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Chariots of the Gods? · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Winter Insurance did True the Truth.
0:14
Speaker 2: I'm a check out both Insurance, get a True Fans
0:17
Speaker 2: the Autist.
0:28
Speaker 3: Your Hey, everybody, welcome the Conspiracy the Show.
0:37
Speaker 2: I'm Adam Todd Brown. Who are you?
0:39
Speaker 1: I'm Olivia Heidier.
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Speaker 2: We are your hosts.
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Speaker 3: Olivia, How excited are you to be talking about the
0:49
Speaker 3: legitimate origins of civilization today?
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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always happy to be talking about the
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Speaker 1: legitimate origins of civilization. That's one of my favorite topics
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Speaker 1: of discussion, right, and I am I'm actually pretty excited
1:01
Speaker 1: to be on this episode talking about this movie. This
1:05
Speaker 1: is kind of like a very seminal important film in
1:10
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Even if it's maybe not a
1:12
Speaker 1: good film, it's important.
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Speaker 3: It's definitely more important than Trump versus the Illuminati, which
1:18
Speaker 3: we covered on a bonus episode last week.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just like to say nothing makes Chariots
1:23
Speaker 1: of the Gods look better than watching Trump versus the
1:27
Speaker 1: Illuminati immediately afterwards.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're covering, like Olivia just said, chariots are the Gods,
1:34
Speaker 3: which is kind of the It's not the starting point
1:39
Speaker 3: for ancient alien theory, but it is the starting point
1:43
Speaker 3: for the popularization of ancient alien theory in the United
1:47
Speaker 3: States is the book and movie Chariots of the Gods.
1:52
Speaker 3: And because we are not interested in exerting more effort
1:58
Speaker 3: than we need to, we are covering the documentary Chariots
2:02
Speaker 3: of Gods.
2:03
Speaker 1: I'm not reading that book, no, thank you.
2:06
Speaker 3: We're almost doing him a favor because, as it turns out,
2:09
Speaker 3: there's things in that book that, along with all the
2:12
Speaker 3: other untruths that have come out of ancient alien theory,
2:16
Speaker 3: there are some that were so blatant that he had
2:19
Speaker 3: to cut them.
2:20
Speaker 2: For the movie version.
2:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we're kind of doing him a favor.
2:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just like upfront, it is actually it's
2:29
Speaker 1: almost impressive the amount of bullshit that is crammed into
2:36
Speaker 1: ninety minutes, Like just every single second is filled with
2:42
Speaker 1: some form of bullshit. And that takes a lot of work.
2:46
Speaker 3: It really does, and he had time to get that
2:51
Speaker 3: work done. We'll explain why in a little bit, but
2:54
Speaker 3: we should talk about the guy who wrote Chariots of
2:57
Speaker 3: the Gods first.
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Speaker 2: This is right, Chariots the Gods.
3:00
Speaker 3: It's a book that came out in nineteen sixty eight
3:03
Speaker 3: and the documentary version came out in nineteen seventy and
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Speaker 3: This is again, for all intents and purposes, this is
3:10
Speaker 3: where ancient alien theory becomes popular in the United States.
3:15
Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 2: He is by no means.
3:16
Speaker 3: The first person to suggest this idea, right, because that's
3:22
Speaker 3: one of the first things you got to take into
3:24
Speaker 3: account about Eric von Danakin, who is the Swiss writer
3:29
Speaker 3: who wrote Chariots of the Gods, is that he's not
3:32
Speaker 3: a scientist, He's just a writer.
3:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is a con artist. He's a fraud Yes,
3:39
Speaker 1: he is a Nazi, but fully a con artist who
3:43
Speaker 1: was convicted of fraud and emvestment multiple times and before
3:49
Speaker 1: becoming a preeminent ancient alien scholar.
3:52
Speaker 3: This is right up there with scientology in that it's
3:58
Speaker 3: so obvious a fabrication, but so many people still believe
4:03
Speaker 3: it is true and real.
4:06
Speaker 2: Like scientology.
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Speaker 3: If you read that origin story, like the guy that
4:10
Speaker 3: started scientology, l Ron Hubbard, their whole thing is Oh,
4:14
Speaker 3: mental health and psychiatry is a shame.
4:16
Speaker 1: Right.
4:16
Speaker 3: He was denied mental health care in the Navy like
4:20
Speaker 3: six months before he decided he was going to start
4:23
Speaker 3: an anti mental health care cult that was based in
4:27
Speaker 3: science fiction. He was also an established science fiction writer. Yeah,
4:30
Speaker 3: it's pretend and so is ancient alien theory.
4:34
Speaker 1: Yes, ancient alien theory is a blatantly racist theory that
4:40
Speaker 1: is just willfully ignorant of any advances in anthropology and
4:47
Speaker 1: archaeology that have been made throughout the years, and is
4:50
Speaker 1: solely asserting facts without backing it up with any sort
4:58
Speaker 1: of fact based explanation. So, like, it'll say, like, and
5:02
Speaker 1: look at this this statue. Doesn't it look like a
5:05
Speaker 1: man in a spacesuit with an oxygen mask? Doesn't it
5:11
Speaker 1: appear that this is depicting some sort of alien life
5:14
Speaker 1: form moving on? And that is ninety minutes of this
5:20
Speaker 1: that is this movie.
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Speaker 3: Well, that's the whole thing that's ancient aliens in general,
5:26
Speaker 3: because it's concerning enough that this book and movie became
5:29
Speaker 3: so popular and kind of remains so popular. Yeah, this
5:33
Speaker 3: is also now a TV show that I don't they
5:36
Speaker 3: gotta be up to like twenty five or thirty seasons,
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Speaker 3: like it's Citizen's length at this point.
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Speaker 1: It's still currently on the air, I think, so if
5:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there's stuff like it on the air, absolutely,
5:52
Speaker 1: but I am not. I don't keep up with what
5:54
Speaker 1: is actually on TV. Very well.
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Speaker 3: Okay, well this says there's only four seasons. That's not right.
6:00
Speaker 2: What are we talking.
6:00
Speaker 3: About that there are eighteen seasons, two hundred and ten episodes. Jesus,
6:08
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's still hot going, but it'll
6:11
Speaker 3: be back if it's not.
6:12
Speaker 1: Like we're you're in episode one fifty and you're like, yep,
6:16
Speaker 1: at the Pyramids, they're still aliens. It's still that's still
6:21
Speaker 1: what we believe.
6:22
Speaker 2: Moving on, Yeah, what can there be left to talk about?
6:25
Speaker 1: I feel like this movie basically covers it all.
6:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it.
6:30
Speaker 3: You think time traveling white men built civilization.
6:34
Speaker 1: This is why we'll go through this movie like I'm
6:37
Speaker 1: assuming as much beat by beat as we can, but
6:41
Speaker 1: like it's gonna get repetitive after a certain bit, because
6:45
Speaker 1: the movie is repetitive. It's very hypnotic, honestly.
6:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels like an MK ultra experiment, like they
6:53
Speaker 3: were just trying to lull everyone into thinking this through
6:58
Speaker 3: through cool and calm narration.
7:00
Speaker 1: Right.
7:01
Speaker 3: Like there's a very scholarly vibe about this documentary.
7:04
Speaker 1: Right, you feel like someone somewhere is watching this like
7:07
Speaker 1: clockwork orange style, just like hold open that could be
7:14
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Maybe I will say though,
7:17
Speaker 1: especially having just watched Trump Versus the Illuminati. I didn't
7:22
Speaker 1: dislike watching this movie at all. I actually generally enjoyed
7:27
Speaker 1: the experience of watching this movie, even if every five
7:32
Speaker 1: minutes I'm like, well that doesn't make any sense. You
7:36
Speaker 1: need to explain what that means, and then it moves on.
7:39
Speaker 1: But like, I still basically enjoyed watching a bunch of
7:43
Speaker 1: national geographic stock footage with a gentle narration over it.
7:48
Speaker 3: So I take it you have not watched the series
7:52
Speaker 3: the TV show Ancient Aliens.
7:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've never watched the whole episode. I've seen bits
7:58
Speaker 1: and pieces.
7:58
Speaker 3: But I've watched maybe ten seasons of it. And that's
8:03
Speaker 3: what made this boring for me is not only had
8:06
Speaker 3: I heard everything in here, but I've heard it presented
8:09
Speaker 3: by a guy with crazy hair who every once in
8:12
Speaker 3: a while just goes Aliens like the mean, right.
8:15
Speaker 1: I want to be clear I thought this was boring. Like,
8:20
Speaker 1: I want to be clear that it was boring, and
8:22
Speaker 1: I have absolutely heard every single fucking thing that was
8:25
Speaker 1: mentioned in it, But that didn't mean I disliked watching it,
8:30
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like I disliked watching Trump
8:35
Speaker 1: Versus the Illuminavi, which is the only thing I can
8:37
Speaker 1: really compare stuff to.
8:39
Speaker 2: Right anymore, like ever, yeah.
