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Ancient Aliens, ancient Near East, chronic astonishment, conspiracy, critical thinking, cult archaeology, Egypt, Erich von Däniken, Flinders Petrie, fraud, fringe, Giorgio Tsoukalos, Great Pyramid, John Taylor, junk science, Mesopotamia, Michael Heiser, Nibiru, Piazzi Smyth, Planet X, Puma Punku, pyramid inch, Pyramid-measurers, pyramidiots, sitchiniswrong.com, Sumerians, VA243, Zecharia Sitchin
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend as of late. I’m not the only one. It’s become evident to many who appreciate the orthodox and conventional approach to historical studies. More and more have we seen the growing popularity in alternative history and alternative science. It goes by other names, my own favorite being “fringe.” You’ll also see “pyramiodiocy” applied to those strange theories smacking against the academic understanding of pharaonic Egypt. “Pseudoscience” and “pseudohistory” are also commonly used, as is “junk science.” “Cult archaeology” is yet another.
Whatever you wish to call it, the phenomenon reflects a growing trend among laypeople to question orthodox science and research in favor of the implausible, the unrealistic, and the just plain bizarre. Exactly why this trend is on the rise is not always clear, but to me it seems many adults seem to lack the ability to apply critical thinking in their everyday lives.
This very problem was the subject of a recent article in the Chicago Tribune (see online article here). Whether our students are being educated to learn and apply critical thinking is a subject unto itself, so I encourage you to read the article in the link. For the subject of my current blog article, I’d like to touch on the phenomenon as it concerns historical studies specifically.
We are bombarded in our modern media by all manner of questionable literature and television programming, and to be sure this is part of the problem. The sharp decline in the quality of programming on the History Channel as of late is a painfully obvious example of this. That the once-solid channel should now air and promote uninformed flotsam such as Ancient Aliens is a symptom of a much larger problem. More and more I’m encountering people in my museum work who watch and actually believe this program to be accurate. It’s cute when a little kid tells me this, but rather depressing when the same is said by an adult.
Fringe media are aimed at the non-expert due to overt and covert reasons, be they religious, political, or commercial (Flemming 2006: 47-49). Think of the books sold by the likes of Zecharia Sitchin, Erich von Däniken, Graham Hancock, and Robert Bauval. While I don’t decry these people’s right to earn a living in they way they might best be suited, I definitely charge them with patent dishonesty and intellectual malfeasance in trying to pass off their literature as hard-core fact. As with Ancient Aliens, such literature is an artful collection of half-truths, twisted truths, incomplete information, distorted evidence, and just plain nonsense. Few people have contributed so heartily to human stupidity.
The Origin of Fringe Thought
Where this all began is not so easy to pinpoint. It’s not exactly a modern problem—it has become only much more serious in modern times. Wherever and whenever man does not understand something and does not have the opportunity to educate himself—or just plain doesn’t have the desire to educate himself—he tends to replace facts with fantasy.
There have always been kooks among us. It’s human nature. I can take us back to the nineteenth century, when the study of the great ancient Near Eastern civilizations was still in its early stages. Not everyone touring and exploring the ancient pharaonic monuments was doing so with sound academic mind.
In 1859 a Brit named John Taylor published a book called The Great Pyramid: Why was it built and Who built it? Taylor devised all sorts of supernatural origins for the Great Pyramid and argued that its astonishing precision meant it simply could not have been built by man. Science itself was still in its early days, if you will, so Taylor was one of many in his time who regarded the Bible as literal truth. This means he held to Archbishop Usher’s conclusions that the Earth was created in 4004 BCE (Drower 1995: 27). Even in Taylor’s day many people must have fathomed the great antiquity of the Great Pyramid, so they could not reconcile it with Archbishop Usher’s dates.
(By the way, please do not confuse the nineteenth century John Taylor with the modern Egyptologist John Taylor, whose contributions to our understanding of pharaonic Egypt are considerable. I always wonder if Dr. Taylor cringes when the nineteenth century John Taylor is mentioned. I know I do.)
A friend and supporter of Taylor’s was Chalres Piazzi Smyth, who was much influenced by the former and published a book in 1874 called Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. Smyth wasn’t completely daft, I have to admit. An educated man, he was Astronomer Royal for Scotland. His enthusiasm for Taylor’s work and his own writing on the subject was arguably more due to his religious faith than to any scientific thought.
Consider, for example that Smyth belonged to the British Israelites and believed the British were the Lost Tribes of Israel. His odd leanings toward the Great Pyramid were more or less certain to follow. Smyth believed that locked within the Great Pyramid were divine mathematical measurements reflecting the physical location of the pyramid itself and the world in general. When the measurements were drawn and correctly interpreted, Smyth argued, the divinely constructed Great Pyramid would convey God’s message. To help to affect this, Smyth even devised a means of measurement called the “pyramid inch” that he based on the Hebrew cubit so that each pyramid inch was equal to 1.001 of a British inch (ibid 28).
