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Review of In Search of Aliens S01E09 "The Mystery of Nazca"

9/27/2014

53 Comments

 
True story: We owe the popularity of the ancient astronaut theory to Rod Serling’s love of airplanes. Serling was a parachutist during World War II and spent the rest of his life fascinated by air travel. It’s impossible to watch The Twilight Zone without seeing Serling’s fascination with every facet of flying. As he recounts in his foreword to Alan Landsburg’s In Search of Ancient Mysteries, when Landsburg (who, sadly, died last month) came to Serling to propose dubbing a German documentary about Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods for American television, Serling was skeptical of ancient astronauts—until he saw the Nazca lines. Landsburg told Serling he could prove aliens had visited the ancient earth with a photograph, one that he had learned about from Chariots of the Gods. Serling remembers his conversation with Landsburg on the Universal lot in late 1972:
Item one was a picture of an airfield taken from 2,500 feet up. “Okay, it’s an airfield—from the look of the runways, a military base of some size.” That’s the impression I got.

“Rod, it’s four thousand years old.”

And we were off and running.
Serling’s reaction is nearly identical to von Däniken’s offhand description of Nazca in Chariots of the Gods: “Seen from the air, the clear-cut impression that the 37-mile-long plain of Nazca made on me was that of an airfield! What is so far-fetched about the idea?” It was, perhaps, the single most quoted line in the entire book, and one of the first claims that the Nazca lines were connected to aliens. But even he no longer believes the lines were runways. Surprisingly, no matter how many explanations involving aliens are debunked, new ones always emerge out of the conviction that something aliens had to have happened there.

As a result of the Nazca photo, Serling agreed to narrate the film In Search of Ancient Astronauts (1973), broadcast on NBC and watched by more than a third of all American television viewers. The program did more than anything to bring the ancient astronaut theory into the pop culture mainstream—and to make von Däniken so big a celebrity that 40 years later he is still inspiring new versions of the same old material first recycled by Serling and Landsburg.

This is a rather long way around introducing In Search of Aliens S01E09 “The Mystery of Nazca,” in which von Däniken’s protégé, Giorgio Tsoukalos, returns to Nazca, Peru to investigate his master’s “questions” about Nazca. He begins by discussing the history of exploration of the Nazca lines and archaeologists’ views about how they were made. This lasts less than one minute after the credits before David Childress shows up. He and Tsoukalos are apparently competing to see who can wear more Indiana Jones-style clothing. Childress has the leather jacket and khaki shirt, but with his jeans he loses out to Tsoukalos, who, sans leather jacket, has the khaki clothing and satchel to pull off a fetching ensemble, though he loses points for the sparkly and chunky necklace of semiprecious stones, which is impractical for swashbuckling.

“David is one of the most well-known proponents of the ancient astronaut theory,” Tsoukalos says, neglecting to mention that Childress adopted the ancient astronaut theory only in 2010, after joining the regular cast of Ancient Aliens. Prior to that, he actually opposed the ancient astronaut theory (despite writing at least one book on the subject) and blasted me in The Chicago Reader in 2006 for calling him an ancient astronaut theorist: “[M]y whole thing is that this stuff is from this planet. These giant ruins aren’t built by extraterrestrials. I say they were built by humans.”

The two strap into an airplane, fly over the Nazca lines, and take photos on their smartphones. They giddily giggle while taking happy snaps of the so-called “astronaut” glyph, which actually depicts a fisherman holding a fish, according to research conducted in 2002. Childress says that “I keep wondering if this isn’t a signal to the Anunnaki,” who apparently enjoy fish. (Other experts suggest the bug-eyed figure might be an owl-man.) Tsoukalos compares this to the allegedly 10,000-year-old ancient astronaut rock paintings in Chhattisgarh that caused a flap in July when the Times of India declared them proof of alien contact.

Next, the pair visit the Nazca lines on the ground, and Tsoukalos wonders why anyone would make glyphs in a “remote, barren desert.” He asks this while we can clearly see green vegetation and foliage beyond the plateau. In other words, the most likely explanation is that, while this a very harsh environment, the Nazca people came up to the plateau because it was a desert and made their glyphs where they would be preserved.

