It all started with a book. As a teenager, I would read books about mysterious places, science, UFOs, and lost continents, and watch sci-fi series and movies, such as Stargate, Star Trek, or Babylon 5. I guess I wanted to believe, to paraphrase a famous TV series from the 90s. Stargate is the series that probably fits the best with my archaeoastro interests (not beliefs). At some point in the early 2000s, I came in contact with the books of Robert Bauval, Graham Hancock, Christopher Knight, and Robert Lomas. These authors are known as eccentrics and pseudo-scientists but for me, they represented the firsts (Erich von Däniken excluded as he talks about something else entirely in my opinion) to expose the world to some form of archaeoastronomy which unfortunately caused a lot of mistrust in what is possibly the most interdisciplinary science out there.
It is through their writing that I learned about the astronomical interpretations of the Giza Plateau, Angkor Wat, Skara Brae, Bryn Celli Ddu, and Newgrange. Needless to say that we have seen all but one which we plan on seeing this year during the winter solstice. Over time I read more and more accessing scientific peer-reviewed papers which added value to my knowledge and nurtured my critical thinking. I did my own research and I published my own articles. I began to understand that some books are good for exposing archaeological sites and theories to the public but they stop short of proving the case with scientific arguments and by presenting all points of view of their underpinning theories. It is also the case of the so-called airplane (see featured image) which in fact is a fish. If you read the description found in the museum (which we have done some years ago) in Bogota and see the image of the fish next to it it all becomes clear, but that is exactly what such authors and producers count on: the majority of the public wouldn’t check by researching or visiting the museums or sites. They would trust the so-called expert (in fact an influencer drawing from people’s ignorance) and by simply watching the show, you would generate income for the streaming service or cable TV. But let’s move on.
After meeting Simina in 2006 I discovered we had a common passion for exploring and traveling that debuted in the Vosges Mountains, France a few years later in 2011. Given the popularity of some TV shows like Ancient Aliens we found a new source for traveling ideas but we soon found the show to be too ridiculous to watch due to the producers’ obsessive out-of-this-world theories blinded by their almost radical point of view backed by carefully cherry-picked arguments. But it did provide us with ideas for our South American trip to Peru, Colombia, and Easter Island back in 2015 and later in 2017. For a time there was nothing interesting to watch, except maybe the Fall of Civilizations Youtube series. But this autumn, our attention was caught by Graham Hancock’s new series Ancient Apocalypse. He too pushes his ideas with carefully picked arguments ignoring threads that are obvious to people possessing a certain degree of knowledge and reasoning. He argues that he uses his common sense but takes an approach probably just as orthodox as that of the most zealous scientists. But the series is still watchable as it shows some remote and less-known sites worth investigating and makes for an interesting debate amongst the two of us, extending the half-hour runtime to maybe 45 minutes. Our list has already grown and we have plans for several years into the future.
The truth is we probably need pseudoscience in our lives to at least popularize some tourist sites and why not, to develop our critical thinking. With minor exceptions, in the liking of Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawkings, Michio Kaku, or Neil Degrasse Tyson, scientists do not have the same flair as authors, journalists, and media producers targeting excentric theories. Science is difficult to grasp and because of this, we spend our youth trying to learn about it. I refer here to the must-read book Why religion is natural and science is not by Prof. Robert McCauley. An irresistible curiosity is probably the drive behind all theories, scientific or not, and that makes mystery and myth an irresistible magnet. It is the same thing that led our ancestors to create all these wonderful stories that we still share today. It is part of us to ask questions and tell stories. And frankly, I do not care if they are wrong or not. At this point, these pseudoscientific theories are just that, ideas, nothing more. Science too has proven wrong many times and yet it is still here. Discoveries in the last 50 years have pushed the birth of our civilization to the very end of the last ice age (see the amazing site at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe in Turkey). And it is likely that future discoveries will push it even further. The reality is we have no idea what lies beneath the soil and under the oceans in terms of megalithic structures. It can just be that the next discovery will indicate a structure contemporary to the cave paintings of Lascaux or even older.
It is part of scientific discovery and a growing understanding of our past. However, even if these investigators prove to be right it is the scientists that will ultimately offer the proof. Science will always adjust and accept provable evidence. Till then all these theories (and I must admit I am excited about the implications of some) are just speculation. And we are not short of them. In Romania for instance, there is a constant background noise from dacopats (i.e., people obsessed with ancient Dacians and their supposedly superior technology and knowledge) arguing for the existence of country-wide tunnels shaped as a huge wolf, esoteric energies at the Bugegi Mountains Sphinx, superior technologies that the Dacians taught to the Egyptians when building their pyramids (surprisingly nothing of that sort is left visible in Romania, they built for others, not for their home), and the emergence of the first alphabet in the world (the Vinča script and the contested Tartaria Tablets). I was called at one point by someone the most dangerous species there is, as I allegedly disguise myself as a Dacian advocate but preach for the Roman conquerors in one of my video recordings about the Roman solar alignments in Roman Dacia 😜. This was followed by an immediate unfriend and ban from his Facebook page, Image my disappointment! But there is little you can do as they are so obsessed with their theories that any rational point of view is futile. Sadly this is all they can offer, stories based on limited (but irrefutable – in their minds) knowledge.
I like reading stories, traveling, and seeking answers to questions (and debunking bestsellers even if just for my own personal satisfaction. I highly recommend this video I found on Youtube on Debunking Ancient Aliens). Simina has always said that in order to be successful in social media, radio, TV, or newspapers nowadays you must focus on aliens, forgotten civilizations, and megalomaniac theories about the origin of various nations and not that scientific perspective that I have. To paraphrase her during a funny argument: nobody cares how to measure the distance to the Sun using their fists and fingers, tell them about aliens and lost civilizations! Well, here it is, a post about all of these taken with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, it won’t make me famous enough to make a living out of it 😉 but if you liked it consider donating on Patreon and fueling my ideas (or if you prefer use Paypal). Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
