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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: That means it's time for the Vault. This episode originally

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Speaker 1: published June, and it's about one of our favorite punching

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Speaker 1: bags but also like a fun punching bag, the Chariots

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Speaker 1: of the Gods. Yes, yeah, this is This is a

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Speaker 1: really fun episode to put together. Um, you know, and

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Speaker 1: I think it's because the topic itself is fun and

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Speaker 1: the topic the topic itself, there's nothing wrong with it,

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Speaker 1: Like there's nothing wrong with with asking the question, is

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Speaker 1: their life elsewhere in the in the galaxy? Might it

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Speaker 1: have visited us in the past? And if it did

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Speaker 1: visit us in the past, might we find evidence of that? Oh? Sure,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a fascinating question. It's a fun thing

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Speaker 1: to contemplate. You run into trouble when you start trying

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Speaker 1: to push this hypothesis without good evidence, which is what

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Speaker 1: all these you know, Eric von Danikin types are doing exact.

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Speaker 1: It's the evidence or the lack of evidence that is

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Speaker 1: the sticking point. And so that's one of the things

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Speaker 1: we discussed in this episode. And so I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoy it. Uh. Here we are the Chariots of the Gods.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be starting off by talking about theme parks.

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Speaker 1: Just before we started recording, Robert and I were talking

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Speaker 1: about possible alternative theme parks that just never got to

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Speaker 1: be obvious, thinking, you know, we've got Disneyland and Disney

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Speaker 1: World that we know some people here in the office

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Speaker 1: that really into Disney World to go all the time.

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Speaker 1: But it's based on all these classic animated characters, right,

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Speaker 1: And I was thinking, there should be an alternative theme

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Speaker 1: park that's based on the classic animated characters, not of Disney,

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Speaker 1: but of Don Bluth. Okay, so this would be like

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Speaker 1: this Secretive Nim Yeah, so you've got like a Secretive

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Speaker 1: Nim ride where you you like ride this cinder block

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Speaker 1: to the lee of the stone. And then you've got

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Speaker 1: you've got like characters walking around in the streets. Of

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Speaker 1: course in costumes of Rocketdoodle comes up to you. There's

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Speaker 1: an Old Dogs go to Heaven. You know, you get

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Speaker 1: to be a dog and go to dog Hell ride that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a disturbing portion of that movie I remember. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But then also there's got to be a Dragon's Layer

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Speaker 1: ride because Don Blues worked on that. That's right. This

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Speaker 1: is the classic animation style video game. Yeah, where you

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Speaker 1: die no matter what you do all the time. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: we could have one for a ranking and bass rock box.

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Speaker 1: You get into all those old cool Disney alternative animated

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Speaker 1: classics like The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Goblin singalongs. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm all where there's a whip, there's a way, I'm

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Speaker 1: all for it. You have one hal that's just for

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Speaker 1: singing along with that Leonard Nimoy song about the Hobbit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I gotta work that in somehow though that that's not

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Speaker 1: actually in the movie. But the movie itself is full

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Speaker 1: of full of all sorts of wonderful tunes. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: interesting because we have all these various ridiculous and real

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Speaker 1: theme parks and then we have these fictional ones. So

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Speaker 1: we we have made up parks like Jurassic Park, we

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Speaker 1: have West World, we have Itchy and Scratchy Land. But

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, we do have Dollywood, the Dolly

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Speaker 1: Parton themed yea theme park. I don't think I've ever

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Speaker 1: been to Dollywood, but you gotta wonder what's there? Is

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Speaker 1: it just the same stuff, Like, it's just roller coasters

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Speaker 1: and carnival games and stuff, except it's Dolly Parton themed.

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Speaker 1: What's all about the theme, right? It's all about the fluff?

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Speaker 1: Like I remember, I never went to Dollywood, but I

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Speaker 1: went to Opery Land in Nashville, Tennessee, back when that

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Speaker 1: was a theme park, a country music sort of country

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Speaker 1: themed theme park, and and that was fun. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: necessary that I was into the uh, into the flavoring

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Speaker 1: that was provided. But still, the basic rides, you do

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Speaker 1: need some reason to get on there. You need some

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Speaker 1: sort of director associated with it to tell story with

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Speaker 1: the ride. Dude, that Dollywood Joe Lene roller coaster was

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Speaker 1: a scream. So there are a lot of worthy theme

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Speaker 1: park destinations out there. But here's one that I think

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Speaker 1: most of us may not have heard of. I had

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Speaker 1: not heard of this one until we started researching this episode.

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Speaker 1: I had not heard of this until you sent it

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Speaker 1: to me. It's nestled in the Swiss Alps and it's

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Speaker 1: called young Frau Park. Okay does that mean young woman?

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Speaker 1: I believe so. It's name for um, it's name for

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Speaker 1: a particular alpine peak in the immediate area. Originally opened

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Speaker 1: as mystery park, though, it offers fun and entertainment for

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Speaker 1: the entire family, including Misty Land for the children, a

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Speaker 1: huge indoor outdoor children's paradise, segue rides, trampolines, laser shows,

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Speaker 1: a petting zoo, and of course multiple exhibits in live

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Speaker 1: shows addressing the mysteries of ancient history and the possible

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Speaker 1: answers to be found in ancient astronaut HYPOTHESI what, yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is I need to drive this sound. This is

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Speaker 1: not some silly skit that Joe and I have prepared

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Speaker 1: for everybody. This is a real theme park in Interlock

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Speaker 1: in Switzerland, centered around the ideas and writings of Eric

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Speaker 1: van Donnikin, author of the nine eight book Chariots of

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Speaker 1: the Gods. I like how the original book title ends

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Speaker 1: in a question mark. Yes, so I really think we

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Speaker 1: should make a point when we're talking about his book.

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Speaker 1: We should we should pronounce it Chariots of the Gods

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Speaker 1: of the Gods like they might be chariots of somebody else's.

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Speaker 1: I also love how it takes what is otherwise a

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Speaker 1: tremendously awesome title and kind of screws it up by

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Speaker 1: making a question. You know, you've got that standard clickbait

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Speaker 1: format these days, where like the actual body text of

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Speaker 1: an article might be fairly reasonable, but the headline makes

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Speaker 1: some outlandish claim not justified by the article itself. This

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Speaker 1: is sort of the opposite. This is like the title

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Speaker 1: is actually a little bit more careful than the book. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and we will definitely get into that as we proceed,

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Speaker 1: But this particular park again. It opened as Mystery Park

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Speaker 1: in two thousand three at a reported cost of eighty

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Speaker 1: six million Swiss francs or sixty two million dollars American uh.

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Speaker 1: But then it closed in two thousand six. Then it

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Speaker 1: opened reopened again in two thousand nine as Young Fraul Park.

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Speaker 1: It's exhibits still focus on things like the Nasca lines,

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Speaker 1: the construction of the Pyramids, and other noted uh quote

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Speaker 1: unquote examples of ancient astronauts, speculation or a a S plus.

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Speaker 1: Donikan himself still gives lectures there and insists that quote

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Speaker 1: everything ends in a question mark, so as if it's

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Speaker 1: all just a consideration of these ideas rather than um,

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Speaker 1: you know, propaganda about it. Well, I must say that

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Speaker 1: makes me feel a little bit better about it, because

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Speaker 1: I kind of want to go. I don't put any

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Speaker 1: stock whatsoever in the ancient aliens hypothesis, but this sounds

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Speaker 1: like a good time. You got a petting zoo, and

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Speaker 1: you've got a guy given lectures about how aliens probably

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Speaker 1: talk to our ancestors. Yeah, there's a sun sphere they

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Speaker 1: have like a ziggurat and a pyramid. You can, you can.

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Speaker 1: I'll try to make sure that we link to the

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Speaker 1: home page for the park so that you can check

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Speaker 1: it out, because it does look fun. It looks you

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Speaker 1: can children can have their birthday parties there. It looks

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Speaker 1: like an interesting destination, and we would love to hear

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Speaker 1: from anyone who has ever gone there themselves. So I've

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Speaker 1: been familiar with Van Donkin for a long time. I

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Speaker 1: remember seeing him mentioned on old reruns of In Search

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Speaker 1: of hosted by Leonard nimoy A and a yeah, but

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Speaker 1: but I had no idea that this had been incorporated

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Speaker 1: into a theme park. This is the kind of thing

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Speaker 1: you've come to expect from religious groups in the United States,

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Speaker 1: like the Holy Lands Theme Park. I believe it is

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Speaker 1: in Florida. Oh yeah, if you're not aware of this phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: In the United States, there are multiple, uh, not just

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Speaker 1: Bible themed, but specifically Young Earth creationist theme parks in

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Speaker 1: the United States that have like models and exhibits. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of like a cross between an amusement park and

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Speaker 1: a museum attempting to promote the idea, for example, that

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Speaker 1: humans and dinosaurs lived side by side and that the

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Speaker 1: Earth is six thousand years old. Yeah, and you know,

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Speaker 1: it makes sense that we would have theme parks about

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Speaker 1: this because in the United States, two things that people

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Speaker 1: take very seriously our religion, and they're major entertainment brands.

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Speaker 1: So of course there's a Disney Park. Of course there's

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Speaker 1: like Universal Studios. But I just really wasn't expecting, uh,

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Speaker 1: there to be a theme park based around the concept

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Speaker 1: of ancient aliens. It really gives me hope that my

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Speaker 1: son can one day celebrate his tenth birthday party at

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Speaker 1: a Phantom Time Hypothesis theme park. I want a lizard

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Speaker 1: people theme park, but that would be good. Yeah, with

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Speaker 1: the costumes. It basically rights itself or a good flat

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Speaker 1: Earth theme Park that'll do it. I wonder if that

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Speaker 1: means the roller coasters will be very boring though there's

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Speaker 1: no rollers, it's just flat circle flat roller coasters. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So we've had listeners in the past to ask us

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Speaker 1: to talk about ancient aliens related topics. I think it's

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Speaker 1: come up in passing on the podcast quite a few times. Actually,

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Speaker 1: we just kind of mentioned it here and there as

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Speaker 1: one of those things that you know, it would be

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Speaker 1: interesting if there were some actual evidence for it, but

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Speaker 1: there doesn't seem to be any good evidence. It's all

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Speaker 1: just kind of like based on massive over interpretation of

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Speaker 1: little tidbits of interesting mythology and imagery from the ancient world,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes on outright fraud and and stuff like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get into all that today. I do want

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Speaker 1: to before we get into it, I do want to

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Speaker 1: stress that we are going to approach this topic, like

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Speaker 1: all the topics we can approach, with a skeptical mind,

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Speaker 1: but an open mind. Okay, yeah, an open minded mind exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And while we're gonna be talking about about Vannikin himself

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Speaker 1: and his book at the top of this episode, we

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Speaker 1: are going to get into say, Carl Sagan's thoughts on

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Speaker 1: the possibility of ancient aliens as we progress and of

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Speaker 1: course through all of it, it is an exciting idea.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it factors into so many different works of

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Speaker 1: fiction that that we love. It's uh, it's just comes

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Speaker 1: down to the fact that, like you said, the evidence

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Speaker 1: is never there. Yeah, exactly. Now. I want to be

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Speaker 1: clear that I find the idea of ancient aliens visiting

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Speaker 1: Earth long ago in the past as fun and interesting

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Speaker 1: as anybody else would. It's something that I would love

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Speaker 1: to believe if there were good evidence for the I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's such a cool idea. Um, and so it's and

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Speaker 1: it's also not something that I would say is something

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Speaker 1: we should just dismiss out of hand. Like some people

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Speaker 1: make the argument that, Okay, if somebody shows up and

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Speaker 1: says I've got a new propellantless drive that'll get us

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Speaker 1: through space without propellant, some people say, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you're violating the laws of physics, I don't even need

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Speaker 1: to listen to you to begin with. I don't feel

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Speaker 1: like that about ancient aliens. I'd say, Okay, this is

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Speaker 1: something that we don't know whether or not aliens exist.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they do. We don't know if they do exist,

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Speaker 1: whether they visited Earth in the past. Maybe they have,

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Speaker 1: of there's no reason to rule it out out of hand.

