In this episode I explain what the Ancient Astronaut theory is, I talk about the show on the History Channel and bring in debunkers.
In this episode I explain what the Ancient Astronaut theory is, I talk about the show on the History Channel and bring in debunkers.
Ep 36 The Ancient Astronaut Theory
Hello and welcome back to the UFO and Aliens Podcast. I’m your host Rick Black. Before I begin with today’s episode I have to give a shout out to Raven for supporting the show with a $3 subscription. Raven, I have a sticker for you. I just need to know where to send it.
Last week I said that the next episode would be on the Ancient Astronaut Theory. I think I could spend hours talking about it and barely scratch the surface. But here we go…
The Ancient Astronaut Theory is just that, it’s a theory. There is no hard science involved. Some would call it pseudoscience. The basic theory is that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with early humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Ancient Alien theorists suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies, religion, and human biology. A common position is that deities from most, if not all, religions are extraterrestrial in origin, and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans.
The show on the History channel is in it’s 20th season and has had 243 episodes as of January 2024. Since the show’s pilot first aired in 2009, they are releasing more than one season per year. That’s still a ton of episodes. The popularity of the show is unbelievable. There are a lot of people watching this show. I will admit, I enjoy watching the show. I like it because it takes you to some really cool places and their theories are intriguing. They explore a lot of puzzling archaeological sites. Head scratchers for non-archaeologist’s like me.
This type of thinking first started to appear in early science fiction of the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Did you catch that? Science fiction! Okay…It was in the 1898 novel “Edison’s Conquest of Mars” and in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The idea was proposed in earnest by journalist Harold T. Wilkins in 1954. It grew in popularity in the 1960s, mainly due to the Space Race and the success of Erich von Daniken’s works. It did not receive much consideration as a serious hypothesis. Critics emerged throughout the 1970s discrediting Von Danikens claims. The whole idea kind of petered out by the early 1980s.
Carl Sagan wrote a book with Soviet astrophysicist Losif Shklovsky in 1966 called “Intelligent Life in the Universe”. Sagan admitted that the book might have inspired the wave of ancient astronaut books in the 1970s. He also disapproved of Von Daniken’s book and other uncritical writers who seemingly built on these ideas not as guarded speculations but as “valid evidence of extraterrestrial contact”. Sagan pointed out that while many legends, artifacts, and purported out-of-place artifacts were cited in support of ancient astronaut hypotheses, “very few require more than passing mention” and could be easily explained with more conventional hypotheses. Sagan also reiterated his earlier conclusion that extraterrestrial visits to Earth were possible but unproven, and improbable. Carl Sagan passed away in 1996. I have to wonder what he would think if he saw how the Ancient Alien Theory has taken off.
And I also have to wonder if Erich von Daniken was reading these science fiction books prior to his questioning religion and visiting these ancient sites where he got inspiration for his book “Chariots of the Gods?”.
That book was published in 1968 and in it, von Daniken claims that certain artifacts require a more sophisticated technological ability in their construction than that which was available to the ancient cultures who constructed them. Von Daniken maintains that these artifacts were constructed either directly by extraterrestrial visitors or by humans who learned the necessary knowledge from them. These include Stonehenge, Pumapunku, the Moai of Easter Island, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the ancient Baghdad electric batteries.
If you haven’t read “Chariots of the God?”, you need to pick it up and read it. It doesn’t matter which way you lean, whether you believe in the Ancient Alien Theory or you don’t, you will find it a fabulous read.
Von Daniken writes that ancient art throughout the world depicts air and space vehicles, non-human but intelligent creatures, ancient astronauts, and artifacts that seem out of place for the time. He also states that geographically separated historical cultures share artistic themes, which he argues imply a common origin. One such example is von Daniken’s interpretation of the sarcophagus lid recovered from the tomb of the Classic-era Maya ruler of Palenque, Pacal the Great. Von Daniken writes that the design represented a seated astronaut. The iconography and accompanying Maya test, however, identifies it as a portrait of the ruler himself with the World Tree of Maya mythology.
