1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:05,400
Speaker 1: My World. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from

2
00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:13,920
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff

3
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:16,120
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

4
00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:18,599
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be starting off

5
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:23,040
Speaker 1: by talking about theme parks. Just before we started recording,

6
00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:26,040
Speaker 1: Robert and I were talking about possible alternative theme parks

7
00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:28,479
Speaker 1: that just never got to be. I was thinking, you know,

8
00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:32,680
Speaker 1: we've got Disneyland and Disney World that we know some

9
00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:35,040
Speaker 1: people here in the office that are really into disney World.

10
00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:37,720
Speaker 1: We go all the time. But it's based on all

11
00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:41,239
Speaker 1: these classic animated characters, right, And I was thinking, there

12
00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:44,519
Speaker 1: should be an alternative theme park that's based on the

13
00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:48,000
Speaker 1: classic animated characters, not of Disney, but of Don Bluth. Okay,

14
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:49,920
Speaker 1: so this would be like the Secretive Nim Yeah. So

15
00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:52,200
Speaker 1: you've got like a Secret of Nim ride where you

16
00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,520
Speaker 1: you like ride this cinder block to the lee of

17
00:00:54,520 --> 00:00:58,360
Speaker 1: the stone. And then you've got you've got like characters

18
00:00:58,400 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 1: walking around in the streets, of course, and costumes of

19
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:04,640
Speaker 1: Rocketdoodle comes up to you. There's an old Dogs Go

20
00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 1: to Heaven, you know, you get to be a dog

21
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:09,080
Speaker 1: and go to dog Hell. Ride that. Yeah, that was

22
00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:12,280
Speaker 1: a disturbing portion of that movie. I remember. Yeah. But

23
00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:14,959
Speaker 1: then also there's gotta be a Dragon's Layer ride because

24
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:16,640
Speaker 1: Don Blues worked on that. That's right. This is the

25
00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:20,280
Speaker 1: classic animation style video games. Yeah, where you die no

26
00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:22,280
Speaker 1: matter what you do all the time. Oh yeah, we

27
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:24,759
Speaker 1: could have one for a ranking and bass rock box.

28
00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:29,200
Speaker 1: You get into all those old cool Disney alternative animated

29
00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:33,840
Speaker 1: classics like the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, Goblin singalongs. Yeah,

30
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:37,280
Speaker 1: I'm all where there's a whip, there's a way, I'm

31
00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:40,280
Speaker 1: all for it. You have one hal that's just for

32
00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:45,360
Speaker 1: singing along with that Leonard Nimoy song about the Hobbit. Yeah,

33
00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:47,320
Speaker 1: I gotta work that in somehow though that that's not

34
00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:49,640
Speaker 1: actually in the movie, But the movie itself is full

35
00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:53,680
Speaker 1: of full of all sorts of wonderful tunes. Um. It's

36
00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:58,400
Speaker 1: interesting because we have all these various ridiculous and real

37
00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,440
Speaker 1: theme parks and then we have these fictional ones. So

38
00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:04,280
Speaker 1: we we have made up parks like Jurassic Park, we

39
00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:06,760
Speaker 1: have West World, we have Itchy and Scratchy Land. But

40
00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:10,640
Speaker 1: on the other hand, we do have Dollywood, the Dolly

41
00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:13,440
Speaker 1: Parton themed theme park, I don't think I've ever been

42
00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:16,400
Speaker 1: to Dollywood, but you gotta wonder what's there? Is it

43
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:19,640
Speaker 1: just the same stuff, Like, it's just roller coasters and

44
00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:23,359
Speaker 1: carnival games and stuff, except it's Dolly Pardon themed. What's

45
00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:25,600
Speaker 1: all about the theme, right, It's all about the fluff.

46
00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:28,320
Speaker 1: Like I remember, I never went to Dollywood, but I

47
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,720
Speaker 1: went to Opery Land in Nashville, Tennessee, back when that

48
00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,840
Speaker 1: was a theme park, a country music sort of country

49
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:39,040
Speaker 1: themed theme park, and and that was fun. It wasn't

50
00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:42,840
Speaker 1: necessary that I was into the uh, into the flavoring

51
00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:45,880
Speaker 1: that was provided. But still, the basic rides, you do

52
00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:48,400
Speaker 1: need some reason to get on there. You need some

53
00:02:48,440 --> 00:02:50,880
Speaker 1: sort of character associated with it, to tell a story

54
00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:53,799
Speaker 1: with the ride. Dude, that Dollywood Joe Lene roller coaster

55
00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: was a scream. So there are a lot of worthy

56
00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,440
Speaker 1: theme park destinations out there. But here's one that I

57
00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,840
Speaker 1: think most of us may not have heard of. I

58
00:03:04,880 --> 00:03:07,280
Speaker 1: had not heard of this one until we started researching

59
00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:09,360
Speaker 1: this episode. I had not heard of this until you

60
00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:11,800
Speaker 1: sent it to me. It's nestled in the Swiss Alps,

61
00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: and it's called young Frau Park. Okay, does that mean

62
00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:20,040
Speaker 1: young woman? I believe so it's name for um, it's

63
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:23,120
Speaker 1: name for a particular alpine peak in the immediate area.

64
00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:27,359
Speaker 1: It originally opened as Mystery Park, though it offers fun

65
00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:31,040
Speaker 1: and entertainment for the entire family, including Misty Land for

66
00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:36,680
Speaker 1: the children, a huge indoor outdoor children's paradise, segue rides, trampolines,

67
00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:41,120
Speaker 1: laser shows, a petting zoo, and of course multiple exhibits

68
00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:44,560
Speaker 1: in live shows addressing the mysteries of ancient history and

69
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,200
Speaker 1: the possible answers to be found in ancient astronaut hypothesis.

70
00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:52,480
Speaker 1: What yes, yeah, this is I need to drive this home.

71
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:55,120
Speaker 1: This is not some silly skit that Joe and I

72
00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,280
Speaker 1: have prepared for everybody. This is a real theme park

73
00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,200
Speaker 1: in Interlock and Swiss of Land, centered around the ideas

74
00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:06,120
Speaker 1: and writings of Eric van Donikin, author of the nineteen

75
00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:09,800
Speaker 1: book Chariots of the Gods. I like how the original

76
00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:12,440
Speaker 1: book title ends in a question mark. Yes, so, I

77
00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:14,840
Speaker 1: really think we should make a point when we're talking

78
00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:17,960
Speaker 1: about his book. We should we should pronounce it chariots

79
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,480
Speaker 1: of the Gods of the Gods like they might be

80
00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:26,279
Speaker 1: chariots of somebody else's. I also love how it takes

81
00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:31,120
Speaker 1: what is otherwise a tremendously awesome title and kind of

82
00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:33,520
Speaker 1: screws it up by making a question. You know, you've

83
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:36,880
Speaker 1: got that standard clickbait format these days, where like the

84
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,280
Speaker 1: actual body text of an article might be fairly reasonable,

85
00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 1: but the headline makes some outlandish claim not justified by

86
00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:46,359
Speaker 1: the article itself. This is sort of the opposite. This

87
00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:48,920
Speaker 1: is like the title is actually a little bit more

88
00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:51,640
Speaker 1: careful than the book. Yes, and we will definitely get

89
00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:55,000
Speaker 1: into that as we proceed. But this particular park again,

90
00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:58,640
Speaker 1: it opened as Mystery Park and two thousand three at

91
00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:02,240
Speaker 1: a reported cost of eighty six million Swiss francs or

92
00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:05,920
Speaker 1: sixty two million dollars American uh. But then it closed

93
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:08,560
Speaker 1: in two thousand six. Then it opened reopened again in

94
00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:12,600
Speaker 1: two thousand nine as Young Frau Park. It's an exhibits

95
00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:15,600
Speaker 1: still focus on things like the Nazca lines, the construction

96
00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:19,520
Speaker 1: of the Pyramids, and other noted uh quote unquote examples

97
00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:24,640
Speaker 1: of ancient astronauts, speculation or a A s plus. Donikan

98
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:28,440
Speaker 1: himself still gives lectures there and insists that quote everything

99
00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:32,400
Speaker 1: ends in a question mark, so as if it's all

100
00:05:32,760 --> 00:05:36,359
Speaker 1: just a consideration of these ideas rather than um, you know,

101
00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:39,440
Speaker 1: propaganda about it. Well, I must say that makes me

102
00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 1: feel a little bit better about it, because I kind

103
00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:43,760
Speaker 1: of want to go. I don't put any stock whatsoever

104
00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:47,000
Speaker 1: in the ancient aliens hypothesis, but this sounds like a

105
00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:49,360
Speaker 1: good time. You've got a petting zoo, and you've got

106
00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:52,279
Speaker 1: a guy given lectures about how aliens probably talk to

107
00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:54,880
Speaker 1: our ancestors. Yeah, there's a sun sphere they have like

108
00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:58,000
Speaker 1: a ziggurat and a pyramid. You can, you can. I'll

109
00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,000
Speaker 1: try to make sure that we link to the homepage

110
00:06:01,240 --> 00:06:03,440
Speaker 1: for the park so that you can check it out,

111
00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,320
Speaker 1: because it does look fun. It looks you can children

112
00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:09,760
Speaker 1: can have their birthday parties there. It looks like an

113
00:06:09,800 --> 00:06:12,280
Speaker 1: interesting destination, and we would love to hear from anyone

114
00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,719
Speaker 1: who has ever gone there themselves. So I've been familiar

115
00:06:15,760 --> 00:06:18,040
Speaker 1: with Van Donkin for a long time. I remember seeing

116
00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:21,680
Speaker 1: him mentioned on old reruns of In Search of hosted

117
00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,880
Speaker 1: by Leonard nimoy A and a yeah. But but I

118
00:06:24,880 --> 00:06:27,560
Speaker 1: had no idea that this had been incorporated into a

119
00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:30,200
Speaker 1: theme park. This is the kind of thing you come

120
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,200
Speaker 1: to expect from religious groups in the United States, like

121
00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:36,200
Speaker 1: the Holy Lands Theme Park. I believe it is in Florida.

122
00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,800
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you're not aware of this phenomenon. In

123
00:06:38,839 --> 00:06:42,960
Speaker 1: the United States, there are multiple, uh, not just Bible themed,

124
00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:46,839
Speaker 1: but specifically Young Earth creationist theme parks in the United

125
00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:50,440
Speaker 1: States that have like models and exhibits. It's sort of

126
00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 1: like a cross between an amusement park and a museum

127
00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,680
Speaker 1: attempting to promote the idea, for example, that humans and

128
00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:59,080
Speaker 1: dinosaurs lived side by side and that the Earth is

129
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:01,760
Speaker 1: six thousand years so old. Yeah, and you know, it

130
00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:03,800
Speaker 1: makes sense that we would have theme parks about this

131
00:07:03,839 --> 00:07:05,880
Speaker 1: because in the United States, two things that people take

132
00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:09,880
Speaker 1: very seriously our religion and their major entertainment brands. So

133
00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:12,240
Speaker 1: of course there's a Disney Park. Of course there's like

134
00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 1: Universal Studios. But I just really wasn't expecting, uh, there

135
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,080
Speaker 1: to be a theme park based around the concept of

136
00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:23,440
Speaker 1: ancient aliens. It really gives me hope that my son

137
00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:26,480
Speaker 1: can one day celebrate his tenth birthday party at a

138
00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:31,120
Speaker 1: Phantom Time hypothesis theme park. I want to Lizard People

139
00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:33,720
Speaker 1: theme park that would be good, yeah, with the costumes

140
00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:37,160
Speaker 1: it basically rights itself, or a good Flat Earth theme

141
00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:39,760
Speaker 1: park that'll do it. I wonder if that means the

142
00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:42,720
Speaker 1: roller coasters will be very boring though there's no looks.

143
00:07:42,760 --> 00:07:47,560
Speaker 1: It's just flat circle flat roller coasters. Yeah. So we've

144
00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:50,600
Speaker 1: had listeners in the past ask us to talk about

145
00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:54,160
Speaker 1: ancient aliens related topics. I think it's come up in

146
00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,040
Speaker 1: passing on the podcast quite a few times. Actually, we

147
00:07:57,200 --> 00:07:59,280
Speaker 1: just kind of mentioned it here and there as one

148
00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:01,600
Speaker 1: of those things that you know, it would be interesting

149
00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:04,000
Speaker 1: if there were some actual evidence for it, but there

150
00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:06,120
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be any good evidence. It's all just

151
00:08:06,240 --> 00:08:09,640
Speaker 1: kind of like based on massive over interpretation of little

152
00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:13,119
Speaker 1: tidbits of interesting mythology and imagery from the ancient world,

153
00:08:13,440 --> 00:08:17,480
Speaker 1: and sometimes on outright fraud and and stuff like that. Yeah,

154
00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:19,280
Speaker 1: and we'll get into all that today. I do want

155
00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:21,160
Speaker 1: to before we get into it, I do want to

156
00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,280
Speaker 1: stress that we are going to approach this topic, like

157
00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:27,120
Speaker 1: all the topics we can approach, with a skeptical mind,

158
00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:31,000
Speaker 1: but an open mind. Okay, yeah, an open minded mind exactly. Yes.

