Are unidentified flying objects real? Of course they are. People quite frequently see things in the sky they can’t recognize. Are some of these alien spacecraft or vehicles for inter-dimensional travel? That has often been claimed but cases which provide good evidence to back up these claims have been drowned in the noise of unscientific speculation, sensationalism, misinterpretation and out and out hoaxes. In order to consider what may indeed be solid support for sightings and encounters that could truly be placed in a realm of possibility beyond our accepted scientific paradigm, this noise needs to be reduced. The best way to do this is to review the cases and claims that have been showcased repeatedly through various media that have been seriously questioned or utterly refuted. We will proceed chronologically from earliest human history to the present beginning with the ancient alien question.
The idea that aliens (organisms with advanced intelligence of non-terrestrial origin if one wants to be politically correct) have visited the earth during man’s history or even pre-history seems logical if one accepts the possibility that aliens with the ability to travel light distances or cross dimensions actually exist. If so, then it follows that early man would view said aliens as gods and would have recorded them as such. This idea was popularized by a Swiss hotelier, Erich von Däniken, who wrote the 1968 best-selling book, “Chariots of the Gods?” followed by others that furthered his ideas.
Mr. von Däniken, with no background in archaeology, offers a series of wild speculations and outlandish claims and attempts to back them up using famed archaeological sites, such as the Nazca lines, Tiahuanaco, Easter Island, Puma Punko, and the Egyptian Pyramids. In short, he claims the Nazca lines were alien runways and that the other sites were impossible to build using the human technology of the time. All of his claims have been thoroughly refuted by real archaeologists but this hasn’t stopped others from following his ideas, writing their own books and reaping their own financial benefits. This culminated in the popular History channel T.V. series “Ancient Aliens” which showcased him and his followers and spawned the meme, “I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.”
That a television channel based on the celebration of history would even air such a show is reprehensible and fortunately for me, not wishing to expend the effort to research and refute the show’s insults to our collective intelligence, a wonderful video, “Ancient Aliens Debunked” written and directed by Chris White goes through the claims made by the show point by point and reveals von Däniken and his ilk to be the utter charlatans they are.
There are key points in this video worth mentioning as they turn up in several classic documentaries on the U.F.O. subject, which include cases that offer compelling evidence that should not be dismissed just because they keep bad company. I’ve ordered the arguments as they appear in the video and added additional information from very cursory searches on the net to find sources outside of the video that back up its arguments. Significantly, it required very little effort to find credible sources to debunk
the many outrageous claims of the ancient alien theorists.
References:
https://www.csicop.org/si/show/von_daumlnikenrsquos_chariots_a_primer_in_the_art_of_cooked_sciencevisited 1/26/2019
http://drmsh.com/chariots-frauds-real-erich-von-daniken/visited 1/26/2019
https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/ancient/challenging-erich-von-daniken-on-the-bizarre-longevity-of-chariots-of-the-gods/ visited 1/26/2019
Ancient Stone Cities and Monuments
The ancient alien theorists present the argument that the massive stones used to build the famous aforementioned sites were too hard and too massive for ancient peoples to quarry, move, cut, polish and finally place. The claim they make is that humans of those eras did not have the technology to accomplish these tasks and therefore aliens with their advanced technology must be responsible. They ignore the fact that there are artifacts from these sites, that are clearly in keeping with the human technology of the time, that were used to accomplish the above-mentioned tasks. There are quarries with huge blocks of stone left mid-process with telltale signs of the human methods used and studies have been done where these methods were tested and proven to be effective. The Egyptians in particular left extensive records of the process of building the Pyramids and surrounding monuments and many of the questions not answered by the records have been addressed by highly qualified people who offer solutions, again, in keeping with the human technology of the time.
Unfinished obelisk at Aswan quarry, Egypt
References:
https://www.cheops-pyramide.ch/khufu-pyramid/stone-cutting.htmlvisited 1/26/2019
http://www.ancientpages.com/2015/09/21/gigantic-unfinished-stone-structures-cut-with-amazing-stone-working-techniques/visited 1/26/2019
https://scholar.cu.edu.eg/?q=galal/files/me_part_xii_ijarmate.pdfvisited 1/26/2019
Pacal’s “Rocket” and the Nazca Lines
Two bits of archaeology make their appearance in so many UFO documentaries that they have become iconic symbols of the ancient alien argument. One is the ornately carved lid of the sarcophagus of the Mayan king, Pacal, found in Chiapas, Mexico and the other is the Peruvian World Heritage site covered in giant geoglyphs attributed to the Nazca people. Both were featured in von Däniken’s book and used as evidence of his theory with a complete disregard for their cultural context.