Talk about critical thinking, or a lack thereof. I have to hope, due to the man’s sound scientific training in astronomy, that Smyth himself understood his pyramid inch was not something known in ancient Egypt. In other words, the pyramid inch is irrelevant.
Enter William Matthew Flinders Petrie, a self-educated Brit and one of the founders of the modern field of Egyptology. What follows is what I consider to be a delicious irony. As a young man Petrie read Smyth’s Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid and was thrilled by it. His imagination was charged. Petrie originally went to Egypt to measure the Great Pyramid for himself, to see how precise Smyth’s scheme might be reflected in real surveying. Petrie and Smyth were actually friends, so Petrie was hoping to corroborate his friend’s beliefs.
Petrie’s father, William Petrie, was a talented land surveyor and passed on his skills to his son. Petrie himself went on to improve on his father’s techniques and built his own surveying equipment. In fact, Petrie was the first man to perform an accurate land survey of Stonehenge.
Petrie spent considerable time surveying the Great Pyramid. He lived on-site. Petrie’s surveys were so precise and thorough that they are still used today (see Craig B. Smith, 2004). And upon his conclusions, Petrie couldn’t help but report that Piazzi Smyth’s entire theme of divine mathematics was a load of bull-flop (my words, not Petrie’s). The science doesn’t lie. Needless to say, Petrie and Smyth were no longer friends after Petrie’s work was published.
Nevertheless, many other people were inspired by the writing of folks like Taylor and Smyth, and went to Egypt for themselves to explore and poke and prod the Great Pyramid. And measure it, of course. So rose the derogatory term “Pyramid-measurer,” employed by Petrie and others of sound academic mind to refer to Taylor’s and Smyth’s misguided acolytes.
And just like today, the pyramidiots of Petrie’s time were not above dishonesty to prove their schemes. One day a friend of Petrie’s, Dr. James Grant, came upon a Pyramid-measurer at the Great Pyramid who was busy filing down a granite boss. When Grant inquired to the fellow as to why he was doing this, the Pyramid-measurer relied that he wanted to refine the spot so it would work for his “Inspiration theories” (ibid 40).
It would appear, then, that a lack of critical thinking was quite a problem in Petrie’s day, too.
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Let’s turn to the tactics of the fringe. What do fringe writers do to present their themes? How do they deal with real-world evidence as established by research and the scientific method? (You might notice that when I write about the fringe, I often use the word “theme” in place of “theory,” and it’s because I’m not comfortable giving fringe conclusions the legitimate word “theory,” which implies at least some measure of real-world research.)
Chronic Astonishment
A common tactic is summarily to dismiss ancient achievements as those of regular humankind. The Great Pyramid couldn’t have been built by men living in the Early Bronze Age. The wonderful stonework of Puma Punku in Bolivia couldn’t have been achieved by primitive indigenous populations. The beautiful stoneware vessels of the ancient Near East, going back into Neolithic times, just couldn’t have been made by such primitives.
You’ll see the sentiment echoed by the likes of Chris Dunn, who sees only modern-type tool marks in ancient engineering and believes the Great Pyramid was actually a gigantic machine. Dunn is popular with a lot of fringe adherents today, but the chief failing in such people is their lack of familiarity with ancient engineering and the capabilities as well as limitations of craftsmen and builders in the Bronze Age. Their conclusions are simply divorced from reality.
It’s also a tactic employed in almost every episode of the History Channel’s program Ancient Aliens. Time and again you’ll see Erich von Däniken and Giorgio Tsoukalos express chronic astonishment at the feats of ancient engineering, and the common theme is, again, that ancient man simply couldn’t have made or built these things. Of course, in the case of Ancient Aliens, the conclusion is always and forever that aliens are responsible for these ancient wonders.

Erich von Däniken (left) and GiorgioTsoukalos, the faces of the History Channel’s regrettable program Ancient Aliens
Never mind that von Däniken has a criminal record in Europe for fraud, and has been caught falsifying “evidence” for his alien stories. The man has still sold a hell of a lot of books. The gullible among us seem to lap them up.
It also strikes me as decidedly odd that all of this should be ascribed to aliens. We are to imagine an alien race so advanced that they can travel the cosmos in interstellar spacecraft, and possess levels of technology we humans can’t even fathom. We are still supposed to believe that these aliens came all the way to our lovely little blue planet to teach ancient humans to build in…stone.
Maybe these aliens accidentally left all of their tools back on their home planet.
