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Magicians, Myths, and Aliens: The Truth Behind Ancient Magic w. Archeosoup and Legends and Lectures - Aliens 71
550 Plays2 months ago
Is magic real? Ancient Alien theorists claim that it is, but not really. They claim that descriptions of magic are just misunderstood alien technology. Together with Archaeosoup and Michelle Franklin, we are going to investigate these theories. We'll cover modern magicians, the famous Merlin, and whether Moses from the Bible had access to alien technology.
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The intro music is Lily of the woods by Sandra Marteleur, and the outro is named “Folie hatt” by Trallskruv.
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Transcript
Introduction to Ancient Alien Theories
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to Digging up Ancient Aliens. This is the podcast where we examine alternative history and ancient alien narratives in popular media. Do these ideas hold water to an archaeologist or are there better explanations out there? We are now on episode 71 and this time we are doing something a bit different from our normal programming.
00:00:44
Speaker
My two guests and I are actually watching and reacting to an episode of Ancient Aliens in real time.
Support and Episode Overview
00:00:51
Speaker
And the episode in question is Magic of the Gods from season six. I want to thank the lovely patrons and members of the show. Your help and support means a lot and really do help out with a lot of things here. And they also on top of supporting the show, helping it being created, they got They get some bonus stuff like ad-free episodes and even extended episodes. Like today, they have almost an hour of additional discussion that you don't find here in the public feed. And if you want to learn how to support a show, stay until the end and I will tell you exactly where to go.
00:01:35
Speaker
As usual, the show notes include some sources and, well, a bit of suggested readings if you're interested in learning more. And we have a fun and long episode ah ahead of us, so let's dig into the episode.
Guest Introductions and Expertise
00:01:53
Speaker
So I want to welcome two guests to the show that's technically been on before, but first time officially. First we have Michelle Franklin, and then we have Mark, maybe better known as RQ Soup. Do you want to introduce and maybe tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your expertise?
00:02:12
Speaker
My name is Mark, a.k.a. Mr. Soup. I feel like a fool now for having typed Mr. Soup on screen, um as I said in my actual name. But yes, I um have an RQ, an RQ Soup code. I have a YouTube channel RQ Soup. TikTok and various other bits and bobs. And for the past, ah God knows how long, maybe 14 years, I've been torturing myself with ah interactions with pseudo-archaeology and the public. And ah today feels like my baptism. It feels like like a graduation ceremony. I'm going to see what happens. And and um my understanding is, you know, being you coming from Wales, ah you've got a little treat for me based on them on a Welsh-ish character.
Misinterpretation of Myths in Modern Media
00:02:55
Speaker
So yeah, here we go. I'm Michelle Franklin. I'm an author and
00:03:00
Speaker
a scholar of certain periods of history, also a biblical scholar as well, and so this though is something I usually shy away from. I mean on my channel we usually do talk about myths and legends, ah but we I shy away from looking at them in a modern perspective. And often we talk about things like folk customs and holidays and how why everything you think is pagan is not and why everything you think is Christian is also not. and ah But ancient aliens is a special sauce that I leave up to Frederick and to everybody else who has, Mark is already shaking his head, to everybody else who has the stomach to deal with the nonsense that goes on in this show.
00:03:44
Speaker
So I run a podcast also called Legends and Lectures, which both Frederick and Mark have been on several times. And again, we talk about special history subjects, ah lots of folklore, what's real, what isn't. And last time, Frederick and Mark, we talked about debunking ancient aliens, which is what we're watching today. And have any of you seen ancient aliens before? I've seen exactly two episodes. And I don't think I made it all the way through either of them. And I know they were in season one.
00:04:12
Speaker
yeah so you So you haven't seen exactly two episodes.
00:04:17
Speaker
not all the way through. i i I've seen a few. um eight It fascinates me how ah how actually I think, and this may be something that Frederick has already discussed in pretty previously during his prolonged endurance exercise of watching these episodes, but ah I'm convinced that there's something going on with the the experiment that is ancient aliens and its ability so to to sort of say everything you know is wrong, you know, and then from there on, that's been applied, I think, since sort of the early 2000s to so many other parts of life. um i think they were really I mean, they they weren't they weren't the first, but they were definitely the format.
Ancient Views on Magic and Entertainment
00:05:01
Speaker
It was very um influential, I think. And yeah and of course, it spawned the meme, you know, the aliens.
00:05:09
Speaker
so Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they really influenced later shows and how you approach this subject from us. I mean, though they weren't the first, but it was the first successful in their sense. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I remember in the eighties, we had things like alien autopsy. Do you remember that? We had a lot, we had lots of conspiracy stories, but what they would do is they would make, you know, like a half an hour special. Everybody kind of knew it was fake. And then they just went on and made another one, but there are quite a lot of these. There was just never a series like this that used.
00:05:45
Speaker
element like unexplained elements from history and just be like aliens. You never had that. No. And but un arguably now, i don't know I don't know if this is like predicting where what Frederick's destiny is, but obviously now you now you have Gaia, which is like no be the evolved, you know, it's the final form.
00:06:06
Speaker
I should have put on my reptilian hat. i'm wearing for those who just listening I'm actually wearing my not-biblically-accurate-angel hat because they're nothing. But i I had last time, I had on the reptilian helmet that I wore just for the bedtime. With all of that said, are you ready for your... Our indoctrination.
00:06:28
Speaker
fire hit me then Okay, so here's here's again the thing they're saying magic gods and aliens and thing is that these three nothing to do with each other that's the thing I just don't understand is how did they get the how did they decide that the gods were aliens but they also had magic when there's no technological artifacts that they left behind because you will learn that in this episode. Okay. Oh, yes. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Las Vegas,
00:07:06
Speaker
Nevada. Oh, are we going to Area 51? No, no. Magician Weirich stuns a circle of 40 onlookers. ah So now we're going to see some magic in action. To make a three-ton Hummer. Raise the curtain. Vanish in an instant. Everyone, join hands.
00:07:28
Speaker
The only alien says that. All right. What does 40 people around the Hummer watch this? Do it now.
00:07:44
Speaker
They do it with mirrors. illusions Like these. Speaks to a worldwide fascination with magic.
00:08:00
Speaker
magic like what magician the the idea of like it' say ah an egyptian magician that That was a very different thing. that they they Anyway, sorry. In that sense, that there was though that at that certainly we know that some of the the oldest magic tricks are from ancient to Egypt, aren't they? yeah yeah so And it was in and there was an there was an acknowledged entertainment element to it. Yes. That's the thing is that they saw these things as entertainment. Yeah.
00:08:29
Speaker
you know they It wasn't this whole like, oh. I mean, they had other people who did magic. They had they had people who looked into the mazalot, which were the stars, and constellations, but that was not considered to be like parlor tricks. That was considered to be part of their their core, ah of of their beliefs, and so much so that even in certain passages in the Bible it says, yeah, we acknowledge that looking into the stars is real, is really, air quotes, but don't do it.
00:08:59
Speaker
a Even that a lot of a lot of biblical passages talk about this kind of of magic, whereas in the by what they believed to be magic was more like necromancy. All of like the parlor tricks, as Mark said, it's just entertainment, and they they knew that. and bit It's this we in modern days that don't know that. For some kind of connection to the supernatural, and we can have it for a couple of hours on the price of a ticket by attending a magic show.
00:09:29
Speaker
And I liked it to have Penn and Teller, especially Penn, who is very who's very active. And also very against, you know, the pseudo crowd too. And ironically enough, reveals the the beauty of the mundane nature of magic in that sense. Yeah. yes yeah Which I think is very funny. than yeah yeah Yeah, he openly saying that he's deceiving and there's no real magic behind it. Yeah. When we go to the theater and see a stage magician, we know supernatural events are not happening before our eyes, no matter how much it seems like they are. We sometimes think of the people of the ancient world as simple. They live in a world saturated with magic.
Critique of Ancient Aliens' Editing Tactics
00:10:21
Speaker
No, we don't. Sorry. No, we don't.
00:10:26
Speaker
yeah and that see That's the thing, isn't it? that' the thing is that there's If you set up the premise that people in the past are dumb, then of course you're gonna go, oh, how did they do things? it Yeah, no, no. Yeah, it's ah it's like people in the you know early modern period going, everybody in the middle, they just was stupid. Really? I don't think so. They invented clocks. They had astrolabes. You're dumb. But well billford also, they'll also say you're here, aren't you? Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
like yeah Exactly. We made it. It couldn't have been that stupid. No. Yep. The world as an interconnected whole, as well as a technology through which you could make things happen in the everyday material world. Magic offered people an opportunity to influence the outcome of important events. Sometimes. And to know the will of the gods and to communicate directly with those gods.
00:11:18
Speaker
Now this sorry, this is where it gets, this is where the editing is important, isn't it? Because that that's a folklorist and folklorists and then you know related anthropology as well deals with intangible belief and story and shared cultural artifacts in that sense, as important, but also as created by people, not as existing outside of our consciousness and creativity. So they've gone from ah an academic, presumably an academic, there and getting they they they said, was it University of California, I think. And now they're cutting to author of Lost Civilization Enigma, Philip Coppens.
00:12:00
Speaker
Um, and, but if you're just not paying attention, it just, I mean, and again again, this, this is, this is presumably alien, ancient aliens editing 101. You know, this is what they do. Yeah. Confused, conflate. Yeah. Yeah. But it's dodgy stuff. Dodgy stuff.
00:12:18
Speaker
And Philip Coppins is one of those who was very prolific and before he died, which was a year before this season aired. But they still have his talking heads throughout the series. Did it it was aliens that they kill him for for giving away their secrets? I think it was colon cancer. Oh, aliens. Oh, I'm not going to make a probe joke there. No, no.
00:12:48
Speaker
No, rest in peace, Philip. Magic in the ancient world was primarily viewed as, in some ways, coercive, which is that people are attempting to control the spiritual realm to do something in their daily lives. I just want to make one point. OK, so this is a professor of classics and he is correct. However, um here's the thing when it comes to what we today term as magic in, let's say, something like the Bible of biblical era.
00:13:16
Speaker
But there's a very big difference between folklore and folk magic and hyim what we now call high magic. So in biblical times, there was necromancy, like you see, like the witch or the necromancer of Endor doing. And then there were charms and other things that people did themselves, like putting inscriptions on a bowl, putting it under their house in order to ward off a spirit like Willy too or Lilith. Okay. Yeah. Those are two very different things. Apotropaic charms were not considered to be like high magic. They're not considered to be magic. Those were things that anybody could do. And it was just a way for you to think, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna protect my house, etc. That was not like magic given by the gods. They didn't consult a god to do that kind of thing. Whereas necromancy,
00:14:06
Speaker
like Let's say that the Witch of Andro where she takes somebody's bone and she puts it under her arm and then she goes, I'm the spirit of soul. that That's what they believed. It it says it in the text. but That's what they believed was magic. But again, it wasn't necessarily that you were favored by a God or that you were you were doing the will of a certain God. I just wanted to make that distinction. Not that it matters
Folklore and Misinterpretation in Media
00:14:31
Speaker
in this show,
00:14:32
Speaker
No, no, but also as well, in that sense, so similar things would be like writing ah almost a list, a wish list of things you wanted to happen to someone onto say a piece of lead in the Roman world and chucking it down well. And I guess you could compare it to in a, almost actually in a secular sense, writing a ah wish list to center. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's accessible on that level. know It doesn't require specialist knowledge and you don't actually have to. Oh, it does. You need to know his address, Mark. Okay.
00:15:08
Speaker
uh hello um but ah um but i saw you completely throwing me and have in that sense the uh the fact the fact the fact that it's so accessible at me it's in it's it's also the sort of thing that your um you know, that yeah we've all had witchy exes who who sort of cast hexes. Have we, Mark? Who have you been dating? I had a witchy ex who drew a knife on me. Ooh, very nice. Yeah, yeah. ah Yeah, she was intense. and but but But it's that sort of accessibility that makes it both
00:15:49
Speaker
um ah What's the word? Doable. Accessible, yes. Yeah, doable, accessible. But also makes it actually sort of compelling because everyone also understands the implications of it as well. So I know I'm sort sort of stating the obvious there, but it's just interesting how... Are you? I don't think anything's obvious on this show. Because byy what so what this guy is just saying, that this PhD guy from Brooklyn i think university book in College, was that magic could be coercive. And that's true. You could be trying to either make someone else do something or try and implore perhaps an entity or of a god or a spirit to do something on your behalf. So again, they're mixing in
00:16:32
Speaker
truth. And so what, what okay, ah should we put a 50p down that the next clip will be someone who wrote, wrote a random book about an ancient civilization? Oh, absolutely. I'll put some money down on that. Okay. Yeah. but Called like, you know, the dark world. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Where is it? Shanxi province, the China, 7th century AD. Dragon bones. The Zhongqiao mountain range. Oh, no.
