

Daughtrey claims it was buried in Noah’s Flood, but Tsoukalos adds that the entwined serpent motif on the rock represents the DNA double helix. He cites Zecharia Sitchin and the Anunnaki to claim that the aliens wiped out rebellious humans with a flood, just as Atlantis was drowned. “That leads me to wonder: Could these stories be related?” Tsoukalos presents this as a unique revelation, but it is not: Ignatius Donnelly didn’t subtitle his Atlantis book “The Antediluvian World” for nothing; like biblical literalists before him, he thought the Atlantis flood was also the flood of Noah. The actual relationship is perhaps more interesting: The last lines of Plato’s unfinished Critias have Zeus become angry at the presumption and sin of the Atlanteans, just like God before the Flood in Genesis 6 (and particularly in extra-biblical Jewish myth), suggesting that Plato may have had a version of the Near East flood myth in mind when devising his allegory.

I’m frankly surprised at how much time the show is devoting to Daughtrey and his ideas—twenty minutes so far. Daughtrey tells Tsoukalos that Atlantis was the “biggest producer of precious metals in the then-known world,” which is a rather generous interpretation of Plato’s text, considering that in the Critias Plato wrote of the structures beyond the capital that “there was no adorning of them with gold and silver, for they made no use of these for any purpose.” Within the capital, gold was used for palaces and temples, but until the final corruption for the Atlanteans gold “seemed only a burden to them.” There is no discussion of mining except to say that they dug from the earth whatever they needed.

Daughtrey presents a Roman mural of Poseidon as evidence that Silves was connected to Poseidon and therefore, according to Tsoukalos, space aliens. The Romans lived more than 9,000 years after the Atlanteans supposedly lived, so I do not see the connection. But Daughtrey quickly breaks down into ancient astronaut lunacy, talking of genetic engineering and how the “gods” made humans as a slave race to serve them—all the Sitchinite material. It’s probably not worth noting that Poseidon himself can’t be traced back before the Mycenaeans, much less to 9,600 BCE—Plato’s timeframe.

At the halfway point, Tsoukalos introduces us to his mentor, Erich von Däniken, and they meet at Mystery Park, von Däniken’s failed ancient astronaut theme park in Switzerland. The park closed to general admission in 2006 due to a lack of paying customers (it was open just three years), and today it operates only during the summer under the name Jungfrau Park. Its new owners made it a kiddie amusement park rather than focus entirely on ancient astronauts. It attracts about 500 daily visitors. Tsoukalos describes it as an “educational” facility dedicated to the ancient astronaut theory. It’s an amusement park. Seriously. Von Däniken gives presentations there on Thursdays during the summer, according to the park website, so I guess that’s what makes it “educational.”

As the two men talk, we get yet another recap of the Timaeus and Critias, and von Däniken asserts that Noah’s Flood is responsible for removing all traces of Atlantis and the antediluvian world. He asserts that Mesopotamian cuneiform accounts of the Flood confirm the destruction of Atlantis. Both men believe that the mythical primeval Mesopotamian kings were aliens. Von Däniken, who once argued that aliens had sex with human women, now rants about how the aliens changed one piece of DNA inside of “one cell” and implanted it in “the female” to create humankind. Aliens, of course, are male like him. Women are “females” because they are apparently little more than gestational carriers for future men, who are real people. On a show that features no living women and refers only to ancient women who were in sexually submissive roles or the victims of sexual assault, it is slightly uncomfortable to watch.

Von Däniken, having finished complaining about the “females,” sends Tsoukalos to Santorini to review the most familiar and boring idea about Atlantis—that it was inspired by the destruction of Thera (now Santorini) around 1620 BCE. The trouble with this idea, of course, is that you have to throw out a literal reading of virtually all of Plato’s description of Atlantis (its size, age, architecture, location, etc.) to make the claim fit, which negates the purpose of claiming Plato’s Atlantis was in any way “real.” Santorini is not beyond the Pillars of Hercules, nor is its Minoan civilization 11,600 years old. The island can hardly be described as bigger than Libya and Asia combined. Removing all that leaves us with what exactly of Atlantis?

Greek Atlantis theorist Jonathan Bright shows Tsoukalos a Minoan fresco from ancient Thera depicting a group of men wearing cloaks that Tsoukalos describes as “feathered,” though they could equally well be made of long fur. Tsoukalos tries to suggest that the men in fur coats are winged Anunnaki, but there is no indication of wings whatsoever in these pictures. He’s grasping at straws to try to make this adventure less than a complete waste of time.

As the show pushes in for a landing, Tsoukalos points to cyclopean architecture (i.e., piles of large rocks) as having something to do with aliens and gods, but what is frightening is that Bright decides to link the Greek gods to the Enochian Watchers on Mt. Hermon—emphasizing the Watchers’ seduction of human women to “make children with them.” Can’t we go even one hour without the Watchers?!? They are the alpha and the omega of fringe history. Anyway, both Tsoukalos and Bright are fixated on just one line of the Critias—“The maiden had already reached womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her and had intercourse with her [and] begat and brought up five pairs of twin male children” (trans. Benjamin Jowett)—to make elaborate claims about an alien breeding program. Edwin Sidney Hartland, writing in the late 1800s, catalogued hundreds of pages worth of legends about heroes with divine or supernatural parents in the Legend of Perseus; this was nothing unique to Atlantis or to the Nephilim.

Tsoukalos wonders if Near Eastern stories of gods on mountains are related (though he assumes this is due to aliens rather than cultural diffusion) and relates the myth of Asteria, the Titan who fell into the sea and became an island. His summary is a near-verbatim recounting of James Frazer’s translation of Apollodorus (Library, 1.4.1), “Of the daughters of Coeus, Asteria in the likeness of a quail flung herself into the sea in order to escape the amorous advances of Zeus, and a city was formerly called after her Asteria, but afterwards it was named Delos.” He mentions this for no good reason, and makes no connection to much of anything. His 2010 comments on Ancient Aliens explain the connection, but they are omitted here, leaving the audience baffled. In ancient texts it is clear that (as her name implies) she was meant to symbolize meteors.

Tsoukalos concludes by stating that he was on an “amazing journey” but that everything we just watched was a huge waste of time because Atlantis was really “some sort of flying craft.” This, he says, is why it can be in various global locations and leave behind no evidence. Yes, that’s much more logical than the idea that it never existed outside Plato’s imagination. But what is the point of this episode if this out-of-nowhere “theory” comes only in the last minute of the show, and “will require more investigation” in the host’s words. Wasn’t “investigation” the point of this show? It’s what he said he was doing at the beginning of the hour, but apparently it’s just the coloring to dress up a lazy excuse for a nice Mediterranean vacation on H2’s dime.

What actual investigation did we have in this hour? We heard from an archaeologist, two fringe Atlantis writers, and Erich von Däniken, all of whom simply asserted things without evidence, and no one made even a brief attempt to follow the logic of any one claim, or even to try to present real evidence, facts, or logical arguments in favor of Atlantis. In fact, the show either has a very low opinion of its viewers or else is incompetently written. It failed to address such basic questions the audience would have after watching it as:

  • Why is it important that Silves is “beyond the Pillars of Hercules” but not important that Santorini is not?
  • Why are the aliens sometimes said to have sexual intercourse with human women to make hybrids but are otherwise said to genetically engineered eggs for artificial insemination? Which is it? Why don’t the “experts” agree?

The parts of the show didn’t support one another, and they added up to nothing because there was no overriding thesis or purpose, topped with Tsoukalos’s own admission that he doesn’t buy into what his interviewees said.  So, again, what was the point? Why waste the air time telling the audience what you don’t think is true? It’s the Prometheus Entertainment school of filmmaking: Throw ideas sort of related to a topic on the screen and hope that glib commentary and pretty pictures (the cinematography was nice) will gloss over the lack of coherence, logic, or purpose. This isn’t a search for Atlantis as much as it is “five white guys’ random thoughts on Atlantis.”

It’s a vanity project and a money grab, but it doesn’t even make as good an argument as Ancient Aliens for the topic it supposedly “investigates.” In fact, Tsoukalos’s own discussion of Atlantis on Ancient Aliens in 2010 was more detailed and more complete than his throwaway claims on his own show!

In Search of Aliens is an ersatz America Unearthed that lacks even the dubious expertise of Scott F. Wolter, who, for all his faults, produces more interesting television by having the courage of his convictions and coming to lunatic conclusions from a consistent (if skewed) reading of “evidence” he investigates. Tsoukalos could learn a thing or two about the value of at least pretending to have some original research, insights, or ideas.