Pacal descending into the underworld.
According to von Däniken, the image above shows a man manipulating the controls of a rocket ship on his way into space. If he is headed to space he might want to put on some more clothing. What is actually depicted here is Pacal’s descent into the underworld using symbolism commonly used throughout Mayan artwork. The bulk of the “spacecraft” is actually the world tree, an extremely important Mayan symbol, with its roots (the “flames”) in the underworld and its branches in the heavens. In the center is the double-headed vision serpent, believed to live at the center of the world, and at the top is the celestial bird representing the heavens. What Pacal is lying on is the sun monster, clearly showing teeth and eyes, which he is riding into the underworld. Given that this iconography is commonly used in Mayan artwork, this would be a far simpler explanation for the meaning of this artifact than a one-off depiction of a man in a space ship.
Reference:
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Nazca lines
The Nazca lines are found on a high desert plain located about 200 km south of Lima, Peru. They are attributed to an ancient people, the Nazca, who inhabited the area around 1500 years ago. This has been established by similarities of figures depicted by some of the lines, which include birds, a monkey, spider, and human, with designs on the pottery of the Nazca. Their purpose remains a mystery and this provided von Däniken with the opportunity to propose his outlandish theory, backed by his usual minimal of study, that the lines are marks made by alien spaceships (I thought they hovered and landed on legs with pads on their ends) landing in the desert to mine needed raw materials. After meeting the locals, they left. The Nazca priests then encouraged the people to make more lines and pictographs in an effort to attract them back.
The lines were discovered in 1927 by Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe, who was the first to systematically study them, and they attracted worldwide attention in the 1930’s as air traffic increased across the region. In 1941, an American Professor, Paul Kosok, took interest in the lines, did his own study and concluded that the lines represented “the largest astronomy book in the world.” A German mathematician named Maria Reiche met Kosok in a coffee shop, became obsessed with the lines, and devoted her life to studying, mapping and protecting the lines until her death in 1998. She also concluded the lines were for astronomical purposes though later scholars would disagree.
Other studies have been undertaken with attempts at dating the lines and determining their purpose. Using pottery shards found around the lines and comparing certain figures with designs on pottery with known ages, dates of the lines’ creation range from 200 BC to 700 AD. A 2005 study, using Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating determined the ages to be in the range of 400-650 AD. The theories regarding the purpose of the lines include: calendar, astronomical mapping, artistic expression, ceremonial, religious pathways, guide-posts, indicators of underground water. In this author’s humble opinion, any of the above theories is far simpler and more plausible than the idea that the lines are alien runways.
References:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/archaeology/nasca-lines/visited 1/26/2019
http://www.discover-peru.org/the-nazca-lines/visited 1/26/2019
https://www.ancient.eu/Nazca_Civilization/visited 1/26/2019
Rink, W.J. and Bartoll, J. (2005) Dating the Geometric Nasca Lines in the Peruvian Desert. Antiquity 79, 390-401.
The Tolima “Jets.”
In Columbia, in an area along the Magdalena river, hundreds of highly stylized small, gold figurines depicting various animals were discovered by grave-robbers that have since been recovered and placed in museums. These were created by the Tolima people who inhabited the area between the first and seventh centuries. Among the hundreds of objects, twelve have been seized upon by ancient alien theorists as representing fighter jets, to which they do bear a likeness.
Tolima figurines.
These are interpreted by archaeologists as representing fish and you can see they have eyes and there is clearly a mouth in the third object from the left. Given that they were found with other objects depicting animals, logically these are also animals and not jets. Once again, this is the simplest explanation.
References:
https://archyfantasies.com/2012/08/05/the-10-most-not-so-puzzling-ancient-artifacts-ancient-model-artifact-plus-a-rant/visited 1/12/2019.
http://www.genesisny.net/GGems/PreHistory.htmlvisited 1/12/2019.
https://metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3269153.pdf.bannered.pdfvisited 1/12/2019
Egyptian “Light bulb.”
In the Hathor temple in Dendera, Egypt, there is a hieroglyph that looks sort of like a light bulb and could be interpreted as such if one ignores the symbolism contained in the depiction that is repeated throughout ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic art.