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Speaker 1: So it's at least worth looking at the evidence if

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Speaker 1: somebody thinks they have some exactly, So let's return to

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Speaker 1: Chariots of the Gods Uh, the nineteen sixty eight book

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Speaker 1: by Erik von Donakin, and the basic idea here is

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Speaker 1: again that ancient that ancient astronauts visited Earth and serve

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Speaker 1: as the sort of god figures of our mythologies and religions,

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Speaker 1: and they wowed us with their technology and taught us

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Speaker 1: to do things like make bread and build pyramids, the

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Speaker 1: two primary activities of human civilization. Well they're they're also

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Speaker 1: we'll get into it, especially the pyramid thing more. But

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Speaker 1: these are the sort of things that it's easy to

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Speaker 1: look at and say, how did people ever figure this out?

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Speaker 1: I thought about that with bread before you know, I'm like,

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Speaker 1: this is amazing. It's so tasty, and I if you,

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Speaker 1: if you you show me where it came from, and

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Speaker 1: I would. I can't imagine ancient people putting that together.

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Speaker 1: But of course they did put it together. Do you

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Speaker 1: think aliens were the ones that taught us to drink

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Speaker 1: the milk that comes out of oats and cows. Oh

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Speaker 1: well that is that isn't another interesting topic topic. I

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Speaker 1: believe Julie and I did an episode that got into

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Speaker 1: some of that in the past. Because there are different

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Speaker 1: theories regarding how we made this leap. One of them

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Speaker 1: one of the theories is that it actually involved a

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Speaker 1: drinking contest, like essentially dares and double dares among ancient people.

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Speaker 1: I bet you can't down that glass of sheep's milk.

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Speaker 1: Let's see what happens. Okay, so it would be like,

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Speaker 1: drink this crocodile's urine, drink this goat's milk, but then

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Speaker 1: the goat milk was kind of tasty. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it actually would play into some of these ancient astronaut ideas,

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Speaker 1: like the aliens arrive and they're like, hey, you uh

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Speaker 1: monkey creature. Um, can you drink the milk of that

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Speaker 1: other one without becoming ill? Let's see what happens just

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Speaker 1: doing experiments on us. Yeah. Uh. So we can't rehash

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Speaker 1: all of von Danikin's arguments from his book, but I

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Speaker 1: think just to give you a flavor of the kinds

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Speaker 1: of things he argues and what it feels like to

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Speaker 1: participate with his arguments. We should just give an example

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Speaker 1: from several of his major lines of evidence, and one

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Speaker 1: of the major types of arguments he makes is about

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Speaker 1: ancient projects that supposedly were beyond our power to produce

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Speaker 1: at the time. Right, So this is you know you

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Speaker 1: mentioned how do we learn to bake bread? How did

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Speaker 1: we learn to build pyramids? Von Danikin essentially will look

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Speaker 1: back and say, hey, we couldn't have done that back then.

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Speaker 1: Must have been aliens showing us how to do it

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Speaker 1: or assisting us with their technology. So classic example of

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Speaker 1: this you'll often hear is the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Right,

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Speaker 1: if you've got an ancient Aliens person talking to you,

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Speaker 1: they'll say, look, there's no way the ancient Egyptians could

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Speaker 1: have built the pyramids. These these stones that the pyramids

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Speaker 1: are made of or gigantic How did they get them

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Speaker 1: to the site? How did they build them with such precision?

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Speaker 1: You know that, how do they move them so far?

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Speaker 1: It's just impossible. They couldn't have done it, right, Why

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Speaker 1: did they build it like that? Why were they looking up?

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Speaker 1: Vandanakin makes that argument too. He says the pyramids are

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Speaker 1: they seem to be oriented with some kind of relationship

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Speaker 1: to the star. As an Egyptian astronomy was not advanced

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Speaker 1: enough for them to have had this kind of like

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Speaker 1: knowledge of the stars when they built them. That seems

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Speaker 1: to be wrong. But yeah, if you look at pyramids

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Speaker 1: like the Great Pyramid of Giza built in the twenty

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Speaker 1: six century BC, it's true that we used to consider

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Speaker 1: it a great mystery how these amazing marvels like the

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Speaker 1: Pyramids were built in a time before modern metal working.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these people didn't have iron tools or anything.

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Speaker 1: They're probably working with like copper tools. Uh, this is

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Speaker 1: really before any kind of advanced wheels of any sort.

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Speaker 1: But as best I can tell, modern archaeologists and Egyptologists

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Speaker 1: do not believe that it was beyond the power of

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Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians to create these marvels like the Pyramids.

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Speaker 1: We now know a lot about the construction of the pyramids.

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Speaker 1: So the pyramids were built through massive coordination of engineers

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Speaker 1: and skilled workers. Granite building materials were probably floated down

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Speaker 1: the Nile on rafts from quarry locations upstream. Uh, And

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Speaker 1: we've discovered through for example, ancient illustrations that giant stone

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Speaker 1: blocks were dragged into place using ropes and sledges. So

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Speaker 1: workers would have ropes and they'd pull a sledge with

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Speaker 1: a stone on it. And there was even a recent

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Speaker 1: discovery about how wetting the sand underneath the sledge could

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Speaker 1: reduce the friction between the sledge and the ground, helping

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Speaker 1: ease the transport of the blocks. And then there's other

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Speaker 1: evidence that indicates, for example, the height of the pyramids

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Speaker 1: was achieved with the use of wait for it, ramps.

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Speaker 1: But where they get the ramps? Joe, clearly aliens crazy? No,

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, how could they have figured out that

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Speaker 1: you could pile earth up to make a ramp? But yeah,

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Speaker 1: So this kind of argumentation, it seems to me to

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Speaker 1: be based on basically just a type of prejudice, prejudice

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Speaker 1: against the abilities of the ancient people. Ancient people might

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Speaker 1: have had less scientific knowledge and less technology than we do,

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Speaker 1: but they weren't stupid. In fact, they were really clever,

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Speaker 1: often more clever than we are, because they had to

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Speaker 1: accomplish their great works with so much less. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: were not, as the saying goes, standing on the shoulders

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Speaker 1: of giants. No, they had to they had to be

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Speaker 1: giants themselves in order to do great things. So that's

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Speaker 1: one type of argument, But then you've got a couple others.

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Speaker 1: One is like looking at ancient art and saying, well,

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Speaker 1: that depicts aliens and spaceships. So you could look at

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Speaker 1: ancient figurines from Japan and say that looks like an

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Speaker 1: alien in a space suit. Or you can look at

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Speaker 1: the Nasca Lines of Peru, where von Danikin says their

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Speaker 1: quote very reminiscent of aircraft parking bays on a modern airport.

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Speaker 1: I look at that, I don't know, I mean it

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Speaker 1: looks to me like their giant works of art. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is one of those cases where you're taking several

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Speaker 1: logical leaps to get to a more grandiose explanation. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it's not to say that things like the Nasca

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Speaker 1: Lines aren't themselves very interesting and mysterious, Like who did

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Speaker 1: the people who created them think they were making them for?

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Speaker 1: If they're too big for the average human to actually see, Uh,

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Speaker 1: they must have had the idea of like gods in

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Speaker 1: the sky or even maybe somehow people traveling in the

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Speaker 1: sky to look down and see them. So you know

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Speaker 1: that's not impossible. But there are these mysteries and and

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Speaker 1: and they're very interesting. But I don't think you need

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Speaker 1: to jump to this is a landing strip for spacecraft

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Speaker 1: or this is a you know, an aircraft parking bay. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: another way he looks at ancient art is the Mayan

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Speaker 1: temple of the inscriptions at pelen k Robert, had you

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Speaker 1: ever seen this carving before? Um? If I had, I'd

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Speaker 1: forgotten about it. It's it's very cool because you see

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Speaker 1: this individual that's kind of in a recline position. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not sure how how I would

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Speaker 1: have interpreted it had I not been looking at it,

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Speaker 1: uh as part of the research for this episode, like

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Speaker 1: knowing what people would read into it. Because knowing what

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Speaker 1: people would read into it, I look at it and

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm reminded of hr Geiger's concept for the pilot

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Speaker 1: that they encounter and Alien that the giant. You know

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Speaker 1: that the Titan character that is fossilized in this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this command chair within the crashed Alien spaceship the engineer. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of a similar reclining pose surrounded by I

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Speaker 1: don't know what you call it, kind of ornate objects

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Speaker 1: that look like all them. Maybe that could be some

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Speaker 1: form of technology. So this carving from this Mayan temple

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Speaker 1: is from the sarcophagus of the Mayan lord Pakal the Great,

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Speaker 1: who lived in the seventh century CE. And from what

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Speaker 1: I've read, the stuff in the carving are common Mayan

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Speaker 1: religious symbols. They're the kinds of things you see on

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Speaker 1: Miyan carvings that indicate things about the Mayan mythology and cosmology.

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Speaker 1: But of course von Dannikin and the ancient Aliens people

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Speaker 1: they say, well, it's got a guy reclining and he's

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Speaker 1: surrounded by all these objects and lines and weird looking stuff,

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Speaker 1: and so maybe what this is it's a person who

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Speaker 1: is reclining in a spaceship that's ready for takeoff, and

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Speaker 1: they're surrounded by all these technological objects. It's a fun

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Speaker 1: read on a base of art. I love that idea,

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Speaker 1: but but again it comes it comes down to the question,

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Speaker 1: is this really the best explanation for what we're looking

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Speaker 1: at here? Yeah, good question. Again, I think the answer

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Speaker 1: is probably no. And then finally another line of evidence is,

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Speaker 1: for example, ancient descriptions of things in literature and religion.

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Speaker 1: So I think we've talked on the podcast before about

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Speaker 1: the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel in the

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Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible. Robert, I have we done this one before?

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Speaker 1: I know it came up when Christian and I talked

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Speaker 1: about John d and sort of the various occult ideas

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Speaker 1: about angels, because we talked about how how rad the

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Speaker 1: angels are in the Old Testament, you know, with interlocking

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Speaker 1: wheels and uh a sense of like multiple eyes and

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Speaker 1: strange fires. Yeah. So, just to give a brief reading,

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Speaker 1: the author, supposedly the prophet Ezekiel, writes that he had

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Speaker 1: a vision one day the heavens were opened. Quote. Then

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Speaker 1: I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of

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Speaker 1: the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself,

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Speaker 1: and brightness was all around it and radiating out of

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Speaker 1: its midst, like the color of amber. Out of the

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Speaker 1: midst of the fire. Also from within it came the

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Speaker 1: likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance.

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Speaker 1: They had the likeness of a man. Each one had

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Speaker 1: four faces, and each one had four wings. Their legs

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Speaker 1: were straight, and the soles of their feet were like

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Speaker 1: the soles of calves feet. They sparkled like the color

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Speaker 1: of burnished bronze. Now, as I looked at the living creatures, behold,

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Speaker 1: a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature,

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Speaker 1: with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and

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Speaker 1: their workings was like the color of barrel, and all

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Speaker 1: four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings

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Speaker 1: was as it were, a wheel in the middle of

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Speaker 1: a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one

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Speaker 1: of the four directions. They did not turn aside when

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Speaker 1: they went. As for their rims, they were so high,

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Speaker 1: they were awesome, and their rims were full of eyes

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Speaker 1: all around on the four of them. That is awesome imagery.