00:17:00
Speaker
Oh no, I know where they're going with this. They're going to talk about the immortal eight. no Nope. Nope. Nope. Are you psychic? Because it's actually what's coming up. Cause they said, he said, that so Zhang Guo Lao, first of all. Okay. He was a real person. He did live in the Tang dynasty. He was a Taoist, I guess we would call him a monk, but he claimed to be hundreds of years old.
00:17:29
Speaker
He also loved wine and drinking. He claimed to be a Qigong master who didn't eat anything. But note, he made all of these claims himself. Very important. I know exactly where they're going with this. Here, Shang-Kuo Lao is possibly the most interesting of the eight immortals. He's depicted as an old man. He can make himself invisible. He can go without food for days.
00:17:57
Speaker
of his own admission. Remember that he said that of himself. Yeah. Yeah. Be like, you know, you know, yesterday when you didn't see me, I i was, I was there. And they'd be like, when? and the I'm not going to spoil it for you. But I saw what you did. I mean, this man just probably went to, took a really long bathroom trip and went, woo.
00:18:21
Speaker
it
00:18:25
Speaker
yeah I haven't taken it two weeks, but I haven't seen you two weeks, yeah? I was watching you sleep.
00:18:37
Speaker
Oh man, I just love the picture of them all playing mahjong as they're like these were ancient figures. They're playing mo on modern mahjong tiles.
00:18:48
Speaker
So the mule can ride divine winds and also cross thousands of miles in a single day without ever stopping once for rest. Okay, so where's the mule? The young Jambola finds a place that he wants to settle for the night.
00:19:04
Speaker
He actually folds up his mule, as one would fold a piece of paper. Oh, is the mule a spaceship? It is the size that you can fit in your pocket. Nice. and then you try it's It's a TARDIS. Reactivate. Oh, here you go, Mark. Yeah, technology of the goats, yeah. I know, it's going. Technology of sprinkling water on it. And it would reappear again.
00:19:27
Speaker
So you have to ask yourself, is this white mule actually some kind of incredible alien technology that a lot of people use? Why? Why do you have to ask yourself that? Why do you have to ask yourself that? Like, ah yeah so, OK, observe.
00:19:48
Speaker
Right, I'm no longer visible. like Oh, oh, oh, I'm back. Now you have to ask yourself. Am I, am I possessed of alien
Human Imagination vs. Ancient Alien Theories
00:19:59
Speaker
technology? I don't know that roly chair, that chair that you're sitting on has eyeballs. It does have eyeballs. Did you put it there or was it the aliens to spy on you? They just like, I just like the feeling of, of the it the it it makes me do things. The alien powers flowing through you. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a deadline enforcer. No, but yeah, that's, that's such a weird, like, sorry, no, I know this is semi jokey, but semi serious. This is such a weird first question.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah. like like Why would you go from it fanciful backwards mule must be alien technology? Also, also as a genuine point, does he does he ride it backwards? I mean, I know he's on it backwards, but does he is does it go you know bottom first? No, it goes forwards, but he sits on it backwards. but Well, that's not a trick.
00:20:45
Speaker
The donkey has eyes, it knows where to, I mean, like, follow the road. He just, it's not, it's not the donkeys follow, he's looking the wrong way. It'd be much more impressive. So he essentially, the donkey's a Transformer and it comes from, from Unicron, like that. Yeah. Or Unicorn.
00:21:05
Speaker
You know what? That pun is not the worst part of this episode. Just let it go. Just let it slide. But these questions are extremely common with the ancient Indian people. I agree. Why would that be your first question? My first question is, is this a myth or do we have archaeological evidence of the donkey or something similar? Did other people see the donkey? I think it's mostly that, you know,
00:21:34
Speaker
They don't believe that people in the past can have imagination. Or that they can white force them. Because they themselves are quite bad at it. But the mule that folds up, you know, the, you know, spaceship maybe folds up. Not that anybody has seen a folding spaceship, but there's a different question. But the key thing that they again return to is people in the past don't have imagination, it seems like.
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah. and But also given that this show starts out with not a terribly well performed magic trick, granted, but a trick where we see a humbly disappear and we know it hasn't disappeared, but we can engage with the with the yeah with the pretense.
00:22:20
Speaker
There's room for that as well. So it doesn't just require imagination. It can also be a sophisticated sense of, of he arrives somewhere. Let's say he does this, he arrives somewhere and goes, well and everyone goes, oh, it's going to happen. And then boom the donkey's gone while someone sort of dragged it around behind a house. Everyone kind of knows where it's gone, but he goes, oh, it's in my pocket. hey Let's all go inside and not look behind the house. Come on.
00:22:45
Speaker
Why is it that we in modern times, why is it that we're allowed to accept that magic, or at rather our magic tricks are not real, but theirs were real and give it to them by aliens? but just ah the The dichotomy doesn't really make sense there.
00:23:03
Speaker
maybe in a thousand years, they'll be they'll be making a series about about Twitter. I'd watch that. yeah Was there really a man who went fer mar went to Mars and came back as a rambling person with ah interesting views on the world? I'm trying to be polite. Anyway, so yeah, that's let's go.
00:23:28
Speaker
It's entirely possible that what they're describing here is some type of a craft and no cool.
Disconnect Between Mythology and Alien Narratives
00:23:35
Speaker
Well, himself may possibly have been an extraterrestrial in order to explain his abilities. Oh, Georgio. Oh, yeah, Rufio. Yeah, aliens. ah do Do you have a ah counter as to how many times you've seen him, Frederick?
00:23:59
Speaker
No, many times. She put a little clock on the top. yeah just Aliens, one, two, three. That was interesting. yeah I mean, I've seen it so much that I didn't notice his lapel. You see it under there a little... He usually has one of those South American space planes, but he seems to have switched his episode for some reason. yeah It's a conspiracy.
00:24:26
Speaker
yeah maybe maybe this Maybe this is one of the real theories. Maybe an alien gave that to him.
00:24:37
Speaker
and excuse me a yep
00:24:41
Speaker
Oh man, we we haven't even made it to Merlin yet and I'm already mad. This is where Frederick comes back with a folded up horse. Honestly, like why would they think, like you say, they show us the Humvee in the beginning and they go, oh, it's not real. So why would they think that the folded up horse What's he real? Well, and and the funny thing is, as well, in that trick, you had the um you had the the bad magician, and you're going over to someone who looked like he might have been a tech technology person, looking at a... ah The army guy. Yeah, the army guy looking at a scanner, like radar or something. but
00:25:20
Speaker
ah almost as though we're implying that it's flown away. yeah and yeah Fascinating, fascinating. But again, it's as as you say, it's the it's the inability or the refusal to allow people that sort of psychological space and agency, I guess. Yeah. Sorry, go. Our ancestors described him as a magical being.
00:25:49
Speaker
but is it possible that extraterrestrials could develop a technology in which you have some sort of machine that can We're just asking questions. I'm just asking questions. Here you go, Mark. Here's your 50p back. There you go. Thank you. Who said... It has been a long time since I've watched this, and I have noticed how many times they just say, is it possible? Is it possible? Of course it's possible.
00:26:24
Speaker
but But you have to say no. You just have to say no, because that's the problem, is that it's perfectly worded. This way you can't say no. Yeah. Yeah. The source field investigations. Oh, this man believes in ley lines.
00:26:42
Speaker
Who do you think? Right. Oh, okay. I smell it. I know. Okay. Okay. Okay. Fold itself into hyperspace. It runs on an advanced energy. Hyperspace? What? What? There's no, there's one. How? He is not a thing. That's not a thing.
00:27:06
Speaker
That's sci-fi. like That's actual sci-fi. What did I say about him and ley lines? Man, he just took it so far. I thought he was just going to believe in ley lines, but no, he just whipped down pulled the ship into hyperspace. Wow.
00:27:22
Speaker
oh yeah that Hyperspace is Star Wars, isn't it? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Well, so I just want to point something out is that we often, and this is something that I get on my channel a lot, people using phrases and concepts that we have invented in modern times and trying to force them onto to ancient peoples. So Mark and I talked about this, we talked about the Roman dodecahedron, and how people want to say it's for knitting. And we that's been debunked 1000 times. yeah Knitting wasn't even invented. At the time, it was brought to Europe by Arab peoples in at least 11th century. Wasn't even around in in the Roman times.
00:28:11
Speaker
And yet people will say, it's pretty again, we're looking at this from, it's a back projection. We're looking at this from a modern perspective and going, oh, I know what that is. Well, but also actually the dodecahedron actually taps into there something very similar to so what we see what we see around ancient aliens and around flat earth and other things. It's this idea that um your experience is one of the best yardsticks for reality. And yeah in many ways that is true. Absolutely. you know you're probably
00:28:45
Speaker
You know, it's probably a good idea to believe how you feel about the atmosphere when you go out as to whether or not it's about to rain. Don't just trust the air the the the weather person on TV or on on on your phone or something. But um but just just because you experience, for example, your portion of the planet is seeming flat at your scale doesn't mean the planet is flat.
Misrepresentation of Cultural Artifacts
00:29:08
Speaker
Just because you can use this thing to do sort of French knitting doesn't mean it was used for French knitting. And i and and we one of my one of the crucial things is that often some of the circles on this on these these ah the the faces of the dodecahedron are so small that you'd struggle to get a baby's finger in there. yeah And at that point, you might as well just knit a tube. But also, actually, I don't know anyone who knits, who who would find making the tube of each finger individually using this contraption easier than just knitting.
00:29:41
Speaker
knitting a glove, you know, like, so it's a bit, but but but it's compelling because, and it always comes with this this sort of meme of a hypothetical conversation, doesn't it, between the experts. Yes, that's right. and And like, it could be a grandma or a crafter or whatever, and that's pithy and it's fun to have experts. I don't know what this is for. But it's also disingenuous.
00:30:04
Speaker
It is disingenuous, yeah. ah And also this idea that, oh, they were only set found in the northern parts of the empire. Oh, and we know that's not true. They were actually found mostly in the middle and dramatic parts of the empire. the The only three that we have in the north were near Hadrian's Wall, and they came probably with soldiers and there was no knitting found with them, but there's only three and the in the in the most north.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah. And so I can, and I can understand why it feels, it feels almost like a, like almost the word, it's a democratizing sensation. You know, that, that, that, um, that maybe these experts need to listen to my gran because she knows about knitting. Well, maybe these experts need to listen to mister over here with his hyperspace because clearly archeologists don't know anything about hyperspace.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't want to be fired. Yeah, I don't, but that's also a thing within the ancient alien narrative that the the idea is that the people of the past could not describe advanced technology with their vocabulary and therefore, uh, hyperspace traveling spaceship turns into a donkey. You can fold up and put in your pocket. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Also, why isn't this spaceship white?
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, hey, it's meant to be a white donkey. Hey, no, it was a white bat. Oh, oh, okay. oh ok im sorry. Oh yeah. No, the statue was white. Sorry. Apologies. Now you have to write apology letter. Also, how did they know that this is what the, that this is what the ships look like? This is a very earthy and bad design. That's actually very similar to the ship from, um, uh, the, oh,
00:31:46
Speaker
Looks like Babylon, the flight of the navigator. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. The silver, the silver clam shell. Yeah. 10 out of 10. Is it possible that Xiongolao really existed? And if so, could his amazing powers we just said he was real person have been? Yeah, that's not the same question. Exactly. He can exist, but it doesn't mean he had a speech. He was a real person in the Tang dynasty. ah Yeah.
00:32:14
Speaker
we We know we know he was real. He was definitely not an alien. I think the script writer forgot that.
Nationalist Narratives in Ancient Alien Theories
00:32:25
Speaker
Ancient astronaut theorists believe further clues can be found more than 1700 miles away. Oh no. whattensia What? um That's not how things work. rest you can't You can't just a globe hop.
00:32:40
Speaker
to prove something in China by going to India. I just. I just want to point something out. okay get If they're going to be talking about Buddha, they're not even in the right place because Buddha was from Nepal. Oh, would you find that napauling? Nap, nap, nap, napauling. I am resisting.
