Ancient Aliens: USA! USA!

Now that my DVR is cooperating - for a while it refused to record any more episodes, then it started eating them - and my life is a little bit back in order, it's time for more Ancient Aliens! We're on season four now, I believe. And this post's episode is titled "Aliens in America" - nothing to do with the short-lived sitcom from the year that the TV writers struck - and it's labelled as "Signs of alien contact throughout America's history are examined" so here goes nothing:

So they start off with asking something about "evidence that the American continent has extraterrestrial origins?"

First of all, no, narrator, just no. There is not "The American continent." There are two American continents, North America and South America, and that's basic geography. Second, you seem to be using "American" to refer to the USA at one moment, and then the entire continent of North America at another point. It's making my head spin. We get a jiggly cell-phone video featuring a white dot, and some completely generic backstory, and then someone mentions that the US leads the world in UFO sightings. "But why? ....could aliens have a special interest in America?"

And that, my foreign readers, says pretty much everything you need to know about how the USA collectively views itself. In fact, I'm not even sure that wasn't a rhetorical question...

Then they go back to more ancient history where they refer to "America" to mean the continents, and the typical lines about Native American tribes and "star beings" and the obligatory shot of our very favorite piece of TARDIS rock art! (I don't know if the TARDIS rock art is on my bingo list, or my drinking game list, but it needs to be) They go on to talk about petroglyphs by ancient Native Americans that supposedly depict these "star beings" and they've taken to helpfully suggestively animating glowing highlights over portions of the rock art. They talk about these distorted proportions as evidence that the depictions are of aliens - I wonder what would happen if you carved a Picasso into a chunk of sandstone and showed it to them?


But they started talking about European colonists, and I kind of zoned out... I grew up in New England, so absolutely nothing in the world has the capability to bore me to death quite like people talking about European colonists. So help me, if I ever get dragged into another interactive "living history" village thing, I will start going on about witchcraft to all of the re-enactors.


Then they're back to some guy who discovered a "secret city" inside the Grand Canyon, full of mummies, and statues, and so on from all around the world...  supposedly evidence that the alien deities had given the inhabitants of this city things from all over the world! Because, how else would it get there? Gosh, how else would a bunch of mummies and treasure end up in a secret location in the 1920's? Remember, the era where it was totally cool to march into someone else's country and just take whatever cultural artifacts and shit that you wanted as long as they didn't put up any resistance (or, better yet, if your country had colonized them already). And don't you know, mummies were especially popular? So I'm going to leave it to you to decide whether this was a prehistoric cultural museum set up by alien beings, or a case of antiquities theft.


And there's a bit about animal mutilations, which is only remarkable because they got a real veterinarian to talk in front of a camera! Finally, someone who's not another author of another book about alien deities, but actually is an expert in the field being discussed!

*drops dead from shock*

So, now that we've got this out of the way, why? The leading theory here is that aliens are monitoring the cattle for viruses. Yep. I'll admit, us humans don't do a perfect job of it, but we can usually figure out where we picked up viruses (except for f*cking ebola, but I'll get into that during the inevitable episode that will blame hemorrhagic fevers on aliens) and once we find it, we will spread this fact all over every last fragment of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can use to transmit information. Maybe we can't make cures on our own, but we sure as hell can figure out whether or not cows are sick on our own. Hell, we even managed to figure out "mad cow disease" and that's not even a virus - instead, it's a weird little thing called a "prion."


But now we get to the best part: the narrators go on to talk about how - unsurprisingly - there's lots and lots of flying objects around Air Force bases that are impossible for civilians to identify. But why? Apparently, this one time, the circuits on some nuclear missiles kind of died or something. The narrator says a lot of cryptic things about "electronic signals" and "electronic components" which, to be fair, is probably all that they could deduce about the operation of ICBM's.

So they suggest that the aliens are concerned about our nuclear weapons, as the sightings increased after the first atomic bomb was detonated. However, because apparently correlation between mysterious lights above military installations and the start of the Cold War doesn't make enough sense, they propose an even better theory: The aliens are worrying about whether or not we might pose a threat to other peaceful species in space.

Yep, that's right. Independence Day, or the movie version of Stargate, might make you think that aliens are vulnerable to the awesome explosive power of nuclear bombs! But... what about their technology?