159
00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:34,800
Speaker 1: And while we're gonna be talking about about von Donnikin

160
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,280
Speaker 1: himself and his book at the top of this episode,

161
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:41,880
Speaker 1: we are going to get into say Carl Sagan's thoughts

162
00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:46,200
Speaker 1: on the possibility of ancient aliens as we progress, and

163
00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:49,400
Speaker 1: of course through all of it, it is an exciting idea.

164
00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:52,200
Speaker 1: I mean, it factors into so many different works of

165
00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:56,640
Speaker 1: fiction that that we love. It's uh, it's just comes

166
00:08:56,679 --> 00:08:58,800
Speaker 1: down to the fact that, like you said, the evidence

167
00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:02,920
Speaker 1: is never there. Yeah, exactly. Now. I want to be

168
00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:06,600
Speaker 1: clear that I find the idea of ancient aliens visiting

169
00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,720
Speaker 1: Earth long ago in the past as fun and interesting

170
00:09:09,760 --> 00:09:12,720
Speaker 1: as anybody else would. It's something that I would love

171
00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:14,839
Speaker 1: to believe if there were good evidence for the I mean,

172
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:18,480
Speaker 1: that's such a cool idea. Um, And so it's and

173
00:09:18,559 --> 00:09:21,959
Speaker 1: it's also not something that I would say is something

174
00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:24,559
Speaker 1: we should just dismiss out of hand. Like some people

175
00:09:24,600 --> 00:09:27,240
Speaker 1: make the argument that, Okay, if somebody shows up and says,

176
00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:30,240
Speaker 1: I've got a new propellantless drive that'll get us through

177
00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:33,559
Speaker 1: space without propellant, some people say, you know, if you're

178
00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:36,080
Speaker 1: violating the laws of physics, I don't even need to

179
00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:38,360
Speaker 1: listen to you to begin with. I don't feel like

180
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:40,920
Speaker 1: that about ancient aliens. I'd say, Okay, this is something

181
00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:43,680
Speaker 1: that we don't know whether or not aliens exist. Maybe

182
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:46,640
Speaker 1: they do. We don't know if they do exist, whether

183
00:09:46,679 --> 00:09:49,520
Speaker 1: they visited Earth in the past. Maybe they have. There's

184
00:09:49,559 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 1: no reason to rule it out out of hand. So

185
00:09:51,920 --> 00:09:54,280
Speaker 1: it's at least worth looking at the evidence if somebody

186
00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:57,920
Speaker 1: thinks they have some exactly, So let's return to Chariots

187
00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:01,840
Speaker 1: of the Gods uh the Night sixty eight book by

188
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:05,319
Speaker 1: Eric von Donakin, And the basic idea here is again

189
00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:08,880
Speaker 1: that ancient that ancient astronauts visited Earth and serve as

190
00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:11,960
Speaker 1: the sort of god figures of our mythologies and religions,

191
00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:14,600
Speaker 1: and they wowed us with their technology and taught us

192
00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:18,440
Speaker 1: to do things like make bread and build pyramids, the

193
00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:22,040
Speaker 1: two primary activities of human civilization. Well they're they're also

194
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:25,200
Speaker 1: we'll get into it, especially the pyramid thing more. But

195
00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:27,360
Speaker 1: these are the sort of things that it's easy to

196
00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:30,080
Speaker 1: look at and say, how did people ever figure this out?

197
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:32,960
Speaker 1: I thought about that with bread before you know, I'm like,

198
00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:36,040
Speaker 1: this is amazing. It's so tasty, and I if you,

199
00:10:36,160 --> 00:10:38,640
Speaker 1: if you you show me where it came from, and

200
00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:41,840
Speaker 1: I would. I can't imagine ancient people putting that together.

201
00:10:41,880 --> 00:10:44,160
Speaker 1: But of course they did put it together. Do you

202
00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:47,160
Speaker 1: think aliens were the ones that taught us to drink

203
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:50,680
Speaker 1: the milk that comes out of goats and cows. Oh

204
00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:53,760
Speaker 1: well that is that isn't another interesting topic of topic.

205
00:10:53,920 --> 00:10:56,120
Speaker 1: I believe Julie and I did an episode that got

206
00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:57,559
Speaker 1: into some of that in the past. Because there are

207
00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:01,600
Speaker 1: different theories regarding how we made this leap. One of

208
00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:05,240
Speaker 1: them one of the theories is that it actually involved

209
00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:09,000
Speaker 1: a drinking contest, like essentially dares and double dares among

210
00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:12,320
Speaker 1: ancient people. I bet you can't down that glass of

211
00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:15,199
Speaker 1: of of sheep's milk. Let's see what happens. Okay, So

212
00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:18,640
Speaker 1: it would be like, drink this crocodile's urine, drink this

213
00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:21,720
Speaker 1: goat's milk, but then the goat milk was kind of tasty. Yeah,

214
00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 1: I mean it actually would play into some of these

215
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:27,600
Speaker 1: ancient astronaut ideas, like the aliens arrive and they're like, hey,

216
00:11:27,920 --> 00:11:31,000
Speaker 1: you uh monkey creature, Um, can you drink the milk

217
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,400
Speaker 1: of that other one without becoming ill? Let's see what happens,

218
00:11:33,559 --> 00:11:37,040
Speaker 1: just doing experiments on us. Yeah. Uh. So we can't

219
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:40,960
Speaker 1: rehash all of von Danikin's arguments from his book, but

220
00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:43,240
Speaker 1: I think just to give you a flavor of the

221
00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:46,880
Speaker 1: kinds of things he argues and and what it feels

222
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:50,600
Speaker 1: like to participate with his arguments. We should just give

223
00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:53,560
Speaker 1: an example from several of his major lines of evidence,

224
00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:56,319
Speaker 1: and one of the major types of arguments he makes

225
00:11:56,480 --> 00:12:01,080
Speaker 1: is about ancient projects that supposedly we're beyond our power

226
00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:03,480
Speaker 1: to produce at the time. Right, So this is you

227
00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:05,720
Speaker 1: know you mentioned how do we learn to bake bread?

228
00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:09,120
Speaker 1: How do we learn to build pyramids? Von Dannikin essentially

229
00:12:09,160 --> 00:12:12,840
Speaker 1: will look back and say, hey, we couldn't have done

230
00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:15,319
Speaker 1: that back then. Must have been aliens showing us how

231
00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:18,080
Speaker 1: to do it or assisting us with their technology. So

232
00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:21,080
Speaker 1: classic example of this you'll often hear is the pyramids

233
00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:23,400
Speaker 1: of ancient Egypt. Right, if you've got an ancient Aliens

234
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,240
Speaker 1: person talking to you, they'll say, look, there's no way

235
00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:29,319
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians could have built the pyramids. These these

236
00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:32,319
Speaker 1: stones that the pyramids are made of or gigantic How

237
00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:34,520
Speaker 1: did they get them to the site? How did they

238
00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:36,800
Speaker 1: build them with such precision? You know that, how do

239
00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:40,000
Speaker 1: they move them so far? It's just impossible. They couldn't

240
00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:42,160
Speaker 1: have done it, right, Why did they build it like that?

241
00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:45,000
Speaker 1: Why were they looking up? Yeah? Vandanakin makes that argument too.

242
00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:47,360
Speaker 1: He says the pyramids they seem to be oriented with

243
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:50,600
Speaker 1: some kind of relationship to the stars, and Egyptian astronomy

244
00:12:50,679 --> 00:12:53,080
Speaker 1: was not advanced enough for them to have had this

245
00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:55,640
Speaker 1: kind of like knowledge of the stars when they built them.

246
00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:57,760
Speaker 1: That seems to be wrong. But yeah, if you look

247
00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:00,079
Speaker 1: at pyramids like the Great Pyramid of Giza built in

248
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:03,440
Speaker 1: the twenty century BC, it's true that we used to

249
00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:07,320
Speaker 1: consider it a great mystery how these amazing marvels like

250
00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:10,800
Speaker 1: the Pyramids were built in a time before modern metal working.

251
00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:13,360
Speaker 1: I mean, these people didn't have iron tools or anything.

252
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:16,280
Speaker 1: They were probably working with like copper tools. Uh, this

253
00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:19,600
Speaker 1: is really before any kind of advanced wheels of any sort.

254
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,480
Speaker 1: But as best I can tell, modern archaeologists and Egyptologists

255
00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:26,280
Speaker 1: do not believe that it was beyond the power of

256
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:29,280
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians to create these marvels like the Pyramids.

257
00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:32,160
Speaker 1: We now know a lot about the construction of the pyramids.

258
00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:35,920
Speaker 1: So the pyramids were built through massive coordination of engineers

259
00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:39,920
Speaker 1: and skilled workers. Granite building materials were probably floated down

260
00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:43,920
Speaker 1: the Nile on rafts from quarry locations upstream. Uh. And

261
00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:48,560
Speaker 1: we've discovered, through for example, ancient illustrations, that giant stone

262
00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:52,120
Speaker 1: blocks were dragged into place using ropes and sledges. So

263
00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:54,880
Speaker 1: workers would have ropes and they pull a sledge with

264
00:13:54,920 --> 00:13:57,600
Speaker 1: a stone on it. And there was even a recent

265
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:01,400
Speaker 1: discovery about how wetting the sand underneath the sledge could

266
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:04,120
Speaker 1: reduce the friction between the sledge and the ground, helping

267
00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:07,400
Speaker 1: ease the transport of the blocks. And then there's other

268
00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:10,240
Speaker 1: evidence that indicates, for example, the height of the pyramids

269
00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:13,760
Speaker 1: was achieved with the use of wait for it, ramps.

270
00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:17,800
Speaker 1: But where they get the ramps? Joe, clearly aliens crazy? No,

271
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:20,040
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, how could they have figured out that

272
00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:23,520
Speaker 1: you could pile earth up to make a ramp? But yeah,

273
00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,240
Speaker 1: So this kind of argumentation, it seems to me to

274
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:29,760
Speaker 1: be based on basically just a type of prejudice, prejudice

275
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:33,280
Speaker 1: against the abilities of the ancient people. Ancient people might

276
00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:36,560
Speaker 1: have had less scientific knowledge and less technology than we do,

277
00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:39,400
Speaker 1: but they weren't stupid. In fact, they were really clever,

278
00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,880
Speaker 1: often more clever than we are, because they had to

279
00:14:41,920 --> 00:14:45,640
Speaker 1: accomplish their great works with so much less. Yeah, they

280
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:48,320
Speaker 1: were not, as the saying goes, standing on the shoulders

281
00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:50,400
Speaker 1: of giants. No, they had to they had to be

282
00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,800
Speaker 1: giants themselves in order to do great things. So that's

283
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:56,080
Speaker 1: one type of argument, but then you've got a couple others.

284
00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:59,080
Speaker 1: One is like looking at ancient art and saying, well,

285
00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:02,480
Speaker 1: that depicts a lilians and spaceships. So you could look

286
00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:06,200
Speaker 1: at ancient figurines from Japan and say that looks like

287
00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:08,840
Speaker 1: an alien in a space suit. Or you can look

288
00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:11,920
Speaker 1: at the Nasca Lines of Peru, where von Danikin says

289
00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:15,560
Speaker 1: their quote very reminiscent of aircraft parking bays on a

290
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:19,040
Speaker 1: modern airport. I look at that, I don't know, I mean,

291
00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:23,800
Speaker 1: it looks to me like their giant works of art. Yeah,

292
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:25,960
Speaker 1: this is one of those cases where you're taking several

293
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,800
Speaker 1: logical leaps to get to a more grandiose explanation. Yeah.

294
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:31,840
Speaker 1: And it's not to say that things like the Nasca

295
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:35,680
Speaker 1: lions aren't themselves very interesting and mysterious, Like who did

296
00:15:35,680 --> 00:15:38,080
Speaker 1: the people who created them think they were making them for?

297
00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:42,040
Speaker 1: If they're too big for the average human to actually see, Uh,

298
00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:44,360
Speaker 1: they must have had the idea of like gods in

299
00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:47,360
Speaker 1: the sky or even maybe somehow people traveling in the

300
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:50,040
Speaker 1: sky to look down and see them. So you know

301
00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:53,040
Speaker 1: that's not impossible. But there are these mysteries and and

302
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:55,520
Speaker 1: and they're very interesting, but I don't think you need

303
00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:58,560
Speaker 1: to jump to this is a landing strip for spacecraft

304
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:02,600
Speaker 1: or this is in you know, an aircraft parking bay. Likewise,

305
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,720
Speaker 1: another way he looks at ancient art is the Mayan

306
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 1: temple of the inscriptions at pelen k Robert. Had you

307
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:12,400
Speaker 1: ever seen this carving before? Um? If I had, I'd

308
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:14,920
Speaker 1: forgotten about it. It's it's very cool because you see

309
00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:19,640
Speaker 1: this individual that's kind of in a recline position. Uh.