Childress asks some locals if they see many UFOs around these parts, and they say yes. After the break we pick up on the ufology thread. The locals tell Tsoukalos that the “lights” they see are a mysterious energy, but Childress wants to force this into a flying saucer framework. Tsoukalos concludes that the existence of strange lights “proves” that the site is still the site of extraterrestrial contact “even today,” though this does not logically follow since there is no evidence presented that the lights are flying saucers from other worlds. (How do you know, for example, that they are not bioluminescent flying jellyfish, as Karl Shuker once proposed?) Everyone just assumes that strange lights are alien “craft.”

When this goes nowhere, the two men travel to another Peruvian site a hundred miles away, a large construction called the Band of Holes (first seen in an early Ancient Aliens episode called “The Mission”), which according to legend represented a snake. Tsoukalos uses a model airplane to shoot pictures of the long line of holes, resembling a honeycomb stretching for miles. “It’s weird!” Tsoukalos says before assuming that the snake image was really a dragon, that it belched smoke, and was therefore a rocket ship. None of this is in the legend. Childress, by contrast, wants to know why anyone would put so much work into digging holes. One might just as well as why anyone would put so much effort into a Gothic cathedral (believed to be roughly contemporary with the Band of Holes, or at least the Inca use of them) when a simple four walled structure without adornment would serve the same function. Of course, only non-Europeans are believed to be lazy people who would never expend effort without alien help. Even after discussing the legend that the Band of Holes is meant to represent a snake, Childress declares that he can think of no reason anyone would bother making such a thing.

After the break, Tsoukalos runs out of material to discuss about the Nazca lines, so he falls back on the painfully familiar claims about elongated skulls, visiting the same Paracas skulls featured in Ancient Aliens S06E14 “The Star Children.” As in the earlier Malta-themed episode, Tsoukalos takes the lack of a sagittal suture on some skulls not as a sign of random genetic anomaly but as evidence of aliens. The owner of the Paracas History Museum, Juan Navarro, who says he personally saw a flying saucer close up, tells Tsoukalos that “persons who had money” tested the skulls—and here he fails to mention that those “persons” were Brien Foerster and Lloyd Pye—and determined that the skulls were those of Aryans from Northern Europe. This is the first time I have heard this particular part of the claim, which does not appear in the original reports from late 2013 and early 2014, which had instead declared the skulls were of an unknown human species not associated with northern Europe. Navarro seems to be adding in some new claims taken over from assertions that “red hair” on the skulls connects them to Europe. Navarro, though, says that a previous investigator concluded that the skulls are of their own race. Undisclosed to viewers is that these investigators are Foerster, who claimed they were of a different Homo species, and L. A. Marzulli, who claimed they were of the race of the Nephilim. Marzulli is persona non grata here because he’s a Christian fundamentalist, and it’s funny to see the way the different strands of the fringe orbit around one another. Foerster is good at playing ancient astronaut and Nephilim theorists off one another. Tsoukalos concludes that the Paracas skulls are actual alien skulls, and Childress agrees. These skulls are so versatile!

Childress then says something very weird and largely unrelated to the rest of the conversation: “It wouldn’t matter how these skulls were obtained if DNA shows they were not humans.” This looks like a broken chunk of a conversation about cultural patrimony, since Tsoukalos also emphasizes that any DNA tests they reference on the show were done from hair samples, not bone samples. This is false, however, and Foerster and Pye specifically exported bone samples along with hair for testing and reported on DNA obtained from the bone samples. Are they trying to disassociate themselves from Foerster’s self-generated problems with seeming to admit he violated international law and U.S. government treaties by importing bones and artifact samples in to the U.S. from Peru and Bolivia without official permission? Or, as Judith mentions in the comments below, from the fact that many of the skulls were obtained from looters?

