Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The way the subject of ancient aliens is approached by this program, it's sometimes fascinating, and almost a breakthrough, until you actually bother to look at actual facts, and approach things critically and logically. I love the idea of ancient astronauts. It thrills me. I'm in love with exploring the idea, though not to the degree taken in the program of "aliens built everything and did everything". But the program shoots itself in the face by relying on the following piss-poor methods of interpretation and presentation: - Jumping to conclusions with little to no foundation - Ignoring critical facts - Accepting debunked works/theories as fact - Assuming that ancient peoples were helplessly incompetent - Wild guesses I am admitting myself to be biased, but the fact is that the above methods completely destroys this program's "evidence" and presentation. Voting my review down is not simply denying a blind skeptic the chance to bash the program; I have watched virtually all the episodes, even the "proto" episode 2 hour documentary from the year before that covered the subject as well. I've seen incredible examples of potential alien involvement in Earth's history in the form of references in scripture of the Old Testament, the Enuma Elish, and noncanon biblical works, such as one which refers to Noah (the Ark builder) as the "First of God's new generation"---Battlestar Galactica ahoy! Erich von Daniken even presents the best evidence, and does NOT leap to wild-[...] accusations like much of the others do. The nutbag I had noted in an earlier review is Giorgio A. Tsoukalos. This guy has his hair wildly pushed up and out, an orange-toned tan, and spews some of the wildest, nonsensical, ridiculous statements of the program. He's vivacious and smiles a lot and loves the subject, but he comes across as utterly crazed (not as in mentally ill or insane) to a degree practically of fanaticism. As for the program contents itself, going by the points one by one: - Jumping to conclusions with little to no foundation The episode "Gods and Aliens" begins by telling us that the story of the Iliad was long believed to be fictional, until Henrich Schliemann went to Asia Minor, dug a big hole, and found Troy. The people in the program then say, this means that the story of the Iliad was true; thus, it's possible that OTHER stories in Greek myth are true, and that Gods and monsters and such might have been ancient aliens. First of all, the discovery of Troy DOES NOT prove that the Iliad is true. According to the Iliad, two armies fought outside the gates of the city for ten years, and the Gods DIRECTLY intervened on a regular basis. According to the Iliad, the Greek army could not make any advances against the Trojans unless ONE man out of thousands, Achilleus, re-joined the army to lead his small group of soldiers. Schliemann discovered ruins of a big city near the site where Troy is said to have existed. That is all. They did not find evidence of men named Achilles, Agammemnon, Paris Alexandros, Hektor, Odysseus, or Apollo's arrows having punctured many men and poisoned them. All they found was ruins; and not even a singular set of ruins, but MULTIPLE sets of ruins, indicating that the site of Troy had been destroyed many times, by earthquakes or neglect due to mass migrations, or war. - Ignoring critical facts If you go by what the ancient alien theorists say, you'd assume the Mayan people suddenly disappeared one day. And damn those fakers in Central America who call themselves Mayans today! One of the most audacious theories they suppose is that the idea of "rapture" in Christian theology was something that involved alien intervention, and that the Mayans suddenly "vanished" from history, so this is somehow evidence that perhaps they were taken away by aliens. First off, using the fallacy of "Evidence of absence", I could theorize that the Mayans evolved into flying squid, and flew off into space, and you can't prove me wrong because there's not evidence that that DIDN'T happen. But more importantly, the MAYANS NEVER DISAPPEARED! Their civilization collapsed, due to the usual factors of natural disaster, overpopulation, overhunting and overfarming, trade collapse, revolutions, and outside invasion. They didn't just collapse and disappear either; Mayans continued to flourish to a small degree, and still exist even to this day. Another example involves Greek myth with demigods and the Gods interacting with humans, and sexually producing offspring. Most of the examples given are rather solid, but the idea supposed is that the Spartans were somehow descended from these people, given that they were almost invincible in battle, and their women renowned for their beauty. First off, Spartans were not invincible in battle. They lost many battles. They were not superhuman; in fact, the very reason for their legendary greatness (the killing of babies with imperfections) was the primary reason for their downfall; not enough "pure" babies born, they run out of Spartiates, they cannot compete. Considering that even Spartan girls were given some training in the Agoge, and allowed to participate in athletic competitions, Spartan women were in good physical shape, as opposed to the majority of women in Greece, who were not allowed to do much of anything apart from being housewives. Another frustrating point; the theories put forth that are so wild and ridiculous, I can't even guess as to what section to put them under: Aliens interacting with Nazis. Germany was an industrial powerhouse long before the war began. In fact, Hitler did not magically create heavy industry when he took power; the infrastructure was already there. He gave people the will to start working and developing heavy armor and weapons, and he collected an incredible cadre of scientists and intellectuals with funding and support for weapons research. According to ancient alien theorists, weapons projects such as the