Ancient Aliens Debunked

Heard of the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series? Suffered through a few episodes? Rendered speechless by the illogic and selective use of data? The antidote is below — a 3-hour (free) documentary video. I’m in it toward the end, where it hits discussion of some ancient texts. Well worth watching in its entirety, though, as a lot of academic research was put into it, unlike its target. Make sure you go to its parent website, where there is more video and lots of source documentation. The film was released 9/28/2012.

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  • Sherri Anderson

    I cannot thank you enough for all the time and energy in putting together this remarkably informative film. I , as with many of us, had no way of checking out all the claims of the alien theories put forward. It is so appreciated that you made this information so accessible to everyone. Thank, and I will be checking out your website immediately.

    • MSH

      you’re welcome, but the real force behind it is Chris White.

  • http://www.tetisheri.co.uk Julia Thorne

    Just watched a few of the videos – haven’t had a chance to watch them all, but I’m really enjoying what I’ve seen so far.

    To be honest, I haven’t actually watched any of ‘Ancient Aliens’ itself because I just couldn’t bring myself to, and after having seen the clips on your film, I think I made the right choice :-)

    • MSH

      I’m sure you have better things to do than AA.

  • seeker

    Great work i can honestly say the guys in the ancient aliens, have alot of explaining to do…i can say, eye see more clear and, how if we don’t research more into what we are told …certain people can use our ignorance to exploit those in the dark..THANKS for a big glimps of light…

    • MSH

      you’re welcome; it’s a glimpse into why real scholars and archaeologists treat the whole idea with contempt.

  • Rafa

    Fact checking goes a looong way. Many thanks to Chris White for putting this together. Mike was there, calm and collected. I’m still one hour more to go but I hope to see more of Mike “the destroyer of aliens” lol. Thanks to Mike, Chris and Jason Colavito and all the other people out there for making scholarly resources available to us, your work and effort does not go unnoticed!

  • Alan Haden

    A megalithic THANKS to all involved in this Documentary!! I waited in anticipation to hear logical explanations to these great mystery’s through out the ancient world. I have spent a lot of time studying the times of other civilizations and have pondered many ideas about what was going on during those times. I work with people that take the History Channel on truth and haven’t thought about the real truth out there which is the Word Of God. This really helps me to defend it as I witness to my co-workers with good evidence to back up these claims. Thank you Micheal I do look to you for guidence when studying.

    • MSH

      you’re welcome; you should also thank Jason Colavito — he put a lot of work into the content at various points — and of course Chris White for creating it at his own expense.

  • Alex

    http://www.philipcoppens.com/aaq_art5.html

    though the White adduction is in patches correct, it’s well structured but, the people should not be so easily influenced by his attitude, or the reality behind the pen…
    if he wants to disprove the lies behind the whow he should be more attentive to details.

    • IVR

      The web site in the above article is a must read rebuttal.

      • http://paulmichaelowens.blogspot.com Paul Michael Owens

        I wouldn’t say it’s a “Must Read” , but at least it offers a perspective of one of the individuals critiqued in the Debunked video. The rebuttal doesn’t demonstrate any evidence other than in Mr. White’s delivery and possible motive behind his video.

  • IVR

    Just finished watching the section on Puma Punku. Mostly good stuff but still with assumptions and it would seem some contradictions based on the foot notes provided. This site does make you work. My biggest complaint so far is to suggest that their was no celestial alignment. That actually makes no sense considering every other major construction site in N. and S. American has some form of celestial alignment. Can’t wait to watch more.

    • MSH

      I have no trouble believing that celestial alignment went into certain ancient structures (but that is not the same as a knowledge of precession – not even close – it means ancient people assigned meaning to naked eye sky observations). But I’m not the creator of the video (and I still haven’t been through all of it — on my to do list by year’s end).

  • IVR

    It’s me again…
    I still maintain that the physical cost of hitting stone with stone without any way to mitigate the impact on the central nervous system would have been to great a cost to sustain the practice. Based on evidence presented in this video how the Incas made their most famous walls is still open to debate, imho.