After another break, Tsoukalos speculates that the plateaus of Palpa, near Nazca, were artificially formed because they are rather flat. Instead of consulting a geologist to help explain the formation, Tsoukalos instead investigates how miners might remove the mountaintops without leaving any rubble behind. This is just stupid. Plateaus form in many different ways, and you would need to exclude geological processes (such as magma-generated uplift) before proposing alien mining operations as an explanation. Given the location of Palpa at a conjunction of two tectonic plates (and the straight-line formation of the “flat” mountains), I’d imagine that uplift is a better explanation than cutting mountains for cosmic strip mining.

After the next break, Tsoukalos meets up with Erich von Däniken, whom Tsoukalos credits (falsely) as “the man behind what is now known as the ancient astronaut theory.” Popularizer though he may have been, he copied his “theory” from Robert Charroux, Louis Pauwels, and Jacques Bergier—who were not the originators of the idea either. Tsoukalos, though, correctly notes von Däniken’s role in popularizing the connection between Nazca and space aliens. However, von Däniken engages in some revisionist history. He originally proposed, as we saw, that Nazca was an airstrip for space aliens (well, he said it was his “clear-cut impression”), but in later work and here on this show, he revises the idea to incorporate material borrowed from Zecharia Sitchin. Now the aliens came to Nazca to mine for gold, and the lines are just a byproduct of the trails left behind by rolling alien “rovers” that were testing the soil for gold. The Nazca imitated the tracks.

As for the Band of Holes, it has “something to do with the mathematics,” von Däniken says. The holes would have been filled with fire to signal the aliens in a specific mathematical code. This seems strange to me since according to Ancient Aliens the extraterrestrials gave the Israelites an Ark of the Covenant to communicate via hologram and could speak to Einstein and Tesla via a psychic connection. Apparently New World people don’t qualify for this level of sophisticated communication. Nevertheless, von Däniken is no good at math, so he says he doesn’t know how to solve the “mathematical message” in ancient sites and has made no effort to get anyone else to do so, either. A bit odd, I would say, for someone who thinks he has discovered real evidence of aliens.

Von Däniken then gives Tsoukalos high praise: “Giorgio Tsoukalos, you know a lot about ancient aliens. Probably you are the one leading figure living on this planet.”

After a final break, Tsoukalos makes very brief allusion to the resemblance of the Nazca lines to runways, and he then meets with Michael Dennin, the house physicist for Ancient Aliens, who tells him nothing useful. Tsoukalos instead compares the Nazca lines to crop circles, and he claims at least some crop circles “defy explanation.” Dennin and Tsoukalos suggest that the geoglyphs were “not random” (no fooling!) and involve geometry (again, no fooling!). However, neither man is able to distinguish between geoglyphs meant to give a message to aliens flying in spacecraft and those meant to communicate to gods imagined to live in the sky. From the ground, there would be no difference. Therefore, even taking all the claims at face value, this fails to provide evidence that the beings the glyphs were meant to reach actually existed.

53 Comments
Only Me
9/27/2014 04:20:32 am

If the minds behind this show are trying to incorporate new evidence, insight, science, whatever...they have failed. So, this "new" episode of Ancient Aliens Lite became background noise.

I have to believe these episodic reviews are relatively easy for you, since you've already addressed the material before.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
9/27/2014 05:28:11 am

When I first started reviewing Ancient Aliens, it took me a long time to do each review because I had to keep looking things up. The more repetitive these shows have gotten, the easier it is to refer back to old material. It does save time! On the other hand, it's harder to care about the umpteenth repetition of old stuff.

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Jennygirl00
1/25/2015 02:27:51 am

Just have to comment on your review of the In Search of Aliens Nazca episode because when G.T actually said how was the mountain top sheered off I nearly hit the ground laughing because what I immediately thought was isn't that a plateau? It's funny that you actually had that same comment. I do watch Ancient Aliens because I love seeing how they spin things. It also amazes me that the so-called top expert on ancient astronaut theory doesn't even have a B.A. in history. How does this happen? I could be an expert on this theory. I wish someone would pay me to travel to these sites and theorize how they got there. If I was only so lucky....

EP
9/27/2014 04:36:48 am

“Giorgio Tsoukalos, you know a lot about ancient aliens. Probably you are the one leading figure living on this planet.”