138 Comments
Only Me
7/26/2014 07:23:21 am

Personally, I was waiting for Tsoukalos to stroke the stone egg, jump back in excitement as it hatched, and then gasp in astonishment when the alien hatchling looked at him and said, "Momma?"

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EP
7/26/2014 07:52:15 am

That would have required the entirety of the budget not being spent on hair and makeup for Mr. Tsoukalos. Given that their Atlantis looks worse than the one in Age of Mythology (a 2002 video game), I think you should have known you were setting yourself up for a disappointment :)

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Only Me
7/26/2014 08:05:15 am

Just watching shows like this, to grasp how far they're willing to go to make money, is willingly setting myself up for disappointment.

Is it too late to bring back Celebrity Deathmatch? I think Ancient Aliens vs. Star Trek (any series) would be a good one. Any other suggestions?

EP
7/26/2014 08:55:06 am

All I want to know is when Tsoukalos will wrestle the Bigfoot... What happened to that project? Is it just a part of In Search of Aliens now?

Jason Colavito link
7/26/2014 09:06:06 am

There is an episode on "ultra-terrestrial Bigfoot" coming up, so, yes, it's an episode of the show.

.
7/26/2014 12:22:43 pm

could Paramount be coaxed into producing a KING KONG
verses GIGANTOPITHICUS Star Trek spin-off if Tribune
forgets about doing a sequel to Kevin Sorbo's ANDROMEDA?
"RED vs BLUE" is actually a TV series on Netflix and it is CGI.
Bear Grylls is to be on NBC in 48 hours with his own "celebs"
who want to go exploring. i hope he is not into death-matches.

Gregor
7/26/2014 12:26:51 pm

@EP

I fear you, too, shall be disappointed - I'm betting that they use the same cheesy, turn-of-the-millennium computer game graphics for the "Ultra-Terrestrial" (what??) as Finding Bigfoot does (and that MysteryQuest / MonsterQuest did before them).

EP
7/26/2014 12:48:44 pm

'Ultra-terrrestrial' is strictly synonymous with 'extra-terrestrial', at least as far as contemporary English is concerned. I bet we owe the neologism to Tsoukalos et al.'s failure to realize that 'extra-terrestrial' doesn't literally mean 'space alien visitor from space'.

Gregor
7/26/2014 01:52:32 pm

@EP

Awww :( I was thinking Ultra-Terrestrial might be some Nexus 6 Replicant knockoff thing...

"... I AM THE NEXUS ONE... I WANT MORE LIFE, $*#%ER I AIN'T DONE! YEAH!..."

spookyparadigm
7/26/2014 02:46:14 pm

"Ultraterrestrial" signals a specific meaning found in a section of UFO and related occulture, with John Keel as its patron demonologist. Given some of the talking heads apparently showing up on AA's recent episode, and the subject of Reptilians taking us closer to Shaver land, I wouldn't be surprised to see more esoteric UFOs rather than von Daniken's mid-century space opera type aliens.

EP
7/26/2014 03:36:27 pm

@ spookyparadigm:

I was talking about the English language, not its use at the hands of the fringe :)

The point I was trying to make is precisely that using 'ultra-terrrestrial' to distinguish the Bigfoot from aliens isn't at all intuitive.

Ron
7/27/2014 05:50:11 am

As much as he is a practiced showman, I have to admit the old adage applies...where there's smoke there's fire. I also admit to being appreciative of his remarkable command of the English language! never heard him hum or ahh unlike some newscasters i have watched. Even if only 2% of what he say's is true it still makes me think. Cheers to a good show and excellent showman!

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Gregor
7/27/2014 02:38:05 pm

Enh...

Regarding his "command of the English language"... he still has a thick accent, randomly uses certain words in an odd way, and has enunciation issues ("eszzrarerrestresals!"). He speaks better English than most Americans speak German or French, but then he was raised in a thoroughly multi-lingual culture & time period. Given English's status as the international "language of commerce", he'd have had a hard time working (or studying) internationally without speaking it well.

The comparison to newscasters is invalid and unfair. Tsoukalos controls what he says, how he says it, has access to multiple takes, an editing staff and, if Jason's research is to be trusted, a contractual stipulation for "positive coverage". Conversely newscasters must read new or unfamiliar material on cue before a live (or slightly delayed, but not edited) broadcast. They don't get edits, they don't get retakes, and they don't always get to control just exactly what they say.

Lastly, if 2% of what Tsoukalos says is true, it's guaranteed to be things like "the Ancient Egyptians were a human culture", or "pyramids have triangular faces". 100% of his "theories" and "claims" are patently (and demonstrably) false... many are outright lies.

Kay
2/27/2015 10:16:52 am

Bravo! I agree! Cheers to a great showman! The author of this blog sounds a little jealous of ol' Giorgio... A lot of hate was spewd for sure in this article.
Dude.... You sound a little obsessed..
Not cool

abductedbyaliens
7/26/2014 10:07:57 am

Jason - Sixth paragraph starting with "In this episode...." you need a correction on the fourth line, "....he is dressed as Indian Jones,...."

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Jason Colavito link
7/26/2014 10:42:15 am

Thanks. Fixed.

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CHV
7/26/2014 10:15:31 am

GT wouldn't understand the meaning of Occam's Razor if it jumped up and stabbed him in the rear.

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Gregor
7/26/2014 12:22:07 pm

For what little it's worth, more and more of the programs pushed out by A&E and Discovery Channel are stamp-press copies of earlier "favorites". As an example, Animal Planet ("Surprisingly Bullshit") released a show called "Treehouse Masters" that - as you might expect from a channel about animals - is a program following a team of carpenters who build tree houses for rich white people. It was reasonably popular (apparently), so they recently released "Pool Master", a show about an old English man who... goes around building pools for rich white people.

The key point is that each show has the exact same introduction... an old-timey, nostalgic pan-shot of a tree house / pool and the voice-over saying: "The Tree House... just... grew... UP!" or "The pool... just... grew... WILD!" Same tone. Same delivery. Same pacing. The programs even follow the same obviously-scripted scenario in which host starts project A, miraculously is located (through the tracking chip in their skulls, I imagine) by someone just a short drive away(!), leave to do project B, then comes back to project A and everyone hugs because they had $85k to throw away on a tree house / pool.

While none of the Ancient Aliens / mystery-mongering crew has ever been one for originality or insight, the existence of near-carbon-copy shows is more par for the course than anything else.

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.
7/26/2014 12:29:45 pm

Discovery fired Cody Lundin or perhaps Cody called them on
their tendency to risk the lives of their Survivalists in a stupid
manner. Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin made a great team.
DUAL SURVIVAL has been going downhill by slow degrees.
Man, Woman Wild has its moments but Man v. Wild set the bar high as does Survivorman despite itz BIGFOOT 2-parter. I
wanted to see a REAL bigfoot for once, even if i forgive the
team of FINDING BIGFOOT each week for being remiss!!!

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spookyparadigm
7/26/2014 02:51:28 pm

TV has never been that creative, but its clearly hiving off into a couple of basic audiences, with high level dramas on the hand, and complete garbage on the other.

I guess in a sense it has matured to where it now has literature, penny dreadfuls, and tabloids. Whereas more traditional TV was something like a mix of pulps (action/detective/cop shows with stock characters and relatively unchanging stories) and comic strips (comedies or melodramas either not changing at all and repeating the same jokes, or changing at a glacial pace).

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.
7/26/2014 12:45:51 pm

Plato is either very exact or like Lucian of Samosata.
Plato's solar years take us globally to the floods before
and after the YOUNGER DRYAS. We also have a very
flooded Black Sea. Santorini's eruption ended an empire,
there are sea shells ancient and coastal city debris on
the high hills of Crete. A recent PBS series had CGI in it
that tried to show the wave arriving that was easily equal
to the one in December of 2004. i once bought a 3DO so
i forgive all CGI from the year 2000. i owned a Jaguar, too.
Pole Position on the old ATARI is a cool minimalism game.
The HORTAs Spock + Kirk talked to in classic Trek are cool.
Ancient Aliens is less scientific than classic STAR TREK...

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.
7/26/2014 01:22:58 pm

In Jurassic Park the movie, the lil island of DNA spliced "dinos'
in an amphibian manner produces offspring as in eggs despite
the lack of mature adult males. evidently this Eden's recreation
of early Earth had an Amazon's logic to it. Wonder^Woman yes!!!
Now picture a ship of FEMALE sapient AMAZON amphibian E.Ts!

