Episode 55: So, the Bible, the Pyramids, and the Nazca Lines all Walk into a Bar: The Ancient Aliens Episode

Today we are grabbing all the red string, tin foil, and copies of national geographic we own as we backtrack through the academic and archaeological evidence that might possibly support the theory that aliens came down to visit prehistoric man. Today on the Odder, we are flipping through the history channel, combing through old religious texts, and and even hitting up some of the greatest wonders of the world Indiana Jones style as we explore whether or not ancient astronauts may be credited with some of the greatest discoveries and influences the development of modern man, technology, and shaped the way we live. Were they here before and are they someday coming back? It’s going to be a hell of a journey so let’s go!

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Music Credit
"Mesmerizing Galaxy " Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Galactic Rap " Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Phantom from Space" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Orion 300XB" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Envision" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Main Theme:
"Dream Catcher" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Transcript

1. Hello and welcome to The Odder Podcast. I’m your host Madison Paige and today we are grabbing all the red string, tin foil, and copies of national geographic we own as we backtrack through the academic and archaeological evidence that might possibly support the theory that aliens came down to visit prehistoric man. Today on the Odder, we are flipping through the history channel, combing through old religious texts, and and even hitting up some of the greatest wonders of the world Indiana Jones style as we explore whether or not ancient astronauts may be credited with some of the greatest discoveries and influences the development of modern man, technology, and shaped the way we live. Were they here before and are they someday coming back? It’s going to be a hell of a journey so let’s go!
2. What is up, my Odders? How is everyone doing today? Did we all enjoy our last episode about Shergar and the Racehorse Ransome? if you really enjoyed it or if you didn’t, please leave a rating and review, they really do help! For the returning listeners, welcome back, for the new listeners, welcome welcome to The Odder podcast where we are a trail mix of all things unknown, unsolved, and just plain odd. If you have an idea for an episode you think would be fun, good news! I do listener requests so if you want your own personalized episode, you can send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you and know what you want to hear from me! Side note, you are probably going to hear the same opener or at least a similar one on next weeks episode, that is because the episodes got shuffled so just ignore it. Oh my god, Odder’s, it’s the fourth of July! At least it is for my American listeners which means beers and eagles wearing red white and blue top hats and my neighbors keeping me up until the early hours with definitely illegal fireworks. America, America! So if you are one of my listeners currently settled in the good ole US of A and are currently on your way to some distant relatives house to listen to Uncle Paul’s controversially political opinions and eat way too much of Gam Gam’s macaroni salad to keep yourself from argueing back then do I have the episode for you because what is more american than conspiracy theories about aliens and the government? That’s right, today we have a whopper of an episode for you all about the Ancient Astronauts theory. In particular, this episode makes me think of my own dad who I can’t be with today but loves this kind of shit so here’s to you pops. And before we go any further, the nonexistent lawyers for the podcast that I produce from a laptop stand on my bed have advised me to give a little disclaimer (Clear throat) The Odder Podcast is not affiliated with any religious or spiritual set of principles or beliefs. Any entities or text presented within episodes of these podcasts are there for entertainment and educational purposes and not meant to portray the views and beliefs of those behind the microphone. If you get your metaphysical guidance from a podcast with a spider on the cover, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Ok, cool. We’ll for all those who are listening to this on the way to a family event, remember to buckle up, drive safe cause you know the boys in blue are out in extra force today, and settle in to get a new set of conspiracy theories to distract your relatives from their beloved political discussions and the, ugh, election  as we talk about Ancient Astronauts.  
3. Humanity has always been fascinated by the generations that came before. We spend hundreds of dollars yearly to trace back our family trees, go to museums to see artifacts of ancient life, and some even spend their entire lives digging in deserts and basins to uncover more about the people that came before us and the accomplishments of their lives. We also cannot help but compare our current lives to those of the past. We marvel at how they were able to find time to do all the things necessary to keep day to day life moving and to build the amazing structures they are known for. Our present day reliance on technology has rendered some feats of our ancestors to seem almost otherworldly and has spawned a branch of theory referred to as ancient astronauts or ancient aliens. This set of beliefs holds that extraterrestrials visited earth and made one on one contact with prehistoric and ancient humans in order to influence the development of culture, technology, and may have even been the source of early cultural deities. Proponents of this theory hold that the evidence of these visits can be found in artwork, architecture, and writings of early humans that both tell of the visits of these “gods” as well as the possibilities of them returning some day. Any of you were on the internet in the golden day of memes may recognize one of the most well known supporters Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, a swiss ufologist who is best known for appearing on the show Ancient Aliens and later being turned into a meme with his signature skyhigh hair that was overlaid with pictures of things like the pyramid with the phrase ‘aliens” on it. 