00:33:06
Speaker
You know, or you're not psychic, Michelle. But they're in India. What else are they going to talk about? She's got the box set, man. That's what it is. She's got the box set. I swear in my life, i have never I've never given these people money and I never will. On the southern shores of the Ganges River, this ancient city is believed to be the place where the great spiritual leader, Buddha, embarked on an incredible journey in 483 BC.
00:33:36
Speaker
They're throwing into, into um I'm losing my words now, and to disrete disrepute into They're throwing up in the air the question as to whether or not someone who seemingly was a probably a historical person was where he were. you know jude it's like it If you throw everything up in the air, then everything looks like a mess. And again, that's another tactic that that that they that they're deploying here. it's very it's like But again, I'm presumably disappointed by this because because I'm seeing this for the first time in like 15 years. Whereas you i see this every week, I guess, Frederick. Yeah, it takes a sharp shooter, basically. But yeah, they use a shotgun and then they go and write circles on all the hits that they perceive that they have found. Actually, I mean, I would say this is quite racist because they're theyre delegitimizing.
00:34:27
Speaker
somebody who, po I mean, first, I understand why they're doing it. We don't know whether Buddha lived. It's very possible that he did, but he if he did live, he was born sometime around like 500 to 400 BCE. We don't really know. um He might have been a prince.
00:34:45
Speaker
There's the story. I say he was one and he was somewhere in modern day Nepal. Um, and so I think that them going, Oh, the Buddha was, was really, I don't know if they're going to say this, but the Buddha was an ancient alien. Then you mean you could say literally any of that, but you could say that about Moses, but Moses. We don't know. He existed. We have literally no evidence that he existed. Oh, but he was an ancient alien and he used his magical staff to, to park the seas and take these. Are they really going to talk about Moses?
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah. are they Oh my God. but Are you serious? They're really going to talk. Oh my God. i'm It's entering your head via osmosis. Oh no. But no you know what? Now i'm understanding I'm understanding the way that they're thinking. they're specific At least in this episode, they're specifically taking people who may or may not have, I mean, to be fair, Zhang Guo Lao did exist, but but they're taking people who may or may not have existed and just going, I see.
00:35:43
Speaker
ellen Yeah. Well, but also as well, what's interesting there is they are a little bit like with other similar more recent TV series on Netflix. um What they're doing is they're combining um the known with the less well-known, so as to introduce a certain amount of sort of a... Doubt. press Press X for doubt. Well, actually, well, yes. But then but what bought but you might ah have called previously sort of the mystery of the Orient, you know, or the deepest, darkest... Oh, I see. Yeah. This idea... That's fetishization. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:21
Speaker
So you might have heard of of Moses, but you hadn't heard of of this guy from from China or this guy from India. um And so that gives you the familiarity, gives you a ah step into, well, I believe Moses existed if you did, if you do, um or I've heard that story at least.
00:36:39
Speaker
And so all of it starts to be sort of, again, as you say, as I say, throw everything up in the air and it looks like a homogeneous mass, you know, and then as you say, Frederick, just, you know, take a shotgun and see what you shoot down. Now I want to skip to Moses, just start screaming. I really had no idea. OK, let's go for the Buddha. Come on. The Buddha traveled around India, spreading his teachings.
00:37:05
Speaker
His followers and the monastic community grew increasingly. He was perceived as a human, but an extraordinary human. In the process of gaining enlightenment, he had these realizations that were marked by supernatural powers. Oh, here we go. project it and build Oh, Michelle's dead. or this be chain walkway of cause your way yougainst the machine I think heard a her is shot.
00:37:38
Speaker
You okay, Michelle? he he was He was doing well. We got some facts in there, right? We got some facts in there. I appreciate that. ah And then out of nowhere, oh, man. I mean, again, it's they say he had supernatural powers. and And I understand the thing is that this is a legend. It's a legend that you know when he reached Nirvana, et cetera, a buddha Buddha just means the awakened one. That's what it means. And the anyway, um yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
Look at that, they even have like like early 2000s shine on the freaking mountain in the background. The production values. Come on, guys. If you're spreading misinformation, let's make it look pretty. To be fair, that's the background for um uh every bookmark have ever been handed by um by uh Baptists in in prostatin growing up really yeah they'd be like did you know all that time you thought you were walking alone yeah yeah i'm not mocking i'm not mocking the their belief i'm just saying that's the background same up and down that walkway filled with the jewels for about a week
00:39:01
Speaker
Buddha is a golden M&M flying on the space by the buddha and his many disciples attempted to cross the ganges And he sees people on one side of the Ganges trying to build up these frail rafts, trying to cross the river.
00:39:19
Speaker
And what he does is in an instant, and the text says that in the time it takes for a strong man to stretch out his bent arm or to bend his outstretched arm, but the Buddha appears on the other side of the river. So he invented teleportation! What?
00:39:39
Speaker
but both but But also as well, notice that that to that guy is one of the legit ah academics and he's saying the text says. Yes. Yes. He's very clear that he's just repeating what the legend says. It's not true. Yeah. But that, yeah, that was, ah that would that was, that was some early 2000s editing.
00:39:58
Speaker
um sort of the fade out and then you mirror your mask and then you fade it back in on the other side. Yeah CS2 for the days of Photoshop. Yeah it was good, it was good. was ki but but But how does this help other people though? That's what one I want to know next. does he Does he then make a bridge? We'll see. Yeah. Now there was no boat, no form of transportation whatsoever and people witnessed this.
00:40:23
Speaker
So was this some sort of a miracle? Of course not. So are we talking about interpretation here? Some type of technology that was misinterpreted as a miracle? bird
00:40:39
Speaker
ah Again, it's disingenuous. yeah I just wonder, I just wonder if Mr. Giorgio, I just wonder if he ever went to a mythology class or cracked open a mythology book.
00:40:52
Speaker
No, it was hosting, what was it? A weightlifting championship before he went into this. yeah it did I think he did business studies or something, didn't he, as well? um Yeah, something like that.
00:41:04
Speaker
but but but in that just instead of because Have you come to any conclusions yourself watching all these episodes about about the extent to which Giorgio feels that he's asking legitimate questions?
00:41:19
Speaker
I'm gonna say he doesn't actually believe it. I just think he's putting it on for the show. I think he believes it, but at the same time, a yeah even if he would come to a different conclusion, I think he's now, there's so much money in this. There's no way that he can back off and still maintain that sort of income because you don't have the same money from turning, oh, I was a believer in this. and now i
00:41:50
Speaker
not a believer. I mean, me and Mark could go and make thousands, hundred of thousands of dollars just starting to say, oh, we thought we were in a big archaeology, but we switched sides because they were of course correct. and Or maybe the aliens got to you.
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah, or start start selling pieces of paper that say, yes, you are related to Thor. And you know and it comes from all comes all the way from Sweden. But Thor was an alien. We know that now, but because Thor rode through the sky on slip gear, which was very clearly a spacecraft. it's so to know Exactly. and the people yeah they but But that's the thing, I guess. Yeah, I think you're right. In that sense, it it's once you're in, it is hard to get out. I remember um was it a documentary on possibly Netflix, where there was a... Mark Watts's chops, the guy who's one of the heads of... Yes, that is his name. One of the heads of the Flat Earth Movement, who came up with the, essentially, one of the first Just Asking Questions series of videos.
00:42:58
Speaker
he um ah He's quoted as saying, someone's saying, said something along the lines of, do you really believe this stuff? And he said something like, well, I've got to, right? You know, I can't, I can't stop now. That's basically what he says. And, and the thing is, I don't think George, this is why, this is why I'm asking about Georgios sincerity is that I don't think Georgio has, has to believe. I don't think there's a queue of people lined up waiting to take him out if he goes against the true faith, but He'd be surprised. wasn't But I suspect maybe there's an element of, you can tell yourself, even if this is nonsense, it's harmless.
Distortion of Mythology for Alien Theories
00:43:38
Speaker
It's entertainment. I get to make a bed of money, you know, keep myself in the lifestyle that I'm accustomed to, whatever that may be. Um, yeah. But, but again, it's always the open questions, open questions that are designed never to be answered. Yeah. Yeah. Cool statue though.
00:43:58
Speaker
yeah that is nice yeah but question on this
00:44:04
Speaker
It's what I think, but the open question is a common trope with them because if you ask open question and then a proven wrong, yeah um but I'm just asking and then continue with the same narrative and you switch out whatever you asked questions about to something else that fits that field. Do you know, there's this there's a related thing that happens in um other forms of debate where people will say,
00:44:31
Speaker
um rhetorically almost without even knowing that they're deploying rhetoric they'll sort of say now obviously i'm not an educated person like you They say to whoever whoever they're speaking to. But yeah, this is my opinion. This is what I'm going to say. And this is the implication being that they've got this trap door now to get to this escape hatch to bail out of the conversation the moment that they're proven to be incorrect. and But the question is, by deploying that rhetoric, do they respect education or not? And yeah well,
00:45:05
Speaker
but but the But the implication is is yes, they just also don't want to be wrong. I find often when when people say those things, they immediately try to subvert to whatever it is in the field that you study. yeah And they they purposely say, well, I don't know much about this, but this is what I think about it. i mean And then if you actually are speaking to a person who is a scholar or an academic, then you can have a conversation about that. Whereas if you just give the answer, they'll go, well, I don't i don't know if I believe that.
00:45:39
Speaker
yeah Or yeah i'll i'll have to I'll have to see how I feel about it or something. What do we now call magic? and Now, what I think what he means by what he said is is what they did, what they thought of as being magic, and what we might now have inherited through the notion of it being magic.
00:46:14
Speaker
Um, but that there is no correlation. I mean, that's the thing. I'm just astounded at through this whole thing is that they're going, this is now what we call magic going. No, you just said it was alien stuff two seconds ago. Yeah. It's not magic. And then in the beginning of the program, you said magic was an illusion and that it was fine. But now you're saying that it's real and that it belongs to aliens. Because what we now call magic is a stage show. You know what? You know what this is? This was written by a person who's never written an essay. That's what this is.
00:46:42
Speaker
Because their mission statement at the top, their opening statement does not match the body of the essay. Yeah, sometimes they get lost, but now we get to No, no, no, the... no, no, no, no, no. And they are at the frickin' cave, at Tintagel, no, no, no. Okay, we need to have a serious discussion between us. We need to have a discussion, but first of all, first of all, the very first mention of Merlin as we know him in all of the stories is Nenius in 820, eight, I wanna say, or 825.
00:47:29
Speaker
Okay. Story of Bretonim, that is the first time that he is mentioned. He is not an ancient figure at all. He's literally not prehistoric. He's based on two people. Mark, do you know who they are?
00:47:47
Speaker
I don't know. Oh, to be honest, my understanding of of Merlin starts with um jeff jeff Jeffrey. No, no, okay no. no ah Back up the truck. We're going to get to Jeff. Okay. We're going to get to Jeff. Okay.
00:48:01
Speaker
Merlin was originally based on two different characters. The main one is Mervyn Wheat, who is the or or Wilt, who is the Merlin the Mad. yeah And we only call him Merlin because of good old Jeff of Monmouth. ok He changed his name because Mervyn or merdin means a shit in norman french so he decided to change the name to merlin which yeah and there also there's a lot of etymological things that we can talk about about the fact that merlin's name might have meant blackbird we there there's a whole there's a whole thing but he's based mainly on that character who was a prophet no magic no wiggy woos
00:48:44
Speaker
just a prophet who prophesied about a battle, and then went crazy, and then ran away into the woods. That's the whole original story of Monroe. That's it. No magic, no Arthur. He didn't even live at the same time as Arthur, if Arthur lived, ah in the original mythology. There are a hundred years apart. No way they could have been anywhere in your hell of a purchase just drinking.
00:49:12
Speaker
ah ah Are they going to talk about Stonehenge in this? no he was Oh, you know what? They probably will. They probably will, because they'll probably say that Merlin made it, which is what Jeff came up with in 1136. In his stupid book, he said that Merlin made Stonehenge.
00:49:31
Speaker
Okay, let's get back into it because I think it will we get a lot worse. um tintangile island no now five hundred a d now We see Merlin historically in the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Incorrect, Nenius. Incorrect, and it's not even historical. We know we know that Geoff's book is not historical.
00:50:00
Speaker
no plant now During the time period of Arthur, I think that there is this tendency to think of him as the... What? Why was there... Wait a minute. What heck iconography was that? Why did they put a manji on Merlin's name that doesn't make any sense? That's the Japanese Buddhist symbol.