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Gregor
7/26/2014 02:11:19 pm

Just for argument's sake...

1. They had eggs, but it was never stated that the eggs were the result of splicing, only that they created the original dinosaurs that way. One could argue that they used gene-splicing and host creatures (most likely akin to the real-life experiments on regressing chickens to express "Dino DNA") to create the original crop, then successive generations of interbreeding to obtain dinosaur-like creatures until they had bred sufficiently identifiable "dinosaurs". What's more, as the "no males" was cited as a means to control the population, it's entirely possible they originally had a group of males whose sperm they froze (akin to modern artificial insemination techniques) and used that to impregnate their resulting entirely-female stock.

2. Just because the Amazons were an entirely female culture / civilization does not mean they reproduced asexually (or even that they reproduced at all). It's possible that they captured males for procreation (yes, "Snu Snu"), or that they kidnapped / "adopted" young girls to raise as their own, or both. There are multiple ways a single-gender society could sustain itself (assuming, of course, they were not in complete isolation).

3. Though I am aware of no documented human case, there does exist the rare event of "Parthenogenesis", or the act of a female becoming pregnant and giving birth to live young with ONLY the mother's DNA. Matter of fact (since you mention Amazons), it was so named (Parthenon + Genesis) in honor of the mythical Athena's birth, emerging fully formed from her father Zeus's skull (and in full armor, no less! rawr!).

game, set and match point.
7/26/2014 03:36:22 pm

brilliantly done. i didst rant on about how lousy a
writer Michael Crichton is by comparison to H.G Wells
even though the word "bacillus' predates the Andromeda
Strain movie. i did think "Congo" was rather clever and
is an improvement on MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1946)!!!
http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/ GOTO
The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (1895) and do
humour the idea the two writers show us how science
has advanced in the 20th Century. a neat contrast.
i'm feeling like Mark Twain, i am getting past all periods.

Dan D
7/26/2014 12:54:31 pm

Says it all

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/square_medium/0/7786/2503346-giorgio-tsoukalos.jpeg

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.
7/26/2014 01:03:36 pm

loosely if you add LYBIA(Africa) to Asia you have something
like the Western Hemisphere if you realize that the maps were
slightly better by A.D 1500. The lil islands that are left near
Santorini are not even close to the area of S.A + N.A so we
must assume that like Columbus, Plato thought something
big existed between Asia and Europe as you go past Gibraltar.
We do not confuse Ben Franklin's Boston circa 1725 with
Isaac Newton's London. An ocean seperates a colony city
from the seat of power of a colonial empire. clearly the city
in Spain as in ancient hints like the bold CGI of the infamous
Secrets of the Dead "Carthage" episode that there may be a source for an ancient cultural meme that is prior to the interface
of the Neolithic Revolution. Atlantis has to smelt more than
Gold or Lead to achieve the cultural heights seen by smelters
of Bronze + Iron, gold is easy to melt. is Plato's degfinition of
a GOLDEN AGE a hint that not even Copper or Tin are being
smelted? If there was a Golden hew to the skin of the very
recessive traited power elite of Auld Carthage, ought Hannibal's
death-mask to have been made of electrum and very exotic
instances of gold? Could the Carthaginians have had skin
close to the color most gold is, if coppery or olive skin is a
shade? the crux of this is inside old Carthage. we need to look
again at the leaps of logic inside the PBS episode that almost
delved into Thor Heyerdahl ideas. the CGI reconstruction of
the harbor of old Carthage hints at how to read PLATO!!!!!!!!!

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BillUSA
7/26/2014 03:33:20 pm

You know, there's no law that prohibits the use of good grammar.

To borrow a phrase uttered by Steve Martin in "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles";

"And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener! "

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Zach
7/26/2014 03:51:55 pm

Don't bother feeding the troll. Besides, I couldn't comprehend if what he/she was saying was a story anyway since it was all complete gibberish.

Gregor
7/26/2014 04:14:43 pm

@Zach

He / she has a point if you're willing to be charitable and put in the time to parse it. Now, whether said point is worth the aforementioned time & effort I cannot say. Personally I try to give the posts a once-over, if only because you never know when you'll end up being glad you did.

.
7/26/2014 04:29:39 pm

call me Yankee frugal. if i condense ideas via an unpredictable
gonzo and fail to footnote, then in tyme i eventually might or may
untangle a confused prose into tidy paragraphs becuz Jason
owns our better brain-freezes if i go by LAW, COPY and RIGHT.
were i to write a book in two year's time, i'd contact Jason so i
can further explain what i should have said. this expands a small
"newbie" writer book from 110 big print pages to say 300 as it
makes me look brighter and less lazy. it would be fun to contrast
the better science with the better science fiction to the AA cult.
Jason tends to follow academia's lore. I am trying to generate
a Gonzo that would infuriate a Rolling Stone editor circa 1972.
I know who Mark Twain was. Jason likes to read Victorian era
books. Are our coffee table books better because our photos
are more colorful? Do we yearly print tons of middlebrow books?

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Will
7/27/2014 01:22:06 pm

No matter what your ideas are, let word-wrap do its job man!

Clint Knapp
7/26/2014 01:12:40 pm

Is it sad that nothing about this review surprises me in the least? We need something new for H2 to blow cash on. I'm voting for a speculative series that says aliens are actually gods. Clearly all that anal probing Whitley Strieber complains about was an ill-fated attempt by Zeus to find something new to mate with.

In other ridiculous AA nonsense news:
In the second hour of the July 23rd edition of Coast to Coast AM, Mike Bara was being questioned by a caller who believes the Sitchin idea that the Face on Mars depicts Enki when he responded:

"There is some support in that in the Sumerian scrolls, at least as Sitchin interprets them. What I will tell you, which I have never really told you, or anybody's ever really talked about... I can't tell you who told me this, but what I will tell you is what I have been told by someone who knows and knew him very well that Sitchin said that a lot of his information actually came from the Annunaki. That he actually received a lot of his stuff. In other words; these theories were not all 100% written in the scrolls. He was actually told this by contacts that he had that then put him to the different Sumerian scrolls..."

(quotation punctuation as accurate as Bara's delivery would allow)

That's right! If he said something not in the "scrolls", it was given to him by the Annunaki themselves. Zecharia Sitchin is an actual prophet who was in legitimate contact with the ancient alien gods. At least, in this statement Mike Bara seems to have made up on the spot he is.

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spookyparadigm
7/26/2014 02:53:44 pm

Please Mr. Bara, produce one Sumerian scroll. Just one. Not a tablet, not a cone, not an inscribed statue. A scroll. Thank you.

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Gregor
7/26/2014 03:38:53 pm

And cue Mike Bara calling you an idiot, or implying you're "too ugly to be allowed to reproduce", or some other infantile, pissant comment that in no way addresses the real and genuine challenge in 5... 4... 3...

EP
7/26/2014 03:46:36 pm

How does one challenge a man who makes Stichin sound crazier than Stitchin manages to sound on his own?

Gregor
7/26/2014 04:18:45 pm

@EP

Remind him he's an uneducated CAD-operating draftsman, not an "aeronautical engineer"? Or barring that, just wait a while - his bouts of childish spite and idiocy are about as regular as "Old Faithful"

Zach
7/26/2014 01:23:40 pm

Jason, how long has Giorgio Tsoukalos been working for Erich von Daniken again? Because from what I recall (although my memory can be pretty bad) he's been working for him since at least the late 90s. However, in the segment with von Daniken I swore I heard him say that he's been collaborating with him for more than 20 years. Did he start working with him prior to 1994? Or did I just mishear him?

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Jason Colavito link
7/26/2014 01:41:57 pm

Good question... I'm not really sure. I guess it depends on how we define "work with." Tsoukalos claims to have founded the AAS-RA in 1998, when he was 20, so his work with EVD must have started before then.

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Gregor
7/26/2014 02:24:16 pm

@Jason

For whatever it's worth, Wikipedia.org has a cached "Short Biographical Sketch" page from Legendary Times that was retrieved in December 2010. On that page it states that:

"For over 14 years, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos has been the Director of Erich von Daniken's Ancient Alien Society (formerly, A.A.S. R.A. - Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association)."

That would suggest Tsoukalos began his "directorship" in 1996 at the latest (i.e. assuming the 14 years was traced back from 2010).

Or, as I imagine is far more likely, he's talking out of his ass and simply expands the date to whichever degree he thinks makes him most "established" or "respected".