4. Traditionally, the concept of Ancient Astronauts is not taken seriously in the academic community and claims that any evidence has been distorted or fabricated run amok. In fact, those against the ancient aliens belief system hold that proponents may actually be supporting a white supremacist standpoint by arguing that it is only through the intervention of extraterrestrial beings that indigenous cultures could achieve feats of technology and culture. However, the debate that our ancient ancestors may have broken bread with aliens is still widely circulated with various books, shows, and lectures presented all the time to support the theory. The influence of these beings on ancient civilizations may have been revolutionary but it also may have never occured at all. We present to you the evidence provided by those in support for your own judgment. 
5. The term ancient astronauts is interchangeable with ancient aliens. Believers in these stories tend to fall into one of two veins. Either they believe that all or some modern humans are descended from aliens that landed on earth in the ancient past and intermingled or that human knowledge, culture, and religious belief originated from interactions with extraterrestrial life in ancient times. The latter of these is referred to as “mother culture”. Believers also claim that these alien visitors either taught humans how to or directly built many of the most notable ancient structures on Earth and that evidence for this can be found in the gaps in documentation data found in the historical and archeological record. They claim that the visitors erased things that would have been too telling of their presence but also point to certain artifacts that may have been “missed” in this clean up that show un-human-like beings, impossible technology, and other features that would not have made sense to be present in the time of its creation. This would be like if you dug up a civil war era container of oatmeal and found a QR code on it. These features are sometimes called “out-of-place artifacts” and include artwork and legends that proponents believe show proof of alien contact and technology in ancient times. 
6. One of the most well known “out-of-place artifacts” is the Antikythera Mechanism which was a type of hand powered orrery and is one of the oldest known examples of an analogue computer that was created between the 150 and 100 BCE and used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades n advance. The design and workmanship of this piece show a degree of sophistication and engineering that was previously unknown for the time it was created.
7. This narrative of the ancient astronaut first gained traction in the early science fiction community of the late 19th and early 20th century but really gained traction in the midst of the Space Race. Works that dabbled in it included Garrett P. Serviss’ 1989 novel Edison’s Conquest of Mars and as early as 1928 with the publication of The Call of Cthulhu by H.P Lovecraft. However, the true powerhouse behind these claims is a paper crown that is passed around between scientist amongst the communities with each claiming that their work was the true inspiration behind the ancient aliens theory. Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovsky co-wrote a book called Itelligent Life in the Universe in 1966 which they credit as the start of the wave of interest in ancient astronauts. Sagan was a noted discoutner of other proponents who he felt went too balls to the wall with the ideas and weren’t displaying enough speculative restraint. Sagan felt that early extraterrestrial visits to Earth were possible but unproven and unlikely and that the legends and out-of-place artifacts used to bolster the claims were rarely worth more than a passing mention. 
8. Sagan’s least liked fellow and the man often credited with the ancient alien tales was Erich von Daniken who published his best selling Chariots of the Gods series in 1968 which put forward the idea that early human culture was visited and influenced by extraterrestrial life. According to Von Daniken, the proof for this theory can be found in certain artifacts that would require technology that was not available at the time. He stated that this means that in order for these communities to have these pieces, they would either have to have received them directly from extraterrestrial visitors or be shown the necessary tools and knowledge to create them by the aliens. These artifacts that he credited to this atmospheric interference include Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the ancient Baghdad electric batteries. 
9. Von Daniken points to ancient art and icons that illustrate air and space vehicles, non-human creatures, and strange technology. Such as the sarcophagus lid fog the Maya ruler Pacal the Great of Palenque. Pacal ruled over a 68 year period after ascending to the throne in July 618. On the lid of his sarcophagus, Von Daniken argues that the design depicts a seated astronaut with a breathing apparatus. However, Mayan specialists and accompanying texts identify it as a portrait of the ruler with the World Tree of Maya mythology. 