8:41
Speaker 1: Ever forever. But like I hated watching it felt bad,
8:45
Speaker 1: Whereas watching this, I'm like, I'm smoking weed. This guy
8:49
Speaker 1: is clearly smoking weed, and I'm watching some some nature
8:53
Speaker 1: footage I like to watch, like I said, National Geographic
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Speaker 1: Stock footage. Basically, I basically am having a decent time
9:02
Speaker 1: watching this. I did fall asleep, you know, I absolutely
9:05
Speaker 1: fell asleep about an hour in and had to finish
9:08
Speaker 1: it this morning. But yeah, I basically had a good time.
9:11
Speaker 1: It still sucks. It's still very bad.
9:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:15
Speaker 3: The reason I was so into the series is they
9:19
Speaker 3: got me at first because they do that thing that
9:23
Speaker 3: I hate that so many conspiracy theory based things do,
9:27
Speaker 3: where they'll show you all of this evidence, but they
9:31
Speaker 3: won't show you the evidence that what they're showing you
9:33
Speaker 3: is fake. And yeah, that drives me insane because it's
9:38
Speaker 3: not enough to be like draw your own conclusions. It's like,
9:41
Speaker 3: give people the necessary information to draw their own conclusions first,
9:45
Speaker 3: because once you dig into a damn near everything presented
9:50
Speaker 3: on ancient aliens, yeah, it's pretty easy to debunk or explain.
9:55
Speaker 3: There's a couple things that are still sort of up
9:58
Speaker 3: in the air as to what they are. But that
10:00
Speaker 3: doesn't mean white male time travelers told society how to
10:04
Speaker 3: live well.
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Speaker 1: And that's the thing that is just all that they have.
10:08
Speaker 1: When it comes to the conspiracy evidence, it's always one
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Speaker 1: step removed from actual evidence. It's always there was one
10:16
Speaker 1: report that said that this could possibly be a representation
10:22
Speaker 1: of aliens, but it never says what that report is.
10:25
Speaker 1: It never says what the report was on. Again, there's
10:28
Speaker 1: no citation throughout this movie and throughout anything. And I'm
10:33
Speaker 1: sure in the Asia Alien series it's just like we heard,
10:38
Speaker 1: take our word for it, that someone else who knew
10:42
Speaker 1: what they were talking about verified what we believe.
10:46
Speaker 3: Right, And I mean that's when they're not just straight
10:49
Speaker 3: up lying. And the reason it's a problem. Obviously it's
10:54
Speaker 3: spun off into this huge series, but even back then
10:57
Speaker 3: it was so popular.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it huge.
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Speaker 3: This book, We're going to link to a Playboy interview
11:03
Speaker 3: from nineteen seventy four with Eric von Danakin, who was
11:07
Speaker 3: the author of this book. By the time that interview
11:10
Speaker 3: came out, this book had sold five million copies and
11:14
Speaker 3: was on its forty fourth paperback printing. The documentary was
11:19
Speaker 3: nominated for Best Documentary of the year.
11:22
Speaker 2: It didn't win, but it.
11:24
Speaker 3: Was the ninth highest grossing film of nineteen seventy, So.
11:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's huge. It was gigantic.
11:32
Speaker 3: So it's not like this came out and the public
11:35
Speaker 3: was immediately like, oh right, whatever, Right.
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Speaker 1: It was an obscure cult object at the time, like,
11:42
Speaker 1: it's not something that kind of came out and a
11:45
Speaker 1: bunch of weirdos watched and that spread by word of mouth.
11:50
Speaker 1: It was a bestseller. It's a movie based on a
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Speaker 1: huge book.
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Speaker 3: It is a shockingly representative example of those who forget
12:00
Speaker 3: history are doomed to repeat it. Because almost as soon
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Speaker 3: as this came out in the late sixties early seventies,
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Speaker 3: there were books and articles and people who just fucking
12:12
Speaker 3: stood up in their chair and were like, this is bullshit,
12:16
Speaker 3: this is nonsense.
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Speaker 1: Roger Ebert called it science fiction in his review.
12:22
Speaker 3: There were whole books written that were just a rebuttal
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Speaker 3: to Chariots of the Gods, Carl Sagan, the thing Carl
12:30
Speaker 3: Sagan says about Eric von Danakin O Bad Times, And
12:36
Speaker 3: we mentioned that Playboy article that's a really good example
12:41
Speaker 3: of someone just ripping ancient alien theory apart and it's
12:46
Speaker 3: an interview with the writer, which is what makes it
12:48
Speaker 3: so interesting. And like among other crimes, if you're presenting
12:53
Speaker 3: a fucking scientific book, like not an actual crime, but
12:56
Speaker 3: you can't do things like say, Carl Sagan believes that
13:01
Speaker 3: some of the moons on Mars are artificial. What he
13:05
Speaker 3: actually means is Carl Sagan commented once on a study
13:11
Speaker 3: that claimed there were artificial moons on Mars, and when
13:14
Speaker 3: he commented on it, he was like, no, that's not
13:17
Speaker 3: that's not a thing.
13:18
Speaker 1: Probably not.
13:18
Speaker 3: But when it gets to the Ancient Aliens book, he's like,
13:21
Speaker 3: Carl Sagan believes it, he talked about it. That's the
13:24
Speaker 3: kind of trickeration that's going on all throughout ancient alien theory. Yeah,
13:31
Speaker 3: it's not just oh well, okay, you shot down this
13:34
Speaker 3: one thing, but what about all these other things?
13:36
Speaker 2: It's like, how much fucking time do you have.
13:38
Speaker 3: The only thing that's sort of still up in the
13:40
Speaker 3: air is the Nasca lines.
13:42
Speaker 1: But you can explain we made.
13:45
Speaker 3: But people are like, there's still differing theories on what
13:48
Speaker 3: they were. Four right, of course, these old airport but.
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Speaker 1: This is the thing and a lot of conspiracy theories are,
13:55
Speaker 1: especially the scientific ones and this you get creationists suit
13:59
Speaker 1: you this too. It's very similar where they just look
14:02
Speaker 1: for those little gaps where there's still mystery in the
14:07
Speaker 1: universe and they're like, well, that mystery is us. It's
14:13
Speaker 1: our idea, that's what that is. But the whole thing
14:16
Speaker 1: about science and what makes it rad when it works,
14:21
Speaker 1: is that it's a bunch of people who have different
14:24
Speaker 1: ideas who are testing out new things. And especially when
14:27
Speaker 1: it comes to like anthropology and archaeology and stuff where
14:31
Speaker 1: you're studying ancient cultures, you're never gonna really know exactly
14:38
Speaker 1: the truth unless they fucking write it down. And a
14:41
Speaker 1: lot of these civilizations didn't do that stuff like that.
14:44
Speaker 1: So like, you're never gonna one hundred percent know what
14:48
Speaker 1: the Nasca lines are for, and that's fine, but we
14:51
Speaker 1: know that people made them, and we know that they
14:53
Speaker 1: weren't for aliens because it doesn't make any fucking sense.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and before we dive into the docum memory, we
15:00
Speaker 3: are morally obligated to talk about Eric von Danikin in
15:04
Speaker 3: his background. He's the author of Chariots of the Gods
15:07
Speaker 3: and since then just dozens and dozens of other books.
15:12
Speaker 3: He even to this day, has a series on Gaya
15:16
Speaker 3: or whatever that weird video network is that's like an
15:21
Speaker 3: educational thing but also weirdly conspiracy theory, conspirituality leaning. He's
15:28
Speaker 3: got a whole series on Gaya about like, yeah, everything
15:31
Speaker 3: you think about history is wrong. That's his actual voice.
15:34
Speaker 3: I know that's surprising everybody.
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Speaker 1: Wow, Swiss proponent. He sounds like the guy from Roswell,
15:46
Speaker 1: the Cajun.
15:47
Speaker 2: Guy Eric in the morning your drive town DJ.
15:51
Speaker 1: Wow.
15:51
Speaker 2: I'd listen, yeah, hell yeah yeah.
15:53
Speaker 3: His these books, the movie when it came out almost
15:56
Speaker 3: unanimously written off as pseudoscience and archaeology. And the thing
16:01
Speaker 3: is we mentioned already he's not a scientist. Any of
16:05
Speaker 3: us could have written Chariots of the Gods because all
16:09
Speaker 3: he did in that, like, there's no faults in this
16:12
Speaker 3: like that. A lot of books are written this way.
16:13
Speaker 3: But it's just him gathering a bunch of other work
16:18
Speaker 3: together and presenting a new work. The problem is he's
16:24
Speaker 3: not saying anything new. It's one thing to gather together
16:29
Speaker 3: a bunch of sources, like we do it with the podcast,
16:32
Speaker 3: I guess more so with like the Unpopular Opinion podcast.
16:35
Speaker 3: But that's usually a bunch of different stories that are
16:38
Speaker 3: put together to lead to a different or bigger point. Right,
16:43
Speaker 3: This is just him repackaging points that have been made before.
