A&E’s Ancient Mysteries: UFOs – The First Encounters

Ancient Mysteries: UFOs – The First Encounters is a 2005 documentary about ancient astronauts that I recently streamed from Netflix. It’s pretty ordinary overall, but it is narrated by Leonard Nimoy. As you may remember, the original Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, narrated a similar paranormal television series called In Search Of… in the 1970s-80s. This more recent A&E program is much like a greatest hits collection of ancient astronaut theory. The material presented here is so tired and common it might as well be a low budget compilation CD a la something like Rock Hits of the 90s as advertised on late night TV. Stanton Friedman makes an appearance as well as Graham Hancock in this one-hour trip down memory lane through the fantastic and familiar claims of space gods encountering our ancestors and improving their lives. Needless to say this show features one leap of logic after another, exercises in misinterpreting ancient art out of context, splitting hairs over the semantics of the bible and claims of so-called lost and unknown periods of history. The best thing for me is Leonard Nimoy narrating, but then again I would listen to him read the phone book. You can watch Ancient Mysteries: UFOs – The First Encounters in five parts on YouTube. Below is part one complete with Dutch (?) subtitles.

 

References and Links (All on-line information retrieved November 3, 2010)

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Mysteries-UFOs-First-Encounters/dp/B0007ZENWY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of…_%28TV_series%29

http://www.stantonfriedman.com/index.php?ptp=stans_bio

http://www.grahamhancock.com/biog.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIlf6Otv9B

 

 

Is it Real?

Back in April of this year I mentioned the National Geographic Channel’s Is it Real series and have finally gotten around to writing about it. First, just let me say that is is probably the best ancient alien documentaries and my favorite. I think so highly of it because it is very skeptical and the show’s lone skeptic is none other than Kenneth L. Feder, who literately wrote the book on the subject of ancient aliens and other myths and mysteries of archaeology. Dr. Feder does a great job arguing against the usual ancient astronaut all-stars like Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, David Hatcher Childress and Lloyd Pye.

My personal favorite is Feder’s take on the notion that modern humans are the merely the product of alien and human breeding – something he calls “the Horny Alien Hypothesis.” Definitely, mankind as we know it is only here because of some aliens sexual attraction to our “primitive” ancestors and not the scientifically supported evidence of millions of years of evolution. One problem with timing and the facts that is often ignored by believers in the Horny Alien Hypothesis is that homo sapiens first appeared about 100,000 years ago, not even close to the time ancient astronaut theorist believe aliens were visiting our planet, crafting humanity or our civilizations.

The shows narrator also does a good job of being skeptical by repeating the fantastic claims of ancient astronaut theorists with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. I particularly liked the clips of cheesy sci-fi B-movies like 1954′s Killers from Space (see photo below) that helped to put all of this in perspective. You can watch a few clips of Is it Real? at sites like hulu, but try to catch the full ancient astronaut episode in re-runs on the National Geographic Channel, especially if you like reading this blog.

Killers from Space (http://www.monsterzine.com/200201/aliens.php)

References and Links (All on-line information retrieved July 30, 2010)

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/is-it-real/2701/Overview

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Feder

http://www.amazon.com/Frauds-Myths-Mysteries-Pseudoscience-Archaeology/dp/0073405299

http://www.legendarytimes.com/giorgio/

http://www.gizapyramid.com/BIO-Childress.htm

http://www.starchildproject.com/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/index.html

http://www.monsterzine.com/200201/aliens.php

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel

The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens: The Series

Earlier this year, The History Channel aired a regular series follow-up to 2009′s Ancient Aliens. Unlike the Life After People series, this move made some sense. The white elephant in the room with the Life After People series is if mankind has truly disappeared who would care how everything falls apart because not a single person would be here to witness such things as the collapse of historic/iconic buildings or appreciate how, when and why they collapsed. Ancient Aliens: The Series is a much better idea to expound upon, just as I have been proving with this blog for the last nine months. There are certainly classic decade-spanning themes of ancient astronaut theory and from time to time a few new crazier ideas brought up by up and coming “researchers.”