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Speaker 1: You can't deny the amazing power of that description. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it does it. It sounds and feels like an encounter

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Speaker 1: with something beyond the human experience and God. And certainly

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Speaker 1: if you want to say it's an alien, that would

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Speaker 1: make sense to But are you convinced that number one,

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Speaker 1: the author really saw this and this isn't merely a

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Speaker 1: composed narrative serving a religious purpose. Number two, if the

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Speaker 1: author did actually see this, that it wasn't a hallucination,

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Speaker 1: right one either caused by quote unquote natural causes, you know,

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Speaker 1: some sort of religious trance or the consumption of some

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Speaker 1: sort of psychedelic substance, either one or or just a

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Speaker 1: dream or dream too, or pure daydreaming, pure imagination. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about that before too. We often want to limit

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Speaker 1: just the pure imagination of ancient peoples and say, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: they actually saw something, or clearly they were eating strange mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: But really you can we I think everyone around us

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Speaker 1: can attest to this. You can create amazing things without

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Speaker 1: bumping your head or or or eating something odd. I

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Speaker 1: totally agree. I always want to emphasize that point. H

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Speaker 1: And then finally, are you convinced even if this was

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Speaker 1: something physical the author actually saw, was it aliens? Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's something else being described in a kind of vague

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Speaker 1: and imaginative way. So von Danikin is convinced, He says,

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Speaker 1: quote the description is astonishingly good. Ezekiel says that each

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Speaker 1: wheel was in the middle of another one, an optical

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Speaker 1: allusion to our present way of thinking. What he saw

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Speaker 1: was one of those special vehicles that Americans use in

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Speaker 1: the desert and swampy terrain. Ezekiel observed that the wheels

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Speaker 1: rose from the ground simultaneously with the winged creatures. He

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Speaker 1: was quite right. Naturally, the wheels of a multi purpose vehicle,

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Speaker 1: say an amphibious helicopter, do not stay on the ground

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Speaker 1: when it takes off. What do you think of that,

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Speaker 1: read Robert. So the idea is is he beheld an

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Speaker 1: alien in a in a a fan boat, a swamp boat,

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Speaker 1: right by you, billy, alien by you, billy. Well, that

426
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of kicks the wind out of

427
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: this for me. If I think of it as that,

428
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: I like the idea of it just being interlocking cosmic

429
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 1: wheels with eyeballs all over the place. I like that too.

430
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:16,119
Speaker 1: Von Dannikin also argues that it must have been aliens

431
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: and not God's Ezekiel is describing, because quote Ezekiel gives

432
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 1: precise details of the landing of this vehicle. He describes

433
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:27,479
Speaker 1: a craft that comes from the north, emitting rays and

434
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 1: gleaming and raising a gigantic cloud of desert sand. Now,

435
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 1: the God of the Old Testament was supposed to be omnipotent,

436
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: Then why does this almighty God have to come hurtling

437
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: up from a particular direction. Cannot he be anywhere he

438
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: wants without all this noise and fuss. Now I have

439
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 1: to say again, I don't really buy that argument at all,

440
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: because it strikes me as a pretty shallow and uninformed

441
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: reading of the Old Testament. I think the Bible is

442
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 1: full of references to God and other divine beings having

443
00:23:56,560 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: physical bodies and physical limitations and being subject a normal,

444
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 1: corporeal existence. Like remember after Adam and Eve eating the

445
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, the Book of

446
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 1: Genesis says that they quote heard the sound of the

447
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,119
Speaker 1: Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of

448
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 1: the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from

449
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: the presence of the Lord God among the trees of

450
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,399
Speaker 1: the garden. So he's walking in the garden and he

451
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 1: can't see them if they hide. Well. This is one

452
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 1: of the points that Julian Jane's made about the Bible,

453
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 1: taking into account both Testaments, is that in the beginning,

454
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:34,360
Speaker 1: things are very physical, and then they become less physical

455
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: as you progress. God begins as something that is seen

456
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,919
Speaker 1: and it nearly felt, and then he becomes something that

457
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 1: is occasionally seen and only heard, and then the then

458
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 1: it's a voice that one is is longing for, one

459
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: is reaching and grasping for well, I would absolutely agree

460
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 1: that there appears to be a chronological progression over the

461
00:24:55,720 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: history of religion, of the steady abstracting of religious beings. Uh,

462
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: like a long long ago. If you look into the

463
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 1: most ancient religions, there does not seem to be a

464
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: problem with a vision of ancient angels approaching from the

465
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: north and blowing up a lot of dust and causing

466
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,240
Speaker 1: a physical disturbance when they arrive. Um. I mean, I've

467
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 1: talked about this on the show before. I think this

468
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: clear distinction that we make between aliens and gods is

469
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: sort of a post Enlightenment distinction informed by scientific thinking

470
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: and discovery and ideas about physics and biology. And I

471
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: don't think that distinction would necessarily make a whole lot

472
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: of sense to all of the people of the ancient world.

473
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: And an Old Testament angel might show up and you

474
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: might need invited into your house or wrestle it out

475
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: out in the yard. Uh, that that sort of thing.

476
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: The gods of the Greeks are taking physical form and

477
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: seeking to engage in intercourse with human beings exactly so,

478
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: so we think like, okay, gods are ethereal supernatural beings

479
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: they exist outside our spacetime universe. They're free from the

480
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: bounds of the laws of physics. And meanwhile, aliens are

481
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: biological organisms like us. You know, they they're from some

482
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: other planet. They may have powerful biological or technological abilities

483
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: that we don't have, but they're bound by the laws

484
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 1: of physics. And I just don't get a lot of

485
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: this distinction when you read ancient literature, when you read

486
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 1: these ancient religious texts, you don't get the feeling that

487
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: this distinction necessarily would have been salient to them. Gods

488
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: often had physical bodies, like you say, they could be

489
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: injured or killed. They lived in distant but physically solid

490
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: places in the mountains or in the sky, which they

491
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: believed there was ground in the sky that you could

492
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: walk around. They could be bound. That would be like

493
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,199
Speaker 1: the ultimate doom for a god of Olympus to be

494
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 1: bound somewhere. Absolutely Prometheus. Yeah, And speaking of Prometheus, here's

495
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: one of the craziest things. Many of the gods, not

496
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: not always, but many of the gods and ancient religions

497
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: clearly get their power not from some kind of supernatural nature,

498
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:54,439
Speaker 1: but from artifacts that they possess, essentially some kind of

499
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: ancient vision of a technology. Right, they've got some thing

500
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: that gives them power or just like a technological alien would, yeah,

501
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 1: magical items. So anyway, that wraps up my basic description

502
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: of of the flavor of von Danikin's type of arguments.

503
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 1: I think we can already see a lot of the

504
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 1: flaws within it, but I think it's worth exploring more

505
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: the history of how this idea developed and what a

506
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: better version of this type of hypothesis might be. The

507
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: thing about Chariots of the Gods, however, is that it

508
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: is an essential book to discuss because it definitely launched

509
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: ancient astronaut speculation into the public consciousness. Absolutely, it emerged,

510
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: and it came along I think really at just the

511
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: right time because this is a period of time we've

512
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: discussed on the show before a period of rapid technological

513
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: change in the second half of the twentieth century. And

514
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: remember it was published in nine So just think of

515
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: all the things that are going on. You know, we

516
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: are reaching out into space. We are we're we're reaching

517
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: for the moon, We're sending out probes to study the

518
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: cosmos and even bring word of our existence to potential

519
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 1: other forms of life out there. I mean, this is

520
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: the same energy that's going to lead to the establishment

521
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: of set in. But it was also a period of

522
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 1: time in which supernatural experiences took a decidedly sci fi turn,

523
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: in many cases entailing UFO citings, alien abduction experiences that

524
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: we have a whole episodes about here. And von Donakin's

525
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 1: book took the notion of alien inspired alternative archaeology and

526
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: ancient alien visitors and propelled it into the mainstream consciousness,

527
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: first as a book and then his various spinoff bits

528
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: of media. And we should be clear here, von Donakin

529
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: popularized the notion, but he was not the originator. Well

530
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: it depends no, No, you're you're right about that. He

531
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: he was not the originator. I was gonna say, I

532
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: was going to make a distinction between fiction and nonfiction,

533
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: let's say, even in nonfiction, not necessarily the originator, right.

534
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: So one of the sources we looked to in this

535
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: was a Skeptic magazine article titled Chariot Terror of the

536
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: Gods by Jason Loveto, and he points out that you

537
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: had sci fi writers such as in specifically HP Lovecraft

538
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: exploring the idea of ancient aliens visiting the Earth and

539
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: being basically the responsible agents for our various achievements and

540
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: our very existence. Yeah. Absolutely, If if you're not familiar

541
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: with Lovecrafts alien agent aliens mythos, just to read a

542
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: quote from Call of Cthulhu that also appears in Colavito's article. Quote,

543
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: there had been eons when other things ruled on the Earth,

544
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: and they had had great cities. Remains of them were

545
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in

546
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: the Pacific. They all died vast epics of time before

547
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: men came, but there were arts which could revive them

548
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: when the stars had come round again to the right

549
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: positions and the cycle of eternity. They had indeed come

550
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: themselves from the stars and brought their images with them.

551
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: And of course the original title for that that story

552
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: by HP Lovecraft was the Call of Cthulhu. But the

553
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: Colovido even goes so far as to line up the

554
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties European popularity of love Crafts fiction with the

555
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,239
Speaker 1: publication of The Chariots of the Gods. Yeah, that's totally right.

556
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: I mean we should mention Morning of the Magicians. Oh yes,

557
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: so I've never read it, but I'm I'm familiar with

558
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 1: it by reputation. This was a nineteen sixty book by

559
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: Louis Paulis and Jacques Bergier. Uh. And this is a

560
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 1: book that I actually learned about on the DVD special

561
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: features for the Nazi zombie film Shockwaves from seven, which is,

562
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, a fabulous film, uh, with

563
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: Nazi zombies in Florida. And it was inspired at least

564
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: in part by the Morning of the Magicians, which supposedly

565
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: also gets into uh, you know, ideas and conspiracies related

566
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: to Nazi interest in the occult. Well, I mean so.

567
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: Colavito points out that this book Morning of the Magicians

568
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: was inspired directly by Lovecraft's fiction, as the authors were

569
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: actually editors of a French magazine called Planet or Planet

570
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: I guess, which printed French translations of Lovecraft throughout the sixties.

571
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: In Traces of the Gods, Ancient Astronauts as a vision

572
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: of our future, Jonas Richter points out several additional precursors here,

573
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: uh so possible. First ancient astronauts speculation concept in sci

574
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: fi comes from Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Service,

575
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: published in eight I've never heard of this, No I

576
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: had not either, and that it basically discusses the idea

577
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: that the Pyramids were built by Martians. There's also an

578
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: eight seven novel by Kurd loss Fitz that explored this

579
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: sort of contact between interplanetary cultures, and of course he

580
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: points out Lovecraft. But then there's also Perry Roden, a

581
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: German science fiction series running since nineteen sixty one, and

582
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: it apparently gets into some of these ideas as well.

583
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: So it seems like, especially if you go into the

584
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: fiction realm, the nineteen sixties were full of ancient astronauts stuff. Yeah,

585
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,719
Speaker 1: it's just von Donnikin had the book that really just

586
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: took it and propelled it into the mainstream. Now, of

587
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: course this ended up making its way into other fictional

588
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,959
Speaker 1: properties that were even more mainstream, like movies. Oh yes, uh,

589
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: you know, just to name a few here, I probably

590
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: the greatest example is two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey.

591
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: You know, I never think of that as an ancient

592
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: alien story, but that it is what it is, right,

593
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: the idea. Yeah, so there's a there's a monolith that

594
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: appears on Earth at some point during our evolution and

595
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: sparks this revolution and tool use among our ancient ancestors. Yeah,

596
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,479
Speaker 1: and it's it's one of the reasons we don't think

597
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: about it much is because it is such a a

598
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: thoughtful and intelligent treatment of the concept. And we'll actually

599
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: get into to it when we started discussing Sagan's Carl

600
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: Sagan's thoughts on ancient alien speculation, because some of the

601
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: things that he say might might take place given a

602
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: situation like this line up directly with the plot of

603
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. But then you have you have

604
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: other films as well. For instance, God told me to

605
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: the Larry Cohen film about Christ Like hermaphroditic aliens, that

606
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: that definitely has an ancient aliens vibe to it. Of course,

607
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: the Ridley Scott film Prometheus is is rich with with

608
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: ancient alien speculation as well. I didn't see this film,

609
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 1: but Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull gets into this

610
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: as well, right, it's this an ancient aliens uh speculation film. Yeah,

611
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: it is easily the weakest to the Indiana Jones movies,

612
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: I think explicitly because Indiana Jones it didn't need to

613
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: go into the sci fi realm. I think it works

614
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: best when it's integrated deeply with earth based mythology. Yeah,

615
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: I agree, Like the Ark of the Covenant is terrifying

616
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: and awesome in in Raiders because you don't know what

617
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: it is. It is this mysterious supernatural thing and maybe

618
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: it is alien in nature, but it is it is

619
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: either it's so strange that it is alien either way. Also,

620
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: the c G I go for didn't help. Um. Now,

621
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: one of my favorites that I almost didn't think to

622
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 1: include is The Life of Brian, the Money Python religious epic.