I keep waiting for Von Daniken to slip and call Tsoukalos Tomy :)

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Edward Nashton
10/2/2014 06:00:51 pm

If Von Daniken slipped, if anything he would've called Tsoukalos Efstathios. But that's just me.

-- ?

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EP
10/4/2014 05:12:49 am

Bleed your eyes out, Mr. Nashton :)

http://www.amazon.com/Tomy-Planet-Lies-Erich-Daniken/dp/0988349434/ref=la_B001HMLE7I_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410067912&sr=1-15

Edward Nashton
10/4/2014 07:26:48 am

I am aware of the reference, and the book you linked to. It is an odd book, but knowing that Von Daniken wrote it should say everything on why it's weird. I just happen to think Von Daniken would call him that, based on certain searches that can be made based on the name Efstathios. There are quite a few correlations that be made that is too much of a coincidence, and information that doesn't exactly match what Tsoukalos claims.

EP
10/4/2014 08:16:45 am

That's Giorgio's great-grandfather's name, right? Other than that, I'm not sure what you're talking about...

666
9/27/2014 06:03:25 am

The Nazca Lines are to do with shamanism and entheogens
It's a well-known fact
Another well-known fact avoided by the fringe theorists.
It's allowed to be told that about the Nazca Lines and shamanism (far removed from the Near East and Babylonian reliefs).

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666
9/27/2014 06:07:38 am

Andrei A. Znamenski (editor), Shamanism: Critical Concepts In Sociology (Routledge Curzon, 2004).

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666
9/27/2014 06:38:15 am

Well worth a look

Flightpaths To The Gods, BBC 2, 1997
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOOA11X-OXI

Judith Bennett
9/27/2014 08:55:37 am

That remark by Childress regarding how the skulls were obtained is interesting. I think you're right that he's trying to disassociate himself from the smuggling, and perhaps also the fact that many, perhaps most, of the more recently acquired skulls were bought from looters.

Even Foerster is cleaning up his act somewhat, at least publicly. He now claims that he's working with Peruvian archaeologists and the Museo Nacional de Arqueología in Lima. He's also stated that more DNA tests will have to wait until permits have been obtained by his new collaborators so as to legally export samples to the US. A cynic might suggest that this is a bluff, one that serves both to cover him from criticism of his illicit activities, and as an explanation as to why he doesn't yet have more results to share with his fans.

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Cathleen Anderson
9/28/2014 08:32:55 am

Interesting observation.

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Judith Bennett
9/27/2014 09:04:17 am

David Swenson, the Bigfoot believer and patsy who fronted the indiegogo campaign to raise money for testing of stone samples from Puma Punku is now getting into the whitewashing act. His latest update claims that the samples have been sent out of the US for testing and have been "processed by Customs in the destination country." That's interesting, but certainly does nothing to remedy the fact that permission wasn't obtained to remove the artifacts from Bolivia. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmogenic-dating-of-megaliths-at-puma-punku#activity

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Cathleen Anderson
9/28/2014 08:33:41 am

This is also interesting to know.

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.
9/27/2014 09:35:05 am

A grid-map and precisely measured off squares even if large
explains the designs. The Romans made models of their cities
as did the Incas. An earlier Peruvian culture easily could have
done things this way. Its easier to postulate a hot air balloon
being involved than any sophisticated aircraft or space ship...

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Tara Jordan link
9/27/2014 10:48:02 am

Jason is doing something "qui relève d`un acte de salubrité publique" by watching and dissecting this type of garbage.I have no idea how he is capable of handling it.Personnally, the very idea of watching/listening David Hatcher Childress or Giorgio Tsoukalos,makes my skin crawl.

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Cathleen Anderson
9/27/2014 10:59:26 am

You are not alone in that Tara. It is important that someone be able to do this, because these people do want control.

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Tara Jordan link
9/27/2014 11:36:26 am


What Jason is doing is akin to self mutilation.No wonder Scott Wolter aka Mr "next door nice guy",accuses Jason of being socially "unbalanced".Jason and myself don't exactly see eye to eye on everything,his political correctness sometime irritates me,lol,but he is an honest guy.