10. Von Daniken also argued that many religions were actually ancient humans' reaction to encountering an alien race. He believed that they would see the extraterrestrial technology as divine and the beings themselves as gods. He supported this with the oral and written references found in religions that reference alien visitors and describe stars and objects that travel through air and space. He pointed specifically to the book of Ezekiel from The Bible which he claims detailed the landing of a spacecraft. This was supported in the 1974 book The Spaceships of Ezekiel by Josef F. Blumrich. This supposed spaceship is described in the book of Ezekiel as the writer witnessing an immense cloud of fire that emits lighting and brilliant light. Within the cloud, Ezekiel can see what he called Cherubim which are unearthly beings who directly attend to God and Ophanim which could mean both flaming wheels or angels. Directly from the book, Ezekiel describes these beings as “their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, and the wings of one touched the wings of another.” Von Daniken suggested that what Ezekiel was seeing was a spaceship and these beings were the aliens within. He was not the first proponent of this hypothesis as it was argued by Morris Jessup, an American Ufologist, in 1956 and Arthur W Orton in 1961.
11. Von Daniken has been the subject of much criticism as many argued that he has misrepresented his data, utilized unfounded theories, and failed to provide proper validation for the core principles offered in Chariots of the Gods. He was accused of exhibiting confirmation bias which is the habit of researchers to search out or interpret their data to confirm or support their own beliefs or values without giving credit to the true data. This accusation came about as a result of Von Daniken’s passage on the Nazca Lines which are a series of geoglyphs in the Nazca desert. He himself did not consider them to be man-made until after the publication of his book in which the viewpoint change would benefit his sales. The christian creationist community was especially critical of his work and the book Crash Go the Chariots was written by Clifford A Wilson, a Young Earth creationist in 1972 as a discreditor to Von Daniken's work. 
12. A man who came in with his own DND style spread of ideas on Ancient Astronauts was Zecharia Sitchin. Sitchin wrote a series of books call The Earth Chronicles in 1976 in which he hypothesized that the mesopotamian gods of old were actually alien visitors from a planet he called Nibiru which was beyond Neptune in the order of planets. Nibiru was the 12th planet in our solar system and yes, I did complete all my science classes. I know there are only 8 but Sichin counted the sun, moon, and pluto as individual planets. It was associated with the mesopotamian god Marduk who was the patron deity of Babylon and orbits the sun on a 3,600 year long orbit. Sitchin claimed to have used interpretations of ancient Sumerian and Middle Eastern texts, megalithic sites, and artifacts to come to this conclusion.
13. His beliefs were based on the story of the Anunnaki which are a group of deities in the ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian belief system whose primary function was to decree the fates of humanity. He believed that these beings were actually inhabitants of the planet Nibiru who came to earth 400,000 years ago in order to mine raw materials. However, their limited numbers made this task arduous and they quickly decided, “Hey we are an advanced race and like super intelligent, lets genetically engineer laborers to work the mines for us”. So the Anunnaki tinker around in their labs and eventually create Homo Sapiens which they called Adapa or Adam (the model man) in later mythology. In this version of the ancient aliens tale, the visitors created mankind. The Anunnaki worked and lived among these humans, shaping their culture and involving themselves in their affairs through Kingships which they set up to speak with the Anunnaki who were portrayed as the people's Gods until the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago when global catastrophes destroyed the society they had built. When the Anunnaki observed that their pet projects had served the cataclysmic event, they ensured they had the means to govern themselves and then got off the moody planet. Sitchin further elaborated that these global disasters were actually the fallout of a nuclear war between extraterrestrials. Sitchin utilized biblical texts such as the book of Genesis and further linked this to his beliefs by stating that all biblical texts originated from Sumerian writings. 
14. While Sitchin’s approach was creative, it did not receive the mainstream success that Von Deriken achieved and was roundly criticized by professionals who mainly attacked his translations of sumerian and mesopotamian texts as being incorrect and partial. Even those who drew from his work such as Alfred F. Alfrod who authored Gods of the New Millennium which at first pulled heavily from Stitchin’s work but in later writings he instead acknowledged serious faults in the theory and instead stated that the alien “gods” were not real but instead a personification of a cataclysmic myth of the sky falling down on humanity. 
