Debunked: Ancient Aliens

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Dan Wilson

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In the spirit of the UFO "congressional hearing" taking place in Washington this week, I thought I would post this. I'm sure most of us here have heard of or watched the show, Ancient Aliens, or people like Erich Von Daniken who make frequent appearances on the show. I, personally, am baffled by the fact that this show can be so horribly inaccurate and downright bad yet be running on its 5th season on the History channel. The video posted above covers the topic better than I can and is a great example of good debunking. It is also an example of how these fringe conspiracies often work by stretching facts, hypothesizing without evidence or testing, omitting information, and even plain old making stuff up.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/

http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/
 
Ancient alien, the TV show, doesn't need to be debunked
It's just total crap



That's it
False assumptions over biased facts, that's what this show is all about

Now it doesn't mean there was no intervention from extraterrestrial beings in human history, IMO
But this show is anything but serious about this possibility
 
Ancient alien, the TV show, doesn't need to be debunked
It's just total crap



That's it
False assumptions over biased facts, that's what this show is all about

Now it doesn't mean there was no intervention from extraterrestrial beings in human history, IMO
But this show is anything but serious about this possibility

yea but his hair is awesome ?
 
The show's popularity is mirrored by the fact that Von Daniken, Sitchen, Icke et al manage to sell books by the bucketload.

Sitchin's interpretation and subsequent expansion thereof, of Cylinder Seal 243 is the perfect example of how people will choose to believe the most unlikely, but more romantic version of events.

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/va_243 page.htm

(Note to the programme makers....Bullshit has even less credence when presented by someone who looks like a maniac.)
 
Maybe OT, but The History Channel is a prime example of how cable channels have drifted away from their initial educational mission (or at least informative 'edutainment') to more market-driven programming. It used to show some reasonably solid history themed programming before drifting down the Nazi/aliens/Nostradamus and reality television route. It's not alone in this. What is now TLC was originally started by the Dept. of Health & Education and NASA in the 1970s, and even into the 1990s showed terrific science programming (including a favorite, James Burke's Connections, arguably one of the finest series on the history of science). The Discovery Channel was much the same in terms of quality. (Don't get me started on how awesome A&E and Bravo used to be). Up until the late 1990s/early 2000s, these channels seemed willing to forego all-out competition in the ratings war in order to build a loyal audience seeking informational programming — as though they were commercial analogues to PBS. And this has changed.

Their defense, I would guess, would be that they are just responding to what audiences want, that Nazis and Nostradamus and aliens are popular, and that they're running a business. But to what extent does market-driven pseudoscientific or pop-history programming create its own audience?

How popular and entertainment media have created an environment that helps conspiracist worldviews to flourish is a worthy discussion to have. It's a hobbyhorse issue of mine.
 
Not off topic at all, Drew. We could make a list of shows that present pseudoscientific ideas that have popped up over the years. Sci-Fi has a good deal of ghost shows, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Adventures, Paranormal State, etc. Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot has gotten pretty popular. History Channel even now has America Unearthed with Scott Wolter, which is better than Ancient Aliens but I find myself cringing in almost every episode when Scott talk about the scientific community. I think all of these channels air shows that counter the ones like the list I just mentioned, but the pseudoscientific ones do seem to be more popular.

The reason for the popularity, I think, goes back to the psychology of believing the more fantastic things that are presented, which has been discussed on these forums before.

The comments on YouTube videos for these shows seem to be, at least when I look at them, evenly mixed between believers, skeptics, and everything in between. It would be interesting to see just how many people take these shows seriously and how they would react to something like the video I originally posted.
 
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Aliens in art has been been pretty thoroughly debunked and is discussed in the video I posted. Here is the specific scene.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/ufos-in-ancient-art/

To summarize, there are classic archetypes in ancient art that are known to represent certain things, as we can observe many other works depicting the same things. What ancient astronaut theorists do is take the ones that look most like a modern day idea of what an alien encounter would look like and present it as evidence of alien presence. If there is one that you or anyone here feels has not been acceptably debunked then feel free to post it.
 
Aliens in art has been been pretty thoroughly debunked and is discussed in the video I posted. Here is the specific scene.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/ufos-in-ancient-art/

To summarize, there are classic archetypes in ancient art that are known to represent certain things, as we can observe many other works depicting the same things. What ancient astronaut theorists do is take the ones that look most like a modern day idea of what an alien encounter would look like and present it as evidence of alien presence. If there is one that you or anyone here feels has not been acceptably debunked then feel free to post it.