So instead of taking the time to research ancient engineering and the tools and techniques ancient man used to achieve his wonders—and trust me, the body of literature on this research is ample—we should instead exercise chronic astonishment and just chalk it up to aliens. Or lost technologies. Or lost civilizations. Atlanteans, maybe? This is the point where I might use the emoticon with rolling eyes.
Misrepresenting Evidence
Here is a tactic fringe writers are more or less obligated to use. And they have done so with great abandon. I personally consider dishonesty in presenting historical accounts to be loathsome, so this one bothers me in particular.
For example, for a NOVA special called The Case of the Ancient Astronauts Erich von Däniken presented photos of ancient Peruvian stones showing men employing modern technologies that could only have been taught to them by aliens. However, NOVA investigated this independently and learned that the stones were modern, and even found the potter in Peru who made them. Von Däniken had not admitted that he’d met this potter himself.
Other fringe writers have turned to more subtle tactics. One of the most prolific fringe writers was Zecharia Sitchin, an author who published many books on ancient alien visitation. It is from Sitchin that the popular myth of Planet X, otherwise known as Nibiru, has proliferated on the internet—on countless half-baked websites.
One could write an entire book, if not several, in pointing out the errors, omissions, and misrepresentations in Sitchin’s many books. A legitimate scholar of the ancient Near East named Michael Heiser has his own website with that in mind (source). The mythical planet Nibiru is a good example.
Sitchin wrote in The 12th Planet that Nibiru is a planet beyond Pluto that once collided with a planet between Mars and Jupiter called Tiamat. The resulting destruction of Tiamat led to the creation of Earth, as well as other celestial bodies in our solar system. Sitchin believed Nibiru, which is still in orbit, is the home world of an advanced race of aliens known as the Anunnaki.
This is of course an obvious and clumsy bastardization of ancient Mesopotamian myths and names, and goodness only knows how in the hell Sitchin even came up with it. Whether Sitchin himself actually believed in this stuff can be argued, but it sold his books.
As “proof” for the planet Nibiru Sitchin turned to a Mesopotamian cylinder seal known as VA243, which resides in the Vorderasiatische Museum in Berlin.
Note the area in the image circled in red. Sitchin argued it was a depiction of the sun circled by planets, and indicated an additional planet unknown to modern astronomy. Sitchin wrote that the ancient Sumerians received advanced knowledge of science and astronomy from the visiting aliens known as the Anunnaki.
This is not correct. The cylinder seal imparts no such information. The writing on it in cuneiform merely mentions a couple of names of minor officials. The circled portion in the “sky” of the seal does not show sun and planets, but stars. In Sumerian iconography, such depictions represented either stars or deities, not planets. It’s possible the small dots and larger star represen the Pleaides, which is represented as such on other cylinder seals from this region (see Heiser’s article, in PDF).
In his book The Stairway to Heaven Sitchin spent a considerable amount of time misrepresenting the colossal masonry pyramids of Egypt’s Dynasty 3 and Dynasty 4. For example, he notes that these pyramids do not have hieroglyphs inscribed outside or inside them, which leads him to believe that these pyramids were either built long before hieroglyphs existed and thus long before conventional research dates them, or were not built by the Egyptians at all (1980: 339). The implication is, once again, aliens built the pyramids.
This flies in the face of science and legitimate historical research. We know the Great Pyramid, for example, was built no more than about a century earlier than the conventional date of 2500 BCE (see Bonani et al 2001). And we know that no pyramid bore hieroglyphic inscriptions prior to the end of Dynasty 5, about 150 years after the erection of the Great Pyramid. There is ample research in the professional literature to explain the reasons behind this, but Sitchin’s twisting of facts is not an explanation on which one should rely.
Historical Research is Just Plain Wrong/Misleading/Insufficient
This represents a tactic of desperation on the part of fringe authors. Very few fringe writers ever attempt to deal with professional research head on, for the simple reason that they know professional historical research disproves their claims in a swift stroke. Rather, it is easier just to ignore and dismiss professional research without cause.
I’ve encountered numerous fringe adherents who claim modern historical research can’t be trusted simply because it’s not really modern at all. They claim modern historians use the same tools, the same approaches, and the same attitudes as historians did in the nineteenth century.
All such a comment reveals is that the person making it does not have any working understanding of modern historical research. Egyptology is a good example. I know an Egyptoloist at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, who likes to joke that everything she learned back in her days as a graduate student is now wrong. The field of research of pharaonic Egypt has made leaps and bounds in all facets of study in just the last several decades. At the present time Egyptology makes use of a wide range of modern specialists including surveyors, architects, cartographers, photographers, conservators, forensic anthropologists, X-ray technicians, archaeobotonists, archaeozoologists, palynologists, geologists, mineralogists, hydrologists, artists, art historians, ceramic specialists, soil experts, stratigraphy experts, hot-air balloon pilots, aerial photographers, satellite imaging technicians, electrical, mining, and structural engineers, chemists, computer programmers, draftsmen, graphic designers, cultural resource managers, statisticians, philologists, epigraphers, geophysicists, and stone technology experts (Weeks 2008: 15). As scientific fields expand and refine their methods and tools, Egyptologists turn to them for expert analysis. Paleopathologists have become an important part of studying ancient human remains, and genetics have now entered the sphere of research, too.
