Those Gosh Darn Ancient Aliens

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
Hello there,

Anyone else ever watch the show "Ancient Aliens" ?
The claims are actually totally nuts some times. The only good thing is that they present some real data sometimes and it is interesting. It is unfortunate though that once that is done, they claim that Ancient Aliens are responsible for just about everything that ever happened in the past such as the building of the pyramids and old Mayan temple constructions.
They start out with some real facts, then relate it to what "might" be caused by ancient aliens, then how ancient aliens "might" exist because of that, then quickly progress to "THEY" did this and "THEY" did that, as if it is all of a sudden proven fact.

Now dont get me wrong, i cant say that everything they say is wrong, but they never produce any evidence for what they often claim, that it is a known fact that aliens did all of that stuff in the past. That i think is their real downfall. It airs on the History Channel, which i should say quote unquote (in air quotes) "The History Channel".

All they have to do is stick to the truth and known facts that can be proven and the show would be totally great. They just have to stop diverging into claims that any of it DEFINITELY happened the way they say it did. Yes it can be a conjecture, no doubt, but i dont think there is cause to call anyone an "Ancient Alien Theorist".

They are making more claims as time goes on and they are getting more and more ridiculous, and we all know what happens then. Eventually they start making such stupid claims that they start to get very easy to disprove.
The claims usually start with how ancient aliens helped past civilizations build everything using powers of levitation and you name it, and this is because they had "advanced knowledge and technology" that the early civilizations could not have had. Unfortunatly that opens up the door to ideas that can be disproved. All we have to do is show that something they said was true due to ancient aliens in the past turned out to be proven false in the years after that.
Even more striking, if they claim that something was true in the past because of ancient aliens and then they say that it is not true later in time because of ancient aliens, then they actually contradict themselves. They do this because on an earlier show they might say something is true because it was known by the aliens, then later the same thing that was true is now not true because of more advance knowledge of the aliens (a real theory of the universe was advanced by another real scientist) then we see some truth in the past being upgraded by the very same entity that was supposed to have had the advanced knowledge all along. I dont think they can have it both ways. If the aliens were so advanced then they would have gotten it right the first time around.

But see what you think and if you have ever watch this show. As i said though, often they do show just plain facts about things in the world which can be interesting. It just gets sickening when they start to make unprovable claims.

I also have to admit it is quite amusing to see what they have to say, even if very far out into the left field of science.

Apparently they dug into some subjects now which some people just cant stand anymore:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...ications-and-lies-of-ancient-aliens-86294030/
 
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402DF855

Joined Feb 9, 2013
271
I have to admit I love the show. The history and archeological aspects are fascinating, and the show is well made including excellent graphics and special effects. Usually I can just grimace through their ridiculous alien attributions, but sometimes I get nauseated and have to take a break.

Ancient Astronaut Theorists Say YES!

As an example it was on the show I learned of Göbekli Tepe the totally mysterious 12000 yo ruins in Turkey.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
I also have to admit it is quite amusing to see what they have to say, even if very far out into the left field of science.
Don't you think that it is a bad way to spend time? More or less like reading in full the famous infamous article appeared in Radio Electronics magazine where the pyramids were considered kind of triodes or maybe some other nonsense. Never could pass after the first page.
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
Don't you think that it is a bad way to spend time? More or less like reading in full the famous infamous article appeared in Radio Electronics magazine where the pyramids were considered kind of triodes or maybe some other nonsense. Never could pass after the first page.
Two thumbs up on the nonsense part. IMHO there is very little convincing evidence that interstellar travel is possible or would even be attempted. The implications of a lifelong journey is that you probably return to nothing recognizable, and everyone you ever knew would be gone. No thanks.
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
I believe that maybe one day practical interstellar travel will be possible ... perhaps in two or three centuries. We have not yet discovered everything there's to know about physics, and I'm certain there are new things out there waiting to be found that could make that possible. But no, I do not believe that aliens have visited earth yet. And if they have, they would be wise to remain hidden. Because what other reason than to learn and study our planet would they have to come and visit?

Also, I find the theory that ancient aliens built the pyramids (and other monuments) utterly stupid. I remember that an autopsy was once performed on a pharaoh's mummy, and the scientists concluded that the poor guy had died a slow and painful death of meningitis derived from the infection caused by a broken molar... I remember thinking "gee, these guys were considered by some wackos to be alien kings that with their otherworldly tech built these humongous monuments ... but they had no dentists?" 'nough said!
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
I have to admit I love the show. The history and archeological aspects are fascinating, and the show is well made including excellent graphics and special effects. Usually I can just grimace through their ridiculous alien attributions, but sometimes I get nauseated and have to take a break.

Ancient Astronaut Theorists Say YES!

As an example it was on the show I learned of Göbekli Tepe the totally mysterious 12000 yo ruins in Turkey.
Wow that mirrors my sentiments exactly.
The facts that are really there are very interesting like you said. And yeah the graphics and general filming is good too.
And yeah i have to grimace too that's a good description.

and Yeah ha ha, AAT's say YESSSSSSSSSS. They say YES to almost everything related to ancient aliens.
A good example here is that they say that almost every myth from the distant past is true they really lived in the sky and flew around and made lightening and stuff like that (ha ha).
If it is true, they certainly did not prove it, not by a long shot.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
Don't you think that it is a bad way to spend time? More or less like reading in full the famous infamous article appeared in Radio Electronics magazine where the pyramids were considered kind of triodes or maybe some other nonsense. Never could pass after the first page.
Well i usually end up watching it when there is nothing else on, or when everything else is a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of a ...