15. In 1976, a book called The Sirius Mystery brought forward the Dogon people of the northwestern Mali preservation in Africa and claimed that they had their own tale of visitation from 5,000 years ago. The author of this book was Robert K. G. Temple claimed that the Dogon people had knowledge of Sirius B which is a white dwarf companion star of Sirius A. The problem with this is that the Dogon people are an indigenous group of people with no access to modern telescopic equipment and Sirius B is invisible to the naked human eye. Temple relays that the Dogon have preserved a tradition of contact with extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star system which is how they obtain this astronomical knowledge in the first place. He supported his claims with research studies from anthropologists but has been criticized for discrepancies and misrepresentation. While Temple does not argue that alien contact is the only way that this indigenous tribe could have encountered the knowledge of an invisible star, he does indicate that he believes it is the most convincing theory. There have even been some challenges about if the Dogon people even know about Sirius B as anthropologist Walter Van Beek found no evidence among the people that they were aware that Sirius had a companion star nor that astronomy was even particularly important in their belief systems.
16. Now the majority of these proponents have been criticized by their academic peers but this is not to say they are wholly and completely spit on by the community. When it comes to Ancient Alient’s scientists seem to be in the habit of shrugging and saying “maybe but not likely”. Most don’t appreciate the overcomplication of what they see as simple historical happenings or mysteries and would prefer that until solid proof of the little sticky green men in the saucer appears, that we not rely on them as a fall back. 
17. Basically, just because you don’t know what it is, it can’t all be aliens.
18. However, proponents continue to argue that they are not reaching for the metaphorical stars here as plenty of historical and cultural evidence of ancient alien visitation does exist. They argue that a lot of it comes down to interpretation which can go either way but that it shouldn’t automatically go away from ancient aliens. Old religions and mythologies who talk about heavenly visitors and gifts from the gods shouldn’t always be taken as metaphorical as they could very well be literal. Such as in the case of the Cargo Cults of the indigenous Malenesians . While this term is used wholesale now to reference any sort of organized and village based social movement with religious or political aspirations, it came from the manipulation of an outside source upon smaller or desperate indigenous cultures or groups that would utilize things like ships and cargo deliveries in order to influence social and cultural change. This was usually done for military gain but the cargo would be viewed by the people as gifts from “gods'' as they were told by prophets or leaders as a fulfillment of prophecies or in response to their offerings.
19.  Proponents of the Ancient Aliens theories highlight that early civilization would have viewed visiting extraterrestrials as gods and their technology as gifts.
20. They back up these theories with several avenues of support. Remember Sitchin and his Annunaki? He didn’t pull that out of the air. Ancient sumerian myths of the Enunma Elis which literally translates to “When on High” was inscribed on cuneiform tablets and stored in the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal. These tablets talk about how humankind was created to serve these Annunaki. Von Daniken talked about the Book of Ezekiel in The Bible but this is not the only book within that has been utilized to support the theory that ancient aliens have visited earth. Proponents of the Ancient Aliens theory have also utilized the book of Genesis and the Book of Enoch which they believe illustrate times when alien lifeforms have come down and intermingled with ancient humans. 
21. Now those of you who did not grow up in the christian faiths will be given a quick crash course on some aspects of the bible in its modern iteration. Even some of you that are current participants in the faith may not be fully aware that the bible as we know it is not in its full and total version. The bible has a number of different manuscripts and versions and has been changed and pieced together different times by different religious authorities depending on what narratives they believe to be the most useful. In fact it has had over 30,000 revisions that have created the King James version you will see in the majority of churches today. Among those revisions was the removal of the book of Enoch which was taken out sometime in the fifth century. 