310
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:23,120
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not sure how how I would

311
00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:27,320
Speaker 1: have interpreted it had I not been looking at it,

312
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:30,280
Speaker 1: uh as part of the research for this episode, like

313
00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:33,200
Speaker 1: knowing what people would read into it, Because knowing what

314
00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:35,040
Speaker 1: people would read into it, I look at it and

315
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:40,480
Speaker 1: I'm I'm reminded of hr Geeger's concept for the pilot

316
00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:44,320
Speaker 1: that they encounter in Alien, that the giant, you know,

317
00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,080
Speaker 1: that the Titan character that is uh fossilized in this

318
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:53,640
Speaker 1: uh this command chair within the crashed Alien spaceship the engineer. Yeah. Yeah,

319
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:57,720
Speaker 1: it's sort of a similar reclining pose surrounded by I

320
00:16:57,720 --> 00:16:59,880
Speaker 1: don't know what what you'd call it, kind of ornate

321
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,400
Speaker 1: objects that look like all then maybe that could be

322
00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:06,040
Speaker 1: some form of technology. So this carving from this Mayan

323
00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:10,080
Speaker 1: temple is from the sarcophagus of the Mayan lord Pakal

324
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:13,520
Speaker 1: the Great, who lived in the seventh century CE. And

325
00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:16,160
Speaker 1: from what I've read, the stuff in the carving are

326
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,240
Speaker 1: common Mayan religious symbols. They're the kinds of things you

327
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:23,920
Speaker 1: see on Mayan carvings that indicate things about the Mayan

328
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,080
Speaker 1: mythology and cosmology. But of course von Dannikin and the

329
00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:30,760
Speaker 1: ancient Aliens people they say, well, it's got a guy

330
00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,680
Speaker 1: reclining and he's surrounded by all these objects and lines

331
00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:38,080
Speaker 1: and weird looking stuff, and so maybe what this is

332
00:17:38,080 --> 00:17:42,359
Speaker 1: is it's a person who is reclining in a spaceship

333
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:45,480
Speaker 1: that's ready for takeoff, and they're surrounded by all these

334
00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:49,280
Speaker 1: technological objects. It's a fun read on a piece of art.

335
00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:52,919
Speaker 1: I love that idea, but but again it comes it

336
00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:55,080
Speaker 1: comes down to the question is this really the best

337
00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:59,400
Speaker 1: explanation for what we're looking at here? Yeah, good question. Again,

338
00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:02,600
Speaker 1: I think the answer is probably no. And then finally

339
00:18:02,760 --> 00:18:06,280
Speaker 1: another line of evidences, for example, ancient descriptions of things

340
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,640
Speaker 1: in literature and religion. So we I think we've talked

341
00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:11,720
Speaker 1: on the podcast before about the first chapter of the

342
00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:14,199
Speaker 1: Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. Robert, I have

343
00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 1: we done this one before? I know it came up

344
00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:19,640
Speaker 1: when Christian and I talked about John d and sort

345
00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:23,280
Speaker 1: of the various occult ideas about angels, because we talked

346
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:27,879
Speaker 1: about how how rad the angels are in the Old Testament,

347
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:32,159
Speaker 1: you know, with interlocking wheels and uh a sense of

348
00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:35,600
Speaker 1: like multiple eyes and strange fires. Yeah. So just to

349
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:39,080
Speaker 1: give a brief reading, the author, supposedly, the prophet Ezekiel

350
00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:41,399
Speaker 1: rights that he had a vision one day the heavens

351
00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:45,240
Speaker 1: were opened. Quote. Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind

352
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,080
Speaker 1: was coming out of the north, a great cloud with

353
00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:52,439
Speaker 1: raging fire engulfing itself, and brightness was all around it

354
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:55,720
Speaker 1: and radiating out of its midst, like the color of amber.

355
00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,760
Speaker 1: Out of the midst of the fire. Also from within

356
00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:01,960
Speaker 1: it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this

357
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,560
Speaker 1: was their appearance. They had the likeness of a man.

358
00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:08,600
Speaker 1: Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings.

359
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 1: Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet

360
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:14,679
Speaker 1: were like the soles of calves feet. They sparkled like

361
00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:18,199
Speaker 1: the color of burnished bronze. Now, as I looked at

362
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:20,879
Speaker 1: the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth

363
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 1: beside each living creature, with its four faces. The appearance

364
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:27,760
Speaker 1: of the wheels and their workings was like the color

365
00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:31,679
Speaker 1: of barrel, and all four had the same likeness. The

366
00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:34,920
Speaker 1: appearance of their workings was as it were, a wheel

367
00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:37,480
Speaker 1: in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they

368
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:40,480
Speaker 1: went toward any one of the four directions. They did

369
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 1: not turn aside when they went. As for their rims,

370
00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:47,240
Speaker 1: they were so high, they were awesome, and their rims

371
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:50,800
Speaker 1: were full of eyes all around the four of them.

372
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 1: That is awesome imagery. You can't deny the amazing power

373
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,639
Speaker 1: of that description. Yeah, it does it. It sounds and

374
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:03,280
Speaker 1: feels like an counter with something beyond the human experience

375
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:06,479
Speaker 1: and God. And certainly if you want to say it's

376
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:09,600
Speaker 1: an alien, that would make sense to But are you

377
00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:12,639
Speaker 1: convinced that number one, the author really saw this and

378
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:15,800
Speaker 1: this isn't merely a composed narrative serving a religious purpose.

379
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 1: Number two, if the author did actually see this, that

380
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:23,680
Speaker 1: it wasn't a hallucination, right one, either caused by quote

381
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: unquote natural causes, you know, some sort of religious trance

382
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 1: or the consumption of some sort of psychedelic substance, either

383
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:33,040
Speaker 1: one or or just a dream or dream too, or

384
00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: pure daydreaming, pure imagination. We've talked about that before too.

385
00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:39,320
Speaker 1: We often want to limit just the pure imagination of

386
00:20:39,359 --> 00:20:41,879
Speaker 1: ancient people's and say, oh, well, they actually saw something,

387
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:46,159
Speaker 1: or clearly they were eating strange mushrooms. But really you

388
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:49,520
Speaker 1: can we I think everyone around us can attest to this.

389
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,440
Speaker 1: You can create amazing things without bumping your head or

390
00:20:54,280 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 1: or or eating something odd. I totally agree. I always

391
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:00,880
Speaker 1: want to emphasize that point. And then only are you convinced.

392
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 1: Even if this was something physical the author actually saw,

393
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:07,560
Speaker 1: was it aliens? Maybe it's something else being described in

394
00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 1: a kind of vague and imaginative way. So von Danikin

395
00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 1: is convinced, He says, quote the description is astonishingly good.

396
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:17,639
Speaker 1: Ezekiel says that each wheel was in the middle of

397
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,119
Speaker 1: another one, an optical allusion to our present way of thinking.

398
00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:23,520
Speaker 1: What he saw was one of those special vehicles that

399
00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:27,920
Speaker 1: Americans use in the desert and swampy terrain. Ezekiel observed

400
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:31,040
Speaker 1: that the wheels rose from the ground simultaneously with the

401
00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 1: winged creatures. He was quite right. Naturally, the wheels of

402
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:38,520
Speaker 1: a multipurpose vehicle, say an amphibious helicopter do not stay

403
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:40,879
Speaker 1: on the ground when it takes off. What do you

404
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:43,159
Speaker 1: think of that? Read Robert. So the idea is is

405
00:21:43,240 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 1: he beheld an alien in a in a a fan boat,

406
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 1: a swamp boat, right and buy you billy alien by

407
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 1: you billy. Well, that kind of that kind of kicks

408
00:21:51,359 --> 00:21:53,760
Speaker 1: the wind out of this for me. If I think

409
00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:56,040
Speaker 1: of it as that, I like the idea of it

410
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,480
Speaker 1: just being interlocking cosmic wheels with eyeballs all over the place.

411
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:03,640
Speaker 1: I like that too. Von Dannikin also argues that it

412
00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:07,600
Speaker 1: must have been aliens and not God's Ezekiel is describing,

413
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:11,720
Speaker 1: because quote Ezekiel gives precise details of the landing of

414
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 1: this vehicle. He describes a craft that comes from the north,

415
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:18,760
Speaker 1: emitting rays and gleaming and raising a gigantic cloud of

416
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:21,679
Speaker 1: desert sand. Now, the God of the Old Testament was

417
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 1: supposed to be omnipotent. Then why does this almighty God

418
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:28,439
Speaker 1: have to come hurtling up from a particular direction. Cannot

419
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:31,639
Speaker 1: he be anywhere he wants without all this noise and fuss?

420
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:35,120
Speaker 1: Now I have to say Again, I don't really buy

421
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 1: that argument at all, because it strikes me as a

422
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: pretty shallow and uninformed reading of the Old Testament. I

423
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: think the Bible is full of references to God and

424
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:48,239
Speaker 1: other divine beings having physical bodies and physical limitations and

425
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: being subject to normal corporeal existence. Like remember after Adam

426
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden,

427
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 1: the Book of Genesis says that they quote heard the

428
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 1: sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in

429
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife

430
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among

431
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: the trees of the garden. So he's walking in the

432
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: garden and he can't see them if they hide. Well.

433
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 1: This is one of the points that Julian James made

434
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,400
Speaker 1: about the Bible, taking into account both Testaments, is that

435
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: in the beginning, things are very physical, and then they

436
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 1: become less physical as you progress. God begins as something

437
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 1: that is seen and nearly felt, and then he becomes

438
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,360
Speaker 1: something that is occasionally seen and only heard, and then

439
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:38,119
Speaker 1: the then it's a voice that one is is longing for,

440
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: one is reaching and grasping for. Well, I would absolutely

441
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,479
Speaker 1: agree that there appears to be a chronological progression over

442
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: the history of religion, of the steady abstracting of religious

443
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: beings like a long long ago. If you look into

444
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: the most ancient religions, there does not seem to be

445
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: a problem with a vision of ancient angels approaching from

446
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: the north and blowing up a lot of dust and

447
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,879
Speaker 1: causing a physical disturbance when they arrive. Um. I mean,

448
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: I've talked about this on the show before. I think

449
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 1: this clear distinction that we make between aliens and gods

450
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: is sort of a post Enlightenment distinction informed by scientific

451
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: thinking and discovery and ideas about physics and biology. And

452
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: I don't think that distinction would necessarily make a whole

453
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: lot of sense to all of the people of the

454
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:24,160
Speaker 1: ancient world. And and an Old Testament angel might show

455
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: up and you might need invited into your house or

456
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: wrestle it out out in the yard. Uh, that that

457
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: sort of thing. The gods of the Greeks are taking

458
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: physical form and seeking to engage in intercourse with human

459
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: beings exactly so so we think like, Okay, gods are ethereal,

460
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:47,359
Speaker 1: supernatural beings. They exist outside our spacetime universe. They're free

461
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: from the bounds of the laws of physics. And meanwhile,

462
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 1: aliens are biological organisms like us. You know, they they're

463
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: from some other planet. They may have powerful biological or

464
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 1: technological abilities that we don't have, but they're bound by

465
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: the laws of physics. And I just don't get a

466
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:04,880
Speaker 1: lot of this distinction when you read ancient literature, when

467
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 1: you read these ancient religious texts, you don't get the

468
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 1: feeling that this distinction necessarily would have been salient to them.

469
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: Gods often had physical bodies, like you say, they could

470
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: be injured or killed. They lived in distant but physically

471
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: solid places in the mountains or in the sky, which

472
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: they believed there was ground in the sky that you

473
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 1: could walk around. They could be bound. That would be

474
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: like the ultimate doom for a god of Olympus to

475
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: be bound somewhere. Absolutely Prometheus. Yeah, And speaking of Prometheus,

476
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: here's one of the craziest things. Many of the gods,

477
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 1: not not always, but many of the gods in ancient

478
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:38,639
Speaker 1: religions clearly get their power not from some kind of

479
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: supernatural nature, but from artifacts that they possess essentially, some

480
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: kind of ancient vision of a technology. Right, They've got

481
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 1: some thing that gives them power just like a technological

482
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: alien would. Yeah, magical items. So anyway, that wraps up

483
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: my basic description of of the flavor of von Danikin's

484
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 1: type of arguments. I think we can already see a

485
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: lot of the flaws within it, but I think it's

486
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:08,400
Speaker 1: worth exploring more the history of how this idea developed

487
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: and what a better version of this type of hypothesis

488
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,959
Speaker 1: might be. The thing about Chariots of the Gods, however,

489
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: is that it is an essential book to discuss because

490
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: it definitely launched ancient astronaut speculation into the public consciousness. Absolutely,

491
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 1: it emerged, and it came along I think really at

492
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: just the right time, because this is a period of

493
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 1: time we've discussed on the show before a period of

494
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,959
Speaker 1: rapid technological change in the second half of the twentieth century.