I could go on and on about Von Daniken and “Chariots of the Gods”. But I won’t for now.
While a lot of Erich von Daniken’s theories come from the ancient sites of Egypt and South America, that is not the only place ancient alien theorists find inspiration. Zecharia Sitchin wrote a series called the “Earth Chronicles” and it starts with “The 12th Planet.” It revolves around Sitchin’s unique interpretation of ancient Sumerian and Middle Eastern texts, megalith sites, and artifacts from around the world. He hypothesizes that the gods of old Mesopotamia were astronauts from the planet “Nibiru”, which Sitchin states the Sumerians believed to be a remote “12th planet” (counting the Sun, Moon, and Pluto as planets) associated with the god Marduk. According to Sitchin, Nibiru continues to orbit the Sun on a 3,600-year elongated orbit. Modern astronomy has found no evidence to support Sitchin’s ideas.
Sitchin argues that there are Sumerian texts which tell the story that 50 Anunnaki, inhabitants of a planet names Nibiru, came to Earth approximately 400,000 years ago with the intent of mining raw materials, especially gold, for transport back to Nibiru. With their small numbers they soon grew tired of the task and set out to genetically engineer laborers to work the mines. After much trial and error they eventually created Homo sapiens sapiens: the “Adapa” (modern man) or Adam of later mythology. Sitchin contended the Anunnaki were active in human affairs until their culture was destroyed by global catastrophes caused by the abrupt end of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago. Seeing that humans survived and all they had built was destroyed, the Anunnaki left Earth after giving humans the opportunity and means to govern themselves. Sitchin’s work has not received mainstream scholarly support and has been roundly criticized by professionals that have reviewed his hypotheses. Semitic languages scholar Michael S. Heiser says that many of Sitchin’s translations of Sumerian and Mesopotamian works are not consistent with Mesopotamian cuneiform bilingual dictionaries, produced by ancient Akkadian scribes.
Alan F. Alford, author of “Gods of the New Millennium” (1996), was an adherent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis. Much of his work draws on Sitchin’s hypothesis. However, he now finds fault with Sitchin’s hypothesis after deeper anyalysis, stating that: “I am now firmly of the opinion that these gods personified the falling sky; in other words, the descent of the gods was a poetic rendition of the cataclysm myth which stood at the heart of ancient Near Eastern religions.
Robert K.G. Temple’s 1976 book, “The Sirius Mystery”, argues that the Dogon people of northwestern Mali preserved an account of extraterrestrial visitation from around 5,000 years ago. He quotes various lines of evidence, including advanced astronomical knowledge inherited by the tribe, descriptions, and comparative belief systems with ancient civilizations such as ancient Egypt and Sumer.
Among scientists, the consensus is that the ancient astronaut hypothesis is not impossible, but unjustified and unnecessary. The “mysteries” cited as evidence for the hypothesis can be explained without having to invoke ancient astronauts; proponents look for mysteries where none exist. Since ancient astronauts are unnecessary, Occum’s razor should be applied and the hypothesis rejected according to the scientific consensus.
If you don’t know what Occam’s razor is, it is a principle often attributed to 14th century friar William of Ockham that says that if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one.
I’m sure you know the show on the History Channel. There are a lot of people on the show, but the one’s you see most often are Giorgio Tsoukalos, David Childress, William Henry and Nick Pope. Even Erich von Daniken has been on the show many times.
I have a friend who teaches history and one of his students asked him if he watched the history channel. He said no and the student asked him why not and he said “who built the pyramids” and the student answered “aliens”. The teacher said “that’s why not”. I heard this story from the student, not the teacher.
There are a lot of people that feel that way. I ran across an article in Smithsonian Magazine by Riley Black. The title of the article is “The Idiocy, Fabrications and Lies of Ancient Aliens”. I’m not going to read the article here, but just in case you didn’t get how she really feels about Ancient Aliens the show, I’ll read one paragraph. “I’m glad that my editors don’t allow me to cuss a blue streak on this blog. If they did, my entire review would be little more than a string of expletives. Given my restrictions, I have little choice but to try to encapsulate the shiny, documentary-format rubbish in a more coherent and reader-sensitive way.”
