Ancient Aliens

Cafe Society
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Flipping through the channels last night bought me to a show on the History Channel called Ancient Aliens, episode 4 in a series IIRC. It started out talking about the nuclear testing in the Nevada desert back in the 1950’s. Then they mention a 12,000 year old Hindu text called the Mahabhartata (think I spelled that right), which apparently describes a battle by beings in flying machines using strange devices. Some clips are shown of “Ancient Alien Researchers” claiming the attack was a nuclear bomb. The basis for this? The symptoms descibed in the attack are “strangely similar” to the radiation poisoning symptoms of atomic bombs. Since it’s hard to imagine people 12,000 years ago with nukes or flying battle machines, of course it must be (dun dun dun) aliens. A bit later, they talk about an abandoned city and speculate that it could be the site of the battle mentioned earlier. The claim is made that there are spots (not the whole city, just spots), that show high levels of radiation. Also, they claim the sand in the area has turned to glass (dramatic chord!) in the same way the sand in the U.S. nuke testing site did back in the 50’s!! :eek:

Wow, some fused sand and a 12,000 year old description of something that sounds “suspiciously like radiation poisoning”! The aliens have been monitoring us from the very beginning! HAAAALP!!
No seriously, I am interested in this Mahabhartata text they talked about. It sounds pretty interesting. Is this text actually anywhere near that old? If so it would have to be one of the earliest examples of written language we have. There was a painting or tapestry they kept showing depicting this air battle. Modern painting, made up for the show, or actually an ancient piece of artwork? It was remarkably clear and in fantastic condition for something that old. I don’t buy the ancient alien nuclear bombs for a second, but this ancient text does sound interesting and I’d like to find out more.

More from the episode: The Black Plague was caused by aliens. Mysterious grim reaper types were spotted on the outskirts of cities and villages shortly before outbreaks. These strange beings wielded scythe like weapons that released a “mist” that made everyone sick. :rolleyes: Yep, them aliens were cutting down on the population…

Apparently medieval religious imagery is rife with UFO’s… Several pieces of 14th century artwork were shown, with tiny alien spaceships in the distance, just to the left and right of Jesus on the cross (no, I’m not joking). Another showed a spaceship shooting out a beam of light and hitting the Virgin Mary with it (yep, aliens impregnated her). Wow. Are there really 14th century religious paintings depicting alien ships? I want to say total hoax on this one, because of the clarity of the images. It’s not really possible to just say “oh, someone was drunk/stoned when they painted that”. They’re not mysterious grey blobs, the reaction of anyone viewing them would say “oh, that’s a UFO”. Propulsion flames and beams of light are clearly visible on the craft. Granted, I was a poor student, but I don’t remember Sister Mary saying anything about Jesus being an alien.

Columbus supposedly spotted a UFO just before reaching the new world. Despite acknowledging that any number of natural phenomena can cause lights to appear on the water or below the surface, it was clearly an alien spacecraft because “it rose up out of the water and ascended into the heavens”. Plus, when Chris landed in the new world, the natives eagerly rushed out to greet him and asked him “are you from the heavens?”. I didn’t know Native Americans spoke Spanish, but anyway, yep that’s clear and convincing evidence! Oh, and one of Columbus’ men turned him in to the Spanish Inquisition, and he was grilled (presumably not literally) for claiming the craft looked like a Jewish Menorah (sp?). The Inquisition of course kept meticulous records of all this, only we can’t read them because they’re locked up the Vatican. How do we know about this if the meticulous and detailed records of this are locked in a vault? Well, they kind of glossed over that bit…

Then they start getting into the founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, Thomas Paine), and I fell asleep at that point.

So, has anyone else seen this series? Questions, comments, etc? How can they air a show without the slightest, smallest hint of credibility? It was like a televised version of the Globe (supermarket tabeloid famous for “two headed space alien weds Elvis clone” type stories). I always thought the History Channel was pretty scientific and accurate. If they’re showing dreck like this I’m kind of questioning even the shows that are more legitimate.

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How can they? Who’s gonna stop them?

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It’s somewhat more recent than 12,000 years old.

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The History channel is doing what all channels, and brands have started doing – losing focus and appealing to the lowest common demoninator.

Sci Fi, now SyFy (ick) used to air legit sci fi almost all the time. Now, it airs shows like WWE, Monster Hunters, Ghost Hunters, etc. It’s sad, and ridiculous.