495
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: And remember it was published in nine So just think

496
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: of all the things that are going on. You know,

497
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: we are reaching out into space. We are we're we're

498
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,680
Speaker 1: reaching for the moon, We're sending out probes to study

499
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: the cosmos and even bring word of our existence to

500
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: potential other forms of life out there. I mean, this

501
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: is the same energy that's going to lead to the

502
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: establishment of ct IN. But it was also a period

503
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: of time mean which supernatural experiences took a decidedly sci

504
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:08,400
Speaker 1: fi turn, in many cases entailing UFO sightings, alien abduction

505
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: experiences that we have a whole episodes about here. And

506
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: von Donnikin's book took the notion of alien inspired alternative

507
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 1: archaeology and ancient alien visitors and propelled it into the

508
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: mainstream consciousness, first as a book and then his various

509
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: spinoff bits of media. And we we should be clear

510
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 1: here von Donnikin popularized the notion, but he was not

511
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: the originator. Well it depends no, No, you're you're right

512
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,439
Speaker 1: about that. He he was not the originator. I was

513
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 1: gonna say, I was gonna make a distinction between fiction

514
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 1: and nonfiction. Let's say, even in nonfiction, not necessarily the originator, right.

515
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,199
Speaker 1: So one of the sources we looked to him this

516
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: was a Skeptic magazine article titled Chariot Rror of the

517
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: Gods by Jason Colavito, and he points out that you

518
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: had sci fi writers such as in specifically HP Lovecraft,

519
00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: exploring the idea of ancient aliens visiting the Earth and

520
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: being basically the responsible agents for our various achievements and

521
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: our very existence. Yeah, absolutely, if if you're not familiar

522
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 1: with love Crafts alien agent aliens mythos, just to read

523
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: a quote from Call of Cthulhu that also appears in

524
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 1: Colavito's article. Quote, there had been eons when other things

525
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: ruled on the earth, and they had had great cities.

526
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: Remains of them were still to be found as Cyclopean

527
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast

528
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 1: epics of time before men came, but there were arts

529
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: which could revive them when the stars had come round

530
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity.

531
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: They had indeed come themselves from the stars and brought

532
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: their images with them. And of course the original title

533
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: for that that story by Lovecraft was the Call of Cthulhu.

534
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: But the Colavida even goes so far as to line

535
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: up the nineteen sixties European popularity of love Crafts fiction

536
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: with the publication of The Chariots of the Gods. Yeah,

537
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: that's totally right. I mean we should mention Morning of

538
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: the Magicians. Oh yes, so I've never read it, but

539
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with it by reputation. This was in a

540
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty book by Louis Paulis and Jacques Bergier. Uh.

541
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: And this is a book that I actually learned about

542
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: on the DVD special features for the Nazi zombie film

543
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: Shockwaves from seven, which is, if you haven't seen it,

544
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: a fabulous film, uh, with Nazi zombies in Florida. And

545
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: it was inspired at least in part by the Morning

546
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: of the Magicians, which supposedly also gets into uh, you know,

547
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: ideas and conspiracies related to Nazi interest in the occult. Well,

548
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: I mean so. Colavito points out that this book Morning

549
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: of the Magicians was inspired directly by Lovecraft's fiction, as

550
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: the authors were actually editors of a French magazine called

551
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: Planet or Planet I guess, which printed French translations of

552
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: Lovecraft throughout the sixties. In Traces of the Gods, Ancient

553
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: Astronauts as a vision of our future, Johan as Richter

554
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: points out several additional precursors here, uh so possible first

555
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: ancient astronauts speculation concept in sci fi comes from Edison's

556
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Service, published in eight

557
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this, No, I had not either,

558
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: and that it basically discusses the idea that the Pyramids

559
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: were built by Martians. There's also an eighteen seven novel

560
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: by Kurd loss Fitz that explored this sort of contact

561
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: between interplanetary cultures, and of course he points out Lovecraft.

562
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: But then there's also Perry Roden, a German science fiction

563
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: series running since nineteen sixty one, and it apparently gets

564
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: into some of these ideas as well. So it seems like,

565
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: especially if you go into the fiction realm, the nineteen

566
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: sixties were full of ancient astronauts stuff. Yeah, it's just

567
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: von Donkin had the book that really just took it

568
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: and propelled it into the mainstream. Now, of course this

569
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: ended up making its way into other fictional properties that

570
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: were even more and stream like movies. Oh yes, uh,

571
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: you know, just to name a few here, I probably

572
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: the greatest example is two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey.

573
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: You know, I never think of that as an ancient

574
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: alien story, but that it is what it is, right,

575
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: the idea. Yeah, so there's a there's a monolith that

576
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: appears on Earth at some point during our evolution and

577
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: sparks this revolution and tool use among our ancient ancestors. Yeah,

578
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: and it's It's one of the reasons we don't think

579
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: about it much is because it is such a a

580
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: thoughtful and intelligent treatment of the concept. And we'll actually

581
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: get into to it when we start discussing Sagan's Carl

582
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: Sagan's thoughts on ancient alien speculation, because some of the

583
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: things that he say might might take place given a

584
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: situation like this line up directly with the plot of

585
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. But then you have you have

586
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: other films as well. For instance, God told me to

587
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: the Larry Cohen film about Christ Like hermaphroditic aliens, that

588
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: that definitely has an ancient alien vibe to it. Of course,

589
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: the Ridley Scott film Prometheus is it's rich with with

590
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: ancient alien speculation as well. I didn't see this film,

591
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: but Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull gets into this

592
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: as well, Right, it's this an ancient aliens uh speculation film. Yeah,

593
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: it is easily the weakest of the Indiana Jones movies,

594
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: I think explicitly because Indiana Jones it didn't need to

595
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: go into the sci fi realm. I think it works

596
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: best when it's integrated deeply with earth based mythology. Yeah,

597
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: I agree, like the Ark of the Covenant is terrifying

598
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: and awesome in in Raiders because you don't know what

599
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: it is. It is this mysterious supernatural thing and maybe

600
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: it is alien in nature, but it is it is

601
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: either it's so strange that it is alien. Either way. Also,

602
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 1: the c G I go for it didn't help um. Now,

603
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: one of my favorites that I almost didn't think to

604
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: include is The Life of Brian, the Monty Python religious epic. Uh,

605
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: there's a there's a brief alien interlude. I recall, there's

606
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: like a chase sequence with the character of Brian and

607
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: he is accidentally abducted by aliens and goes on a

608
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: brief adventure and it's it's so perfect because it's so accidental.

609
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: The aliens don't seem to be trying to do anything.

610
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: They just sort of happened to run into the story

611
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: for a little bit and then they're out of it

612
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: and no knowledge is getting like, there's no there's no

613
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: wisdom imparted upon Brian by this experience. It just scares

614
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: the crap out of him. I don't know this for sure,

615
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: but I'm going to speculate that the reason that is

616
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: in the film is simply because somebody wanted to create

617
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: some alien spaceships and alien sets and and alien costumes,

618
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: and they wanted a way to fit it in. So

619
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: they just said, oh, let's have them get abducted for

620
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad they

621
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: got to make it, because it does seem like the

622
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: kind of situation where producers might say, is this necessary

623
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: to the script, because we could cut this whole alien thing,

624
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: and then we don't have to build a spaceship or

625
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: an extraterrestrial and we could cut down and maybe you know,

626
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: at least a day's worth of filming, and then Terry

627
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: Gilliams like, I already built it. Uh. They're also less

628
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: memorable films that we might mention Stargate. I say less memorable,

629
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: but I definitely remember an Egyptian god having his his

630
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: head teleported off and that in that film that was

631
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: at least one awesome quality kill. Yeah. The best thing

632
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: about it I recall is like, is like attack by

633
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,439
Speaker 1: Edge of Teleportation Zone. Of course, the fifth element has

634
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: ancient Aliens plot element as well. Yeah it does. And

635
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: uh and for any of our pyramids, Oh yeah, that's right,

636
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: And speaking of pyramids, Uh, here's one something for our

637
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: our Doctor Who listeners out there. If you're a fan

638
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 1: of the the The Old Doctor Who episodes, there was

639
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: an episode called the Pyramids of Mars that has some

640
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: ancient alien speculation um uh intrigue in it. And there's

641
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,760
Speaker 1: this this wonderful moment where this uh like Egyptian deity

642
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 1: servant steps out of the like a portal and says,

643
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: I bring SUITEX gift of death to all humanity. And

644
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 1: of course there are plenty of other examples in the

645
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: film and literature that we could bring up, and we

646
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you the listeners, what your

647
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: favorite bits of fictional ancient astronaut intrigue you happen to be.

648
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 1: But clearly it's been a very inspiring idea to many people,

649
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: Like it's something that caught on fast and we haven't

650
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: let go of since. Now. Mentioned of Prometheus is key here,

651
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: and we've already touched on both the movie and the

652
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: actual character the titan Prometheus who brought fire to the

653
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: ancient Greeks in in the myth And it's interesting because

654
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: we we see this motif time and time again a

655
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 1: myth in which a god red demigod gives a technology

656
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 1: to ancient people. UH. These are frequently referred to as

657
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: culture bearers. So we have Prometheus the firebringer. UH. In

658
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: Chinese mythology, we have Sujin the fire driller, who, who

659
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 1: fulfills the same role, brings the technology of fire to mortals.

660
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 1: Uh and UH. I have to admit that, even though

661
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: I don't personally put a lot of of stock or

662
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: faith in in a a s, I still read these

663
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: accounts or look at visual interpretations, and part of me

664
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: always thinks, oh, yeah, it was totally an ancient alien.

665
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: That it just makes sense. What else would Promethe this be?

666
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 1: But of course this is always flawed logic because I

667
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: feel like one of the big things to drive home

668
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 1: here is that God's in our myths are not merely

669
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: mislabeled aliens. Rather, I think it's the reverse. Aliens are

670
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,240
Speaker 1: essentially rebranded gods. I agree with you a hundred percent

671
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: on that. I think you're exactly right. Our visions of

672
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 1: aliens come from our mythological visions of gods, and they

673
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: continually are influenced by them. I mean, think of the

674
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: way the movie Prometheus is echoing all of these echoing

675
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: all of these themes from Greek myth Yeah, exactly. I

676
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 1: guess we need to take a break, don't we. Yes,

677
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

678
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: Thank all right, we're back now, Robert, you mentioned I

679
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: think that you'd actually seen some of these Ancient Alien

680
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: shows that they show on what the History Channel or

681
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 1: one of those one of those subsidiary networks. I have

682
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 1: never watched any of the Ancient Alien shows, but I

683
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: did see Leonard Nemys in search Off or at least

684
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 1: reruns of it on A and E back in the

685
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 1: late nineties. Was that the sort of the proto Ancient Aliens?

686
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: In a way? I remember them exploring topics like this

687
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 1: and uh and and also stuff like big Foot? Was

688
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 1: Bigfoot an alien as well? Probably? Yeah, I want to

689
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: I'm gonna drop a fact on you. We'll see how

690
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: you deal with this. Did you know that Ancient Aliens

691
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 1: is still on still making new episodes. It's currently on

692
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 1: season thirteen. How you like them? Apple, It's it's I mean,

693
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: having looked at some of the examples that are frequently

694
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: brought up, there are a lot of There are a

695
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: number of examples that are used, that are brought up

696
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 1: to support uh, ancient alien speculation. But it seems like

697
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: you'd run out of the really good ones by at

698
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: least season eight. Yeah. God, I mean not to say

699
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: that Ancient Aliens is not a fun idea. It's fun

700
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: to speculate about, fun to play with. But given that,

701
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 1: I think you and I agree that there's really no

702
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: good evidence anywhere, how do they get that far? Yeah?

703
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 1: I think it's it's safe to say that they don't

704
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: get that get to this point by, you know, through

705
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: through anything resembling accurate balance, consideration of scientific fact or

706
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: archaeological fact. They're basically writing documentary fiction, right Yeah. Brian

707
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: Switek described the show in Smithsonian Magazine as what you quote,

708
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: what you would get if you drop some creationist propaganda, Uh,

709
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: Eric van Donnikin's Chariots of the Gods and stock footage

710
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: from Jurassic Fight Club into a blender. What results is

711
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: a slimy and incomprehensible mixture of idle speculation and outright fabrications.

712
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: Now he's discussing an episode of the Ancient Aliens show.