00:50:22
Speaker
Yeah, and then they've got this curious kind of face that he's sort of part Darwin, part Lenin, um and he's got the so you know a third eye of enlightenment. um And his cap is is sort of falling off because he's got no hair on top.
00:50:38
Speaker
so is this like i The thing is that you you can really get nitpicky, can't you? and And again, we keep on stopping you, Frederick, and I'm terribly sorry. I'm so mad. I'm so mad.
00:50:52
Speaker
like white white white
00:50:58
Speaker
that the thing is that A lot of these things are based on obviously misconceptions. and The biggest misconception here is thinking that Geoffrey of Monmouth is historical. He is not the first to mention Merlin and he is absolutely not historical. He was, however, the first person to put Merlin and Arthur together. That is what he did do. and and Again,
00:51:17
Speaker
Merlin's first mention is in 800s. And Arthur's first mention, again, Geoffrey of Monmouth, is 1136. That is so far from each other. So far. And Merlin was originally a prophet, like I said,
00:51:34
Speaker
no magic whatsoever. He went crazy. And it's possible Merlin himself, though, the Merlin we were talking about was based on a, well, I won't say Scottish, because Scotland didn't exist as a nation at the time, but it was based on a Northern or Strathclyde person named Wilekin, who was a different prophet who went mad.
00:51:57
Speaker
its It's what happens when you prophesize things. mean you prophesy things for yeah you prop Prophecy is a kind of magic, if you look back at the ancient Egypt prophecy, and magic was kind of tied together as far as I understand it. This is true, how however, especially when they were looking at Mazalot, but in in a northern European context, at least in in the British Isles context, usually prophecy was associated with ah Christianity.
00:52:25
Speaker
Sorry, as as opposed to divination, which tends to, you know, you cut something open, maybe, or you look at look at something and it tells you mystical things. Also, one final point just on this picture, um pointy hats and magic are, are ah they have Well, potentially quite disturbing connotations as well. So it's, um, ah yeah, it's more middle ages, you know, late middle ages. yeah Yeah, it's definitely a middle age. Yeah. Middle age, uh, middle age. It's definitely a middle age thing. I mean, this is the middle ages. This is just technically, this is the very early middle ages. So I'm just laughing because tomorrow I'm turning 40. So like, I'm going to have to put um my hands on. Welcome. Exactly. yeah and So yes, come on. the according to invented go is
00:53:12
Speaker
king arthur is around five hundred heyday
00:53:17
Speaker
No. called merlin no no merlin is a tributeed Sorry, is he saying that Avalon is in the US? Avalon in the New World. That's say his book.
00:53:31
Speaker
i I think, and the new world. I think, and the new world is. ah That is part of the grail and connection to the new world. That's very popular within the alternative history community. That's why they want to connect to the Kensington Runestones and things like that to Scandinavia. Oh yeah. The grail and and all of that. The grail.
00:53:58
Speaker
So a lot of a lot of the things that he just repeated were invented by either Wace or Robert de Boron after Geoffrey. This is the beginning of the Norman cycle, the early Norman cycle of Arthurian myth. He never, Merlin was never an advisor in the earliest, at least in the earliest ah writings of him. He was never an advisor.
00:54:22
Speaker
he know levitate rock Oh, so I knew it. I knew it. I claim my 50 P back when I was square. Thanks, Jeff. Building stoned in. Bastard. Yeah. Oh God, ruined everything.
00:54:39
Speaker
Like him and him and my good old buddy Gerald Wales, they really just wrecked everything. I mean, they they they invented a nice mythology for us, but because of this, people can't tell the difference between because the books are called Histori Bretonum, right? So people see the word history and they think that they're historical. We know they're not. um'm I'm holding it in. I'm holding it.
00:55:00
Speaker
Okay, I looked up his book. He suggests that Merlin's final resting place was an island in the United States.
00:55:12
Speaker
you see ye I actually, it's so it's funny when I did my my paper on Apery, I was toying with you know different ideas about why they picked Avalon, where it was, why, et cetera. And if you just do four seconds, four seconds of real academic research, you realize that the idea of Avalon or Inish Avlach was actually lifted from Irish tales and has absolutely nothing to do with Arthurian myth. Merlin seems to have been based on this idea of of the Druids.
00:55:41
Speaker
No, George. What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Mark, Mark, when did the Druids live? If you, if you, if you believe writings that were, that were not written for conventional historical purposes, we recognize it, you know, when Caesar turned up in Gaul, he's writing about Druids. He's writing about the turn of the first millennium. Okay. And so, and so when did they say, when did they just say that Merlin lived?
00:56:10
Speaker
What was it, 800? 500. Yeah. Were the Druids around in in the early Middle Ages? No. ah And a story.
00:56:23
Speaker
But this guy's got a PhD. Look at him. Professor of anthropology. Where from? Come on. Come on. I dare you. USC. Well, what's going on my shit list? Okay. What's he got to say? Cool. Yeah. So it's a pure as very magical and having various other ways that they could interact with the supernatural world for the benefit of the Monday. To be fair. Okay. To be fair, he didn't mention Merlin. No. So he's being quoted out of context. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's forgiven. It's off my list.
00:56:56
Speaker
there is no my pin no no no no no no mark when was the announced Cambria written oh i don't know i don't know 12th century but oh really 12th century right okay This is not, no, this is 12th century. This is already getting into the deep into the Middle Ages. No, I don't care what they say after this. Everything's no. The panel's Cambrai, which means the Welsh panels, could very well be the same Merlin as the Merlin in the storage of Arthur.
00:57:34
Speaker
that That is that, you know. Okay, so he's so he's admitting that Merlin's like 400 years old. That's what he has just admitted, that he thinks that Merlin is 400 years old. and But yeah, and yeah, could very well be.
00:57:47
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Also, I wonder what is that actual, that is the actual language there. I think it's, um, Greek to, to know. There's some curse. 12th century. And then they go, and then they go back to Greek papyrus. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm not convinced. He was able to be a tutor to Arthur in his childhood, teach him ways of nature.
00:58:17
Speaker
He makes him king by no, but no, also no, fes no ah no. All right. Who invented the myth of the sword and the stone? Oh, I can't remember. I'm still thinking about Robert DeBaron. Right. Yeah. He invented the sword and the stone around 1200.
00:58:38
Speaker
yeah It's also interesting because that you can you can smell smell the influence of Judeo-Christianity there, can't you? Because actually what what he's describing is arguably David as well. um Yeah, who we also don't know was real.
00:58:54
Speaker
No, exactly. but but But royal blood from a situation or from a context that's not within within the... um but that But that's fine in there because, again, Roberta Boral, I mean, this is already Christian Norman myth. This is where we're getting into. And so same thing with waste and and all of these guys that that started the Norman cycle and that invented the the as sword and the stone, that invented the myth of the grail, and that invented... that these are all This is all a way to claim Arthur as a Christian hero.
00:59:24
Speaker
But also, so act so actually, although they don't know it, the sword they portray there is accurate to the story. It's not accurate to the time period. exactly Yes, thank you. Yes, exactly. so yes yeah so So it should be, it should look more like a, you know, Saxon sword or something. yeah um ah But actually what they've got there is more of a sort of a high medieval, you know, full on cross guard.
Manipulation of Ancient Narratives
00:59:50
Speaker
They've got to have B roll. What else are they going to show? And it seems that he wants to make Arthur into a sort of immortal figure in the eyes of the people so that they will readily follow him and make him their one and only king. In other words, Merlin is the authority, really, the advisor behind the throne. Or the authority. super i You know what? that's That's less painful than this. Always getting worse. and in so doing create the british empire no no
01:00:31
Speaker
and No, even like, so you guys may not know this, but there's a whole fringe thing here in, this pis especially in England. I didn't really know this growing up in Wales, but in England, there's this hill whole thing of people who try to um really push their quote unquote Celtic pre-Roman roots. It's an ethno-nationalist thing. and And part of what they push, part of what they claim is that actually The Royal Family, as it is today, and the the monarchy that traces, you know, back to William and the Conqueror and then before then, even actually, because that all these people are sort of related, um was put was is it has been foisted upon us because actually what they were doing was replacing a true ah sort of yeah Celtic lineage. I thought you were going to say it was for but being replaced with aliens.
01:01:22
Speaker
No, no, no, no. It's a genuine sort of like weird political and the national thing ah that that this sort of Germanic notion of King kingship has been forced upon people. um And actually, often they they go back to Arthur. And so if there are they about how can they
01:01:41
Speaker
heart brain But they show it, they're showing parliament there and the British flag, which has so many other connotations that have nothing to do with, sorry. Okay. Go on. It's an important point to bring up there because the ancient alien narrative and alternative history narrative is deeply connected with a nationalist and ethnic yeah ideas. That's not really.
01:02:13
Speaker
Great. I mean, ancient aliens, for example, they even put on in one episode that I did long time ago now, but they actually quote real neo-Nazis in the episode without acknowledging. They even go so far that they rewrite and World War II history.
01:02:31
Speaker
is So a guy ah could just magically disappear and then they just leave out that he, well, he killed thousands of youths and his staff that also disappeared, ah he executed because they were Jewish.
01:02:49
Speaker
right Yeah. So there's these deep connections with these naturalistic ideas and they ancient alien people never acknowledge this. Did they, did do they, did they say that, uh, that Hitler like was using alien technology? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Oh, actually, I think I've seen this, uh, there's a, there's a show that was much less long lived than ancient aliens here called forbidden archeology where, um,
01:03:15
Speaker
where the the the a guy goes to visit a UFO launch site in, I think, in in somewhere outside Berlin, um interestingly. it's like It's like a circular concrete structure. that They're not claiming it's a henge, but they are claiming it's a place where a commandeered Third Reich ah alien technology was being built. That's not of some Berlin, that's in Poland.
01:03:44
Speaker
It's Polish. and It's part of the ethno also national Polish idea about the World War II and how yeah Germany influenced their system. So yeah, there's a lot of these strange ideas. And if you want to hear me talk about it, you should go and see episode 19, Aliens and the Third Reich, where we
Alternative History and Radicalization
01:04:12
Speaker
go through the real and all of that, that but that it's a common theme and we also see with this
01:04:22
Speaker
and how the alternative histories were getting more and more radicalized in recent years. They're getting more connected to the alt-right movement, for example. You see this, especially online, that there's a oh crossover that's getting deeper. And this is short from 2013, but it started a lot earlier now. We're starting to see the true aftermath of this.
01:04:48
Speaker
Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I was i was talking about precisely this actually with with with my friend and colleague Andy earlier today. And ah this is in the context of a conversation that's happening at the moment. um ah You guys may know about this conversation where some archaeologists are trying to get together to to have an October conversation about Graham Hancock and co.
01:05:14
Speaker
and um And i every time I mentioned to Andy, a simple question along the lines of, so so ah Jimmy Corsetti and Gobletki Teppi, what is the danger of this of this of this narrative? um He finds it very difficult.
01:05:36
Speaker
not to go straight into connections with modern day ah political systems, the alt-right, culture wars, so on and so forth. And I do wonder I mean, obviously the roots are deep. And as I said, as I was saying at the beginning, you know, I do believe that ancient aliens was a test bed for that thing of everything you know is wrong, question everything. But how... Oh, this is definitely Proto-Jorogan for sure.
01:06:07
Speaker
Well, it is. But but how how helpful is it to tell all of that audience or to suspect that there are lots of audience are then susceptible to the alt right? I know that the pipeline is real. I definitely I recognize that. And but but my analogy to him was so there's a thing here in the yeah UK called white lightning. It's terrible cider that you can buy in shops for like 50 beer bottle. It's it's it's the stuff that that kids will try and get.
01:06:34
Speaker
and feel like grownups when they're in the park or something. But the point is, most people don't drink white lightning. And so in that sense, just because there is a and there's access to godawful stuff out there, how how ah how often should we be made drawing these connections between ah between the the King Arthur story, for example, and ethno-nationalism and what we now call alt-right? Because this is a 20-year story, I guess, what we're seeing here in terms of a development of thought and connecting ideas. And I'm i'm not i'm not asking that because I don't believe that there is a connection, but I'm wondering how how helpful is it, do we think, to actually to to now say, well, looking back, the pattern is clear,
01:07:19
Speaker
But what is the pattern clear? Was it clear? No, you never know. I i don't think because I mean, some people believe believe in really crazy stuff and it has nothing to do with, you know, autism or anything like that. It could have taken another turn, but yeah, looking for patterns that might be there. I mean, there's, of course they have to be a foundation they stand on, but at the same time,
01:07:46
Speaker
Uh, he's like talking about Thor Heyerdahl's writings. He wrote in the 30s and 40s. And while his writings is very, I mean, if you look at them from a modern perspective, they are racist. That he necessarily didn't was holding these idea that we, you know, uh, would say are racist, but, um,
01:08:12
Speaker
Yeah. How much should we apply our own idea on what it is? But yeah, it's a hard conversation to have. And think.
