# Ancient Aliens? Possible or bullshit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 3, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994 "2013-06-03T02:36:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/61 "2013-06-04T17:15:22Z")
Who’s showing the **aliens** how to do all this stuff anyway? Aliens all the way down I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/62 "2013-06-04T17:53:10Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > If I claim that teenagers played paintball in my house last weekend, but there are no signs of damage, paint, or intrusion a day later, that’s a pretty good sign that my claim is incorrect. I dunno about that example. Teenagers are pretty crafty at covering their tracks. And it’s especially easy to clean up paintball mess or disable your perception of it if you have alien technology. 🙂 Ok, so if the “absence of evidence…” line is unsatisfying I’ll go with “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Probably a better fit here anyway since I’m already disinclined to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/63 "2013-06-04T17:55:22Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Easy there Rimmer, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I’m not claiming an absence of evidence - I’m saying there IS evidence of an absence. We can and have examined the human genome very carefully, as well as lots of other Earth genomes that we can compare it to. If any significant modifications had been made to our species in the past, it would stand out like a sore thumb. There would be sequences that we couldn’t trace back to similar sequences in other species. Those sore thumbs do not exist. There is no evidence of modification; or, if you prefer, there is concrete evidence of no modification. As I explained upthread, there is no reasonable way to claim that aliens have modified us in some way without leaving such evidence behind. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/64 "2013-06-05T00:02:29Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Nitpick: That’s your _hypothesis_. 😉 Not even that…more like that’s his WAG. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/65 "2013-06-05T03:21:14Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Did you want to contact the mods about removing that “or” that was mistakenly inserted into the title? Not to mention the mistaken insertion of “possible” and the question mark that originally started out as an exclamation point. ---
**Author:** ![Beelzebubba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Beelzebubba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beelzebubba)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/66 "2013-06-05T03:59:39Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > Go into the chamber in the Great Pyramid and feel the wall and then tell me that people with primitive tools could produce that. I couldn’t do it with a modern chisel, so how did they? > Stonehenge is an example of primitive technology, but there is nothing primitive about the pyramids, and they were built before steel was invented. I grew up in the Pentecostal Church, so anything that can’t be explained or for which there is solid, contradictory evidence, simply must be taken on faith. It isn’t meant for us to know… Oh yeah, and this wicked world full of teenagers listening to their devil’s music like Anne Murray and John Denver, is in the end days…never mind they’ve been using that line since a few minutes after the ‘alleged’ ascension of Christ! Maybe the people speaking in tongues were trying to tell me something, a message from the aliens? But I swear that they always sounded the same each time the “Spirit” entered them and they spoke in tongues…it sounded like they were saying “Bought a Nissan, Shoulda Bought a Honda” with emphasis on different syllables and very careful enunciation… I love some of my family members who ascribe to those beliefs, but I also can’t help but notice that they would ride the short bus to school, had they ever attended in the first place…coincidence? I think not… ---
**Author:** ![Beelzebubba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Beelzebubba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beelzebubba)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/67 "2013-06-05T04:03:05Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Not to mention the mistaken insertion of “possible” and the question mark that originally started out as an exclamation point. I’m the OP and in my own defense, I was probably half in the bag when I posted this…and if I was drinking and taking Valium, it’s pretty damn impressive that I made any sense at all! ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/68 "2013-06-05T16:11:19Z")
Drinking and valium, eh? Been there, do that (it’s the only way to get either to work anymore). I think that’s the only combo that would get me to sit through an entire episode of Ancient Aliens. Do yourself a favor, get Carl Sagan’s _Cosmos_ from Netflix. I think a lot of it is outdated & inaccurate now, but at least he is a scientist doing his best with the info he had. I can’t say the same for Ancient Aliens–that’s little more than a reality show with self-described scientists competing for camera time. Plus, Carl can wear the hell out of a brown corduroy suit & turtleneck–now that’s a comeup. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/69 "2013-06-05T18:18:09Z")
> [@Beelzebubba](#): > > I grew up in the Pentecostal Church, so anything that can’t be explained or for which there is solid, contradictory evidence, simply must be taken on faith. It isn’t meant for us to know… EVERYTHING can be explained. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/70 "2013-06-05T22:31:40Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > Go into the chamber in the Great Pyramid and feel the wall and then tell me that people with primitive tools could produce that. I couldn’t do it with a modern chisel, so how did they? > Stonehenge is an example of primitive technology, but there is nothing primitive about the pyramids, and they were built before steel was invented. I’ve been there, and saw nothing that humans with enough people couldn’t have done. Just because you can’t do it means nothing. Very few of us can create the stone tools our very primitive ancestors used (I think one scientist can, after years of practice) cut that doesn’t mean aliens were chipping flint. They have also found campsites for those who worked on the pyramids - not slaves - which wouldn’t be needed if the aliens had equipment. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/71 "2013-06-06T02:35:28Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > EVERYTHING can be explained. And indeed, even when it can’t – yet – be explained, that does not mean there’s any idiotic woo about it. Some steps of photosynthesis are still not completely understood, but that doesn’t mean it’s magic. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/72 "2013-06-06T08:29:47Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > You don’t make smooth surfaces with chisels. You make them by grinding one surface against another. > > You give me 3 pieces of glass, a source of grit (sand will do), some rust, some tar, and I can make you 3 disks that are baby butt smooth and flat to fraction of a wavelength of light. Seriously, it can be done. It might take awhile to get than to that level but its doable. If you just want looks damn flat and feels damn smooth that’s easy peasy. Have you been inside the chamber in the great pyramid? It’s a lot bigger than a piece of glass! I think not if you believe that many workers over many years ( which is what it would have taken, using what they would have had available without advanced technology ) could have produced that surface. Most people wouldn’t even think about it, but being an engineer, I had an interest in how they constructed it when I visited. I doubt that the masters would have even thought it necessary to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/73 "2013-06-06T08:34:21Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’ve been there, and saw nothing that humans with enough people couldn’t have done. Just because you can’t do it means nothing. Very few of us can create the stone tools our very primitive ancestors used (I think one scientist can, after years of practice) cut that doesn’t mean aliens were chipping flint. > > They have also found campsites for those who worked on the pyramids - not slaves - which wouldn’t be needed if the aliens had equipment. Why wouldn’t they need campsites? Even with advanced technology, it would take years to build them. BTW, do you really think that they cut all those big stones with stone tools? Stonehenge is an example of stone worked without metal tools, and it looks it. Not so the pyramids. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/74 "2013-06-06T08:46:24Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > This has been demonstrated. There was a documentary that showed Egyptians using ancient tools (or replicas of them, anyway) to fashion blocks of stone to represent ones used in the pyramids. IIRC, one block was supported over the other using ropes. Its lower surface was ground against the upper surface of the other block until they fitted perfectly. It was not a very long process. > > One hypothesis is that ancient Egyptians fitted the blocks together so nicely in the pyramids by grinding the surfaces of the soft stone together. Another hypothesis is that aliens did it. A theory can be tested, and it has been shown that the pyramids could be built by people using primitive tools. So far, there is no evidence to disprove the theory. ‘Aliens did it’ cannot be tested, so the hypothesis can’t be proven to be true. > > Given the option of choosing that ancient people built the pyramids using primitive tools and know-how, which has been demonstrated to be possible; or that aliens came from outer space and said to the Egyptians, ‘Hey, y’all want some pointy buildings?’ and broke out their laser rock-cutters and anti-gravity plates, which cannot be proven, I’m kinda-sorta leaning toward the rock-grinding theory. Can you tell us how long it would have taken to make a 6 side smooth big block of stone by grinding in the manner you tell us? Then multiply by the hundreds of thousands of big stones, and then work out how many years it would take with the available manpower. Assuming they also had to work in the fields to grow food and so on it seems to me it would take a very long time. BTW, in my “hypothesis” the aliens weren’t asking anyone if they wanted anything, the pyramids would have been for the alien’s purposes, and we have no idea of what that might have been. ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/75 "2013-06-06T09:26:37Z")
Stargate knows ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/76 "2013-06-06T11:21:46Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Yes. Here it is: that didn’t happen. > > Evidence: there is absolutely NO SIGN of genetic tampering in the human genome. And we have the ability now to pick it up if it were there. > > Note that I provide evidence, which you do not. Therefore I win. If you have evidence to share, please feel free to post it. Otherwise, shut up. I note that Doggo has returned and completely ignored my request for evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/77 "2013-06-06T13:19:43Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > Can you tell us how long it would have taken to make a 6 side smooth big block of stone by grinding in the manner you tell us? Then multiply by the hundreds of thousands of big stones, and then work out how many years it would take with the available manpower. Assuming they also had to work in the fields to grow food and so on it seems to me it would take a very long time. [_Nova_](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/howold2.html): > [@MARK LEHNER](#): > > A pyramid is basically, most basically, two separate constructions: **it’s an outer shell of very fine polished limestone with great accuracy in its joints** , but most of that’s missing; and the other construction is the inner core, which filled in this shell… **The core was made with a substantial slop factor** … That is, **they didn’t join the stones very accurately**. You have great spaces between the stones. And you can actually see where the men were up there and they didn’t, you know, they may have like four or five, even six inches between two stones. And so they’d jam down pebbles and cobbles and some broken stones, and slop big quantities of gypsum mortar in there. So the parts of the structure intended to be seen were finely finished. They didn’t spend a lot of time on the bulk of the structure. Saves a lot of time. How long does it take to finish one stone? Not that long. It’s been years since I’ve seen the documentary that demonstrated it, but it was a fairly quick process. As far as working in the fields, how do _you_ manage it? How do you do your job _and_ grow your food, _and_ find the time to post on the Internet (which the Egyptians did not have at the time)? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/78 "2013-06-06T15:25:43Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > Have you been inside the chamber in the great pyramid? It’s a lot bigger than a piece of glass! > I think not if you believe that many workers over many years ( which is what it would have taken, using what they would have had available without advanced technology ) could have produced that surface. Most people wouldn’t even think about it, **but being an engineer** , I had an interest in how they constructed it when I visited. > > I doubt that the masters would have even thought it necessary to do so. An “engineer”? Aren’t you the guy who started a thread about how university degrees are pointless for many people and you get along fine as a mechanic without one? Now you’re an engineer? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/79 "2013-06-06T15:30:35Z")
Maybe he has a model train. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994/80 "2013-06-06T15:47:47Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > An “engineer”? Aren’t you the guy who started a thread about how university degrees are pointless for many people and you get along fine as a mechanic without one? Now you’re an engineer? 😕 Yes, it was [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=690448), and you list your qualifications in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16279853&postcount=42). I’m not sure whether those qualify you as an engineer, but I am certain they do not qualify you to declare that space aliens made the pyramids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aliens-possible-or-bullshit/659994.md?page=5)