Tonight Ancient Aliens returns from a month-long hiatus, and it looks to be more of the same rehashed material from earlier episodes. However, regular readers will be interested to note that next week (not tonight) the show will be investigating… wait for it… the Tibetan-Egyptian underground city in the Grand Canyon! Since they plan to relate this to the Native American legend of the “Star Beings,” it sounds like they’ll be interviewing the same Zuni elder as America Unearthed, this time to support a completely different fringe theory! But what is more upsetting is that there are many people who can’t tell the difference between Ancient Aliens and reality. Sometimes this is due to confusion, and sometimes it is a result of sadder circumstances. Today’s case study is in the latter category. It is sad, and I am frankly at a loss for words. The woman in question self-describes as schizophrenic, and she describes how Ancient Aliens has contributed to her understanding of the world. A few months ago, Ancient Aliens suggested that an Aztec obsidian mirror owned by John Dee was a communication device used to reach extraterrestrials, whom Dee called angels. The object is now in the British Museum, and it is quite likely to actually be one of the shiny objects through which Dee and his assistant, Edward Kelly, believed they were seeing images of angels. At any rate, Horace Walpole (founder of the Gothic school of literature) believed as much when he placed a label stating this in the mirror’s case, made for it when he bought the mirror in 1771. A woman named Lucia from Uruguay believes that the angels directed her to watch this episode of Ancient Aliens, and she says that immediately upon seeing the reference to Dee’s mirror, she “knew” psychically that it was intended to serve as a device for communicating with angels. some after that a sort of black mirror showed up in my imagination and saw that as ajoke.... except that I started to see what I see in walls inside MY mind and my real physical eyes are very tired LIKE if they were focusing to project it inside me, after my fear was gone and saw as real what I saw the guide spoke saying to "shut down" my walls projection and when I asked for it I started to feel a strong amount of burning high end energy in me and my eyes are somewhat HURTED due to focus but they are just tired not painfull She then states that the angels informed her that she needed to watch the complete series of Ancient Aliens and to “reproduce” all of the angel and/or alien communication devices that would be useful to her.
She went on to say that she thought that the angel-aliens had given her genetic therapy to turn her into an alien, but that they instead recently informed her that she is merely among the most highly-developed human beings. She asserts that she feels scared as a result of the communications with these alien-angels and that she has started to remember multiple alien abductions, including one in which an alien dentist replaced all of her teeth. While Ancient Aliens is not to blame for this woman experiencing fear of what sounds very much like waking dreams, I think it can well be blamed for giving shape to the specific form of her nightmares, and for inspiring new nightmares. It is obviously not the fault of Ancient Aliens that a self-described schizophrenic has adopted their claims, but it is a sad illustration of how low-evidence, high-drama fringe material becomes the fabric of nightmares.
36 Comments
RLewis
1/24/2014 02:50:56 am
I see from her "page" that she is from Uruguay, which may explain the broken English. Also,reading her past posts she seems to have many special dreams and thoughts.
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1/24/2014 02:54:04 am
I imagine that she probably would be making fringe claims no matter what. It just struck me as unusual that she latched onto Ancient Aliens to give shape to her nightmares. More typically, it's UFOs, fairies, or demons rather than ancient astronauts.
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Marc D
6/12/2015 07:49:42 pm
What about the woman who said she was taken by the Aliens who said they were calling themselves "the watchers" do you not believe her?
Enoch
1/24/2014 08:26:29 am
John Dee's Scrying Mirror
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Enoch again
1/24/2014 08:28:50 am
Oops, the link is already there, within the above text. Here's another photo of it
Pat
2/1/2014 06:14:38 am
OMG! I can see an angel in the mirror on this photograph! ; ) This angel is holding a camera! Oh, wait! No, it's just a reflecion of a person taking this photo... I guess it's too easy to see people in any reflective surface when you're right in front of it!
Shane Sullivan
1/24/2014 03:39:49 am
Honestly, I think the most bizarre part of this story is that spiritual beings told this woman to seek esoteric knowledge not in mystic texts hidden in some Tibetan temple, or in the fabled Hall of Records beneath the Sphinx, or from some other suitably ancient and mysterious source... but by watching a TV show. This sounds less like the work of angelic extraterrestrials and more like the subliminal advertisement of dystopian fiction.
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Scott David Hamilton
1/24/2014 04:13:28 am
Some of the things Jack Parsons said he experienced came pretty close to that, though by that point Crowley was writing to his friends that he thought Parsons was full of it.
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The Other J.
1/24/2014 03:26:59 pm
Wait -- Jack Parsons thought the spirits were telling him to enjoy Coca-Cola?
Heidi
1/24/2014 02:58:41 pm
You may be interested in Lawrence Rickles The Vampire Lectures. He is a professor of Gothic Lit from out of California. In the opening lecture he states that he is using Freud's theory of pathological mourning to deconstruct horror lit. He connects it all to technology in several instances and deconstructs tons of Gothic vampire stories. Definitely a entertaining read with different insights into Gothic lit.
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Matt Mc
1/24/2014 04:53:18 am
This story makes me wonder how many other people have had had similar issues that we have never heard about. Having grown up with a younger brother who suffered brain damage at birth and seen his struggles on and off medication it makes me sad to known that shows like AA can fuel a already delicate fire.
Reply
1/24/2014 05:34:41 am
Undoubtedly the influence could come from anywhere. If not Ancient Aliens, then horror movies, or mythology, or anything. It struck me as unusual though to see someone claim Ancient Aliens as a spiritual revelation.
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Matt Mc
1/24/2014 05:46:27 am
and that is interesting and worth noting.