Fringe writers will often resort to acerbic tactics to bolster their own claims while simultaneously whittling away at the world of orthodox study. These writers will paint unflattering pictures of professional historians and present them as close-minded, stale, dusty old professors. While this might aptly describe some historians, it is hardly a fair or accurate assessment. And it really doesn’t work for fringe writers. Whether they realize it or not, the more time fringe adherents spend on ridiculing professional historians, the more they themselves damage their own credibility. Personally I find this tactic to be childish.
The Grand Conspiracy
This is perhaps the most absurd and comical tactic employed by fringe writers. It definitely lacks observable critical thinking on the face of it. In this ploy fringe writers try to present the world of orthodox research as one great, shady, nefarious cabal bent on hiding “the truth” from all of us and maintaining the status quo. So there must be evidence out there for ancient alien intervention—or Atlantis or Nibiru or lost advanced technologies, what have you—but orthodox academia is working in concert to keep the information contained.
So in this tactic it is known, for example, that the Great Pyramid was built by aliens or the building of it was overseen by aliens, et cetera. Egyptologists know this, but if they admit it they’ll have to rewrite all of their books and papers and all of our knowledge will have to be refashioned. Heaven forbid!
This implies, then, that over the course of the past two centuries, all Egyptologists working for all institutions and universities from all over the world, have been in league with governments to keep the secret.
A moment’s thought reveals the grand absurdity of this notion. Governments have never been terribly good at keeping secrets—academia, less so. This might make for an entertaining sci-fi movie, and I like movies as much as the next guy, but I do not see how any thinking, reasoning, educated adult could believe this for even a moment.
Conclusions
So why is the appeal for the fringe so strong? Why does it continue to grow? Is it a reflection of human nature where we favor the underdog over the big and sinister opponent, in this case academia (Flemming 2006: 56)? Are people uncomfortable with science and professional research because it seems so daunting and inaccessible? I personally believe this has much to do with it, but I think the intimidation many might feel is quite exaggerated.
More so than ever, the information is out there and accessible to anyone who wants to learn it. Advanced college degrees are not necessarily needed, especially if one is just an enthusiast and wants to learn. People have all manner of literature and media to educate themselves. Archaeological expeditions like Çatalhöyük, Göbekli Tepe, and the Giza Plateau Mapping Project have their own websites to keep professionals and laypeople alike informed on the work conducted there. More and more archaeologists post blogs to deliver their own work to an immediate audience. Going forward, the internet will become an even more common medium for all manner of scientific and historical information.
The trick is to discern fact from fiction. For every credible and worthwhile website put up by an institute or university, I’d wager there are at least ten others of little to no scientific or historical merit. Let’s face it: any nut case with a computer and an internet connection can slap together a website to showcase his ideas, regardless of how bizarre and divorced from reality they are. One needs to recognize which is which in some cases. Sometimes websites smack of legitimate merit and reel you in, even if uniformed or misinformed material is there (something at which numerous religious zealots excel, in their bias on religious history).
I worry about sincere and curious young people who want to learn about ancient history and inadvertently stumble first into the tar-pit literature of Erich von Däniken or Zecharia Sitchin. Make no mistake: these guys are good writers. It’s just that the material they impart is more fitting to Hollywood than to academia.
I am always heartened, then, when I visit a book store and see this kind of stuff not in the history section but somewhere else, like occult or New Age. I feel all book stores should follow this procedure.
In the end it boils down to an individual’s ability to know what is worthwhile and what is bull-flop. And this boils down to critical thinking, an ability many adults nowadays seem to lack. And so I worry.
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Bonani, Georges et al. “Radiocarbon Dates of Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments in Egypt.” 2001.
Drower, Margaret S. Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology. 1995.
Flemming, N.C. “The attraction of non-rational archaeological hypotheses.” Archaeological Fantasies. Garrett G. Fagan, ed. 2006.
Heiser, Michael S. Sitchin Is Wrong.
Sitchin, Zecharia. The Stairway to Heaven. 1980.
Smith, Craig B. How the Great Pyramid Was Built. 2004.