Yes the Ancient Alien people say the pyramids were used as an huge energy source.
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,159
Well i usually end up watching it when there is nothing else on, or when everything else is a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of a ...

Yes the Ancient Alien people say the pyramids were used as an huge energy source.
It doesn't really matter what we do to unwind. We have to have some outlets, and it might as well be phantasmagorical aliens as anything else. It's no better or worse than vampires, elves, orcs, and rings of power. Storytelling is one of the foundations of civilization. I also agree with @cmartinez that we live in fantastical times.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
I believe that maybe one day practical interstellar travel will be possible ... perhaps in two or three centuries. We have not yet discovered everything there's to know about physics, and I'm certain there are new things out there waiting to be found that could make that possible. But no, I do not believe that aliens have visited earth yet. And if they have, they would be wise to remain hidden. Because what other reason than to learn and study our planet would they have to come and visit?

Also, I find the theory that ancient aliens built the pyramids (and other monuments) utterly stupid. I remember that an autopsy was once performed on a pharaoh's mummy, and the scientists concluded that the poor guy had died a slow and painful death of meningitis derived from the infection caused by a broken molar... I remember thinking "gee, these guys were considered by some wackos to be alien kings that with their otherworldly tech built these humongous monuments ... but they had no dentists?" 'nough said!
Yeah see that's what i meant about things in the past that are now proven to be wrong, yet the so called ancient aliens did not tell the people back then that. They did all this wonderful building and yet they couldnt convey to them the simplest of things (like dentistry like you said)..
Not only that, but super advanced aliens that could travel from star system to star system and yet they have to build things out of stone, which anyone at the time could have done without having to be told?
To add to that, it is believed that the pyramid structure was a trial and error engineering endeavor as evident from the earlier structures.

The ancient peoples favorite chant:
"All hail the Gods before us that came from the sky to help us learn to stack big stones because we didnt know how to put one thing on top of another." :)

It is true they did amazing things back then but it is not anything that they could have not figured out for themselves and for SURE nothing very advanced at all. Also no special materials.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
It doesn't really matter what we do to unwind. We have to have some outlets, and it might as well be phantasmagorical aliens as anything else. It's no better or worse than vampires, elves, orcs, and rings of power. Storytelling is one of the foundations of civilization. I also agree with @cmartinez that we live in fantastical times.
Yeah well i wont say they are wrong about everything but they dont have any real proof of almost everything they claim is true. If they are right they didnt prove it yet and are far from it.

The archeological stuff that appears on the show is very interesting though but you have to be careful about what they say, it may be an added refinement or modification of what is really true.
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Yeah well i wont say they are wrong about everything but they dont have any real proof of almost everything they claim is true. If they are right they didnt prove it yet and are far from it.

The archeological stuff that appears on the show is very interesting though but you have to be careful about what they say, it may be an added refinement or modification of what is really true.
I find that the sort of shows you're describing are normally led by people that try to fit the facts into their theories, and not the other way around.
 

Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
I will subscribe to the theory when somebody provides some "proof" that isn't made of stone.

just one machine...
Well they have the amazing Antikythera mechanism which plots the orbits of the planets and was made a very very long time ago. It is truly amazing with a large number of gears. It was x rayed and studied very closely and is thought to be a design that stemmed from Archimedes. But he was good at that stuff, and a present day craftsman made a similar one and showed how it is not that hadto build for someone that does stuff like that.
So although the machine is amazing for the time period some 2000 or more years ago it can be made by man with no help from aliens.

The common factor i see emerging is the simple fact that modern man severely underestimates the ingenuity of ancient man. They did amazing things, but nothing that could not have been done by any skilled man in the past.
 
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Thread Starter

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
I find that the sort of shows you're describing are normally led by people that try to fit the facts into their theories, and not the other way around.
Yeah that's it i think too. The original guy who wrote a book about this might have been working on facts, but een he stretched the truth and was called out on those things and admitted that he was wrong. He says that doesnt mean none of it is true. But the show takes stretching the truth to a whole new level of stupidity. One minute they say that this or that "might" have been caused by ancient aliens, then the next minute they are talking like they definitely existed back then, and they keep adding and adding to that as if they now have been know to really exist back then. "And then the aliens did this, then that, then this, then that", etc. It's funny sometimes.
 

402DF855

Joined Feb 9, 2013
271
I think the father of ancient alien theory was the guy that wrote Chariots of the Gods; in fact I believe I read that book as a youth. Can't help feeling a little disgusted when I realize that these lunatic experts on the show have made fortunes selling science fiction claimed to be fact. Caveat emptor. Still if you weed out the alien nonsense the show can be quite educational.

Personally I've concluded there never have been and never will be aliens visiting Earth. The only exception I can envision would be some sort of autonomous robotic craft that has been wandering around the galaxy for a billion years. No living creature IMO can expend the time and resources to traverse the expanse of interstellar space.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
If you want to spend time on pseudoscience, read some of Immanuel Velikovsky's books. Sort of the grandfather of modern celestial catastrophe theorists. Interesting man and thought-provoking books.
 

402DF855

Joined Feb 9, 2013
271
not with our technology, they can...
I think it's a matter of physics not technology. The limitation of the speed of light is universal as far as we know. Some speculate that the UFO/alien phenomena is real but are actually humans from the future. While likely absurd this seems much more plausible than aliens spending the time and energy traveling through interstellar space.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
While there are those among us who think life on the planet was seeded to be harvested like a crop and the grim reaper truly awaits us so screw it all. YMMV
 
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