623
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: There's there's a brief alien interlude. I recall, there's like

624
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: a chase sequence with the character of Brian and he

625
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: is accidentally abducted by aliens and goes on a brief

626
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: adventure and it's so perfect because it's so accidental. The

627
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: aliens don't seem to be trying to do anything. They

628
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: just sort of happened to run into the story for

629
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:32,319
Speaker 1: a little bit and then they're out of it and

630
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: no knowledge is getting like, there's no there's no wisdom

631
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: imparted upon Brian by this experience. It just scares the

632
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: crap out of him. I don't know this for sure,

633
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: but I'm going to speculate that the reason that is

634
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: in the film is simply because somebody wanted to create

635
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 1: some alien spaceships and alien sets and and alien costumes,

636
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: and they wanted a way to fit it in. So

637
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: they just said, oh, let's have them get abducted for

638
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad they

639
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: have to make it, because it does seem like the

640
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 1: kind of situation where producers might say, is this necessary

641
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: to the script, because we could cut this whole alien thing,

642
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: and then we don't have to build a spaceship or

643
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: an extraterrestrial and we could cut down and maybe you know,

644
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:11,839
Speaker 1: at least a day is worth of filming, and then

645
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:16,439
Speaker 1: Terry Gilliams like, I already built it. Uh. They're also

646
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: less memorable films that we might mention the Stargate. I

647
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 1: say less memorable, but I definitely remember an Egyptian god

648
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: having his head teleported off and in that in that

649
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,760
Speaker 1: film that was at least one awesome quality kill. Yeah.

650
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: The best thing about it I recall is like, is

651
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: like attack by Edge of Teleportation Zone. Of course the

652
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,359
Speaker 1: fifth Element has ancient Aliens plot element as well. Yeah,

653
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: it does. And uh, and for any of our pyramids.

654
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. And speaking of pyramids, Uh, here's

655
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: one something for our our Doctor Who listeners out there.

656
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of the the The Old Doctor

657
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: Who episodes, there was an episode called the Pyramids of

658
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: Mars that has some ancient alien speculation, uh intrigue in it,

659
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: and there's this this wonderful moment where this uh like

660
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,360
Speaker 1: Egyptian deity servant steps out of the like a portal

661
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: and says, I bring SUITEX gift of death to all humanity.

662
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 1: And of course there are plenty of other examples in

663
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: film and literature that we could bring up, and we

664
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:20,839
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you, the listeners, what your

665
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: favorite bits of fictional ancient astronaut intrigue happened to be.

666
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: But clearly it's been a very inspiring idea to many people,

667
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: Like it's something that caught on fast and we haven't

668
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: let go of since. Now. Mentioned of Prometheus is key here,

669
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: and we've already touched on both the movie and the

670
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: actual character the titan Prometheus who brought fire to the

671
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: ancient Greeks in in the myth and it's interesting because

672
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: we we see this motif time and time again a

673
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:52,879
Speaker 1: myth in which a god read demigod gives a technology

674
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: to ancient people. Uh. These are frequently referred to as

675
00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: culture bearers. So we have Prometheus the firebringer in Chinese mythology,

676
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: we have Sujin the fire driller, who, who fulfills the

677
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 1: same role, brings the technology of fire to mortals. Uh.

678
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: And uh. You know, I have to admit that even

679
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: though I don't personally put a lot of of stock

680
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: or faith in in a s, I still read these

681
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: accounts or look at visual interpretations, and part of me

682
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: always thinks, oh, yeah, it was totally an ancient alien.

683
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,439
Speaker 1: That it does. It just makes sense what else would

684
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: Prometheus be. But of course this is always flawed logic

685
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: because I feel like one of the big things to

686
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: drive home here is that God's in our myths are

687
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:38,280
Speaker 1: not merely mislabeled aliens. Rather, I think it's the reverse.

688
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: Aliens are essentially rebranded gods. I agree with you a

689
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: hundred percent on that. I think you're exactly right. Our

690
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: visions of aliens come from our mythological visions of gods,

691
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 1: and they continually are influenced by them. I mean, think

692
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 1: of the way the movie Prometheus is echoing all of

693
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: these echoing all of these themes from Greek myth. Yeah, exactly.

694
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:01,879
Speaker 1: I guess we need to take a break, don't we. Yes,

695
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

696
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,399
Speaker 1: All right, We're back now, Robert, you mentioned I think

697
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: that you'd actually seen some of these Ancient Alien shows

698
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: that they show on what the History Channel or one

699
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: of those one of those subsidiary networks. I have never

700
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:19,879
Speaker 1: watched any of the Ancient Alien shows, but I did

701
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: see Leonard Nimoy's in Search Off or at least reruns

702
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: of it on A and E back in the late nineties.

703
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: Was that the sort of the proto Ancient Aliens? In

704
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: a way? I remember them exploring topics like this and

705
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: uh and and also stuff like big Foot? Was Bigfoot

706
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: an alien as well? Probably? Yeah, I want to I'm

707
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 1: going to drop a fact on you. We'll see how

708
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,280
Speaker 1: you deal with this. Did you know that Ancient Aliens

709
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: is still on still making new episodes. It's currently on

710
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: season thirteen. Wow? You think how you like them? Apple?

711
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: It's it's I mean, having looked at some of the

712
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: examples that are frequently brought up, there are a lot

713
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 1: of there are a number of examples that are used,

714
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: that are brought up to support uh, ancient alien speculation,

715
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,399
Speaker 1: but it seems like you'd run out of the really

716
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: good ones by at least season eight. Yeah. Yeah, God,

717
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: I mean not to say that Ancient Aliens is not

718
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: a fun idea. It's fun to speculate about, fun to

719
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: play with. But given that, I think you and I

720
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 1: agree that there's really no good evidence anywhere, how do

721
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:26,760
Speaker 1: they get that far? Yeah? I think it's it's safe

722
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: to say that they don't get that get to this

723
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: point by, you know, through through anything resembling accurate balance,

724
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: consideration of scientific fact or archaeological fact. They're basically writing

725
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: documentary fiction, right Yeah. Brian Switek described the show in

726
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Magazine as what you quote what you would get

727
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 1: if you drop some creationist propaganda. Uh, Eric van Donnikin's

728
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:55,919
Speaker 1: Chariots of the Gods and stock footage from Jurassic Fight

729
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: Club into a blender. What results is a slimy and

730
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: INCOMPREHENSI will mixture of idle speculation and outright fabrications. Now

731
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: he's discussing an episode of the Ancient Aliens show. I

732
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:11,279
Speaker 1: think where they're they're talking about dinosaurs. Okay, I read

733
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: I read this article and he says that there's basically

734
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: they've got all their quote experts on talking about how

735
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: aliens might have wiped out the dinosaurs in order to

736
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 1: make room for humankind to ascend, and so they've got

737
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: animations of dinosaurs running away from spaceships that are blasting

738
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: them and stuff. It does feel a lot like creationist

739
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 1: propaganda at that point where you just especially when you

740
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: start using the dinosaurs, you know, because I feel like

741
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: then you're really you're trying to get to the children.

742
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: That's true. It's despicable and unfair. It's like using cartoon

743
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 1: characters on cigarettes. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's why. Just the

744
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: other day I found a creationist book in a lending

745
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 1: library at a state park and I've moved it directly

746
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: from the lending library to a trash can, and it

747
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: was such satisfying them. You know, some of those creationist

748
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: books that have some good illustrations in them, that the

749
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: illustrations are great. I just, uh, I feel like there

750
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: should be a warning label on the front, uh, you know,

751
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: letting you know that this is uh, this is not science. Now,

752
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: there was one I'm trying to remember. I think it

753
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: might have been a creationist book by Dwayne Gish, but

754
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not positive anyway, it's it depicts a dinosaur.

755
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: I think it's a parasar lapus paras. How do you

756
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: say that one? Parasar lopus. So that's the white one.

757
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: That's the way my son says it, and he's usually

758
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: better at dinosaur named pronunciation than than me. In the illustration,

759
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: it's breathing fire on his he re. It's just like, yeah,

760
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: that one, it breathes fire. Well, that explains the the

761
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: complex nasal composition. So anyway, back to Chariots of the Gods.

762
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: We've recently discussed some beautifully presented hypotheses by writers such

763
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: as Julian Jaynes and Letard and Leonard Schlaine. Uh. You

764
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: know that that make a case for something that that

765
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: you might not accept completely. You know, it's maybe taking

766
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: a radical coach to our interpretation of the past and

767
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 1: to just how humans interact with with ideas. Chariots of

768
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: the Gods is not on the same level with these books.

769
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: In fact, I would say that the author of Von

770
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: Donakin most reminds me of is probably l Ron Hubbard.

771
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: And I say that as somebody who who picked up

772
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard with an open mind, saying, you know,

773
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: all right, this this is this is a book that

774
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: means a lot to a fair number of people. I

775
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 1: want to see what there is to get excited about.

776
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: In the introduction alone, von Donakin immediately goes into attack

777
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: mode on anyone who might disagree with his notion that

778
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: archaeological and religious evidence definitely supports the idea that ancient

779
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: aliens visited the earth and kickstarted humans from that that

780
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: hate level. Uh and I feel like I actually have

781
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,959
Speaker 1: to read just a little bit of it here, he said,

782
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:50,479
Speaker 1: He writes, quote, it took courage to write this book,

783
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: and it will take courage to read it, because its

784
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: theories and proofs do not fit into the mosaic of

785
00:42:55,440 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 1: traditional archaeology constructed so laboriously and firmly cemented. Own scholars

786
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 1: will call it nonsense and and put it on the

787
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 1: index of those books which are better left unmentioned. Layman

788
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: will withdraw into the snail shell of their familiar world

789
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: when faced with the probability that finding out about our

790
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 1: past will be even more mysterious and adventurous than finding

791
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: out about the future. So and that continues for for

792
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 1: paragraphs afterwards as well, where he's it's he's not saying

793
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 1: exclamation points in it. Yes, yeah, he's not making He's

794
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: not saying I have an interesting idea. Maybe it's true,

795
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 1: maybe it's not, but I'd like you to think about it.

796
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 1: He's saying, look, let's just get this out of the way.

797
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: If you're not down with this idea, you're a coward. Well,

798
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 1: I mean we should try to be critical of ourselves

799
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:45,399
Speaker 1: and skeptical of the skeptical mindset, right, But I mean

800
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:50,240
Speaker 1: we we discuss and entertain radical hypotheses and strange ideas.

801
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:52,919
Speaker 1: We try to bring a skeptical mind to them, say, Okay,

802
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: are they actually presenting any good evidence or not? Right?

803
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: And we will and we'll give it that give it

804
00:43:57,800 --> 00:43:59,439
Speaker 1: that a fair fair shake here, And we are giving

805
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: it a fair shake here. But but I also have

806
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 1: to say, like, there's there's something in the way that

807
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,399
Speaker 1: the idea is presented in the book that I think

808
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: does not give ancient alien speculation, uh, doesn't do it

809
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: any favors, because it immediately feels a bit um aggressive. Yes, Now,

810
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 1: I looked back to see a little bit more about

811
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: what the the immediate reaction was to was to the

812
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: book and how it was received in the years to follow.