No, really. What about alien technology? Or, for that matter, technology that has allowed us to reach alien races?
To quote Douglas Adams, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is." The nearest star to us is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light-years away from us - or, four years and about four months traveling at the fastest possible speed in the universe, which is the speed of light. That's 41,153,298,600,000 kilometers away from us. Travelling in the fastest aircraft in the world, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird* with a top speed of over mach 3 it would take, according to my sloppy math, about 120,000 years for us to reach them - and yes, there's a tiny planet around there adorably named "Alpha Centauri Bb" but even then it's only been about 70 years since we developed atomic weapons.

In other words, whoever's gotten here has seriously pushed the laws of physics. Yes, you can get here from Alpha Centauri in 70 years without having to go faster than light, but you're still approaching speeds where your spaceship's mass will increase just because of how fast you're going (Hey, relativity is weird) not to mention the problems with trying to subject living organisms to the kind of inertia that happens when you'd accelerate to those speeds, and on top of that the narrators did suggest that these people came not just last year but very shortly after WWII... so I'd say it's safe to guess that even if these guys can't break the laws of physics, they can go a hell of a lot further than we can.

And other peaceful species in the galaxy? Hell, by the time we reach them or they reach us, whoever's left their home planet will be able to play with the laws of physics so much that our nuclear bombs will seem like no more than some pretty firecrackers.

*Hey, you want to see something really cool and actually relevant to this post? Click on that link, and look at the location where the video of the A-12 flight was filmed. "Groom Lake" is better known as "Area 51"


Then, they turn around and get even more US-centric. (Oh yes, they could) You see, they argue that aliens helped the US win the War of 1812, better known as "that one time that Canadians stopped being polite and invaded the US and burned down the White House." OK, technically they were English at the time, but they were English people from what's now Canada.

So anyways, in the summer of 1814, the British Army had gotten all the way into Washington DC. All of the politicians living in DC had seen this coming, and were like "nope!" and just packed up and got their butts out of there. That meant that the British Army could walk right in, unopposed, and do whatever they wanted which was setting fire to everything in this case. And, unlike today, the White House was just a house, built of boards and stuff, so it caught on fire pretty nicely.

And it's a hot summer day, so stuff burns really easily, right? OK, I guess. And then there's a thunderstorm! [if you don't live on the east coast, I will clarify: "hot" and "summer" are practically requirements for thunderstorms] which means that the fires started getting put out, conveniently. Then, in something that's actually not a daily occurrence in an east-coast summer, but sometimes comes with exceptionally large thunderstorms, there was a tornado.

So why do that?

Just because there wasn't enough US exceptionalism in here, they offer an explanation: The aliens wanted to help the US succeed because they valued the ideas of freedom of religion, and the concept of a democracy. But if that's the case, why not help out the guys whose country would eventually also have freedom of religion, a democracy, as well as free health care, with the nice little bonuses of Timmy's, and competent hockey commentary on broadcast TV?


So to close this all off, they say something about aliens, and show a completely ridiculous clip of a lens flare from Photoshop floating through the Grand Canyon.

Ancient Aliens Masterpost:

In order to keep track of all the episodes I have or haven't dissected/shot down/snarked at, here's a list of what's ended up on my DVR so far, complete with links to things I've done, and organized more or less by year:

2010:

Underground Aliens (2010)

Angels and Aliens (2010)

The Evidence (2010)

The Mission (2010)

Unexplained Structures (2010)

Mysterious Places (2010)

Alien Tech (2010)

The Visitors (2010)

Closer Encounters (2010)

Underwater Worlds (2010)

Aliens and the Third Reich (2010)

The Return (2010)

Gods and Aliens (2010)

Alien Contacts (2010)

Alien Devastations (2010)

Chariots, Gods, & Beyond (2010)

2011:

Aliens and the Founding Fathers (2011)

Aliens and Deadly Weapons (2011)

Aliens and Monsters (2011)

Aliens and Ancient Engineers (2011)

Aliens and the Secret Code (2011)

Aliens and the Old West (2011)

Aliens and the Undead (2011)

Aliens, Plagues, and Epidemics (2011)

Aliens and Deadly Cults (2011)

Aliens and Mysterious Rituals (2011)

Aliens, Gods, and Heroes (2011)

Aliens and Temples of Gold (2011)

Aliens and Evil Places (2011)

Aliens and Lost Worlds (2011)