Engaging with Conspiracy Theories
01:08:22
Speaker
But I suppose the reason why I bring up the bad alcohol analogy is that ah yes, out of say, let's say millions of people who have watched this TV series, it seems that most people who watch it move on from it. yeah we yeah most Most of the time when I visit ah ah like a castle or a historic site, I'm not surrounded by people in that place going, ah, but the truth is I'm looking for the for the supercomputer buried in the wall, you know, that kind of thing. They're actually engaging they're actually engaging with the stone working with the technology that's in front of them.
01:08:57
Speaker
in a useful, helpful way. They're reading the information boards, they're listening to the tour guide. I don't think people who actually believe in this stuff would go to those sites because they would immediately find it. So they would say, oh, it's a cover up. It's like Holocaust nightmares where they go, they go to the site, they go, ah, you see the doors the other way. there so So those are the people who stay in the park and keep on drinking. Yeah. Yeah. And no matter what you say, you you could bring them to the site, you could show them everything, but they will immediately think, oh, you're you're showing me this to to keep me from the real stuff.
01:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, I actually was at Manchester Museum last year and actually overheard tutorials asking one of the museum staff questions about ancient Egyptian stonemasonry that a tour guide or the work at the museum couldn't really answer.
01:09:41
Speaker
ah yeah And I jumped in and said, you know, this is what we know and why we know it. And those two went away feeling because they had seen all the ancient aliens, you know, Hancock, Corsetti, but they went the wrong way. You saw that they didn didn't believe really, but you cannot start to see wheels turning. I think it's important that we talk about it, but when we can't save the hardcore believers, I think these just dip their toes and then and maybe they won't or maybe they will. But at this point, like Ginny Debs, a professor who looks about the radicalization online, especially in the Manus Fair, say that
01:10:27
Speaker
And the more time goes currently with algorithm and social media and all that, the more radicalized people are being. And I think we need to start to work with these behavioral specialists too. Maybe are not just be couch experts on the radicalization of this. yeah but yeah yeah I think also that the the danger for for Ancient Aliens was, but I mean, this show started at a time where the internet was young.
01:10:56
Speaker
And it it showed up on history. And at the time, people thought that history was a real historical channel and that you could trust the information that you saw on history. And I think this was kind of the beginning of that end.
01:11:12
Speaker
it's It's also interesting as well, because when you look at ah people who actually run things like social media and have written these algorithms, they often don't allow their kids anywhere near technology until they're growing up and their minds are actually fully formed. And so they know what they've done in that sense. And and I guess one final um final um anecdote.
01:11:38
Speaker
ah the other day, it it occurred to it to a friend of mine in conversation that that Elon Musk has effectively built for himself the world's most expensive echo chain. By artificially boosting his own ah presence on Twitter, but also as well by clearly feeding an algorithm that's now feeding him nothing but you know was it low testosterone and all sorts of racist tropes and so on and so forth.
01:12:05
Speaker
um yeah Even it's very hard, I guess, to know when you're trapped in there yourself, I guess. Yeah. um And so maybe like again, maybe i I suppose I suppose the reason why I ask about this, about this this intervention almost is we also guess I guess we need to be careful not to have a sort of a saviour, a saviour complex. about That's very hard for humanity.
01:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, it it is. but but it's very it's In that sense, it's difficult not to think, I'm going to save all of you from watching this this nonsense. you know and mean And looking back at what we've been saying throughout this episode, it's very easy to say easy to take the piss of what's happening on screen. But also, I think we probably need to allow people, yeah the grownups who are watching this, hopefully,
01:12:53
Speaker
enough respect and time to to just to hope, you know to suspect that that most of them will go, is this real? you know Is this real? Or maybe I'm being naive there. Maybe I maybe i am. But I would i would hope that the the By giving people that respect, that's a good place at least to start that conversation, maybe. Yeah, and as say in this show several times, we definitely won't save everybody. I mean, you can't reach everyone, and I get emails from listeners wondering what they can do, and even family members get into this, and it's not much. You can, it's a very long and individual process, and
01:13:43
Speaker
I think this is a time where we kind of take a lighthearted approach to this. Usually I have more that I give information and all of this and those who listen know that it's more about giving proper material so you can look at it and and make a decision yourself or go and you get something new out
Speculative Claims and Historical Figures
01:14:03
Speaker
of it. But ah I think we also need to allow ourselves to make fun of them in a sense. yeah yeah And we're making fun of the experts, we're making money, not those who are believing in this in a sense. Yeah, that's the important distinction. Mark and I can shout and scream all we want, but we're we're we're getting angry at the producers of the show. We are not getting angry at the people who get sucked in by this stuff.
01:14:28
Speaker
Unfortunately, as well, we're not making any money. No. Well, it's obviously a Georgia can laugh at us, but I mean, that says, yeah, sorry, sorry if this is a too, that was too serious a question for this particular series. Oh, don't worry, Mark, it's going to get more silly very quickly. Okay. Okay. Let's go back to the silly. Okay.
01:14:46
Speaker
is an important question, and I think it's good that we talk about it, so and actually. So, no hard feelings there, but the because we haven't really gotten to the wild stuff out yet. So, hold on to your hats. Okay. The birth of Merlin is a miraculous tale. His mother was a non-virgin. And his father was a demon. erotic dream And she wakes up just knowing she is pregnant.
01:15:14
Speaker
So Merlin's father could have been an incubus that would be a... Oh, I see where they're going with this. Okay. A monstrous figure who in this case came and had sex with innocent women while they slept in their dreams. The most common legends about Merlin say that he got his powers through this demonic father. Merlin was baptized and the demonic nature melted away, but he maintained all of the magic from the demon father.
01:15:43
Speaker
That's not Ananias. When we're confronted by the story of Merlin, we're looking at a medieval figure who is possibly another example of an otherworldly being. Oh, a Touchment Day device.
01:15:57
Speaker
did ah did day So first of all, there is there was a concept of, especially in or early ah early medieval literature of like, what is it called, Cambian, I think, which is somebody who was born out of like a holy person and has a demon parent. And there is this idea that they can be somehow cured of their demonicness by just being baptized. We see this a lot in, ah there's there's a very famous story about the green children of Woolpit. Now they're they're not demon children, but the this story,
01:16:29
Speaker
grows up again and around the same time period where suddenly you have children who are speaking a very strange language and they have green skin when really, you know, it and and then suddenly they baptize and, oh, they can speak our language and, oh, they don't they don't want to eat beans anymore. it's It's a very common trope in this kind of of literature for whatever reason. And as I said in Ninnias, this is not mentioned. the the old the ah It's Jeffrey Bonmouth who talks about this, but It's King Bordegorn who is worried about his legacy. And he goes, find me a man who was not born of flesh and blood. And so magically they just find Merlin. And so this is the excuse that they make for Merlin's miraculous birth.
01:17:13
Speaker
that's One of my my my favorite readings of this story as a child was um ah that the boys were playing football outside of town and ah the yeah the kids go, go away Merlin, you don't even have a father.
01:17:31
Speaker
Like the most Swansea acts. Yeah, exactly. Go away. and then And he's like, oh, I want to play football. um So it's, ah yeah. it a bit big But again, it's interesting as well in that sense, that the children's story obviously completely overlooks this idea of ah of a demonic father. It's more just the that he popped out of nowhere. Yeah.
01:17:53
Speaker
Sorry, I derailed the whole thing again. Which was that human extraterrestrial contact did occur, that Merlin was actually... No! No! That's not proof! That's not proof! You've just been... Oh, the look they've again, the rhetoric. Rhetorical. did they that it ah oh I can't even language, man. Words. As we said, Merlin was based on two different prophets.
01:18:23
Speaker
Neither one of them had were mentioned with demonic parents. Neither one of them had magic and they certainly weren't made by aliens. Again, as I thought, you know what, I throw their own red right back to them i read back them and I say, oh, OK, I believe you. Show me their extraterrestrial ships. Show me their artifacts. Yeah. But but also, in what by what measure is Merlin's story revered?
01:18:50
Speaker
as a core of British history. Mark, that was an American saying that, so we can disregard it. Is it possible that Merlin had what many believe to have been otherworldly origins? No. If so, might his magic really have been... That's a sick lab, though. Not on occult forces, but on advanced extraterrestrial technology.
01:19:12
Speaker
what's what's What's the connection there? What's the leap? They've gone from talking about met about a mythology to sort of magic, to sort of quasi-religious or anti-religious sort of demonic influence. And then suddenly it's a leap to a to alien extraterrestrial technology. And why? Because Merlin's father was an alien, Mark.
01:19:36
Speaker
I know they swore then, why the, uh, expletive would aliens take an interest in Arthur founding what they are defining as the beginning of the- Because England is special. England is special. Yeah, England is special. American exceptionalism.
01:19:55
Speaker
o The British Museum acquires an unusual Aztec artifact.
01:20:05
Speaker
I did swear. Oh it's john dcri no No! They're just hopping about everywhere!
01:20:17
Speaker
Not only that, but I mean, this is like the most unspecial thing ever. It's just made out of, I think it's just made out of volcanic glass. yeah That's it. There's nothing else about it. I mean, it's beautiful. I mean, it's a Tessa cattle from the Aztec and they used it to contact the Tessa Clepoca.
01:20:39
Speaker
and they actually did geological studies on these artifacts in 2019 and it's from Parva in Hildago in Mexico. That's it yeah that it. What's interesting is that I saw that this artifact is never associated with John Dee in his own writing.
01:21:03
Speaker
It's not ah associated with Yondi until Horace Walpole, the forethird of Orford, claimed that this was connected to Yondi. Incidentally, though, that's a really nice ah pouch that they've made for it back there. I like the pouch.
01:21:24
Speaker
made of black volcanic glass once belonged to the influential 16th century scholar John Dee. No! was a respected mathematician astrologer and close advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. That's right. He was also considered to be a powerful magician.
01:21:44
Speaker
well and claimed he used the mirror to communicate with angels. Not true. He did communicate, he claimed he communicated with angels and demons, but that's not what the scrying mirror was for. he had He had his own system of doing things. He had his own his own his own grimoire. He, and yep, yep, yep. I believe that there was an angelic language, that there was a sound, a real sound.
01:22:12
Speaker
ah No, that language, that angelic, that angelic alphabet or the celestial alphabet was invented long after he was dead, 16th century. That's a magician. Yeah. Now they just got, they've just got magic. Now, to be fair, he might be a magician who's written on the history of magic and that is legitimate. That's, you know, but they're just now magician. Will the next one be sorcerer? You know what? They could get Alan Morin here. he's that he's He's a wizard. He's a grand wizard. Yeah.
01:22:42
Speaker
I would trust him. This Enochian magic was given to man before but has been lost throughout the ages. God okay gave it to Adam, the legend God. First, book we need to talk about, say, for Enoch, the book of Enoch. Enoch, a lot of our concepts of the devil, angels, demons in Christian mythology comes from the book of Enoch or Enoch.
01:23:08
Speaker
And that book is roman is Roman period. It's not ancient. It's not ancient biblical mysticism at all. And that's one of the reasons why it's not put into many canons today because it was written so late. That's it. That's all we got. Did early magicians like John Dee really have access to extraterrestrial technology?
01:23:34
Speaker
technology He's not even claiming it! He's not even claiming it! What about what happened to the scrying mirror? They showed it for four seconds and they're not even, again, they're not keeping the essay structure. Don't pay attention. like And then I like how they leave out Edward Kelly from all of this. His scrying partner and wife sharer.
01:24:06
Speaker
I think you did this for your own entertainment project where you just stop watching us die off screen. Yeah, something something inside me is shrinking. I'm not sure what it is, but... It's my will to live. Well, I said I was sorry before hitting the record button. Yeah, but there's no evidence. Centers of power would have magicians, the courts of the time, whether a king, a Caesar, or a pharaoh would have visars.
01:24:35
Speaker
wizards, magicians, advising them, protecting them, using their secret powers to heal, to guide in battle. It was an important part of leadership in ancient times." Interestingly, Jafar in Aladdin.