Don White
9/27/2014 12:08:56 pm

I'm not sure what Jason is really doing. But, I have to say, after reading some of his work, my impression is very, very negative. he writes like a jilted lover or an ignored, wanna-be academic suffering from heroin-sized jealousy pangs.

The ancient alien-type TV shows (and books, I suppose) offer an overwhelming amount of observations about shit all over this world that just doesn't "fit" into popular theories. For example, if the "Band Of Holes" is a snake, that makes about the 9th or 10th ancient civilization I've heard of with a snake fetish. This includes, btw, the bizarre-looking Serpent Mound in Ohio and Adam & Eve (or the Sumerians, depending on who you believe).

Then there's the whole pyramid fetish. WTF? Ancient people all over the world decided to pile up rocks really high? Why?

Toss in strange cave drawings. Toss in what appear to be ancient mines in places that shouldn't have them. Toss in huge blocks of stone . . . I mean, the whole of human history seems to have been a fantastic peyote trip.

So I don't know if little green men are behind it. But, why not?

So, why then this lugubrious attack on poor old George or Erich?

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Tara Jordan link
9/27/2014 01:07:01 pm

Quite an argument.But at least,you cannot pretend standing on top of the intellectual food chain.You are so painfully coherent.

Cathleen Anderson
9/27/2014 01:23:44 pm

If these people would stop repeating their lies over and over again, Jason and others wouldn't have to keep debunking them.

Tara Jordan link
9/27/2014 01:28:47 pm

Don White.You are right,it breaks my heart to confess that,this is about jealousy.I have difficulty dealing with my primal instincts.
I can't wait to have my own crappy show on a cable channel,or give "conferences" to mentally impaired audiences,who have the collective wisdom of a bag of doorknobs,& the attention span of geriatric hippies on crack.Obviously,stupidity of that magnitude could not have evolved without alien intervention.Darwin was wrong.

Cathleen Anderson
9/28/2014 05:33:33 am

That is Brilliant Tara. I'll run my show on the history of knitting, crochet and fiber arts right after that.

I actually read Erich's book shortly after it was translated into English. At the time I did not realize I was reading fiction.

EP
9/28/2014 05:44:50 am

"mentally impaired audiences,who have the collective wisdom of a bag of doorknobs,& the attention span of geriatric hippies on crack."

Are you talking about "."? :)

PaulN. link
9/28/2014 10:23:52 am

Well,of course it must be true I read it in a magazine, heard/saw it on the radio/television, or my favorite celebrity. It must be true/valid or they couldn't print/broadcast it.
Frankly Don, your comments are indicative of the kind of person who comes to this site, glances around, and makes a shotgun criticism. You should at least check-out the other material here, before you come off sounding like the usual troll.

Joe Skales
9/30/2014 12:44:17 pm

This site is obviously an obsessive undertaking on Jason's part, who must feel great slight at the presentation of pseudo-science nonsense on a television channel that purports to be educational. Given his obsession, he's not above the use of fallacy himself in attacking these shows (ad hominem and appeal to ridicule the most obvious among them). Though Jason himself holds rather meager academic credentials himself, and certainly no post graduate degree in any real science, he is upfront about this. I actually believe the underlying ancient astronaut theory intrigues him, but how it's presented by the History network is insulting to legitimate inquiry. I admit it intrigues me. Given the concept of a "missing link" in human evolution, though now conveniently rejected as a term of art by the scientific community which favors "transitional fossils" (the existence of which both real and assumed), I myself am not always satisfied with just how much we really know about our species' humble beginnings. However, where Jason does a great service is in pointing out the outright lies and distortions the hosts of these shows present as fact. True, it's easy to spot the pure speculation presented as clarity by the un-credentialed show regulars, but when they pervert the knowledge base with what they must know to be pure falsehoods... that's hitting below the belt. And thus it justifies Jason's wrath.

And hey, it's not like they're going to present any skeptical inquiry on any of these shows; so to me, this site remains a pleasant diversion.

Jamie Eckles
9/30/2014 03:50:50 pm

You have a problem with the term "transitional fossils" (of which there are many) and instead cling to the outdated notion of a single link that is supposed to be missing? Do you believe in the Crockoduck?