Clint Knapp
7/26/2014 03:02:37 pm

I'm voting for the latter. Accuracy is obviously not a quality he finds particularly necessary.

Zach
7/26/2014 03:08:48 pm

I know that while something like that isn't impossible to happen for someone that young, especially in the fringe community which frankly doesn't require any real knowledge or experience, this still seems off to me. Even with Tsoukalos being vague with the exact number of years, we can still make an accurate guess that in actuality he could have known him for that long. And even then, if we estimate the amount of years, based on the number he did give us, that would have made him 16. This makes me think that he was either some errand boy for him (and obviously he intentionally left that part of his life out of his biographies) or he's lying about his age. Have you ever run across information outside official sources that supports anything like this?

EP
7/26/2014 03:44:50 pm

von Daniken: "I swear, Officer! He told me he was 18!"

Zach
7/26/2014 03:55:32 pm

I did not need that image in my head. Thank you for that by the way EP.

EP
7/26/2014 03:59:12 pm

None of us needs ANY of this in his head, yet here we all are :)

Gregor
7/26/2014 04:10:41 pm

@Zach

Honestly, giving Tsoukalos the benefit of the doubt I would say he was, at best, the "errand boy" / pen-pal you suggested at around age 16... and at worst, he was the parasitic pilot fish that "co-founded" the A.A.S.R.A. in 1998 at age 20.

As for available sources...virtually everything about him (Tsoukalos) on the web recycles its material unquestioningly from other sites, who did the same thing, so on and so forth. I certainly don't see him as the sort to say he's 35, when he's really 48... and I'm not sure what that would accomplish, anyways?

With whatever little validity it has, every bio. I've seen of him puts some variant of 1978 as his birth, making him 20 when he "co-founded" A.A.S.R.A (and met Jason).

As for the lack of vetting... I agree wholeheartedly. The entire operation (including the "Legendary Times" ) is operated like a pyramid scheme. Unquestioning sycophants rise quickly and rope in more and more people to "fund the research". After a while it's not even a matter of being a "true believer", it's just having no social empathy or compunction against lying.

Also, just for a laugh... this little tidbit appears in virtually every "bio" I've seen for Tsoukalos:

"Giorgio enjoys a good and relaxed sit-down meal with friends, weight lifting, listening to motion picture scores, classic jazz standards, classical opera, sailing, going to the beach and the movies, and hanging out at the Legendary Times Clubhouse in Southern California with A.A.S. R.A. Members visiting from all around the world exchanging adventure stories and research."

It's practically a "Most Interesting Man" meme... "I don't always go to the Clubhouse... but when I do, it's to share adventure stories and research... maybe harass a few women, who knows?!"

Gregor
7/26/2014 04:24:26 pm

@EP

>> von Däniken: "I swear, Officer! He told me he was 18!"

Cop: "Uh huh... and Mr. von Däniken, weren't you found to be a pathological liar during a court hearing?"

von Däniken: ".........Yes."

Cop: <head explodes from the resulting paradox>

von Däniken: "Kvikly, into zee kar JOR-geo! we MUSS eskape this place un reTORN to svitzerlant!"

<bigfoot lands his chariot, flies them to safety while regaling them with adventure stories>

EP
7/26/2014 04:33:38 pm

And so young George got to consummate his "love for the threadbare mysteries of Erich von Däniken"

Zach
7/26/2014 05:46:03 pm

I decided to look up info on Giorgio, and based on a profile I found on white pages under a "Giorgio A. Tsoukalos" based in California it said that the person's age is around 40 to 44 years old. Based on the information I read in his "biography" he should be around 36 years old at this point in time. At first this didn't tell me anything, but it wasn't until I looked up one of the two numbers listed under the profile, that I was brought to a business profile for Legendary Times on the official website for the Better Business Bureau. And don't worry, I made sure it was Tsoukalos's own Legendary Times -- after all it's not everyday a company gets complaints for its customers not getting its subscription, or GOLDEN FLYER, because it's only employee/owner was out of the office on one of his "EXPEDITIONS," and not getting a complete refund until months later. Now, I can't say for sure how accurate White Pages can be but I can say this - von Daniken trained Tsoukalos well in the ways of the con arts.

EP
7/26/2014 05:48:05 pm

"Legendary Times"... heh...

Gregor
7/26/2014 06:13:50 pm

@Zach

Who knows... certainly correlates, but really the only way to be sure would be to somehow obtain a legal and verified birth certificate for him.

On an unrelated note, I did find it funny when I just googled "Giorgio A. Tsoukalos d..." intending to put "d.o.b." and, instead, had it autofill "douchebag".

EP
7/26/2014 06:24:43 pm

@ Zach & Gregor:

Either way, this is relevant :)

http://thedamienzone.com/2013/12/12/giorgio-tsoukalos-plastic-surgery-rumors/

Gregor
7/26/2014 06:29:32 pm

@EP

Ha! I actually stumbled across that while trying to find something that had a non-1978 birth date for Tsoukalos. I have no idea of the veracity of "thedamienzone"... but I must confess that actually, yeah, I went to school (primary) with an ethnic Greek kid who was handsome and athletic and popular... until he hit about 28. Now he's pudgy, bald and looks roughly on par with his much-older father...

Talk about a genetic time bomb!

I certainly wouldn't put it past him to receive plastic surgery (not to mention spray-tans). Gotta look good for the fawning, doe-eyed, unthinking convention-goers!

EP
7/26/2014 06:34:12 pm

Man, Gregor... You're on fire with ethnic sensitivity tonight... :P

Zach
7/26/2014 06:36:19 pm

@ Gregor

Well it is fitting. Unlike my friends who find him and his haircut entertaining, I always found him to be just that. And to think I used to find autofill annoying. Now I know that it, and many other people are actually kindred spirits.

Jason Colavito link
7/26/2014 11:43:21 pm

For what it's worth, I've always had trouble making his biographical timeline work. He graduated Ithaca College with a 4 year degree in 1998 (I know because I checked with the school), which meant the (even if he had transfer credit) he supposedly had been attending the college since at least 1996 (they accepted at the time only 2 years of transfer credit), and more likely 1994--when he was allegedly 16. Yet he ALSO had a large, well-furnished house in Ithaca (which I visited in 2002, before he sold it to build his Clubhouse in California), was running body-building competitions around the world, and was also in Switzerland to meet and start working with EVD. Some people can go through a college program quickly, but for a foreign student (allegedly he did high school at a prep school in Switzerland) to finish high school early, move to another country, establish a business in that country, and complete a 4 year degree while still a teenager seems to stretch credulity.

Gregor
7/27/2014 03:28:54 am

http://www.ithaca.edu/icq/2004v2/alum/alumi3.htm

An alumnus piece on Tsoukalos. If the author had his facts straight, Tsoukalos claimed to have been working for the IFBB starting at age 13, and to have created his own company... at age 14.

>> "I can see myself promoting shows for the rest of my life," says Tsoukalos.

Well, he wasn't wrong.

What's more, I found a page for this "Institut Montana" (the school Tsoukalos apparently claims), and the current costs of educating a child there are found here:

http://www.montana-zug.ch/sites/default/files/attachments/Price%20List.pdf

I don't know how long he was supposedly educated there, or how things would adjust for "1980-1996"... but as it stands now, there's a bit of an issue: the average Swiss citizen (today) earns a salary of 4,948 CHF per month (after taxation).

The current tuition & fees for educating a single child at the Institut Montana are anywhere between 26,000CHF to 67,500CHF (depending on age/grade and room, not including food, etc.) The price list is unclear on whether this is by semester / year / whatever... or whether said figures cover *all* years of a particular grade, or simply denote the price bracket while *in* those years (that is, 26k /year for 1-5, 33k/yr for 6-10, etc.). I'm assuming yearly costs.

This means that if my assumptions are correct, currently the cost of educating a single child at Institut Montana is between 44% and 108% of the average Swiss's yearly salary depending on age / grade and the type of room (not including food, laundry, etc.).

Methinks that if this is all true, Tsoukalos either comes from money (which would explain why he is able to move about & "build" businesses in defiance of fiscal expectations), or someone was greasing the wheels for him to attend such a school.

Mark E.
7/26/2014 01:25:29 pm

After watching this last night I feel H2 needs to change the name to "Giorgio Tsoukalos' Flying Circus". And now for something completely different we give you the flying Atlantis.

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Clint Knapp
7/26/2014 02:06:37 pm

Completely different if they ignore the fact the Sci-Fi channel (at least, I think this was before the rebranding to SyFy) did it first with Stargate: Atlantis.

