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Review of In Search of Aliens S01E07 "The Mystery of Puma Punku"

9/13/2014

48 Comments

 
As far as H2 is concerned, one of the great benefits of In Search of Aliens is that the series already feels like a rerun even when the episodes are new. Combining the format of America Unearthed with the content and personalities of Ancient Aliens preserves a clear sense of familiarity even while pretending to offer “new” explorations of the unknown. This episode of In Search of Aliens, S01E07 “The Mystery of Puma Punku,” is particularly egregious in this regard. It shares an almost identical title to Ancient Aliens S04E06 “The Mysteries of Puma Punku,” and uses content that Ancient Aliens has been recycling since including it as a lengthy segment of the 2009 pilot episode, skillfully deconstructed in Chris White’s Ancient Aliens Debunked.

But this time we get unintentional endorsements of Nazi archaeology and completely intentional endorsements of creationist geology, which is... an improvement?

We open with show host Giorgio Tsoukalos, dressed in full Indiana Jones drag down to the leather jacket, arriving at the Tiwanaku site in Bolivia, of which the temple complex of Puma Punku is a part. Tsoukalos claims that archaeologists are “baffled” and “puzzled” by the site as recycled animation from Ancient Aliens plays out, with fake computer-generated UFOs hovering over the site.

Tsoukalos describes how Pedro Cieza de León discovered Tiwanaku in 1529, and he provides a potted history of the site, emphasizing how “little” we know about the civilization, a blatant untruth given how much archaeologists know about the Tiwanaku culture’s unique farming techniques, their pottery, and all the other parts of daily life Tsoukalos doesn’t care about in his rush to declare stylized stone faces those of Grey aliens. Tsoukalos claims archaeologists believe Puma Punku was built “thousands of years ago,” but this is a bit of an exaggeration since radiocarbon dating places its initial construction after 550-600 CE, which is less than 2,000 years ago and therefore cannot be described as “thousands.” It’s a small but telling error.

“It is one of the places where logic no longer makes sense,” Tsoukalos says. He claims that Puma Punku’s 3-foot tall H-blocks are made of solid blocks of “precisely shaped andesite,” which is a step up from Ancient Aliens, when he falsely claimed they were made from diorite, a much harder stone. This Bolivian andesite can easily be pressure flaked, as is evident from the damage that occurred to the stones after the destruction of the temple. If the stone was so hard that they needed alien technology to carve, they wouldn’t be in such poor shape today. Nevertheless, Tsoukalos asserts that the blocks cannot “be explained by mainstream scientists.” Tell that to Jean Pierre Protzen, who studied Andean stonemasonry in the 1980s and 1990s. Protzen had no trouble explaining the masonry in terms of traditional stone-working techniques.

We next get a rerun segment from Ancient Aliens in 2012 in which fringe theorist Chris Dunn claims to be working on a broken shard of Puma Punku stone taken from a dressed block—for which there is, of course, no indication it was legally exported from Bolivia—which Dunn does violence to with various tools. As I wrote the first time:
Giorgio Tsoukalos then argues, as he did in 2009, that diamond-tipped drills made the stones, even though he concedes in a spectacularly silly field piece at Chris Dunn’s workroom that the surface looks nothing like diamond cut surfaces, arguing instead that the original diamond-cut surfaces he assumed existed must have eroded later. Sigh.
This time the piece is carefully edited to remove the final assertion; now it is some “unknown” tool that is responsible. As you can see, Tsoukalos takes criticism into account, happily renders claims inoperative, and moves on to another random idea. His entire argument is based on the idea that he can’t conceive of ancient people working hard to make blocks fit together on their own without an authority figure from space telling them to do it and explaining exactly how. Never mind that stone dressing techniques used at Tiwanaku and Puma Punku can be traced back centuries and see in developmental phases; no, aliens taught everything, just not very well at first.

Tsoukalos is impressed that the Puma Punku blocks have a magnetic field and suggests they were exposed to alien magic beams. Andesite frequently contains significant amounts of magnetite, which is why the blocks have magnetic properties. Let’s hear it for geology!
Picture
The Gate of the Sun at Tiwanaku (Library of Congress)
After the break, Tsoukalos introduces us to the Gate of the Sun, a large andesite monument which he asserts contains depictions of Viracocha and “his winged children.” This is one possible interpretation, but we don’t know for certain that the Staff God of Tiwanaku is identical to the later Viracocha of the Inca. Tsoukalos again claims andesite is difficult to carve bcause it is almost impossibly hard, and yet the monument bears the scars, cracks, and flakes of countless insults that demonstrate that such carving is far from impossible.