16:48
Speaker 1: It's fully recitation. Not only is he repackaging points that
16:51
Speaker 1: have been made before, he's not doing it by citing
16:55
Speaker 1: things specific works that He's just saying this looks like this,
17:00
Speaker 1: And he never says anything in a declarative. It's always
17:03
Speaker 1: the question or citing it to other people, which is
17:06
Speaker 1: a thing that we've seen in the other conspiracy media,
17:09
Speaker 1: like that Kubrick thing that we watch right, where every
17:13
Speaker 1: claim is based on a doesn't this look like a
17:17
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, or people have claimed that blah blah
17:21
Speaker 1: blah with no further explanation, just that.
17:27
Speaker 3: And that's a good reference here because with the Kubrick thing,
17:32
Speaker 3: what often gets left out of that conspiracy theory is
17:35
Speaker 3: that that theory started as a satire article on the Internet,
17:40
Speaker 3: and as it turns out, with ancient alien theory. There
17:44
Speaker 3: was an article in Skeptic magazine in two thousand and
17:47
Speaker 3: four that trace the roots of ancient alien theory to
17:53
Speaker 3: HP Lovecraft stories, specifically call the Ctulhu and.
17:57
Speaker 2: At the Mountains of Madness.
17:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, and let me tell you a racist theory originating
18:02
Speaker 3: with HP Lovecraft.
18:04
Speaker 1: Oh wait, wait a minute, that man tracks that man
18:08
Speaker 1: did not have a racist bone in his body.
18:12
Speaker 2: But he had bones.
18:14
Speaker 1: No, he had a racist fucking gene pool all throughout it,
18:19
Speaker 1: Like that guy was race so racist that people at
18:21
Speaker 1: the time were like, hey, man, chill out, you're taking
18:24
Speaker 1: it a little too far. And that's like in the
18:27
Speaker 1: fucking twenties.
18:28
Speaker 3: So yeah, so it makes sense that it would come
18:30
Speaker 3: from him, right.
18:32
Speaker 1: Not only is it Lovecraft obviously, but there's plenty of
18:35
Speaker 1: sci fi stories that are about, like, that's a common
18:39
Speaker 1: sci fi trope, what if these things that you thought
18:43
Speaker 1: were actually done by aliens? And it's like, there's nothing
18:47
Speaker 1: behind that. And one of my biggest problems with the
18:51
Speaker 1: movie is that it's not cohesive kind of going towards
18:56
Speaker 1: what you're saying about. It's not building toward a larger point.
18:59
Speaker 1: It's just this and then this, and then this and
19:02
Speaker 1: then this. All of the elements that they introduce and
19:07
Speaker 1: show are very different and are like presenting different symbols
19:13
Speaker 1: and like not making sense with one another. Like and
19:16
Speaker 1: one of them they talk about, how doesn't this look
19:19
Speaker 1: like a lunar lander? And I'm like, why would the
19:22
Speaker 1: aliens make a lunar lander that looks like nasty equipment?
19:27
Speaker 1: And like there's a thing where they're like, doesn't this
19:29
Speaker 1: look like an oxygen mask? And I'm like, why would
19:32
Speaker 1: an alien need an oxygen mask on Earth? It's just
19:36
Speaker 1: just th throwing everything at the wall and it just saying,
19:40
Speaker 1: look watch how it sticks.
19:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no evidence sighted at any point in the book. Maybe,
19:48
Speaker 3: like I'm sure there's footnotes and bibliographies or something.
19:51
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you know, we'll never know because
19:54
Speaker 1: we'll never read that book.
19:56
Speaker 3: But most of it is just presented in that here,
20:00
Speaker 3: Isn't this weird kind of way?
20:01
Speaker 1: Yeah?
20:01
Speaker 3: I think what proponents of ancient alien theory and Eric
20:05
Speaker 3: von Danakin himself don't want to accept is that their
20:09
Speaker 3: theory is no different than faith. Like they're asking us
20:13
Speaker 3: to believe in a different god. That's all they're doing.
20:16
Speaker 3: They're saying, no, of course, this wasn't deities coming down
20:20
Speaker 3: from the sky that people were seeing.
20:23
Speaker 2: It was time traveling white men.
20:25
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, well, now that you put it that way, yeah,
20:28
Speaker 3: all the science makes sense, right. That's no, that is
20:32
Speaker 3: just another creation myth. That's just another god story. This
20:37
Speaker 3: skill isn't science. It's not even fucking close.
20:42
Speaker 1: It's not even Prometheus by Ridley Scott.
20:45
Speaker 3: But he didn't some of Prometheus on Yeah, no for sure,
20:48
Speaker 3: but that movie.
20:49
Speaker 1: What makes that movie rule is that they get to
20:53
Speaker 1: the planet and they find the people that made humans,
20:56
Speaker 1: and the people that made humans are like, why did
20:58
Speaker 1: you make us? In the like, we don't even know you.
21:01
Speaker 1: We don't give a shit what we made you because
21:03
Speaker 1: we farted and like we just felt like doing it.
21:06
Speaker 3: It's the other thing you got to take into account
21:11
Speaker 3: about Eric von Danakin. At least early in life, he
21:14
Speaker 3: was a little bit of a criminal. Yes, yes, At nineteen,
21:18
Speaker 3: he was given a four month suspended sentence for stealing
21:21
Speaker 3: money from a youth camp he was working at as
21:23
Speaker 3: a counselor NBD no.
21:26
Speaker 2: Big d Sure.
21:28
Speaker 3: A psychiatrist who examined him at the time said he
21:31
Speaker 3: displayed quote a tendency to lie. Sure, but don't let
21:34
Speaker 3: that deter you ancient alien believers. Not long after that,
21:39
Speaker 3: he ran off to Egypt and got involved in some
21:42
Speaker 3: kind of shady jewelry deal and ended up spending nine
21:45
Speaker 3: months in jail over that. He claims he had a
21:48
Speaker 3: vision while in his jail cell, but never said explicitly.
21:52
Speaker 2: What that vision was.
21:53
Speaker 3: Sure, but apparently it involved him embezzling money from his
21:57
Speaker 3: hotel job to finance bullshit book about ancient astronauts, because
22:03
Speaker 3: that's what he spent the next twelve years doing. This
22:06
Speaker 3: book is financed through embezzled money that Eric von Danakin
22:12
Speaker 3: stole from his employer, and that's how he got caught.
22:15
Speaker 3: He was working at a hotel and eventually people were like,
22:19
Speaker 3: how are you making all these fucking trips to Egypt?
22:21
Speaker 2: Dude, what are you doing?
22:24
Speaker 3: And it turned out, yeah, he was just stealing money
22:26
Speaker 3: left and right from his employer. So he You know
22:29
Speaker 3: what did he hear in prison for that?
22:31
Speaker 1: You love the ambition, I gotta say, don't you like
22:36
Speaker 1: the hutzpah.
22:38
Speaker 3: At his trial, a court appointed psychiatrist described him as
22:41
Speaker 3: a liar and a criminal psychopath.
22:46
Speaker 2: Is but also a genius.
22:48
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, also a visionary who saw through the truth
22:53
Speaker 1: of the world.
22:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure they called every prophet a psychopath at
22:57
Speaker 3: some point, right, of course I felt gross just saying that.
23:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, seriously, Jesus.
23:04
Speaker 3: But the thing is, by this point he had already
23:06
Speaker 3: published chariots of the Gods. So by the time he
23:10
Speaker 3: was caught and served a year in prison, that just
23:12
Speaker 3: gave him time to write his second book. Like he
23:15
Speaker 3: had the money to pay back the one hundred and thirty
23:17
Speaker 3: thousand dollars.
23:18
Speaker 2: So he just like took a vak.
23:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, granted a vak in well, no, it would have
23:23
Speaker 3: been a Swiss prison. So yeah, he took He went
23:25
Speaker 3: on vacation for a year.
23:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, hey, yeah, I've been in worse.
23:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure.
23:30
Speaker 3: Uh, I'm sure, yeah, all the places I know, you
23:35
Speaker 3: fucking right.
23:35
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, look we talked.
23:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was more based on what I imagine a
23:40
Speaker 2: Swiss prison is.
23:42
Speaker 1: Like I've seen pictures.
23:44
Speaker 2: They look nice, they seemed nice. Yeah, yeah, which, uh
23:46
Speaker 2: not the worst thing. I'm not mad.
23:48
Speaker 1: No, I think prisons could be nicer.
23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially in this country.
23:51
Speaker 1: Holy. I mean, look, we can't get into an abolition
23:54
Speaker 1: sidebar on this episode just too much.
23:57
Speaker 3: So all of this by itself is enough reason to
24:00
Speaker 3: call the motives of the guy who wrote ancient alien
24:04
Speaker 3: theory or who popularized it into question. But in that
24:08
Speaker 3: Playboy interview we mentioned earlier, which I cannot recommend enough.