813
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: And I found a really interesting New York Times review

814
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: by a critic, Richard Lingaman. Uh. This was from nine four,

815
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:39,319
Speaker 1: and he really put the screws to the book while

816
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 1: also highlighting of von Donakin's background as a convicted in

817
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: Bezler fraud and forger. So here a few, uh, a

818
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: few highlights from the review. Quote. His method is to

819
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: use a negative ancient people's couldn't have done or thought

820
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: all the things they did, to prove a positive that

821
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: the ancient people were the beneficiaries of some kind of

822
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: cosmological point for program quote, von Donakin's evidence is that

823
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: of an enthusiastic amateur, not scholar, an amateur with an

824
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,760
Speaker 1: axe to grind. There is a tendentiousness in his book

825
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: that lies in an urgent, recurring motif. A running complaint

826
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,760
Speaker 1: against the quote high priests of organized religion, who, along

827
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: with the archaeologist, refused to admit the truth. As von

828
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: Donakin has revealed it, Actually, most modern religion is not

829
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:29,000
Speaker 1: anti scientific, though it might be might well be anti

830
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: von Donakin. The two aren't as synonymous as for archaeologist,

831
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: I suspect that their professional tendency is to chip away

832
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 1: at the potsherds of truth rather than make cosmic leaps

833
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,279
Speaker 1: of faith into outer space. And then he goes on

834
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,880
Speaker 1: to say, ironically, for a man who is almost gaga

835
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: about space science, much of what von Donakin purveys depends

836
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: upon ancient religious myths, specifically the recurring references to skyborn gods.

837
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 1: We come full circle. The man who seeks to overturn

838
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: the religious explanation of man's origins goes not to scientific evidence,

839
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: but to the Bible and Ezekiel's fiery wheels. Now, to

840
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 1: push back against that somewhat, I would say, though it

841
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 1: would be very hard to be conclusive about the idea

842
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 1: that Earth had been visited by aliens if all you

843
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: had to go on was literature, I would say that

844
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:19,479
Speaker 1: in many cases, if it actually did happen, the only

845
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: evidence we might have would be literature. Exactly. Yeah, And

846
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,959
Speaker 1: as as we'll discuss later on, and Carl Sagan said

847
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: as much as well, this is where we would find

848
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 1: the evidence. Carl Sagan is a bit more cautious determining what,

849
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: let's say, a lot more cautious, a lot more cautious

850
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: in determine like what could possibly be identified as evidence.

851
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: But still he admits that like this is what we have.

852
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: We have this this, this is when you look back

853
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: on an ancient peoples and the records they left, you're

854
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:50,799
Speaker 1: gonna get religion, you're gonna get myth. But this is

855
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: also you know, you see what he's doing here is

856
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: he's operating off of unanswered questions and then immediately navigating

857
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 1: to a spect killative answer. I mean, you see this

858
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: in all kinds of people who are trying to prove

859
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: radical and speculative hypotheses, where they take a thing that,

860
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: you know, take an unknown like we don't know how

861
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 1: they built the pyramids, and back in the sixties and

862
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: seventies that was largely true. I mean, we might have

863
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: had some good hypotheses, but it was like, oh wow,

864
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 1: you know there was this feat accomplished in the ancient world.

865
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 1: How could they have done it? And so because that

866
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: ends in a question mark and it's a mystery, now

867
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: you have license to say, well, if we don't know,

868
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 1: then it must have been X. And that's exactly what

869
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: you can't do. So Van Donkan and he makes some

870
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: pretty broad assertions about the archaeological evidence he presents. You know,

871
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: it's not so much of the Baghdad battery might have

872
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: been a battery, now it was a battery. It's not

873
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 1: that the Japanese do goo sculptures um kind of look

874
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:49,399
Speaker 1: like they their space suits. But they you know, they're

875
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: definitely representations of space suits. Yes they are spacemen that

876
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 1: they do look really cool. And And the thing is

877
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: in any of these various bits of evidence that are

878
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,839
Speaker 1: brought up, the ones that you know aren't fraudulent in nature,

879
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 1: they are fascinating. Even the ones that are fraudulent in nature,

880
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: we could potentially do a whole episode on, but it's

881
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: it's to to hold them up in as proof of

882
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: of ancient aliens, is uh, you know? Is this is

883
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: a step beyond all Right, So I think we've had

884
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: we've we've had enough time with with Chariots of the Gods.

885
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: Let's take a break and when we come back we

886
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: will see what Karl Sagan had to say about all

887
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: of this. Thank alright, we're back. Now we've been discussing

888
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:34,280
Speaker 1: Eric van Deniken Chariots of the Gods, the Ancient Aliens

889
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: speculation uh, and a lot of the problems with it.

890
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: But one thing that this got me wondering about is,

891
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: I'm reading von Danicken, I'm thinking that this argumentation is

892
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:48,279
Speaker 1: not very good. A lot of the evidence seems very shaky.

893
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 1: What would a good, well presented case for ancient aliens

894
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: speculation look like. What would it look like if a responsible, thoughtful,

895
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: skeptical scientist approached the question and tried to put together

896
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: the best possible case for it. Yeah, because a lot

897
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 1: of times it seems like you have two types of

898
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: people looking at it. You have like quasi religious advocates

899
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: of ancient aliens, and then you have skeptics that are

900
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 1: in here just to tear it down. You know that

901
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: there they don't seem like they would even entertain any

902
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: of the ideas, Like who would be the person to

903
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,280
Speaker 1: maybe not take the middle ground, but at least approach

904
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,280
Speaker 1: it with with skeptical open mindedness. Yeah, not middle ground,

905
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: but just giving it a fair skeptical shake. Yeah. And

906
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: And luckily this is where Karl Sagan enters the picture,

907
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: because in the book Intelligent Life in the Universe, Uh,

908
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: Sagan teamed up with the Soviet astrophysicist Josef Shotski and UH. Indeed,

909
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: in the book they do consider they consider a number

910
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 1: of possibilities concerning UH aliens and the possible existence of aliens,

911
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:56,720
Speaker 1: but they do specifically look at the idea of ancient

912
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: aliens as well. They get into it pretty late in

913
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:00,960
Speaker 1: the book, but here's some of the the basic ideas

914
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: they present. So they said that if interstellar travel is

915
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 1: technically possible, then it is quote likely to be developed

916
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: by a civilization substantially in advance of our own. That

917
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. We're not ready for interstellar travel yet.

918
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,240
Speaker 1: And UH and they argue that if you have a

919
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: technologically advanced group like this, the enterprise of space travel

920
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: is simply gonna be too rewarding for them to give up.

921
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 1: They're just they're going to to expand beyond their own planet.

922
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 1: I think maybe you could argue with that, But then again,

923
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's fair to assume that

924
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: there's an exploratory nature in most organisms. Yeah, I mean,

925
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: certainly when we come back, we always come back, of course,

926
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: around to the idea that we have to look to

927
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 1: our only example of life and intelligent life, and that's

928
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: an intelligent life, and that's us and therefore we tend

929
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 1: to think what they would do what we do, which

930
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 1: is enlightening and at times horrifying. Well, okay, so if

931
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: you try to reason back, whereas you say, if an

932
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:56,720
Speaker 1: organism has intelligence, it can probably move right, and moving

933
00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: organisms tend to be either like hunting or foraging times

934
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: of organisms. They're not just going to be sitting there

935
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:06,280
Speaker 1: and photosynthesizing. So if they have to seek out types

936
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 1: of food, then they probably have some kind of exploration instinct.

937
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,919
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, that's very rough, but trying

938
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 1: to get there. No, No, I think you're right. So

939
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:20,240
Speaker 1: they say that if interstellar space flight is a feasible

940
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 1: and then technological civilizations of the galaxy will be an

941
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: intercommunicating whole, but that the communication will be sluggish. So

942
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 1: at this point, the Sagan and Schlowski they do some

943
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 1: math and they determine that quote, if contacts are made

944
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,320
Speaker 1: on a purely random basis, each star should be visited

945
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: about once every ten to the fifth power years, or

946
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 1: I believe that's what a hundred thousand years. Furthermore, quote,

947
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 1: each communitive technological civilization should be visited by another such

948
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 1: civilization about once every thousand years. So you see where

949
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: this is going, right, given their assumptions. Yes, so they

950
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: say that it's possible then that a starship might have

951
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: come by the planet during the earliest stages of intelligent

952
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 1: life on Earth, and that it's therefore possible that yes,

953
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: in an extracestrial civilization could have visited the planet within

954
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: historical times. Okay with you so far, all right? However,

955
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: this is an important they lay out here. Quote, there

956
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: are no reliable reports of direct contact with an extraterrestrial

957
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 1: civilization during the last few centuries, when critical scholarship and

958
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: non superstitious reasoning have been fairly widespread. Any earlier contact

959
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:37,239
Speaker 1: story must be encumbered with some degree of fanciful embellishment

960
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: due simply to the views prevailing at the time of

961
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 1: the contact. The extent to which subsequent variation and embellishment

962
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: alters the fat basic fabric of the account varies with

963
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:50,720
Speaker 1: time and circumstance. And so they point to an example

964
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: made by historian Mercelles in the Myth of the Eternal

965
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: Return or Cosmos in History. And this is this is

966
00:52:57,719 --> 00:52:59,760
Speaker 1: an excellent book that I've referenced on the show several

967
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: times before. This is where you get the idea of

968
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: the terror of history uh and the cyclical versus linear time.

969
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: But Deliade pointed out just how supernaturally elaborated, elaborated a

970
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: simple Romanian romantic tragedy became. So it became it transformed

971
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:20,840
Speaker 1: into a story of ancient magical myth within the subject's

972
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 1: own lifetime, so that it's like a game of telephone

973
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 1: to a certain extent. Here it's the myth making just

974
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 1: compounds everything. So the individual it's about is still alive,

975
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 1: but the stories about it have placed it in a

976
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: magical mythic past. Well, the myth making impulses not just

977
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: to make up a story, and for the listener, not

978
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 1: just to repeat a story, but to repeat a story

979
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: with your own changes and embolishments. Exactly so for our

980
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: purposes here, though, the idea, if there's if there's science

981
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:55,439
Speaker 1: occurring among the magical, then how are we to tell

982
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: them apart in the stories that survived from the ancient past?

983
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 1: Good question. On the other hands, Sagan and Showsky point

984
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:05,359
Speaker 1: out that there's also, for instance, the the account of

985
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:09,760
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty six first contact between the telling that people

986
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:13,719
Speaker 1: of North America and French sailing vessels their quote oral

987
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 1: rendition contains sufficient information for later reconstruction of the nature

988
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: of the encounter. But also these stories contain myth mythic

989
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: descriptions of the ships. Is uh, the of the if

990
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 1: the French ships has great blackbirds with white wings. So

991
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 1: they say, if you look at the myth, you see

992
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 1: clear embellishments. But you can also put together historical details

993
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: from them that we can verify as correct. Right. So

994
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: Sagan argues that this means that quote, under certain circumstances,

995
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 1: a brief contact with an alien civilization will be recorded

996
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 1: in a reconstructible manner. Uh. However, he drives home that

997
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: it needs to be first of all, committed to written

998
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 1: records soon after the event. It has to be there.

999
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: It has to result in major changes for the contacted people,

1000
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: so not our life of Brian example, where nothing is

1001
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: really affected. Uh. And then also the contactors can't be

1002
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: attempting attempting to disguise themselves, so the aliens can't be

1003
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 1: pretending to be humans, or that's gonna throw everything off

1004
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 1: right right now, I know they wouldn't say that. Unless

1005
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: we can verify all that stuff, we can be sure

1006
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: that alien contact never happened. In the past, they would

1007
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 1: just say that, you know, we're not justified in moving

1008
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,960
Speaker 1: to that conclusion until we meet the following criteria, right.

1009
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 1: And they also say that you just can't look for

1010
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 1: sky gods. It's just too obvious. The sky is just

1011
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: too obvious a place to position your gods, Like the

1012
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: only other place to have your gods live is in

1013
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 1: the deep ocean, or just in the ocean if you

1014
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 1: are a seafaring people, or mountaintops or mountaintops. Yeah, but

1015
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:46,840
Speaker 1: just these are just obvious places for God's to be.