Weeks, Kent. “Archaeology and Egyptology.” Egyptology Today. Richard H. Wilkinson, ed. 2008.
great post… refuting the alien theory is actually quite easy… if they had actually been here, why are they not still amongst us?… and why don’t we have their space technology? …but you are right, they are not open to reason… 🙂
Oh, but sir, they are still among us. They hide in plain sight to observe and record our development. As for their space technology, all they’ve given us so far is Velcro and wireless mice.
LOL I hope I’m not encouraging any fringies who read this.
😀
They are still amongst us. We don’t know about it because our governments are covering it up. All of our space vehicles were designed with the help of these aliens. They are not too advanced because the aliens want to bring us along slowly.
Before you start an uproar, I will now confess this was tongue in cheek, I’m sure Kmtsesh would vouch for my actual opinion on the matter. The fact of the matter is, I personally do not believe many of these fringe writers believe what they are saying, they have quite simply found an easy way to bilk millions of people out of their money.
Now, gaden, don’t be too harsh. It’s an established fact that the only benefit the aliens have bestowed on us is Velcro. It’s the only technology they feel is safe enough to share with us lowly humans.
As for fringe writers, I don’t begrudge a person the right to earn a living, so it’s their right to sell their books. What bothers me is the patent dishonesty they dispense to their readers, as well as the fact that their ardent fans seem to lack sufficient critical-thinking skills to distinguish fact from a steaming pile of sci-fi bullcrap.
Its not conspiracy that some man find themselves in smokey room and decide which artifact should be in museum which not. If something dont fitt into orthodox story its ignored. Simply. We have numerous examples. And if public pressure is high orthodox scientists announced its hoax. History is science. And science is self correcting.
Hello, L. Thanks for visiting my blog.
It’s not artifacts or antiquities that are ignored by orthodoxy, it’s uncorroborated fringe fantasy. I think you might benefit from researching how curators decide what to exhibit and what not to exhibit, and why some things are displayed and some things are not. Conspiracy is not involved. Conspiracy is not realistic.
And trust me, the rooms aren’t smoky. Smoke is bad for artifacts!
A very thorough and interesting piece, kmtsesh. I enjoy reading your articles; I hope you go some way to stamping out some of the crazy theories going around. I like that you added about how some people that propose their ideas go so far as to alter history and evidence to suit them. That has to be the biggest insult ever to the cultures they’re studying and the academics of today.
Thank you for your comment, harpertl. I apologize for taking so long to reply. I’m very glad you’ve enjoyed my articles, which gives me the motivation to keep writing them.
Slight of hand and misrepresentation of legitimate evidence is actually a hallmark of the fringe approach. They have little ground to stand on, so they are more or less compelled to resort to either dishonest means or just sloppy efforts—and sometimes it’s a healthy measure of both. Especially ridiculous, in my opinion, are the fringies who think that they, and they alone, are privy to some special and arcane knowledge that has somehow been overlooked by a couple of centuries of scholarship and hard-won research. “Historians have it wrong,” they’ll say, “and only I know the truth!” It would be almost amusing if it weren’t so mindlessly arrogant.
Such is life. Such is the battle against the fringe. Sadly, the battle will never end, but it must be fought.
It was my pleasure. Seriously.
I cant agree with you all the way because many OOPA are ignored or provide for them such a moronic explanation by Historians and Archaeologists that it would be ridicule of explaination if it isnt such sad story.
Honestly, I can’t think of an “Oopart” that doesn’t already have a rational and logical explanation. I’m serious. I’m perfectly aware of how such things are misrepresented on the internet and on TV shows like the regrettable Ancient Aliens, but these venues do not represent legitimate scholarship. Indeed, they continually misrepresent scholarship. A selection of Ooparts might make for a decent future article in my blog, come to think of it. If only I had more time…
You cant. But others can.
Btw like that picture of Alien with whip. Lol.
I love your blog. Keep doing it. I wish you have more time too.:)
Thanks, L.
The picture with the alien isn’t mine. I found it on the internet and thought it would be perfect for this article. I had a good laugh over it.
Don’t take this the wrong way but you come off as being very condescending. It is difficult to understand your posts not because its verbose or because of its execution. It simply lacks heart. You will never find truth if you do not have an open mind or heart. The curiosity of young people stems from doubt and that is the first path towards truth. Just because some people enjoy this so called “fringe” does not mean they are not able to think critically. In fact, they are thinking critically — they are questioning what is being fed to them and seeking the truth for themselves. With their heart they will be able to distinguish right from wrong and that is something you will never understand.
Thanks for your comments, Vanessa. I don’t take them the wrong way. I encourage feedback, and I do so with the understanding that not everyone will agree with me. I accept that. It’s fine. I’ve been told before that I can come across as condescending, and honestly I don’t mean to do so. To be honest I don’t see it in myself, and almost always the remark comes from those who disagree with me. I will admit to being a bit flippant and dismissive when dealing with fringe beliefs, so it might lie in that aspect of my personality. I honestly have a hard time taking fringe notions seriously and showing respect for them, because I really don’t respect most fringe notions. They strike me as the antithesis of logic and reason. That is my own attitude. I don’t speak for everyone.