Honestly, if you watched the original show you have seen quite a bit of what the series has to offer. There is a lot of reused footage such as the Erich von Däniken interviews and the segment on the Nazca Lines seemed to be exactly the same as the original show. One thing in the new series that I  especially enjoyed was not just Giorgio A. Tsoukalos’ wild and uninformed or misinformed theories, but his godawful fake ‘n bake tan compared to his much lighter hands. The series is basically a who’s who of ancient astronaut wackos like David Hatcher Childress, Lloyd Pye and George Noory with a few lesser known individuals thrown in for good measure. There is almost a total lack of skepticism which is frustratingly only furthered by the narrator. What I find most disturbing is that none of these so-called ancient astronaut experts that appear in the show could ever hope to actually answer any of the questions posed in this show’s own opening sequence.

I think Lula, a poster on the History Channel’s web forum for the series, said it best:

“What a stupid show….my god. This must be geared towards the 9-12 year old demographic. Its sad how science gets attacked/distorted not only by religious people but also by complete idiots.  Although I have to say when I was 10 I would have loved this show…”

References and Links (All on-line information retrieved June 15, 2010)

http://www.history.com/

http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=86706&v=history_show_ancient-aliens

http://www.history.com/shows/life-after-people

http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens

http://www.gizapyramid.com/BIO-Childress.htm

http://www.lloydpye.com/Biography.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Noory

http://community.history.com/topic/10624/t/WOW.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlTqGrqJNDM&feature=player_embedded

Television: Sci-fi or Ancient Astronaut Theory?

This is the follow-up or companion post to yesterday’s “Video Games: Sci-fi or Ancient Astronaut Theory?”  Luckily, I’m not morally opposed to television or this blog would have been over long before it ever started.  In this post I will look at just some of the fictional lost ancient alien races in Star Trek: Enterprise, Babylon 5,  Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.

Star Trek: Enterprise

The Sphere Builders (AKA: Guardians or Makers) are transdimensional aliens that construct their own habitable spheres and can bend the future to their will.  They have been worshiped by a group known of other aliens known as the Triannons.  The depiction of an advanced predecessor civilizations seems to be very common in several different forms of science fiction.

Babylon 5

The First Ones are a group of older alien races that are charged with the guardianship of the younger races.  There are several first ones races including Lorien’s people, the Vorlons, the Shadows and the Walkers at Sigma 957 and are considered enlightened and highly advanced lifeforms.  The First Ones act as teachers assisting the evolution of the younger races and to the best of my knowledge, are not viewed as creators or deities in the show.

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis

In Stargate, a series famous for using elements of ancient astronaut theory in its storytelling, there is of course the lost alien race that established much of the technology which the characters rely on called the Ancients (AKA: Gatebuilders, Alterans, Lanteans or Anqueetas.) The Ancients are a highly advanced version of humanity that constructed the stargates and seeded human populations on the planets of several galaxies.  The evil ancients, the Ori, used religion to enslave modern humans, similar to the parasitic Goa’uld aliens who inhabit human bodies posing as gods from ancient religions.  At first, in the Stargate SG-1 series the Goa’uld seemed to only be an ancient Egyptian phenomenon, but over the course of the series spread to include other religions and myths around the world. The advanced predecessor characteristics of the ancients is balanced by the twisted history and culture of the Goa’uld.

The presence of ancient aliens in science fiction is nothing new and is harmless as long as real human history is not twisted into an “everything we know is wrong” mantra about the past.  Stargate incorporated elements of ancient astronaut theory for fictional purposes and maybe even sold a few “non-fiction” books by ancient astronaut theorists.