1016
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 1: You can't say, oh, here's the story about a sky god,

1017
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: therefore ancient aliens. So instead they say that you what

1018
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 1: you need is a visit from the sky, a return

1019
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,520
Speaker 1: to the sky, and a gift of knowledge or technology.

1020
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:00,920
Speaker 1: Now I would charge that might even be too broad

1021
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:04,160
Speaker 1: based on some of the culture bearer motifs that I

1022
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, I would agree with that. So this is

1023
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: a book, so it came out before Chariots of the

1024
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: Gods set the world on fire. So he's not responding

1025
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 1: in this book to specific evidence presented by von Donnikin,

1026
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:24,800
Speaker 1: but he does talk briefly about some evidence that was

1027
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:29,959
Speaker 1: brought up, particularly by Soviet ethnologist M. M. August, and

1028
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 1: he just drives home that yeah, these you have these

1029
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 1: cases for past cultures encountering interstellar society, but that there

1030
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 1: are just ultimately no known alien artifacts that that are

1031
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 1: just definitely connected with this with such a visit. There's

1032
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 1: just no hard evidence. But the authors do offer one

1033
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:54,879
Speaker 1: possible example from ancient sumer that they think might be

1034
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 1: a good starting point if you're going to consider, uh,

1035
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:03,479
Speaker 1: examples of initial ancient alien contact. Yeah, so they say,

1036
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:05,799
Speaker 1: we don't have any hard evidence, but we need at

1037
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 1: least a framework for how to examine ancient literature and

1038
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:12,439
Speaker 1: stories and stuff to see if they meet the great

1039
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 1: if they're actually worth considering. And they give this example

1040
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 1: of one that is maybe worth considering as an example

1041
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:22,320
Speaker 1: of alien contact, not not necessarily as an evidence, but

1042
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 1: just worth looking at. So the story relates to the

1043
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: origin of the Sumerian civilization. Sumer is one of the

1044
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 1: most ancient civilizations known on planet Earth. Dating backs are

1045
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: roughly the fifth millennium b CE. UH. These these versions

1046
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: of this one story can all be traced back to

1047
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 1: one Birosis, a priest of bel Marduke in Babylon during

1048
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:46,560
Speaker 1: the time of Alexander the Great, and supposedly Borrosis had

1049
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: access to ancient cune of form and pictographic records from

1050
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: thousands of years before his time. And there are multiple

1051
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: translations and retellings of Borosis. And the authors of this

1052
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: book quote three messages about Borrosis and his writings at length.

1053
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 1: So I'll try to summarize. First. According to Alexander polyhistor

1054
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:10,600
Speaker 1: and Borosis is giving a summary of the history and

1055
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: geography of Babylon, with its native plants and crops, and

1056
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 1: its neighboring people's and so forth. And he comes to

1057
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: speak of beings variously known as ab Khalu and as

1058
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: Barross himself calls the first one of these creatures Oanas

1059
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: or a Wannies or Adappa, and Barrosas tells that at

1060
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:31,840
Speaker 1: the time in ancient Babylon, there were men of many

1061
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 1: nations who were yet uncivilized and quote lived without rule

1062
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: and order, like the beasts of the field. But then

1063
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 1: something happened quote in the first year there made its

1064
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: appearance from a part of the Persian Gulf which bordered

1065
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, who was called

1066
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: as the whole body of the animal was like that

1067
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 1: of a fish, and had under a fish's head another head,

1068
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: and also feet below similar to those of a man

1069
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:06,440
Speaker 1: subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice, too, and language

1070
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:09,880
Speaker 1: was articulate and human, and a representation of him is

1071
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 1: preserved even to this day. Robert, I got a picture here,

1072
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: at least one picture of as oh well, so that

1073
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: the picture of a honest uh, just kind of looks

1074
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 1: like a fishman, which I'm definitely into. But that description

1075
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:27,400
Speaker 1: with the double faces that that is, that is creepy.

1076
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 1: It really reminds me of some stuff that our Scott

1077
00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: Baker plays with in his um his Second Apocalypse saga,

1078
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:38,520
Speaker 1: which does involve a sort of ancient alien motif within

1079
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:43,720
Speaker 1: a fantasy world. Interesting. I got more quote. This being

1080
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 1: in the daytime, used to converse with men, but took

1081
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:49,560
Speaker 1: no food at that season, and he gave them an

1082
00:59:49,560 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: insight into letters and sciences and every kind of art.

1083
00:59:53,280 --> 00:59:56,400
Speaker 1: He taught them to construct houses, to found temples, to

1084
00:59:56,440 --> 01:00:00,000
Speaker 1: compile laws, and explain to them the principles of gmt

1085
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 1: crical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the

1086
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 1: earth and showed them how to collect fruits. In short,

1087
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 1: he instructed them in everything which could tend to soften

1088
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: manners and humanize mankind. From that time, so universal were

1089
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: his instructions, nothing material has been added by way of improvement.

1090
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:21,040
Speaker 1: When the sun set, it was the custom of this

1091
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: being to plunge again into the sea and abide all

1092
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 1: night in the deep, for he was amphibious. Oh and

1093
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,600
Speaker 1: then also quote after this there appeared other animals like

1094
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 1: oh Honus, of which Borrosis promises to give an account

1095
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 1: when he comes to the history of the kings. And then,

1096
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:43,160
Speaker 1: according to an ancient writer known as Avid nous Uh,

1097
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: he's giving an account of the Borosis is giving an

1098
01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 1: account of the kings of ancient Mesopotamia, and he mentions

1099
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 1: in passing O Honus and other quote double shaped personages

1100
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:57,040
Speaker 1: who came out of the water at various points in history. Also,

1101
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:01,160
Speaker 1: Apollodorus gives an account of this history, mentioning that fishmen

1102
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: appear out of the Persian Gulf at various points throughout history.

1103
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 1: And Alexander polyhistor Or, the source of the first version

1104
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: of the story uh tells a version of the common

1105
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: flood myth with a king of ancient Sumeer being warned

1106
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:17,439
Speaker 1: by the gods of a coming flood catastrophe, and he's

1107
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 1: told how to preserve his himself in civilization to survive it. So,

1108
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: according to these ancient accounts, Sumerian civilization was not the

1109
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:29,080
Speaker 1: invention of humans, but a gift bestowed and guided by

1110
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: several waves of semi humanoid fish like visitors. Kind of interesting.

1111
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Now this may have once been more impressive

1112
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: evidence at a time when many archaeologists believe Sumerian civilization

1113
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:44,280
Speaker 1: sort of sprang up out of nowhere at the time

1114
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: the myths describe. The authors of the book now note

1115
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 1: that it seems there was probably a more gradual technological

1116
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 1: and cultural evolution to the first Sumerian cities. It is

1117
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:56,840
Speaker 1: interesting to think that this same the same kind of

1118
01:01:56,880 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 1: questions we might ask today, like how did bread? How

1119
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 1: did they ever figured that out? Or you know, or

1120
01:02:02,040 --> 01:02:05,080
Speaker 1: making fire that what was it like when when somebody

1121
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:08,600
Speaker 1: discovered this, Like even in ancient times, I'm imagining you

1122
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 1: could still have someone that might think, wow, I just

1123
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:13,120
Speaker 1: don't see how anyone figured this out. It must have

1124
01:02:13,120 --> 01:02:15,640
Speaker 1: been fished people, Right, It's not like they knew who

1125
01:02:15,800 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 1: first drank milk out of a cow? Right, they needed

1126
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:21,919
Speaker 1: a myth for that too um so. The authors also

1127
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: point out interesting features of Sumerian pictographic art on cylinder seals,

1128
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:30,000
Speaker 1: which show mysterious symbols that appear like they could be

1129
01:02:30,040 --> 01:02:33,680
Speaker 1: representations of solar systems. So there will be a symbol

1130
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:36,480
Speaker 1: where there's like a central sphere with rays appearing to

1131
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:39,920
Speaker 1: come out of it, and it's being circled by smaller spheres.

1132
01:02:40,080 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 1: The idea of planet circling a son, of course, wouldn't

1133
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:46,760
Speaker 1: catch on until centuries later. And more interestingly, there are

1134
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 1: images of this type with different numbers of planets that

1135
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:53,360
Speaker 1: seemed to be associated with different gods, almost suggesting that

1136
01:02:53,440 --> 01:02:56,400
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, this god came from this solar system,

1137
01:02:56,440 --> 01:02:58,880
Speaker 1: and this other god came from this other solar system.

1138
01:02:59,640 --> 01:03:02,120
Speaker 1: How are as fun as it can be to draw

1139
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:04,920
Speaker 1: connections like this? The author's stress that we should not

1140
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:08,960
Speaker 1: get carried away quote these cylinder seals maybe nothing more

1141
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:12,880
Speaker 1: than the experiments of the ancient unconscious mind to understand

1142
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:18,080
Speaker 1: and portray a sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes hostile environment. The stories

1143
01:03:18,120 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: of the Opkalu may have been made out of whole cloth,

1144
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: perhaps as late as Babylonian times, perhaps by Barrosas himself

1145
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:29,000
Speaker 1: Sumerian society may have developed gradually over many thousands of years.

1146
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:33,160
Speaker 1: In any event, a completely convincing demonstration of past contact

1147
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 1: with an extraterrestrial civilization will always be difficult to provide

1148
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:41,360
Speaker 1: on textual grounds alone. But stories like the Oanes legend

1149
01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:45,280
Speaker 1: and representations, especially of the earliest civilizations on the Earth,

1150
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 1: deserve much more critical studies than have been performed here

1151
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:51,680
Speaker 1: to four, with the possibility of direct contact with an

1152
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial civilization as one of the many possible alternative interpretations.

1153
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:59,360
Speaker 1: So they're saying, it's a high bar, you know, if

1154
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 1: you're going to try go from ancient textual evidence and

1155
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: just like storytelling to okay, aliens came here, It's going

1156
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:09,360
Speaker 1: to be a really high bar to jump over, right,

1157
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: But we should at least be open to the idea

1158
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: that such contact could have possibly happened, and have a

1159
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: good idea of what evidence for it would look like. Yeah,

1160
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:23,200
Speaker 1: So they summarized that given the numbers they discussed, it's

1161
01:04:23,240 --> 01:04:27,080
Speaker 1: possible that Earth has been visited maybe many times, maybe

1162
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: by numerous galactic civilizations even during geologic time, and that

1163
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 1: they might have a base of operations within our solar system.

1164
01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:37,760
Speaker 1: So in the point out that the moon makes the

1165
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 1: most sense here, just as author C. Clark explored in

1166
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:43,840
Speaker 1: his science fiction specifically two thousand and one. But we

1167
01:04:43,880 --> 01:04:47,480
Speaker 1: should stress again, appears to be no evidence of that. No, yeah, no,

1168
01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:50,640
Speaker 1: no evidence. But but basically they're saying, like, all right,

1169
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:54,440
Speaker 1: somebody comes through here. They see know there's something interesting

1170
01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:57,800
Speaker 1: going on in this Earth. But we're important aliens. We

1171
01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:00,120
Speaker 1: have things to do. We can't hang out around are

1172
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 1: in a watch. We can't wait for it to get interesting.

1173
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:05,560
Speaker 1: Let's leave something behind, so we leave Larry. Yeah, let's

1174
01:05:05,600 --> 01:05:07,840
Speaker 1: leave Larry. Uh, Larry, But we don't want to leave

1175
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 1: Larry in plain sight because they're really looking at the

1176
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 1: stars a lot, and they're writing things down. I guess

1177
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:13,640
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to put it on the other side

1178
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 1: of the moon just to keep it under wraps. Uh.