This leads us to another segment filmed at Jungfrau Park in Switzerland, the site of Erich von Däniken’s failed ancient astronaut theme park. Von Däniken—once again described as Tsoukalos’s “mentor” after last week’s embarrassing excising of the old man from the episode—gives his version of the history of Puma Punku, which involves interpreting the Gate of the Sun as a calendar—which, to be fair, some archaeologists have suggested. But not the kind of calendar they’re talking about. Building on the “work” of H. S. Bellamy and P. Allen in The Calendar of Tiahuanaco (1956), we hear that the Gate is a calendar made by space aliens and covers 24,000 years of history. Von Däniken claims that archaeologists refuse to accept these findings because they “go against” evolution; as though it is impossible for anyone with basic math skills to project a calendar back in time. How does he think the Gregorian calendar manages to account for any year prior to its promulgation in 1582?

But we run into trouble when the show decides to ask us to support the work of Edmund Kiss, a German explorer who visited Tiwanaku in the 1920s. His findings were published by the Nazis because Kiss was a racist who argued that the ancient site was built by Aryans from Europe, as I wrote in my piece on Nazi archaeology:
The Nazis appropriated the work of Edmund Kiss, an architect who claimed to have studied archaeology at university, despite having produced no evidence of this. In 1928 Kiss traveled to Tiahuanaco in Bolivia, and under the Nazi regime he published a massive tome of pseudo-archaeology in which he argued that the cyclopean architecture of the site was too similar to that of Europe to be anything but an ancient Nordic habitation, and he argued that the site was far older than anyone had thought—perhaps millions of years older. Himmler asked him to do more work on his Atlantis, Thule, and Tiahuanaco theories.
Once again, Tsoukalos chooses to ask us to support Nazi ideas, as he did in an earlier episode. It is problematic that neither Tsoukalos nor von Däniken acknowledges Kiss’s Aryan ideology and its role in shaping his views.

Tsoukalos goes back to the old saw that “giant” blocks cannot be moved with just people and ropes, though he told us a little while ago that the “giant” blocks seen on screen during this—the H-blocks—are just three feet tall. Some other stones were much bigger, but those aren’t the blocks In Search of Aliens shows us or uses in its computer-generated illustrations. He discounts the idea that such blocks were moved on wooden rollers because at 12,000 feet there are no trees. I’m not sure I understand that while it is undisputed that the blocks traveled sixty miles, somehow the trees had to be local.

After the break, Tsoukalos asks the local Aymara people about Tiwanaku even though he told us at the beginning of the show and reminds us again that that Aymara only moved into the region after Tiwanaku had collapsed and therefore have no living memory of the site in its prime. Rene Quipe, an Aymara elder, explains to Tsoukalos that Viracocha was watching over them at Lake Titicaca, and the Aymara translator renders this as saying Viracocha was a “Watcher.” Tsoukalos quickly seizes on this as THE GODDAMNED WATCHERS FROM THE BOOK OF ENOCH AGAIN because we can’t go an hour in fringe history without the fallen angels making an appearance. Tsoukalos, of course, recaps the Book of Enoch, the Watchers, and the Nephilim. He imposes this Judeo-Christian mythology on the Inca by asserting that Viracocha was a Watcher who also created a race of giants. In some Viracocha myths, the god’s first creation were brainless giants whom he destroyed in a flood—a story with not a little hint of missionary Christian influence. Indeed, many scholars assume that the story is heavily influenced by Christianity, either from native informants who provided Christianized accounts, or by Spanish missionaries who recorded native tales in a Christian framework, as Véronica Salles-Reese wrote in From Viracocha to the Virgin of Copacabana: Representation of the Sacred at Lake Titicaca (1997).

I wouldn’t be too quick to accept the Aymara assertion that Tiwanaku was built by giants since that would mean having to accept the earlier folklore account that the giants were also involved in public homosexual orgies, homicidal rape, and other unpalatable events—recorded by the same Cieza de León that Tsoukalos previously asked us to believe was trustworthy (First Part of the Chronicle of Peru, Chapter 52).