Joe Skales
10/1/2014 03:15:54 am

I don't cling to any notion Jaime, but am open to alternate theories if they are truly fact based. If only we could all live another hundred years to see most of which we know proven wrong.

Jamie Eckles
10/1/2014 03:38:23 am

I just don't see that happening, not in the area of transitional fossils. We've come a VERY long way over the last 100 years, but in the last 70 or so the science has constantly be built upon, not overturned or changed. The evidence won't change, and it's overwhelming. I'm still open to the possibility of some intelligent alien influence on human development, but the pace and stages of change are really quite clear.

Josef Karpinovic
9/27/2014 11:43:23 am

AGAIN with this Nazca shit? God almighty.
It's true, this stuff runs almost entirely on impossibly short attention spans.

Reply
Don White
9/27/2014 11:53:51 am

QUOTE He and Tsoukalos are apparently competing to see who can wear more Indiana Jones-style clothing. Childress has the leather jacket and khaki shirt, but with his jeans he loses out to Tsoukalos, who, sans leather jacket, has the khaki clothing and satchel to pull off a fetching ensemble, though he loses points for the sparkly and chunky necklace of semiprecious stones, UNQUOTE

Clearly, the Man Love and jealousy continue. I would love to read your theories on the Nazca Lines, Band Of Holes, Elongate Skulls, etc. It would be even better if you opened your interpretation up for comment.

I continue to note that you never actually put any skin in the game. Instead you sit back and with the snark and bitchiness befitting a prom queen on her menstrual cycle, poke holes into the work of others who at least have the balls to try.

Has anyone offered you a TV show lately? LOL

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Only Me
9/27/2014 12:34:19 pm

Ah, yes, the "ur juzt jellus or cahn u doo behttur??" argument. I take it that if a person has a TV show, they can say whatever they like and you'd automatically believe it.

If you truly wanted to hear hypotheses (not theories, look up the definitions to know the difference) on Nazca lines, the Band of Holes, elongated skulls, etc., here's a hint: it's called a search engine.

Given the example of your enlightenment from your previous comment--"WTF? Ancient people all over the world decided to pile up rocks really high? Why?"--it's clear you're not really interested in what actual experts have to say about the subjects appearing on the show.

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EP
9/27/2014 01:03:39 pm

Don White, could you become AA's Steve StC? It needs a hero.

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Cathleen Anderson
9/28/2014 08:35:58 am

Mr. White, this stuff gets mind numbingly boring after awhile. Inserting the Indiana Jones humor helps break that up.

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Ed
10/2/2014 06:07:59 pm

Don, are you that much of a massive retard with no brains that you allow these lying frauds to think for you? If you do just the slightest bit of research of any credible source you will see that anything this show tells you is wrong. I'd be surprised if you could actually function in life without having Charlatan Von Daniken and his douche bag troll doll wipe your ass for you. Fucking artard.

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EP
9/27/2014 02:52:36 pm

"True story: We owe the popularity of the ancient astronaut theory to Rod Serling’s love of airplanes."

I thought we owe it to Rod Sterling needing a quick buck between other projects...

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Pedro Pedro
9/27/2014 05:22:08 pm

There was nothing interesting in this episode. Rehash of stuff I read or saw on TV when I was a kid many years ago. Every episode is an AA theorist informational cul de sac.

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Josef Karpinovic
9/27/2014 05:32:12 pm

From one episode to the next, from one show to the next, it's the same crap, over and over again, and their target audience dosen't seem to notice at all. Astonishing. They're like goddamn Goldfish in a bowl.

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PaulN. link
9/28/2014 10:34:16 am

What H2 is doing, is using Georgio Tsouklos for all he is worth. After all, the man is an internet meme. Just do a search engine on him, he is everywhere. H2 is merely trying to squeeze as much revenue as they can out of him before his shelf life expires.

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kal
9/27/2014 06:22:53 pm

Pyramids are actually quite a simple thing to answer. Ancient man figured out that he wanted to make a mountain and the easiest way to do it is a pyramid or mound.