24:13
Speaker 3: The only thing I don't like about it is that
24:14
Speaker 3: there's no video. Yeah, because this is an actual journalist
24:18
Speaker 3: who asks actual questions. At one point, Eric von Danikin says,
24:23
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm being interrogated now, and it's like, well, then,
24:26
Speaker 3: don't tell us civilization was started by time travelers. Dude,
24:30
Speaker 3: someone is going to interrogate you over an opinion like that,
24:33
Speaker 3: and let me tell you he does not hold up well.
24:36
Speaker 1: No, he doesn't make a convincing argument when presented with facts.
24:41
Speaker 3: For one thing, there's this quote because he gets accused
24:44
Speaker 3: by this writer of, you know, just kind of cherry
24:47
Speaker 3: picking ideas and then ignoring the stuff that doesn't fit
24:51
Speaker 3: his theory, even if it would undermine his theory. And
24:54
Speaker 3: here is his ironclad defense of that. It's true that
24:59
Speaker 3: I accept what I like and reject what I don't like,
25:02
Speaker 3: but every theologian does the same, everyone accepts what he
25:05
Speaker 3: needs for his theory. And to the rest he says,
25:08
Speaker 3: that's a misunderstanding. It's like, well, then what the fuck
25:10
Speaker 3: are we talking about.
25:11
Speaker 1: I mean, he's not wrong, of course, but also he
25:18
Speaker 1: is kind of giving away the game there.
25:21
Speaker 3: And one of the things the writer interviewing him mentions, is, well,
25:26
Speaker 3: in your book, you just outright dismissed theologians as basing
25:31
Speaker 3: all of their theories on nonsense, and like, why so
25:35
Speaker 3: now you're just saying, well, I do what the theologians do,
25:37
Speaker 3: but you're saying theologians aren't doing things the right way
25:40
Speaker 3: and that you have like a more scientifically provable answer
25:45
Speaker 3: when you clearly don't. And he was just like, Eh,
25:48
Speaker 3: what are you gonna do?
25:49
Speaker 1: So you say yeah.
25:51
Speaker 3: They also ask him about a few different things in
25:54
Speaker 3: his books and movies that have been called into question,
25:57
Speaker 3: like how he says he visited a cave in Ecuador
26:00
Speaker 3: that has a library of gold plates from a lost
26:03
Speaker 3: civilization inside it, along with seven chairs made of a
26:06
Speaker 3: plastic like material and a zoo of solid gold animals.
26:11
Speaker 1: Wow, they should have put that in the movie. They
26:14
Speaker 1: really should have. I would have liked to see it.
26:18
Speaker 3: As it turns out, the guy he says took him
26:21
Speaker 3: to that cave came out later and said no, I didn't.
26:27
Speaker 3: He didn't go to He actually said, Eric von Danikin
26:30
Speaker 3: had never been in those caves, of course, And when
26:34
Speaker 3: the interviewer asked him about that, he tapped dances around it.
26:38
Speaker 3: And says that he didn't go in the caves with
26:40
Speaker 3: that guy, but that he did go in the caves,
26:44
Speaker 3: but that he also didn't go in the caves described
26:48
Speaker 3: or he didn't go in the caves through the entrance
26:49
Speaker 3: described in his book.
26:51
Speaker 2: He went through a different entrance.
26:54
Speaker 3: And also he had never actually been to any of
26:57
Speaker 3: the areas shown in pictures in the book. But beyond that, dude,
27:02
Speaker 3: of course he went to the caves. Yeah, talking right now,
27:05
Speaker 3: Like it seems like there would be no defense once
27:08
Speaker 3: you admit all that, like, yeah, I didn't actually go,
27:10
Speaker 3: I just wrote it, and there is none. His defense is, well,
27:13
Speaker 3: I'm taking creative liberties. That's what right, That's what we
27:16
Speaker 3: do as writers.
27:17
Speaker 2: And it's like not if you're calling your book science.
27:20
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it's actually kind of just an
27:23
Speaker 1: interesting insight into a pathological liar in that he did
27:29
Speaker 1: not have to mention a specific real person that would
27:32
Speaker 1: have saved him a lot of trouble if he said
27:36
Speaker 1: I'm going I went into the cave with this guy,
27:38
Speaker 1: Like why wouldn't you just name a fake person or
27:41
Speaker 1: just say I went in alone. Well, I name a
27:44
Speaker 1: real person who will then discredit your story.
27:47
Speaker 3: Also, his German publisher financed an expedition to these caves
27:51
Speaker 3: after all of these stories came out, and guess what,
27:54
Speaker 3: I couldn't reach them for some reason. Eric von Danakin could.
27:59
Speaker 1: Right, Well, of course he's a superman.
28:00
Speaker 3: He is an experienced terrain coverer.
28:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a caver, he goes caving. I don't know,
28:09
Speaker 1: he's like those descent. Yeah, he's a fraud, he's a
28:13
Speaker 1: con man.
28:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure everything else in the book is true though, sure,
28:16
Speaker 3: except probably not because the Playboy interviewer also asks about
28:21
Speaker 3: a theory that von Danakin presents in a different book,
28:24
Speaker 3: which is called Gold of the Gods. I think that's
28:26
Speaker 3: the one he wrote in prison after Chariot of the
28:28
Speaker 3: Gods came out, And in that book there is a
28:33
Speaker 3: theory that suggests the banana was brought to Earth from space.
28:39
Speaker 2: Sure, And this writer.
28:41
Speaker 3: Is like, were you serious about that or were you joking?
28:44
Speaker 3: And Eric Vondanakin's like, of course, I was joking, but
28:47
Speaker 3: people just didn't realize it. And it's like, well, because
28:51
Speaker 3: you're writing a book that you say is based on science,
28:54
Speaker 3: and since when our scientists dropping their bananas fell to
28:58
Speaker 3: Earth from space bits into their legitimate science.
29:01
Speaker 2: Like why should anyone assume you were joking? Like what
29:04
Speaker 2: the fuck?
29:05
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, he seems like a complete nutcase. I
29:09
Speaker 1: mean yeah, he's a piece of work, pathological layer. It's
29:12
Speaker 1: kind of the vibe I get from him.
29:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it seems like the vibe psychiatry has gotten
29:18
Speaker 3: about him throughout his life. And so once he admits
29:21
Speaker 3: all of this was just made up nonsense, they ask
29:24
Speaker 3: him the next obvious question. Here's a quote that leads
29:28
Speaker 3: us to ask if all your writing is a put on?
29:30
Speaker 3: Are you, as one writer suggested, the most brilliant satirist
29:34
Speaker 3: in German literature for a century. And his answer yes,
29:38
Speaker 3: and though we have a wonderful term in German jane,
29:42
Speaker 3: it's a combination of jaw and name, So yes and.
29:45
Speaker 1: No wouldn't be gine yes or yin. It would be
29:50
Speaker 1: yin because the yah and nine. Oh yeah, yin.
29:54
Speaker 3: So that was his answer, whether if you're the most
29:57
Speaker 3: brilliant satirist in German literature for a century?
29:59
Speaker 1: Ye, in some part absolutely not.
30:03
Speaker 3: That means yes and no in some part absolutely not.
30:06
Speaker 3: I mean what I say seriously. In other ways, I
30:09
Speaker 3: mean to make people laugh. Oh, Okay, well, where's the
30:12
Speaker 3: disclaimer to that effect on any of your work?
30:15
Speaker 1: He's like the joker, he just wants to make people laugh.
30:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really revealing interview, Like, if you have
30:22
Speaker 3: found yourself sucked into ancient alien theory, please go read
30:27
Speaker 3: this interview with Eric von Danakin and at least get
30:30
Speaker 3: more of a feel for the person who came up
30:33
Speaker 3: with this theory. Yeah, because he is a fucking fraud.
30:37
Speaker 2: And there's more.
30:38
Speaker 3: Because there's another detail. I did not know about this
30:41
Speaker 3: book until researching it for this episode. This almost never
30:45
Speaker 3: comes up, but it sort of backs up the theory
30:47
Speaker 3: that ancient alien theory is some Nazi bullshit.
30:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:51
Speaker 3: The book Chariots of the Gods was rejected several times
30:54
Speaker 3: by publishers until it was extensively rewritten by a guy
30:59
Speaker 3: named Wilhelm Uderman.
31:02
Speaker 1: Who is excuse me, I believe it's pronounced Erman.
31:07
Speaker 2: Correct. Fun fact about that guy.
31:10
Speaker 3: Most bios describe him as quote a best selling Nazi author,
31:16
Speaker 3: and if nothing else, he definitely contributed to Volkas Bill
31:20
Speaker 3: Baxter or the Volcus Observer, the official newspaper of the
31:24
Speaker 3: Third Reich.
31:25
Speaker 2: So that's cool.
31:26
Speaker 3: Cool On that, there's nothing Nazi or white supremacist about
31:29
Speaker 3: you love to.
31:30
Speaker 1: Have that in your bio, best selling Nazi author.
31:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, he just had his manuscript whipped into shape by
31:37
Speaker 3: the Third Reich. That doesn't make this a Nazi idea.
31:41
Speaker 1: Come, how how did this guy live? You know, like
31:46
Speaker 1: just in general, like how did he escape? I want
31:48
Speaker 1: to know that story. If he was literally editor of
31:52
Speaker 1: the Nazi newspaper in World War Two, how's he living?