  • IVR

    While I believe this is a must see video for Ancient Alien enthusiasts, I don’t believe you will turn many away from their dedication to the AA idea. You are clearly cherry picking information and narratives to present. You skim over evidence that is difficult to explain and contradict or expand some of your sited evidence without a justification, at least as far as my reading comprehension skills allow me to understand the material at hand. I have no idea if ET influenced civilizations in the past and neither does the author of this video. Take the story of Ezekiel. His story is just down right weird but this video does nothing to address his extremely strange vision. Your argument is the depiction of the ‘craft/throne’ is not as rendered by some guy, therefore? There is no conclusion. Not very satisfying. Thanks for the video and extensive footnotes, beware of cultural bias, and keep going.

    • MSH

      I don’t know why you keep saying “you” — I didn’t make the film — so your criticisms are pointless in that regard.

      At any rate, I think you may be better served by visiting the actual site of the documentary: http://www.ancientaliensdebunked.com and then checking the sources in the bibliography.

      I said a good deal about the Ezekiel passage, which is NOT hard to parse. However, since I haven’t seen the sections I’m in (yet – I’ll get through the video by year’s end), I don’t know what wound up in the film. You wrote: “Your argument is the depiction of the ‘craft/throne’ is not as rendered by some guy, therefore?” I can’t follow that sentence. What I argue is presented here:

      http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2008/08/ezekiels-vision-why-it-wasnt-a-flying-saucer-part-1/

      http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2008/08/ezekiels-vision-part-2/

      The vision is only weird to someone who isn’t acquainted with Babylonian iconography and the meaning of the symbols (like us moderns). It’s not hard to decipher once you acquire that information.

  • http://paulmichaelowens.blogspot.com Paul Michael Owens

    I think what this demonstrates is the lack of integrity for channels that claim to be science based, in which History should be included, but in the end I guess TV is just entertainment, in which this debunking video proves it, but really.. the other programming demonstrates it as well.

  • Anonymous

    Yea aliens couldn’t be real right? Lol sorry if some ppl cant handle reality….

    • MSH

      give us all the benefit of your wisdom: give us ONE piece of hard data that aliens are real.

      • tom

        Isn’t that the same as saying give me one piece of hard evidence that god is real?

        • MSH

          No, because ETs would be the product of evolution, and so are testable as material beings.

          • Anonymous

            To argue god exists, or god does not exist, is equally irresponsible; in neither case do we know.

            • MSH

              disagree; such conversations are good ones; what’s irresponsible is frightening people with something that is, in fact, demonstrably wrong.

  • Dave

    After reading The Lost Book of Enki this week the first comment I made to my wife was “this was like reading an Asimov science fiction book.” I spent a day thinking about it, and came to the conclusion that it’s possible the entire story was indeed fiction, then I went looking for an opposing view and found this web site. Hats off to your factual approach and point by point debunking of what is a very superficial pseudo science and pseudo historical view of time, space and religion.
    For many years I have suspected something didn’t seem to add up concerning the on going debate between evolution/science and religion as this video eludes to. Using very a unscientific method which is my life long hobby of birding and everyday marveling at their perfection and adaptation I was struck by how out of place or out of sync with the natural world “we” seem to be. Thank you so much for this wonderful video and the factual debunking.

    Kind regards,
    Dave

    • MSH

      you’re welcome!

  • JRS

    I am a proponent of the AA theories, with that said you can find few people that do more damage to the cause than David Childress and Giorgio Soukalous. I have said since the beginning they need to take about 15% of what they think they know and present 10% of that and shut the hell up after that.

    The fact that the Dogon tribe has known about the Sirius star system, all of the stars, even the ones not visible to the naked eye since before science ‘discovered’ them is hard to debunk. And I wouldnt want you to respond for my sake, I won’t be back to this site, not because I think it’s at least as biased as the AA show, but because the arguement isn’t worth making.

    “You”, yes “You”, who made the site (not the video, great way to bow out of the responsibility by the way) are just as responsible for spreading half-baked “science” as anyone on the AA shows. I assume you can at least pronounce ‘astronaut’ and ‘extra-terrestrial’, so I’ll give you some credit there.