22. Enoch is the grandfather of Noah, the man with the Ark, and in his book he wrote about the unique origin of demons and nephilim or giants as well as expanding on why angels fell, why the floods happened, and talked about a thousand year reign by the messiah. Modern jewish and christian church bodies do not consider the books of Enoch as cannon but ancient alien believers point to something in these books called the Watchers. These were a group of 200 angels who were the sons of God and descended to earth in order to procreate with the humans as they found them so beautiful. The watchers also taught the humans many things such as metallurgy, cosmetics, sorcery, astrology, metalworking, astronomy, and meteorology. They bonded with the humans and their offspring were called the Nephilim. These giant children consumed everything and when their human parents could no longer sustain them, they turned against humanity and angered God who order the Watchers, who were now considered fallen angels, imprisoned in the ground and sent the great flood to kill the Nephilim and the humans who God has decided have been given much too much info by the Watcher but he pulls Noah aside and does the whole “build a boat, animals two by two” song and dance with him first so that humanity is not completely wiped out. 
23. Was Enoch on the Ark? Is that how he knows all about this? (Shrug noise) but the book of Enoch was cut down into the Book of Genesis which features the story of Noah but in this instance the world was flooded not because of interspecies co-mingling between angels and man but because of corruption and violence. Proponents of the ancient aliens theories utilize this story as historical evidence of ancient extraterrestrials visiting earth and influencing humanity only to leave after a natural disaster occured. In this narrative, they propose that the Watchers were aliens sent to observe humanity who disobeyed orders, made contact with humans, got a little too involved with some female ones and shared info with the culture. 
24. The fallen angels which were really just extraterrestrial visitors and their human-alien offspring were carried off in ufos before the flood and that Noah’s genealogical tree was not invaded by this alien DNA which is why his family was tasked with writing the narrative. Von Daniken even threw his two cents in and suggested that the angels who destroyed the city of Sodom in the book of Genesis may have also been Aliens using atomic weapons and others have even gone farther such as Marc Dem who believe that it can be used to prove that the human race actually originated from a different planet and that the God of the Bible is an alien. Barry Downing, a Presbyterian minister, wrote The Bible and Flying Saucers in 1968 in which he argued that Jesus was the alien who was sent to rid the world of wickedness and sin and that he had left earth in a flying saucer. Believers also put forward that the hell talked about in the Bible was actually a description of the Planet Venus and that God and Satan were actually aliens that disagreed on whether or not humans should be allowed information offered by the tree of knowledge. 
25. There are even examples of quote unquote alien technology in the bible such as the well known Ark of the Covenant which was a wooden chest coated in pure god with an elaborate lid and said to contain the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai as well as Aaron’s rod, Aaron being the brother of Moses whose walking stick was endowed with miraculous power during the plagues of Egypt, and a pot of Manna which is the edible substance god gave the israelites on their 40 year walk in the desert from egypt. Side note for those who did not have to sit criss-cross applesauce in sunday school for the majority of their lives the Ark of Noah I was talking about earlier is a big ass boat but the Ark of the Covenant is a like ye olde suitcase. They didn’t have a lot of words for different things back then. Anyway, It’s got a lot of history and mystery to it, we could be here all day, but the reason it is considered possible alien technology is that God gave Moses the template used to create it and then spoke to him through it quote “between the two cherubim on the arks cover” kind of like an old school one way speaker. Remember that little talk we had about out-of-place artifacts? First we had the old computer, now we have an old walker-talkee. Now scientists would love to get their hands on the Ark but unfortunately it was lost and its current location is heavily disputed. 
26. Ok, all you folks with religious trauma from the pinchy mary janes and repetitions of deep and wide can relax those back muscles cause we are stepping away from the bible and moving a little to the left to a work The Book of the Taking of Ireland also called The Book of Invasions which is a collection of poems and narratives in Gaelic that tell the history of Ireland and the creation of the world up to the middle ages. Now this is not necessarily a religious text in the same since of The Bible but it does contain Ireland's native pagan mythology and has been utilized by proponents as a source of an ancient aliens encounter as there is a passage that describes an encounter with the Tuatha De Danann which is a race of supernatural deities in irish mythology. However, like many of the stories mentioned here, believers argue that early humans might have mistaken interactions with extraterrestrial beings as Gods. The passage in the book of invasions describes a visit from a possible ship with a cloaking device and is described as “In this wise they came, in dark clouds. They landed on the mountains…and they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights".