Aliens and the Creation of Man (2011)

Aliens and Sacred Places (2011)

2012:

Aliens and Dinosaurs (2012)

The Mayan Conspiracy (2012)

The NASA Connection (2012)

Aliens and Mega-Disasters (2012)

The Da Vinci Conspiracy (2012)

The Time Travelers (2012)

Secrets of the Pyramids (2012)

The Doomsday Prophecies (2012)

Aliens and Cover-Ups (2012)

The Greys (2012)

Aliens and Bigfoot (2012)

The Mystery of Puma Punku (2012)

2013:

Aliens and Mysterious Mountains (2013)

Emperors, Kings, and Pharaohs (2013)

The Crystal Skulls (2013)

Strange Abductions (2013)

The Viking Gods (2013)

Destination Orion (2013)

Mysterious Relics (2013)

The von Daniken Legacy (2013)

The Einstein Factor (2013)

Aliens and the Lost Ark (2013)

The Annunaki Connection (2013)

Secrets of the Tombs (2013)

Alien Power Plants (2013)

The Satan Conspiracy (2013)

Magic of the Gods (2013)

Alien Operations (2013)

Aliens and Forbidden Islands (2013)

Beyond Nazca (2013)

The Monoliths (2013)

The Power of Three (2013)

Prophets and Prophecies (2013)

2014:

Aliens in America (2014)

Aliens and Insects (2014)

Alien Breeders (2014)

The Star Children (2014)

Aliens and the Red Planet (2014)

Treasures of the Gods (2014)

Aliens and Stargates (2014)

The Shamans (2014)

Alien Transports (2014)

Mysterious Structures (2014)

Mysterious Devices (2014)

Faces of the Gods (2014)

The Reptilians (2014)

The Tesla Experiment (2014)

The God Particle (2014)

Alien Encounters (2014)

Ancient Aliens: Underground Things!

So, the producers are endlessly creative about finding themes of. What they're not endlessly creative about finding, though, is content. Because currently they're showing pretty much the only four rock drawings that they ever show, including the "TARDIS rock art"

So there's an underground city in Turkey, that people carved out of soft volcanic rock. After a gratuitous image of a pyramid, we get to see inside this city. Apparently, although things that are obscured from space by trees are always in unbelievably straight lines that are perfectly lined up with constellations, aliens couldn't care less about things that are underground.

Then, they first of all suggest that this has to do with a Zoroastrian myth telling of a culture hiding underground to escape a global winter, and abruptly change tack to suggest that the people were actually hiding from a giant space battle that included at least one faction dedicated to wiping out humans. We're treated to an cheesy CGI sequence of spaceships firing on each other.

Now, we're in the American Southwest, discussing how a lot of the various tribes that live there have similar creation myths. They talk about some Hopi legends that indicate that people went underground for protection from "storms of fire and ice," and "cataclysms," and then go into a complete non sequitur about developing large eyes from living underground and cave paintings with large eyes, and then something about legends involving some kind of "lizard people" and "ant people", as the narrators described them. Then, they ask "If so, could some of them still be living beneath the surface of the Southwestern desert?" The next shot we have involves a van driving through the desert, implying that these people are actually going out alien-hunting in the desert. This is gonna be good! although alien hunting in the desert sounds like it might be fun if you do it with the right people


They're out at the Jicarilla reservation, home to an Apache tribe. They talk briefly with a Native person about the legend, and about stories relating to the nearby Archuleta mesa. Then, it gets better: They show a still photo of the mesa, complete with photoshopped moving sparkly rays!

Now, because it's the US Southwest and aliens alone aren't enough for a good conspiracy in that area, they talk about eyewitness accounts that "are not only true but evidence of a secret collaboration between underground aliens and the US military." Wait, what? The whole "The government experimented on aliens in secret laboratories in the Southwest" thing is a classic conspiracy theory, but "The government and aliens experimented on humans in secret laboratories in the Southwest,"  is a whole new twist on it!

Incidentally, the first commercial in the break is for a show called "The Vikings." From the commercial, I can't tell whether or not this is supposed to be a part of Ancient Aliens until the title screen and the "On the History Channel" bit comes up.