Tsoukalos tells us that Puma Punku “existed before the Flood,” around 15,000 years ago—a number his Aymara informant has clearly derived from fringe literature rather than folklore since the translator cites fringe theorist Arthur Posnansky by name. So Tsoukalos believes Noah’s Flood really happened? Would he like to provide some proof?

I covered Posnansky’s flawed research in my review of the Ancient Aliens episode on Puma Punku, and Tsoukalos repeats the same mistaken date (15,000 BCE for 15,000 years ago) again. Here’s a brief summary:
Tiwanaku is not 17,000 years old. This date derives from the work of Arthur Posnansky, who tried to apply archaeoastronomy to the site but did so in ways that modern scholars do not recognize as legitimate. Posnansky proposed a date of 15,000 B.P. (before present, i.e. 13,000 BCE), which the geniuses on Ancient Aliens misread as 15,000 BCE, adding an extra 2,000 years onto Posnansky’s already flawed dates.

 Here’s what he did wrong. Posnansky assumed that the Kalasasaya temple at Tiwanaku was laid out with perfect accuracy to align to the equinoxes and solstices that he felt (but could not prove) were important to the Tiwanaku people. Thus, on a certain day the sun was supposed to rise above one rock at the temple and set behind another. (Ah, but which rock should we use?) Since the current ruins do not align with these celestial events accurately, he concluded that the ruins must have been built at a time when they would have aligned with that event. Since the sun and sky change positions at a predictable rate due to gradual changes in the angle of the earth’s axis, he concluded that the Kalassaya was built in 13,000 BCE as a solar observatory, despite no other evidence of solar astronomy at the site.
I have to say, though, that the most disturbing thing so far is that Tsoukalos is going full-bore in search of the Watchers under the guise of searching for aliens; the Watchers are his version of Scott Wolter’s Knights Templar—they are the thread that binds his ideas together.

After the break, Tsoukalos meets with David Childress, who is part of the Ancient Aliens repertory company, in order to push the same line again about the precision of the stones and their impossibly accurate carving. Childress explains that he believes that the stone masons must have had power tools because they engaged in “unnecessary” carving for purely decorative and “fancy” purposes. Apparently Childress is an adherent of the modernist school of architecture and has never considered that decoration may be an end in and of itself, that form need not necessarily follow function. After all, why did the ancient Greeks engage in all that unnecessary fluting of their stone columns? Or are their Corinthian capitals exempted from practical stone carving? Non-white people are lazy oafs, according to Childress, so they would only have bothered to make things look nice if “the primitive architects” had an easy way of carving stone that didn’t require “so much labor.”

The two men are amazed that ancient people used metal clamps to hold rocks together. Unable to conceive of the idea that clamps are not a particularly difficult idea to discover, the two men agree that either the same builders build all ancient sites with clamps or that the Watchers taught clamping to everyone. “It’s not something that could really have been developed independently,” Childress says, arguing that archaeologists are suppressing the truth about the clamps to prevent the truth about hyper-diffusion from coming out.

After the break, Childress raises the issue of the Fuente Magna bowl, also repeated from Ancient Aliens, where I described it thusly:
Childress also gets quite excited about the “Fuente Magna” bowl, a purported artifact from near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia that supposedly shows “proto-Sumerian” and Semitic writing alongside South American designs. (Childress is wrong about it having both Sumerian and proto-Sumerian; two linguists merely disagreed on whether it was Sumerian or proto-Sumerian.) It was found at an unknown date (sometime prior to 1958) and brought to the attention of archaeologists sometime between 1958 and 1960. No one paid attention to it until 2000, when a documentary crew for Atlantis in the Andes filmed it. Given the extremely problematic provenance, it is most likely a hoax, like the Kensington Rune Stone and other supposed “evidence” of Old World peoples in the Americas. Today, some Mormons celebrate the artifact as proof of the Book of Mormon. Interestingly, Mormons began working in nearby Peru in 1956, just at the time this “proof” was supposedly uncovered.

