Jim Hohenbary

We have been a “Netflix only” family for multiple years but we recently added Hulu.  This suddenly re-introduced us to a number of shows that we had not seen since parting ways with the cable company.  I was delighted to see Ancient Aliens from the History Channel among those possibilities.

If you have not seen an episode, the show has spent nearly a decade exploring the idea that nearly all recorded human history, all archaeological ruins, and all unexplained phenomenon (including Sasquatch) are best explained by the intervention of visitors from outer space and/or visitors from other dimensions and/or visitors from the future, sometimes all in the same episode.   Ancient Aliens first aired in 2010.  I remember very much enjoying some of those early episodes, which is not surprising considering that the Stargate franchise has been a longtime family favorite.

If you like speculative fiction, conspiracy theories, alternative histories and the like, it is a fun show for many reasons.  First, scientists doubt that we are alone in the universe, so the basic premise seems plausible.  Second, there really are enigmatic artifacts and strange narratives out there; some of them practically throw themselves at an extraterrestrial explanation.  Third, its continuous stream of “what if” conjecture is a veritable buffet of potential movie plots.  Does it get any better than a CGI clip of a flying saucer attacking a herd of dinosaurs?  And fourth, it is a great travel show.  Ancient Aliens tours some fantastic archaeological and historical sites from around the world, including some that are off the beaten path, places I will surely never visit.

However, as I tuned back into Ancient Aliens in 2019 — Hulu offering up the fourth season for my viewing pleasure – I suddenly found myself feeling uneasy.  It was no longer 2010; and as the nation currently wrestles with the issue of fake news, as conspiracy theories suddenly seem to have consequences, and as disentangling truth from BS seems more urgent than ever, I found myself wondering if Ancient Aliens was part of the problem, part of the sickness, an alluring but essentially toxic cocktail of bad logic, omitted facts, and outright nonsense stirred together with real places, real historical details, and an inability to disprove the unprovable.  By exploiting the fun of believing in aliens, by scintillating our basic bias towards wanting to believe, are they damaging our ability to think critically?  Have they, in fact, made viewers worse at evaluating claims and evidence?

By the way, if you are familiar with the show, please imagine its narrator reading those last two sentences aloud.

Thinking on my newfound unease, I see two responsible options for those who (like me) continue to watch Ancient Aliens.  First, if you think of the entire series as an experimental, multi-author, faux documentary exercise in speculative fiction, it holds up pretty well.  It spins a great yarn and has some memorable recurring characters.  Second, if you choose to watch it as a documentary series, one that you will give serious consideration as a vessel of truth, then I believe that you should, at least, watch with your deflector shields at full strength.  With that in mind, here are a few tips for viewing Ancient Aliens in a clear-headed manner.

First, note that the boys down in legal have been involved.  All narration is framed as a series of hypothetical questions, and the History Channel lawyers have clearly banned the narrator from making literally any declarative statements.  If this does not concern you, imagine what you might think if you ask your teenager where he had been, and he replied: “But isn’t it possible that I was in the garage?”

Second, acknowledge that wish fulfillment is an important function of myth and storytelling.  In other words, one of the reasons myths are important is because they have the capacity to offer something we wish for, something we want.  If men and women fly in various mythologies, it might be because men and women have always wanted to fly.  Flying aliens are simply not necessary to explain this.  To express this idea another way, does anybody believe that Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby needed to see some guy shrink down to the size of an eyelash before they created Ant Man?

Third, the Egyptian gods Osiris and Isis, frequently mentioned on Ancient Aliens, were brother and sister; they were also husband and wife.  On another continent, Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of divination, was usually depicted with a mirror for a foot, or a bone, or sometimes a snake.  And like most Aztec gods, he demanded human sacrifice.  My science-trained, monotheistic, incest-is-bad, how-do-you-put-any-weight-on-a-mirror brain has trouble conjuring a really solid feel for how such religious beliefs shaped the reality of believers.  In other words, our 21^st century perspective is a highly distorted lens for viewing and understanding the mindset of ancient religions, especially if you are only presented with a few details.  You should probably assume that you do not actually know enough to fully or accurately interpret the meaning of their myths and/or the iconography of their art and architecture.

Fourth, once or twice per episode, the position of “mainstream science” is usually invoked and then dismissed in one to three sentences.  It is important to notice that “equal time” is not observed in Ancient Aliens.  Realistically, we cannot read a book every time we watch a TV show, but we should probably remind ourselves that many folks have spent their entire lives studying civilizations such as the Mayans, Celts, Khmer, and Anasazi without seeing any need to invoke super-terrestrial explanations for their accomplishments and traditions.  Real arguments allow both sides to be fully heard.  It also seems worth mentioning here that scientists do sometimes admit that there are things they do not understand.  Admitting that you don’t know where your teenager was does not actually constitute proof that he was, in fact, in the garage.

Fifth, multiple discovery (also known as simultaneous invention) is a thing.  There are many documented instances of inventions or ideas arising in several different places around the same time because the time was right, the technological pre-conditions were met, etc.  Occam’s razor might argue that the existence of similarities in architectural designs, inventions, and/or mythologies around the world can more easily be ascribed to multiple discovery than to alien visitation.  This relates to my next point.

Sixth, much is made of the existence of pyramids in multiple ancient cultures.  Having played with blocks as a kid, and having played in the sandbox and in the dirt, I want to confidently assert that pyramids are pretty much the mathematical formalization of making a pile.  With no wish to diminish the accomplishment of their construction, or the interest inherent to their celestial alignment, it still seems important to declare that a square plot starting big and getting smaller as it rises is a pretty intuitive direction for monumental design, an idea that easily falls within the credible possibilities for multiple discovery.

Seventh, and finally, I would argue that you should watch Ancient Aliens with the pre-set assumption that humans are clever and industriousness, and always have been.  The theories of alien visitation are intriguing, but Ancient Aliens displays an unappealing eagerness to explain away the accomplishments and insights of our ancestors.  Why is believing that aliens imparted astronomical knowledge to the Mayans more attractive than believing that they watched the night sky and figured it out?  As fun as it is to imagine ancient alien visitors, and as much as there are enigmatic pieces in the archaeological puzzle, Ancient Aliens, unfortunately, does a disservice when it refuses to seriously credit human ingenuity, human imagination, and human determination as the wellspring for the ancient world.  It diminishes our connection to those who came before us.  In other words, the fundamental premise of the show too often contains a kind of pessimism about the potential of humanity that should be noted and met with skepticism, even in the face of weird paintings, oddly precise masonry, and a global obsession with Orion’s belt.

To conclude, I will simply re-purpose a line from the alcohol industry.  What we consume influences how we think.  Please watch responsibly.

Jim Hohenbary lives in Manhattan, KS, where he currently serves as the Associate Director of the University Honors Program at Kansas State University.  His debut novel, Before the Ruins, will be published by Blueberry Lane Books in late spring of 2019.