Today, I have three quick stories to share. Regular readers will remember that actress Megan Fox is an Ancient Aliens super-fan and had expressed interest in either joining that show or hosting her own version of it. Well, the brain trust at the Travel Channel, recently added to the Discovery Networks’ roster of channels, have awarded Fox her own mystery-mongering show. According to a press release, the network has greenlit a new four-episode series called Mysteries and Myths with Megan Fox, in which Fox will travel the world in an attempt to rewrite history. “We are as delighted to have her fresh and unbiased perspective on these events as we are to have Megan in our Travel Channel family,” the suit in charge of the corporate division housing the Travel Channel said, proving that division leader Henry Schleiff doesn’t know what “unbiased” means, and also implying by default that actual historical investigators are unfairly omitting bonkers ideas. Fox seconded Schleiff’s slight by claiming that academics are suppressing the truth out of fear for their jobs. “History only gives us a one-sided view of the truth,” she said in a prepared statement. “That’s something I know from personal experience. My own history has been rewritten by other people who had a vested interest in changing the narrative. I haven’t spent my entire life building a career in academia so I don’t have to worry about my reputation or being rebuked by my colleagues, which allows me to push back on the status quo. So much of our history needs to be re-examined.” The tough talk about history being wrong, however, seems to be largely for show. The press release says that the series will cover topics of Greek mythology, including the Trojan War and the Amazons, and will employ archaeologists and undefined “experts” to ask whether Greek myths were real. I am more concerned about the trend this represents. We have been in a fallow period of the past five years, since the first wave of Ancient Aliens-fueled pseudohistory knockoffs burned itself out. But now, with celebrity-fueled programs like Zachary Quinto’s In Search Of and Megan Fox’s Mysteries and Myths revisiting the same material, I fear that if these shows succeed, we will see a return to a full-time cable schedule of “alternative facts,” this time more persuasively presented by celebrities, whose fame will garner greater attention to bad ideas. Speaking of bad ideas, take a look at this chart that has been making the rounds on Facebook. It compares corporate iconography to Masonic and Satanic symbolism in order to imply that major corporations are participating in a conspiracy of evil. There isn’t much to say here—the symbols are largely geometric, and given the thousands of icons and logos used by America’s corporations, it is hardly a surprise that some would share similar shapes and colors. But on that note, I wanted to share a bizarre passage I discovered in the autobiography of one of the founders of Theosophy, the psychic medium Emma Hardinge Britten, who wrote about her 1859 tour of Ohio, when she claimed to have been possessed by a “Fire Spirit” that predicted a blaze that burned down part of Columbus that year. Anyway, she had been invited to Columbus by some friends who introduced her to a fellow medium, a certain Dr. Fowler, a physician in that city—I haven’t been able to determine who he was (the more famous Dr. Fowler of the New York Circle was 7 at the time)—and this Dr. Fowler had some odd ideas. Here is Britten speaking: During the evening Dr. Fowler, whose singular experiences formed a leading topic of conversation, not only avowed his belief in, and intercourse with, Elementary Spirits, but, he added, pointing to me, “that young lady is also aware of the existence of the Spirits of the elements, and will this night be controlled by one.” The Doctor at this point broke off into a long address in an unknown tongue, a phase to which it would seem he was frequently addicted. At the close of his singular outpouring, addressing me in our own tongue, he ordered me to translate what he had been saying to the company. Under a new but most powerful influence, I was made to give the translation of Dr. Fowler’s speech, which was to the effect that if the party then present would visit the mysterious ruins at Newark, a place a few miles distant, and hold a circle by moonlight, amongst the works attributed to the lost races, or “ Mound builders of America,” they should find an evidence that the unknown people who had founded those strange works were “freemasons.” Whatever you do, do not tell Scott Wolter about this!
43 Comments
Gunn
4/26/2018 09:40:11 am
"Fox seconded Schleiff’s slight by claiming that academics are suppressing the truth out of fear for their jobs."
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Dunior
4/26/2018 10:48:28 am
Some of your points about academia are valid but are only of a concern in many ways in pursuit of a masters or doctorate. If someone has a problem with academic archaeologists then there is another resource available that is neglected. There are several thousand archaeologists out there that work on contract jobs that have been doing this for many years. They are the so called "shovel bums." These people actually do all the fieldwork and are not concerned with fitting it into any paradigm on the scale of a University for example. If strange objects or sites were found they would tell you all about it with no hesitation. In your state for example there are people that will talk to you that do this for a living. If they saw more stone holes or something they may not interpret it the way you do but they would tell you about it.