1179
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:19,640
Speaker 1: But now we've surveyed the other side of the moon

1180
01:05:19,680 --> 01:05:22,200
Speaker 1: and no Larry so far. Yeah, so you know they

1181
01:05:22,320 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: need to they say that, Yeah, they would. They might

1182
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 1: want to create an automated system to keep track of

1183
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:30,880
Speaker 1: technological developments on Earth because that thousand year interval it

1184
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:34,480
Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough to avoid self annihilation incidents, you know,

1185
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 1: they don't want to miss anything. You don't want to

1186
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:37,520
Speaker 1: come back a thousand years later and it's like, oh,

1187
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: those what happened to those ape creatures? Oh they discovered

1188
01:05:40,160 --> 01:05:43,280
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Man, they're gone already and we missed it. Now.

1189
01:05:43,320 --> 01:05:45,360
Speaker 1: They also point out that the other thing to keep

1190
01:05:45,360 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 1: in mind is that if if if extraterrestrials wanted to

1191
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 1: contact us, they wouldn't necessarily need to show up and

1192
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:55,640
Speaker 1: do it. They could simply transmit a message, And certainly

1193
01:05:55,720 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 1: the work of the set has revolved around that, like,

1194
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:03,440
Speaker 1: let's listen, let's see if their signals coming. That seems

1195
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:07,040
Speaker 1: to be a far more plausible way for first contact

1196
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:10,280
Speaker 1: to occur. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean people when they imagine

1197
01:06:10,320 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 1: first contact happening, they think we're going to be looking

1198
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:15,080
Speaker 1: at the aliens face to face. I'd say they're at

1199
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:17,640
Speaker 1: least two things more likely than that. Number one is that,

1200
01:06:17,680 --> 01:06:20,680
Speaker 1: of course we would get their electromagnetic signals first. But

1201
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:23,240
Speaker 1: also still more likely than encountering them face to face

1202
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:28,920
Speaker 1: is simply encountering their technology in person. They're they're uncrude probes. Now,

1203
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 1: the good news that the author's present here is an

1204
01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:33,840
Speaker 1: advance civilization like this wouldn't have to enslave us or

1205
01:06:33,920 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 1: eat us good. They would probably be be on that. However,

1206
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 1: so the Cathulu theory is off. Yeah, I guess that

1207
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:46,200
Speaker 1: one's off the table. Maybe, But then when you get

1208
01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:50,680
Speaker 1: into questions of religious or cultural conversion, well we can't

1209
01:06:50,680 --> 01:06:53,720
Speaker 1: really rule that out. The other possibility is that perhaps

1210
01:06:54,360 --> 01:06:57,520
Speaker 1: humans have some unique talent that aliens would require, even

1211
01:06:57,560 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: if it's just mere amusement, or or they might just

1212
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:02,960
Speaker 1: want to crush us to prevent us from posing a threat,

1213
01:07:03,320 --> 01:07:05,680
Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, they they have promised they have

1214
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:08,080
Speaker 1: spunk these humans, so we need to cut that out.

1215
01:07:09,400 --> 01:07:11,280
Speaker 1: Or or also even worse that could there could be

1216
01:07:11,320 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 1: something that they call the cockroach response, which is simply

1217
01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:17,760
Speaker 1: it's different, we better kill it. But then again, if

1218
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened already, then then maybe we're safe. Now. Again,

1219
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:27,640
Speaker 1: that book came out before Chariots of the Gods. Uh.

1220
01:07:27,840 --> 01:07:32,920
Speaker 1: Sagan definitely lived long enough to reconsider some of this

1221
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 1: and to and to sort of revisit the idea of

1222
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:40,240
Speaker 1: ancient aliens in light of the ancient alien madness. I

1223
01:07:40,240 --> 01:07:42,360
Speaker 1: guess you could say that kind of gripped the culture.

1224
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:44,760
Speaker 1: Let's hear it yeah, so he he wrote about it

1225
01:07:45,120 --> 01:07:48,800
Speaker 1: this time Solo in the n book Broke his Brain

1226
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:52,320
Speaker 1: Reflections on the romance of science. He wrote that he

1227
01:07:52,400 --> 01:07:55,520
Speaker 1: believed that those excited by ancient alien speculation, you know,

1228
01:07:55,600 --> 01:08:00,520
Speaker 1: they're generally motivated by sincere scientific and occasionally religious feelings,

1229
01:08:01,120 --> 01:08:04,479
Speaker 1: that you know, their their passion for science is real.

1230
01:08:04,920 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: But quote, for many people, the shoddily thought out doctrines

1231
01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 1: of borderline science are the closest approximation to comprehensible science

1232
01:08:13,280 --> 01:08:18,160
Speaker 1: readily available. So the idea here is, yeah, you're scientifically curious,

1233
01:08:18,920 --> 01:08:20,479
Speaker 1: but then where do you go to get your information?

1234
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 1: Like you turn on the TV, and if you're presented

1235
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:26,480
Speaker 1: with in search of if you're presented with ancient aliens,

1236
01:08:27,120 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 1: then that is what is going to feed your hunger. Yeah.

1237
01:08:30,160 --> 01:08:31,880
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of times you see people who

1238
01:08:31,920 --> 01:08:35,400
Speaker 1: are attracted to pseudoscience or people who have not had

1239
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:38,799
Speaker 1: the right kind of exposure to how inspiring real science

1240
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 1: can be. Yeah yeah, or or or for instance, how

1241
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:46,680
Speaker 1: inspiring real archaeology can be, how how legitimate studies of mythology,

1242
01:08:47,320 --> 01:08:50,800
Speaker 1: how how they can inspire us. So most of his

1243
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:53,800
Speaker 1: criticism is really not leveled at people who enjoy it

1244
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:56,800
Speaker 1: or or buy into it, but rather those certainly those

1245
01:08:56,840 --> 01:09:02,080
Speaker 1: who peddle it. Uh. And he he responds broadly to

1246
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:04,840
Speaker 1: some of the evidence and chariots of the gods and

1247
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:07,720
Speaker 1: points out that quote, in every case, the artifacts in

1248
01:09:07,840 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: question have plausible and much simpler explanations. I agree with

1249
01:09:11,280 --> 01:09:14,360
Speaker 1: that our ancestors were no dummies. They may have lacked

1250
01:09:14,439 --> 01:09:17,160
Speaker 1: high technology, but they were as smart as we, and

1251
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:21,479
Speaker 1: they sometimes combined dedication, intelligence, and hard work to produce

1252
01:09:21,600 --> 01:09:24,840
Speaker 1: results that impress even us so against killing it. Yeah.

1253
01:09:25,320 --> 01:09:28,160
Speaker 1: He also pointed out that a s may have remained

1254
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:31,240
Speaker 1: a popular idea in Russia at the time because it

1255
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 1: presented religious ideas within a scientific framework. So if you're

1256
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 1: in a communist state, that's sort of got an anti

1257
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:40,280
Speaker 1: religious position, but you've still got a religious disposition. You

1258
01:09:40,400 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 1: want to believe in mythological types of ideas, but it's

1259
01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:45,640
Speaker 1: not cool to say be a Christian or anything like

1260
01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:50,080
Speaker 1: that anymore. You could be essentially of the ancient aliens religion, right, Yeah,

1261
01:09:50,320 --> 01:09:54,200
Speaker 1: it is quasi religious at least. He also speculated that

1262
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:57,320
Speaker 1: the interest in UFOs and ancient astronauts quote seems at

1263
01:09:57,400 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 1: least partially the result of unfulfilled religio needs. So again

1264
01:10:01,479 --> 01:10:05,560
Speaker 1: you have tales of wise, powerful, benign humanoid entities that

1265
01:10:05,720 --> 01:10:08,160
Speaker 1: attend to the human race. And this is an idea

1266
01:10:08,200 --> 01:10:11,200
Speaker 1: that definitely ends up becoming central to a number of

1267
01:10:11,240 --> 01:10:16,919
Speaker 1: different ufo uh New religions, the idea that the aliens

1268
01:10:16,960 --> 01:10:19,599
Speaker 1: will save us from ourselves, that the aliens have an

1269
01:10:19,680 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 1: answer to our essentially our religious needs. And he he

1270
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 1: also mentions that that he had given the idea of

1271
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:29,720
Speaker 1: of ancient aliens far far more attention than he cared

1272
01:10:29,760 --> 01:10:32,360
Speaker 1: to think about, and that he loved the idea. But

1273
01:10:32,560 --> 01:10:35,200
Speaker 1: but you know, as you might expect Sagan to, I mean,

1274
01:10:35,240 --> 01:10:37,920
Speaker 1: clearly he didn't write about it previously and in this

1275
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:41,920
Speaker 1: volume because he thought it was just ridiculous and above consideration. No,

1276
01:10:42,080 --> 01:10:45,040
Speaker 1: clearly Sagan doesn't like hate this and want to crush it.

1277
01:10:45,320 --> 01:10:49,200
Speaker 1: He just wants to be responsible when entertaining the idea. Yeah,

1278
01:10:49,240 --> 01:10:52,759
Speaker 1: he's but he says that the the supposed evidence rarely

1279
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:55,920
Speaker 1: requires more than just passing attention. Quote in the long

1280
01:10:56,080 --> 01:10:59,720
Speaker 1: litany of ancient astronaut pop archaeology, the cases of a

1281
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:04,160
Speaker 1: are an interest, have perfectly reasonable alternative explanations, or have

1282
01:11:04,320 --> 01:11:10,280
Speaker 1: been misreported, or are simple prevarications, hoaxes, and distortions, and

1283
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 1: then he makes these final points. He says that if

1284
01:11:13,240 --> 01:11:16,320
Speaker 1: an advanced alien civilization had really wanted to leave a

1285
01:11:16,400 --> 01:11:19,320
Speaker 1: calling card, there would be no question. They could have

1286
01:11:19,400 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 1: left a metal artifact that, due to elemental composition, would

1287
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:26,400
Speaker 1: have clearly been from beyond. Or yeah, they could have

1288
01:11:26,520 --> 01:11:29,760
Speaker 1: left a silicon semiconductor chip, yeah, yeah, they could have

1289
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:32,680
Speaker 1: left a mathematical proof as a calling card. There. There

1290
01:11:32,680 --> 01:11:35,840
Speaker 1: are various things they could have done. Here's Fermat's last theorem. Yeah,

1291
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:38,679
Speaker 1: but but they didn't. They didn't leave any of these things.

1292
01:11:39,040 --> 01:11:42,000
Speaker 1: This book broke his brain. Reflections on the romance of science.

1293
01:11:42,200 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 1: This is still in print. You can you can definitely

1294
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:47,080
Speaker 1: obtain a copy, and I would advise anyone who's interested

1295
01:11:47,080 --> 01:11:48,519
Speaker 1: to check it out because he does go into greater

1296
01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:52,439
Speaker 1: detail on some of the arguments for a s namely

1297
01:11:52,640 --> 01:11:56,800
Speaker 1: the serious mystery of the dogon people. Uh, it's all

1298
01:11:56,920 --> 01:11:58,880
Speaker 1: very interesting. We don't really have time to discuss it here,

1299
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:02,080
Speaker 1: but the book is out there. Sagan's writing is always

1300
01:12:02,120 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: a joy, so I invite everyone to check it out.

1301
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:07,120
Speaker 1: So I'd say my takeaway at the end of this

1302
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:10,360
Speaker 1: is that there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea that

1303
01:12:10,479 --> 01:12:12,920
Speaker 1: Earth may have been visited by aliens at some point.

1304
01:12:13,120 --> 01:12:15,960
Speaker 1: It's possible for all we know. There's nothing wrong with

1305
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:19,479
Speaker 1: playing with speculation or looking for evidence there. But don't

1306
01:12:19,520 --> 01:12:22,000
Speaker 1: get carried away. Don't let it become your religion, and

1307
01:12:22,439 --> 01:12:25,800
Speaker 1: don't don't lower your standard of evidence just because it's

1308
01:12:25,800 --> 01:12:28,599
Speaker 1: a cool idea and you want it to be true. Yeah,

1309
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:31,120
Speaker 1: I agree, Like, don't make it your religion. But if

1310
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:32,880
Speaker 1: you do make it your religion, just be open about

1311
01:12:32,880 --> 01:12:35,880
Speaker 1: the fact that you've made it your religion. It's fine too, sure, Yeah, yeah,

1312
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:39,240
Speaker 1: don't make it your religion and then pretended science and

1313
01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:41,880
Speaker 1: try to convince people. One last thing, I want to

1314
01:12:41,920 --> 01:12:45,800
Speaker 1: test your intuitions on something or Dici gieneral audience just you.