713
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: I think where they they're they're talking about dinosaurs. Okay,

714
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 1: read I read this article and he says that there's

715
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: basically they've got all their quote experts on talking about

716
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: how aliens might have wiped out the dinosaurs in order

717
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: to make room for humankind to ascend, and so they've

718
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: got animations of dinosaurs running away from spaceships that are

719
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 1: blasting them and stuff. It does feel a lot like

720
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: creationist propaganda at that point where you just especially when

721
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: you start using the dinosaurs, you know, because I feel

722
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: like then you're really you're trying to get to the children.

723
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: That's true. It's despicable and unfair. It's like using cartoon

724
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 1: characters on cigarettes. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's why. Just the

725
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: other day I found a creationist book in a lending

726
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: library at at a state park, and I've moved it

727
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: directly from the lending library to a trash can. And

728
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: it was such a satisfying them. You know, some of

729
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: those creations books, they have some good illustrations in them

730
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: that I really enjoy. The illustrations are great. I just, uh,

731
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: I feel like there should be a warning label on

732
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 1: the front, uh, you know, letting you know that this

733
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: is uh, this is not science. Now there was one.

734
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. I think it might have been

735
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: a creationist book by Dwayne Gish, but I'm not positive. Anyway,

736
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: it's it depicts a dinosaur. I think it's a parasar

737
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: alafus paras. How do you say that one? Parasar Lopuskay?

738
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 1: So that's the way one. That's the way my son

739
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: says it, and he's usually better at dinosaur named pronunciation

740
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: than than me. In the illustration, it's breathing fire on

741
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: a t rex. It's just like, yeah, that one it

742
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: breathes fire. Well, that explains the yeah, the complex nasal composition.

743
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: So anyway, back to Chariots of the Gods. We've recently

744
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: discussed some beautifully presented hypotheses by writers such as Julian

745
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 1: Jaynes and Letterard and Leonard Schlaine. Uh. You know that

746
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 1: that make a case for something that that you might

747
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: not accept completely. You know, it's maybe taking a radical

748
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: approach to our interpretation of the past and to just

749
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 1: how humans interact with with ideas. Chariots of the Gods

750
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,879
Speaker 1: is not on the same level with these books. In fact,

751
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 1: I would say that the author of ann most reminds

752
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,839
Speaker 1: me of is probably l Ron Hubbard, And I say

753
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 1: that as somebody who who picked up l Ron Hubbard

754
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: with an open mind, saying, you know, all right, this

755
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: this is this is a book that means a lot

756
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 1: to a fair number of people. I want to see

757
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: what there is to get excited about in the introduction alone. Uh,

758
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: von Donnikin immediately goes into attack mode on anyone who

759
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 1: might disagree with his notion that archaeological and religious evidence

760
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 1: definitely supports the idea that ancient aliens visited the earth

761
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 1: and kickstarted humans from that hate level. Uh and I

762
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 1: feel like I actually have to read just a little

763
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: bit of it here, he said, he writes quote, it

764
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: took courage to write this book, and it will take

765
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: courage to read it. Because its theories and proofs do

766
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: not fit into the mosaic of traditional archaeology constructed so

767
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: laboriously and firmly cemented down. Scholars will call it nonsense

768
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: and and put it on the index of those books

769
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: which are better left unmentioned. Layman will withdraw into the

770
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 1: snail shell of their familiar world when faced with a

771
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 1: probable ability that finding out about our past will be

772
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 1: even more mysterious and adventurous than finding out about the future.

773
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: So and that continues for for paragraphs afterwards as well,

774
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:17,799
Speaker 1: where he's it's he's not saying exclamation points in it. Yes, yeah,

775
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: he's not making He's not saying I have an interesting idea.

776
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but I'd like you

777
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: to think about it. He's saying, Look, let's just get

778
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 1: this out of the way. If you're not down with

779
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:28,959
Speaker 1: this idea, you're a coward. Well, I mean we should

780
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: try to be critical of ourselves and skeptical of the

781
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: skeptical mindset, right, But I mean we we discuss and

782
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: entertain radical hypotheses and strange ideas. We try to bring

783
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 1: a skeptical mind to them, say, Okay, are they actually

784
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: presenting any good evidence or not? Right? And we will

785
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: and we'll give it that give it that a fair

786
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: fair shake here. I mean, we are giving it a

787
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,799
Speaker 1: fair shake here. But but I also have to say, like,

788
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: there's there's something in the way that the idea is

789
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:56,479
Speaker 1: presented in the book that I think does not give

790
00:42:56,600 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: ancient alien speculation. Uh uh, doesn't do it any favors,

791
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: because it immediately feels a bit um aggressive. Yes, Now,

792
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 1: I I looked back to see like a little bit

793
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: more about what the the immediate reaction was to was

794
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:15,800
Speaker 1: to the book and how it was received in the

795
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: years to follow. And I found a really interesting New

796
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 1: York Times review by a critic, Richard Lingaman. Uh. This

797
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: was from four and he really put the screws to

798
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: the book while also highlighting of von Donakan's background as

799
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: a convicted embezzler, fraud and forger. So here a few, uh,

800
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: a few highlights from the review. Quote. His method is

801
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: to use a negative ancient people's couldn't have done or

802
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,320
Speaker 1: thought all the things they did, to prove a positive

803
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 1: that the ancient people were the beneficiaries of some kind

804
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: of cosmological point for program quote, von Donakin's evidence is

805
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 1: that of an enthusiastic amateur, not scholar, an amateur with

806
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 1: an axe to grind. There is a tendentiousness in his

807
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: book that lies in an urgent, recurring motif. A running

808
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: complaint against the quote high priests of organized religion, who,

809
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: along with the archaeologist, refused to admit the truth as

810
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,279
Speaker 1: von Donakan has revealed it. Actually, most modern religion is

811
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 1: not anti scientific, though it might be might well be

812
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 1: anti von Donakin. The two aren't as synonymous. As for archaeologists,

813
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: I suspect that their professional tendency is to chip away

814
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: at the pot shards of truth rather than make cosmic

815
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: leaps of faith into outer space. And then he goes

816
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: on to say, ironically, for a man who is almost

817
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: gaga about space science, much of what von Donakin purveys

818
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: depends upon ancient religious myths, specifically the recurring references to

819
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,880
Speaker 1: skyborn gods. We come full circle. The man who seeks

820
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: to overturn the religious explanation of man's origins goes not

821
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: to scientific evidence, but to the Bible and Ezekiel's fiery wheels. Now,

822
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: to push back against that somewhat, I would say, though

823
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 1: it would be very hard to be conclusive about the

824
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: idea that are have been visited by aliens if all

825
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: you had to go on was literature, I would say

826
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: that in many cases, if it actually did happen, the

827
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: only evidence we might have would be literature. Exactly. Yeah,

828
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: And as as we'll discuss later on, and Carl Sagan

829
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: said as much as well, this is where we would

830
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: find the evidence. Carl Sagan is a bit more cautious

831
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: and determining what, let's say, a lot more cautious, a

832
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: lot more cautious and in determined like what could possibly

833
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: be identified as evidence. But still he admits that like

834
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: this is what we have. We have this this, this

835
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: is that when you look back on an ancient people's

836
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: and the records they left, you're gonna get religion, You're

837
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: gonna get myth. But this is also uh, you know,

838
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: you see what he's doing here is he's operating off

839
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: of unanswered questions and then immediately navigating to a speculative answer.

840
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: I mean you see this in all kinds of people

841
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: who are trying to prove radical and speculative hypotheses, where

842
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: they take a thing that, you know, take an unknown

843
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: like we don't know how they built the pyramids, and

844
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,280
Speaker 1: back in the sixties and seventies that was largely true.

845
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 1: I mean, we might have had some good hypotheses, but

846
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: it was like, oh wow, you know, there was this

847
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: feat accomplished in the ancient world. How could they have

848
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: done it? And so because that ends in a question

849
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,959
Speaker 1: mark and it's a mystery, now you have license to say, well,

850
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: if we don't know, then it must have been X.

851
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what you can't do. So then Donican

852
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 1: he makes some pretty broad assertions about the archaeological evidence

853
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: he presents. You know, it's not so much of the

854
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: Baghdad battery might have been a battery, now it was

855
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: a battery. It's not that the Japanese do goose sculptures

856
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: um kind of look like they their space suits, but

857
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: they you know, they're definitely representations of space suits. They

858
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: are spacemen. Now they do look really cool. And and

859
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: the thing is in any of these various bits of

860
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: evidence that are brought up, the ones that you know

861
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 1: aren't fraudulent in nature, they are fascinating. Even the ones

862
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: that are fraudulent in nature, we could potentially do a

863
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: whole episode on, but it's it's to to hold them

864
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 1: up then as proof of of ancient aliens. Is uh,

865
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: you know, is this is a step beyond all right,

866
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: So I think we've had we've we've had enough time

867
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: with with Chariots of the Gods. Let's take a break

868
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:12,959
Speaker 1: and when we come back we will see what Karl

869
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: Sagan had to say about all of this. Thank thank alright,

870
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: we're back. Now we've been discussing Eric van denikin Chariots

871
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 1: of the Gods, the ancient aliens speculation, uh, and a

872
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: lot of the problems with it. But one thing that

873
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: this got me wondering about is, I'm reading von dannikin

874
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that this argumentation is not very good. A

875
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 1: lot of the evidence seems very shaky. What would a good,

876
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: well presented case for ancient aliens speculation look like? What

877
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: would it look like if a responsible, thoughtful, skeptical scientist

878
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: approached the question and tried to put together the best

879
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 1: possible case for it. Yeah, because a lot of times

880
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: it seems like you have two types of people looking

881
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,760
Speaker 1: at it. You have like quasi religious advocates of ancient

882
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: aliens and and you have skeptics that are in here

883
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: just to tear it down. You know that there they

884
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: don't seem like they would even entertain any of the

885
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 1: ideas like who would be the person to maybe not

886
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: take the middle ground, but at least approach it with

887
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: with skeptical open mindedness. Yeah, not middle ground, but just

888
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: giving it a fair skeptical shake. Yeah. And and luckily

889
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 1: this is where Karl Sagan enters the picture, because in

890
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: the book Intelligent Life in the Universe, Uh, Sagan teamed

891
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: up with the Soviet astrophysicist Josef Schowski and Uh. Indeed,

892
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 1: in the book they do consider they consider a number

893
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: of possibilities of concerning uh aliens and the possible existence

894
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: of aliens, but they do specifically look at the idea

895
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: of ancient aliens as well. They get into it pretty

896
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: late in the book, but here's some of the basic

897
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 1: ideas they present. So they said that if interstellar travel

898
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 1: is technically possible, then it is quote likely to be

899
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 1: developed by a civilization substantially in advance of our own.

900
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 1: That kind of makes sense. Are not ready for interstellar

901
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 1: travel yet? And uh, and they argue that if you

902
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 1: have a technologically advanced group like this, the enterprise of

903
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: space travel is simply gonna be too rewarding for them

904
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 1: to give up. They're just they're going to to expand

905
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 1: beyond their own planet. I think maybe you could argue

906
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: with that, But then again, I don't know. I think

907
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 1: it's fair to assume that there's an exploratory nature in

908
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: most organisms. Yeah, I mean, certainly when we come back,

909
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:26,760
Speaker 1: we always come back, of course, around to the idea

910
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: that we have to look to our only example of

911
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: life and intelligent life, and that's an intelligent life and

912
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: that's us, and therefore we tend to think, well, they

913
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 1: would do what we do, which is enlightening and at

914
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,359
Speaker 1: times horrifying. Well, okay, so if you try to reason back,

915
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,439
Speaker 1: whereas you say, if an organism has intelligence, it can

916
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:47,479
Speaker 1: probably move right, and moving organisms tend to be either

917
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: like hunting or foraging types of organisms. They're not just

918
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: going to be sitting there and photosynthesizing. So if they

919
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 1: have to seek out types of food, then they probably

920
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: have some kind of exploration instinct. I don't know. I mean,

921
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: that's very rough, but trying to get there. No, No,

922
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: I think you're right. So they say that if interstellar

923
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: space flight is a feasible and then technological civilizations of

924
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:14,719
Speaker 1: the galaxy will be uh An intercommunicating whole, but that

925
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: the communication will be sluggish. So at this point, the

926
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 1: Sagan uh and Schlovski they do some math and they

927
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 1: determine that quote if contacts are made on a purely

928
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: random basis, each star should be visited about once every

929
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: ten to the fifth power years, or I believe that's

930
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 1: what a hundred thousand years. Furthermore, quote, each communitive technological

931
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:40,280
Speaker 1: civilization should be visited by another such civilization about once

932
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 1: every thousand years. So you see where this is going, right,

933
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,800
Speaker 1: given their assumptions. Yes, so they say that it's possible

934
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,720
Speaker 1: then that a starship might have come by the planet

935
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: during the earliest stages of intelligent life on Earth, and

936
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: that it's therefore possible that, yes, and an extracestrial civilization

937
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: could have visited the planet within historical times. Okay with you,

938
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:07,840
Speaker 1: so far, all right? However, this is an important they

939
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: lay out here. Quote, there are no reliable reports of

940
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: direct contact with an extraterrestrial civilization during the last few centuries,

941
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:20,279
Speaker 1: when critical scholarship and non superstitious reasoning have been fairly widespread.