But no matter the truth, the bowl fails to support, as Childress claims, Zecharia Sitchin’s theories of alien Anunnaki in Bolivia since the inscription, when “translated,” refers to either (a) Sumerians teaching the Bolivians goat-herding, with no aliens in sight or (b) a purification rite, again with no aliens. It depends on which translator of the likely fake inscription you prefer. (One of the two translators, Afrocentrist writer Clyde Winters, insists that the Inca are identical with Enki, the Sumerian god, because, well, they sound alike. Quality work.) At best, the bowl would be evidence for trans-Atlantic contact. But it’s probably a hoax.
Childress again asserts that (a) Bolivian archaeologists have authenticated the bowl and (b) archaeologists are also suppressing the bowl to preserve their paradigms. Childress and Tsoukalos explain that the Anunnaki left the bowl behind when Tiwanaku was a mining center for digging gold for the space aliens. I’m not quite sure where the aliens got all the diamonds to carve the site; it would seem like extra work to mine diamonds just to use them to build a site for mining gold. What did they use to mine diamonds?

Oh, well, as the hour lurches toward a conclusion, we return again to the false claim that the andesite at Puma Punku is too hard to cut with normal tools and the blocks too heavy to move. It’s really getting repetitive. Casey Hemmatyar, a forensic engineer, uses a computer to create an imaginary version of Puma Punku based on a science fiction version of a spaceport, one that has no relationship to reality, particularly lacking any relationship to archaeological findings about the original locations of the blocks, and including hundreds of times more blocks than actually exist at the site. Hemmatyar believes that the Flood of Noah destroyed the site when the water caused the rocks to jostle out of place. And then… OH MY GOD… Tsoukalos actually uses the creationist argument that fossils of fish and seashells found on mountains prove that the Flood really happened. Apparently plate tectonics, deep time, and geologic uplift have made no mark on Tsoukalos’s neo-creationist mind.

For crying out loud, Leonardo da Vinci—whom Ancient Aliens crowned with the laurel of being in communion with the aliens—recognized the stupidity of this argument in his notebook, where he explained that the Flood makes no sense as an explanation for shells on mountaintops:
And from time to time the bottom of the sea was raised, depositing these shells in layers. […] And if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers— as we see them now in our time. (entry 987)
Between the creationist arguments, the emphasis on Noah’s Flood, and the obsession with finding fallen angels and giants, Tsoukalos seems to be morphing into L. A. Marzulli. As a marketing strategy, it’s close to brilliant: By operating in the ambiguous area where angels and aliens merge, he can appeal to two audiences at once, the alien believers and fundamentalist Christians, widening his appeal beyond the fringe toward a wider Christian conservative audience. But in claiming to be a supposed seeker of truth, it is a cynical position to take, however profitable it may be.

“Every mythology has a core of truth, and that is my quest,” Tsoukalos says. Each part of that sentence is a lie.
48 Comments
spookyparadigm
9/13/2014 04:26:38 am

Dress like Indiana Jones.

Promote Nazis.

You know, it doesn't take deep google searches to figure out this is a problem.

Reply
EP
9/13/2014 06:14:16 am

It would have been more appropriate if Tsoukalos dressed as Mutt. Especially because he looks like a stockier, hairier Shia LaBeouf.

Reply
Steve StC
9/13/2014 04:52:21 pm

Off topic, as usual, but this ought to be a bit of fun. Naturally, Jason's acolytes won't have found this -

"On 12/31/2013 logger Jason Colavito alleged that the “Myth of a Smithsonian Conspiracy” was essentially created by David Hatcher Childress in 1993. Colavito doesn’t seem impartial in this and makes his dislike of Childress obvious in many of his other blogs addressing “Ancient Aliens,” even referring to Childress as “rotund” in a couple postings. I don’t see David as rotund and don’t see the relevance of the comment, anyway. Isn’t that similar to calling someone “gay?” What’s the point of it; is it a slur? "

http://www.apmagazine.info/index.php/component/content/article?id=574

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EP
9/13/2014 05:29:23 pm

Wow, Jason! I had no idea you were a logger. Do you sell firewood or construction wood?

Mandalore
9/14/2014 02:10:20 am

What's your point Steve? That Jason doesn't seem to like Childress? That seems obvious. I don't like him; can't stand that nasally voice. Plus all the lying.

