Alien visitations in the past and Daniken... tonight's History Channel

[nadinbrzezinski]

good news, part of the background for my sci fi world... yes I do own some of Daniken's works and have listened to Noory... and read plenty of ancient myths, including the Indian ones

Now on the bad ones, tell me exactly what exactly is this doing in the myth, errr history channel?

Taking notes though, after all in the world I created Area 51 and Roswell did happen ok... but that is why this is ficcion...not history

[DJ13]

1. If von Daniken is right, wouldnt that qualify as history?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. except that I don't believe he is right

at 13 his books fascinated me... so did Nostradamus... alas I believe humans were capable of doing what he ascribes to the gods

[DJ13]

9. alas I believe humans were capable of doing what he ascribes to the gods

Today yes.

But not 3,000 years ago (unless you believe the assorted myths about Atlantis being advanced).

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. No,... archeology is showing increasingly sophisticated

civilizations

We will have another dark age.. and some day Danikem's spiritual descendants will speak of gods as well

[csziggy]

18. Look at the people who buy into this mythos

Then you can understand why they do believe this crap. THEY would be incapable of doing any of the feats our ancestors did - building megalithic structures, learning enough about the world to align those structures to North-South or to sun, moon or star positions, moving and working with large blocks of stone, etc.

And just because these sheep are too stupid, they think all ancient humans were as dumb as they are.

I still watch shows about this stuff - I love myths and urban legends. These stories teach a lot about human credibility and our ability to convince ourselves of the most preposterous shit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Well the mythos is amusing at other levels

it also tells us a lot about other things right under the surface

Things that are ugly actually

Now I watch these things these days since I have this as a premise... no, the gods didn't build the pyramids, or the Anthetakera Mechanism... but they kept a close eye

However, this is fiction

And do not try to pass this as real... why I actually despise daniken and company

Humans were capable of building these things... and people who believe Daniken should watch Ancient Discoveries, a good intro on HOW things were done...

I wish they realized we lost a lot of tech over the milenia... for god sakes, we cannot build an Atlas rocket right now... we are what? Two generations removed? Ahem, somebody misplaced the plans, and I'm serious on that

And we did reach the moon

[csziggy]

23. Oh some of my favorite fiction is based on these wacko myths

Stargate and Stargate SG-1 for instance. Those are good fun, but they are entirely fiction. At the beginning of the Stargate movie, the reason the audience is walking out on Daniel Jackson is that he had posited the alien technology theory, thus the jeering. But I loved in the SG-1 series when they brought that part back with his grandfather and the crystal skull episode.

But seriously, people do not understand the amount of technology our ancestors had, as you say, much of which we have lost. When I was taking undergraduate anthropology I took an Applied Technology class. We had to pick some basic technology and research and test it with actual materials. One person baked a "bread" from a native root that the Miccosukee Indians gathered. One classmate taught himself how to flake projectile points - since there is only one local source of flint which is a restricted site, he used bottle bottoms for his material. I researched local fire starting materials - out of all the plant material, rotted wood makes the best stuff to start a fire from a spark!

We all gained a lot of respect for even the most basic things you have to know to live at a Stone Age level. And not one of us would survive long enough to learn all the things needed if our current technology disappeared.

On one of the supposed science shows, not the pseudoscience type, one the "scientists" made a comment about how neolithic humans did not have technology. Hey, buddy - go pick up a rock and make one of those projectile points. There is a lot of technology in stone age tool making. You have to know the right kind of rock and where to find it. How to shape the core and how to strike that core to get the right kind of flake, what tools to do those steps and how to use them. Once you have a point, whether spear or arrow, you have to know how to fasten it to the shaft - oh yeah, you have to know what wood makes the best shafts, and on and on.

Sneering at even neolithic technology shows a level of ignorance that I detest. And it is NEOlithic since it was an improvement over the thousands of years of technology that had been developed and used before it came along.