How about this . . . http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case486.htm [h=1]UFO 'battle' over Nuremberg, Germany in 1561[/h]Date: April 4,
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
 
Aliens in art has been been pretty thoroughly debunked and is discussed in the video I posted. Here is the specific scene.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/ufos-in-ancient-art/

To summarize, there are classic archetypes in ancient art that are known to represent certain things, as we can observe many other works depicting the same things. What ancient astronaut theorists do is take the ones that look most like a modern day idea of what an alien encounter would look like and present it as evidence of alien presence. If there is one that you or anyone here feels has not been acceptably debunked then feel free to post it.

Seems to me the representation of the heavenly host announcing the birth of Christ could very easily have been ETs as well as Angels in general . . . just because we see them in a spiritual sense does not mean they are not flesh and blood and have been around for thousands of years . . . depicted in art as a stylized Icons . . . ;)
 
How about this . . . http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case486.htm UFO 'battle' over Nuremberg, Germany in 1561

Date: April 4,
Location: Nuremberg, Germany

Probably lots of uncommon atmospheric events happening in one day that was interpreted, and maybe exaggerated, as a message from God by the news source at that time. Certain shapes shown in the woodcut show up in other depictions of known atmospheric events.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/nuremburg-ufo-battle-debunked/
 
Seems to me the representation of the heavenly host announcing the birth of Christ could very easily have been ETs as well as Angels in general . . . just because we see them in a spiritual sense does not mean they are not flesh and blood and have been around for thousands of years . . . depicted in art as a stylized Icons . . . ;)

Maybe. Or perhaps it was the crab people, anything is possible.
 
Like the crosses, rods, and crescents. The article explains it in detail.



My suggestion would be just as likely, wouldn't it?
Seems the people of that day would be able to determine if something was normal, different or unexplainable. . . If it was not mass hysteria and inaccurate reporting I would suspect they saw something very, very unusual. . . the crosses, rods, and crescents were the only geometric things they could relate too. . . sounds like a 16th Century description of an air battle over WWII Germany. . . .
 
speculating into the past is typically a fool's errand....

id get into this further because, hell, its aliens!, but i just dont see how one can approach this without cognitive bias. you will see what youve been conditioned. George and i will see different things because of our age difference and what 'aliens' meant to us as kids.

i think the only valid thing to do here is to look to people who study ancient motifs, and see if the images show up elsewhere, unrelated to 'space' or 'aliens'. So far as i have seen, the art most definitely does show up elsewhere as other well explained motifs. thus showing that any resemblance to aliens comes only from our personal familiarity with 'aliens', and our lack of public familiarity with their ancient cultural and artistic memes.

Seem logical to you GB?

i think the lightbulb/lotus flower projection thing makes a pretty good case for this. and boy!, did i LOVe to believe in that lightbulb thing when i was like 14!

Im pretty confident a lot of public support for this idea within my generation comes from the recent explosion in vaporized DMT use, and them having been preconditioned to expect to talk to myans, aztecs, and super intelligent space aliens. the art and drug effects are very similar, that combined with the social preloading makes me want to dismiss it off on this. i want to say they just see it as a logical progression.
 
speculating into the past is typically a fool's errand....

id get into this further because, hell, its aliens!, but i just dont see how one can approach this without cognitive bias. you will see what youve been conditioned. George and i will see different things because of our age difference and what 'aliens' meant to us as kids.

i think the only valid thing to do here is to look to people who study ancient motifs, and see if the images show up elsewhere, unrelated to 'space' or 'aliens'. So far as i have seen, the art most definitely does show up elsewhere as other well explained motifs. thus showing that any resemblance to aliens comes only from our personal familiarity with 'aliens', and our lack of public familiarity with their ancient cultural and artistic memes.

Seem logical to you GB?

i think the lightbulb/lotus flower projection thing makes a pretty good case for this. and boy!, did i LOVe to believe in that lightbulb thing when i was like 14!

Im pretty confident a lot of public support for this idea within my generation comes from the recent explosion in vaporized DMT use, and them having been preconditioned to expect to talk to myans, aztecs, and super intelligent space aliens. the art and drug effects are very similar, that combined with the social preloading makes me want to dismiss it off on this. i want to say they just see it as a logical progression.
I am not really sure where I stand on this issue . . . how to interpret what a 500 year old news article really saw without pictures or video . . . Hmmmm. . . when does symbolism override the representation of reality . . . art, spiritualism vs depiction of reality from a long distant past? We are conditioned to perceive reality based on societal norms and those norms evolve over time . . .bottom-line. . . Me thinks the possibility that advanced civilizations exist or existed on the earth is possible and have always felt interference with our ancestry even likely if ETs are real . . .

Could religion be a remnant of those encounters . . . one need only look at the Cargo Cults of Polynesia to surmise it is possible . . .


