So, let’s dive into my quirky skepticism. I do enjoy nerd things. I do cool stuff too, but usually the cool stuff I do has nerdy origins, to include this blog. One of those nerdy things I like to partake in is listening to the wild ideas people come up with to explain historical events or even to predict future occurrences. I’ve watched several JFK documentaries, read books on the world ending in 2012 and why the Mayans were so advanced. Of course, the Ancient Aliens series, and I thoroughly enjoy thinking through the what ifs for all of these things. When it’s hard to explain, and creative liberty is taken to explain it, I’m usually all in for a challenge of thought. I take all these theories with a grain of salt though, but I’m no less fascinated about the information provided when they’re put out there. Full disclosure, I’m not a scientist and I lost the desire to be one when I found out they had to do a lot of homework and complex math. I may be capable, but certainly not interested.

Last week as I was working, I had something on in the background about the Anunnaki, basically to fill the room with noise as I do my thang you know. However, the idea of aliens doing things kept coming up whether it was building pyramids or creating humans to begin with. I found myself getting drawn into it more and more when I should’ve been working on these spreadsheets. The conversation shifted from ancient Egypt to the ancient Maya and how alien assistance may have been given to them as well. The ideas basically rotated back and forth between those two civilizations and the advancements all mysteriously attributed to the genius from other planets. That got me to thinking a bit more. These conspiracy theorists are either purposely, or accidentally Euro supremacists. 

I Could Be Trippin

To check my feeling, I started watching stuff about old European megalithic structures, starting with Stonehenge. The narrative was about how fascinating it was, not that it was possibly constructed with alien assistance or by aliens. Don’t get me wrong here, academia doesn’t claim alien assistance in Egypt, just the folks that make entertaining, pseudo-science that is easier to digest and often repeated by non academics. Granted, there is an order of magnitude difference in the complexity of the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge or Newgrange, but “how” is still pretty perplexing despite the so-called plausible explanations given over the years. The focus remained on the purpose of Stonehenge, not the construction. Sure, they don’t know who built it, but the location being in Europe means the who is not as mysterious somehow. Maybe that’s just me tripping right now.

Just because you can’t figure out how ancient civilizations built stuff, doesn’t mean they got help from space aliens

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I’m Skeptical Too

To be fair, I don’t think aliens helped, I just think the explanations are crap. I’ve seen plenty of explanations of how the pyramids were built, along with varying dates for their construction and I remain skeptical of the stated dating of the pyramids and ability to build them with ropes and sticks. The main part of my skepticism is that I think the pyramids are older than we’re giving credit for. Could be to smooth over the fear of finding out a former, yet more advanced, society was pushed to the brink of total extinction, resulting in a historical reset of sorts. Considering the pyramids are officially dated back to about 4500 to 4800 years ago, I find it odd that technology to do so appeared out of nowhere, remained stagnant and then fell off a cliff for the next 4300 to 4600 years before trending up again for the last century or so. In addition to that, the writing on the surfaces is rough compared to the precision used to craft the buildings in the first place. I’ll spare you more of my reasons for skepticism.

Ok, maybe one more reason. It’s far easier for me to grasp a highly advanced civilization of Earthlings building the stuff, them and their technology being wiped out in a way similar to the dinosaurs, then newer ancient people, being less advanced coming upon it and doing the 3000 BC version of graffiti and taking credit for it. On a small scale that happens right now. Imagine if our civilization was wiped clean with the exception of the remaining hunter gatherers. By the time these modern day “primitive folks” advanced and made their way outward across the world to the existing cities, things will be in ruins. They’d likely still see the tags of graffiti artists throughout the city. The “new” civilization would be none the wiser, and they’d lack a lot of ability to discredit it seeing as we’re currently in the digital age. Assuming that over the gap they’d also lose the common languages spoken today in favor of their tribal languages, there won’t be much available to decode what they see. That’s plausible. Maybe an oversimplification of what happened in ancient times, but plausible.

It’s Cultural

OK, one more reason for my skepticism with the alien origins piece is that society in the western world is always reluctant to give African people their props whether now or historically. It’s easy to dismiss their accomplishments for some reason. We marvel at Socrates and Plato, but they were around 2400 years ago, and not much is known about their predecessors let alone ancient predecessors. The philosophies of Plato shaped much of what we see now. However, he was in awe of the Egyptians…we don’t know the genius or highly regarded brain that was 2400 years older than Plato influencing his thoughts, and even that person only gets us back to when the first pyramids are claimed to have been completed. How many years of advancement from hunting and gathering would it take to build pyramids 4500 years ago?

I’m Just On My Soapbox Now

I’m not an archaeologist nor am I intimately involved in any of the sciences, so take my soap box ramblings with a grain of salt here. It’s just my observation that credit is rarely given where it is due, especially when it is due to non Europeans. In this case, so much of the history in Africa has been wiped out in favor of European greed and exploitation that these older ideas are dismissed as impossible altogether. I’ve heard it said that humans are a species with amnesia. However, amnesia can only occur with images and information you’ve experienced. In our case, humans are victims of self-sabotage, meaning much of the information was destroyed intentionally by other humans on their respective quests to control the planet. We claim to be civilized now, but we still wipe out civilizations to put our stamp on them. Just think of how many places the United States spreads democracy to against their will.

In my non expert opinion, the truth of our species will never be known objectively. We are at a point where the theory of evolution by natural selection is accepted as a factual process, opposed to a theory. Darwin’s cause may have been a noble one, but biased to prove a certain idea. I definitely believe people, things and life in general evolve and devolve over time for various reasons. Unfortunately, I think the rush to assign meaning and origin to ancient Egypt has corrupted how data on the subject will be interpreted forever. Even by so called scholars, there will always be a dismissive tone regarding “how” these structures were built. Assuming advanced technology is too scary and claiming chisels and wooden tools is simply unrealistic, so why not Aliens?