    A billion stars in our galaxy, a Billion galaxies in our part of the universe, the Keppler space telescope adding new extra-solar planets to the list daily, I think, personally, it might be smart to not try to make too much of a name for yourself trying to stand on the shoulders of midgets and debunking the mouth-piece of “Legendary Times”.

    • MSH

      The Dogon issue has been debunked by anthropologists who have studied the Dogon (and Temple’s claims). You can find that on this site if you care about doing the research.

      We don’t do the sort of bunk here that your AA theories do; we do peer-reviewed research here (and primary sources). Both are foreign concepts to the AA crowd.

  • DWP

    Read “Chariots of the Gods” as a youngster and being a fan of SCI FI since Clark’s 2001, I was at least intrigued. All of Von Daniken’s work was debunked long ago. I had to chuckle when I caught him on AA one evening while channel surfing.. My my the snake oil salesman is back with a new venue. Yet I’m fine with him and his ilk for purely “entertainment”… I mean, I loved Star Wars but I know it didn’t really happen a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.. Ha Ha

    Thanks for your site(s) and for your part in Whites film. I don’t understand how people can still believe the AA premise even when the facts say nope? Basic human nature I guess where their right and your wrong regardless of the evidence.

    Being a convert to Christianity from a young age yet always open minded, I’ve seen the changes over the years with regards to UFOs becoming really visitors from beyond as opposed to just Unidentifiable Flying Objects. While some science fiction has become science reality, such as cell phones, invisibility cloaks, flat screen TV, the moon landings. etc. no tangible proof of the little green or grey men have been revealed. Yet people contend they really exist. I know, they say the same about Jesus of Nazareth.

    I’m looking forward to reading your book The Facade as it touches on what I agree is the real source.. Something I’ve contended all my life especially seeing all the growing minions following the it must be aliens New Age pipers.. The best thing the devil did was convincing a lot of people he doesn’t exist.

    Keep up the good work Mike!!

  • Fnord_Farseer

    So, the way A&E and the like respond professionally to valid criticism of their programs is by censoring them. Stifling the discourse instead of pursuing it. If Chris White’s use of the material was not fair use, then 100% of all academic papers, theses can be sued for “copyright infringement.” If the “researchers” of the Ancient Aliens series had a microliter of ethics, they would’ve rallied behind Chris’ efforts and his fair use of their material, regardless whether they agreed with him or not.

    I’m also disappointed at YouTube/Google’s wobbly knees (wobbly with those they act servile, not with the individual users… so much for it being a “social” site).

    Ed

    • mheiser

      You mean the History Channel – and yes, that’s pretty much what they do (or worse – http://www.alienstranger.com/historychannelufosinthebible.htm).

      • Fnord_Farseer

        Ach, I thought that since it read “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by A&E” that the series was shown on A&E, but you are right. :-P Thanks for the awesome link, it looks like I’ll be busy reading tonight :)

        P.S. (And OOT) again, thanks for your reply about the Hittites. I am very aware that you (like me) have an actual life outside of “the internets,” so I appreciate the time you took to point me in the right direction.

  • JackyLau95

    When will there be more articles which debunk more of Ancient Alien’s claims?

    • MSH

      not sure what you mean here. There’s a lot of that already on the blog (see under “Ancient Astronauts” in the archive).

  • http://www.facebook.com/Kinpa Matt Sharpe

    the copyright claim by A&E is still there from the link on this page BUT the entire video IS up and running on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pLz93g-ux8

  • http://www.facebook.com/Kinpa Matt Sharpe

    and btw thank you VERY much for your work on this subject, it is unbelievable how many people are sitting and awaiting some group of ancient astronauts from Sirius B to come and pick them up, as well as waiting for their so called DNA upgrade that will apparently make them into some kind of super powered human because of the alien DNA in our systems that is not active…..it is also VERY gratifying that civilizations thousands of years older than the Sumerians have since been found….human civilization did NOT begin in the Mesopotamia region and our intelligence is NOT the by product of any ancient alien’s tinkering with us!