942
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: Any earlier contact story must be encumbered with some degree

943
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 1: of fanciful embellishment due simply to the views prevailing at

944
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: the time of the contact. The extent to which subsequent

945
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,799
Speaker 1: variation and embellishment alters the fat basic fabric of the

946
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 1: account varies with time and circumstance. And so they point

947
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 1: to an example made by historian Mercelles Lead in the

948
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: myth of the Eternal Return or Cosmos in history. And

949
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: this is this is an excellent book that I've referenced

950
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 1: on the show several times before. This is where you

951
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: get into the idea of the terror of history UH

952
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:56,760
Speaker 1: and the cyclical versus linear time. But Eladi pointed out

953
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: just how supernaturally elaborate, elaborate it a simple Romanian romantic

954
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: tragedy became, so it became it transformed into a story

955
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: of ancient magical myth within the subject's own lifetime, so

956
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: that it's like a game of telephone to a certain extent.

957
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: Here it's the myth making just compounds everything, so the

958
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: the individual it's about is still alive, but the stories

959
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: about it have placed it in a magical mythic past. Well.

960
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: The myth making impulses not just to make up a story,

961
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: and for the listener, not just to repeat a story,

962
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: but to repeat a story with your own changes and abolishments.

963
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: Exactly so for our purposes here though, the idea if

964
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: there's if there's science occurring among the magical, then how

965
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 1: are we to tell them apart in the stories that

966
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:49,839
Speaker 1: survived from the ancient past? Good question. On the other hand,

967
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 1: Sagan and Slowski point out that there's also, for instance,

968
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: the the account of six first contact between the telling

969
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:02,280
Speaker 1: that people of North America and sailing vessels. Their quote

970
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: oral rendition contains sufficient information for later reconstruction of the

971
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 1: nature of the encounter. But also these stories contain myth

972
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: mythic descriptions of the ships. Is uh, the of the

973
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 1: the French ships as great black birds with white wings.

974
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: So they say, if you look at the myth, you

975
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: see clear embellishments. But you can also put together historical

976
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: details from them that we can verify as correct. Right.

977
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: So Sagan argues that this means that quote, under certain circumstances,

978
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: a brief contact with an alien civilization will be recorded

979
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: in a reconstructible manner. Uh. However, he drives home that

980
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 1: it needs to be first of all, committed to written

981
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:44,280
Speaker 1: records soon after the event. It has to be there.

982
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: It has to result in major changes for the contacted people,

983
00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: so not our life of Brian example, where nothing is

984
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:54,440
Speaker 1: really affected. Uh. And then also the contactors can't be

985
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 1: a timpting attempting to disguise themselves, so the aliens can't

986
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: be pretending to be humans. So that's going to throw

987
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: everything off right right now, I know they wouldn't say

988
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: that unless we can verify all that stuff, we can

989
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: be sure that alien contact never happened in the past.

990
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 1: They would just say that, you know, we're not justified

991
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 1: in moving to that conclusion until we meet the following criteria, right.

992
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,359
Speaker 1: And they also say that you just can't look for

993
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: sky gods. It's just too obvious. The sky is just

994
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: too obvious a place to position your gods, Like the

995
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: only other place to have your gods live is in

996
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: the deep ocean, or just in the ocean if you

997
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:33,319
Speaker 1: are a seafaring people. Mountaintops or mountaintops. Yeah, but just

998
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: these are just obvious places for gods to be. You

999
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 1: can't say, oh, here's the story about a sky god,

1000
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 1: therefore ancient aliens. So instead they say that what you

1001
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: need is a visit from the sky, a return to

1002
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: the sky, and a gift of knowledge or technology. Now,

1003
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 1: I would charge that that might even be too broad

1004
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: based on some of the culture bear motifs that I

1005
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,719
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, I would agree with that. So this is

1006
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:59,360
Speaker 1: a nineteen six book, so it came out before Chariots

1007
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,880
Speaker 1: of the Gods Uh set the world on fire. So

1008
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,800
Speaker 1: he's not responding in this book to specific evidence presented

1009
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: by von Donnikan, but he does talk briefly about some

1010
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 1: evidence that would have brought up, particularly by Soviet ethnologist M. M. August,

1011
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: and he just drives home that yeah, these you have

1012
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 1: these cases for past cultures encountering interstellar society, but that

1013
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 1: there are just ultimately no known alien artifacts that that

1014
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 1: are just definitely connected with this with such a visit.

1015
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:39,360
Speaker 1: There's just no hard evidence. But the authors do offer

1016
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: one possible example from ancient sumer that they think might

1017
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: be a good starting point if you're going to consider, uh,

1018
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:52,439
Speaker 1: examples of potential ancient alien contact. Yeah, so that they say,

1019
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:54,759
Speaker 1: we don't have any hard evidence, but we need at

1020
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 1: least a framework for how to examine ancient literature and

1021
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:01,359
Speaker 1: stories and stuff to see if they meet the great

1022
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,800
Speaker 1: if they're actually worth considering. And they give this example

1023
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:07,440
Speaker 1: of one that is maybe worth considering as an example

1024
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 1: of alien contact, not not necessarily as an evidence, but

1025
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 1: just worth looking at. So the story relates to the

1026
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,960
Speaker 1: origin of the Sumerian civilization. Summer is one of the

1027
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 1: most ancient civilizations known on planet Earth, dating back to

1028
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 1: roughly the fifth millennium b CE. UH. These these versions

1029
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,480
Speaker 1: of this one story can all be traced back to

1030
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 1: one Birosis, a priest of Bell Marduke in Babylon during

1031
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: the time of Alexander the Great, and supposedly Borrosis had

1032
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:39,359
Speaker 1: access to ancient cune of form and pictographic records from

1033
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: thousands of years before his time. And there are multiple

1034
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 1: translations and retellings of Barrosis. And the authors of this

1035
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 1: book quote three passages about Borrosis and his writings at length.

1036
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 1: So I'll try to summarize. First. According to Alexander polyhistor

1037
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: and Borrosis is giving a summary of the history and

1038
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 1: geography of Babylon, with its native plants and crops, and

1039
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 1: its neighboring people's and so forth. And he comes to

1040
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:09,839
Speaker 1: speak of beings variously known as ab Khalu and as

1041
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 1: Barrosa's himself calls the first one of these creatures Owanas

1042
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: or a Wannies or Adappa, and Barrosas tells that at

1043
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: the time in ancient Babylon, there were men of many

1044
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 1: nations who were yet uncivilized and quote lived without rule

1045
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: and order, like the beasts of the field. But then

1046
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 1: something happened quote in the first year there made its

1047
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 1: appearance from a part of the Persian Gulf which bordered

1048
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 1: upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason who was called

1049
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:42,920
Speaker 1: as the whole body of the animal was like that

1050
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 1: of a fish, and had under a fish's head another head,

1051
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 1: and also feet below similar to those of a man

1052
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice, too, and language

1053
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: was articulate and human, and a representation of him is

1054
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 1: preserved even to this day. Robert, I got a picture here,

1055
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 1: at least one picture of oh well, so that the

1056
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 1: picture of a honest uh, just kind of looks like

1057
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 1: a fishman, which I'm definitely into. But that description with

1058
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:16,440
Speaker 1: the double faces that that is, that is creepy. It

1059
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:19,120
Speaker 1: really reminds me of some stuff that our Scott Baker

1060
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: plays with in his um his second Apocalypse saga, which

1061
00:58:23,240 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: does involve a sort of ancient alien motif within a

1062
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: fantasy world. Interesting. I got more quote. This, being in

1063
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 1: the daytime, used to converse with men, but took no

1064
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 1: food at that season, and he gave them an insight

1065
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: into letters and sciences and every kind of art. He

1066
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 1: taught them to construct houses, to found temples, to compile laws,

1067
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: and explain to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He

1068
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and showed

1069
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: them how to collect fruits. In short, he instructed them

1070
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: in everything which could tend to soften manners, and human

1071
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: I is mankind. From that time, so universal were his instructions,

1072
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: nothing material has been added by way of improvement. When

1073
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:10,360
Speaker 1: the sun set, it was the custom of this being

1074
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 1: to plunge again into the sea and abide all night

1075
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:18,360
Speaker 1: in the deep, for he was amphibious. Oh and then

1076
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:22,400
Speaker 1: also quote after this there appeared other animals like Oenus,

1077
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 1: of which Barrosas promises to give an account when he

1078
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:28,320
Speaker 1: comes to the history of the kings. And then, according

1079
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: to an ancient writer known as Avid nous Uh, he's

1080
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,200
Speaker 1: giving an account of the borosis is giving an account

1081
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 1: of the king's of ancient Mesopotamia, and he mentions in

1082
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:42,959
Speaker 1: passing o Honus and other quote double shaped personages who

1083
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:46,000
Speaker 1: came out of the water at various points in history. Also,

1084
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 1: Apollodorus gives an account of this history, mentioning that fishmen

1085
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 1: appear out of the Persian Gulf at various points throughout history.

1086
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,280
Speaker 1: And Alexander Polyhisto, or the source of the first version

1087
00:59:57,280 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 1: of the story uh tells a version of the common

1088
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:03,200
Speaker 1: flood myth with a king of ancient sumeer being warned

1089
01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 1: by the gods of a coming flood catastrophe, and he's

1090
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:10,680
Speaker 1: told how to preserve his himself in civilization to survive it. So,

1091
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 1: according to these ancient accounts, Sumerian civilization was not the

1092
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 1: invention of humans, but a gift bestowed and guided by

1093
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:23,400
Speaker 1: several waves of semi humanoid fish like visitors. Kind of interesting.

1094
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:27,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Now this may have once been more impressive

1095
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:30,680
Speaker 1: evidence at a time when many archaeologists believe Sumerian civilization

1096
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 1: sort of sprang up out of nowhere at the time

1097
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:36,000
Speaker 1: the myths described. The authors of the book now note

1098
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 1: that it seems there was probably a more gradual technological

1099
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 1: and cultural evolution to the first Sumerian cities. It is

1100
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 1: interesting to think that this same the same kind of

1101
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,240
Speaker 1: questions we might ask today, like how did bread? How

1102
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,400
Speaker 1: did they ever figure that out? Or you know, or

1103
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 1: making fire that what was it like when when somebody

1104
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 1: discovered this, Like even in ancient times, I'm imagining you

1105
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:00,240
Speaker 1: could still have someone that might think, wow, I just

1106
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 1: don't see how anyone figured this out. It must have

1107
01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:04,560
Speaker 1: been fished people, right, It's not like they knew who

1108
01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: first drank milk out of the cow right, they needed

1109
01:01:07,160 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 1: a myth for that too, um So. The authors also

1110
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:15,480
Speaker 1: point out interesting features of Sumerian pictographic art on cylinder seals,

1111
01:01:15,760 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 1: which show mysterious symbols that appear like they could be

1112
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: representations of solar systems. So there will be a symbol

1113
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:25,440
Speaker 1: where there's like a central sphere with rays appearing to

1114
01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 1: come out of it, and it's being circled by smaller spheres.

1115
01:01:29,040 --> 01:01:31,720
Speaker 1: The idea of planet circling a son, of course, wouldn't

1116
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:35,680
Speaker 1: catch on until centuries later. And more interestingly, there are

1117
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,960
Speaker 1: images of this type with different numbers of planets that

1118
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:42,280
Speaker 1: seem to be associated with different gods, almost suggesting that

1119
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, this god came from this solar system

1120
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:49,080
Speaker 1: and this other god came from this other solar system. However,

1121
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 1: as fun as it can be to draw connections like this,

1122
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: the author's stress that we should not get carried away

1123
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:58,960
Speaker 1: quote these cylinder seals maybe nothing more than the experiments

1124
01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 1: of the ancient uncons anscious mind to understand and portray

1125
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: a sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes hostile environment. The stories of the

1126
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:09,480
Speaker 1: op Kalu may have been made out of whole cloth,

1127
01:02:09,760 --> 01:02:13,600
Speaker 1: perhaps as late as Babylonian times, perhaps by Barrosas himself.

1128
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 1: Sumerian society may have developed gradually over many thousands of years.

1129
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 1: In any event, a completely convincing demonstration of past contact

1130
01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 1: with an extraterrestrial civilization will always be difficult to provide

1131
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 1: on textual grounds alone. But stories like the Oanes legend

1132
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:34,240
Speaker 1: and representations especially of the earliest civilizations on the Earth,

1133
01:02:34,480 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 1: deserve much more critical studies than have been performed here

1134
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 1: to four, with the possibility of direct contact with an

1135
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial civilization as one of the many possible alternative interpretations.