27. Von Daniken also brought the Ramayana into his book as a support claiming that it showcased space vehicles. This is Sanskrit epic from ancient India and is one of the two important epics in Hinduism. It narrates the life of Rama and is used by proponents for its descriptions of the Vimana or mythological flying palaces or chariots that the gods and their avatars use to get from place to place. These descriptions, like this one from Book 6: The Departure, which states 
28. “Swift through the air, as Ráma chose,
29. The wondrous car from earth arose.
30. And decked with swans and silver wings
31. Bore through the clouds its freight of kings.”
32. Is hypothesized by believers like Von Daniken to show how a spacecraft would appear to a regular person. 
33. Ok, so you get it? Ancient alien supporters utilize a multitude of religious texts to showcase how old civilizations may have unknowingly had contact, sometimes very very close contact with extraterrestrials and interpreted it as Gods or other religious figures and how it may have been translated into text.
34. And because I can already hear some of you getting up and tight and about to be like “nuh uh, the bible says' ' nah nunn no no no that's not what this is about, I’m not arguing religion with you. That’s the wrong guy in the sky. 
35. Stepping outside of the literature, support can also be found in ancient artwork such as petroglyphs. So what is a petroglyph? It's a rock carving and several prehistoric ones seem to picture what might be UFOs and Aliens. The Hopi tribe of northeastern Arizona and the Zuni tribe of New Mexico both have cave drawings that portray their versions of Star People. Prehistoric evidence has also been found in the Kimberley region in Australia and Valcamonica in Italy where rock drawings that bear striking resemblance to modern day astronauts have been found. Other geoglyphic include the Nazca lines which are hundreds of massive ground drawings etched into the desert of southern peru. They often depict figures or animals with my personal favorite being the spider. These huge drawings can only be seen from a great height and so were thought to be messages to visitors or gods from space. Von Daniken popularized the notion that the lines could only have been made with instructions given from an aircraft and that they might also have even functioned as runaway for spacecraft. However this claim was not supported by evidence and archaeologist Kenneth Feder stated that the lines were likely ceremonial pathways for the ancient Nazca people. Skeptic Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky managed to re-create one of the figures using only wooden stakes and string, further discrediting Von Daniken's spacecraft theory. 
36. Moving forward in time, medieval and renaissance art that depicts flying objects. In the 1480 painting Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John in which an oval shaped flying object is painted into the sky behind the head of the Madonna, The Annunciation in 1486 that depicts a round UFO style object beaming a light directly into the head of a praying figure, the Holy Trinity painting from 1595 that appears to have a spherical object with antennae in it that is remarkably similar to the first artificial earth satellite called The Sputnik, and the 1428 paining Miracle of the Snow which contains plethora of unidentified flying objects. 
37. While believers point to these paintings as proof of artists seeing UFOs flying about, critics are not so sure. For one thing, unlike a photograph, a painting takes time and the artist would have to focus to include the strange object into their work. Diego Cuoghi, an Italian art expert, chalks all of these paintings up to overreaction to simple religious imagery. He states that the UFO in the Madonna and Child painting as well as the Miracle of the snow are simple clouds, the Annunciation is supposed to be a vortex of angels, and the satellite object is a globe with two scepters stuck into it. 
38. So maybe our ancient visitors were just really good at not getting caught by ye old paparazzi but what about what they left behind. Proponents do point to artifacts that they feel prove that we must have had extraterrestrial visitors. They point to possible examples of early flying machines like the Saqqara Bird which I got to be honest, lost me a little here because it is an 18 cm long little carved wooden bird from 200 BC. It looks like the little cereal box toys you’d get and balance on the end of your finger that would magically float and I will post a picture because it is adorable but the reason some people feel it may be a sign of early alien intervention is that it may represent evidence that the knowledge and principles of aviation existed to whoever designed the bird long before it should have. Critics argue that it is too heavy and unstable to fly. It is also small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and was likely a ceremonial object or a toy for a well off child. And from the itty-bitty we go straight to the grand and mighty as believers also argue that early man could not have built structures like the pyramids of Giza, the Moai statues of Easter Island or other large monuments and ruins without the help of extraterrestrial interference. However, mainstream archeology has answered nearly all the questions about transportation and construction and have even conducted experiments in which large megaliths were moved using only the tools and material available in ancient times. The questions about the building of Giza were answered by a papyrus logbook found that was kept by an official called Inspector Merer and mentioned nothing about otherworldly help or interference from any gods. The Moai statues were rumored to have walked to their placement and in 1982 Czech engineer Pavel Pavel and a group of sixteen people recreated this statue march using ropes and a twisting motion that caused the statue to rock back and forth in a walking motion that was later coined the refrigerator method. 