Dendera hieroglyph.
Everything in the above picture can be explained within the context of the ancient Egyptian belief system and the symbols they used to illustrate it. What this is intended to show is a snake coming out of a lotus flower held up by a djed pillar. To the Egyptians, the lotus flower was the symbol of creation. The snake is the god, Ra and the “bulb” is a magical energy field possessed by all gods.
A blog titled “Archaeology Review” sums up the meaning of the images nicely and includes two references:
“The lotus is the symbol of creation, life, and birth in Egyptian religion and spirituality (Pinch 2004). A djed pillar is the symbol of stability and endurance. The snake represents Ra’s serpent form being created from primordial waters. The field surrounding Ra’s snake form is referred to in ancient Egyptian literature as protective magical energy in liquid form that all gods and pharaohs possess (Faulkner 1970).”
The interpretation of this image as a light bulb is based solely on the fact that it looks like a light bulb, just as the Tolima objects were interpreted to be jets and the Nazca lines, runways. With science, “it looks like” would lead to a hypothesis which would then have to be supported with evidence, and subjected to peer review. “It looks like” is not itself evidence.
References:
Faulkner, R.O. (1970). Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Griffith Institute.
Pinch, G (2004), Egyptian Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford
U.F.O.s in Art
More “evidence” of alien visitation in man’s early history, that is presented in many documentaries, consists of old paintings, particularly religious Byzantine works, that seem to depict classic flying saucers and other spacecraft.
Paintings with closeups of "crafts."
The above two images are frequently cited and, in fact, it is the image on the top that began this crooked line of thought. This depiction of the crucifixion of Christ is part of a 14thcentury fresco found in the Visoki Decani Monastery in Kosovo. In 1964, an article appeared in the French magazine, “Spoutnik” showing the fresco and alleged that the two images in the upper left and right hand corners were manned spacecraft. However, if one bothers to look at the many other crucifixion images from the same period one can find similar images in the same position in most of them. What these actually represent, according to people who have devoted their lives to the study of this period of art, are the sun and the moon as humanized witnesses to the crucifixion of Christ.
The image on the right is from a renaissance painting located in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence in the Hall of Hercules. It is called “The Madonna and Child with the Infant, Saint John” and is thought, by some scholars, to have been painted by Filippo Lippi. In the background is an object that looks like a flying saucer being observed by a man and his dog. An art historian would tell you that this is a depiction of “The Annunciation” that the “saucer” is an angel in the clouds and the man, a shepherd. Again, images similar to this appear in many paintings from the same period.
References:
http://www.sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_2_eng.htmvisited 1/12/2019.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ufos-in-renaissance-art_us_5679991de4b014efe0d7044bvisited 1/12/2019
https://www.florenceinferno.com/madonna-of-ufo-painting-palazzo-vecchio/visited 1/12/2019.
UFOs in Ancient Religious Texts
The final topic I’ll address in this section is the use of religious texts as alien visitation evidence. The most frequently cited text is Ezekiel I from the Christian Bible. What’s strange is that the focus is on Ezekial I:16 : “The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another.” Ezekial I:4 would be my choice for a UFO reference, which reads: “As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire.”
The entire text from Ezekial I:1 through I:26 is describing a vision of God using imagery that is repeated throughout the old testament (Isaiah:6, Daniel :7, and Revelation :4) which includes descriptions of cherubim and God’s throne. When one reads the text in its entirety this is obvious and to say this was an alien encounter can be nothing but speculation without some other contemporary documentation or artifact to support the claim. Basically we have a single witness claiming to have encountered God with no one else to either back up his story or offer his own interpretation. As a UFO report, this would not merit further investigation without other witnesses or evidence. As a bible story, it fits in well with all the others and should be taken in that context.
Hindu texts have also been offered up as evidence of everything from alien battles, ancient nuclear war and spacecraft. A site created by Jason Calovito offers a wonderful example of the use and abuse of The Mahabharata, a 1.8 million word Sanskrit poem from 400 BCE, as “proof” that there was a nuclear war in ancient India. According to him, it all began with a book “Morning of the Magicians” published in France in 1960. The authors present the following:
“ In the Mausola Purva, we find this singular description, which must have been incomprehensible to nineteenth-century ethnologists though not to us today: ‘…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white. After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. The thunderbolt was reduced to a fine dust.’”