Now, we're in the Andes, discussing an indigenous tribe that lived there, and an Italian Catholic missionary who was given gifts that were "elaborately carved" and contained symbols that he didn't recognize. Apparently, the evidence that aliens were around hinges around the idea that in the 16th or 17th centuries, the Incas were still stuck in the very early part of the Stone Age or something. So, in the 1970's, there's a video of him... wait a second, there were Catholic priests going out to convert indigenous peoples in South America in the 20th century? And this hinges around the idea that, by the 20th century, it's unlikely that the Native tribes could've either made or found intricately carved things?

So, then, someone who's fascinated with these things decided to find out more. There was a guy who had claimed to have been in the cave in '46, and seen lots of things like metal books with strange writing, and things that looked - to him, at least - like some kind of mathematical formula. Someone else went searching for this cave in the 70's, dragged along Neil Armstrong, used an entrance found by the Ecuadorian army, and it appeared that large areas had been excavated. The biggest thing that they seemed to find in the cave was a stone ring. Hasn't anyone here read enough Tolkien to know of the dangers of finding rings in caves?

As of recently, though, they think they got the wrong cave, because they didn't find what they expected. They're very frustrated that they can't find the cave that has what they expect in it, because the local indigenous tribes are keeping all their caves' locations a secret.

Then, the Yucatan peninsula is next up. After following records from 17th century priests, they found a cave with entrances submerged underwater. Once inside, they found an underground temple, complete with a pyramid and bones. They point out that it's consistent with Mayan legends of the entrance to the underworld, with things involving bats, jaguar bones, and other things that could represent various pieces of the myth. But, here's where the circular reasoning comes in: Some archaeologists suggest that this place was intentionally modeled after their legends about the entrance to the underworld. But, our narrator suggests that the Mayan holy book was actually written about this cave! Because, of course, the Mayan underworld deities were aliens, come down from the sky, and were bloodthirsty.

Now, we're at the North Pole, which contains no indigenous human inhabitants, and probably not any caves, either. So the narrators tell us what, "according to mainstream geology," the earth is like! Aside from the fact that someone said "mainstream geology" completely deadpan, it gives an accurate and brief overview of the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core, and mentions that scientists figured this out by measuring gravity, magnetism, and seismic waves.

But, this is not a show to let any mainstream science get in their way, because they say "But no one has ever seen these areas."

"Could the frozen surface of the pole be hiding a gateway to a world within our surface world?" They ask, and promptly answer themselves by saying, "There are those who believe that the answer is yes, and what they believe is known as the 'Hollow Earth Theory.'"

Yes, they're actually supporting the Hollow Earth Theory on this show. It's almost unbelievable, except for the fact that I've already seen some similarly preposterous things on this show, like that time that they suggested that destructive hurricanes happened because people had stopped worshiping Poseidon, or something like that.

Anyways, they try to give this theory credence by citing that Edmund Halley proposed this theory in 1691. I'd like to point out that, whatever else Halley may have figured out about astronomy, the time that he proposed that the earth consists of a matroishka-like series of spheres around an "inner sun", it was a mere sixty years after the Inquisition accused Galileo of heresy for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa.

Moving on, the show says that someone proposed that there were "massive openings at each pole", and reference the Jules Verne novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, and suggest that the interior might contain extinct creatures, or advanced civilizations. Further things they mention are "ray guns," "special weapons," and "flying saucers." This all seems quite implausible, so they ask, "Is there any evidence that such fantastic theories might actually be true, and has anyone actually be inside our earth?"

Of course, since this is Ancient Aliens, the answer is always "Yes, of course!" Aside from anything you might be wondering about Brendan Fraser, the person that they claim has been inside the earth is the explorer Richard Byrd. They claim that "Hollow earth theorists" - my next favorite phrase after "ancient alien theorists" - believe that on February 19th, 1947, Byrd flew inside the earth where the inhabitants used a tractor beam to land his plane, and then told him that they disapproved of humanity's use of nuclear weapons! Of course, since there's no evidence of this, the narrators' rational explanation is that the government covered it up, yet at the same time "staged" a naval operation supposedly involving him near the South Pole so he could "slip away to the other end of the planet, unnoticed by the media."

So, the episode ends with a bad pun, saying "Perhaps we've only just scratched the surface of our planet's underground mysteries."

Ancient Aliens: JACKPOT!

The idea that sparked a "nonfiction" book, this entire "ancient alien" theory, and one of the largest and longest-running sci-fi franchises.