References and Links (All on-line information retrieved May 23, 2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Sphere_Builder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_One

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_SG-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Atlantis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_%28Stargate%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ori_%28Stargate%29

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Goa%27uld

Phase 2/What’s This Bullshit?

Over the winter break, aside from a trip to Washington state, I did nothing but watch a lot of TV.  Yes, I watch quite a bit of TV – so much so, maybe I should spell my name as “sTeVe” as in – see TV.  I could never be one of those pseudo-intellectual snobs that claim to not watch TV at all or even own a TV, because of what they believe to be nothing of value on the air.  There is good and bad TV, just like good and bad internet and even good and bad books, my dear snobs.  On TV, you can watch the Discovery Channel or waste your time with the E! Network. See… good and bad.  The internet is almost too easy.  You can go to perezhilton.com or to something useful like travelocity.com. Even on one website like YouTube.com, you can watch the “Magic Missile” video or a lecture by Kansas State University Anthropologist Michael Wesch dealing with the anthropological impact of that very website.  Sure, there are great and meaningful works of literature, but romance novels and anything by James Patterson are the bestsellers at the very bookstore I work at.  There is good and bad everything, including bullshit.

I watched good bullshit, such as Penn & Teller: Bullshit! via Netflix’s streaming service as well as bad bullshit like Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory on truTV.  Let’s take a look at these two shows.

On Showtime’s Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, they set out to debunk a lot of ideas that are at a glance are definitely bullshit like the New Age movement and Cryptozoology or as Penn Jillette refers to it as “Crapto-zoology.”  These episodes are funny, insightful, provide scientific information and portray plenty of nutty nuts all doing their nutty thing.  They also have taken on other topics like Wal-Mart that should be bullshit, but here Penn & Teller make a compelling argument for the existence and practices of the retail giant.  Also, seemingly non-bullshit topics like Environmentalism and Anger Management are put to the test, exposing uncomfortable truths that are criticisms of what the public generally believes to be good things.  I was disappointed by what I feel to be an overuse of profanity on Penn Jillette’s part.  Do people really swear?  Of course, they fucking swear!  Sorry, I couldn’t resist.  The overuse on the show however, decreases the effectiveness of swearing as a means to shock people, express emotion or to get someone’s attention.  Also, there is a lot of nudity, especially female nudity that is completely unnecessary.  Is nudity bad?  No, of course not.  Does it keep people tuning in?  Not as much as Penn & Teller might believe.  In what would otherwise be a brilliant show, I feel the use of nudity and excessive foul language only hurts the credibility of the show.

Former Navy Seal, retired professional wrestler, actor, TV/radio host and ex-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura has his own show exposing conspiracy theories called Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory on truTV(formerly Court TV.)  This is bad bullshit.  One thing I noticed immediately that everyone calls Jesse “Governor” all of the time.  Is the title of Governor a ’til death title like the President of the United States?  I prefer the moniker of Jesse “The Body” Ventura from both his wrestling and my childhood days.  Anyway, the show caters to all of the conspiracy theory nuts and never finds anything to ever be bullshit.  There is always a conspiracy, you just find out that the conspiracy being “investigated” is more sinister than ever imagined.  Nothing is never exposed as being nothing to worry about or some scheme cooked up by a crackpot to sell books to paranoid readers.  The format of the show is also godawful.  There is a dramatic and cheesy disembodied voice (a narrator?) that dominates the program.  Also the Governor has assembled a team of so-called researchers, where each one will seem to take their turn disagreeing with him in the introduction meeting/segment at the beginning of every show from week to week.  I don’t believe the same underling has disagreed with Mr. Ventura more than once over the span of all of the shows I sat through.  It goes something like this:  “Governor, do you really think our government would knowingly let millions of Americans die because of [insert conspiracy theory of the week]?!?!”  Jesse: “As an ex-Navy Seal, I know 100% that our government will do undoubtedly do [XYZ] and I have personally talked to [John Doe] about [insert conspiracy theory of the week again]…”  No evidence or research is really presented.  Only overly dramatized meetings with shady characters and staged standoffs with people that we are lead to believe are government representatives willing to be filmed for this program.  This show is based entirely on anecdotal evidence and fear mongering.  Bad, bad bullshit.