31:57
Speaker 2: I think I'm just.
31:57
Speaker 1: Say contributor, contributor, Sure, Okay, he went on.
32:01
Speaker 3: To make movies like after World War two, like he
32:03
Speaker 3: was a German filmmaker. So yeah, apparently, But again, Scott
32:07
Speaker 3: free how how I don't understand. I don't know, because
32:11
Speaker 3: we really cracked down on X Nazis.
32:13
Speaker 1: That's true. Well, I mean, you know, why didn't Magneto
32:15
Speaker 1: go after this guy? That's what I wanted to know.
32:19
Speaker 2: So let's go through the documentary.
32:21
Speaker 3: We're not going to hit it beat for beat, but
32:23
Speaker 3: we can talk about it because I'm gonna be honest,
32:25
Speaker 3: I fell asleep.
32:26
Speaker 1: Well, of course, we literally cannot get it beat for
32:29
Speaker 1: beat because it is the same beat. We can only
32:33
Speaker 1: cover so many examples of oh, well, this is made
32:37
Speaker 1: up there's nothing to this. This is all just bullshit.
32:40
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't offer any sources. He just says, wouldn't
32:44
Speaker 1: it be cool if this were aliens moving on?
32:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's presented in that very scholarly or educational
32:54
Speaker 3: way that a lot of documentaries used to be, Like
32:56
Speaker 3: before we realized, you know, you could you could have
32:59
Speaker 3: Fuck and Tarantino narrate this if you want, Like that
33:02
Speaker 3: could be Samuel L.
33:03
Speaker 2: Jackson and you're hiring this.
33:05
Speaker 1: Guy going through its pleasurable viewing experience. It feels like
33:10
Speaker 1: watching a kind of boring PBS documentary and that's kind
33:15
Speaker 1: of just a soothing vibe.
33:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely that.
33:18
Speaker 3: It's definitely got some ASMR vibes to it, Like it's
33:22
Speaker 3: not gonna make you tense listening to I mean, unless
33:25
Speaker 3: you're like googling.
33:25
Speaker 2: The actual facts behind Yeah, I mean he presented you.
33:29
Speaker 1: Kind of got a let go of reality to enjoy
33:32
Speaker 1: it at all.
33:33
Speaker 3: It starts by talking about cargo cults, which were a
33:37
Speaker 3: thing that happened around World War two especially or that's
33:42
Speaker 3: when it became popularized, and it was a thing where
33:46
Speaker 3: Allied forces in World War Two would come into contact
33:49
Speaker 3: with tribes or civilizations that had never seen flying machines
33:54
Speaker 3: or anything of the like, and they would land and
33:56
Speaker 3: they would bring them supplies, and then when they'd leave,
33:59
Speaker 3: people would build monuments and things to try and entice
34:02
Speaker 3: them to come back and people, let me tell you,
34:05
Speaker 3: that's kind of the crux of ancient alien theory. It's
34:08
Speaker 3: h hey, you know how that happened in World War Two?
34:10
Speaker 3: That happened like all throughout history. But it was just
34:13
Speaker 3: like time travelers and people coming to space.
34:15
Speaker 1: That is not a terrible logical leap. That's a logical
34:20
Speaker 1: leaf that I can follow and I understand, but like
34:24
Speaker 1: you are going to need some serious evidence in order
34:28
Speaker 1: to make it stick as reality, and that's not presented. Also,
34:32
Speaker 1: I feel like all of the footage of the cargo
34:35
Speaker 1: cults was totally stage.
34:38
Speaker 3: Oh it had to be right, Yeah, it felt so fake. Yeah,
34:43
Speaker 3: that had faces of death vibes too.
34:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like the plane looked way too neat and
34:50
Speaker 1: like it just didn't fit.
34:52
Speaker 3: And and also it wouldn't they have just turned to
34:56
Speaker 3: the person with the camera and been like, oh, you're
34:58
Speaker 3: one of them, right, you.
34:59
Speaker 1: Know you've got to camera?
35:00
Speaker 2: Wow?
35:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean like I have camera, Well, we have
35:03
Speaker 3: cameras well, they're.
35:04
Speaker 1: Used to cameras now at this point, like, I don't know,
35:08
Speaker 1: I don't know. It felt staged. Their whole ritual thing
35:12
Speaker 1: that the film opens with felt rehearsed.
35:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, it reminded me of I mentioned Faces of Death already.
35:20
Speaker 3: I remember, even when I was watching that as an
35:23
Speaker 3: impressionable kid. Yeah, I remember there's this scene it's like
35:27
Speaker 3: a torture interrogation scene, and I remember being horrified. But
35:32
Speaker 3: then after a while I'm like, how are they getting
35:34
Speaker 3: all these camera angles? This is really well shot.
35:39
Speaker 1: It's the camera angles that's what gets you.
35:42
Speaker 2: That's what gets the.
35:43
Speaker 1: Bad found footage movies too. Yes, because one of my
35:47
Speaker 1: favorites is Into the Storm, which is the Tornado found
35:50
Speaker 1: footage movie.
35:51
Speaker 2: I've not seen that.
35:52
Speaker 1: It's very bad but fun, but like, it's the found
35:55
Speaker 1: footage conceit in that movie makes no sense. There are
35:58
Speaker 1: there will suddenly be like a camera like right in
36:02
Speaker 1: this zoom angle with no explanation. It's so strange anyway,
36:06
Speaker 1: But yeah, it does seem like whenever you're watching footage
36:10
Speaker 1: like this, the camera angles give it away, because that
36:12
Speaker 1: means people had to stop filming and move and sit
36:17
Speaker 1: up this camera again and start shooting again. That just
36:20
Speaker 1: adds artificiality.
36:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's edited together, like there's different angle, Like they
36:25
Speaker 3: wouldn't have just sat there and let that happen, There's
36:29
Speaker 3: no way.
36:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've only seen parts of Faces of Death.
36:33
Speaker 1: I on think I've ever sat through the whole thing.
36:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's there's some stuff in it that
36:37
Speaker 3: I assume is real, Like there's some things that seem
36:39
Speaker 3: like they couldn't have created. But yeah, a lot of
36:42
Speaker 3: it is just nonsense. Yeah, just like ancient alien theory. Yes,
36:47
Speaker 3: Face is a death of science. Yea, it is the
36:51
Speaker 3: death of science. So yeah, that's kind of the theory
36:55
Speaker 3: here is that all of the world's religions started in
36:59
Speaker 3: this exact way, with visitors from outer space or from
37:05
Speaker 3: the skies landing and imparting knowledge on people. Which again
37:11
Speaker 3: that's just origin stories like a lot of like a
37:15
Speaker 3: lot of religions and groups have belief systems that work
37:19
Speaker 3: that way. And the problem is this doesn't present any
37:23
Speaker 3: extra evidence to support that idea.
37:26
Speaker 1: No, And it's very Western. In addition to being racist,
37:30
Speaker 1: it's also just generally Western chauvinists. Modern Western chauvinists, and
37:35
Speaker 1: that it assumes that any culture that wasn't European from
37:40
Speaker 1: the past could not achieve anything. It has no concept
37:45
Speaker 1: of human ability, Like humans are capable of doing insane
37:51
Speaker 1: things when we all get together and put our minds
37:54
Speaker 1: to it. Like throughout history, crazy things have been done,
37:58
Speaker 1: and like they are tough to explained, but they existed,
38:01
Speaker 1: Like the Library of Alexandria. We know that existed even
38:05
Speaker 1: though it disappeared, but like there's knowledge there. They had
38:09
Speaker 1: knowledge that they shared with each other, and they knew
38:12
Speaker 1: how to make things, like the whole thing with the
38:14
Speaker 1: Pyramids again, the whole thing. All they do is say,
38:18
Speaker 1: doesn't it seem so hard to believe that people from
38:24
Speaker 1: so long ago could build something like this with these
38:30
Speaker 1: heavy bricks and blah blah blah blah blah. It's like, yeah,
38:34
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe, but it happened. We have the
38:36
Speaker 1: fucking Pyramids. People did crazy shits.
38:40
Speaker 3: And a lot of times with stuff like that where
38:42
Speaker 3: they're like can you believe, like would you how would
38:45
Speaker 3: they have done this? They'll sometimes back it up by
38:48
Speaker 3: saying we can't do it now, like this would take
38:50
Speaker 3: someone doing it now. A lot of time and it's like, well,
38:54
Speaker 3: then those aren't time travelers because we forgot right when
38:58
Speaker 3: do we learn how to build pyramids right again? And
39:02
Speaker 3: then we come back? And what were we even trying
39:05
Speaker 3: to build? If they're also like like what is happening?
39:08
Speaker 1: I think there's lots of things that people in the
39:11
Speaker 1: past could do that I personally, as a person now,
39:15
Speaker 1: could not do. I know that, I know that most
39:17
Speaker 1: people couldn't do things like Mongolian archers from like the
39:22
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, you know, like doing insane things with bows
39:26
Speaker 1: and arrows on a horse, and almost no one can
39:30
Speaker 1: do that anymore because there's not a need for horseback archery.