Yes, this is it. This, blog readers, is the inevitable Aliens Built The Pyramids episode.

So, we start out with a random UC Irvine professor defining a "pyramid" as anything square and larger on the bottom and smaller on top. He suggests that pyramids are some of the very first structures humans built because they're so stable.

So far, it's just various people remarking on how many different places that one can find pyramids. And then our resident "Ancient Alien Theorist" says that the "greatest mystery of all time" is the question of who built the pyramids and how.

The next big question that this man asks is, why build the pyramids so tall? I don't know, why don't they ask the person who made that building in Dubai that's a freaking half mile tall?

So now they're talking about Egypt in 1940. I'm not sure which of the two (or more?) media franchises that deals with 1940's Egypt that I should start referencing now...

They mention that the sides of the pyramids are slightly angled in, and that the sun shows it at the solstices. "This implies that whoever built this was aware of the solar cycle." If they really think that ancient people couldn't have counted to 365 after millennia of practice or figured out which directions were east and west, they really need to read a Boy Scout handbook or something...

"Mainstream scientists believe..." Wait, WHAT? Stop right there.

They presented and opposing viewpoint.
THEY PRESENTED AN OPPOSING VIEWPOINT.
THEY PRESENTED AN OPPOSING VIEWPOINT.

Let's pause for a second and celebrate this momentous occasion!

But wait! Now that we've got the shred of good scientific research out of the way, we're getting into real pseudoscience, not just stuff that relies on ancient people not being able to handle 10th-grade math!

"It's possible that the earliest pyramids were made as beacons."  Beacons of... what? To what? But then they say that the Mayan pyramids can't be seen from above. Which either means they're still going on the "can't handle basic geometry" tangent, or else means that their beacons can pass through trees.

Now, they're talking about how a large Buddhist stupa was "a place where man connected with the gods."

Except, the concept of "gods" is not central to Buddhism. It's true that the beings at their highest level(s) of enlightenment could be loosely considered "deities", but worshiping, praying to, or otherwise attempting to please them is not something that really meshes with the Buddhist beliefs about how to attain that level of enlightenment.

And, because we don't have enough circular reasoning yet, the show is discussing how people make pilgrimages up the stairs of some pyramid or another because, according to the hosts, it's a metaphor for a journey to the stars. (I suspect that they did not consult anyone practicing any of these religions) But why are they a metaphor for a journey up to the stars? Because, the stairs actually did literally take people from ancient wherever-it-is up to meet extraterrestrials!

So, now the conversation returns to where pyramids are, with China as the location of the moment. "While some researchers believe they were tombs, others believe that they are pyramids, covered up by the Chinese government." Well, alright, there's no reason that they can't be both, but carry on...

Now they're asking, "Why is the Chinese government attempting to hide these ancient structures?" I don't know, does anyone in the Western world have a good understanding of why the Chinese government does anything? These people probably don't, judging from their complete ignorance of millennia-old Eastern religions.

"Ancient Chinese emperors claimed contact with extraterrestrials...." Pretty much every single leader of every single vaguely nation-state-like thing since the beginning of time up until the 19th century claimed some kind of special blessing or avenue of contact with their deity of choice. Which, on this show, means "extraterrestrial."

"Countries that want to ensure that the truth of their extraterrestrial origin will never be known." Apparently, whoever's saying this - likely That Guy With The Hair - has forgotten that they're well on their way to claiming that every single country on the planet (including the USA), if not the entire human race, has extraterrestrial origins. I give them until halfway through next season.

Fast-forward through some almost identical stuff about buried pyramids in Bosnia, that do not provide any additional opportunities for snarky pictures.

And the narrator just used the words "forbidden archaeology." As if there's an archaeology police that will arrest you if you start talking about aliens. Instead of just side-eyeing your psuedoscience and not publishing you in peer-reviewed journals. Even Stargate SG-1 got that one right.

So, apparently they're done with ancient pyramids, because now they're talking about a "massive pyramid of fiberglass" financed and built by a Russian defense contractor, in Ukraine. This defense contractor, around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, believed that pyramids produced "energies that could affect biological and non-biological materials." Congrats, that's every kind of material on the planet. And what kind of energy, by the way?

"The Russian air force knows this." Yes. The Russian (or Soviet) air force is exactly the most technologically advanced, well-informed air force in the world!