01:24:51
Speaker
who is the vizier, isn't he, to the Sultan? He actually is, in fact, doing a good job as a vizier in so much as he gathers intel. he He has spies all over the place. He is, in fact, making connections far beyond the kingdom. And that's why he knows that Ali is not from, ah you know, Ababwa or wherever it is that he claims to be from. Hashtag Jafar was competent. Yeah, hashtag Jafar was competent.
01:25:19
Speaker
um But but and that but that's that's in that's the thing here, isn't it? And and so the this it may be dressed up with anecdotes and with the occasional magic trick and with entertainment every now and then.
01:25:32
Speaker
But but at the at its heart, these people who are advisers, who don't perform presumably a directly political or or certainly not an elected role, ah have to dress themselves up in something so as to be able to, to you know, but we might call these people today diplomats.
01:25:50
Speaker
you know um we might be know or or i mean there were There are various types of back-channel communication that that occur in modern-day political systems that a character like this, Wizards, Viziers, um advises can portray and can can can um ah can can perform.
01:26:12
Speaker
and And with that will come, I guess, yeah, again, the modern modern day equivalent would be, you know, the ambassador at the banquet going, oh, did you know that in in that country over there, they like to eat these fruits upside down? So sharing an anecdote, which is bringing something exotic into into the room.
01:26:32
Speaker
so it it's ah Again, it's it's it's close. You know you can see why it where you know where these ah these associations come from. But they but don't forget now, all advisors are aliens. Yeah, hashtag advisors are aliens. Ancient astronaut theorists believe that such an audacious notion is, in fact, possible.
01:27:00
Speaker
That's funny. That's, that's funny. Agent alien theorists believe that such a notion is in fact possible.
01:27:15
Speaker
That's good. That's really good. Yeah. It's true, but possible. According to mythology, Perseus is given a magical helmet that ultimately ensures his success.
01:27:31
Speaker
Called the Helm of Darkness, the cap belonged to Hades. So they're saying that Hades has cloaking technology? Yeah. I love how that was the whole answer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the Kakeon beams.
01:27:58
Speaker
Hyperspace.
01:28:01
Speaker
Magical devices in the distant past offer proof that our ancestors had access to even more highly advanced extraterrestrial tools. Ponsa, Italy.
01:28:15
Speaker
yeah in the
01:28:18
Speaker
This isn't how you build an argument. you know they mark They can't even write an essay. They don't even know how how to so to start the conversation. Because remember, they started with magic is an illusion and then they ended with no, magic is real and aliens gave it to us. Yeah. yeah it's It's fascinating. really So po what's on Ponzi? Go on. Of the great goddess, Circe. Of what is thought to possess a wand with remarkable power? It's not...
01:29:14
Speaker
and
01:29:16
Speaker
that that they're not even showing like Zoroastrian art. No, no, but it's the ones. Yeah, it's the one sound even a wand that's a queen scepter. That's not a magic wand. Yeah, but it's straight. I mean, she's holding the holy holy hand grenade of Antion. Yeah. One, two, all right. Yeah. Leaders of all kinds use staffs and verges. Come on.
01:29:47
Speaker
up to
01:29:52
Speaker
That was a mortal blow. Yes, leaders of all times use that. Again, it's oh it's amazing. And again, just to be clear, I think what what kills me is
01:30:07
Speaker
You know, you there's a way of doing this that could be a legitimate conversation where you ask the question, why are sticks, what's the significance of sticks? Significance, sorry, of sticks throughout history for leadership, for coercion, for display and so on and so forth. But then that's not what they're doing. And this is why it's so painful, is that that it's it's like people... it
01:30:38
Speaker
actuallyshley Actually, it's ah well actually it's ah it's like a waste what I often do with with them so sometimes jokingly, but sometimes I'm quite upset actually, ah with with words and and you Michelle, is things like so alcove and cave. I'll be honest, I was disappointed. i was disappointed like that they' not then They're not connected, but seeing it and asking the question openly is okay, it's fine.
01:31:04
Speaker
but as But asserting that it's true, that this convergent evolution of an of iconography or the sound of a word or the yeah the the dorsal fin on the back of a shark and a dolphin must mean that they're connected, that they are the same thing.
Fake Lore and Historical Misconceptions
01:31:20
Speaker
It is such bad, bad logic. There's a concept that I deal a lot with you know with people in my comments and it's called fake lore and where people either make up folklore and they mistake it for history.
01:31:31
Speaker
not and and where they think that some folklore elements have to be historical. When no, the answer is people make shit up. That's it. People make stuff up. like doing certain They like holding sticks. That's it. They like holding sticks.
01:31:48
Speaker
And there's no, some sometimes there's no reason behind these things. But ah but but for example, on screen right now, there's a, there's a statue of a Bishop holding a a shepherd's crow. And that's because of sheep iconography, yeah flo keeping a flock together. ah Jesus is both a ah shepherd and a sheep, a sacrificial lamb, so on and so forth. There's all that stuff going on there. It's nothing to do with magic warms. In D and&D, that'd be a pretty sick state.
01:32:16
Speaker
it would It would be, it would be. um But it's just so disingenuous. You know what? I think it's wizard because he has a stave and that's got to be like 1d10, you know, for sure. Well, look, it's it's got little knobbly bits on it. It has to be 1d10. It can't be 1d8.
01:32:34
Speaker
noubly bubble last one yeah plus what i definitely plus one staff smit is magic so it must be a magic item ah given to him by aliens The idea of transformation is fascinating. There was fear in the ancient world that you could be changed into a wolf.
01:32:51
Speaker
or some other animal and then it was imagined that some people with extraordinary powers could do this to you against your will and that was greatly feared and a good deal of magical practice was to try to avoid such a calamity. Nobody actually feared that.
01:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, having that specific fear. Um, I, I believe it was a good deal of magical practice went into lots of things, but that specific fear. There was, I mean, especially if you took go all the way back to things like African folk tales. Um, there's a lot of people who are turned into animals for lessons and yeah then they're, once they learn their lesson, they often turn back. So nobody, nobody really feared those things. Yeah.
01:33:42
Speaker
and yeah one rooted in mankind's primitive imagination and superstition. here we have these primitive prefer primitive technology yeah and as mainstream scholars suggest, or might this incredible device have actually existed? Because we all know that all of these myths have a core of truth to them, something that... Do we? in Do we know that? Do we know that? Do we know that? Well, Giorgio said, Mark, you can you can't, you can't. like Giorgio said. Yeah. You're going to refute him, Mr. Aliens?
01:34:23
Speaker
well But the thing, I don't understand what part of that story do we know? It has, it has an aspect of truth that there was a possibly a woman was there called, was it Cersei? Yeah, she's very famous. Possibly, we don't know. That all that, all that she was in fact related to to Helios or.
01:34:44
Speaker
that there was someone who was transforming people into animals. That's what Cersei, in the story of Homer, in the Homer story, Cersei appears, and she turns all the men into swines, as they said. And she could turn other into other animals. So she lived on this island with wolves, there's lions, and she can command them as she please. And the island is Aie, something like that.
01:35:14
Speaker
A-E-A-E-A-E and they claim in here that it's from Ponsa and some do claim that based on, not sure, other claim it in Mount Circeo. Nobody really knows why. but No one knows. Yeah. Although do you know what I do know is that that dog there looks how I feel.
01:35:38
Speaker
It looked like a Swedish lion that was stuffed by someone who'd never seen a lion. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the other day I saw in what was a stately home that became the Natural History Museum for Nottingham, a marmoset that was stuffed by someone who'd never seen a marmoset in their life. And it looked like someone had squeezed a tube of toothpaste and put eyes on it. It would just sort of... And then you just thought that poor, that poor creature and all these kids coming over the years since the sixties just going, oh, mama.
01:36:15
Speaker
Yeah. But that guy, that dog is just frowning and staring at the camera and it's like, yes that dog does look the way I do. He did not allow to appear in this show. yeah He will talk to this agent about this. like Expect a sternly worded letter.
01:36:34
Speaker
Yeah. And so when we talk about powerful ones that are used in order to transform people into animals, that's a match. The only thing that something like this could have happened is if it was a technological device. Is it possible, however? It's the steps of the sleepiest. Now, now, should bit now this, OK, this is this is this where a little bit I'm i'm reaching and reaching. But is this where a little bit of of that sound comes in. where about whereby What he's saying there is if you want to say that this literally happened, that people were being turned into animals, that the only way that we now think that could be done would be through some tremendous technological feats. That's true, I suppose, isn't it?
01:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's all mixed up. No, Mark, no, no, come back. Come back, Mark. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even sniffing the Kool-Aid, but, but, but it is, but you've got, I suppose at the very least there's, there's a, there's a little seed of us of logical assertion there, which,
01:37:44
Speaker
ah I'm not saying it it adds to his argument, but it is. a He has no argument. yeah ze but he I see what he's saying. If these were all true stories, which they're not, we know that they're all mythology. yeah say If these are all true stories, the only way this could be done is through alien technology. To which I say, fine, show me the technology.
01:38:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. no but But I suppose, again, I'm just thinking maybe on the on the level of rhetoric. you know the very we we We can say fair enough. If you want to imagine as a thought experiment, what would the technology be to make that happen? That is a legitimate inquiry. But again, that's not what they're doing in the show. That's not what he's saying. No. Yeah. Could actually somehow generate a shape-shifting effect
01:38:34
Speaker
Oh, oh no that they that that's disgusting. That's foul. taking Taking an icon of the ancient world and going, it looks a little bit like a molecule. and that Oh, naughty, naughty TV show. zeusus thunderbolts um maybe not This could very well all be examples of a handheld technology that extraterrestrial humans who look like us did possess. Extraterrestrial human. Yeah, yeah. Also, these guys watch too much Stargate. Yeah, exactly. I expect the Pophus to show up with the Gould. on and
01:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, but as part of the ancient alien technology that we are a hybrid species developed by the ancient alien. Why is it that the people with the parasites haven't taken us over yet? Or have they? Is that what they're saying? That they're controlling us from the distance.
01:39:30
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. I actually once had this this conversation um in a town square in Morpeth on a very rainy day. A man seemingly came over to me. He said he traveled. He said he'd seen that I was there on Facebook and wanted to talk to me.
01:39:47
Speaker
so that he could convince me that we're all, I've forgotten, was it the Atanakanagi or something? The word... This idea that, people yeah, alien people and that and that we're all basically alien mixed people and and it's its it's a passionate story that people seem to want to tell. But who knows? I mean, maybe they are controlling us. Do you feel controls, Michelle?
01:40:12
Speaker
No, you know why? Because I don't have enough money.
Skepticism and Intelligent Design
01:40:17
Speaker
Listen, ah if the aliens want to take over my body and they want to go, hey, let us have your body. We're going to make you a success. You can have it. This is a Parthenon train wreck.
01:40:27
Speaker
so they I was talking about this today with somebody with another neighbor of mine who who has recently fallen and she's not well. right and And so I had said to her very briefly, I said, this is it unintelligent design. So if the aliens wanted, please, by all means, you can have it.
01:40:46
Speaker
Yeah, that I've forgotten which comedian it was. It might have been Dara Breen who said, if there's any argument against intelligent design, it's the moment you bite your cheek while trying to eat your cheeks. Oh, he's actually correct, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, go on. Let's see. Let's see. The Ten Plagues of Egypt, as described in the biblical book of Exodus.
01:41:08
Speaker
We have the story of the Exodus, which is the story of the Hebrew people leaving Egypt. And so Moses. There there he is. Alien scriptures. alien scriptures Wow. I love it. I have seen. I have seen.
01:41:25
Speaker
Um, fundamentalist Christians describing the Ophanim, who are the things on my head, that they, they described them as, um, aliens, because that it is described in certain books as saying that they are flaming flying wheels. And therefore they think that there must have been like an alien ship and they came and I said, are you not afraid and all that? But I have never seen, I've never seen somebody claim that, well, technically it's the, it's Technically, it's not even in the in the scripture. It's it's not even Moses who does most miracles. Aaron takes his staff yeah and says and casts it forward and does and does it for him. and First, obviously, there's the thing with the snakes and the snakes eat the other snakes. Then there's then there's there there's other
01:42:12
Speaker
magician things. But the thing is that there were magicians in the courts of Egypt. So if you want to say that Moses is an alien, then you've got to say all those guys are aliens too. And also there're up there are sort of magical profit offs as well, aren't there? yeah Sort of like we're going to stand here and and magic something up. I just want to be very clear. There is no historicity of Moses. Moses itself is an Egypt name, but it's an incomplete Egyptian name.