Jason Colavito link
9/14/2014 02:41:20 am

Funny Steve should mention it: I had prepared a blog post about the article for today.

dlefhcie
9/13/2014 05:18:53 am

I think this was the best of all the episodes so far, in that I didn't have to start playing Solitaire on my tablet to keep awake. Of course, it was also one of the worst in how horribly they misrepresented everything. For instance, I can't believe no one has set Giorgio straight that 15000 BC and 15000 years ago are not the same date in all the time since Ancient Aliens screwed it up. This show must have terrible producers and nothing resembling fact checkers, or those fact checkers just wander around the internet until they find some idiot's blog that agrees with this idiocy and call it proven.

In many of the Ancient Aliens episodes I've watched, the talking heads would refer to what the "local stories" said and I've always scratched my head at that, because I recognize those locals don't know jack. They are separated from the builders by hundreds if not thousands of years. Anything they "know" about the site and the buildings is just stories they made up. Even if they were direct descendants of the builders, oral history is the worst way to pass information down the generations. All you need is one break in the line and the history is lost and everything that comes afterward is fiction and guesses. So I'd always figured that stuff was BS and it is proven out in this episode where the local "history" is shown to be tainted by fringe archeology.

I wish I could see into the minds of Giorgio and Childress and von Daniken and the others in the Ancient Aliens repertory company (FYI- Jason, I like that turn of the phrase, it really suits them). I'd like to see what is broken in there that makes them unable to believe in the human race, in our ability to do amazing things, build incredible structures, better ourselves. Why does every single advancement have to have been given to us by aliens?

And for gods sake, could they stop using Zecharia Sitchin's work on Sumeria? It is the most discredited balderdash of all fringe archeology. And somehow even on the opposite side of the world, we can't get away from it.

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Clint Knapp
9/13/2014 06:14:36 am

I'd be happy if someone would just correct him on the date alone. All it takes is removing a single zero from the "15000 years ago" statement to be true. A single decimal correction, and his entire story becomes patently unsupportable.

Not that any of the rest of his story is true, but good luck convincing anyone that the Biblical Flood happened and giants were roaming around at the same time as the European Middle Ages. Well, I take that back. Some people will believe anything; including that Tsoukalos is an archaeologist.

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EP
9/13/2014 06:16:40 am

Mr. Knapp, meet Mr. Fomenko :)

Clint Knapp
9/13/2014 06:22:07 am

Goddammit.

Dave Lewis
9/14/2014 07:59:28 am

I think that if you looked in their heads you would see the desire for fame and easy $$$.

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Only Me
9/13/2014 05:32:23 am

Seven minutes. That's how long I made it before changing the channel. So many bald-faced lies tumbled from Tsoukalos's lips during that time, I almost defenestrated my TV.

So this "new" show has resorted to recycling previous episodes of Ancient Aliens. I'm only surprised it took *this* long.

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EP
9/13/2014 06:07:16 am

"the translator cites fringe theorist Arthur Posnansky by name"

Oh for fuck's sake!

I don't know what it says about me, but this kind of laziness and disrespect for one's audience offends me more than outright fraud or complete stupidity.

Also, Leonardo's argument was already made by Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570 - c.475 BCE)

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Jason Colavito link
9/13/2014 06:10:25 am

Yes, but was Xenophanes given the aliens' seal of approval?

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EP
9/13/2014 06:15:54 am

In the missing fragments.

On the other hand, I don't get why Parmenides hasn't been made a mainstay of AA theory. He's *perfect* for them!

Clint Knapp
9/13/2014 06:18:22 am

Well, his name has 'xeno' in it, which should obviously mean 'alien'! Even their lazy etymology fails.

kal
9/13/2014 07:56:34 am

Evidently GT has been reading Mien Komft. "If you repeat a lie enough people will believe it."

Saw this one too. He actually messes up big time when he walks in front of those supposedly huge H blocks. They're just about the size of a meter, maybe 3 feet, to which maybe 4 big husky movers could hoist with their hands no problem.

That stone is like sandstone. It is easy to carve. Also they can pour forms using crushed versions of the rock, and move the little bricks.

The modern visitors to the site and to Bolivia during the colonial period and beyond have contaminated whatever truth about the site remains. That obviously fake Sumarian thing was likely left there as you suggest, by tourists or missionaries trying to spread their own agenda.

What the native Inca guy actually said was he had no idea what the site was or who built it. The translator adds that ridiculous fringe author because GT probably told him to say it. How would that local even know who that author is?