39:34
Speaker 1: In the same way, even when they talk about stuff
39:37
Speaker 1: like there sort of being evidence that maybe there was
39:40
Speaker 1: a nuclear explosion at some point on Earth in the past,
39:45
Speaker 1: it's like, listen, maybe, but also still doesn't mean aliens could.
39:50
Speaker 3: Just mean there was knowledge we had that has since
39:52
Speaker 3: been lost.
39:53
Speaker 1: But also the nuclear explosion thing was stretched even by
40:00
Speaker 1: this movie. I could not believe that leap of like
40:04
Speaker 1: it's a nuclear explosion, bro.
40:06
Speaker 3: And really so like, okay, well, what else could have
40:09
Speaker 3: come down from the skies and caused an explosion? Like
40:12
Speaker 3: that any number of things media, asteroids, comets, fucking time
40:17
Speaker 3: travelers in airplanes.
40:20
Speaker 1: That's assuming that there was an explosion. We are here
40:23
Speaker 1: thousands of years later. We don't know what happened. We
40:27
Speaker 1: are looking at surface level evidence and making these conclusions
40:33
Speaker 1: that don't make any fucking sense. And again, like I
40:36
Speaker 1: said about it being so western shovin this, there's like
40:39
Speaker 1: there's so many points that made me so angry. Like
40:42
Speaker 1: when they're talking about in a rock how they found
40:46
Speaker 1: an ancient device that could be used to make an
40:49
Speaker 1: electric cell like a battery, right, and then in an
40:52
Speaker 1: area's like yet count Volta invented the electric cell fifteen
40:59
Speaker 1: hundred years later, And I'm like, well, then maybe he
41:02
Speaker 1: wasn't the first fucking person to do it. Seems like
41:05
Speaker 1: these people in Iraq figured it out a thousand years earlier,
41:10
Speaker 1: so maybe he wasn't that special.
41:12
Speaker 3: And maybe someone went to Iraq and found the instructions
41:17
Speaker 3: for how to make something like that and took it
41:19
Speaker 3: back to Europe and they were like all right, I mean,
41:22
Speaker 3: maybe we're gonna make this, but also destroy that evidence
41:25
Speaker 3: that shows that we're not ones who invented it.
41:27
Speaker 1: I mean, that's possible, but also it's also possible that
41:30
Speaker 1: just like people forgot how to make batteries across cultures
41:34
Speaker 1: and then someone else quote reinvented it. Parallel thinking happens
41:38
Speaker 1: all the time. And then another quote that just again
41:41
Speaker 1: drove me insane, was they were looking at it was
41:44
Speaker 1: somewhere in what they call the Near East, which I
41:48
Speaker 1: think is the Middle East. I'm not exactly sure, but
41:51
Speaker 1: he said, looking at this archaeological discovery of a polished
41:55
Speaker 1: lens that's very old. That's like and he says, polished
41:59
Speaker 1: lenses weren't executed in Europe before the sixteenth century, and
42:05
Speaker 1: yet this one was found in the Near East and
42:09
Speaker 1: is almost two thousand years old. I'm like, okay, well.
42:13
Speaker 3: Then, yeah, so what they found then it was.
42:17
Speaker 1: Like, what's the You're saying that only a European could
42:21
Speaker 1: have invented the polished lens, Like, what is the comparison here, Well,
42:27
Speaker 1: this is just proving that there was someone you made
42:29
Speaker 1: it earlier.
42:30
Speaker 2: That is what they're saying. Is the price. I know,
42:33
Speaker 2: but still like, oh man, a lot of this.
42:37
Speaker 3: When Olivia says this documentary gets repetitive, it's because what
42:40
Speaker 3: it does. One of the first things they get into
42:43
Speaker 3: is examples of the Bible seeming to cite things that
42:47
Speaker 3: seem like they're a little more modern than they should be,
42:50
Speaker 3: or like advanced technology or visitors from outer space. And
42:53
Speaker 3: then they do that with every possible religious text, yeah,
42:56
Speaker 3: and book and anything that they can for the next
43:01
Speaker 3: two hours.
43:02
Speaker 1: Every cave painting they show this cave painting towards the
43:05
Speaker 1: end that was from Russia. I think that literally came
43:12
Speaker 1: from a Russian newsletter about ancient aliens. Like it was
43:16
Speaker 1: a made up cave painting for a newsletter that then
43:20
Speaker 1: was put on a cave and they took pictures of
43:23
Speaker 1: it for the movie and said, this is a cave
43:26
Speaker 1: painting from thousands of years ago showing ancient aliens.
43:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of the many things the Playboy interview
43:33
Speaker 3: calls him out over, and it turns out he I
43:36
Speaker 3: don't think ever saw that painting.
43:38
Speaker 1: Never.
43:39
Speaker 3: There's like never even any confirmation that it was ever real.
43:42
Speaker 3: Like it's just nonsense. And there's a whole lot of that.
43:46
Speaker 3: There's a lot of him cherry picking quotes from the
43:49
Speaker 3: Bible and then ignoring other quotes, Like in one religious
43:53
Speaker 3: text it mentions that something that came down from the
43:57
Speaker 3: sky had the face of a man, and this playboy
44:01
Speaker 3: writer is like, yeah, but it also says that one
44:03
Speaker 3: of them had like the face of a cow, and
44:05
Speaker 3: one of them had a face with an eagle.
44:07
Speaker 2: It's like, well, what about those?
44:09
Speaker 3: And like he answers him, but it's like, well, why
44:11
Speaker 3: don't you address that in the book, And it's because
44:14
Speaker 3: this is.
44:14
Speaker 2: A bullshit theory. Yes, that's the only answer.
44:19
Speaker 1: There we go.
44:20
Speaker 3: And again I fell asleep before this documentary ended, but
44:25
Speaker 3: I fucking get it. So I'm not sure. Maybe you
44:28
Speaker 3: can tell me. Does the iron Pillar of Deli come up?
44:32
Speaker 1: No? I don't believe it.
44:34
Speaker 3: Better not, because here's the thing about the iron Pillar
44:37
Speaker 3: of Deli. This comes up in the book version of
44:40
Speaker 3: Chariots of the Gods, which came out in nineteen sixty eight,
44:44
Speaker 3: and he cites it as just one of the most
44:48
Speaker 3: definitive pieces of proof that there was alien intervention in
44:53
Speaker 3: human society at some point, because the Pillar of Deli,
44:56
Speaker 3: it's just this iron pillar. It's like an iron that
45:01
Speaker 3: is thousands of years old, but just so old, and
45:05
Speaker 3: it's barely rusted and it's still standing. And he presents
45:11
Speaker 3: it in Chariots of the Gods as one it has
45:13
Speaker 3: no rust on it, and two, no one knows where
45:16
Speaker 3: it came from or how it was constructed. And well
45:19
Speaker 3: before this book was published people addressed all of that,
45:23
Speaker 3: and by the time the book was published they did
45:27
Speaker 3: know how it was constructed.
45:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does have some rust on it.
45:31
Speaker 3: It's just the way these particular alloys were put together.
45:35
Speaker 3: It's not as prone to rust as other metals. So
45:39
Speaker 3: it's a neat thing.
45:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool, But its.
45:42
Speaker 3: Existence and creation has been explained, and he just conveniently
45:47
Speaker 3: leaves that part out of the book. So of course
45:52
Speaker 3: it's good that it's not in the movie, but it's
45:53
Speaker 3: also another example of what kind of thinking went into
45:57
Speaker 3: coming up with this theory. It's none, it's confirmation bias,
46:01
Speaker 3: it's it just honestly.
46:04
Speaker 1: You know, I know that it's racist and evil, but
46:07
Speaker 1: like just the vibe of the narration, it feels like
46:11
Speaker 1: you're listening to a stoner in nineteen sixty nine. Just
46:15
Speaker 1: do stream of consciousness, man, about like the fucking crazy
46:21
Speaker 1: shit you can find out in the world. And I
46:24
Speaker 1: bet fucking aliens are involved, man, because again, you know,
46:27
Speaker 1: like we said, there's never any concrete point. It's always like,
46:31
Speaker 1: but man, doesn't it look like a spacesuit man? And
46:37
Speaker 1: that's that over and over.
46:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like people were masks back then, Like
46:42
Speaker 3: people were all rhinds of fucking accoutrement.
46:45
Speaker 1: And but also people were fucking creative and would sometimes
46:50
Speaker 1: like draw fiction on their you know, and that's what
46:54
Speaker 1: we're finding. Or also, you know, this was something I
46:57
Speaker 1: was thinking about a lot because we watched you know,
46:59
Speaker 1: the whole documentary just had a lot of cave paintings,
47:03
Speaker 1: and so you just kind of start to think about
47:05
Speaker 1: cave paintings. I bet some of those people are just
47:09
Speaker 1: shitty artists, you know what I mean. They even for
47:13
Speaker 1: the time, there were people out there in the cave
47:15
Speaker 1: painting days who were making these beautiful, realistic portraits of
47:19
Speaker 1: their friends and neighbors and paint and like then there's
47:23
Speaker 1: just this asshole who's like carving a fucking pyramid headed
47:28
Speaker 1: dude into a rock and that stays forever and the
47:32
Speaker 1: beautiful painting gets washed away. That's as plausible, or more,
47:37
Speaker 1: it's more plausible than ancient aliens.
47:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:40
Speaker 3: I think the one interesting thing that comes up in
47:44
Speaker 3: the documentary and in ancient alien theory in general is
47:47
Speaker 3: the Nasca lines.
47:48
Speaker 2: But those are just interesting.
47:50
Speaker 3: They're very cool, and they're a thing that no one
47:53
Speaker 3: has ever been able to fully explain. Right, So of
47:56
Speaker 3: course you can be like, oh, there's an airport. Sure,
47:59
Speaker 3: when the time travelers came, that was the those were
48:02
Speaker 3: the runways and things, and it's like, all right, but
48:04
Speaker 3: what about the fucking chicken in the corner, Like what's
48:07
Speaker 3: that for?
48:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's what's the guy.
48:10
Speaker 3: Waving and grabbing his left knee cap? What is any
48:13
Speaker 3: of that about? Right, and like and then the answer.
48:16
Speaker 2: Is so people could see it.
48:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, aliens, Yeah, entertainment. Aliens need the entertainment while there's
48:22
Speaker 1: ship's landing. And they also they always trot out. You know,
48:26
Speaker 1: when you look at these from the ground, they don't
48:28
Speaker 1: look like anything. They only look like something from a
48:34
Speaker 1: plane's height. And I'm like, no, there aren't they never
48:38
Speaker 1: make there's hills. It's the valley, and ask a valley.
48:42
Speaker 1: There's hills all around the fucking thing. Like you can
48:45
Speaker 1: see it from that height people were looking down.
48:49
Speaker 3: And also if you're standing on the ground, you can
48:52
Speaker 3: see it.
48:53
Speaker 1: And also, yeah, it looks like a cool like line design.
48:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're at least gonna see a bunch of what
48:57
Speaker 3: looked like, I don't know, like shallow canal sort of like.
49:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're mostly just like because they've been there for
49:03
Speaker 1: so long and because there's so little wind in that region,
49:07
Speaker 1: they just basically removed like the top layer of the
49:11
Speaker 1: dirt and that kept those lines. It's fucking cool. They're
49:14
Speaker 1: cool as hell, and I don't want you to take
49:17
Speaker 1: that away from the Peruvians, honestly.
49:20
Speaker 3: And that's actually a thing I don't know if I
49:23
Speaker 3: put it in the notes, but that I came across
49:25
Speaker 3: when I was looking into this. That's a complaint a
49:28
Speaker 3: lot of people had after Chariots of the Gods came out,
49:31
Speaker 3: because people were like, is no one gonna debunk this
49:35
Speaker 3: alien thing? Like, no one's gonna come out and refute this.
49:38
Speaker 3: And that's the one thing that he presented in this
49:42
Speaker 3: book that no one ever really took him to task over.
49:45
Speaker 3: And it's because no one knows for sure. Like one
49:48
Speaker 3: person thinks it's like irrigation related and moving water, which
49:52
Speaker 3: makes perfect sense. One guy thinks it's related to textile
49:55
Speaker 3: production because something they made there had these incredible me
49:59
Speaker 3: long threads, and.
50:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be just it could be just art,
50:03
Speaker 1: it could be religious. But again, you know, this is
50:05
Speaker 1: like we were saying earlier, this is just one of
50:08
Speaker 1: those things that it is until we literally actually invent
50:12
Speaker 1: time travel, and even then, who knows, It's just impossible
50:16
Speaker 1: for us to know. We'll never know for sure what
50:19
Speaker 1: the Nasca lines are.
50:21
Speaker 3: I hope we invent time travel and we go back
50:24
Speaker 3: and ask, and whoever we ask is like, oh, this
50:28
Speaker 3: it's an Etsy store. It's just you pay me, I'll
50:31
Speaker 3: draw whatever you want on the ground. You go up
50:33
Speaker 3: in the hills and look at it, unless you have
50:35
Speaker 3: an airplane like those times.
50:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, but uh yeah, that's all it is. Why what
50:40
Speaker 2: do you think it is?
50:42
Speaker 1: Airport?
50:43
Speaker 2: Airport?
50:43
Speaker 1: Come on, airport?
50:45
Speaker 2: What you're crazy?
50:46
Speaker 3: It turns out they have time travel too, right, This.
50:50
Speaker 1: Is this whole recursive loop. Yeah, I mean, you know,
50:55
Speaker 1: I feel I don't know. The Nasca lines are just cool.
50:58
Speaker 1: That's all you can say about him, that they're just cool.
51:01
Speaker 1: I'm glad they exist. I would love to see them
51:04
Speaker 1: in real life.
51:04
Speaker 3: Which is another side effect of Chariots of the Gods.
51:07
Speaker 1: I know it's been they've been trampled over.
51:10
Speaker 3: People drive over them. There have been like industries set
51:15
Speaker 3: up around protecting the Nasca lines, I mean riots of
51:18
Speaker 3: the gods and ancient theory.
51:20
Speaker 1: That's one of the ways in which this is just
51:22
Speaker 1: a actually evil work because it has caused material harm
51:28
Speaker 1: to important historic sites. Yeah, and that sucks. I would
51:33
Speaker 1: just like to go like nearby and look at them.
51:36
Speaker 1: I don't need to go down and walk on them. Yeah, no,
51:39
Speaker 1: I ruined it.
51:39
Speaker 3: I'd be fine to stand on one of those hills
51:41
Speaker 3: and just.
51:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, down, see in the hill. I'd like to see
51:44
Speaker 1: it from that angle, and then see it from like
51:46
Speaker 1: ground level and I'm done. I'm good. There are lines
51:49
Speaker 1: in the sand.
51:50
Speaker 3: I don't need to and I want to do donuts
51:53
Speaker 3: on an ATV around them, you know, and lines of
51:56
Speaker 3: my own what.
51:57
Speaker 1: I would like to go to. Most of the places
52:00
Speaker 1: that were featured in this film, which is why it
52:02
Speaker 1: was generally pleasant to watch, Yeah, because it's like.
52:05
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I know that's on a dirt bike.
52:07
Speaker 1: That's what yeah saying right exactly. But it's like, oh yeah,
52:11
Speaker 1: Lapause is really cool. I mean, you're portraying it like
52:14
Speaker 1: a city of savages instead of a modern capital of
52:17
Speaker 1: a nation. But like, you know, it's still cool Eastern Island.
52:21
Speaker 1: I mean, Rapanui is what you should call it. But
52:24
Speaker 1: it's still an interesting place and those stoneheads are cool,
52:27
Speaker 1: like you know, that's just kind of was My vibe
52:29
Speaker 1: through the whole thing was like, well, you're here for
52:32
Speaker 1: awful reasons and you're telling me seditious like awful insidious lies,
52:38
Speaker 1: but it's kind of cool, Like I like these things.
52:41
Speaker 2: Like looks very nice.
52:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always like to look at the Pyramids. It's
52:45
Speaker 1: funny that they said we don't know anything about the Sphinx.
52:49
Speaker 2: I don't know.
52:50
Speaker 1: That seems like a stretch. Why don't we know anything
52:53
Speaker 1: of I mean.
52:53
Speaker 3: I'm sure we knew less in nineteen seventy than we now.
52:57
Speaker 1: Yes, but we didn't know when it was built. Like
52:59
Speaker 1: it was very weird how little information he wanted to
53:02
Speaker 1: give about the Sphinx, which seems like it should be
53:06
Speaker 1: like a big deal in the It's very you know,
53:09
Speaker 1: if you want to say something about Aliens is a
53:12
Speaker 1: big gat guy.
53:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, was there were there any moments that stood out
53:16
Speaker 3: to you that we haven't discussed that you want to
53:19
Speaker 3: talk about God? Not?
53:20
Speaker 2: Really?
53:21
Speaker 1: It all blends together, is the problem. Like there's the
53:23
Speaker 1: part where they show the Dogu, the Japanese statue from
53:29
Speaker 1: like the Jomon period, and that was interesting because they
53:33
Speaker 1: showed a expert on screen who was speaking in Russian
53:38
Speaker 1: and then the narrator just talked over him and just
53:44
Speaker 1: like asserted all his stuff, and like, I'm sure the
53:47
Speaker 1: guy was also talking about it representing an alien or whatever,
53:51
Speaker 1: but like like, oh, for sure, those Dogu statues are
53:55
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, they're like little puffy armed dudes with
53:59
Speaker 1: crazy ovalheads, But like Joe Moone period in Japan's fucking
54:04
Speaker 1: interesting in general, So I'd rather just go learn about
54:08
Speaker 1: that watch Princess Mononoke or something instead.
54:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is a whole lot of that. It's
54:13
Speaker 3: a whole lot of well what were these people drawing?
54:16
Speaker 3: Why did it look like that? That can't be anything
54:19
Speaker 3: but an alien? And it's like, right, motherfuckers are gonna
54:22
Speaker 3: find Pepe the Frog five hundred years from now and
54:25
Speaker 3: be like who was this guy?
54:26
Speaker 1: I know, I think about this something. Luckily so much
54:29
Speaker 1: it wasn't executed. Luckily, so much of that bullshit is
54:34
Speaker 1: just digital, so like it won't exist in five hundred years. Like, yeah,
54:39
Speaker 1: I mean there was like one moment where they show
54:41
Speaker 1: like an animal skull and they claim that it was
54:45
Speaker 1: killed by a bullet because it had a round hole
54:49
Speaker 1: in the middle of its skull. And they're like, it
54:52
Speaker 1: only could have been killed by a high speed projectile.
54:55
Speaker 1: I'm like, you mean, like an.
54:56
Speaker 2: Arrow, and you know.
55:00
Speaker 1: Rock bullets aren't the only thing that can penetrate a skull.
55:05
Speaker 1: That's what zombie movies are built on.
55:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, something falling off of a tree.
55:10
Speaker 1: A pickaxe, I don't know, man so, but yeah, other
55:13
Speaker 1: than that, like fall.
55:14
Speaker 3: On something sharp and I feel like my pierce the skull.
55:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it all kind of blended together. I like, I
55:19
Speaker 1: always like to see the Easter Island heads. Good dudes,
55:22
Speaker 1: they seem chill, they really do. And everything else. Again,
55:27
Speaker 1: it's just as like national geographic stock footage. It's cool
55:30
Speaker 1: to see the world in the set in like nineteen
55:33
Speaker 1: sixty nine. Yeah, that's fun.
55:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fun in that way.
55:38
Speaker 3: If you're familiar with ancient alien theory, you definitely don't
55:41
Speaker 3: need to watch this for information purposes, Like this is
55:45
Speaker 3: the completest thing. Like if you're just passionate about ancient
55:48
Speaker 3: alien theory.
55:49
Speaker 2: And you want to see where it all started.
55:52
Speaker 3: This is that, But it's sort of that I was
55:55
Speaker 3: gonna say, Yeah, it's this is not essential viewing in
55:58
Speaker 3: any capacity unless you are, like you said, just fascinated
56:02
Speaker 3: in the history of this thing and the fact that
56:05
Speaker 3: this was as a cultural object.
56:08
Speaker 1: It is interesting and it's easier to watch than other
56:11
Speaker 1: conspiracy objects like this. Some of them can be a
56:15
Speaker 1: real struggle, and this one is at least boring and
56:19
Speaker 1: easy on the eyes.
56:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
56:21
Speaker 3: So, uh, I think that's our episode, right, Yeah, I
56:24
Speaker 3: think so.
56:24
Speaker 2: We did it. We made it.
56:26
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, yeah, don't watch this. Don't no, please, don't
56:29
Speaker 3: don't believe ancient alien theory. It's racist bullshit, like literal
56:34
Speaker 3: Nazi bullshit.
56:35
Speaker 1: If it is, it's just racist, like even if it's
56:40
Speaker 1: not fully funded by Nazis, which just seems like it was.
56:43
Speaker 1: If you just think about it beyond the surface level
56:47
Speaker 1: for five seconds, you'll realize the kind of racist underbelly
56:51
Speaker 1: that's underneath, and how it is taking credit away from
56:55
Speaker 1: these cultures that are fabulous and are amazing to learn.
56:58
Speaker 1: Go read a history. There's so much out there about
57:02
Speaker 1: these ancient cultures and what they could achieve and how
57:05
Speaker 1: they achieved it, and that shit's fucking fascinating. Yeah, and
57:10
Speaker 1: this reminded me of it, so I didn't hate watching it.
57:13
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's worthless.
57:16
Speaker 3: There are some Travel Channel vibes, like you'll learn about
57:19
Speaker 3: cool places that you'll probably want to go see yourself
57:22
Speaker 3: after you see them. Like there's a lot of places
57:23
Speaker 3: that they show in this that I would love to see,
57:25
Speaker 3: but not because I think time traveling aliens again built it.
57:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, just watch a national geographic show, watch Planet Earth. Watch.
57:34
Speaker 1: You know what's great is that Planet Earth spin off
57:37
Speaker 1: that David Attenborough did that was called I think it
57:40
Speaker 1: was just called.
57:41
Speaker 2: Humans, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and it.
57:44
Speaker 1: Was about an anthropological version of Planet Earth that was
57:47
Speaker 1: about how humans survive in different environments and that shit
57:53
Speaker 1: rules and is a million times better than Chariots of
57:57
Speaker 1: the Gods and it'll give you just as much cool
58:01
Speaker 1: mystery of the human race shit to think about.
58:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, watch that instead. Uh, do we have anything
58:08
Speaker 3: to plug before we get.
58:09
Speaker 2: Out of here?
58:10
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, you can find me on Twitter and
58:13
Speaker 1: letterbox that high their hidar. I'm gonna keep plugging my letterbox.
58:17
Speaker 1: Nobody gives a shit, but it's the only thing I
58:19
Speaker 1: like writing on these days. I hate tweeting. It makes
58:22
Speaker 1: me feel bad every.
58:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't get back into Twitter.
58:26
Speaker 2: It's rough.
58:26
Speaker 1: But I'm happy to post my zero star review of
58:31
Speaker 1: Trump versus the Illuminati and my one star review of
58:34
Speaker 1: Chariots of the Gods, which gets one star for looking nice.
58:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does have that going for it.
58:42
Speaker 3: Patreon, dot com, slash on, pops on popsnetwork, dot Supercast,
58:45
Speaker 3: dot tech. You can get bonus episodes there or write
58:48
Speaker 3: in your Spotify app and soon in your Apple podcast app.
58:52
Speaker 3: Just bonus episodes everywhere. We're filthy with them. Well, ye,
58:55
Speaker 3: last week's essential listening our review of Trump versus the Luminati.
59:00
Speaker 1: You gotta check it out. Don't watch the movie, but
59:03
Speaker 1: but listen.
59:03
Speaker 2: To the show or maybe what No, don't watch it.
59:07
Speaker 1: No, don't, No, I'm serious, fucking don't, especially not if
59:10
Speaker 1: you're a big Sasquatch fan. Just watch Bigfoot versus the
59:13
Speaker 1: Illuminati instead.
59:15
Speaker 3: You know what, You watch The Man who Killed Hitler
59:18
Speaker 3: and then the Bigfoot. Have you ever seen that movie?
59:20
Speaker 1: No, because that's another one of those movies where it's
59:22
Speaker 1: like that just seems like a joke movie. No, it.
59:27
Speaker 2: Is not.
59:29
Speaker 3: It is fucking great. I'm not joking.
59:32
Speaker 1: It's good.
59:33
Speaker 3: The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot is
59:36
Speaker 3: a legitimately very very good movie.
59:39
Speaker 1: And it's it's like a real movie.
59:40
Speaker 3: It's not the movie you're thinking it is. It's not
59:43
Speaker 3: like some Sharknado shit. It's not versus Illuminati.
59:47
Speaker 2: It is great.
59:48
Speaker 1: Then I'll watch it because I saw trailers and the
59:51
Speaker 1: posters and stuff like you know, I'm like, man, I'm
59:53
Speaker 1: so sick of this kind of thing, because.
59:55
Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
59:56
Speaker 3: Even the title, You're like, well, why why Hitler and Bigfoot?
1:00:02
Speaker 1: Right?
1:00:02
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, the movie makes it make sense, like
1:00:06
Speaker 3: you understand once it happens, you get why. All right, Well, yeah,
1:00:11
Speaker 3: this is the guy who has to There is no
1:00:14
Speaker 3: one else who can send except sort of homophobic and
1:00:18
Speaker 3: misogynist Sam Elliott.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, that whole thing I hate. Yeah, but
1:00:24
Speaker 1: you still what an annoying discussion.
1:00:27
Speaker 3: But you still have to watch that movie.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going it sounds interesting. Look, I like Sam Elliott,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: No bullshit that he says on the red carpet or
1:00:36
Speaker 1: whatever in an interview is gonna change that. I can't
1:00:39
Speaker 1: help it.
1:00:40
Speaker 2: I might watch that movie again this weekend.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: I will check it out. Because I, up until this
1:00:45
Speaker 1: point had just written it off as bullshit, but he'd.
1:00:48
Speaker 2: Be surprised I will.
1:00:50
Speaker 3: So that's my plug, the man who killed and I
1:00:54
Speaker 3: think that's it. Let's get out of here, Olivia say
1:00:57
Speaker 3: goodbye bye, goodbye, everybody. We love you. About another, another,
1:01:03
Speaker 3: about another, another, another, expect about another, another, another, about
1:01:16
Speaker 3: another spot, about another st