I often hear appeals for an “open mind” from the fringe camp. Maintaining an open mind is critical in any and every avenue of scientific and historical research, but what matters is how much one wishes to open the mind. In doing so is one receptive to new, legitimate, peer-reviewed research, which is healthy, or does one do so to the point of naivety and gullibility? It is the latter to which I see fringe adherents falling prey. Critical thinking denotes the using of thinking skills to determine if something is true or false, and in doing so the thinker must weigh real evidence against questionable data. So in all reality, when one espouses beliefs in aliens seeding our planet or Atlanteans founding dynastic Egypt, one is not truly exercising critical-thinking skills. It is good to question what one is told and reads, but in the pursuit of further, independent knowledge, the sources to which one turns are all-important. Should a person turn to Erich von Däniken, a known fraud, or to a professional historian of the civilization(s) about which von Däniken writes? The answer, I should hope, is glaringly obvious.
Thanks again for commenting, Vanessa. If my “Tactics of the Fringe” article is the only one you’ve read, I invite you, should you wish, to read some of my other articles. You will see in them, I believe, how I defend my statements with peer-reviewed research. I stand by what I write, until such time that orthodox research can be disproved on some point by fringe proponents. It has yet to happen.
First, let me say that I too value science over speculation being passed off as science. However, I had a few thoughts as I read your blog, even as Ancient Aliens was on the tube. It is my belief that “fringe-lust” is by no means a new or increasing trend… religions have spawned or fed it for eons. It seems to me that the advancement of science is causing more and more people to question their religious teachings by debunking age old factoids… like the age of the earth and evolution. Perhaps this obvious need to “believe” in something, hope that death is not the end, is what makes “fringe” appealing. Atheism is a hopeless state for most people. I am fascinated by the possibility of aliens. It’s fun. Truth is, nobody really knows, and much of what you say also requires a type of faith to believe. Good thing we finally listened to Gallileo’s bull-flop. By the way, be careful tossing around unproven statements like “no government has been able to keep secrets”… in 88 bc, King Mithridates orchistrated a massacre of more than 80,000 romans inhabiting Anatolian cities surrounding his kingdom… it was a HUGE secret undertaking that went off without a hitch. Plus, I didn’t hear about any leak prior to the assasination of Osama bin Laden, did you?
Hello, vampiravet, and thanks for your comments. I like your explanation about the diminishing status of organized religions and how it might sway people toward other ends. This could definitely be playing a part. At the same time a belief in science does not necessarily require an abandonment of faith. I rather doubt all scientists are atheists. As far as that goes, the Roman Catholic Church has produced many solid and highly educated scientists and historians. And speaking for myself, I observe a strictly secular approach to historical studies and abide by orthodox methodologies, which further underscores my own support of scientific applications, but I am not an atheist.
I would have to disagree that historical research is a matter of faith. To a degree I suppose I would have to concede this point because questions to which there are no answers require a certain degree of speculation, but in essence faith is a belief in something ethereal that cannot and does not need to be explained with evidence. Historical research is guided by the scientific method and the proper methodologies to investigate, assess, and explain extant evidence. Stating that the Great Pyramid was erected around 2500 BCE is not a matter of faith because this is supported by numerous avenues of evidence. I would say, however, that the kinds of things proposed by the talking heads on Ancient Aliens are a matter of faith because almost nothing of what they say is based on extant evidence. As it happens, I was watching some of that earlier today, too. The show drives me nuts, but I watch the occasional episode to see where people are getting their “alien” information from.
I’m not sure about your point with Mithridates VI. I had to reacquaint myself with the battle and did a bit of reading, and I confess I don’t see what you’re seeing. The Romans to begin with had very few legions in the region in this early state of their expansion, and Mithridates succeeded in scattering the forces brought against him. This is to say, after that point, what or who was there to stop Mithridates from going farther? The native inhabitants of Anatolia were fully behind his cause. His wiping out of thousands of Roman settlers would’ve required little secrecy because there would’ve been nowhere for them to go and almost no time for them to prepare prior to Mithridates’ purges of the region.
As to your last point, this is something on which I seem to be often misquoted or misrepresented. Nowhere have I ever written that governments don’t have secrets. I know they do. I also believe it is essential for governments to maintain tight secrecy over many matters. The gist of my point in the article has to do with the fringe charge that governments are keeping loads of historical secrets from all of us. I had written in the article:
“This implies, then, that over the course of the past two centuries, all Egyptologists working for all institutions and universities from all over the world, have been in league with governments to keep the secret.”