Then they asserted that "...by placing materials within the pyramid it promotes growth, it promotes health, it promotes longevity." Um, citation, please? Oh, wait, they just used the phrase "Pyramid power."

Happily, the show has gone back to topic ancient Egypt!

They said, verbatim, "The pyramids seem to be placed where the energy is..." which is quite confusing considering that they seemed to be promoting the idea that pyramids somehow created "energy" right before the last commercial break! And, the ambiguity of this energy continues - it's referred to as "cosmic energy" and "underground energy", but they never go as far as specifying whether it's electromagnetic energy or what.

And, this is the line that we've been waiting for, right here...

"Could ancient civilizations have built pyramids to mark sites of extraterrestrial contact?"

I just don't have words for that one. Except that.... alien ship landing platforms.

Now, they're saying something about "Is it possible that the Mayans, and other ancient cultures, could have been given information about energy pyramids blah blah from aliens?" [Author's Note: My brain kind of gave out here, so transcription is somewhat incomplete] "Blah blah (probably 'ancient astronaut theorists') believe that the pyramids of Giza could produce enough energy to reach not just across the planets, but across the universe!" And once again, they don't mention what kind of energy these pyramids supposedly produce!

Now, they're finally getting back to some remotely (and I mean very, very remotely. Like, makes Antarctica look just next door remotely) scientific attempts to explain this theory.

So, what they're talking about, is that in '77 and '87, an electronics engineer did experiments on top of the pyramid. He was using not just standard equipment, or equipment that had been tested or calibrated to ASTM standards or anything, but equipment he had designed himself. And then, he says the words "energy field." I believe that Neil deGrasse Tyson has something to say about this...

If I could only follow one Twitter account, this would be it.

Then, they go on to state "He developed, in his laboratory, a method for generating this pyramid energy so he could do research on it." Alright, excellent! Methods? "... a model pyramid and centrifuge and alternating magnetic field..." and they say that this creates a "bubble" that could block all electromagnetic radiation, even gamma rays.

They include a photograph of this equipment. Notably, the equipment is not blocking electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum.

Now, it gets really, really fun and psuedoscientific. This makes the preceding episode sound like amateur hour. Ready?

Supposedly, this model pyramid became weightless (which I take to mean "levitated", unless the person in question actually had it on a scale at the time), started moving, aligned with the constellation Orion (It's the First Law of Pyramids: All pyramids somehow align with Orion) and - get this - went into hyperspace.

Now, they're mentioning something about string theory. Let me take a minute to tell you what I, as a physicist, think about string theory: It's either a completely brilliant or completely crackpot theory, but either way, it's what happens when you mix theoretical physicists and mind-altering substances.

Anyways, now they're saying the pyramid acted as a time machine, and something about... wait, "weird electromagnetic vibrations"?  Um, electromagnetic vibrations are no fancier than light. Granted, they can also come in the form of radio waves or microwaves or infared or UV or gamma radiation, but if you hear someone say the words "all electromagnetic radiation", replace it with "light." If it sounds improbable, laughable, or flat-out wrong, they're probably being imprecise at best, or maybe even outright psuedoscientific!

So then they close out saying that nobody built more pyramids like that because aliens stole the blueprints or something (yes, they said "blueprint") and something about gateways and "advanced otherworldly technology" but, very sadly, they didn't say the word "stargate" once in this episode.

And, fortunately, that's over. I don't think my brain could've handled any more.

Ancient Aliens: DISASTERS!

Now we're blaming every great big disaster on aliens. Once again, a Doctor Who link is only appropriate...

So, is this going to get insensitive at any point in the episode, or are we going to stick to dinosaurs and Pompeii and hasn't negatively affected anyone who's currently alive?

Oh, wait, they started off with the Japan Earthquake in 2011. Wow. This is so much more astoundingly insensitive than I thought it would be!

This is apparently bolstered by the claim that UFO's were sighted over Japan shortly after the earthquake and tsunami.

Fortunately, now they're back to ancient Mediterranean places, and they're talking about Poseidon. Let's all take a moment to let that sink in: This show, which airs on a channel that purports to be about history, is actually promoting the idea that major earthquakes are caused by angry, invisible, superpowered beings, instead of things like plate tectonics.

