William Henry: "I Wanted to Throw Up" Due to Ancient Aliens' Mistakes, "Manipulative Tendencies"

In my blog post about Chad Stuemke’s claims about Detroit, I mentioned that I had done an interview with Stuemke’s friend and colleague, Ancient Aliens pundit William Henry, for Henry’s Revelations radio show and that this interview never aired. Yesterday Henry took the time to stop by my blog and insult me as “psycho” and “creepy” and to claim that he did me a favor by removing audio of the interview he did with me in April 2012. He also wanted to remind my readers that despite the acknowledged similarity between his telephone booth wormholes and Doctor Who’s TARDIS (and between his star gates and the movie Stargate), I am wrong to suggest an inspiration in science fiction:

This is another fine example of you not having a clue what you are talking about, Jason. While you pretend to be able to read people's minds and know the the (sic) sources of all things (you simply don't have abilities in either area), I will gladly take a valuable moment out of my Egypt tour to correct you (once again). I derived the phone booth = ascension chamber idea from the ancient Egyptians. […] I did air your interview on Revelations. However, because you came across as psycho and creepy I decided to take it down to save face…yours, not mine.

I have not discussed the specifics of this event because, frankly, I have tried not to be a dick. But, writing from Cairo, Henry has chosen to make misleading statements about me, so I will of course set the record straight using Henry’s own words from the emails we exchanged in April 2012, when Henry accused Ancient Aliens of fraud and then went crawling back to them for free airtime after working the anger out of his system.

The story starts on April 6, 2012, when H2 broadcasted Ancient Aliens S04E08 “The Da Vinci Conspiracy” in which William Henry was seen describing Leonardo da Vinci as a time traveler who teleported out of a cave. At the time I did not know him from dirt and did not bother mentioning his name in my review, which criticized the show for its inaccuracies and awful logic. Here’s how I described Henry’s claim in that review:

We finish up with the absurd claim that Leonardo was obsessed with nature because he discovered a star gate in a cave, letting him teleport to the future to steal the plans for the technologies he then pretended were his own inventions. If these ancient astronaut theorists know so much about it, how come they can’t show us these star gates? Not even one?

On April 23, 2012 Henry sent me an email to praise my review and to accuse the producers of Ancient Aliens of committing fraud. Here is the text of the email, in Henry’s own words, with the original typographical errors:

I enjoyed your blog about Ancient Alien's "DaVinci" program. Many thanks for writing it. I agree with much of what you said. I too was disgusted when I saw this episode. In particular, I wanted to throw up when I saw what the did to me. They have me saying DaVinci entered a cave and teleported to the future! In actuality, my statement was made during an interview about Jesus! When I contacted the show's producers and asked them to remove my comments they told me it was an honest mistake that would be very expensive to correct.

There's more, of course.

I agreed to be interviewed on his Revelations radio show, and Henry quickly made plain that he wanted me to blast the show and attack it so he could get even with the producers. He then asked me to appear on his show to discuss Ancient Aliens and critical thinking. Note that he told me in a follow up email later that same day that he found me “informed, caring, and honest.” Here are his words, verbatim:

I'd really like to focus on Ancient Aliens and the way they stretch things, plus any current blogs you''re interested in discussing. Please let me know if there is anything special you'd like to discuss.

I don't like to do hatchet jobs on people or shows (especially ones in which I participate). However, I feel it is very constructive to point out false data and/or manipulative tendencies of certain authors/shows in this genre. We can start with my own experience on Ancient Aliens and go from there. I really like where you're coming from - informed, caring and honest.

Thanks again for doing the interview.

Wm.

Thus, when I spoke with Henry it was no surprise that he spent much of the 30-minute interview discussing his experiences on Ancient Aliens and goading me into attacking various ancient astronaut theorists and their works for falsification and problems with the truth. Henry gave me the date when the show would air, but when the date came it did not air. I checked for several weeks afterward, and it was never broadcasted. Henry now says he pulled the audio after it aired, but I cannot confirm that the show was ever available for the public to hear.

When Henry began appearing more regularly on Ancient Aliens and was promoted to one of the series’ top talking heads, it became rather clear to me that the episode did not air because it would have created problems with the producers whose favor he was seemingly trying to curry. I did not make a big deal out of this at the time—programs are cancelled or bumped all the time—and I had no desire to make trouble for Henry if he decided he had seen the light and no longer wanted to openly antagonize his outlet to the mainstream media. Therefore, I never spoke of these events.

As late as January of this year, Henry was still writing me messages praising me for “Nice work on your blog.”

Somehow, though, things have now changed. Therefore, it is my duty to inform my readers of what really happened since I can’t let Henry’s false accusations stand, nor can I allow Henry to present one face to my readers while showing another in his correspondence. (As business rather than private correspondence, I have no compunction about publishing these emails; he wrote them in his capacity as radio host.) Make of it what you will.


Henry may have removed my interview from his website, but it certainly was not to save me from embarrassment. The facts tell a different story.