01:42:37
Speaker
We don't know what the other half of his name was. There are some scholars who link him to Ankenaten, but there's really no there's there's no way to know. um And we just don't know. ah it's there There are people who believe maybe he was around the time of Ramses II, maybe it was earlier, et cetera. um But there is no mention of this. And as for the plagues, yes, there was there was volcanic eruption not long far away from the City of Ramses II, which might have made people vacate the place, was that the basis of plagues? We do not know. We do not know. It's going to be the liberator. He's chosen by God, i.e. Yahweh, to go to Pharaoh and say... Hold up. Back up the traffic. Stop. that First of all,
01:43:29
Speaker
concept of Yahweh, if if if you want to say that Moses is historical and if you want to say that he's in this time period, the concept of Yahweh did not exist no in the Bible at this time. That's that. That is a that is a later Israelite thing. they They were not called Israelites, at least in the text, until this time they were called Hebrews, and they were not Israelites yet, and Yahweh came much later.
01:43:55
Speaker
so So it's also emmolo and not etymologically, phonetically quite entertaining having him say, i.e. Yahweh. I just thought that his book is alien scriptures. I'm sorry. I'm going to go look it up. Yeah. Yeah. i'm ah But I was tempted to look at the reviews, but I don't I don't again I don't want to mock people, you know. um I'm curious. Moses is told by this angel inside the burning bush. No. Angel?
01:44:25
Speaker
No, the scriptures are very clear that first of all, I mean, there's, there's lots of vacation bushes up there. You could have just lit one on fire and had a great time. There's also, I mean, there's also cannabis that was found, you know, in, in temple remains and things like that. So my man was probably tripping if he was actually, if he was actually around in the text, no, there was no, there was no angel. It just says that it is, it is the voice of God that beamed itself into both his brain.
01:44:50
Speaker
Yeah, Exodus 3.3, I noticed that too before. Interesting. A priest making this. He must go to Pharaoh and convince him to release 700,000 Hebrews. but We do not know that but that number. Yeah, what's the number? Yeah.
01:45:06
Speaker
We do not know that number. It is very possible in general that the Exodus was small numbers over a long period of time. And that the most, I believe that it most, that it could have been during the time of Ramses the second is about 200,000. Okay. I'm going to Google Bible UFO connection. It says here founder of the Bible UFO connection. I want to know what this is. There's a second. The Bible UFO connection.
01:45:36
Speaker
uh oh wait is jesus an alien then is that what is that what yeah that's part of this and especially they focusing on his sequel uh as you said the wheels within wheels and those type of uh things so yeah there's a lot of bible going on in ancient aliens too okay so maybe maybe he's trying to turn it into a movement but it looks like he's just an author basically Just an author. Sorry, Michelle. He's an author.
01:46:05
Speaker
ah The greatest deception, the Bible UFO connection, the true nature of gods of the Bible and the world. so yeah okay okay The Egyptians had no word for religion. For them, magic was the religion.
01:46:19
Speaker
It was around them. It was part of them. It was was the past. It created their deities. It was a constant force in their life. so that this This you could say for most ancient civilizations. that They were defined by the things they bull believed, but they didn't have you know they didn't call their religions that. We call it that after the fact. Looking back on history.
01:46:47
Speaker
Yeah. Also as well, in that sense, the one of the reasons for us having such a such a sharp sense of what a religion is, is because of of a post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment sense of of political structures being able to exist as being separate from religious belief.
01:47:08
Speaker
um so I mean, he's not wrong, I guess, is he? But he's also, again... He's wrong, Mark. He's wrong. Yeah, he's wrong. Yeah, but it is very incorporated within the Egyptian, but it was not a special class really who dealt with magic.
01:47:25
Speaker
I mean, everybody could access magic and they also have magic in medical, papyri, you have magic spells for things that you couldn't treat like a broken bone, but on broken bone, they can give a kind of sound advice, you know, stabilize the bone, just do all of that. So, I mean, there's a duality in it. And like I think about something like the laknunga, right? When they they have like brought bone charms in there and things like that.
01:47:53
Speaker
They they didn't say that that was part of their like special religion. It was just something that they did. It was part of their society. Yeah, and often these things are so old or so ah habitual that that is one of my favorite questions I've ever asked actually was someone said, why do we take flowers to to graves?
01:48:12
Speaker
Why do we do it? And you can cook me people can come up with ideas, you know, where maybe taking something beautiful or we're taking something that is itself dead to to to a place of the dead, we're communing or we're remembering or so on and so forth. But the and thing is, we don't know why we do it.
01:48:27
Speaker
and um Yeah, actually, and I just want to add to that, um in certain modern cultures, or even it instead of bringing flowers, you bring a rock with you, and you put it on the grave. to it's It's a way of showing that you've been there. Yeah, yeah. or somebody Somebody was there. Why did we do that? Exactly, yeah. um And yeah, and that's just, I sometimes i think people leave, believe there's pebble or with something on on the gravestone on top of it, weren't they? Not even in front of it.
01:48:53
Speaker
So it's it yeah this this sort of we do still have that interconnected, that interwoven sense of ah ritual and myt almost sort of mysticism with everyday life.
01:49:05
Speaker
But it's interesting how um the perspective here, and this is something I think we're often guilty of in modern life in in general, is this idea of that we somehow live in a post historical period. Yeah. yeah that That we are not subject to the rules of history. And but whereas people in the past, well, um you know, and so, yeah, it's it's interesting because what he's describing is something that we all still do. We just don't we just don't do it in in a religious sense necessarily, broadly speaking. Yeah. Hmm.
01:49:34
Speaker
In the first plague, Moses touches the staff to the Nile River and it becomes blood. He gives it to Aaron. The magicians are able to do this as well. In the second plague, Moses multiplies. Wow, even the even the racist images. Oh my god. Yeah. Wow. Okay. And the magicians, although once they do it, they can't get rid of the frogs.
01:50:00
Speaker
First of all, mr fact first of all, for the plagues, it says Spardea, which means singular frog. We interpreted as many frogs, but Spardea is a singular frog. So there's a lot of people who interpreted saying maybe it was a giant frog. Maybe it was we we don't know. There is no way to know what what that exactly means.
01:50:18
Speaker
I want the giant frog. I know I do. I want giant fro like these giant sort of like, you know, ah dead behind the eyes, a sort of black orbs rise. and the scoot yes Exactly. Yeah. So we do not know the frogs eating the Pharaoh and everybody would go home. Yeah. Yeah. That would have made for a better story. Yeah. And it eventually leads to the death of every first born male in Egypt, which finally ends the entire thing.
01:50:48
Speaker
And Moses takes not only the 700,000 Hebrews out, but generally considered to be between one and two million Egyptians go with him as well. And what we now know as the Exodus. um Okay, so when it comes to the whole death of the firstborn thing, but i mean that is a motif that we see a lot. It's not just in Egypt. about and if If you go back to especially Babylonian times, they were very worried about infant mortality in general. And I'm really surprised they haven't mentioned Pazuzu, because even though obviously Pazuzu is not it's not Hebrew, it's not Biblical, but Pazuzu and Llamashtu had this war between each other and of course they're their ancient Babylonian demons and um they
01:51:38
Speaker
people would put pazuzu in front of their children's beds to this way to ward off lamashti because they believe that lamashti was an evil spirit came and killed children in their sleep. They didn't know anything about SIDS. They didn't know anything about infant mortality. You know, they didn't know any of these things. um So infant mortality in general was obviously extremely high and people worried about those things. Was it? there's There are some people who say that, oh, it was volcanic ash and they just killed all the young people. There were other people who say, oh, if the Jews were really there, they lived in a different place called Goshen, and it was nowhere near where all the Egyptians were dying. So it could have been a plague, like an actual, not not like a godly plague, but like an actual bee plague or something similar. We have no way of knowing and no idea.
01:52:28
Speaker
zero. i am a differentlic I don't think God is mean. I don't think God goes out and kills. And so it could have been extraterrestrial.
01:52:39
Speaker
Wow. Wow. okay so This is this is actually very interesting and famous things. This is based in a mistranslation that Moses had hor that said that he had lights out coming out of its head. And so the the Latin mistranslation was that he has was that he had cones coming out of his head, they meant lights. And so this could this comes to, I can't believe they use this iconography. And so there's a whole idea that for some reason, like Jews or followers of Moses had horns on their head. Yeah, yeah. um Is this also possibly ah linked to halos as well? No, that's a different thing. The idea of enlightenment. No, okay, okay.
01:53:20
Speaker
Halos and Glorials are similar but different and later. We're not dealing with two indigenous human cultures battling it out here on Earth. That's a dangerous bloody word to use right there. That's a very a very dangerous word to use in Egypt. And when we're talking about the Moses store, oh, indigenous. Oh, interesting.
01:53:45
Speaker
Interesting. Sorry, for people listening at home, we just saw an outtake from a pre-visualization, I think, of the Battlestar Galactica bug look a bit. um that's that's that's Wow, that's, yeah but yeah. I have to say that the animations in these later scenes is a lot better than in the first season. In the first seasons, it was looked like it was made by you know someone's ah nephew who really didn't want to do it, but he was good with the computers.
01:54:27
Speaker
es It's done by some kid who has Adobe Premiere. Just copy and paste the spaceships. It'll be fine. It'll be grand. you know it's isn't That was the best part of all of this. That was pretty good, actually. That was good. I want to see that film.
Biblical Events: Divine or Extraterrestrial?
01:54:46
Speaker
So the question is, was it really God who unleashed these plagues upon Egypt? Or was it, in fact, an extraterrestrial? And according to the ancient astronaut theory, it was a misunderstood misinterpretation. What is, what, sorry, straight away, he might be able to help me with this. Yeah, what is the theory? Yeah, what is the theory? It is what fits your news narrative because you often you know. um Oh wait, is this the idea that we really came from Mars and that like in the beginning, like the biblical in the beginning? It depends on the what ancient alien astronaut, theorist you're asking, because Van Dann again, who is maybe the most is often on this show, is not in this episode, but
01:55:31
Speaker
his belief isn't compatible with, for example, Sakaraya Sitchin's ideas, and Sakaraya Sitchin's ideas are not really compatible with Pawal and Bergere and all of those, so there's no unified ancient Arsenal theory, but Giorgio Succolo says so because it sounds more academic.
01:55:53
Speaker
in a sense, more authoritarian. But if you start to read them, they will, you know, and ah friend if we go back to yeah a French Lex Luthor, his writings, again, differs from the Anakin, Sakurai, but they inspire each other. But there's no... because it's this interesting It's interesting language that he says the ah ancient According to ancient astronaut theorists, yes. Yeah, so he most often he's referring to Van Daniken. Right. Since he was the one who kind of coined the ancient astronaut ah idea, but not always. Sometimes he's referring other authors, but again, they are not compatible with each other.
01:56:37
Speaker
We're interested in people like David Blaine because we find those things amazing. It just pushes the boundaries of what human beings are capable of. And I think that we ask ourselves, could we be capable of such a thing? We will embrace the endurance effects. David Houdini isn't alien. We will embrace who we think is real. Maybe there's something to this. Maybe there isn't a trick. Maybe I can evolve into a person able to do this kind of thing. This is borderline Scientology and Mormonism. Yes. This is bad.
01:57:18
Speaker
yeah this is claiming it This is the one speaking. It's our magician, Pendragon, who thinks he can evolve to do real magic.
01:57:29
Speaker
Okay. Okay. so he Does he think he's an alien? I'm not sure. I think he can evolve to learn alien technology.
01:57:40
Speaker
I mean, my question is how did Blaine stay in that essentially Faraday cage suit that he's wearing directing the energy around his body as they throw it and pee over the course of same as throughout? I mean, that's the most... There must be a tube in there. No, I think the answer is adult diapers.
01:58:02
Speaker
Oh, OK, OK. Yeah, because actually having running water in that contraption would be or how liquid would be dangerous, wouldn't it? You know, um but not the, you know, the electricity flowing through. if That's not dangerous at all. No, you can actually run electricity through your bodies without getting hurt. If you take certain precautions, it's when you. I'm not an engineer or anything like that, but you can. That's how people survive. Like, for example, I think. Teaching.
01:58:31
Speaker
Shigendo means the practice of training and testing. This tradition from the 7th century, done up in the mountains, with grey, physical, arduous exercises and... There are people who still practiced this today. Yeah. He was not... No. And these people are not all aliens.