And they're angry because you aren't building them statues and temples any more, because nothing will make you think that you should start worshiping random long-forgotten deities like a natural disaster! Yet, Virginia Beach continues to somehow get hit by hurricanes despite having a large statue of Poseidon/Neptune on the shore. (Also, I totally found a photo of Medusa texting while looking for an image of that)

I'm sorry, that was the sound of... well, it was several sounds, including the entire scientific community doing their best Jean-Luc Picard impression, some young-earth creationists also laughing at you, and whatever small tremor happened somewhere in my county as I was typing up this very post.

Oh, and now the Haiti earthquake! This show is coming in as a late but strong contender against Pat Robertson in the "Who can say the most offensive thing about the Haiti earhquake" category.

They used the words "powerful thunderstorm" in the same sentence as "essentially nuclear-level destruction across the US." I think they're misunderstanding the words "essentially" or "nuclear" or more likely both.

Finally, they're back at the Flood, which seems like the logical and inoffensive place to start. They get points for noticing that the "Hebrew Bible" and "Islamic Koran", as well as the Epic of Gilgamesh, all contain similar stories.

And then they mentioned Krakatoa, which was kind of

They used the word "Chariot of the Gods" without referencing the book, or having the author on to talk about it!

Then, someone actually said the sentence,"Ancient extraterrestrials are hollowing out volcanoes to use as a base." Hang on a moment, I didn't put in a "Someone made a movie/TV show of this" square on my Ancient Aliens Bingo Cards! Because that is literally the plot of a Doctor Who episode involving Vesuvius.

So, now they're presenting the theory that aliens created deserts such as the Sahara. Rather than deserts being hot an inhospitable because that's just what happens when you get something in a place with low humidity and no water source, or that animals tend not to live there because it's hot and inhospitable, their explanation? That aliens zapped it with some kind of water-and-life destroying force or something. I don't know, I'm not paying that much attention now.

But, now they're back to repeating some of their most popular lines - for example, that every stylized human shape looks like an alien/spacesuits, and that ancient people were fascinated by the brightest star in the sky because it was where the aliens came from.

So, let's take another moment to sit back and comprehend the massive Occam's Razor fail here.

Now, they're talking about something like "certain comets that are programmed to bring life... certain comets that are programmed to bring destruction" with the implication that some alien/deity/beings tried to warn some ancient cultures about comets.

Seriously? What's the point of telling an "ancient" culture about an impending comet? What are they going to do about it? Build a spaceship out of rocks and sticks to put a nuke (also made out of rocks and sticks) in the middle of the comet?

Finally, they end on the Yucatan crater, asking "could it have been a planned event? If so, why?" Their proposals were that the dinosaurs needed to be killed off so the planet would be safe for humans. But, why? Why does it have to be humans, specifically? Why something so soft and squishy and tiny? Most importantly, why not let dinosaurs evolve until they're sentient? Because sentient dinosaurs would just be AWESOME.

Ancient Aliens: TIME TRAVEL TIME! And NAZIS!

Half of me just wants to make this entire post a link to Doctor Who on Netflix.

Alright, now that I've got that out of my way....

In the first 30 seconds you mentioned Hitler. Please tell me this isn't going to be about Hitler. Please.

"Could Einstein have accidentally helped the Nazis build a time machine?"Well, I guess it is going to feature Hitler....

I guess this week people watched "Let's Kill Hitler" and the Indiana Jones movies before producing this?

They're talking about Nazis potentially doing stuff in secret as if it's a question. Third Reich scientists carried out clandestine experiments on everything. Even - no, especially - implausible metaphysical type things. Are you seriously failing that badly at history that's only 80 years old?  Oh, and "Super secret Nazi technology?" Thank you for those precise academic terms.

For what is probably the first time, and quite possibly the last, in this show's lifespan, it argues that an ostensible spaceship crash is actually not a spaceship crash. Because it's a Nazi time machine crash.

"...rituals of stargazing, believed to enable time travel." Well, if you take the Wilfred Mott approach, I guess stargazing maybe can help time travel?

Sirius is apparently where these aliens came from, because why else would people in multiple, separate ancient cultures be fascinated by the brightest star in the sky?

Nope, that actually doesn't look like a representation of a spiral galaxy. That is actually a single spiral, and that is a series of concentric circles. *facepalm*

Inaccurate visual of the day: A discussion of neutron spins accompanied by a clip of people in a lab lit solely by green light, pouring something that looks like liquid nitrogen into something else.