I liked when the history channel showed stuff about the Romans battle with the Gauls, or something to that effect. I was even okay with the “300” historical special that was release around the same time as the movie, it was pretty good (even if the editorial styling was a bit movie-esque). But now they show shit like “Hitlers deal with aliens?!” as if it’s legitimate historicial… Stuff.

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I’d like to know what type of sources they talk to for this show. Are they actually people with serious academic titles, or just guys whose claim to fame is writing a book about Roswell and alien abductions?

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A number of the “experts” were authors of books with kooky sounding titles like “Aliens in the Ancient World” and things along those lines. The unified theme was basically that aliens manipulated large swatches of our past, including Jesus (bought to you by the little grey men).

Yeah, I used to think it was a legitimate scientific channel. Its pretty jarring. I rarely watch television at all, and I’m shocked at how bad it’s gotten the last 10 years or so.

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Wait a minute! Are you saying that you saw a History Channel show that didn’t include Nostradamus, the Knights Templar, and Freemasons?

If find that rather hard to believe. :wink:

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I can’t remember if I cried,
When I saw Ice Truckers on the guide,
Something touched me deep inside,
The day the History Channel died.

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Hmm. What sort of backgrounds do these “experts” have. Are they people who have genuine academic credentials, or just guys who had money to burn on “research,” experienced some big “revelation” and just went too far down the rabbit hole in an effort to make what they thought was an important contribution to society (and also were lucky and/or well connected enough to find a publisher for their books).

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I’m pretty sure if they had academic credentials they would have listed it on the show. “History Professor at Prestigious U” sounds a little more credible than “I have enough money to get my nutcase book published”.

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I watched just enough of an episode that was talking about the ruins in Chaco Canyon to know that the show’s subtitle should be, “Jumping To Conclusions!”

I mean, after stating that ruins in the Southwest are giant star-maps, they then made a point that the stars of Orion’s Belt “point” to Cirius. The three sites that are supposedly Orion’s belt were shown and said to “point” at Chaco Canyon. However, Chaco Canyon is in the opposite direction as Cirius, and the three sites that supposedly point to it don’t line up that way, not even in their own graphics.

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Well you have to understand, they have technology far in advance of ours, capable of flinging whole ships between stars or galaxies.

Obviously they forgot to bring a ruler.

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Aliens, the lot of 'em.

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Does this leave a market niche open for “The Real-Life Serious History Channel”?

Probably not. :frowning:

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Everyone knows that approaching light speed affects the perceived length of a meterstick.

YOU try measuring when your frames of reference are all wibbly wobbly!

-Joe

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I love these shows but you have to take them with a grain of salt and a couple shots of vodka.

But the part I quoted is absolutely true. Mary was impregnated by an alien. Was God born on planet Earth? Me thinks not. Ergo God is an alien.

And that halo always depicted above Jesus’ head? That’s just the light reflecting off of his shiny grey head since he is half-alien.

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Does that means he’s persona non grata in AZ ? :smiley:

Joking aside. References of nuclear war in Hindu sacred texts did not start with von Daniken. I read Robert Charroux’s books in the 60s and they made mention of that and other stuff von Dan mentioned.

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And what’s worse – none of them had green cards!

Illegal aliens – the whole lot of 'em!

:eek:

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Dude, they are green, they don’t need no stinking cards.

Actually, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one catching snippets of The ‘History’ Channel in the break room at work and thinking, WTF?

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I’ve watched the show and find it to be mostly enjoyable. It’s great background entertainment - I can listen to it while I surf the web or do chores, and occasionally something interesting enough to pay real attention will come up.

I of course don’t subscribe to the idea that every single odd thing in history can be explained by aliens. And in fact the series is more like “wonders and oddities of the ancient world… hey maybe aliens did it!”

The wonders and oddities, out of place artifacts, amazing feats of ancient engineering, strangely modern seeming art and myths, are all quite interesting independent of what might be their ultimate explanations. The alien stuff is interesting in the same way that watching an episode of Stargate is. And while ‘aliens’ is probably thinking too far ‘outside of the box’, creative thinking might ultimately bring new evidence or ideas to light that bring us closer to the real answers.

To sum up: some meat, some fluff. The meat is interesting, and the fluff is harmless and occasionally entertaining.