I must stand behind my evaluation this attitude. The belief in such sweeping and vast conspiracies orchestrated and maintained through the centuries, is simply absurd. And it is plainly impossible. Anyone familiar with the workings of academia will know this to be so.
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I am very glad to finally see something come up disputing ancient astronaut theory/theme that is actually well thought out and clearly stated. I do have a simple counter point to your argument but it applies to all facts. At some point almost every single fact that humans have known has been proven incorrect i.e. The earth was flat, also we were the center of our solar system and universe, the atom is the smallest indivisible particle, et cetera. Granted none of these examples were ever elevated to the status of law through proven scientific method they were all well known and considered fact by mass society and academia. Not to mention the DNA molecule is highly complex and it has been stated that it would be more likely to have a hurricane pass through a junk yard and the end result would be a fully functioning jumbo jet than having a complete DNA molecule assembled in any kind of primordial ooze or soup in the time that the earth has been capable of containing and sustaining life. Now were facts and actual ratio comparisons to size of building utensils, amount of movement, time, bonding ease, how many types of materials are available and needed, and amount of materials needed to complete either versus how many materials are actually present probably not this is most likely just someone opinion, but DNA is highly complex and it’s structure and abilities/necessity in creating life hints to the idea of intelligent design whether through gods, alien beings, or even time traveling humans. Also to your reasoning as to why ancient aliens has become a cultural phenomena/obsession I propose a different theory that if you were to believe in it then you would believe in something mystic and magical in our world making it more wondrous than our adult fact driven thought process allows us to perceive and returning us to the bliss of childhood and the enjoyment that we would experience from the simplest of interactions in our life. This seems to be a state of mind that a high percentage of our population seems to long for and seek and when not found or replaced causes disenchantment and develops to depression. I digress from my main point of this extremely long and probably poorly punctuated reply, I blame texting emails and myself for just not caring enough to continue using punctuation once my school years ended because you know that period key is just so far away and it takes so much effort to stretch your finger to it or even worse have to switch to the symbols screen on your phone, a wise man once stated true wisdom is knowing you know nothing a thought realized by Socrates that I try to hold myself to due to the reason that an idea can be changed but beliefs people will murder kill and start wars to keep. Or anyone who thinks I’m defending the fringies in this take note I have developed my own ideas about how life an our universe started. As far as I know I am the only person I have discussed this with and has arrived at this conclusion but all admit it reasonably possible and believable whether through kindness of friendship or just tact I know there are at least some who I’ve heard restate my ideas as there own adopted idea. I based it on what information has been provided and using my own thought process, something far too rare these days, and will not get into unless you ask and are open minded enough to listen to another persons point of view on this most sensitive of subjects without trying to immediately dispute it or argue but actually listen, take in their words, then actually consider them a possibility, and finally come to their own deduction about their validity in your own life. The reason for this is close mindedness will never teach me anything other than to avoid that individual but an open mind I can absorb their thoughts and wisdom to add to my own and I enjoy conversations and debates with the latter group for it is a great way to expand your knowledge and experience the two things we can truly call our own possession and arguably define who we are as people and how we act. So please never shut out any idea and besides how cool would it be if aliens did actually land in prehistoric times I mean why did man lose it hair when everything else kept increasing their coats not to mention we went from living in caves to building pyramids and and making extreme advances in our tech practically overnight when compared to the amount of time that it took us to develop knew technology and/or make noteworthy advancements in society at the time. To the people dead set on the fact it was aliens or supernatural beings that helped ancient societies take this into consideration you cannot judge the whole of humanities skill based on your own or even your own concept on what is the current limit because they could have raised many generations of their family to perfect the art so their skills may have been far superior to ours and possibly it has been trained into the individual in utero due to DNA I highly doubt any swordsman today could best a true spartan warrior when they were bred for it and trained since birth. Also imagine you are a king in ancient times you have a few possessions really you have many slaves, subjects, the land, and pretty much unlimited wealth that can be used for whatever reason wouldn’t you take the rocks out of the land for material if it’s all you have access to then take your slave population off nigh unlimited numbers and have them build something that could take while construct completely because it doesn’t matter when you finish this project because your son will carry on your project once you pass on the crown to him then why does it matter if it takes five generations of your family to complete. You are creating a sense of purpose and accomplishment so is it possible that our ancestors while lacking our modern technology and maybe even our full intelligence, which now doubt about daily through interactions with individuals lacking original thought, wisdom, or even an intelligent point is rapidly increasing, to be able to train and develop a skill to a point where we thought impossible to achieve before especially if that is all the ancient had been focusing on for generations immemorial and henceforth develop skills and techniques unknown to everyone. Please keep an open mind because how foolish will you look if you happen to be proven wrong after fighting so intensely for your truth. Beware the opposite pole and choose to believe in everything always as individuals we need to create our own thoughts and ideas to have a definition of self otherwise we will get lost in the infinite and lose ourselves, intelligence, lives, and love because this route erases our consciousness and replaces it with a shallow subconsciousness of society nothing original or meaningful. Take care enjoy what you can even the rough times for without the bad times how could you define the good times or even realize that they are good and always keep an open mind for it receives much more than a closed one.