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Gregor
7/26/2014 04:37:51 pm

@Clint

Yes, Sci Fi (pre-idiotic-rebranding) was the American distributor of Star Gate: ATLANTIS (created by SONY Television).

Personally my theory is that he got all his "theories" and "research" from watching the show... but refuses to acknowledge them now because the producers broke his heart by rejecting him and, instead, having Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson cameo late in the series. I mean real gut-wrenching pain and suffering. Like moody, film noir, hasn't-gone-outside-in-months, liquor-soaked despair.

I bet he even recited the "death of Anakin" scene from Star Wars Ep. 3 when he saw that episode. His 1-bedroom condo echoing with his soulful howling: "YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE, STARGATE! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MOCK ACADEMIA, NOT JOIN THEM! IT WAS SAID YOU'D GIVE BIRTH TO THE AGE OF AQUARIUS... NOT LEAVE US IN RATIONALITY!" <3 hours of really awkward, teary-eyed sobbing>

.
7/26/2014 01:42:12 pm

The late Edgar Cayce once lived in Virginia Beach, VA and
the A.R.E is sponsoring a talk by EvD + G.T this October in
that city. http://edgarcayce.org/are/membership.aspx less
than fifty bucks getz thee a ticket to their planned re-union. if
i were to go there, I'd get a hotel room in Williamsburg for a
week to day trip there. I'd also want to see a few Civil War
or Revolution era battlefields. again, this is like 3rd rate Sci-Fi
being called cutting edge science well past 80s String Theory.

http://www.edgarcayce.org/are/conferencesVaBeach.aspx

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StrongStyleFiction
7/26/2014 01:55:38 pm

So basically, if you're going to lie to me, at least have the decency to put some effort into your lies.

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StrongStyleFiction
7/26/2014 01:57:28 pm

For the record, I'm talking about the show and not Jason. I could also be talking about my first grade teacher.

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.
7/26/2014 02:21:07 pm

H.G Wells is known for his brilliant Sci-Fi novels that also
include "The Shape of Things to Come" in addition to War
of the Worlds" --- can we rewrite "The Invisible Man" as our
DNA splicing is closer to creating the translucent humans
who can empower themselves by Newtonian physics inside
a stealth craft as L.E.D tech lets them cloak themselves? We
are not close to building a time-machine, only ion drives to
the stars. One's lies have to be more internally consistent
than today's better science fiction to be believed. I once had
the idea of being a journalist in college and i had watched the
Watergate Hearings. Jason's mistake with G.T is almost aspie.
the FCC years ago created the format Dan Ackroyd and Jane
Curtain parodied in a SNL skit that assumes all questions have
two sides and you can get Frederick Hayek to sit next to poor
old John Maynard Keynes as you ask clever questions as a
good moderator should. all power elites social ostracize,
network and blackball people, cause in point, Plato's take
on the trial of Socrates. Prior to FB we do see folks networking.
Jason's version of a Ben Hecht era "cub' reporter had insight
but not drive. My version of Superman's Lois Lane lacked
true grit. He is also painfully politer in his 2011 essay i see.
seriously, my grandfather had worked for Pan Am from 1920
to 1930 and knew Juan Trippe as a friend, business partner
and employer. In the early days of the New Deal, Alger Hiss
was one of FDR's courtiers who talked to Senator Hugo Black.
Coolidge & Hoover Era airmail contracts were being looked
into, and there was a Congressional committee that closed its
doors. My grandfather had gone into one of those closed door sessions and had been honest. family story. Juan Trippe had
called him up as a friend to tell him about the new blacklist,
as he explained why their relationship had to avoid being public.
Even though Pan Am's dynamic CEO could try to find him a job
if he needed it to keep body and soul together, the other CEOs
were of a different mind-frame. people have blacklists. indeed.

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Only Me
7/26/2014 03:01:29 pm

Hey, ".", I'm going to be honest with you. Your posting habits are exhausting and absurd.

1) In your attempt to sprinkle as many names and references into your comments, it becomes nothing but a rambling mess. I spend half my time looking into the names/references to understand what you're TRYING to say, then spend the other half wondering if you are actually familiar with them at all, or, if you did a cursory Google search to imitate the smarts.

2) Your train of thought is a train wreck. Let me provide an example:

"If Minos was king of Knossus and Colonel Sanders is a post-Industrial Revolution capitalist, then allow me to opine on the tasty edible talismans in Lucky Charms...even though Henry Ford introduced the assembly line, something Neolithic monument builders would have found most useful!"

Believe it or not, this is how the majority of your comments appear to read! I can only slog through three or four, at most, before it feels like my brain took a swan dive into oncoming traffic on the interstate.

3) Enough with the PBS testimonials! And the multiple disjointed posts. You love PBS...we get it. Just stick to the topic at hand, please.

I also ask that you don't play the "I'm gonzo" excuse. You're fully aware of what you're doing, and frankly, it needs to stop. If you have something to say...SPIT IT OUT! There is no need for a series of labyrinthine comments to convey a thought.

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Dave Lewis
7/26/2014 03:37:42 pm

I didn't think anybody actually read .'s comments!

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EP
7/26/2014 03:48:31 pm

Gregor does, apparently :)

.
7/26/2014 03:40:25 pm

it is simple. Sir Thomas More is correct.
we are an empire. we are Altantis. indeed
NATO is its recent rebirth and not its birth.

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Titus pullo
7/27/2014 06:22:29 am

Ok I briefly read this when I saw Fredrick Hayek and john Keynes. It might make sense if your on acid

.
7/27/2014 06:35:18 pm

dudes.... we just "lost" half of Iraq.
this now said at the sixty year mark
of joltin' Joe McCarthy asking us all
WHY we lost CHINA!!! duckies, the
rebels are going into a totalitarian
theocracy inclined dictatorship...

we squandered the lives of our loyal
fellow Americans needlessly. trust me.
we are an empire. Rudyard Kipling wrote
a few stories at about the time the British
Empire got bogged down in Afghanistan.

JayB
7/26/2014 03:07:46 pm

I am ever more amazed at how a small, lovely country like Switzerland could have provided the world with mental giants such as 'Billy' Meier, Erich von Daniken and Giorgio Tsoukolos.

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Dave Lewis
7/26/2014 03:44:21 pm

Having spent a bit of time in a few other countries I can confirm that there are people selling fringe ideas all over. Some of the European countries are less friendly to new religious movements after incidents like Order of the Solar Temple.

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EP
7/26/2014 03:52:21 pm

Most former Warsaw Pact countries (as well as, arguably, India) are A LOT worse in this regard than any major developed Anglophone country.

Gregor
7/26/2014 04:46:31 pm

Which is odd since given Bollywood's stock & trade, you'd think most Indians would hear the "Ancient Astronaut / Aliens Theory" and say: "Enh, that's boring... what else ya got? And does it have random dancing girls?"

EP
7/26/2014 04:54:54 pm

Way to be culturally sensitive there, buddy :P

Gregor
7/26/2014 05:11:07 pm

@EP

"...it's not like there's someone in Viet Nam saying: "uh, its pronounced "Meatball Sandwich", don't be culturally insensitive!"..." - Kyle Kinane

Also, tell me it isn't true :P

Besides, the point wasn't "lol, Indians will believe anything!", rather that even the most bizarre shit that Tsoukalos (or Henry, or Greer, or Icke) spouts is pretty tame to the plot elements of Bollywood blockbusters.

Unrelated: did we ever figure out what the hell the deal was with that J R Bhagat dude and his "excavations" ?

EP
7/26/2014 05:18:13 pm

On India: One time they elected a party that literally wanted to ban calculus from textbooks and replace it with some bits from the Vedas.

I rest my case.

On Bhagat: Not much more than what we uncovered. They photoshopped some of the cave painting photos they use in the tourist brochures, but that's about it...

Given what we've seen, I suspect they're too inept even to cash in on the ancient alien craze.

Gregor
7/26/2014 05:52:08 pm

@EP

Re: Calculus... sadly I think Louisiana wanted to do the same thing (exchanging Jesus for Shiva). No idea if they succeeded or not.

EP
7/26/2014 05:57:52 pm

Not sure what you're talking about. You're not thinking of Indiana and pi, are you?

Gregor
7/26/2014 06:04:45 pm

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/louisiana_bible_state_book.html

That's the thing I was thinking of.

The Indiana bit wouldn't surprise me, either. For being a grand experiment in democracy, we seem to be doing a fantastic job of showing what a bad idea it is (or at least, can be).