Pacific cults of World War II

The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred among the Melanesian islanders in the years during and after World War II. A small population of indigenous peoples observed, often right in front of their dwellings, the largest war ever fought by technologically advanced nations. First, the Japanese arrived with a great deal of supplies and later the Allied forces did likewise.
The vast amounts of materiel that both sides airdropped (or airlifted to airstrips) to troops on these islands meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen outsiders before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts. This was true of the Japanese Army as well, at least initially before relations deteriorated in most regions.
The John Frum cult, one of the most widely reported and longest-lived, formed on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. This cult started before the war, and only became a cargo cult afterwards. Cult members worship certain Americans (such as John Frum and Tom Navy), who had brought cargo to their island during World War II, as the spiritual entity who would provide the cargo to them in the future.[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

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Aliens in art has been been pretty thoroughly debunked and is discussed in the video I posted. Here is the specific scene.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/ufos-in-ancient-art/

To summarize, there are classic archetypes in ancient art that are known to represent certain things, as we can observe many other works depicting the same things. What ancient astronaut theorists do is take the ones that look most like a modern day idea of what an alien encounter would look like and present it as evidence of alien presence. If there is one that you or anyone here feels has not been acceptably debunked then feel free to post it.

That is very interesting. But if we accept this it opens up another conspiracy theory... why has it historically always been taught in schools that Columbus was in fear of his life for heresy by proposing that the earth was not flat. Also what about the many maps of the times which depict ships going over the edge of the world... Ships captains and cartographers would have been among the educated of the time.

The biblical reference to the round earth is not very convincing as it does not refer to a sphere but a circle which could easily be a disc, (much more likely than a flat, square earth or a flat triangle.


The famous "Flat Earth" Flammarion engraving originates with Flammarion's 1888 L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire (p. 163)

Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked in eternal conflict.[9]
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= Conspiracy

There are currently Catholics who believe in a geocentric universe.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...10704_1_modern-church-universe-splinter-group

But from a Biblical standpoint the earth was flat as is documented here:

http://www.answering-christianity.com/earth_flat.htm
 
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I am not really sure where I stand on this issue . . . how to interpret what a 500 year old news article really saw without pictures or video . . . Hmmmm. . . when does symbolism override the representation of reality . . . art, spiritualism vs depiction of reality from a long distant past? We are conditioned to perceive reality based on societal norms and those norms evolve over time . . .bottom-line. . . Me thinks the possibility that advanced civilizations exist or existed on the earth is possible and have always felt interference with our ancestry even likely if ETs are real . . .

Could religion be a remnant of those encounters . . . one need only look at the Cargo Cults of Polynesia to surmise it is possible . . .


Pacific cults of World War II

The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred among the Melanesian islanders in the years during and after World War II. A small population of indigenous peoples observed, often right in front of their dwellings, the largest war ever fought by technologically advanced nations. First, the Japanese arrived with a great deal of supplies and later the Allied forces did likewise.
The vast amounts of materiel that both sides airdropped (or airlifted to airstrips) to troops on these islands meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen outsiders before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts. This was true of the Japanese Army as well, at least initially before relations deteriorated in most regions.
The John Frum cult, one of the most widely reported and longest-lived, formed on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. This cult started before the war, and only became a cargo cult afterwards. Cult members worship certain Americans (such as John Frum and Tom Navy), who had brought cargo to their island during World War II, as the spiritual entity who would provide the cargo to them in the future.[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

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Exactly, if modern day people can develop a cult on cargo planes mysteriously appearing on demand... why is it so strange to think the angels could not be interpretations of aliens?
 
Exactly, if modern day people can develop a cult on cargo planes mysteriously appearing on demand... why is it so strange to think the angels could not be interpretations of aliens?

Because we've got a lot of evidence that cargo planes exist, but we don't have any evidence that aliens exist, let alone have visited Earth.

Of course if they HAD visited, then angels (or more likely gods) would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation.
 
Because we've got a lot of evidence that cargo planes exist, but we don't have any evidence that aliens exist, let alone have visited Earth.

Of course if they HAD visited, then angels (or more likely gods) would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation.

And in 2000 years time someone could well be saying 'we have no evidence of flying machines 2000 years ago, these were gods that brought food to our ancesters who put coconut shells on there ears and said 'come in fox tango''.
 
Because we've got a lot of evidence that cargo planes exist, but we don't have any evidence that aliens exist, let alone have visited Earth.

Of course if they HAD visited, then angels (or more likely gods) would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation.
So Mick you feel there is no evidence aliens exist? None? Zero? Zip? Nada? ;)
 
No compelling evidence. Nothing that does not have reasonable alternate explanations.
Because things have alternate plausible explanations . . . though there have been thousands of these allegations does not raise your curiosity?
 
Because things have alternate plausible explanations . . . though there have been thousands of these allegations does not raise your curiosity?

Sure, maybe they did visit, there are certainly things that make aliens an attractive explanation. Just not really compelling, more of an argument from incredulity - just because you can't figure out how something was done, it does not mean aliens did it.