The Nazca lines are a depiction of the constellations as the ancients saw them. They saw Orion as a spider, for instance, and Draco as a snake. They are huge because they could be, not to show off to ancient aliens, but just to be impressive, possibly for ritual.

The field of holes is not an alien gold mine. They're much too shallow. It looks like they could be wells, but there are too many, so they are likely just a design the ancients wished to partake in making, either ceremonial or practical, but since they stopped nobody can say.

Feed the trolls. Feed them.

Suppose maybe their shaman got really, really enlightened after some good tar stuff he ate and told his men to dig a ton of holes. Then he probably laughed and it wore off, and said, what, did I tell you to do that? Ha.

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EP
9/27/2014 07:06:06 pm

"Suppose maybe their shaman got really, really enlightened after some good tar stuff he ate and told his men to dig a ton of holes. Then he probably laughed and it wore off, and said, what, did I tell you to do that? Ha."

Kal, your proposal isn't that far-fetched. Judaism, Islam and Buddhism all have entire movements built out of this type of trolling :)

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jmac
9/28/2014 06:04:54 am

I do not pretend to understand where these lines originated. I do have an anthropology background, so I am curious. It seems to me, however, that a great many people have opinions, but only a very few have done actual physical research on the lines and holes. At least the alien theorists are keeping such sites in front of the public, and so perhaps will generate a new surge of interest by archeologists and anthropologists to come up with an actual working hypothesis of these two sites. Hypothesis which is sadly lacking at this point in time. So unless you are willing to go there, excavate, ask questions and come up with a better idea, I'm not sure you should be slamming David Childress or Georgio Tsoukolos for their interests. It may be old hat, grimy gum, and used too many times, but the questions they ask about things need to be answered definitively. I am not sure even with the research that I've done that I could lay claim to anything different. My thoughts were that these symbols of the Nazca Lines indicated area totems for control of water flow for irrigation, or at least had a connection to that in some way, but I have not been there physically, so could tell nothing much else about it and I certainly could not prove this. So I watch, and listen to the questions they ask, not the answers they provide. For is not research a matter of questioning first? It seems to me if you want to say something negative about someone else be sure that your own background and knowledge is impeccable. In other words, what if they are on the right track, just not on the right train?

Reply
EP
9/28/2014 06:40:23 am

"alien theorists... perhaps will generate a new surge of interest by archeologists and anthropologists to come up with an actual working hypothesis"

There are perfectly good working hypotheses, which you'd know about if you'd done any research at all on the topic, like you claim you have.

Nazca lines could literally be laid out with nothing but a length of rope. There is nothing mysterious about their engineering.

"So unless you are willing to go there, excavate, ask questions and come up with a better idea, I'm not sure you should be slamming"

If we follow your reasoning, then no one should criticize Moon Landing Hoax fantasies unless they have gone to the moon themselves.

Questions they are asking have been answered as definitively as archaeology/anthropology can, given the limited nature of the evidence available to us.

"is not research a matter of questioning first?"

No. First you study the work that's already been done on the subject. Which both you and the AA people clearly haven't done. This is how you make sure you don't ask stupid/redundant/nonsensical questions.

"It seems to me if you want to say something negative about someone else be sure that your own background and knowledge is impeccable."

This is not just false, but also ironic, since you are making conjectures and displaying ignorance about Jason's intentions and qualifications.

Also, no one's knowledge is "impeccable" - does that mean that no one can criticize anyone?

Reply
Blank Jackson
11/7/2014 10:23:48 pm

EP- I am not an AA theorist but your constant smugness gets on my nerves. What exactly is your impeccable background?