EP
7/26/2014 06:09:10 pm

Making the Bible the official State book < seriously damaging education for millions of children in a developing country

Gregor
7/26/2014 06:22:25 pm

@EP

-shrug- And the act of replacing Calculus with Vedic "wisdom" isn't the only thing (or even the largest thing) keeping "millions of children" from receiving a proper education in India. The point was that religious fundamentalism (and the idiotic ideas / intellectual detriment it inspires) is present even in "developed" nations who, honestly, should "know better".

.
7/26/2014 03:49:01 pm

To "Only Me" ---- Why do you assume the ancient Egyptians
in the early dynasties did not manufacture the limestone
blocks in their HUGE pyramids in an assembly line???

i'll go you one better. i think they built canals to move them
as they robbed a network of more ancient walls and buildings
in addition to quarrying new ones in a precise manner. i do
agree the Incas were better at creating foundations and walls.

i'll try to write more like today's ten or twelve year old and less
like a very flaked hippie/yippie circa 1972. its summer. its hot.

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Only Me
7/26/2014 04:17:16 pm

What the hell do the Egyptians and their construction of the pyramids have to do with anything?

How did you come to the conclusion I made an assumption about a topic not related to the article?

Why am I even bothering to ask you these questions?

Reply
.
7/26/2014 05:18:42 pm

Only Me --- your last Hamlet-like question is in response
to my lack of Gonzo or Dadaism? You said palace, Crete
and Santorini and in light of 1177 B.C and what Thomas
Edward Lawrence said about the Hittites i went into what
we are trying to understand about the Great Pyramid. the
stones of the outer circle of Stonehenge are smaller than
the ones at its center. it takes at least a village to erect the
same. We assume all is small clan or kinship units prior
to 12,000 B.C and that Roman aqueducts, Stonehenge and
a pyramid like the bigger ones in Egypt are impossible prior
to the ending of the last Ice Age. this is the quarrel. you pulled
in Henry Ford and his racism & fortune & cars into the blogging
about GT + the AA cult. I agree, by Eric Hoffer's rules they be
a cult. Are they worse than any Pythagorean contemporary to
Plato? If High Math began with a mystery cult, where is the
one Isaac Newton created? Is it almost Freemason? is the
Dan Brown sym~biology correct if there is no clear link between
Newton's fluxion math and Plato's Archetypes? ignore the
Monads of Leibniz, they are as imaginary to the degree that
Plato's archetypes can be real. You need Medieval monks
and Constantine's birth in York for Plantard's list to sound
possible. You need to overlap Jove to the Church Curia
prior to the Great Schism, as you see a 2000 year pattern of
censorship to get the feel of vintage 1770s FREEMASONRY.

Only Me
7/26/2014 07:03:24 pm

I see. You're misconstruing my example, intended to highlight the inane bulk of your comments. You're always stringing along different thoughts, as if you tossed them into a blender, and most of the time, a lot of readers don't grasp what your point was supposed to be.

Even now, you jump from Egyptians > Hittites > Stonehenge > Romans > math-based cults > Isaac Newton > Freemasons > Dan Brown > Leibniz > medieval monks > Constantine > Plantard > Jove > Great Schism...all to talk about the pyramids!

My comment wasn't about pyramids, cults or Henry Ford. It was about your Rube Goldberg-esque comments that often have nothing to do with the article Jason has posted.

I'm not telling you to stop commenting. I'm asking you to stay on point and keep it relevant. Especially with your tendency to post multiple times.

.
7/26/2014 09:29:59 pm

having been exposed to Philosophy 101 and the Harry Potter
movies, on an Existential level, a Medieval intellectual is inclined
to think Magick is real even if it does not obey Alistair Crowley's
rules. Isaac Newton's favorite God and Goddess was Reason
and Reason, namely Apollo and Athena. the auld Gods and Goddesses are either ancestors or abstractions that personify
a human character trait. Your example links the small green shamrocks in a bowl of Lucky Charms to Ford's worship of the
Almighty Dollar to a remark i made about FDR's friends putting
KFC on the map, which was linked to a few of my opinions on
Edgar Cayce and his life. Personally i think Ramses the 2nd
is more sexy than Minos ever was, even though Ramses in old
age in mummy form reminds me of Montgomery Burns from
Fox's tv show, the Simpsons. the dude was a tyrant. Minos who
ruled a great empire that a massive tsunami later sweeps away
seems almost unimaginative even though there are very large
and impressive ruins on Crete. The deaths then were a tragedy.

I need to clarify further. i think Egypt's Great Pyramid is one
of the focal points of the Mystery Cult A.A is spawning as we
speak, and even though one book i read claimed the ancient
Egyptians had a fairly accurate value for Pi and may have done
some of the rudimentary math that paves the way for Calculus proper later on, after both Ptolemy and Euclid, i can't avoid the
idea that some builder's techniques are basic as a knowledge
is lost. The A.A Cult assumes there is a lost lore, as did Isaac
Newton. the dude delves into the classics for clues. Ideas are
linked to ideas. i had to like you for assuming assembly lines
are a 20th Century invention. i asked if the Egyptians were that
Roman uniform or Prussian ordered and organized. Unless
Minos was a very lazy idiot i assume he had administrative
skills and can be compared to Kernel Sanders an' his finger lickin' good chicken, and H.Ford business sense & his cars.
You assume your examples of what would be my examples
are random, you and i agree i take liberties and leaps. i think
that upon implying the examples of what would be my examples
have their own logic and do have a Great Pyramid connection,
you were taken aback. it is summer. i trumped Crete with Egypt
and tossed Newton into the mix because there is almost an
Aspie logic to both Newton and thy examples. On a subliminal
level, this all is less random, in light of the human Id and the
millions of years whereby we built up our snob zones as a species. Newton actually got into print something nobody else
had even thought of! hence why he is genius level. Einstein's
genius is the way he thinks... about everything. Charles Darwin
had printed up insights that even survived the Aquatic Ape folk.
His African Savannah ideas are still talked about by NOVA's few.
Ask me if my beloved Doggerland had many flooded Ken Ham
orchards between 12,ooo B.C and 5,ooo B.C as the waters
came up. Newton sat under a tree near Grantham that had
small apples that reminded him of what we'd call crab apples.
they were not like today's Mackintoshes, they were smaller...
there were wasps buzzing about, as he sat and studied and
read things. Given the number of wasps at that time of the year,
some locals thought the story as bogus as Parson Weems
and his story about young George Washington and the choak
or hardwood cherry tree. if we are trying to guess at why we
see a linkage of ideas well past what the science of the past
350 years allows inside each AA episode with GT, as we try to
ignore the cult-like social behavior, what can i say? Jove is not
Zeus or Marduk or Jupiter. Was the Cyclops a Neanderthal?
Was Goliath a really big person but not a giant? Were the
Gods and Goddesses or even the Titans a totally separate
species from we mortals of the present hour? Even if we are assuming ETs are real and do exist, why assume we are the galaxy's version of the Florida Keys or even my own Cape Cod?

Only Me
7/27/2014 07:17:32 am

TL;DR

Also, don't care. You're trolling and I have no time for it.

BillUSA
7/27/2014 01:36:36 pm

Only Me -

You are attempting to have a logical discussion with someone who is either a highly-motivated troll or a schizophrenic who isn't on their meds.

I'm betting on the latter.

.
7/26/2014 03:58:23 pm

More specifically, we indeed do need something like
a guild-craft version of a modern Roaring Twenties
assembly line to explain the standardization of all
the blocks in Egypt's great pyramids. We also have
to define guild-craft like Karl Marx, think of Keynes's
animal spirits and accept that Mesolithic describes
an interface between Neolithic and Paleolithic but
that its porous and not succinct. Much that we know
re-invented and re-cycled. you assume its very new.

Reply
Only Me
7/26/2014 04:18:47 pm

"You assume it's very new."

Your brilliance arouses me.

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EP
7/26/2014 04:44:58 pm

von Daniken-Tsoukalos roleplay goes into a thread somewhere above :)

Gregor
7/26/2014 04:51:28 pm

*To the forum!

Only Me
7/26/2014 04:59:41 pm

No, no! You and Gregor seem to be doing just fine. Carry on! ;)

EP
7/26/2014 05:06:40 pm

You are too kind!