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Joe Scales
4/26/2018 11:30:47 am
Kehoe is actually an academic clinging to previously held views in a rather intellectually dishonest manner. Case in point, in her 2005 book The Kensington Runestone: Approaching a Research Question Holistically, she relied heavily upon Wolter's "science"; though it was never peer reviewed by scientific academic standards. When her advice to Wolter in regard to avoiding the Dan Brown/Templar rabbit hole went ignored, she obviously broke with him. Evidence of that can be found in her 2016 book Traveling Prehistoric Seas: Critical Thinking on Ancient Transoceanic Voyages, when in regard to the Kensington Rune Stone she now relies upon Winchell's "science" (19th century science at that) and Dick Nielsen's rune work (or better put, hobby). She doesn't mention Wolter by name this time around, but does refer to a technician who did some work on the stone.
Jim
4/26/2018 11:50:13 am
Wait, what ? "Winchell's "science" (19th century science at that)"
Gunn
4/26/2018 12:22:22 pm
DUNIOR: "If they saw more stone holes or something...."
Satan
4/26/2018 12:43:23 pm
Jesus Christ you seem to be infested by a spirit of laziness.
Jim
4/26/2018 01:10:21 pm
So, you are saying that if you put three holes in a line, on a rock, they will point to a specific measurable direction ? You just blew my mind !!!
Joe Scales
4/26/2018 01:16:58 pm
Even though Winchell's master's degree in Geology wasn't "honorary", here's another hoax he fell for:
Doc Rock
4/26/2018 01:26:46 pm
Dunior,
Machala
4/26/2018 04:59:58 pm
Joe Scales,
Joe Scales
4/26/2018 08:47:48 pm
Oh, don't thank me Machala. Thank Richard Nielsen; and the good folks keeping his links alive:
Jim
4/26/2018 11:25:48 am
The old, "nobody is buying what I am selling so it must be a conspiracy" theory.
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Mike Morgan
4/26/2018 02:03:22 pm
It is beyond comprehension why Professor Kehoe is often trotted out as being an ardent supporter of the authenticity of the KRS by a certain pre-columbian Templar/Norse, KRS leaving, stone-hole making, expeditionary party incursion into the American heartland advocate.
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Joe Scales
4/26/2018 03:26:57 pm
That she even fell for Wolter's bungling in the first place is troubling for her credibility. Wolter's basic "scientific" argument begins with comparing the KRS, after it had been treated with god knows what over a hundred years, to two hundred year old tombstones hundreds of miles away with a different geological makeup. He concludes from his comparisons that the carving on the KRS is at least two hundred years old. Further in invalidating this methodology is Wolter's insistence that the KRS was buried upon conception, for which he has no facts nor evidence. He simply clings to this, as Winchell did before him, to explain how the runes carved in calcite could remain legible. This is not science, and given the fact that weathering occurs underground as well, it's not correct either. So now his logic enters the equation... or illogic... and as he declares that as it is either a hoax or authentic, it can't be a hoax because no one was around Kensington Minnesota two hundred years before its discovery to perpetrate the hoax. So as it must be authentic, the date carved on the stone must be correct.
Americanegro
4/26/2018 04:31:20 pm
If someone doesn't immediately recognize our Scott as an idiot they are ipso facto suspect.
Machala
4/26/2018 05:12:19 pm
Mike Morgan,
Joe Scales
4/27/2018 11:50:55 am
Yeah, when Kehoe first came across Wolter, that was well before he became a television personality pushing nonsense upon an unsuspecting public who might have tuned into the History Channel expecting actual history. Her 2005 book (where she spoke highly of Wolter) also came out before Wolter gave a draft of one of his own books to Kehoe for comment when she implored upon him to dump the Dan Brown nonsense; a plea which he ignored (https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wolter/Alice+Kehoe.pdf <<<< and lots of really good stuff here).
Mike M.
4/28/2018 11:42:10 pm
Minnesota archaeologists have good reasons to avoid the Runestone issue, and they have nothing to do with nefarious conspiracies or unfair bias, and certainly not fear of losing their job. Every archaeological study of the Runestone narrative, at least half a dozen that I count, has been brought to a sorry and negative conclusion. Besides, there are thousands of recorded prehistoric archaeological sites in Minnesota, but not one recognized as Norse. And a medieval Norse site would be remarkably easy to see for anyone with a modicum of archaeological field experience. As for the “mooring stones,” “holestones” or whatever you like to call them, they’re a dead issue. How many times do archaeologists have to document their nineteenth century origin? Looking for medieval Norse in Minnesota is like trying to find Paul Bunyan.