Come on Riley, don’t beat around the bush, tell us how you really feel.
Riley Black is a paleontologist and science writer. She was writing about the Ancient Aliens episode when they covered the extinction of the dinosaurs and basically she called them out saying that they were not only coming up with a ludicrous theory but they were also lying and making up facts.
And she’s not the only one who points out that the “facts”or “evidence” presented in the show are not true.
Chris White produced a three hour film refuting the theories proposed on the History Channel series Ancient Aliens. It is called “Ancient Aliens Debunked”
I am just going to cover some important bits to shed some light on the show. I started this podcast not to convince anyone of anything. I started this podcast in a search for the truth. That is a lot harder to find that I had originally thought. Some of the cases that I’ve covered so far, I simply do not believe and I’ve said as much. You can believe whatever you want. I was take aback by what I’m about to share with you.
The film is divided into three parts; Megalithic Sites, Ancient Artifacts and Ancient Texts.
First Megalithic Sites: First one, Pumapunku. This is a favorite of Ancient Aliens, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You know the place with the giant H blocks. If you don’t know what I’m talking about. Pumapunku is a megalithic site in Bolivia. It looks like an ancient builders junkyard with remnants of building materials lying all over the ground. The Ancient Astronaut theory is that they were mass produced by aliens to build something large and impressive, but it was destroyed, possibly by another alien race. The ancient alien theorists claim that man couldn’t have built Pumapunku with primitive tools. It had to have been created by aliens. They outright lie to make their argument by saying that the stones were not made out of sandstone, but rather granite and diorite. The only way to cut diorite is with diamond so it had to be cut using a diamond tipped tool.
So the truth is that the stones are all red sandstone and andesite. Von Daniken claims that some of the stones at Pumapunku weigh 800 tons when the heaviest stone there is actually 131 tons. That’s another lie to push their theory that man couldn’t have built this place. The ancient alien theorists claim that scientists are baffled by how Pumapunku was created, but in actuality, scientists know exactly how it was made. There are texts that explain everything step by step. They used a method that almost all ancient stone workers used. They used hard pounding stones to pound out trough-like depressions. Later on they used flat stones and sand to grind the stone to make a polished surface.
There are some areas on Pumapunku that cannot be made with stone tools and Ancient Alien theorists say that the people there didn’t have the technology to create metal tools, but once again that isn’t true. The local people had fairly good knowledge of metalwork and actually created some alloy tools that would have been sufficient to make anything found at Pumapunku. But they don’t show those things on Ancient Aliens.
There are unfinished stones at these sites that clearly show how they were shaped. So the whole premise that the local population couldn’t have built them doesn’t hold water.
Another thing they say on Ancient Aliens about Pumapunku is that all of the H blocks are exactly the same dimensions. That is not true at all, they are not all the same dimensions. Some are close, but they are not perfect. And the right angles that Ancient Aliens talks about are not exact either. You can see David Childress holding a square against the stone and it is clearly not perfectly square.
Georgio Tsoukalos says that even main stream archaeology admits that the local Indians the Imara didn’t have any writing so they wouldn’t have been able to create the plans needed for building Pumapunku, White rebuts that and explains that they had writing in the form of pictures, not an alphabet and building plans are really pictures like blueprints.
Then David Childress explains that the blocks are too big for people to have moved them, they must have been levitated in place by aliens. White says that if they did know how to levitate these stones, then they put far too much effort into creating places in the stones to attach ropes to. Many stones at Pumapunku have grooves many centemeters in width and depth on two adjacent sides for holding ropes. They even had special places cut into the stones that Pumapunku scholars call hoisting grips, all very strange things to do if they could simply levitate these stones into place.