The Inca didn't know who built the site. They said so before during real archeology digs at the site. They said that when the Spaniards came they were asked, and they didn't know.

The site was destroyed in modern colonial times by scores of missionaries "cleansing the land of pegan" stuff. With enough people, scattering a bunch of heavy rocks isn't that hard.

No need to go into a flood myth or a quake. It also would be silly. How could flood waters go up that high? The Earth doesn't have enough water to cover Titicaca, even in the ice age. Although my creationist friends do believe in the flood of Noah, they would likely say this guy on TV is full of it. Where is there even a connection? Oh yeah, the alleged similarities to each flooding story. Uh, duh, humans live near water. Flooding happens all the time. It doesn't need to be global. Now my creationist friends may throw a fit. Oh well. He's giving flood myth a bad name. Aliens did it. Whee. Uhm no.

Any pottery, tablet writing and other firms capable of being carried off probably came later. Tourists and whatnot came there and left stuff around trying to pass off fakes.

The archway thing is just what was left of the gate, and it probably had something to do with sun worship. That is only a theory. Also the smaller figures could represent a herd around the sun, but not the Son of God, or some alien deity that gives knowledge via the watchers. That would be out of Star Trek. That is silly.

The site is not that ancient. The timeline from the Incan guy is at least somewhat clear. It was there before he arrived. That would mean about 800 AD when the Inca arrived they found it in disrepair, but not ruin yet. Then in the colonial times, the missionaries likely decimated it, around 1600, not BC, AD, as in about 400 years ago. That might be one theory more accurate than aliens or floods. And it looks pretty dry there for there to be flooding on a frequent basis.

I laughed at the part when he claimed there could not have been deforestation. Why not? Most of Afganistan was forest but it's now desert. The Amazon and Canada have this also, ansd the US. Lots of places have lost a lot of trees. It is highly likely the first settlers destroyed closer forests to the site centuries ago. But okay, where'd they get the water? The lake Maybe there was more lake back then, sort of like how the Aztecs built over the lake in Mexico.

Also who's to say they could not have used stone rollers? How about just good old manpower?

You don't need a crane to lift the blocks into place if they're not that tall and you have a lot of builders. It is not only logical but probably easy to build a complex like that over time. Hardly beyond logic, ancient aliens people.





Reply
FrankenNewYork
9/13/2014 09:44:22 am

You have to agree with Tsoukalos about one thing; they didn't do it with chicken bones.

Reply
Jose Simental
9/13/2014 09:49:19 am

Unfortunately, yes, we have to agree with him on this....

Reply
Jose Simental
9/13/2014 09:47:28 am

I don't want to sound as the guy that always posts "it's only a TV show," but I did find this episode to be the most entertaining yet.

It was so silly that I laughed all the way through it, and could not wait to read Jason's and other poster's analysis of the episode.

This episode reminded me (all AA, HU, ISA, do but this one more than the others) of a monthly magazine I used to read when I was a teen and growing up in Mexico, back in the 70's. The name of the magazine (comic book style) was "DUDA, Lo increible es la verdad" which means "Doubt, the incredible is the truth."

http://coleccionrevistasduda.blogspot.com

Some AA, AU, ISA, and other conspiracy H2/SyFy type of episodes seem to be taken directly out of the magazine.

I would sometimes discuss/argue the content of the latest edition with my father and grandfather. With their help I learned to pick every issue/episode of the magazine apart, finding it's weaknesses, half truths, logical fallacies, misdirection and outright lies.

And yes Jason's blog and comments made by others remind me of that. I just wish I was more proficient in the english language to participate in the discussions.


Jose




Reply
Jose Simental
9/13/2014 10:01:34 am

Correction: HU should've been AU, sorry.

Reply
Pacal
9/13/2014 10:40:21 am

Jason you say:

"After the break, Tsoukalos asks the local Aymara people about Tiwanaku even though he told us at the beginning of the show and reminds us again that that Aymara only moved into the region after Tiwanaku had collapsed and therefore have no living memory of the site in its prime."

Who actually built Tiwanaku is subject for debate, but the argument that the Aymara moved into the area after the fall of the site and that they are not the descendants of the original builders is not held by all Archeologists by a long shot.