39.  Overall, this part of the ancient aliens belief highlights one of the most blatant issues within it. Critics point out that it relies heavily on the implication that non-white indigenous people in regions where amazing monuments were created simply could not have done that on their own and so they must have had intervention from extraterrestrial beings. The Ancient Alien theory unfortunately has some roots in tropes that follow  white supremacist, nativist, imperialist, settler-colonial, and Christian Identity beliefs of the major proprietors who began it. This becomes even more apparent when the aliens are depicted as light-skinned or Aryan as they were in Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods? This was the backlash lobbed at the History Channel for their show Ancient Aliens which used a method called fire hosing which overwhelms the viewer with arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of the actual argument they are making. Basically, throw everything you have at them until they can’t fight back. The celebrity supporters professed to be oppressed by big academia who are hiding the truth from the masses all while overshadowing their true lack of credentials. 
40. However
41. However, However
42. This does not mean that being a believer in the ancient aliens theory will automatically put you on a white supremacist list. Dakota/Lakota Sioux write Ruth H. Burns wrote in Atoms magazine that the ancient alien theory and alien beliefs in general actually support indigenous viewpoints and those of non-european people. As many indigenous people trace their ancestry to star people to deny these encounters ever happened would be a kind of indigenous erasure and ergo would mean that extraterrestrials also cannot be white or aryan by definition.
43. Listen it all comes down to not being a racist dick about things. Saying “I believe that ancient humans interacted with aliens and that they shaped aspects of our culture” is fine. Saying “I believe that ancient humans interacted with aliens because there is no way that Egyptians were not smart enough to figure out how to build the pyramids without extraterrestrial help” is being kinda racist. 
44. Which, side note, it’s always weird to me when the aliens are just white guys. When we did the Elizabeth Klarer episode and it was just some guy who looked like a 90’s tv host, it shook me. I guess in my mind, its always gonna be like the tall grey scary looking aliens from Signs or like little green men but it blows my mind that people actually think of aliens as looking like the people you would see in Target like you wouldn’t feel like you were getting punked if you got zipped up into a UFO and fucking Greg is driving the damn thing.
45. But I digress
46. The Ancient Alien theory has continued to milk popularity from the masses not just from the history channel show but also from mainstream media. Movies and tv Shows like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The X-Files, and Stargate all feature it as a prominent plotline. This is a theory that is still disputed amongst the academic and scientific community as critics and believers continue to butt heads over it’s validity and the evidence they routinely argue over such as the Paracas skull which is housed in Peru and shows a normal human skull that has been unusually lengthened into an oblong shape. This was something done in ancient Egyptian and some native American cultures and ancient astronaut proponents argue is done in emulation of the alien visitors they once had. Critics, however, argue that it was simply a beauty standard done at the time. See? These two are like a pair of toddlers in car seats, they are gonna bicker the whole ride home. 
47. We have had a lot of alien debate in the past few years. It feels like every few months, one government or other comes forward to be like “Hey, aliens are real” and we all collectively shrug and keep going so whether you believe they are or are not, do you think they just watch from far away or do you think they did come down for a visit before? We certainly have a lot of tales of heavenly beings coming for a visit but maybe we are just fantastic story tellers. Maybe we’ve always been looking up and hoping something is looking back. 
48. Well, that’s all for this episode. So what do you think? Where do you fall in the ancient aliens belief pipeline? How does your religious trauma feel after this episode? Would you be disappointed with an alien named Craig? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and leave a review. The Odder Pod is also on TikTok. Come follow us there! Have a suggestion for a show? Send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com with your request and whether you’d like me to mention your name, your alias, or nothing at all. Remember this is The Odder Side so give me something cool, creepy, or confusing to deep dive for you. If you liked the show, leave us a review! They really help! I have never felt more like a crazy person with a room full of pictures with red yarn and sticky notes than trying to do this episode, I promise you. Like no believe me, it's all connected! The Odder Podcast posts every other Thursday. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time on The Odder side.