Scott David Hamilton
1/24/2014 06:24:46 am
I'd be interested to see, though, how much influence on the mentally ill fiction can have, as opposed to things that are presented as or general thought to be true. In the entire world there's probably a non-zero number of people who think Lex Luthor is trying to take over the world, but I'm sure that number is dwarfed by the number of people who think the Illuminati/Jewish/New World Order cabal is trying to take over the world. Clearly, even at the far end of the mental health spectrum, presentation as fact counts.
Matt Mc
1/24/2014 07:32:03 am
I can only speak from my experience and the reading I have done to better understand my brothers condition. I know it is common for people to hear voices and hallucinate. I would not be surprised if mild schizophrenia or other like diagnoses would be discovered among a great deal of people who claim to be abducted. I know a large amount of people go their whole lives undiagnosed and can be affected by what they see, read, or hear. Jason I am surprised that this surprises you. You go after the show with such gusto! I presumed you had an personal idea of modernism you were beholden too that drives you and that you would recognize this as being par for the course. Check out L. Rickles The Vampire Lectures. He connects Freud's theory of pathological mourning to technology and spiritualism in the opening of the book and returns to that theme thoughout it. Good Book.
The Other J.
1/24/2014 03:37:36 pm
It may be worth considering why AA trumped other media in the Win Lucia's Brain sweepstakes. If she's watching Ancient Aliens, she's at least being exposed to other programming on H2 and, by extension, other cable programming.
The Other J.
1/24/2014 04:48:59 pm
Matt Mc, the thing with PKD, though, was he seemed aware that the signals his brain were sending may have been the result of crossed wires (mental illness, drugs, some alien intelligence). My sense is that he was able to maintain that meta-awareness, and that's what allowed him to explore the other possibilities of what his brain was signalling in narrative form while not succumbing to them. If he wasn't able to maintain that meta-awareness and critical distance, he probably wouldn't have been able to write like he did.
Matt Mc
1/25/2014 02:25:40 am
I agree that PKD had some kind of awareness that something was wrong with him and he most defiantly self medicated and used his writings (especially his later stuff) to help him deal with what was going on most notably his exiguous. Know since I have not read to much on the person that PDK was, I don't know how much his illness factored into his everyday life, except that he felt guilt from his twin dying a childbirth, that he struggled with addiction, and was unable to have last relationships with women and other people close to him. I do believe that if he was diagnosed and was put on proper medication he most likely would not have been nearly as creative or asked so many questions about what reality is. He however did fall into a lot of the traps that people with mental illness have most notably his quest to understand god and his weird religious/anti religious beliefs that seemed in conflict which each other, He did believe that god talked to him by shooting a light into his eyes.
Gunn
1/25/2014 02:53:45 am
Dream interpretation is, indeed, perplexing. In the Old Testament, we have the example of an interpreter of dreams (Joseph) and this seems to have been a special gift. On the other hand, un-Godly dream interpretation can be in the category of other occult practices. I know this sounds peculiar. So, dream interpretation can be seen as either benevolent or malevolent.
Gunn
1/24/2014 07:14:08 am
I know this won't be a popular view here, but I'm wondering along with Jason about why the "angels" told this woman to watch TV, specific programming.
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Gunn
1/24/2014 07:16:14 am
Jason and Tara, just so you know, the last few times I posted, my screen went blank and said "This page can't be displayed," yet then the post took. Weird.
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Tara Jordan
1/24/2014 02:24:52 pm
I gave up,my situation is getting worst, as soon as I publish one comment,I am systematically denied access to post for at least 6 or 7
The Other J.
1/24/2014 03:45:54 pm
Tara, I mentioned this in another thread, but if you're having trouble with the site don't know if you saw it.
Tara Jordan
1/24/2014 05:48:15 pm
The Other J
The Other J.
1/24/2014 05:58:16 pm
Here's a hacky work-around if you can only access via your phone:
Tara Jordan
1/24/2014 08:24:01 pm
J.
BillUSA
1/24/2014 08:33:30 am
I agree that it is a shame how the vulnerable among us (through mental disease, lack of education, and astounding ignorance) CAN and sometimes are influenced by the ancient alien crackpots.
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Only Me
1/24/2014 02:18:55 pm
This is the first time I've heard of something like this. So, as a serious question, does anybody think this could snowball into the same media frenzy that occurred when heavy metal music and video games were blamed for encouraging violence among children and teens? Will future cases involve someone with mental illness saying, "The TV told me _____"?
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The Other J.
1/24/2014 03:55:17 pm
Although I don't doubt some will try to attack cable television for planting suggestions in the mentally vulnerable, it's not entirely a new claim. My memory's hazy on this, but wasn't there a case about a decade ago where a woman who killed her children said god told her to do it through her television? I can't recall if this was the woman who drowned her kids in the tub or put them in a car and then put the car in a lake. But I seem to recall TV coming up in the trial.
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Only Me
1/24/2014 04:29:58 pm
You...had an...interesting...childhood.
The Other J.
1/24/2014 04:52:23 pm
I stayed well away from that guy. He was large and aggressive, too, and if he cornered you and you couldn't understand what he was talking about, he could lash out.
The Other J. It took me the afternoon before I put together the meaning of your dream.
Gunn
1/27/2014 08:34:50 am
In honor of your long-past and back-to-the-future dream, I suppose I could consider re-dubbing New Gotaland, "Anagnorisis," but I don't think it will fit in as well with the local populace. Great name, though, for meaning and description of the unusual site location.
helen
1/25/2014 07:31:25 am
What an interesting story.
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