The Archeologist Alan Kolata who has done extensive archeological work at Tiwanaku and neighbouring sites believes the Aymara built it. I recommend his books The Tiwanaku, 1993, and Valley of the Spirits: A Journey into the Lost realm of the Aymara, 1996. Those books especially the second use Aymara myth, folklore and cosmology to help explain Tiwanaku. Ancient Tiwanaku, 2008, by John Wayne Janusek thinks that Tiwanaku was a multi ethnic state and that the local Aymara are the descendants of the builders of the site.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
9/14/2014 08:01:04 am

You're absolutely right, Pacal, and this was, I believe, Graham Hancock's view of the situation in "Fingerprints of the Gods." Here, though, the show takes pains to assert a lack of connection before asking for Aymara opinions!

Reply
JaredMithrandir link
9/13/2014 11:08:38 pm

I wonder if Giorgio Tsoukalos is interesting in investigating the authenticity of the Legend that Clefairy came from the Moon.

Reply
EP
9/14/2014 06:50:29 am

I wonder if Giorgio Tsoukalos is "interesting" in investigating Biblical dinosaurs...

Reply
Shane Sullivan
9/14/2014 07:03:18 am

Hey, man, that one's actually true. Why else would they evolve in the presence of Moon Stones?

Reply
EP
9/14/2014 07:09:56 am

Evolution is a Satanic lie aimed at corrupting America's youth. Shame on you!

Shane Sullivan
9/15/2014 04:18:50 am

EP, evolution is a fact, proven by science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okVpVpvJ-Ec

EP
9/15/2014 04:21:56 am

True story: JaredMithrandir's original post made me wonder whether a Creationist knock-off of Pokemon exists.

Synchronicity! Someone get Christopher Knowles on the phone!

Billy Ray Danny Frank
9/15/2014 12:17:50 am

Indiana Jones. Hmm. Who was the guy from about 8 years ago who had a show on History where he was spending good money on similar projects. Josh something. He seriously dressed the part. He was at Roanoke, the serpent mound, etc. But he seriously trumped the mousse man in ego mania.

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Gudmund
9/16/2014 01:42:30 am

Henry Jr. wannabe Josh Bernstein in "Digging for truth".

Reply
titus pullo
9/16/2014 10:19:36 am

I can't help but notice humans have a problem with creations not in their "present time frams" of about 50 years and the longer the distance in time the more "they could not have done it" comes out. A few years ago I was thinking of writing a book for layman on how technically Apollo worked from the Saturn Five to the CM and LM and navigation and propulsion and so on. In researching I was amazed at how clever the engineers were using what I thought were very low tech solutions to get to the moon. I'm sure 100 years from now, people will say 'no way they made it to the moon with that technology"..

A few weeks ago I came across the story of the America, the first dirigible attempt across the Atlantic before the Titanic...and when you look at the vessels used to cross the Atlantic in the 15th century you just shake your head. Don't underestimate humans...my favorite story as a kid was Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke...it always raises my spirits on the potential of humans

Reply
CHF01
9/16/2014 11:26:30 am

So if the Puma Punku site is as old as claimed in the show, does this mean the same builders could be linked to Gobekli Tepe?

Reply
EP
9/16/2014 11:29:49 am

Everything could be linked to everything by this show. Via time-travelling Nazis.

Reply
CHF01
9/16/2014 11:32:32 am

Lol!
Time travelling Nazis or time travelling grey aliens? :)

EP
9/16/2014 11:42:26 am

Don't make me choose! :)

Don White
9/19/2014 12:24:36 pm

You look and write like a snarky fag. Every attack you launched above has already been thoroughly reviewed and answered by people like Mr Tsoukalos and Childress,et al. At least George has the balls to get out there and research instead of sitting on his fat ass throwing rocks . . .

Reply
Don White
9/19/2014 12:29:24 pm

Forgot to add . . . shouldn't you tell folks that you and Mr T both graduated from Ithaca College? Could all this criticism be nothing more than jealousy???? LOL

Reply
Only Me
9/19/2014 06:53:11 pm

I see one of Giorgio's cabana boys has learned of the Internet.

EP
9/19/2014 07:22:19 pm

I pity the fool who would call Tsoukalos Mr. T!

evans
11/16/2014 06:36:16 am

Hey Don, I bet these retards are the type that sit in movie theaters and talk and yack or use their cell phones while others are trying to enjoy the movie, and these are the same jerks that send comments to those movie forums how lousy the movie was that they never even bothered watching.