The Bible is Proven Fact, Evolution is a Proven Lie!!! Get A Life, God hater!!!
More Evidence of Chariot Wheels in the Red Sea Found in 2000
50 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/50-people-in-the-bible-confirmed-archaeologically
500 Flood stories prove Noah’s Ark is real history: Epic of Gilgamesh and Epic of Atra-Hasis
http://www.noahs-ark.tv/noahs-ark-flood-creation-stories-myths-epic-of-atra-hasis-old-babylonian-akkadian-cuneiform-flood-creation-tablet-1635bc.htm
the piece had nothing to do with evolution or god-hating – or proving that the bible was wrong. its about discussing the failings of those who ignore archaeology – in this instance – a fair amount on Egypt – and who adopt fringe-thought and pseudoscience to their ideas.
i think perhaps reading the article would benefit you before you decide to go and post refutation that has nothing to do with the piece itself.
god hating and chariot wheels in the red sea indeed – where does this article cite ANY of this – true or otherwise, to lead you to post such a rebuttal?
Thanks for your reply to that comment, Jonah. I only now realized I myself had never replied, but I don’t know that there is much point in doing so. Your reply covers it well. Mtmwolf’s comments are not relevant to the article, and when you see someone screeching “God hater” you know you’re probably not going to be able to conduct a reasonable discourse, anyway. Other articles I’ve posted more directly address the veracity of biblical accounts, so perhaps mtmwplf will get around to reading some of them, too. If they don’t cause him (her?) to vapor-lock.
I find Ancient Aliens so full of false information. Only simpletons believe the stupid ideas and theories shown.
love your work! Am always amazed by how almost supercilious / certainly condescending are the members of the ‘it can only be known due to contact with aliens’ brigade …. as if contemporary man is the most intelligent being ever (apart of course from the super bright all knowledgeable aliens. Other living species may indeed exist but they may not be anything like ‘humans’ – don’t you love the humanoid representations – generally with a large skull case for a mighty brain – represents a serious lack of imagination, as why should a species be carbon based?).
It is like another form of ‘racism’ or ‘sexism’ – but directed at the humans of past eras…. I have no word for it? Do you?
Such ‘believers’ seem to believe that only contemporary man is bright and that no bright or intelligent being (like themselves and contemporary technology ever existed) forgetting that we have had to relearn techniques that have been previously lost (eg some alloys that ancient peoples already mastered; a knowledge of the astronomy limited only by a lack of technology .etc and far superior to early europeans’ limited knowledge).
They seem to think that no ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ or similar existed among the ancients. We have over time and through population movements, invasions, wars etc ‘lost knowledge’ – sure they did not have a computer etc but their building techniques could be incredible, underground water systems, use of materials, medicines. While we are fortunate to live in an era where our ills are better treated etc, we would do well to gain a little humility, especially when it comes to viewing the mistakes and monumental failings that have accompanied our successes. [nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, first ignorant and, then worse, wanton destruction of the ecosystem that supports us etc….
Perhaps the same ‘believers’ are waiting for a new and ‘alien saviour’ to rescue us from our inadequacies …? Much more comfortable that doing it ourselves.
PS Those how know me would recognise that I do not use the term ‘believers’ here to refer to those of the Christian faith, but rather to those who believe themselves as so superior to earlier generations stretching back thousands of years, and think that any ‘amazing’ construction or knowledge had to be sources from ‘aliens’ as humans were then ‘too primitive’ to have such knowledge…
Hi, Elaine. Thanks for reading and commenting. You asked if I have a term for those who refuse to see ancient man’s capabilities, something equivalent to our modern “racism” or “sexism.” To be honest I don’t, but I tend to regard it as intellectual sloth. It’s the same problem with the hapless Ancient Aliens crowd, who comically refuse to believe ancient man could’ve built something like the Great Pyramid or Puma Punku. Such folks do not understand how ancient man could’ve indeed accomplished such things, and such a misunderstanding on the face of it is not bad—but neglecting to conduct their own studies and research with legitimate historical material is most decidedly bad. And so the term “intellectual sloth.” It’s easier to believe in sci-fi nonsense than to commit to the hard research that will in fact provide them real-world answers. And this drives me nuts.