Next, Georgio claims that logic doesn’t exist at Pumapunku because the stones are scattered haphazardly around the area like some great cataclysmic event happened there.
Quoting from archaeologist Alexi Granich, “the high quality of the stones made it attractive building material for houses churches, plazas bridges and even railways.” All you have to do is go to the towns to see the rest of the stones that were looted from the site. An early visitor to the site claimed that the looting was going still going on during his visit and he said that if the site was closer to town he didn’t think that there would be anything left at the site at all.
Ancient Aliens claims that Pumapunku is 17,000 years old. Here is what Granich says about that claim “The idea that Tiwanaku is 14,000 years old is based on a rather faulty study done in 1926. Since then, there has been a huge quantity of work both on the archaeology and geology of the area, and all data indicates that Tiwanaku dates from between A.D. 300-500.”
White goes on about Pumapunku and then moves on to the Pyramids in Egypt.
He shows a clip of George Noory talking about how many theories there are about how the pyramids were built. Everything from the outlandish like aliens built them to levitating the stones by sound waves. That reminds me of a show I was watching years ago. I don’t remember what the show was, but it had Zahi Hawaas and some students exploring the great pyramid. One of the students said something like “Wow, I can see how it must have been aliens that created this”. Hawaas went off on him. Yelled at him, said that it was Egyptians that built it and I think he kicked him out.
There are clues all over the place how the Egyptians worked to stone. There is a 1,000 ton unfinished obelisk there at the quarry. It is unfinished because it developed a crack in it. And it clearly shows how they cut it from the quarry. They used andesite pounding stones to chip away at it all the way around and underneath until there was a this piece holding it up on the bottom, then they broke it loose with prybars. They found pounding stones all over the site, as well as polishing stones. They used sand to both polish and cut the granite.
Ancient Aliens make the viewer think that the only way you can cut granite is with diamond tipped power tools. That simply isn’t true, in fact it is fairly easy to cut granite with copper saws and sand. The saws didn’t have any teeth, the sand did all of the cutting.
Ancient Aliens also claims that the pyramids were made from granite. Not true. Most of the stones that make up the pyramids are sandstone and limestone. There was granite, but it was reserved for things like the kings chamber. Most of the great pyramid was made from soft sand stone that was quarried right there at the site of the pyramid.
The granite and limestone had to be moved to the site from quarries that were further away. Ancient Aliens want you to believe that they moved them by levitating the stones, maybe with a handheld device. But there are plenty of depictions of the Egyptians moving the stones with oxen and sleds. They moved everything from the smaller stones to the larger 1,000 ton monuments to obelisks on wooden sleds. They even had a hieroglyph for the word sled, which they used often. Three large sleds were found intact by archaeologists and they have all kinds of places to attach ropes to. And they found ropes too. Ropes made out of papyrus and other materials were found and some with a massive circumference suggesting they were used for extremely heavy objects. Boats were used for stones that needed to be imported, in fact a canal was dug from the Nile to the construction site. So, no stone had to be dragged very far anyway.
What makes the pyramids so attractive to the Ancient Alien Theorists is that no one has yet been able to explain how they were built. There is the single ramp theory. But that would require a ramp 1 mile long and would use more stones than the pyramid itself. Then there is the zigzagging ramp and the spiraling ramp theories, but they wouldn’t have allowed the builders to see the progress and allow them to ensure that everything was lining up correctly.
Since no one is in agreement as to how they were built, it seems like an easy solution would be to say that they were built by an advanced race of aliens.
I am disappointed. I have enjoyed watching Ancient Aliens. I find it entertaining. Do I believe everything they propose. No, but I didn’t realize that they were lying at such a high level. Why? Why would they do that? Was it to push through their theories and make them more believable? If you can’t support your theory without lying, then maybe you need to come up with a better theory.
White goes on and exposes more outrageous untruths, but I don’t have time to go into all of them here. You can download his film. It’s called “Ancient Aliens Debunked” and I just gave you a little taste.
Remember, Believe none of what you hear and half of what you read.
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