The megalithic building phase in various civilizations around the world generally happened close to the end of the Neolithic period and in many cases just prior to the breakthrough to the Bronze Age.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. My personal favorite skill going back thiousands of years

that most people don't understand, is ground navigation

Hell, even with a compass and a map,300 years old, it is something most folks cannot do

As part of rescue, I had to learn to READ the ground... as a city kid that was a hard skill to learn

These days if I go hiking I take the basics...and know how to deal with a rattler, (no, you don't kill it most of the time) but it is down right scary.

And this is what irks me... as it irks you

Hell, starting a fire with something as simple as a lense, is something that most people don't even realize you can do.. let alone using heat and plant fibers.

I saw that ignorance many a times... and in one of those SAR missions worked along side a Yaqui Indian... taught me a lot on how to read the ground... and I am sure not enough to survive.... for real

[csziggy]

31. Yes, people have skills now that fit in their narrow modern technological niche

And somehow think that the skills for other lifestyles and periods are inferior or non-existent. I can navigate across country with a good quadrangle map and a compass but I would not have a clue how to get around a city using subways and buses. (I've been on a subway once - when I was a child visiting NYC and our town has abysmal bus service, plus I live in the country and do not commute.) But I understand the skill that city dwellers must have to plan their trips by knowing the schedules and routes. Some city people I've talked to seem to think that my skill in following a quad map is simple and would be easy to learn.

You are lucky to have both sets of skills! I am a small town person who has lived in the country for 40 years. I can track and identify most animals that live in my particular area. Before my knees went out, I could wander around our farm by starlight - a skill that comes in handy when you are checking to see if a mare is foaling. But I don't track for hunting so I do not have the skills to survive off the land.

By the way, to start a fire, you don't just need a heat source or spark, you must have an easily combustible substance with a low ignition point. That is why in Castaway Tom Hanks had so much trouble - the heavy fibrous stuff he was using at first is not all that great. Lens fire starting is good and easier than friction fire starting - IF you have the right lens and strong sunlight.

Where do you hike? Sounds like Mexico or the Southwest.

[crikkett]

29. I say most people can't line things up with stars these days because

1) we don't know where they are
2) the streetlights block them out anyway.

I think light pollution is one reason why people are so self-important. Starry nights are pretty humbling.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[baldguy]

6. "Do not use our message board for personal fundraising, for-profit advertising..."

"...or selling products or services, except in the specially-designated "DU Marketplace" forum. We will occasionally make an exception in cases where the product or service contributes to the Democratic or progressive cause, provided that you ask an administrator for permission before you post."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules_detailed.html

[Starry Messenger]

12. Maybe he's selling real estate on other planets.

:)

[baldguy]

16. Von Daniken Acres is still being hurt by the housing bust

even though it has direct flights to Nazca every day and to Easter Island on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Saturday.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. Thanks!

I'll be sure to provide those e-mail addresses to a wide variety of pr0n spammers. Jackass.

[SidDithers]

24. Post this information on /b/...

there's plenty of potential clients over there.

Sid

[baldguy]

4. When are they going to show some history on the History Channel?

The entire program schedule consists of Nazis, Jesus, UFOs or some combination thereof.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. History can have a revolutionary element to it

to be fair, the Revoution was a great series, but it still didn't go into the philosophy of the Revolution, just the time

The philosophy is dangerous... shall we say... revolutionary...

So those who control this, know that you do not cover things like REAL history

[baldguy]

10. Being "revolutionary" is very different from being dead wrong.

Not to mention racist: "The Egyptians couldn't possibly have built the Pyramids by themselves because they were primitive Africans who didn't even know which direction North was, but the Pyramids are still there & are oriented North-South."

C'mon now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I will repeat, the Revolution (another series) goes thtough

the timeline veryt well..but not the philosophy of the Enlightenment

And what you said about Egypt, yep having ACTUALLY read Daniken, bingo

[Maru Kitteh]

7. It's just that they have so little to choose from.

Oh wait. That can't be it.