1136
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:48,320
Speaker 1: So they're saying, it's a high bar, you know, if

1137
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:51,720
Speaker 1: you're going to try to go from ancient textual evidence

1138
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:56,040
Speaker 1: and just like storytelling to okay, aliens came here, it's

1139
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: going to be a really high bar to jump over, right,

1140
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 1: But we should at least be open to the idea

1141
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 1: that such contact could have possibly happened, and have a

1142
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 1: good idea of what evidence for it would look like. Yeah,

1143
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 1: So they summarized that given the numbers they discussed, it's

1144
01:03:12,200 --> 01:03:16,040
Speaker 1: possible that Earth has been visited maybe many times, maybe

1145
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:21,040
Speaker 1: by numerous galactic civilizations even during geologic time, and that

1146
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: they might have a base of operations within our solar system.

1147
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:26,680
Speaker 1: So in the point out that the moon makes the

1148
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:30,240
Speaker 1: most sense here, just as author C. Clark explored in

1149
01:03:30,320 --> 01:03:33,040
Speaker 1: his science fiction specifically two thousand and one, we should

1150
01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:36,440
Speaker 1: stress again appears to be no evidence of that. No, yeah, no,

1151
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: no evidence. But but basically they're saying, like, all right,

1152
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 1: somebody comes through here, they see, oh, there's something interesting

1153
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: going on in this Earth. But we're important aliens. We

1154
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 1: have things to do. We can't hang out around here

1155
01:03:49,040 --> 01:03:51,240
Speaker 1: and watch. We can't wait for it to get interesting.

1156
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,520
Speaker 1: Let's leave something behind, so we leave Larry. Yeah, let's

1157
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 1: leave Larry. Uh, Larry, But we don't want to leave

1158
01:03:56,840 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 1: Larry in plain sight because they're really looking at the

1159
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: stars a lot, and they're right things down. I guess

1160
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to put it on the other side

1161
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: of the moon just to keep it under wraps. Uh.

1162
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:08,600
Speaker 1: But now we've surveyed the other side of the moon

1163
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 1: and no Larry so far. Yeah, so you know they

1164
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 1: need to they say that, Yeah, they would. They might

1165
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 1: want to create an automated system to keep track of

1166
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: technological developments on Earth because that thousand year interval it

1167
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:23,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough to avoid self annihilation incidents. You know,

1168
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: they don't want to miss anything. You don't want to

1169
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:26,480
Speaker 1: come back a thousand years later and it's like, oh,

1170
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: those what happened to those ape creatures? Oh they discovered

1171
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 1: nuclear whatps man, They're gone already and we missed it now.

1172
01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:34,280
Speaker 1: They also point out that the other thing to keep

1173
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:37,840
Speaker 1: in mind is that if if if extraterrestrials wanted to

1174
01:04:37,880 --> 01:04:40,760
Speaker 1: contact us, they wouldn't necessarily need to show up and

1175
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: do it. They could simply transmit a message, And certainly

1176
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:48,880
Speaker 1: the work of the set has revolved around that, like,

1177
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:52,360
Speaker 1: let's listen, let's see if their signals coming. That seems

1178
01:04:52,400 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 1: to be a far more plausible way for first contact

1179
01:04:56,040 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 1: to occur. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean people when they imagine

1180
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 1: first contact happening, they think we're going to be looking

1181
01:05:01,600 --> 01:05:04,040
Speaker 1: at the aliens face to face. I'd say they're at

1182
01:05:04,080 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: least two things more likely than that. Number one is that,

1183
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:09,600
Speaker 1: of course we would get their electromagnetic signals first. But

1184
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:12,160
Speaker 1: also still more likely than encountering them face to face

1185
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:17,840
Speaker 1: is simply encountering their technology in person. They're they're unscrewed probes. Now,

1186
01:05:17,840 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: the good news that the authors present here is an

1187
01:05:19,600 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: advance civilization like this wouldn't have to enslave us or

1188
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:25,480
Speaker 1: eat us good because they would probably be be on

1189
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:31,120
Speaker 1: that however, so so the Cathulu theory is off. Yeah,

1190
01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:34,040
Speaker 1: I guess that one's off the table. Maybe, But then

1191
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 1: when you get into questions of religious or cultural conversion,

1192
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:42,000
Speaker 1: well we can't really rule that out. The other possibility

1193
01:05:42,040 --> 01:05:45,600
Speaker 1: is that perhaps humans have some unique talent that aliens

1194
01:05:45,600 --> 01:05:49,160
Speaker 1: would require, even if it's just mere amusement, or they

1195
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:51,120
Speaker 1: might just want to crush us to prevent us from

1196
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 1: posing a threat, just say, oh, well they have promised

1197
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: they have spunk these humans, we need to cut that out.

1198
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 1: Or or also even worse, they get to be something

1199
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:04,720
Speaker 1: that they call the cockroach response, which is simply it's different.

1200
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 1: We better kill it. But then again, if it hasn't

1201
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 1: happened already, then then maybe we're safe. Now Again, that

1202
01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:16,600
Speaker 1: book came out The Four Chariots of the Gods. Uh,

1203
01:06:16,760 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 1: Sagan definitely lived long enough to reconsider some of this

1204
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: and to and to sort of revisit the idea of

1205
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 1: ancient aliens in light of the ancient alien madness. I

1206
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:31,280
Speaker 1: guess you could say that kind of gripped the culture.

1207
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:33,760
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Yeah, so he he wrote about it

1208
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:38,560
Speaker 1: this time solo. In the book Broke's Brain, Reflections on

1209
01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: the Romance of Science, He wrote that he believed that

1210
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 1: those excited by ancient alien speculation, you know, they're generally

1211
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:50,760
Speaker 1: motivated by sincere scientific and occasionally religious feelings that you know,

1212
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:54,600
Speaker 1: their their passion for science is real. But quote, for

1213
01:06:54,680 --> 01:06:58,760
Speaker 1: many people, the shoddily thought out doctrines of borderline science

1214
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:03,320
Speaker 1: are the closest to oximation, to comprehensible science readily available.

1215
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:08,080
Speaker 1: So the idea here is you're scientifically curious, but then

1216
01:07:08,120 --> 01:07:09,760
Speaker 1: where do you go to get your information? Like you

1217
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,880
Speaker 1: turn on the TV, and if you're presented with in

1218
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:16,680
Speaker 1: search of if you're presented with ancient aliens, then that

1219
01:07:16,800 --> 01:07:19,200
Speaker 1: is what is going to feed your hunger. Yeah. I

1220
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:20,960
Speaker 1: mean a lot of times you see people who are

1221
01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:24,520
Speaker 1: attracted to pseudoscience or people who have not had the

1222
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 1: right kind of exposure to how inspiring real science can be.

1223
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or or or for instance, how inspiring real

1224
01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 1: archaeology can be, how how legitimate studies of mythology, how

1225
01:07:36,560 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 1: how they can inspire us. So most of his criticism

1226
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:43,440
Speaker 1: is really not leveled at people who enjoy it or

1227
01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:45,960
Speaker 1: or buy into it, but rather those certainly those who

1228
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:51,280
Speaker 1: peddle it. Uh and he he responds broadly to some

1229
01:07:51,360 --> 01:07:54,240
Speaker 1: of the evidence and chariots of the gods and points

1230
01:07:54,240 --> 01:07:57,120
Speaker 1: out that quote in every case, the artifacts in question

1231
01:07:57,200 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: have plausible and much simpler explanations. I agree with that

1232
01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:04,320
Speaker 1: our ancestors were no dummies. They may have lacked high technology,

1233
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:06,840
Speaker 1: but they were as smart as we, and they sometimes

1234
01:08:06,920 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 1: combined dedication, intelligence, and hard work to produce results that

1235
01:08:11,160 --> 01:08:14,680
Speaker 1: impress even us. So against killing it. Yeah. He also

1236
01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:17,960
Speaker 1: pointed out that a s may have remained a popular

1237
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:21,640
Speaker 1: idea in Russia at the time because it presented religious

1238
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 1: ideas within a scientific framework. So if you're in a

1239
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 1: communist state, that's sort of got an anti religious position,

1240
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:29,640
Speaker 1: but you've still got a religious disposition. You want to

1241
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:32,679
Speaker 1: believe in mythological types of ideas, but it's not cool

1242
01:08:32,800 --> 01:08:35,240
Speaker 1: to say be a Christian or anything like that anymore.

1243
01:08:35,280 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: You could be essentially of the ancient aliens religion, right, Yeah,

1244
01:08:39,280 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 1: it is quasi religious at least. He also speculated that

1245
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:46,240
Speaker 1: the interest in UFOs and ancient astronauts quote seems at

1246
01:08:46,320 --> 01:08:50,400
Speaker 1: least partially the result of unfulfilled religious needs. So again

1247
01:08:50,400 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 1: you have tales of wise, powerful, benign humanoid entities that

1248
01:08:54,640 --> 01:08:57,120
Speaker 1: attend to the human race. And this is an idea

1249
01:08:57,160 --> 01:09:00,040
Speaker 1: that definitely ends up becoming central to a numb a

1250
01:09:00,200 --> 01:09:05,880
Speaker 1: different ufo uh New religions, the idea that the aliens

1251
01:09:05,920 --> 01:09:08,599
Speaker 1: will save us from ourselves, that the aliens have an

1252
01:09:08,600 --> 01:09:12,240
Speaker 1: answer to our essentially our religious needs. And he he

1253
01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:15,360
Speaker 1: also mentions that that he had given the idea of

1254
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:18,760
Speaker 1: ancient aliens far far more attention than he cared to

1255
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:21,639
Speaker 1: think about, and that he loved the idea. But but

1256
01:09:21,880 --> 01:09:24,160
Speaker 1: you know, as you might expect Sagan to him, and

1257
01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:26,960
Speaker 1: clearly he didn't write about it previously and in this

1258
01:09:27,080 --> 01:09:30,840
Speaker 1: volume because he thought it was just ridiculous and above consideration. No,

1259
01:09:31,000 --> 01:09:34,080
Speaker 1: clearly Sagan doesn't like hate this and want to crush it.

1260
01:09:34,240 --> 01:09:38,160
Speaker 1: He just wants to be responsible when entertaining the idea. Yeah,

1261
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:41,759
Speaker 1: he's but he says that the the supposed evidence rarely

1262
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:44,920
Speaker 1: requires more than just passing attention. Quote in the long

1263
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:49,120
Speaker 1: litany of ancient astronaut pop archaeology, the cases of apparent

1264
01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:54,280
Speaker 1: interest have perfectly reasonable alternative explanations or have been misreported,

1265
01:09:54,400 --> 01:09:59,439
Speaker 1: or are simple pre varications, hoaxes and distortions. And then

1266
01:09:59,439 --> 01:10:02,160
Speaker 1: he makes these final points. He says that even if

1267
01:10:02,200 --> 01:10:05,320
Speaker 1: an advanced alien civilization had really wanted to leave a

1268
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:08,280
Speaker 1: calling card, there would be no question. They could have

1269
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:12,120
Speaker 1: left a metal artifact that, due to elemental composition, would

1270
01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:15,400
Speaker 1: have clearly been from beyond. Or yeah, they could have

1271
01:10:15,439 --> 01:10:18,760
Speaker 1: left a silicon semiconductor chip, yeah, yeah, they could have

1272
01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:21,600
Speaker 1: left a mathematical proof as a calling card. There there

1273
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:24,760
Speaker 1: are various things that could have done. Here's Fermat's last theorem. Yeah,

1274
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:27,679
Speaker 1: but but they didn't. They didn't leave any of these things.

1275
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:30,960
Speaker 1: This book broke his brain. Reflections on the romance of science.

1276
01:10:31,120 --> 01:10:33,160
Speaker 1: This is still in print. You can you can definitely

1277
01:10:33,200 --> 01:10:36,040
Speaker 1: obtain a copy, and I would advise anyone who's interested

1278
01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:37,519
Speaker 1: to check it out because he does go into greater

1279
01:10:37,640 --> 01:10:41,400
Speaker 1: detail on some of the arguments for a s namely

1280
01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:45,760
Speaker 1: the serious mystery of the dogon people. Uh, it's all

1281
01:10:45,840 --> 01:10:47,880
Speaker 1: very interesting. We don't really have time to discuss it here,

1282
01:10:47,920 --> 01:10:51,040
Speaker 1: but the book is out there. Sagan's writing is always

1283
01:10:51,040 --> 01:10:54,080
Speaker 1: a joy, So I invite everyone to check it out.

1284
01:10:54,360 --> 01:10:56,200
Speaker 1: So I'd say my takeaway at the end of this

1285
01:10:56,360 --> 01:10:59,360
Speaker 1: is that there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea that

1286
01:10:59,439 --> 01:11:01,920
Speaker 1: Earth may have been visited by aliens at some point.

