Ancient Aliens? Possible or bullshit?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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The program “Ancient Aliens” on H2 (History 2) explores the theories and possibility that alien beings could have been involved in ancient human history and development. Some of the evidence used to support certain theories is actually very compelling.

Do you think it’s possible that aliens might have visited ancient man? What if they actually came here to ‘seed’ the planet with intelligent life and we are actually their descendants?

Could it explain some of the events in the Bible (Manna from Heaven, Parting of the Sea)? The construction of the Pyramids? Machu Picchu? Easter Island? The Mayan Empire and/or fall? Pumapunku? Perhaps Atlantis?

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I’ll go with “or bullshit”, Alex - it* is* History 2. That channel has about as much to do with proper history as MTV has to do with actual music video any more. They were better when they were The Hitler Channel.

In the sense that anything that’s not impossible due to a violation of fundamental physical or mathematical law is possible. Seeding or engineering evolution could be conceivable but AFAIK we’d currently really have no way of detecting evidence, save for the finding of a 1x4x9 perfectly rectangular absolutely black monolith standing among the 3 million year old sediments somewhere in the Rift Valley.

However when it comes to some of the other things mentioned in the OP, I gotta go fetch the strop for Mr. Occam:

OT miracles: Not-so-spectacular events, or big but otherwise natural disasters, that got distorted and magnified in the oral telling and retelling for centuries before they got written down. Or even just-so mythical stories told to teach a lesson.

Atlantis: A piece of fiction by Plato, written to make a point.

Pyramids, Machu Picchu, Rapa Nui, Mayas: Our ancient ancestors were quite clever and capable enough to design and build impressive things and had the organization and the will to do so. In the cases of Easter and the Maya, to the point of depleting resources to the point they could not go on doing it.

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Missed edit window:

And again probably based on a “normal” disaster (Thera?) and advanced foreign civilizations (plenty of them), embellished.

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There’s quite a bit of evidence that intelligent life on earth evolved from ancient single-celled ancestors, and thus was not the result of “seeding” by aliens.

It is a tenable position that the life on earth originated elsewhere. But until some shred of evidence for this appears, this will remain what it currently is: a rather pointless piece of speculation.

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Yeah, H2 (and History Int’l before that) lost much of the credibility it had left by hyping the 2012 Mayan ‘Apocalypse’ and endless ‘Doomsday’-esque shows…

I’ve always known there was a practical, logical reason for the Mayan calendar ‘ending’ in 12/2012. Hammering out a calendar using a chisel and tablet is NOT and easy task to start with. But the Mayans (for whatever reason) felt the need to create 24,000 years of historical calendars as well…they didn’t understand that you throw them out at the end of the year and don’t need the old ones!?

So after all that ‘typing/chiseling’ they came the end of a ‘cycle’, they were tired as hell and had a calendar good for centuries into the future. They probably thought a later generation could pick up the task and it just fell thru the cracks…but just because a calendar ends on a certain date, the assumption that the world and/or mankind would cease to exist at that time is moronic!

I read an article a few months ago stating that the rates of suicides leading up the December 2012 spiked inexplicably. That is fucking insane…although the ones who believed the world would end and offed themselves early were just thinning the herd, so to speak…and I also read that up to 10% of all Americans believed something life-altering or cataclysmic would occur on that date…also fucking idiots…

If we are the descendants of aliens, they really need to come back and fix some shit with humanity and our planet, since they obviously have the capability to do so.

I recently saw a program on H2 discussing whether Jesus might have been an alien? Now I’m just spit-balling here, but I really don’t think he would have endured that gruesome crucifixion if he had the ability to travel thru space and/or time…although that resurrection and ascension trick was pretty impressive! I’m more inclined to believe that it was either myth, a heavily embellished account of actual events, or even Divine/Supernatural…

But the program that followed it was actually very interesting. It was about the who decided what books would be included in the Bible and which ones were rejected. The process was completely random and devoid of the slightest logic, except for the decisioins made to further personal agendas of those making the decisions.

I’ve personally read several of the Gnostic Gospels and some of them are actually written much better than the ones included in the Canon! The Gospel of Mary, if they even knew it existed, would have been rejected because it was authored by a woman.

It amazes me that millions of people (including many of my friends and family members) believe that it is the literal Word of God and nothing could possibly be missing, nor could anything be included that shouldn’t be. Despite the fact that other writings, such as the Gnostic Gospels, were written BEFORE some of the included writings, based on scientific tests used to age actual writings. If a book was written in 200-250, I would question it’s authenticity or at least it’s accuracy since it the source material and subject of the writing was 200+ years in the past!