And this: “Cukra, flying on board a high powered vimana, hurled on to the triple city a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand Suns, rose in all its splendor… When the vimanareturned to Earth. It looked like a solid block of antimony resting on the ground.”
Colovito searched google book and scholarly database and found that the spelling, “Mausala Purva” only occurs in the 1963 English translation of the book and that ancient alien theorists continued to use that spelling as they claimed to be citing the Mahabarata when what they were really doing was quoting the book without checking the actual source. In addition, “Curka” is a misspelling of Sakra, another name for Indra, which the theorist David Hatcher Childress, an “Ancient Aliens” denizen, mangles further into “Ghurka” in his book, “Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria and the Pacific.” Childress takes the above passage, arranges it to look like verse and claims it to be original Sanskrit poetry. The spelling, “Ghurka” came from von Däniken’s, “Chariots of the Gods?” where he summarizes the “Morning of the Magicians” passage.
Childress’ version, the rearranged version of the “Morning of the Magicians” version, has been used in 35 books and many websites. No one bothered to check the original, which is this:
When the next day came, Camva actually brought forth an iron bolt through which all the individuals in the race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas became consumed into ashes. Indeed, for the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas, Camva brought forth, through that curse, a fierce iron bolt that looked like a gigantic messenger of death. The fact was duly reported to the king. In great distress of mind, the king (Ugrasena) caused that iron bolt to be reduced into fine powder. (Mausala Parva, sec. 1)
And this:
Day by day strong winds blew, and many were the evil omens that arose, awful and foreboding the destruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The streets swarmed with rats and mice. Earthen pots showed cracks or broken from no apparent cause. At night, the rats and mice ate away the hair and nails of slumbering men. […] That chastiser of foes commanded the Vrishnis to make a pilgrimage to some sacred water. The messengers forthwith proclaimed at the command of Kecava that the Vrishnis should make a journey to the sea-coast for bathing in the sacred waters of the ocean. (Mausala Parva, sec. 2)
Chris Whites’ film talks about the vimanas, which are frequently referred to in many old documentaries as well as “Ancient Aliens” as flying craft with associated pictures.
Purported vimanas.
The word, “vimana” means, “having been measured out” in Sanskrit and became associated with palaces and then was used to mean palace. The gods, of course, had flying palaces and thus the word was used to refer to these. It, apparently, has to do with context.
The above illustrations are claimed by a.a. theorists to come from an ancient Hindu text when, in fact, they come from a book, “Vymanika Shastra” published in 1973 by Shri G.R. Josyer . The work is a collection of verses in Sanskrit with their English translations and illustrations of flying craft they describe. The same verses appeared in a 1959 book, “Brihad Vimana Shastra” by Shri Bramhamuni Parivrajaka where they were translated into Hindi without the associated drawings. It is the origin of the verses that is important. Authorship is attributed to Maharshi Bharadwaja, one of the ancient Indian Vedic sages. The actual source is a twentieth century mystic, Pandit Subbaraya Shastry who dictated the verses between 1900 and 1919 and had the drawings made by a draftsman. The manuscript found its way to Baroda University and was later procured by Josyer who had established an organization called, “The International Academy of Sanskrit Research.” Josyer exhibited the manuscript at a 1951 inaugural function before he had procured the drawings and it is presumed the author of the 1959 Hindi version used this as his source and hence the lack of drawings in this version.
In a paper titled, “A Critical Study of the Work ‘Vymanika Shastra”(Mukundas et. al. 1974) the drawings were analyzed from an engineering perspective based on aerodynamics and, looking at them, it should be no surprise that the designs all fail completely.
There are other examples of authors using ancient texts to promote the ancient alien hypothesis, notably Zecharia Sitchin and his use of Sumerian texts, and they all have this in common: the promoters/authors rely on the fact that no one will take the time to actually look at he texts to verify the references. Many of the authors were writing in a time before the internet, which would have made checking their claims more difficult . Now, anyone, with a minimum of effort, can refute the argument of alien intervention in human history and put that history in its true context as purely human.
References:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+1&version=NASBvisited 1/14/2019
http://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-case-of-the-false-quotes.htmlvisited 1/15/2019
Mukunda, Hanasoge & Deshpande, Suresh & R Nagendra §, H & Prabhu, A & P Govindaraju, S. (1974). A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE WORK "VYMANIKA SHASTRA". The quarterly of Scientific Opinion Delhi India. 2. 5-12.