V2 rocket are somehow TOO advanced for 1930s humanity, and they are the result of alien technology given to Hitler. Considering this is the same program that has aliens using laser weapons, nuclear weapons, aircraft that can lift off vertically and with very little sound, cause the world to flood (as in the Great Flood), clone, and genetically engineer people, it's a hell of a mystery as to why the aliens didn't give this sort of technology to the Nazis, instead of giving them some rockets and a gun. Also keep in mind that the Nazis LOST the war, and they probably would have lost it even if the US and Britain hadn't massed and launched the invasion of France in 1944---they'd been fought to a standstill in Greece, and after losing an ENTIRE ARMY in Russia, the Soviets were steamrolling over them on their way west. They were horribly overextended, losing supplies, losing men, losing everything horribly. At the very least, the program supposes another idea, that an alien craft crashed in Germany, and the Nazis found it, and attempted to reverse engineer its weapons and engines and the like to best fit them. You might as well guess that Hitler was the reincarnation of Raptor Jesus, and Nazi soldiers were actually all genetically engineered supermen developed decades earlier by freemasons or Illuminati, because that's about how much evidence that idea has. - Wild Guesses People are inherently intelligent, creative, and thoughtful, particularly if they are educated and have time to themselves to think. The idea presented by these ancient alien theorists would have you believe that ancient people were highly literal and completely incapable of imagination. They make assumptions that Odin, according to myth, wielded a spear that never missed its target, and thus this must have been a laser weapon or some sort of projectile gun with terrible accuracy. They assume that because Zeus throws lightning to the Earth, this must mean the Zeus alien had laser beams that struck Earth. A spear that never misses hardly takes much imagination, particularly if you heighten the military prowess of someone like Odin, never missing with their spear is testament to their skill with the weapon. Assuming that a spear that never misses must have been an ancient interpretation of an alien projectile weapon is like drawing a complicated constellation design out of three stars aligned together (as in, not something like a belt, but something like a submarine or a lightsaber) Another such wild guess involves the interpretation that monsters and creatures of myth, such as Centaurs and Cylopses and Giants and the like are evidence that they may have been aliens that interacted with humans. This is not only a wild-[...] guess, but it's an uphill battle against a far more concrete theory that involves archaeology: The skulls of Mammoths, Mastodons, and Elephants look vaguely humanoid, and have huge holes in the center of them. Fossils of such skulls were found by ancient Greek and Roman people---we have written evidence of Romans and Greeks finding such bones in areas where modern archaeologists have found animal fossils. It takes a whole lot more imagination to assume Cyclops and Giants were ancient aliens than it does to assume that a person finding a Mammoth skull would think it the skull of a one-eyed giant, or finding huge vertebrae or leg bones to be those of giant humanoids. - Accepting debunked works/theories as fact I saw it coming, I begged and pleaded not to, I genuinely hoped that they didn't, but inevitably, they did; Zecharia Sitchin. For those who don't know, Zecharia Sitchin was a man (who passed away in October 2010) who claimed to have translated ancient Sumerian glyphs, and uncovered evidence that the Annunaki of Sumerian myth were actually alien beings, and developed this hugely, wildly elaborate story of the Annunaki coming to Earth and creating us, Homo Sapien, through genetic engineering with native humanoid creautres on Earth, using us as slaves to mine gold, which they needed for their planet's atmosphere or something because their planet was dying. He also developed the theory of Nibiru, a wandering planet, which has taken on a life of its own among conspiracy theorists who claimed Nibiru would collide with Earth in May 2003, and now in 2012, because that's the hot pop date to assume armageddon (Hint: The Mayans NEVER implied that the world would end in 2012) Zecharia Sitchin's theories on this ancient alien theory hold less water than even conspiracy theories on the JFK assassination or the Apollo 11 moon landing. His theory is completely at odds with physics and astronomy, his translations are horribly flawed, or in some cases totally wrong, and he takes Sumerian myth literally, while ignoring the mythology of other civilizations around the world. Another point; the Crystal Skulls. A great deal of information is poured into the theory of crystal skulls being some sort of computer or machine made by ancient aliens. The worst part is, they even tell the true story about the skulls---that they were carved in the late 19th century Germany---but continue with their ridiculous theory. - Assuming that ancient peoples were helplessly incompetent This is a popular one, assuming that early humans were incapable of building big buildings, or harvesting crops on their own, or looking at the stars and recognizing that stuff happened in the sky, and that the moon could have eclipses that could be predicted quite easily, or were incapable of carving figures out of stone, and moving these stone figures across land. I'm not well informed enough on this point to argue, but I've included several links in the comments section to address this. I don't really know what to say regarding this. It's marvelous and astonishing that they come up with these ideas, but it's ridiculous, frustrating, and even offensive the way they use fallacious arguments and non-evidence to support their increasingly more buffoonish and garish theories and ideas.