I'm not altogether in agreement with the Ancient Aliens theories held by Mr Tsouklos and Mr Childress but I'm not one to go around bashing what these gentlemen and others on the shows put forth if I'm in disagreement I may find a way to express my views to their website apparently these who commented here are just the kind that likes to stir up people and need an audience to show how retarded they really are apparently these guys grew up watching Married with children and other such shows and all probably failed history classes as well, I doubt even if they could they wouldn't know how to produce a show like Ancient Aliens so we're safe.

AJ
1/5/2018 05:46:03 am

He's covered the fact that they were at the same school.

Next.

EP
9/19/2014 02:36:06 pm

"Turd Maestro", is that you? :)

Reply
evans
11/15/2014 05:57:52 pm

Reading all these comments it's kinda fun seeing so many keyboard experts on these subjects and ruining down Gioggio Tsoukalos and David Childress and it seems that the author of this little bit Jason Colaviyo just don't like these Ancient Alien and In Search Of Aliens shows while I myself don't go along with everything the hosts of the show say is caused by aliens I do think the show does give the viewers something to think about and do the research themselves, Man was very capable to build and invent ways to advance civilization without help at every turn but maybe there were some things that wasn't built by aliens but the means to do the job was by indirect intervention. one bit of construction that stands out that screams advanced construction methods is the cliff wall at Ollantaytambo where one slab was cut from this stone and lifted out and placed on the ground without even damaging the rock around from where it was removed from just try to remove a square piece of clay from a hunk of clay without any damage to the clay around it it can't be done not with any conventional method and this was done with stone so all you " experts " explain how tgis was done or ....... simply ignore the question altogether some of these subjects that's brought up on these shows are sure more thought provoking than that wrestling crap or the current run of sit coms.
Yea these Ancient Alien shows aren't for everybody so my question is ..... why do you all watch them ? just to run down Tsoukalos and Childress if you all can do a better job then why not try it then guys like me can make jokes and fun of your screw ups too.

Reply
Bioli
12/24/2014 12:00:11 pm

...Or, rather than 17,000 years old, maybe the site is 20 million years old. Built by a long lost, adequately advanced civilization. Four and a half billion years is a long time. A lot can happen. Okay, enough about Puma - let me debunk the Pyramid "light bulb" theory. After watching it, a light bulb lit up over my head. Here on earth, we build from the ground up. Thus, avoiding the need for any unlikely levitation devices. The enterior tomb builders and painters would have had all the light and air they needed, as they and the outter walls grew vertically. Ooh!!! how could they see? How could they breathe? Uh...that's how. I would like to know who built Puma Punku and why....but we never will.

Reply
Chuck E. Childress
1/5/2015 08:40:43 pm

How can you say such uncomplimentary things about GT? What are you, some koind of elitist, degreed, credentialed, traditional archeologist educated at an ivy league university with years of respectable research and peer reviewed publications under your belt?

Reply
Chubby Childress
1/5/2015 08:58:58 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXbTJsnH-s

Reply
Bob Jase
2/19/2015 07:06:49 am

So does NASA have anything planned in their books regarding the # 1 priority for the 1st possible interstellar mission to include visiting another solar system for the purpose of piling up stone blocks?

Reply

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      • Volumes 11-20 Archive >
        • Volume 11 Archive
        • Volume 12 Archive
        • Volume 13 Archive
        • Volume 14 Archive
        • Volume 15 Archive
        • Volume 16 Archive
        • Volume 17 Archive
        • Volume 18 Archive
        • Volume 19 Archive
        • Volume 20 Archive
      • Volumes 21-30 Archive >
        • Volume 21 Archive
        • Volume 22 Archive
    • Television Reviews >
      • Ancient Aliens Reviews
      • In Search of Aliens Reviews
      • America Unearthed
      • Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar
      • Search for the Lost Giants
      • Forbidden History Reviews
      • Expedition Unknown Reviews
      • Legends of the Lost
      • Unexplained + Unexplored
      • Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
    • Book Reviews
    • Galleries >
      • Bad Archaeology
      • Ancient Civilizations >
        • Ancient Egypt
        • Ancient Greece
        • Ancient Near East
        • Ancient Americas
      • Supernatural History
      • Book Image Galleries
    • Videos
    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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