Yeah. It SUCKS. This UFO shit is about to make me an ex History Channel watcher. It's just not worth the bother any more.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. what fascinates me is tha this is 180 from the Ancients Discoveries

series

Speaking off...the Anthetakera mechanism

I guess the ancients were dummies

Someday it was the gods that built NYC

Smile

[Tansy_Gold]

22. Antikythera

for anyone who strolls by and wants information and google doesn't recognize "anthetakera"


TG

[Posteritatis]

15. Von Daniken's idiocy is a bit much even for what passes for THC these days; ugh (nt)

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. It is fun for me, since he is part of a fictional background, where he properly

belongs

There are days I wonder about THC, where history becomes a lie

[Posteritatis]

20. He just instafrustrates me

I've taught a bit of freshmen-level history through my studies to date, and I've run into too many people whose BS filters aren't developed enough to catch the various inaccuracies, oversights, and lies that Daniken, Velikovsky, Fomenko, Menzies, etc., all throw about. They don't survive the most basic examination, but they don't get said examination either. Blargh.

I'm not sure where history specifically becomes a lie - I've studied too much of it to have that line drawn anywhere firmly - though I do know that the Danikens of the world are far, far, faaaaaaaaar over on the "lie" side.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Know exactly what you mean

though that was amazing,talk about an ego

When they come back, if you don't listen to Erich von daniken, you will have the shock of the gods

This guy is too full of himself

I bet there is life out there

Even intelligent life

Perhaps even life that can travel in space

What Eric and his ilk never explain is WHY would anybody come to THIS WORLD?

Oh I get it, the tourist stop

Yes... there is an actual equation... the Drake Equation... but it is still for these guys to splain why primitive men would be in the galactic tourist schedule.

Fiction wise I have... why it is fiction

And as a trained historian he does drive me nuts too

[Iggo]

25. History channel does bible stories.

Is this any worse?

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Those, except for the Exodus Decoded, they don't pass as

actual honest to goodness history... this they did

[TreasonousBastard]

28. Watched a few minutes of it until von Daniken showed up...

and figgered it was going to be all bullshit. Discovery channel used to start with conmen like von Daniken, and then blow them out of the water in the last 15 minutes of the show, but History just does this to entertain. Unless, of course, they are believers themselves or just craven enough to not care.

"Crash Go the Chariots," by Clifford Wilson, is an excellent debunker of Daniken nonsense. I lost my copy years ago, but specifically remember Wilson talking about how Thor Heyerdahl witnessed Easter Islanders building and raising some of those statues, a thing they had been doing for tourists with enough cash to interest them. Or famous travellers and authors-- also presumably with some spare cash.

I just happened to have a copy of "Aku-Aku" lying around and, sure enough, there was Heyerdahl with a full description of how the islanders made those statues, and WITH PICTURES! Heyerdahl made this trip when von Daniken was around diaper age.

The whole "Chariots of the Gods" was full of equally shoddy research. I seem to remember somethng about a guy in the Andes who made the ancient skulls that so fascinated von Daniken in a tent at market. Sold 'em real cheap to tourists.

(On another note, I watched 60 minutes and saw the most incredible story of a woman who sent the wrong man to jail, and who is now best friends with that man she thought was her rapist)

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. My all time fav of the Chariots

are the honest to god, really... train tracks in the Aegean

I mean how else would you splain this... tracks under water (on very soft stone that may have been above water at one point)

As I said, he is all fun and games for fiction writers, after that...

Now back to My Council of Elders... yep the grays...

Oh and why were we in the Galactic Schedule? Primitives, pssible warriros, and then we went and developed nukes... and primitive space travel

Damn now we have to watch them like hawks... before they break out of the reservation

At least I took the step (in fiction) his ilk have never explained

Ok... they built the pyramids, since them primitives couldn't... WHY?

They can't 'splain that, a basic rule of research... WHY...

[Junkdrawer]

32. Why is this kind of mind-softening crap pushed, and yet marijuana is illegal?

I mean if the object is a brain-dead population.... :shrug: