You Can't Handle the Stupid: Ancient Aliens, Bigfoot, and Doomsday

In living on this planet, it must be understood that there are a few givens: Every generation thinks the world will end in its lifetime, people will always claim to have "seen" or "experienced" or "smelled" or "heard" things that, in fact, never happened, and people will always try to pass off complete nonsense as fact.  And I'm not talking about nonsense like "there will be an NHL season this year," or, "Jack Johnson is a good hockey player."  I mean stuff that actually sort of matters.

After the jump, I complain for 17 paragraphs or so. (I JUST figured out how to put a jump in my page.  Shameful.)



Ancient Alien Theory

I find it infinitely amusing that this is called a theory.  Basically, the entire thing can be summed up in one sentence: The aliens did it.  Can't explain something?  That's because it was done by aliens.  Oh, great.  I guess that explains everything, then.

It baffles me that this is accepted as science.  What's the main problem scientific types have with religion?  It's the complete absence of substance in the "God did it" argument.  It does not satisfy as an explanation, because it is the exact opposite of an explanation.  It's a deliberate attempt to avoid an explanation.  "The aliens did it" is NO DIFFERENT.  It is THE SAME THING.  A conclusion that is wholly supported by the fact that "Ancient Alien Theorists" contend that ancient god figures were actually aliens who visited earth and meddled in our business.

It seems interesting, doesn't it?  Even feasible.  It would make a great story, that's for certain, but more than that, it actually sounds like it could be true.  And maybe it is.  My problem is how these "Theorists" blow everything out of proportion by saying that our entire history is a by-product of these aliens without offering A SINGLE PIECE of evidence.  Looking at something that seems remarkable to you, that you have no explanation for, and then explaining it by saying "The aliens did it.  There.  It's explained." is not science.  It is the opposite of science.

For example, AATs look at this Mayan carving:

And say: "Well, if you flip it on its side, it sort of looks like a rocket ship.  Which is definitive proof that aliens visited the Mayans."  First of all: no, it isn't.  Second of all, why would intergalactic aliens be using something as primitive as a rocket for ANYTHING?  They can cross interstellar distances, visit earth without leaving a single trace, and yet, somehow, they haven't come up with a better propulsion system than an exothermic chemical reaction?  Absurd.  I mean, honestly.  It's not like people back then didn't have imaginations, or anything.

AATs look at remarkable feats of engineering, like this:

And this:

And, since they would be difficult for MODERN humans to duplicate (and they would be, make no mistake) they conclude that they couldn't possibly have been made by humans.  This is a patently stupid conclusion.  The fact of the matter is, humans 3,000, and even 10,000 years ago were JUST AS SMART as humans are today.  They were not as advanced technologically, but (allow me to repeat myself) they were JUST AS SMART as we are.  10,000 years is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in evolutionary terms.  Human evolution as it exists between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens--which took less than 300,000 years--is considered EXTREMELY rapid.  Erectus was around for about 1.5 million years, for example, and changed almost not-at-all in that time.

AATs' confusion toward these sites, and others like them, is understandable, however.  The pyramids, for example, were mathematically perfect.  Their angles were IDENTICAL, and their faces lined up EXACTLY with the 4 cardinal directions.  Pretty cool, no?  And those granite blocks each weigh about as much as 4 or 5 SUVs. (Related:  The pyramids were, in fact, NOT built by slave labour).

Stonehenge is, arguably, more amazing.  Nothing really confuses me about the pyramids (it would have taken quite a lot of backbreaking labour, meticulous planning and calculation, but my head says its possible) but Stonehenge absolutely baffles me.  The stones used in its construction were quarried MILES away from the site, and dragged there BY HAND.  There are NO large trees in the area (I was there just this summer.  It was hard to tell because of the rain, but it's an amazing site and everyone should go there at least once) and yet the people who built the outer ring somehow managed to get those stones ON TOP of the others.  How?  This does not mean, however, that aliens did it.  Not by a long shot.  But it's certainly confusing.

As I said, there are some things that are interesting, even intriguing, about Ancient Alien (actually, I think it's Ancient Astronaut) Theory.  But treating it as an all-encompassing, all-explaining, comprehensive scientific theory is absurd.  Because there's nothing scientific about saying "The aliens did it."

Why I mentioned Bigfoot in the title

It is odd that humans are the only non-furry ape on the planet.  At least, its odd if you don't think about other differences between humans and other apes (bipedalism).  Some AATs believe that this is because the aliens decided to meddle in the genome of one group of apes for no reason to create hybrids (this being the origin of that cookey not-religion Scientology).  Some of them even believe that we are a subset of Sasquatches that the aliens hybrided (what's the verb here?) and that Sasquatches are the true earth-evolved species, and we're the invasive species.  That would certainly explain our virulent effect on our planet of late, but it doesn't explain one important detail. I wasn't able to find a satisfactory representation in my brief internet search, but humans are more closely-related to chimpanzees than to gorillas.  Gorillas (who, by the way, have the best taxonomic name in the history of ever: Gorilla gorilla) are also more closely related to humans than they are to chimpanzees.  This COULD NOT happen if humans were half-something-that-didn't-evolve-on-earth.  There's just no way.

Further "theorizing" has some AATs claiming that yetis (or whatever you want to call them.  Abominable Snowmen sounds rather christmasy, no?) are actually alien creatures (or perhaps hybrids) and that's why there's NO PROOF WHATSOEVER that they exist.  That sounds like more of that not-science I was complaining about earlier.  Basically, they'll come to any "conclusion" about why there's no actual proof of bigfoot's existence as long as it doesn't involve the sentence "bigfoot doesn't exist".

And Now We Come To...

Many people are mystified by the Mayan calendar.  And, why wouldn't they be?  It's bloody accurate, but it's also ridiculously complicated.  I wrote a whole blog post on it some time last year (or was it earlier this year?) and only managed to scratch the surface.  Somehow, people (AATs foremost among them) got it into their heads that there must be something mystical or magical about this calendar.  Otherwise, how could it possibly be more accurate than that piece of garbage we use now? (I mean, come on.  Leap years?  What kind of crap is that?).  We're much smarter than we were back then, right?  I mean, we have smart phones for @#$% sakes!

Well, as I said above, no, we're not smarter than we were back then.  And, as I also said, the Mayan calendar is infinitely more complicated than that Gregorian atrocity we use now.  The Mayans were philosophers and artists, but first and foremost, they were astronomers (just as everyone in mesoamerica seemed to be).  They were very good at mapping the sky, and could predict cosmic phenomena THOUSANDS of years in the future.  Thousands.  Is it any wonder that their calendar happens to be pretty good at it too?  It's a cosmic calendar, referencing objects much further away than our sun and moon.

But in spite of this, the mystic myth persists, and some AATs even go as far as to say that aliens must have made this calendar.  Because, certainly, the lowly Mayans couldn't have done it themselves, advanced culture or not.  So maybe, the calendar ending on December 21st (related: it doesn't end)--or, more accurately, date 13.0.0.0.0--has some special meaning (it doesn't).

The funny thing is, the Mayans actually referenced dates as much as 2000 years FROM NOW (as in, year 4012) in some of their writings.  So they were pretty sure that there would be another Long Count right after this one (myths about catastrophes linked to the ends of Long Counts notwithstanding).

Direct quote from Discover magazine (a great magazine, by the way):

For the record, the Xultun murals further debunk the popular notion that the ancient Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. Stuart notes that the tables reference dates 2,000 years into the future, showing the Mayans were quite confident that the clockwork of time would keep going just fine.

For the record, I remember an AAT saying that some circular Mayan murals (such as the depiction of the calendar above) look exactly like  a cross-section of the Cern Supercollider--further proof of aliens.  Which is pretty much the stupidest thing I ever heard in my entire life.  Yes.  A circle is proof of aliens visiting earth.

But anyway, if these aliens really were around helping us out way-back-when for no apparent reason, where did they go?  Why aren't they helping us now, when we actually need them?  (Economics need to die).

If you want to experience Ancient Astronaut Theory for yourself, there's a whole show on in on the History Network called Ancient Aliens.  I mostly watch it to heckle it all the way through, though they occasionally say something that makes me think.