Another Anniversary?
Wow, does time fly?! It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since I started this blog. Unfortunately, I have been very busy this year and have not had much time to post new content. What I hoped would be about two posts per month has degenerated into a post here and there. My interest in the ridiculous claims of ancient astronaut theorists has not waned, but my time is certainly tighter. I look forward to continuing to challenge these ideas whenever time permits. Please be patient and remember I am thankful (and amazed!) so many people are interested in the blog.
I will be back next month with the results of the survey I posted earlier this year and am currently working on a multiple posts about the “lost continent” of Atlantis.
Thanks again,
Steven K. Wilson
Pseudoscience Extra: Horoscopes
Earlier this year, there was quite a controversy about a shift in the position of the planets that would cause a shift in astrology as we know it. The good news is that astrology has no merit and any change is only important to believers in this sort of thing. People forget that our concepts of time and the calendar are entirely arbitrary. Why are months thirty to thirty-one days long with the exception of February? Why not twenty-four months of about fifteen days to constitute a year? Take it up with Pope Gregory. Back to astrology, I am a Gemini because I was born on June 15th. It gets even more complicated depending on how involved you get with astrology considering rising signs, houses and other classifications. I’m sure that millions of other people who are nothing like me in temperament have the same Gemini – June 15th designation. < I love how these profiles never give you any bad news, something like “all people born on June 15th are rude, stupid and smell terrible.” What do all of us born on June 15th really have in common? Nothing or everything depending on your perspective. As Margaret Mead said, “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” Also, the information that a horoscope contains is laughably vague and can be interpreted and applied countless ways. My horoscope has never said anything as specific or useful as, “Steve, wear comfortable shoes today because you will find yourself waiting in a long line at the supermarket.” Horoscopes are vague because they have to be to be enjoyed by millions of people who were born at the same time of year as you.
Much like explanations, sometimes the simplest scientific experiments are the best. Carl Sagan performed an elegantly simple experiment to disprove the validity of the ever vague horoscope on his classic PBS series, Cosmos. He compared the horoscopes from various newspapers in New York City from the same day and found them all to be not only vague but conflicting in content. You can watch this segment from Cosmos below.
Visit the three websites below and see if you get the same prediction. You won’t and never will. The following are are links to my horoscope for today from yahoo.com’s Shine website, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s website and mydailymoment.com. All different, all conflicting and all vague. To paraphrase Sagan from the video above, there are no stoplights in the sky that control our lives and the stars do not give special meaning to the mundane. No website, newspaper or special reading by an Astrologer can give anyone any real future knowledge.
So the shift mentioned earlier doesn’t matter. If I became a Cancer instead of a Gemini what would that really mean for me, or anyone for that matter? I might as well be a Flubarg born in the year of the Spigwack. I think the picture below puts this concept in perspective fairly well.
http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/2797965655/the-new-zodiac
References and Links (All on-line information retrieved July 28, 2011)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/us/15zodiac.html?_r=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/june-15-birthday-astrology.htm
http://www.interculturalstudies.org/Mead/biography.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081846/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iunr4B4wfDA
http://shine.yahoo.com/astrology/gemini/daily-extended/20110728/
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/07/28/3251718/horoscopes-for-thursday-july-28.html
http://www.mydailymoment.com/horoscope/gemini/?date=2011-07-28&
http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/2797965655/the-new-zodiac
Mysteries of the Gods
http://cf1.imgobject.com/backdrops/763/4bc982fe017a3c57fe03c763/mysteries-of-the-gods-poster.jpg
The legendary William Shatner hosts/narrates Mysteries of the Gods, a 1976 ancient astronaut theory documentary based heavily on the work of Erich von Däniken. No shat, I’m serious. I think William Shatner is fantastic as a narrator for something like this with such lines as “…giant …suns!” However, after the novelty wears off, the same old problematic space god theories are quickly revealed and dominate the film. Aside from the usual bad ideas, there are some glaring inaccuracies in the film. Early on, the “Glen Rose River” in north Texas is referenced along with “human tracks” which were “found” next to actual dinosaur tracks. This is actually a reference to the Paluxy River, a tributary of the Brazos River, which is located near the small town of Glen Rose, Texas. My father grew up in Glen Rose and used to go fishing in the Paluxy as a kid. I have personally gone camping in nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park where the dinosaur tracks are located several times… Trust me there is no Glen Rose River by name, not even in the local vernacular. More than likely there has never been a Glen Rose River in name since the Paluxy name has been prominent in the area since at least 100 years before this film was produced. The mention of these supposed man tracks have been long debunked and later were admittedly carved for money and attention by creationists in the 1930s to challenge the geologic time scale and make the argument for a young earth. This tidbit in the film has nothing to do with ancient astronaut theory and why it is even mentioned is beyond me. Now, alien tracks… that would be something worth mentioning.