Puma Punku is a good example:

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

Mind-boggling does not equate to alien technology.
 
Sure, maybe they did visit, there are certainly things that make aliens an attractive explanation. Just not really compelling, more of an argument from incredulity - just because you can't figure out how something was done, it does not mean aliens did it.

Puma Punku is a good example:

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

Mind-boggling does not equate to alien technology.
I am familiar . . . how can pre-wheel, copper tool culture accomplish the stone cutting and transportation required . . . what is a plausible explanation? Fill in the Blank _______?
 
I am familiar . . . how can pre-wheel, copper tool culture accomplish the stone cutting and transportation required . . . what is a plausible explanation? Fill in the Blank _______?

They did do it 1,000 years after the Parthenon was built. It's not that amazing.



And several hundred years after the Colloseum
 
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They did do it 1,000 years after the Parthenon was built. It's not that amazing.
The Greek Culture was an Iron Age plus technology using marble and limestone materials . . . no one doubts the Greek's ability to carve or mill their building materials . . . they passed their tools, techniques and technology to the Romans, etc . . . the South American Cultures have no such history or capability demonstrated . . . their building materials (at Puma Punku) were some of the most difficult materials to work there are . . . as I understand . . . would be very difficult even today . . .
 
The Greek Culture was a Iron Age plus technology using marble and limestone materials . . . no one doubts the Greeks ability to carve or mill their building materials . . . they passed their tools, techniques and technology to the Romans, etc . . . the South American Cultures have no such history or capability demonstrated . . . their building materials were some of the most difficult materials to work there are as I understand . . . would be very difficult even today . . .

What, sandstone?

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/puma-punku/
 
always been taught in schools that Columbus was in fear of his life for heresy by proposing that the earth was not flat
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As a child from a family of several generations of public school educators, i can wholeheartedly say that only bad, BAD, teachers would teach that. i know it happens, and they should be publicly shamed. as i did when i was told that story in 4th grade only to promptly tell her she was wrong. Most people hear these ideas in grade school and never bother to learn the real story after the fact or are too distracted later in school when they are supposed to. please do keep in mind primary school teachers are the least educated and least tested and this is where many of these nonsensical ideas are formed.

Also what about the many maps of the times which depict ships going over the edge of the world... Ships captains and cartographers would have been among the educated of the time.
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Its just shit to fill the edge of the map. once upon a time maps were worth as much or more than gold and were produced accordingly. they were not only works of art but the highest tech of their day. treasured possessions. depending on the quality, cartographer, and accuracy they could be worth more than the crew and captain's life or ship in some cases. noone(within reason, educated persons as can be seen today, reptile people, etc) at the time actually thought there were monsters there, just that the far regions of the maps were less full of drawings, more dangerous territories, and less accurate.

this also has been known for ages and if you were taught otherwise your teacher should have been slapped.


Science was very much advanced before christianity systematically burned it to the ground, please do not hold history hostage to the catholic church's selective record keeping.

Edit: they didnt know how to draw in perspective or do the globe slicing/stretching thing either, thus the odd edges.
 

Sandstone and andesite . . . I was lead to believe it was harder stone . . . never-the-less, the intricate milling, transporting, setting and mass production of precise interchangeable copies of these stones was amazing IMO . . . for a culture without the wheel, block and tackle, large beasts of burden etc, etc.
The largest of these stone blocks is 7.81 meters long, 5.17 meters wide, averages 1.07 meters thick, and is estimated to weigh about 131 metric tons. The second largest stone block found within the Pumapunka is 7.90 meters long, 2.50 meters wide, and averages 1.86 meters thick. Its weight has been estimated to be 85.21 metric tons. Both of these stone blocks are part of the Plataforma Lítica and composed of red sandstone.[5] Based upon detailed petrographic and chemical analyses of samples from both individual stones and known quarry sites, archaeologists concluded that these and other red sandstone blocks were transported up a steep incline from a quarry near Lake Titicaca roughly 10 km away. Smaller andesite blocks that were used for stone facing and carvings came from quarries within the Copacabana Peninsula about 90 km away from and across Lake Titicaca from the Pumapunka and the rest of the Tiwanaku Site.[3][5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumapunku
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In fairness to the ancient alien proponents, the stones at Puma Punku are very heavy, difficult to cut and sourced from more than 15km away in some cases. The blocks found at Puma Punku are made of red sandstone or andesite, with the latter being used for more intricate work such as the inset cuts. These ancient builders also were metal workers, which is evidenced by the use of I-shaped metal clasps. http://unorthodoxthoughts.com/tag/andesite/
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What about Stonehenge? Stones there were moved from over 140 miles away, without wheels, or irons tools.
 
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