Oh, they actually used the word "Stargate". I HAVE WON ANCIENT ALIEN BINGO!

No, they're mentioning the LHC now... even better.

And they just used the word "god particle."

Oooh, and they're talking about aliens like the "Roswell" aliens. And how they look like how some people think humans might look in the future. Once again, some kind of wibbly wobbly timey wimey logic they're using here!

Ancient Aliens: Bingo Masterlist!

So, I made some bingo cards using the website http://print-bingo.com/ 

Here's an example of one:

How to play:

• [CITATION NEEDED] is the FREE space!
• If a term (except for "Ancients") is in quotation marks on the bingo card, it must be used verbatim on the show or appear onscreen for it to count. 
• You must be able to explain why you've claimed terms that are open to interpretation. "Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey" might be appropriate for time travel, or better yet, for a time when someone uses the resemblance of an ancient cave painting to modern human-invented astronaut suits to "prove" that they are images of aliens.
• "Multiverse The" should be "Multiverse Theory". Oops. Sorry!
• You'll know who "That Guy With The Hair" is quickly enough.
• "Clueless Scientist" and "Clueless Historian" are the scientists and historians who are saying bland, accurate things that contain no mention of aliens at all. Often paired with "Inaccurate visuals!"
• "Conspiracy Theory DENIAL!" is when the show denies one common conspiracy theory to support their conspiracy theory - i.e., denying a UFO crash is a UFO because it's really a Nazi time machine.

CARDS ARE HERE (10 cards per .pdf, 25 .pdf's, so that's 250 cards - you're welcome!)

The masterlist of words is behind the cut, if you'd like to make your own or add or delete something - I'm thinking fewer scientists, and more ancient cultures/religions? I definitely need to add, eventually, "Vikings", "Norse Myths", "Looks Like Modern Tech", and "Chariot(s) of the Gods."

Ancient Aliens: Founding Fathers/Illuminati, Meet The Extraterrestrials.

So this opened with a line that went something like "A stargate, hidden in our nation's capitol dome." And all this time I had thought it was hidden under Cheyenne Mountain!

Apparently, this time the thing that aliens are responsible for is founding the United States of America, although this is really, really stretching the definition of "ancient". It wasn't even 250 years ago!

The first proof of this was that strange lights were seen over the DC area once in the 1950's. These lights were not Soviet spacecraft, because the Soviets, continuing their long history of being perfectly open and honest with us during the 50's, said the lights weren't there.

More proof of this is that Benjamin Franklin met with people regularly to discuss science. Presumably, the aliens were informing him about science, including on what a brilliant idea it was to go kite-flying in thunderstorms.

Of course, at this point they inevitably bring in the topic of freemasonry. Surprisingly, they actually got someone who was an important part of the Freemasons to come on the show and say vague things about the organization. The general pentagram shape of some of the streets in DC was mentioned, but in their Conspiracy Theory Twist of the Week, they held that this was not necessarily something that the Freemasons did purely because it was their symbol, but because it was referring to stars and/or aliens told them to.

[think of the scene in National Treasure where Nic Cage looks at a dollar bill through a water bottle]

Then, we get on to the Washington Monument, which is noted to be the largest obelisk in the world. They give up on the opportunity to snicker at phallic symbolism in favor of saying it's some kind of transmitter. And that the layout of the streets around it also serve to radiate and transmit some kind of space energy through all that concrete and asphalt! I guess sort of like that big ferris wheel in London in the first episode of the new Doctor Who...

Then, the show went into their foray of completely baffling logic for this episode: They said that the reflecting pool meant that the obelisk went down as well as up, doubling its size, power, and/or effectiveness. Even my non-scientist consultant (aka roommate aka Jamie) pointed out that the image of the obelisk in the reflecting pool was really horizontal to the ground.

Then it's important that the Capitol was built on a hill. Because instead of hills being classic places to put things from the beginning of time because it was easy to see and be seen from there, this is somehow related to the Temple Mount in ancient Jerusalem.

Then, this episode closes out with a double dose of the misuse of the word "literally" - the phrases "literally in a vortex of energy"and "Domes are literally considered to be portals or gateways to the stars" are both said in a short period of time.

So, can we blame the current state of Congress on the swirling vortexes of energy from the stars? Or is their problem that they've become too out of touch with the space aliens?