There are also a few examples of very dated ethnocentrism when dealing with so-called primitive societies with their “simple lives.” Just because a cultural group has a different level of technology than us they must be primitive and simple? The only thing that really can be considered simple in such societies is perhaps their economies because of a limited variety of jobs, and even that is debatable depending on numerous factors. Computers, airplanes and companies do not make a society, even ours. The cave art, traditional practices, masks and details of these “primitive” cultures’ religions are used as weak lines of evidence to support the claims of ancient astronaut theory in this film and in general. The Hopi are also misrepresented as the Anasazi (cliff dwellers) of the Southwestern United States when in fact, they are two separate groups separated by a substantial span of time not to mention various cultural differences. Other examples bad research display commonly held misconceptions such as the Mayans could have not learned the laws of astronomy without an alien intervention. Years of observation and practice, that’s how the Maya came to understand the cosmos. Could such things as the laws of nature be fundamental to the human experience with the ability to be interpreted by different people in different places in different times? Exactly, time and location has little to do with many concepts which were independently developed in various parts of the world such as the bow and arrow. In another example of ethnocentrism, Shatner, or his writer to be more exact, cannot believe Australian Aborigines invented something as “complex” as the boomerang. This thinly veiled racism never asks a similar question of how Rome was able to invent something as complex as the aqueduct system. Ancient alien researchers never demean the Western world as being too dumb to accomplish great things.
The rest of the movie bounces around from one debunked idea to another from crystal skulls to UFO sightings to crop circles to Jeane Dixon and ESP to finally to an interview with the (exo)sociologist, Richard Yinger. If not for William Shatner this film would be unbearable and for many of you and all the more unbearable for the same reason. Check it out on Google Videos while you can because Google may eventually close the site in favor of YouTube as announced earlier in the year.
References and Links (All on-line information retrieved July 27, 2011)
http://cf1.imgobject.com/backdrops/763/4bc982fe017a3c57fe03c763/mysteries-of-the-gods-poster.jpg
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074233/
http://ancientaliensinmassmedia.wordpress.com/erich-von-daniken-the-man-his-myths-and-his-legend/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paluxy_River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Rose,_Texas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_Valley_State_Park
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aborigines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeane_Dixon
http://exosociology.blogspot.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6113175402315678182
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/25/google-video-shutdown-halted-for-now-google-slinging-content-ov/
The Lost Children of Babylon
http://media.photobucket.com/image/lcob/lcob/272688220_l.jpg
In May of last year, I mentioned a hip hop group by the name of the Lost Children of Babylon in a post about the influence of ancient astronaut theory in popular music. I found the group to be very interesting and decided to follow-up on them. Initially, I was under the impression that they were a group of hip hop artists that had independently interpreted some ancient texts to fit in with the ideas of ancient astronaut theory. Think Zachariah Sitchin with a beat. Anyway, after a little more research they seem to be adherents to Nuwaubianism. Nuwaubianism is a often thought to be a cult, but has been described as a brotherhood by its followers. It is often categorized as a black power movement with some spiritual teachings. The Lost Children of Babylon use several of the the African/Egyptian-centric, and space god themes of Nuwaubianism in their material. Needless to say, they have a lot of “interesting” beliefs such as “a recent belief is that the Christian term rapture really refers to the returning of raptors who will dine on the now ripe white flesh” (direct quote from Wikipedia’s entry on Nuwaubianism). They have also concocted several paranoid etymologies of English words that are simple untrue despite being wildly creative. One example would be the word believe as in “be-lie-eve: to lie to Eve’s children.” (directly from the Wikipedia entry again). The Oxford English Dictionary will tell you everything you could ever want to know about any word in the English language and best yet, it has no political agenda or paranoid axe to grind. Also they like a lot of followers of Nuwaubianism, The Lost Children of Babylon are very supportive of the movement’s founder, Malachi Z. York, who is currently a convicted child molester serving a 135 year sentence. Of course, the Nuwaubians believe York is innocent and has been falsely imprisoned as a part of a sinister conspiracy of the U.S. government. Speaking of conspiracies, the Lost Children of Babylon released an entire album dedicated to the 911 “conspiracy” in 2005. So, these guys are all over the place.