1287
01:11:02,080 --> 01:11:04,960
Speaker 1: It's possible for all we know. There's nothing wrong with

1288
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:08,439
Speaker 1: playing with speculation or looking for evidence there. But don't

1289
01:11:08,479 --> 01:11:11,120
Speaker 1: get carried away. Don't let it become your religion, and

1290
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:14,720
Speaker 1: don't don't lower your standard of evidence just because it's

1291
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:17,559
Speaker 1: a cool idea and you want it to be true. Yeah,

1292
01:11:17,560 --> 01:11:20,080
Speaker 1: I agree, Like, don't make it your religion. But if

1293
01:11:20,080 --> 01:11:21,800
Speaker 1: you do make it your religion, just be open about

1294
01:11:21,840 --> 01:11:25,400
Speaker 1: the fact that you've made it your religion. That's fine too, sure, Yeah, yeah, uh.

1295
01:11:25,640 --> 01:11:28,200
Speaker 1: Don't make it your religion and then pretended science and

1296
01:11:28,320 --> 01:11:30,840
Speaker 1: try to convince people. One last thing, I want to

1297
01:11:30,880 --> 01:11:34,800
Speaker 1: test your intuitions on something or discigional audience just you.

1298
01:11:34,880 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 1: I mean, the audience can play to play along at home.

1299
01:11:37,360 --> 01:11:41,520
Speaker 1: But Robert, I want to think about ranking some probability.

1300
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:43,360
Speaker 1: So let's say you're in a scenario where you find

1301
01:11:43,360 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 1: out archaeologists have discovered a tomb in the Nile Valley

1302
01:11:47,000 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 1: with multiple lines of evidence independently confirming to every major

1303
01:11:51,360 --> 01:11:56,440
Speaker 1: archaeologist satisfaction that the tomb has remained buried and undisturbed

1304
01:11:56,479 --> 01:12:02,120
Speaker 1: since at the latest. And also inside the tomb they

1305
01:12:02,160 --> 01:12:06,760
Speaker 1: discover a clay jar containing silicon, semiconductor chips and say

1306
01:12:06,960 --> 01:12:12,160
Speaker 1: lithium ion batteries. All other things being equal, what do

1307
01:12:12,240 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 1: you think would be the ranking of the most likely

1308
01:12:15,240 --> 01:12:19,439
Speaker 1: interpretations of this? Would it be that there was ancient

1309
01:12:19,520 --> 01:12:23,040
Speaker 1: lost technology, right, that some ancient Egyptians figured out how

1310
01:12:23,040 --> 01:12:26,960
Speaker 1: to make these inventions semiconductor chips and batteries, and somehow

1311
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:29,600
Speaker 1: this is the first we're finding out about this capability

1312
01:12:29,640 --> 01:12:33,920
Speaker 1: of theirs, or ancient aliens. Aliens came and brought this

1313
01:12:34,120 --> 01:12:36,120
Speaker 1: or taught humans how to make it and it was lost,

1314
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:39,719
Speaker 1: or they just you know, shared a few trinkets, or

1315
01:12:39,920 --> 01:12:45,080
Speaker 1: time travel or all the experts are wrong and this

1316
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:47,519
Speaker 1: is some kind of hoax. Well, I have to throw

1317
01:12:47,560 --> 01:12:52,360
Speaker 1: out time travel because that definitely breaks our understanding of

1318
01:12:52,360 --> 01:12:54,559
Speaker 1: of cosmos. I was going to say the same. I

1319
01:12:54,560 --> 01:12:58,800
Speaker 1: think I actually ranked time travel below ancient aliens, and

1320
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:01,719
Speaker 1: I would I can see where though, I can see

1321
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:04,519
Speaker 1: where someone would be more inclined for ancient Aliens over

1322
01:13:04,640 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 1: the two remaining options, simply because if you go to

1323
01:13:08,080 --> 01:13:10,600
Speaker 1: ancient aliens, then you kind of have an out. You

1324
01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:14,040
Speaker 1: don't have to admit that, oh well, we simply missed

1325
01:13:14,040 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: it in the in the in the archaeological record. We

1326
01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:22,080
Speaker 1: just somehow missed the fact that the ancient Egyptians developed batteries. Yeah,

1327
01:13:22,080 --> 01:13:24,760
Speaker 1: it's a tough question actually knowing how to rank these

1328
01:13:24,800 --> 01:13:27,719
Speaker 1: other ones. I think for me, the top option would

1329
01:13:27,720 --> 01:13:30,679
Speaker 1: be a tie between all all the experts are wrong

1330
01:13:30,760 --> 01:13:33,120
Speaker 1: and it's some kind of hoax that's been very cleverly

1331
01:13:33,600 --> 01:13:35,920
Speaker 1: designed to fool all the The hoax is really the

1332
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:38,599
Speaker 1: place I think I would go first, because it's just

1333
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:43,040
Speaker 1: it seems so outrageous, like it it's too much of

1334
01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:45,920
Speaker 1: a leap of faith to think aliens like time travel

1335
01:13:46,040 --> 01:13:49,200
Speaker 1: is is impossible as we understand uh the underworkings of

1336
01:13:49,200 --> 01:13:52,160
Speaker 1: the universe. And then the idea that we simply missed

1337
01:13:52,160 --> 01:13:57,480
Speaker 1: all record of this technology also seems unlikely. Lost technology

1338
01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:02,480
Speaker 1: is very hard to hard to believe because of the context.

1339
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:06,280
Speaker 1: Right um, that technology doesn't come to exist in a vacuum,

1340
01:14:06,439 --> 01:14:09,880
Speaker 1: but comes as a result of other technologies. So if

1341
01:14:09,920 --> 01:14:14,479
Speaker 1: you suddenly found lithium ion batteries and silicon semiconductor chips

1342
01:14:14,520 --> 01:14:17,040
Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt, it wouldn't just be that, like, Wow,

1343
01:14:17,080 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 1: how do they figure out how to make those? They

1344
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:23,240
Speaker 1: would be missing many many steps along the chain of

1345
01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:26,400
Speaker 1: technological progress that would lead you to be able to

1346
01:14:26,479 --> 01:14:29,000
Speaker 1: make those. So you'd have to assume not just that,

1347
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:31,000
Speaker 1: but you'd have to assume the step before it, and

1348
01:14:31,080 --> 01:14:33,599
Speaker 1: before that and before that, like all the metal working

1349
01:14:33,680 --> 01:14:37,280
Speaker 1: and all the fine machining and machining tolerances and things

1350
01:14:37,320 --> 01:14:39,960
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it's like if you suddenly found out

1351
01:14:40,000 --> 01:14:43,760
Speaker 1: that you're significant other was a drug lord, you know,

1352
01:14:43,880 --> 01:14:45,960
Speaker 1: and would and they were you, and you would say,

1353
01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:47,559
Speaker 1: how did I not know they were a drug lord?

1354
01:14:47,560 --> 01:14:49,160
Speaker 1: Like you would think there would be there would be

1355
01:14:49,200 --> 01:14:51,640
Speaker 1: other steps up to becoming a drug lord, right, I

1356
01:14:51,640 --> 01:14:54,040
Speaker 1: would have been surprised at something way earlier in the

1357
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:57,240
Speaker 1: chain of this progression. Yeah, so that's hard to entertain too,

1358
01:14:57,240 --> 01:15:00,479
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I think maybe I I probably

1359
01:15:00,479 --> 01:15:04,400
Speaker 1: go with hoax first, and then maybe it's hard to

1360
01:15:04,439 --> 01:15:09,639
Speaker 1: decide whether ancient aliens or lost technology is a better

1361
01:15:10,800 --> 01:15:16,160
Speaker 1: because one of those those answers at least has an

1362
01:15:16,200 --> 01:15:19,880
Speaker 1: answer built into it for why there's no evidence of

1363
01:15:19,920 --> 01:15:24,479
Speaker 1: its development and construction or it's travel beyond that region,

1364
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:27,120
Speaker 1: like because it's simply an alien dropped it. But in

1365
01:15:27,160 --> 01:15:31,080
Speaker 1: any case, I think clever hoax beats the other two definitely,

1366
01:15:31,240 --> 01:15:33,760
Speaker 1: and it's sad, like that's the sad answer. Nobody wants

1367
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:36,479
Speaker 1: that to be the answer to their either they're great

1368
01:15:36,560 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 1: archaeological find or their unique insight into some bit of

1369
01:15:40,280 --> 01:15:44,320
Speaker 1: existing mythological, archaic archaeological evidence. But I would have to

1370
01:15:44,360 --> 01:15:46,599
Speaker 1: wonder we'd at least do an episode on it. We

1371
01:15:46,760 --> 01:15:48,839
Speaker 1: try to give it a fair shake, right, yeah, exactly,

1372
01:15:48,880 --> 01:15:50,360
Speaker 1: all right, so there you have it again. We did

1373
01:15:50,439 --> 01:15:54,519
Speaker 1: not have time here to discuss every example that is

1374
01:15:54,600 --> 01:15:58,880
Speaker 1: often brought up as as potential evidence for ancient aliens,

1375
01:15:59,240 --> 01:16:01,360
Speaker 1: though many of them are are just fascinating in their

1376
01:16:01,360 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 1: own ride. I think one or two we've discussed on

1377
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:06,320
Speaker 1: the show before, like the idea that uh that that

1378
01:16:06,479 --> 01:16:10,760
Speaker 1: the Hindu epics describe the use of nuclear super weapons.

1379
01:16:11,080 --> 01:16:12,920
Speaker 1: It's a fabulous concept, but we just didn't have time

1380
01:16:12,920 --> 01:16:15,640
Speaker 1: to get into it today. But again, there is ultimately

1381
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:19,240
Speaker 1: no evidence for for that being true. I agree, certainly

1382
01:16:19,240 --> 01:16:22,400
Speaker 1: no physical evidence, which is what the real standard would be.

1383
01:16:22,439 --> 01:16:24,680
Speaker 1: Even with physical evidence, as we've said, it would be

1384
01:16:24,680 --> 01:16:27,599
Speaker 1: hard to know exactly what to make what to make

1385
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:30,639
Speaker 1: of it. And with all this uh, literary and artistic

1386
01:16:30,680 --> 01:16:33,720
Speaker 1: evidence that's heavily based on interpretation, you've got all the

1387
01:16:33,720 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 1: problems that we discussed with say again and trying to

1388
01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:41,040
Speaker 1: make sense of what's this story from ancient summer about? Um, Yeah,

1389
01:16:41,160 --> 01:16:44,240
Speaker 1: it's it's a hard hill to climb up if you

1390
01:16:44,280 --> 01:16:46,519
Speaker 1: want to say that there were ancient aliens. But if

1391
01:16:46,560 --> 01:16:48,479
Speaker 1: you must climb that hill, do your best to do

1392
01:16:48,520 --> 01:16:51,640
Speaker 1: it in a responsible, skeptical, evidence based way. Yeah, or

1393
01:16:51,680 --> 01:16:53,600
Speaker 1: certainly give it your best shot, go wild within the

1394
01:16:53,640 --> 01:16:56,920
Speaker 1: realms of fiction. Again. I hope that we I hope

1395
01:16:56,920 --> 01:17:00,840
Speaker 1: we keep getting great ancient astronaut fiction because I can't

1396
01:17:00,840 --> 01:17:04,400
Speaker 1: get enough of it. So there you have it. Hey,

1397
01:17:04,479 --> 01:17:06,280
Speaker 1: if you want more episodes of Stuff to Blow your

1398
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:08,400
Speaker 1: Mind and head on over to Stuff to Blow your

1399
01:17:08,400 --> 01:17:10,960
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the past

1400
01:17:11,000 --> 01:17:14,040
Speaker 1: episodes that we've recorded. You'll also find links out to

1401
01:17:14,120 --> 01:17:18,759
Speaker 1: various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever

1402
01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:21,679
Speaker 1: the kids are using these days. And Hey, as always,

1403
01:17:21,840 --> 01:17:23,960
Speaker 1: if you want to support this show, a great way

1404
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:26,960
Speaker 1: to do it is to rate and review wherever you

1405
01:17:27,000 --> 01:17:30,519
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Huge thanks as always to our wonderful

1406
01:17:30,560 --> 01:17:34,160
Speaker 1: audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison, If you would

1407
01:17:34,160 --> 01:17:35,960
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us and let us

1408
01:17:35,960 --> 01:17:38,439
Speaker 1: know your feedback on this, this episode or any other,

1409
01:17:38,920 --> 01:17:40,800
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, let us know who you are,

1410
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:43,200
Speaker 1: where you listen to the show from, what got you

1411
01:17:43,240 --> 01:17:46,400
Speaker 1: into it, or suggest a topic for future episodes, any

1412
01:17:46,439 --> 01:17:48,960
Speaker 1: of that stuff. You can email us at blow the

1413
01:17:49,080 --> 01:18:00,720
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on

1414
01:18:00,840 --> 01:18:03,320
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff

1415
01:18:03,320 --> 01:18:15,559
Speaker 1: workstock column, The Big