Btw, I actually think Tsoukalos would be mildly uncomfortable if somebody were to spread rumors on the internet that he and von Daniken have "entwined their serpents" ifyouknowwhatimean :)

Gregor
7/26/2014 05:13:57 pm

Due out in 2016 courtesy of Legendary Times Books: "G.A. Tsoukalos and the Legend of the Crossed Sabres: An Adventure Story!"

EP
7/26/2014 05:19:00 pm

Who needs "the female" when they have each other

.
7/26/2014 05:32:37 pm

Duckies ---- if Jason is correct about the blackballing
and blacklisting GT did, any algebraic social equation
that has GT + EvD = "serpentine entwined" if further
quipped about in this humble lil ole thread could be
grounds for a court case. especially if GT is a publicity
hound and BAD PRESS = GOOD PUBLICITY.... seriously.

EP
7/26/2014 05:36:38 pm

I'm sure Jason's going to jump at the chance to take legal advice from "."

.
7/26/2014 05:49:04 pm

i'm a New Englander --- i understand what got James
Joyce and ULYSSES banned in Henry Cabot Lodge Sr's
city of Boston. the thread is starting to get smutty. Some
of our local denizens in our rural towns almost banned
Homer in translation, too. GT has an EGO and he's tole
poor Jason he's on his radar. I assumed GT + EvD are
straight and that EvD is an old flattering cosmopolitan "wolf".

EP
7/26/2014 05:54:44 pm

ok that's nice

.
7/26/2014 06:12:21 pm

again, sometimes... i can be mistaken or wrong.
was i wrong in what i assumed about EvD + GT?
here i have been doing links to the A.R.E Oct 9-12
event in Virginia Beach. if they are roomed near each
other in the big hotel there, i even looked at a PDF of
the flier online and am not sure if $500.oo over four days
covers the hotel or motel rooms, but if we leap to a string
of conclusions we are acting like the small town gossips
of PEYTON PLACE the fictional novel from years ago...
anyway an online discount and an A.R.E membership has
you going to the conference cheaper. its like a big Sci-Fi
convention but not as big as a TREK convention! we are
making assumptions aplenty. think of poor Jason in light
of all this. has he focused on Scott Wolter becuz the dude
knows GT's circle of friends? literate circles are like infected
ingrown toenails, they can be painfully obvious when inflamed.

.
7/26/2014 04:42:38 pm

Plato with his 9000 years is like Nostradamus and 1999.
Plato once defined his own terms. His academy once
functioned like a community college. His quarrel with the
great and legendary Aristotle was technical. This is being said
after what i got quizzed on concerning Kant in PHIL101.
its not Santorini. it may be a myth. We could be Atlantis if
the past is rather like the future. What we do is akin to what
our ancestors did. the AA cult assumes pansporia, life in
abundance in the universe, and lots of E.Ts like the ones
on classic STAR TREK. when a hot air balloon or a grid-map
can explain the Nasca lines, why pull in the SF looking craft
GT assumes was overhead? i assume the total proof has
yet to be made about intelligent life in the universe and that
our own sapience was vastly inferior to the great whales for
the longest time and this may even have extended into the
current hour. we may be the stupider of the two or three
sapient species here on this planet. we tend to loose much
of our sense of culture as each generation passes away...

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Gregor
7/26/2014 05:28:25 pm

Not sure you meant to imply this, but I agree that the theoretical frontiers of science can get pretty "weird", including the theory that the "future" can affect the "past" before it even happens (i.e. that time is not linear in the way we think of it currently).

As for the suppositions and assumptions of A.A.... they do so because it's their schtick... its the brand of wares they push, and to do anything else would directly affect their 'bottom line'. It's not about rationality, or even genuine research... just packaging a product and selling one's heart out. That's not to say they don't believe this nonsense... clearly some of them do... but that tends to be almost secondary to "staying on message".

Obviously there was a point at which human ancestors were of roughly equivalent intelligence to other animals (primate or otherwise)... but to assign sapience (wisdom) to other creatures is, I think, an error of anthropomorphism. Wisdom itself is rather hard to define, as for any given group (or culture) it could have overtones of cleverness, compassion, empathy... some traits I think could genuinely exist in other creatures, but others do not.

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EP
7/26/2014 05:34:48 pm

Who are you to question my plans, you little man of linear time? Who are you to believe he knows what is best for I, I, who has drunk down the agonies of a million Men, I, who has seen to the edge of forever?

.
7/26/2014 05:39:28 pm

P.T Barnum's "Figi" mermaid...

evolved Piltdown Man circa 1920...

GT's E.Ts in their lil spaceships...

HAVE I JUST CREATED A RATHER DROLL LIST

Gregor
7/26/2014 05:57:48 pm

@EP

"Who are you to question my plans, you little man of linear time? Who are you to believe he knows what is best for I, I, who has drunk down the agonies of a million Men, I, who has seen to the edge of forever?"

Great, now I'm turned on. Stupid Dark-Gods-of-the-Mist fetish

.
7/26/2014 04:59:10 pm

Lets assume by Plato's rules a cool bean-bag chair is like
a Kynge's throne. the bean-bag chair and the throne assume
their purpose is to be sat on, although not being sapient.
a King telling a courtier to go get him a glass of water would
get a more prompt response if he is sitting on his throne
than if he is on his bean-bag chair. we know everything has
a cultural context, so if Plotinus and his "NOUS" is a logical
extension of Plato, then there are degrees of creator*being
consciousness to all that is inside the mechanized universe
of Rene Descarte. Drop the word "new" from any New Atlantis
ideas. we are Atlantis. we were Atlantis. its a sea empire.
when Teddy Roosevelt sends the White Fleet around the
world more than a century ago, he is doing something the
courtiers around George III would have understood, let alone Edmund Burke or Warren Hastings. We are an empire.
GOTO the dang CARTHAGE "Secrets" episode. the shape
of the harbor is rather clever. the PBS Series is by its name
an oxymoron. the dead have no secrets. there is nothing new.
likewise in this blog Jason is cussing out AA for its recycling
despite the fact that academia does this in its sleep always.
we only learn up to our capacity and then rigidly stick to our
biases. Nietzsche may be correct, few are so bold as to be
new or inventive... even though its politically correct to recycle...

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Gregor
7/26/2014 05:48:20 pm

Old tricks are the best tricks, eh? I'd agree that there's a fair amount of willful mimicry and imitation in the histories of mankind... supported further by our shared (physical) constitution and instinctive behaviors... but I'm not sure that such things could be used as grounds to argue that "we are Atlantis" in anything but the broadest of contexts.

The issue, I think, is that it can be so very difficult to trace ideas. They travel far, but they don't leave footprints. They inspire greatness, but are not themselves great. Indeed one could be inspired by an idea without having ever actually been exposed to that idea.

There could be some 'teeth' to the supposition that we are reliving legends lost to us in the fog of prehistory... we, as a species, have certainly been around long enough to have such a past. The trouble, really, is that there's no evidence for it. Does that mean conclusively that it never happened? Of course not, but neither does it mean one could ever really state such a claim with any reasonable level of confidence. For better or worse, we simply have to accept the possibility that we are a species with amnesia, and that beyond the earliest reaches of Sumer and Babylon lie only mist and shadows.

I admit that such a thought is not always comfortable, and all sorts - from Kafka's "Das Schloß" to the bizarre "Dark Ages Never Happened" theories - have tried to brick over an abyss they no longer wish to stare into.

Reply
EP
7/26/2014 05:53:21 pm

"Old tricks are the best tricks, eh?" (Tsoukalos on being von Daniken's protege)

---

But seriously, you got poetic there toward the end... What are you, channeling Thomas Mann all of the sudden?

.
7/26/2014 05:53:54 pm

brilliantly said, yes...

.
7/26/2014 06:00:43 pm

EP ---- if Mr. Courtney Brown "remote viewed" a Star Trek
convention that was nearby and thought he was eavesdropping
on "moon men" on their lunar base, then its okay to pick up
on Kafka's Id or Thomas Mann's idealism. You just handed
me a passage like something Harlan Ellison reworded let
alone Robert Hewitt Wolfe. You could be a sci-fi writer as
in easy. you are almost NEW WAVE circa the 1960s. trust me.

.
7/26/2014 06:40:52 pm

this GT-blog is now at 99 replies and is about to go triple digits
with its replies. usually the past ones about Scott Wolter tend to
have over a 100 replies. this may swell up GT's EGO even more.

Reply
RudeRock
7/27/2014 12:37:26 pm

Thanks for the review. Glad I didn't waste time on it. Ancient Aliens is ridiculous and absurd.