01:58:51
Speaker
But again, this is your Orientalism, isn't it? This is like, here's another culture, another society doing something which we don't recognize, therefore, it might be. Yeah. To an access to supernatural powers beyond our understanding. Supernatural powers, they literally just sit in cold waterfalls. Yeah. So it's endurance. Sorry, go on.
01:59:15
Speaker
They just walk up mountains, they they go on cold waterfalls, they have a hike, and then they have a nice meal at the end of it. That's what they do. do you know what And actually I say it's something which is unfamiliar, which is unfamiliar to, to it possibly to the audiences that they're presuming that they're that they're pitching to. But actually that's, people do that in in Ireland. They'll go and hike up a mountain, yeah you know, ah for for religious purposes, hike back down again, have a nice meal at the end. Saints used to sort of stand in cold rivers. Yeah, but they don't have cool demons like this. So therefore, they say demons here must be the aliens.
01:59:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I recently come back from a seven day hike through the mountains of Sweden with cold bath and hiking up mountains. So I don't think so. You're an alien. fredery That's what you did. where i have so That's why you're so obsessed with the show. Are you trying to phone home? Is that what you're doing? yeah he just like Take me away. These people are crazy. say a pork A poor, poor.
02:00:16
Speaker
We gave them the technology and this is what they make for this shitty Adobe After Effects. Is it possible that ancient magicians like Ennoyoja were able to tap into incredible extraterrestrial abilities embedded within the human body? but why hang on then had did but us not by but but but That itself is that's that's that's That's deeply flawed logic. If it's embedded in your DNA, it's not extraterrestrial. Of course, but unless of course, yes, yes, yes. Of course, you're implying that it's been put there, but that in and of itself.
02:00:54
Speaker
What they described there is is fairly universal, center a centering practice brought through physical discipline. We see it in lots of stories of wise people, religious people, people seeking solitude or meditation, ah and and out of that can come a better sense of self and so on and so forth.
02:01:17
Speaker
But to just sort of wash over that with whirly graphics of double helix DNA strands and say, is this ancient? Is this an extraterrestrial technology? Is is visually a cacophony? It's a confusing image that doesn't match up to what they're saying. And and i and and I promise you, dear listener, I'm not expecting them to make sense.
02:01:45
Speaker
But it's fascinating to me how how, I mean, how do you edit this and not, I guess the thing is you edit it because you're getting a paycheck. yeah That's the thing. This is entertainment, isn't it? As far as whoever's putting this together is concerned. It's not about what it's said, what's being said. It's about conveying, I don't know, and a sort of a visceral experience. I think there's no narrative here. Usually when you see, you know, historical documentaries,
02:02:11
Speaker
Even if they're pseudo-historical, they have to answer a question. The question is, was King Arthur an alien? right Then you have to make everything fit that thesis. and so Even if it's completely bogus, they they do everything they can to fit that narrative. and Then you create a two-hour narrative about where you slowly break down other people's beliefs and you go with the skepticism.
02:02:40
Speaker
I think that that's a, that's a ah very argumentative narrative. There's no narrative here. No, no. And it's also diminishing the accomplishments of the people who is doing these feats. Yeah. Yeah. they they They couldn't have done it. It was aliens.
02:02:58
Speaker
but and yeah And yet here we have someone on screen right now, ah presumably a magician. It's a classic escape scenario where you're in a box, there's water, you're chained, presumably the box is apparently padlocked and oh you know maybe a curtain will be drawn and somehow you've got to try and escape from the box. We know, because of the Humvee trick at the beginning of this episode,
02:03:21
Speaker
that that this kind of magic happens through through trickery, through ah through the skill of being what we call a magician today. But again, the de juxtaposition of the imagery, along with what's being said, along with the, and again, I mean, there's a whole episode, there's a whole podcast somewhere ah episode that we can talk about the use of the word DNA in modern life and how and how how DNA science is is deployed in modern life and talked about as an intrinsic it implies intrinsic data how people use it to imply heritage man it has not heritage yeah but but heritage but also they imply it for um you know i've heard people say it's in our DNA to like apple pie you know that kind of thing you know it's just like no it's not it's really not it's not it's not um
02:04:10
Speaker
Isn't it an eat me like apples?
Magic as Human Ingenuity
02:04:12
Speaker
That's not quite the same thing. and But the but it this this concoction is fascinating to go back and look at. And I can see why you're doing it and why you do it, Frederick. But I i commend you for being able to do it. I mean, how many more have you got to go, man? ah How many more episodes?
02:04:28
Speaker
Oh, there's a lot of them. There's 19 season. I think I been there for, but now it's time to jump. Oh my goodness. Wow. You are this, this is your endurance test. You are an alien. You are an alien. Um, as I yoked with, um, and Dr. King care lights, uh, a documentation of a man's descent into madness.
02:05:02
Speaker
Magic appears to be a derivation of extraterrestrial technology. It's the accessing of the human potential, using the technology of the human form. magic rock Again, possibly, this is there's a you can you know if you're being generous, you can say yes, actually.
02:05:24
Speaker
So the thing is that the biggest issue with this narrative is they contradicted the set up. Set up was that magic is fake and then it's meant to entertain. And now they have just gone, no, it's not. It's actually an alien that gave it to us. And all these supernatural superhuman things are also. But then this guy then says it's about your innate human potential. And actually there he's put his finger on something true, but he's not saying this.
02:05:54
Speaker
for that reason, he's saying it in support of this other argument. But in that sense, yeah, the did the ingenuity it takes to... So one of my favorite TV shows growing up was a sort of a mystery show where the yeah the the protagonist was a was a magician or a magician's assistant, and he would he would solve these crimes because he had a way of seeing the world that was about, you know,
02:06:17
Speaker
the extent to which people go to achieve an illusion, basically. the the you know you just set to You do things as a magician that that we seem crazy just to make it look like a pound coin or something has dropped through a table. um And that that ingenuity, if you word it as this guy just did, human potential, that's something to be commended to be, and that is genuinely amazing. That is That is the closest that you might get to actually seeing ah in ah in know and ah in a predictable place and time a a miracle like-like scenario unfold in front of your eyes. And that is amazing. but But that's not what this episode is about. That's not what this episode has been about. No.
02:07:00
Speaker
did ancient magic really have another worldly origin and was it based not on mere trickery But on advanced knowledge of science we got men. powers of the human ray
02:07:15
Speaker
Hey, credits. I was going to say back up, I want to see who wrote this crap, but I don't because I am going to just fire. Do you know, real there was something that that one of the guys there was saying in in the in the upsum that I think was again, was almost touching on something true. ah This idea that ah but actually, and we know this is, ah ah yeah but um you know, anthropologists, archaeologists, that Often, in within but within any any situation, any any social situation, there will be, um often there are fantastically useful sort of almost like so ah pressure release valves that will be objectively ridiculous, that but allow things to happen.
02:08:04
Speaker
that otherwise might be hard to negotiate between people. So, whether that's... Funnily enough, that sounds like I'm just describing getting drunk at a party, but no, it's, you know, whether or not it's like, let's say a party, get a party game, actually.
02:08:22
Speaker
where everyone arrives and you all agree to abide by certain rules. This would be hell on earth for me, by the way. And you're told you're going to have to sit next to people you don't know, and you're going to talk about this then and the other. When the whistle goes, you'll move around. This sort of conceit, this manipulation of people in an artificial way,
02:08:44
Speaker
ah both big and small, can be tremendously useful for ah smoothing over political um rivalries, for ah for negotiating interpersonal um disputes, ah for just having a good time. and and in that And in that sense, it performs a very real, tangible social function to have someone who is a court jester or a magician or ah or a person who essentially is not performing a formal or earthly role in the room. The problem is, all the way through the episode, the guy's been talking nonsense, but right at the end there, he almost said something something that I thought was actually quite sensible and all and and and describing the and an intangible truth about humanity. and and And this is the thing I think often in these conversations that people get really caught up on.
02:09:40
Speaker
And that is, and lots of our colleagues get caught up on, this is the need for effort for positivistic evidence of something. You can't prove hee all human behavior and the reason for it, because humans are messy. But you can, you know, there are spaces in which you can talk about and use wishy-washy words like magic that describe and help you to better understand human behavior.
02:10:10
Speaker
And in that sense, it's absolutely part of our of our arsenal. People talk about, ah you know, from medicine to, as I say, political discourse, to to marriage ceremonies, to to to in job disputes. this you can You can use this sort of language to to do that and and to navigate that.
02:10:30
Speaker
um But again, don't you think that the ancient aliens would be a much more interesting TV show if they introduced concepts like that? you know if they I find myself it's a missed opportunity. And then I think about half the people who watch would actually watch. Yeah, yeah that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're talking about, you know, highfalutin. Yeah.
02:10:55
Speaker
I would, I would watch that program. This program is like a three Advil problem. That's what slowly go on through time. I could feel myself going, this is going to be a one Advil headache and a two Advil headache. And now it's a three Advil headache.
Criticism of Narrative Structure
02:11:12
Speaker
Well, we made it. We made it to the end though. Oh my God. and thank you Thank you for having me. Thank you. We did it.
02:11:22
Speaker
I don't I don't feel good. I don't feel cathartic. I feel I feel like I feel like I've just read the worst essay I've ever read and I want to give it an F minus. Yeah, yeah. It's not not source materials. No understanding of of anything historical mythical for folkloric, nothing, just linking random. It's like somebody took a chocolate chip cookie out of a Chips Ahoy pack and another person took pretzel and just went, these are the same things.
02:12:02
Speaker
Wow. yeah I think I should have should have known when we saw in the beginning when they were talking about Merlin and suddenly there's a manji on Merlin, like the Merlin's name, and I went,
02:12:14
Speaker
How the hell does that even, like there's they're they're not even the same thing. One is a religious symbol from Japan, and then you have Merlin, who is a fictitious character. That should have been my my end. That should have been the basis for the rest of this episode going, nothing is going to make sense.
02:12:31
Speaker
no No, but it's ah it's a potent and and messy trough that um that we find ourselves sipping at this evening. and Thank you. I don't know if I want to thank you, Frederick, for inviting us. Well, I'm going to thank both of you for enduring. I mean, it's ah wow evidence of human reliance or strength.
02:13:00
Speaker
yeah this has been a same fate of our own yeah yeah And if the audience would like to go and hear more from you, where should they yeah go to do that?
Conclusion and Social Media Promotion
02:13:11
Speaker
Michelle, for example.
02:13:13
Speaker
ah So if you want to find me, you can find me at Author Michelle Franklin on YouTube and and the Twitter if you're still on that, and on Patreon, and also on TikTok, and or you can just look up Legends and Lectures, which is my podcast.
02:13:29
Speaker
Brilliant. and For me, it's archaeo soup more or less everywhere. um Or Mr Soup. ah It's, um it's ah yeah, um um but mainly on YouTube. You can probably find me there. And also, i obviously, I do turn up from time to time on on Michelle's podcast as well, where ah we we talk about all manner of of things. What's the next festival we're talking about, by the way?
02:13:51
Speaker
Oh, the next festival we're talking about and is at the end of the month, which is going to be, uh, the, the autumn festival, uh, cycle of, uh, mickelmas of Oktoberfest. Okay. Yeah. yeah my alien Yeah. Oh yes. Absolutely. Aliens gave beer to the Germans. I believe it. But a huge thank you to both of you.
02:14:20
Speaker
Thank you for putting us through this test of endurance. Oh God, I have such an headache. And again, a enormous thank you to Michel and Mr. Arkyo Soup himself. Make sure to go and check out their content and the channels because they make some man well fun and exciting stuff.
02:14:43
Speaker
and if you want to help out a show well you can do so by going to patreon.com slash digging up ancient aliens or head over to the membership portal on the website found at the digging up ancient aliens dot com Again, you get bonus content, extra long episode, ad free, all of that. And you also supporting the show. But if you don't want to spend money, but still support the show, you can do that by leaving a five-star review. Well, basically everywhere you can, or tell a couple of friends about this and share one of your favorite episodes with them. Make sure to also visit the archaeological podcast network because there's a lot of great content there too and you might find a couple of new favorite show to listen to. Well, I won't keep you any longer than this. We will be back in two weeks with another episode.
02:15:43
Speaker
But before we close out the episode, the intro music was created by Sandra Mertlor and the outro is created by the band called Tralskruv, who performed their song Foliehut. Links to both of these artists can be found in the show notes. Until then, keep shoveling that science!
02:16:22
Speaker
We need to get out of here.