Okay, maybe extraterrestrials in astronaut suits are not responsible for every remarkable development in the history of mankind.  Maybe dolphins and octopuses are not intelligent visitors from another planet.  And maybe it is not true that a space alien disguised as George Washington helped Union troops turn the tide at the Battle of Gettysburg.

 

But whether you like it or not, or whether you believe it or not, you must admit nothing has launched a more public challenge to traditional archaeology than the History Channel’s intriguing and long-running series Ancient Aliens.

 

The brainchild of TV producer/director/screenwriter Kevin Burns, Ancient Aliens began as a 2009 pilot featuring noted author Erich von Däniken and debuted as a highly popular TV series on April 20, 2010.  With regular appearances by “UFOlogist” Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, Secret History author David Hatcher Childress, and psychologist and mythology expert Jonathan Young, the show plausibly explores the possible impact of ancient astronauts on history.  The supply of fascinating show topics seems inexhaustible.

 

Nobody is holding a space gun to your head and ordering you to accept that ancient aliens are behind all of the world's historical mysteries.  But if you want to label Ancient Aliens as pseudoscience, you had better be prepared to come up with a different explanation for the highly advanced technology we now know was plainly evident in ancient civilizations.  Egypt’s Great Pyramid and Serapeum, Peru’s Nazca Lines, the stunning mysteries of Bolivia’s Pumapunku, and so much more all bear witness to Hamlet’s famed quote:

 

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”