Reply
Frets Burton
7/27/2014 04:38:57 pm

He never said that the entwined serpent motif on the rock represents the DNA double helix he said it looked like it big difference, I know some people find the ancient alien theory absurb but i feel the same way about the bible neither has any real merrit but also i appreciate the fact that without people coming up with different theorys about the past how will ever know what truly happened, Debate and theorys can only lead to the truth in the long wrong, im sure when Nicola Tesla come out and said ive invented this thing called electricity people went oh yeah whatever we got another loony here or a long time ago people thought the earth was flat and people who said it was round were persecuted no matter what anyone says debate on this issue can only be a good thing but when i started reading this article it was clear from the begining that the author had something personal against Giorgio Tsoukalos lets keep the debate about what its about Ancient History not about bagging a guy thats trying open peoples minds up to different theorys(all be some of them absurb).

Reply
EP
7/27/2014 04:43:46 pm

Tesla invented electricity, everybody!

Reply
Gregor
7/27/2014 04:46:49 pm

I freaking knew it!! -sigh-

Only Me
7/27/2014 05:53:48 pm

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3plsx2

Reply
here is my short quiz
7/27/2014 06:39:02 pm

Leyden Jars store

a.) olives
b.) wine
c.) jellies
d.) electricity

.
7/27/2014 06:42:58 pm

New Quiz

The Elite of Auld Atlantis stored ____ in their Leyden Jars!!!

a.) olives
b.) wine
c.) Leyden
d.) electricity

Only Me
7/27/2014 07:13:04 pm

Answer 1:
d. electricity

Answer 2:
e. None of the above. Atlantis never existed beyond Plato's writing.

An Over-Educated Grunt
7/28/2014 05:17:57 am

No, no one accused Tesla of lunacy when he experimented with electricity. They accused him of lunacy when he claimed a romance with a pigeon.

As for the rest of your exceedingly run-on sentence, there are a wide variety of things about the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis that can be disproven or at least given more terrestrial explanations. You use the example of Tesla; he kept notebooks. They might be cryptic and hard to follow, but they're at least evidence of his thought process, by which his claims could be examined, documented, and generally vindicated well after Edison's hatchet-job on him. The same cannot be said about Tsoukalos and company. "If you squint just right" isn't proof.

Reply
.
7/27/2014 07:43:28 pm

Only Me --- in light of the Neanderthal "cannibalism"
episode of Secrets of the Dead, both c. + d. could
have gotten a good grade from me if the student
complained. you just flunked PLATO 101 by thy quips
but passed Aristotle 101 when NOT outing the student
and the master. "Aristotle is a well educated idiot" quoth Plato.
next sentence. "Socrates got more evolved thoughts when
he asked a slave a string of questions" next sentence.
the Roman Empire collapses when Aristotle is read more
often than Plato is. O Tempores, O Mores!!!! we are in decline.

Reply
.
7/27/2014 07:52:23 pm

also... in the second quiz, given that a Leyden Jar clearly is
a jar by the rules of Plato's archetypes, wine can be pored
into a very auld Leyden Jar that is ceasing to act like a battery.
i would tend to advise people not to drink wine from a jar like
that, so you'd get 50% on the quizz. our addition to the quizz
of e.) is actually a clever trap. i did not say the old power elite
was living in the capitol city, they may have gone on a round
the world cruise. therefore LEYDEN is perfectly acceptable
if we are taking about one of their slaves being pickled after
death inside a very big jar. the student gets 80% and above
if they think LEYDEN or ZEUS is a name that is older than
15,000 B.C and very possible for a Neandertal to utter!!!!!

Reply
.
7/27/2014 08:04:17 pm

NEW QUIZ

Leaden glazes ought not to go onto
the insides of Leyden Jars because

a.) orange juice interacts with lead
b.) wine interacts with lead
c.) we are trying to build the letter perfect battery
d.) our master will be very angry with us as we bollix this up
e.) some idiot could pour something acidic into it and drink it.

Reply
An Over-Educated Grunt
7/28/2014 05:19:03 am

Jason -

Your review's too complicated. Simpler version:

"Giorgio Tsoukalos tries to be Scott Wolter, fails to meet even that low bar. Skip."

Reply
Colin Hunt
7/28/2014 06:31:44 am

Give George, ‘The Hair’ (so obviously antennae devices to receive informative alien transmissions), and others like Childress, their due. Accept their delusions. They obviously believe they are disciples of their supposed aliens. By their own admissions they, as part of the human race, are influenced/controlled/ manipulated by aliens to promote alien beliefs (as members of the human race that is an inevitable consequence). They promote themselves as disciples of alien cultures, thereby degrading current humans and their culture. They cannot escape that fact unless they consider themselves alien agents and therefore superior to established knowledge and earthly human cultures and development. The fact that there are so many gullible people out there that believe them, and make them wealthy, should never be dismissed. It’s scary that such blind unquestioning belief as to theirs has previously led to worldwide conflicts. Who would have followed a failed artist and disgruntled corporal if they knew what that would lead to? What is their objective? What is their agenda? Where are they trying to lead people, other than making themselves wealthy?

Reply
Gregor
7/28/2014 03:56:32 pm

Your reference to the "artist & disgruntled corporal" as the harbinger of global war is a vast, almost insulting, oversimplification of the various undercurrents within and without that lead to (and exacerbated) that conflict.

Reply
.
7/28/2014 04:37:44 pm

Can we all think through the idea that precisely 100 years ago a
Great War loomed that was near to impossible to stop or even
prevent, that by the way it arrived at its end made the next conflict
in twenty years almost as inevitable? Herr "Hister" is more than
a figment of Nostradamus's imagination, he is a statement
and testimonial to meglomania, cruelty & ambition, he wanted
to be the fulfillment of a prophesy. He also read occult books...

EP
7/28/2014 04:31:46 pm

" Daughtrey presents a Roman mural of Poseidon as evidence that Silves was connected to Poseidon and therefore, according to Tsoukalos, space aliens... It’s probably not worth noting that Poseidon himself can’t be traced back before the Mycenaeans, much less to 9,600 BCE—Plato’s timeframe."

Could it be that they are alluding to Blavatsky's account of the island of Poseidonis (the last remained of Atlantis)? Perhaps statement of the connection was not included either due to editing or to general ineptitude.

Reply
Lea
7/30/2014 06:01:55 am

Despite Tsoukalos lack of credentials he has caused more people to -- in the least -- consider the topic than your credentialed rant ever will.

Reply
EP
7/30/2014 01:15:28 pm

You're saying it like doing in hi Tsoukalos's manner is something to be proud of...

Reply
Matt Mc
7/31/2014 03:11:37 am

If I were Tsoukalos I would be proud. He is able to make a living spewing BS and has become a self promotion machine.

IamLisa
8/1/2014 03:40:30 pm

Giorgio and friends present on theory of the past using their evidence.

Jason Colavito presents another theory using his evidence.

Who is right? Who is wrong? You decide!

Both theories have flaws and neither is 100% correct. Only way we'll know for sure is when aliens themselves show up.

Reply
EP
8/1/2014 04:54:46 pm

I take it that the concept of some theories being obviously A LOT more flawed than others is alien to you (no pun intended)...

Reply
BB
8/2/2014 12:52:04 am

So if this all true, where the hell are the aliens when you need them?

Reply
Decker
10/4/2014 03:56:50 pm

I agree that most of it is BS, but I can't explain the Nasca Lines. The geometric designs. It is the one and only proof to me of Ancient Aliens. So Tsoukalus is a fraud, so what, the Nasca lines aren't. I enjoy the TV shows, Entertaining. I even like Star Trek.

Reply
MQ
12/12/2014 03:28:27 pm

It would be naive to expect Ancient Aliens and In Search of Aliens to be 100% accurate in their reports. Who could be 100% correct on such subjects ? And Giorgio and Von Daniken do not expect it either when they made their presentations. What they expect is for us to open our minds to think and ponder deeper on what might have been. It is a healthy exercise.

It's a waste of time and effort grudging Giorgio's style of dressing. Each and everyone of us has our own favored style. Do you?

For whatever ridicule the detractors might have of Giorgio and Von Danken, both Giorgio and Von Daniken at least deserve credit for their courage in coming out in public with their assumptions, etc.







Reply
Typhonis
1/30/2015 10:32:03 am

You know, when I first heard of this series I had hopes it would be like the old In Search Of as narrated by Leonard Nimoy.

Also is it me or does it look like Giorgio is trying to cosplay as a Centauri from Babylon 5?

Reply

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