1315
01:12:45,920 --> 01:12:48,360
Speaker 1: I mean the audience can play to play along at home.

1316
01:12:48,400 --> 01:12:52,560
Speaker 1: But Robert, I want to think about ranking some probability.

1317
01:12:52,680 --> 01:12:54,400
Speaker 1: So let's say you're in a scenario where you find

1318
01:12:54,400 --> 01:12:57,439
Speaker 1: out archaeologists have discovered a tomb in the Nile Valley,

1319
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:02,240
Speaker 1: with multiple lines of evidence independently confirming to every major

1320
01:13:02,400 --> 01:13:07,400
Speaker 1: archaeologist satisfaction that the tomb has remained buried and undisturbed

1321
01:13:07,560 --> 01:13:13,120
Speaker 1: since at the latest, and also inside the tomb they

1322
01:13:13,200 --> 01:13:17,800
Speaker 1: discover a clay jar containing silicon, semiconductor chips and say,

1323
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:23,160
Speaker 1: lithium ion batteries. All other things being equal, what do

1324
01:13:23,280 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 1: you think would be the ranking of the most likely

1325
01:13:26,320 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 1: interpretations of this? Would it be that there was ancient

1326
01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:34,040
Speaker 1: lost technology, right, that some ancient Egyptians figured out how

1327
01:13:34,120 --> 01:13:38,000
Speaker 1: to make these inventions semiconductor chips and batteries, and somehow

1328
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:40,640
Speaker 1: this is the first we're finding out about this capability

1329
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:44,880
Speaker 1: of theirs, or ancient aliens Aliens came and brought this

1330
01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:47,120
Speaker 1: or taught humans how to make it and it was lost,

1331
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:50,439
Speaker 1: or they just you know, shared a few trinkets, or

1332
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:56,040
Speaker 1: time travel or all the experts are wrong and this

1333
01:13:56,200 --> 01:13:58,559
Speaker 1: is some kind of hoax. Well, I have to throw

1334
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:03,200
Speaker 1: out time travel because that definitely breaks our understanding of

1335
01:14:03,400 --> 01:14:05,560
Speaker 1: of cosmos. I was going to say the same. I

1336
01:14:05,640 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 1: think I actually ranked time travel below ancient aliens. Oh yeah,

1337
01:14:09,760 --> 01:14:12,519
Speaker 1: and I would. I can see where though, I can

1338
01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:15,280
Speaker 1: see where someone would be more inclined for ancient aliens

1339
01:14:15,360 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: over the two remaining options, simply because if you go

1340
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:21,080
Speaker 1: to ancient aliens, then you kind of have an out.

1341
01:14:21,600 --> 01:14:24,719
Speaker 1: You don't have to admit that, oh, well, we simply

1342
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:28,040
Speaker 1: missed it in the in the in the archaeological record,

1343
01:14:28,360 --> 01:14:30,960
Speaker 1: we just somehow missed the fact that the ancient Egyptians

1344
01:14:31,360 --> 01:14:35,120
Speaker 1: developed batteries. Yeah, it's a tough question actually knowing how

1345
01:14:35,240 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 1: to rank these other ones. I think for me, the

1346
01:14:37,560 --> 01:14:40,840
Speaker 1: top option would be a tie between all all the

1347
01:14:40,960 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 1: experts are wrong and it's some kind of hoax that's

1348
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:46,160
Speaker 1: been very cleverly designed to fool all the expert The

1349
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:48,840
Speaker 1: hoax is really the place I think I would go first,

1350
01:14:49,000 --> 01:14:53,680
Speaker 1: because it's just it seems so outrageous, Like it it's

1351
01:14:53,720 --> 01:14:55,600
Speaker 1: too much of a leap of faith to think aliens

1352
01:14:56,320 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 1: time travel is impossible as we understand uh the inner

1353
01:15:00,160 --> 01:15:02,759
Speaker 1: to the universe. And then the idea that we simply

1354
01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:07,840
Speaker 1: missed all record of this technology also seems unlikely. Lost

1355
01:15:07,880 --> 01:15:12,240
Speaker 1: technology is very hard, too hard to believe because of

1356
01:15:12,680 --> 01:15:16,439
Speaker 1: the context. Right, Um, that technology doesn't come to exist

1357
01:15:16,520 --> 01:15:19,880
Speaker 1: in a vacuum, but comes as a result of other technologies.

1358
01:15:20,439 --> 01:15:24,439
Speaker 1: So if you suddenly found lithium ion batteries and silicon

1359
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 1: semiconductor chips in ancient Egypt, it wouldn't just be that like, wow,

1360
01:15:28,120 --> 01:15:30,120
Speaker 1: how do they figure out how to make those, they

1361
01:15:30,160 --> 01:15:34,280
Speaker 1: would be missing many many steps along the chain of

1362
01:15:34,360 --> 01:15:37,400
Speaker 1: technological progress that would lead you to be able to

1363
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:39,920
Speaker 1: make those. So you'd have to assume not just that,

1364
01:15:40,080 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: but you have to assume the step before it, and

1365
01:15:42,120 --> 01:15:44,599
Speaker 1: before that and before that, like all the metal working

1366
01:15:44,760 --> 01:15:48,320
Speaker 1: and all the fine machining and machining tolerances and things

1367
01:15:48,400 --> 01:15:50,960
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it's like if you suddenly found out

1368
01:15:51,040 --> 01:15:54,800
Speaker 1: that you're significant other was a drug lord, you know,

1369
01:15:54,960 --> 01:15:57,200
Speaker 1: and would and they were, and you would say, how

1370
01:15:57,240 --> 01:15:58,680
Speaker 1: did I not know they were a drug lord? Like

1371
01:15:58,680 --> 01:16:00,880
Speaker 1: you would think there would be there be other steps

1372
01:16:01,000 --> 01:16:02,960
Speaker 1: up to becoming a drug lord, right, I would have

1373
01:16:03,000 --> 01:16:05,600
Speaker 1: been surprised at something way earlier in the chain of

1374
01:16:05,720 --> 01:16:08,360
Speaker 1: this progression. Yeah, so that's hard to entertain too, But

1375
01:16:08,479 --> 01:16:11,680
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think maybe I'd probably go with

1376
01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:16,160
Speaker 1: hoax first, and then maybe it's hard to decide whether

1377
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:19,960
Speaker 1: ancient aliens or lost technology is a better is that

1378
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:26,840
Speaker 1: it's because one of those those answers at least has

1379
01:16:27,080 --> 01:16:30,679
Speaker 1: an answer built into it for why there's no evidence

1380
01:16:30,800 --> 01:16:35,479
Speaker 1: of its development and construction or it's travel beyond that region,

1381
01:16:35,840 --> 01:16:38,120
Speaker 1: like because it's simply an alien dropped it. But in

1382
01:16:38,200 --> 01:16:40,479
Speaker 1: any case, I think clever hoax meets the other two

1383
01:16:41,040 --> 01:16:44,000
Speaker 1: fortunately definitely, And it's sad, like that's the sad answer.

1384
01:16:44,160 --> 01:16:47,080
Speaker 1: Nobody wants that to be the answer to their either

1385
01:16:47,120 --> 01:16:50,920
Speaker 1: they're great archaeological find or their unique inside into some

1386
01:16:51,000 --> 01:16:55,120
Speaker 1: bit of existing mythological arch archaeological evidence. But I would

1387
01:16:55,160 --> 01:16:57,280
Speaker 1: have to wonder we'd at least do an episode on it.

1388
01:16:57,439 --> 01:16:59,839
Speaker 1: We try to give it a fair shake, right, yeah, exactly,

1389
01:17:00,000 --> 01:17:01,400
Speaker 1: all right, So there you have it again. We did

1390
01:17:01,479 --> 01:17:05,600
Speaker 1: not have time here to discuss every example that is

1391
01:17:05,640 --> 01:17:09,879
Speaker 1: often brought up as as potential evidence for ancient aliens,

1392
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:12,400
Speaker 1: though many of them are are just fascinating in their

1393
01:17:12,400 --> 01:17:14,200
Speaker 1: own ride. I think one or two we've discussed on

1394
01:17:14,240 --> 01:17:17,360
Speaker 1: the show before, like the idea that UH that that

1395
01:17:17,520 --> 01:17:21,759
Speaker 1: the Hindu epics describe the use of nuclear super weapons.

1396
01:17:22,160 --> 01:17:23,960
Speaker 1: It's a fabulous concept, but we just didn't have time

1397
01:17:23,960 --> 01:17:26,559
Speaker 1: to get into it today. But again, there is ultimately

1398
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:29,840
Speaker 1: no evidence for for for that being true. I agree,

1399
01:17:29,920 --> 01:17:33,040
Speaker 1: certainly no physical evidence, which is what the real standard

1400
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 1: would be. Even with physical evidence, as we've said, it

1401
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:38,200
Speaker 1: would be hard to know exactly what to make what

1402
01:17:38,360 --> 01:17:41,000
Speaker 1: to make of it, And with all this uh literary

1403
01:17:41,080 --> 01:17:44,400
Speaker 1: and artistic evidence that's heavily based on interpretation. You've got

1404
01:17:44,479 --> 01:17:47,640
Speaker 1: all the problems that we discussed with say again and

1405
01:17:47,720 --> 01:17:50,200
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of what's this story from Ancient

1406
01:17:50,280 --> 01:17:54,439
Speaker 1: summer about? Um, Yeah, it's it's a hard hill to

1407
01:17:54,520 --> 01:17:56,200
Speaker 1: climb up if you want to say that there were

1408
01:17:56,240 --> 01:17:58,800
Speaker 1: ancient aliens. But if you must climb that hill, do

1409
01:17:58,880 --> 01:18:01,559
Speaker 1: your best to do it in a responsible, skeptical, evidence

1410
01:18:01,600 --> 01:18:03,800
Speaker 1: based way. Yeah, or certainly give it your best shot,

1411
01:18:03,880 --> 01:18:06,280
Speaker 1: go wild within the realms of fiction. Again. I hope

1412
01:18:06,320 --> 01:18:10,240
Speaker 1: that we I hope we keep getting great ancient astronaut

1413
01:18:10,320 --> 01:18:14,320
Speaker 1: fiction because I can't get enough of it. So there

1414
01:18:14,360 --> 01:18:16,640
Speaker 1: you have it. Hey, if you want more episodes of

1415
01:18:16,640 --> 01:18:18,519
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind and head on over to

1416
01:18:18,680 --> 01:18:20,920
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where we'll

1417
01:18:20,920 --> 01:18:24,320
Speaker 1: find all the past episodes that we've recorded. You'll also

1418
01:18:24,400 --> 01:18:28,880
Speaker 1: find links out to various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

1419
01:18:29,400 --> 01:18:32,679
Speaker 1: whatever the kids are using these days. And Hey, as always,

1420
01:18:32,880 --> 01:18:35,000
Speaker 1: if you want to support this show, a great way

1421
01:18:35,040 --> 01:18:38,000
Speaker 1: to do it is to rate and review wherever you

1422
01:18:38,080 --> 01:18:41,559
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Huge thanks as always to our wonderful

1423
01:18:41,600 --> 01:18:45,160
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1424
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:47,000
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1425
01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:49,479
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1426
01:18:49,960 --> 01:18:51,840
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1427
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:54,200
Speaker 1: where you listen to the show from, what got you

1428
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:57,439
Speaker 1: into it, or suggest a topic for future episodes, any

1429
01:18:57,479 --> 01:18:59,920
Speaker 1: of that stuff. You can email us at blow the

1430
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:11,800
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on

1431
01:19:11,920 --> 01:19:14,360
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1432
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