It’s a shame the music isn’t better. It made this post a real chore. They seem to like to drop the Wu Tang Clan’s name a lot in interviews and on their website, but as the Wu Tang Clan says, “Wu Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ To Fuck With.” Wu Tang can say this because they are talented and can actually rhyme. The Lost Children of Babylon have paranoid and ridiculous lyrics based on a very flawed ideology based on several even more flawed ideologies.
References and Links (All on-line information retrieved July 21, 2011)
http://media.photobucket.com/image/lcob/lcob/272688220_l.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Children_of_Babylon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuwaubianism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachi_Z._York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_911_Report:_The_Ultimate_Conspiracy
I’M BACK!
http://seattlewinegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/dogs-blogging-cartoon21.gif from Pedro Oliveira's Applied Business Anthropology blog: http://appliedbusinessanthropology.blogspot.com/
…I still have a blog here. Wow! Was I wrong about April… May… June and so on?!?! Graduating, starting a new job and moving has occupied way more of my free time than I had originally anticipated, but I’m back with posts – not promises of posts. I sincerely apologize to my modest number of faithful readers and hope they will stick around to see what I started writing in early April.
Progress Report?
I am sorry for the lack of quality posts lately, but I have been extremely busy this month and actually pretty busy since the holidays. Much of my time has been occupied with coursework and speaking at both a conference and to a class concerning my Business Anthropology research. Also, I am happy to announce that I have been accepted to the Master’s Program in Applied Anthropology at the University of North Texas beginning this August! I plan to keep the blog going and will have some free time next month to work on the blog. Tentative topics include: The Lost Children of Babylon, Horoscopes, Atlantis and maybe a film review of an ancient astronaut theory documentary. Speaking of documentaries, check out TopDocumentaryFilms.com. It’s an enormous link site for watching free documentaries online. There are quite a few conspiracy theory and pseudoscience/history films to choose from. I’m sure some of them will eventually be blogged about here.
Survey says…
Oh, this isn’t Family Feud! As mentioned last month, I have created a short 8-10 question survey to get a better idea of what the readers of this blog prefer. I plan to collect the data for six months and share the results with you all at the end of August. The survey is short, free and hopefully fun. The best part of the survey is that gives you an easy and anonymous way to make your thoughts heard. In the meantime, feel free to use the comments section to weigh in on an issue. I receive an e-mail alert for every comment posted and am always happy to respond. Thanks and have fun!
Things to Come…
I have several ideas for posts as well as for the blog in general over the course of 2011. Next month, I will be adding an online survey to gather information on a variety of topics concerning the blog. It will be a short survey that will allow participants to anonymously express their opinions and preferences concerning the blog’s content. I am planning to collect data for six months and share my findings with you all in late July or August.
I also plan to continue the “Pseudoscience Extra” posts from last year, but will remain primarily concerned with the fallacies of ancient astronaut theory. Thanks for reading and check back soon!
Image is… a bookshelf?
Here is one more picture post for the year. I decided to see what the top five books for the search “ancient aliens” on Amazon would be and post the results here. Who says you can’t judge a book by it’s cover?
1. ) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x0/x4164.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/erich-von-daniken/chariots-of-gods.htm&usg=__kTGheuVZU6-FnKfxQXUEV4T4gfQ=&h=475&w=293&sz=34&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=zCZoK7YC7Qb-CM:&tbnh=154&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChariots%2Bof%2Bthe%2BGods%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1360%26bih%3D586%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=128&vpy=41&dur=3063&hovh=286&hovw=176&tx=101&ty=141&ei=v9gGTdbsNMH78Ab4i8XoAg&oei=v9gGTdbsNMH78Ab4i8XoAg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0
2.) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/images/uk/products/original/200/97/there-were-giants-upon-the-earth-gods-demigods-and-human-ancestry-the-evidence-of-alien-dna-20097955.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.letsbuyit.co.uk/product/27490498/nursery-children-s-wall-decor/aliens-39-giant-wall-stickers&usg=__R73OjUiVqUw9eHBBPymxgin6dJ4=&h=500&w=345&sz=53&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=kit-c0xRjBctHM:&tbnh=137&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3DThere%2BWere%2BGiants%2BUpon%2Bthe%2BEarth:%2BGods,%2BDemigods,%2Band%2BHuman%2BAncestry:%2BThe%2BEvidence%2Bof%2BAlien%2BDNA%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1360%26bih%3D586%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=430&ei=ctgGTb7OH8H98AazsOWBBA&oei=ctgGTb7OH8H98AazsOWBBA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=62&ty=31
3.) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Huvn9Yc9L.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mini-polls.com/mini788/buy-your-history-is-wrong-from-amazon/&usg=__3cqKkJ_R_hg1mDdEGK2gj4upcsA=&h=500&w=318&sz=41&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=o5rxjAjv2l6BpM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHistory%2BIs%2BWrong%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1360%26bih%3D586%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=710&vpy=41&dur=65&hovh=282&hovw=179&tx=111&ty=135&ei=DdkGTZovg4HyBqf3vegC&oei=DdkGTZovg4HyBqf3vegC&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0
4.) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Text.htm/images/HHCover.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Hidden-History.htm&usg=__XoL8LoRfJCuNIhKSS6chtGePUZY=&h=355&w=250&sz=71&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ONlAO8F3vxMHhM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHidden%2BHistory%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1360%26bih%3D586%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=895&vpy=56&dur=21&hovh=268&hovw=188&tx=97&ty=127&ei=O9kGTaiQJc6s8Ab248Av&oei=O9kGTaiQJc6s8Ab248Av&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0
5.) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ebooknetworking.com/books/093/281/big0932813739.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ebooknetworking.com/books_detail-0932813739.html&usg=__otDsAUMwd1zbZEmN5GZRZHfgRWU=&h=475&w=309&sz=70&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=VSqVNiNu9MkWuM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=67&prev=/images%3Fq%3DTechnology%2Bof%2Bthe%2BGods:%2BThe%2BIncredible%2BSciences%2Bof%2Bthe%2BAncients%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1360%26bih%3D586%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=398&ei=WtkGTcWhE4us8AaaqIywCA&oei=WtkGTcWhE4us8AaaqIywCA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=36&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=32&ty=63
The late Zecharia Sitchin is the meat in the Erich von Däniken sandwich in the top three. That’s not too surprising considering how famous they both are for their “non-fiction” books. At any rate, these are all good holiday gift ideas for your fringe and family. 
References and Links (All on-line information retrieved December 14, 2010)
The Age of Unarius: The Ruth E. Norman Story
First a little housekeeping: You’re not having a seizure and nothing is wrong with your computer.Yes, it’s snowing (until Jan. 4th according to WordPress). Since I live in North Texas, this may be the only snow I see this December.
I wanted to do another post on a UFO religions like I did about the Raëlians in March of this year. I hesitate to use the word cult now, I feel it has been overused to describe everything from odd low-budget movies to the loyalty of Apple Macintosh users. On this blog, I classify UFO cults in the very vague Cultural Groups category for better or worse. This post is about one of the founders of the Unarian religion, the flamboyant and certainly unforgettable Ruth E. Norman. At some point next year, I will do a more in depth study on the beliefs of Unarius.
Ruth E. Norman (1900-1993) was the wife of Ernest L. Norman and together the two founded the new age religion turned UFO cult of Unarius (Universal Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science) in 1954. After Ernest died in 1971, Ruth AKA “Loshanna” and later “Uriel” became the leader of Unarius and has become the scapegoat for the laughable reputation the group has today. Like everyone who believes in past lives, she just so happened to be a half dozen historical figures rolled in to one little old lady. Isn’t funny how no one is ever Hitler or just a common everyman in their past lives, but great and influential people? Ruth E. Norman decked out in her spacey Liberace/Drag Queen costumes and her self-produced Unarian educational videos are very reminiscent of the original Star Trek TV series. After Ruth died in 1993, the Unarians seemed to have stopped being such snappy dressers and many of them started following the earlier teachings of Ernest L. Norman. Enjoy the YouTube videos below concerning the living light show’s parade of planets and a video about the arrival of “the space brothers” which was predicted to occur in 2001.
References and Links (All on-line information retrieved December 10, 2010)
http://ancientaliensinmassmedia.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/cultivation-the-raelians/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_E._Norman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_L._Norman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unarius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9FirISc5AJ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WdRz4jVvRps