Brian M
9/28/2014 06:26:13 am

I must confessed that I am surprised those who think these are signs of alien presence in the past have missed the most obvious explanation. All they need do is look at some of their other theories to find the more logical explanation. Timing traveling Nazis went back in time and built the lines as some sort of base for super weapons to be unleashed during WWII. The natives of the time, being the ignorant savages that they were, could not quite say the name of their visitors, but admired them so much because of their fancy uniforms, they named themselves after them. I can't believe Tsoukalos, Childress et al haven't seen the Nazca-Nazi connection. With a little imagination (also knows as research by some) his even explains many of the images:

1. The Hummingbird, The Condor, The Pelican and The Heron = all renderings of the Nazi eagle
2. The Giant = a figure giving the Nazi salute
3. The Spider = Have you not heard of the tank destroying Nazi mechanical spider? (Cf. http://theridiculant.metro.co.uk/2010/01/your-giant-metal-tankdestroying-nazi-spiders-of-the-day.html)
4. The Dog = ell, obviously someone brought their German Shepherd along for the ride.
It's all just so obvious.

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pete
9/28/2014 08:56:39 am

Jason, just heard you on Daniel Ott's show.

The ancient alien stuff and everything paranormal is just a bit of fun, but it only works if you pretend to take it seriously.

I just love all the paranormal and conspiracy theory podcasts which USofA people make. The best ones are those which start off with a seemingly serious discussion of a topic and then suddenly lurch into some absurd nonsense about the Annunaki, Nazi anti-gravity spaceships or the hollow earth at about the 20 minute mark.

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Jamie Eckles
9/28/2014 06:47:44 pm

None of these shows ever mention the work of Maria Reiche on the site. She put 59 hard earned years in study and in efforts to preserve them. She never bothered about ancient astronaut theory because the reality on the ground is what interested her. She's a woman who's praises should be sung, and not ignored by a bunch of amateur imagineers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Reiche

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Kal link
9/29/2014 10:20:30 am

I got the spider thing from the Reiche thing in wikipedia earlier. It makes sense since they look like constellations.

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By chance link
8/12/2015 06:16:34 pm

Dear Jason. I have attempted many times to take your theories with a grain of salt but I keep gagging on the sodium. Your pitiful explanations don't even warrant a response but when you try to explain the Palpa mountain top as tectonic plate shift that really did warrant a response. You must be getting paid well to post your trash online because that really is all your theories are and they're laughable. Tell me this, what is your delusional theory on the 4000 ton slabs of granite at the megalithic site in Gornaya Siberia or the 1500 ton megablocks at Balbaek Lebanon? I'm dying to hear because I work in construction and I've seen 1000 ton cranes in action and there are no cranes in the world today that could have made those lifts never mind thousands of years ago. You should find another way to earn a living because lying for a living isn't much of a profession.

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Jesse brown plasma toid link
11/10/2015 07:55:01 pm

Missing link= phenotypic change due to horizontal gene transfer via virus cross species infection. Explanation: apes , parakeets, chimpanzees, all have genes that humans have, except chimps do not have all these genes. Also the genes are in different locals. Viral based HGT explains how this occurred. It also explains how the snap in the chemical binding required to change phenotypes between 1 generation occurred.
4000 ton slab of granite moved= technology that wasn't available to humans. Pretty obvious to me.
1/2 ton rocks melted into place to form a wall 4 thousand years ago= alien technology.... not hard to figure out.

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Jesse brown plasma toid
11/10/2015 08:07:10 pm

And yeah, these desert lines were made by humans, the idea of having a hot air balloon seems pretty realistic too. I've done archaeological digs, real ones where objects were photographed, charts made, everything was recorded. I studied chemistry, physics, bio chemistry and biology. This stuff is interesting. But if you want to know the truth, you've got to do research yourself.
Don't rely on guys like Jason or the quacks from H2 (obvious consumer based shows).
Research cool stuff like the chemical that cures all viruses (DRACO), which the government knows about and was willing to let millions die from ebola while it existed, or Tr3B aircraft, to of the Aurora project. Or how a scientist described element 115 20 years before it was officially discovered.
Educate yourself.
Peace

Reply
Paul
1/4/2016 10:38:59 pm

I suppose the alien airstrip explanation for the Nazca lines was abandoned when someone realized a spacecraft capable of traveling between stars would not need to land like an airplane.

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    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
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    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
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    • Ancient Mysteries >
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      • Lost Civilizations >
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      • Extreme History >
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        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
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        • Prince Henry Sinclair
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        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
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      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
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      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
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      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
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        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
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    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
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      • The Migration of Symbols
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      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
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