It’s times like this I really miss the old Jesse.

Jesse "The Body" Ventura from (http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/jesse-ventura1.jpg)

I’ll be back later in the month discussing ancient astronaut theory.

References and Links (All on-line information retrieved January 23, 2010)

http://dsc.discovery.com/

http://www.eonline.com/

http://perezhilton.com/

http://www.travelocity.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oWAb5NVALw&feature=PlayList&p=4FC8EA3597A09299&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=35

http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch#p/c/D3D9C7D4F13D2442

http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/home.do

http://www.trutv.com/shows/conspiracy_theory/index.html

http://tizona.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/jesse-ventura1.jpg

The Kensington Runestone and Stargate

This was recently suggested on a message board at GateWorld.net and was actually the inspiration for the blog back on September 21 of this year.  I thought it was interesting that the Kensington Runestone (something I had recently studied in class) was being discussed on a website’s forum in the terms of science fiction and ancient astronaut theory.  There is an alien/Norse god connection in the Stargate television series, Stargate SG:1.  GateWorld.net’s The Stargate Omnipedia describes the Asgard as “bearing a striking resemblance to the Roswell Greys described in countless UFO abduction stories… that assumed the personae of Norse gods on many worlds.”  On the forum posters are speculating why the Kensington Runestone was never used in an episode of the television show or if it might be the subject of an upcoming direct-to-DVD movie.  More interesting is the poster’s opinions of the object and its scientific validity.  A recent History channel program called Holy Grail in America proposing that the stone was left behind by the Knights Templar is also referenced in the posts.  I made screen captures of the posts and underlined some of the interesting and key statements regarding the Kensington Runestone.

Click to Enlarge Image

GateWorld.net KRS forum SC. 1 (http://www.keepandshare.com/userpics/a/n/c/i/entaliensinmassmedia/2009-10/sb/kens1a-19834572.jpg)

Click to Enlarge Image

GateWorld.net KRS forum SC. 2 (http://www.keepandshare.com/userpics/a/n/c/i/entaliensinmassmedia/2009-10/sb/kens2a-11196749.jpg)

The posters also mention a literary device known as McGuffin and how the Kensington Runestone would easily function as a McGuffin for the TV show.  I was able to catch a rebroadcast of the history channel show mentioned.   There is a lot of time focused on geological testing of the stone itself, but it is mentioned that archaeologists have refuted the results of this recent test.  Sadly, the detractors are never given an opportunity to explain their reasoning during the course of the program.  The show makes it seem that the archaeologists involved are just being ridiculous.  There is a fair amount of evidence on the internet that suggests the stone is a hoax.  Lennart Regebro focuses on the linguistic problems of the stone with his blog. Feel free to read some of the other opinions throughout the thread.  Unfortunately later in the thread, a user known as IrishPisano (who started the whole thread) is very critical of a Russian poster’s English grammar.  I thought that was funny because he makes several punctiuation and spelling errors in his posts and calls a runestone a “rune stone.”  I guess that can happen if you have the time to post over a couple of thousand messages on a web forum dedicated to a television show?!?  Anyway, the thread is located at http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=69152.

References and Links (All on-line information retrieved September 21 and October 20, 2009)

http://www.gateworld.net/

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Kensington-Stone

http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Asgard

http://www.history.com/shows.do?episodeId=481900&action=detail

http://www.keepandshare.com/userpics/a/n/c/i/entaliensinmassmedia/2009-10/sb/kens1a-19834572.jpg

http://www.keepandshare.com/userpics/a/n/c/i/entaliensinmassmedia/2009-10/sb/kens2a-11196749.jpg

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?McGuffin

http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=69152