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Dunior
4/26/2018 10:39:23 am
Newark has some elements to its story that are fishy to say the least. The mithraic statue in a box found in a grave there and much more.Maybe that is what the passage you found is referring to. I have been reading about that lately as a coincidence. I don't think its too much of a stretch for a Freemason to put some iconography into a logo but the interpretations that people come up with do go overboard sometimes. The people involved in forming the Theosophical Society also have some suspicious backgrounds.
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E.P. Grondine
4/27/2018 01:22:21 pm
What "mithraic statue found in a box"?
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Dunior
4/27/2018 03:38:41 pm
My mistake. It was found ten miles south of Newark. I read another bogus article that said it was found in Newark. "In November of 1860, David Wyrick of Newark, Ohio found an inscribed stone in a burial mound about 10 miles south of Newark. The stone is inscribed on all sides with a condensed version of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, in a peculiar form of post-Exilic square Hebrew letters. The robed and bearded figure on the front is identified as Moses in letters fanning over his head."
Americanegro
4/27/2018 04:45:07 pm
It was yer mom's box, Chief.
E.P. Grondine
4/28/2018 01:25:17 am
Hi Dunoir -
Jim
4/26/2018 10:45:50 am
Wolter seems to be on a :
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Americanegro
4/26/2018 12:31:08 pm
It's well known, and any high ranking Freemason will confirm this, that the Zodiac Killer is a direct descendant of the Jesus Family.
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Jim
4/26/2018 12:40:10 pm
Quote from the youtube comments;
Americanegro
4/27/2018 05:08:24 pm
Freemasonry basically has 3 or 4 ranks; for example, there is no "25th degree". You can run through all the ranks in a year or less. Wolter becoming a Mason is not an accomplishment. Someone should ask him which lodge he's a member of.
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Joe Scales
4/26/2018 11:14:16 am
I blame PBS... for trying to make television educational in the first place.
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Henry
4/26/2018 01:37:40 pm
Jason Colavito is mad that no one will put him on tv.
Reply
Other Henry
4/26/2018 01:53:24 pm
Jason is mad because Graham Hancock won’t notice him.
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Another Henry
4/26/2018 01:59:59 pm
Jason is mad because he claims to be a bestselling author who no one will publish.
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Americanogo
4/26/2018 07:41:31 pm
I'm mad that you're a pedophile.
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Cesar
4/26/2018 04:20:01 pm
In Isis Unveiled (1877), published when Blavatsky still was influenced by the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, which Emma Hardinge Britten was a member, she (Blavatsky) quote one article of the Kansas City Times about US mounds:
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Huh? What?
4/26/2018 04:34:12 pm
So you're posting to tell us you have no point to make?
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NKENT805
3/13/2020 04:51:11 pm
DNA on the Mound remains proves otherwise. In the 1870’s the Native Americans had stopped building and creating countless things, and found themselves in a Zombie Apocalypse of the European hordes invading their world., who brought disease, death, destruction, desolation, and dispossession of everything Native America had ever known. European Americans need to face the fact that they lied and tried to fabricate a false history for themselves for years!
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Doc K
4/26/2018 09:15:03 pm
How convoluted Biblical scholarship is - parallel to the pseudo-historians.
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americanegro
4/27/2018 02:23:44 am
No one cares what you think about the Bible dude. Why? Because you sound like a store robbing meth addict.
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E.P. Grondine
4/27/2018 01:26:55 pm
Hi Jason -
Reply
Americanegro
4/27/2018 04:49:20 pm
You know, Chief, you can email Jason directly instead of posting here to confirm that he's reading your posts, right? No one cares about Mr. Plunger or Mr. Kiesselburger. Snuff it, won't you?
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E.P. Grondine
4/28/2018 01:38:43 am
Dear Dickwad,
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Americanegro
5/4/2018 07:59:56 pm
Again with the pottymouth.
V
4/29/2018 01:40:59 am
I have...never actually seen that symbol used for Android ANYTHING before. Not saying 100% that it hasn't been, but I've never seen it, and I've been dealing with Android pretty much since its inception. So I can't tell you why it might have been created that way. I can, however, tell you that the Apple app store logo has nothing whatever to do with the Freemasonry symbol. the Apple app logo was designed to promote their then-slogan, which I can't remember the exact phrasing of, but that hinged on freedom of creative expression--thus the brush, pencil, and ruler, arranged quite simply as an "A" for "Apple." One might as well accuse the letter itself of being a Masonic symbol, which is ridiculously stupid.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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