Again, faith is a gift I have yet to receive and probably never will, which is why I am so cynical and skeptical about it all. Growing up Pentecostal, now a 're-covering Pentecostal…and an ex-ex-gay" probably fuels my cynicism and inability to believe anything without undeniable proof…

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Weird theories sell books, DVDs and other media. It’s a big and highly profitable industry, concocting impossible, unlikely and crackpot stories for the gullible with large and loose wallets. Here’s hoping that’s not you (the gullible, that is).

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I think a lot of people don’t realise this. Our ancestors were equally as intelligent as we are now, they merely had primitive technology available to them. They had no more or less academic ability to comprehend and figure complex things out, with no more or less mythology interfering with their ability to achieve things, than we have to deal with today.

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I don’t think it’s pointless, if it sparks intelligent conversation and/or debate among people who respect the opinions of others, even if they disagree with them.

But you’re absolutely correct, the isn’t a shred of evidence to support an alien origin for humanity. So it’s only logical to search for the origin of humanity on on this planet…

Any theory without proof or evidence of any kind has no scientific merit…but it’s amusing to see the shit people can make up…

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No, there are few things that I absolutely believe as truth…but I will at least consider other ideas that have some sort of merit or evidence to support them…and then decide whether to reject the idea entirely or acknowledge that it cant’ be provenj false or wrong and leave it at that…

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Why do the Aliens only help brown skin people? Are the aliens racist against whites? Or are the people who push this stuff think that there is no way ancient brown people could build something impressive. I never hear about Stonehenge being built by aliens or other European structures.
Could aliens have visited us in the past? Sure, they may have show up when the earth was just a huge ball of mud and lava and ocean. One of them doing his, or her, geological survey left a duece and PRESTO, we get our start.
The original space seed.

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Most crackpot ideas have a paucity of merit, a glaring lack of evidence and an overabundance of ignorance. Cf. Erich von Däniken.

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Obviously, they realize that those people (much like their Mexican and Central American descendants) work very hard for a reasonable price…in cash!

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I only said I would “consider” them…
I also reserve the right to mock them as well as the wingnuts who promote those ideas…I can be open-minded, but I am also cruel and unkind at times…I was ‘gifted’ and in ‘advanced placement’ in school, so I am obviously superior to almost everyone else, so I am completely justified in my feelings of superiority!

(I’m not really a douchebag, everything I say is intended to be cynical, sarcastic or using hyperbole for the sake of drama and humor…which makes me a dick, but not a d-bag)

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I stopped watching the History Channel when they became the X Files of Cable Television.

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That is actually a brutally honest and accurate description, good one! I hate the freakin’ X-files…but somehow my favorite show is Supernatural (even though I’m agnostic)…even I was confused by my love of the show until I realized it had nothing to do with the ‘Supernatural’ subject manner…it’s the dreamy hunk Jensen Ackles (who plays Dean) that I enjoy looking at for the entire hour…

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Oh Jensen, rawr!

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Pretty much. (I actually do remember seeing an Ancient Aliens ad that was talking about how Stonehenge was built, but I think your point still stands.)

Seriously, how fucking insulting is it to be so dismissive of the intellectual capabilities of an ancient culture that you (general you) have to ascribe those capabilities to ALIENS??

Look, humans are smart. Their level of smart doesn’t change over just a few millennia. Technology does, but a culture’s level of technology has little to do with how intelligent they are. We might not know exactly how the Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, but that’s mostly because they didn’t exactly leave us a how-to guide. (My understanding is that there’s SOME written evidence, but not a whole lot; we mostly have archaeological dig sites that indicate quarries, housing, tools, etc.) Just because we can’t figure it out doesn’t mean they couldn’t.

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Yes I think there’s a very remote possibility that aliens visited ancient man, but more along the line of a probe doing a survey of our planet. I very much doubt there was any interaction with the locals, let alone influencing religion or giving various aspects of civilization. Any seeding of Earth would’ve occurred billions of years ago and involved single celled bacteria. This ancient alien crap is just the modern version of stories about the gods giving us fire or dividing the sexes.

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As our friends across the pond would say, He is SEX on LEGS! I want to do things to that boy that would earn me multiple mandatory death penalties in most Middle Eastern countries…and then some…

He really doesn’t take his shirt off for photographs nearly enough-

JENSEN shirtless

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Ancient Aliens? Possible or bullshit?

Bullshit.