Narrator: "Ancient Aliens" is an American
television series which premiered on April
20th, 2010 on the History Channel.
The program presents the so-called
"ancient astronaut" theory which is
the idea that extraterrestrials
visited the Earth in the ancient past
and that historical texts, archaeological
records, and various legends contain
evidence of this contact. I used to
believe that the ancient astronaut theory
was true. I spent years learning about it
from the popular authors, from video
presentations and radio shows. I was an
enthusiastic promoter of this idea to my
friends and family. Although I no longer
feel that way, I want you to know that I
have no personal reasons to reject
this theory. My current worldview could
easily accommodate the existence
of extraterrestrials. I hope you will come
away from this film, even if you disagree
with it, saying that I fairly reviewed the
claims of "Ancient Aliens" without bias
and with respect. I hope to show you that
this is not a matter of "Ancient Aliens"
getting a few details wrong here and
there, and their main premise remaining
true. That is not an option in my opinion.
I hope to demonstrate to you, that they
are wrong not on some, but on every single
point where they assert an ancient
astronaut theory to explain evidence and
that often, they are using deceptive means
to do this and sometimes even fabricating
evidence to make their points, as we will
see. I would also like the viewer to know
that unlike many skeptics of the ancient
astronaut theory, I actually concede that
something out of the ordinary could have
occurred in the ancient past, and that
there are certain consistent themes in
ancient mythologies and the like that
require good explanations, but I think
that you will quickly see that the ancient
astronaut theories do not explain this
evidence. You will notice a number that
appears periodically on the bottom right-
hand corner of the screen throughout this
film. This number will appear when I am
making a claim that requires a reference
in order to back it up, and it will
correspond to a number on the companion
website, AncientAliensDebunked.com. This
film is divided into three main sections,
and each topic can be viewed independently
at the website, if you choose. I will
occasionally be joined by commentary from
Dr. Michael Heiser, one of the few actual
scholars who has been willing to interact
with the ancient astronaut theory. Dr.
Heiser has been one of the most articulate
proponents of the skeptical viewpoint of
this theory, and has written papers and
books, as well as almost a dozen websites
on the issues we will be covering in this
film. We are happy to have him as part of
this film, and we are happy to have you,
the viewer, here as well. I encourage you
to have an open mind, and enjoy the film.
Brien Foerster: Pumapunku is so unique, in
the way that it was constructed and shaped
and positioned, that it is the most
intriguing ancient site on the planet.
Giorgio Tsoukalos: While the pyramids at
Giza are incredible feat of achievement,
compared to Pumapunku, the pyramids are
childplay. In my opinion, the most
significant piece of evidence that we have
in this entire ancient astronaut puzzle,
is Pumapunku in the highland of Bolivia.
Narrator: Well, if Pumapunku is considered
such good evidence for the ancient
astronaut theory, we should probably
start off by looking at it. After all,
it's the one that they say was built
directly by extraterrestrials.
Tsoukalos: Pumapunku is the only site on
planet Earth that, in my opinion, was
built directly by extraterrestrials.
Narrator: "Ancient Aliens" starts off with
the false dilemma, by making people think
that it was absolutely impossible for
ancient people to construct Pumapunku,
even to the point of making outright false
claims.
Tsoukalos: One of the most intriguing
things there is that the stones that were
used there aren't sandstone. They are
granite and diorite. The only stone that's
harder than diorite is diamond so the only
way that this could have been achieved is
if the tools were tipped with diamonds.
Narrator: This is funny because it's totally
wrong. The stones are not granite or
diorite at Pumapunku. They are red
sandstone and andesite. But this is also
funny because of the way that he says it.
Tsoukalos: The stones that were used there
aren't sandstone. They are granite and
diorite.
Narrator: Well, actually it is sandstone.
You can't blame him, though. It becomes
obvious that throughout the series, he
often just repeats things he's heard in
Erich von Däniken's books. Von Däniken's
books are what the Ancient Aliens series
is based on. Later, we see Erich von
Däniken himself make the exact same
totally wrong claim.
Erich von Däniken: Of course made of
stones found on Earth because you don't
transport granite or diorite from another
solar system.
Narrator: Von Däniken continues building
up this false dilemma.
Däniken: One of these platforms is 800
tons.
Narrator: This is very incorrect. The
heaviest block at Pumapunku is 130 tons
and most of the stones are much smaller
than that so he's off by a whopping 670
tons! Unfortunately, we will come to
expect this kind of thing from von Däniken
as we progress. "Ancient Aliens" spends
quite a lot of time pointing out the
various features in the stonemasonry at
Pumapunku and then declaring it impossible
to do without power tools.
David Hatcher Childress: Each of these
small drill holes are basically evenly
spaced along this routered groove.
To me it's clear power tools have been
used on this unusual block of stone here.
Foerster: Well exactly. This surface is as
smooth as a table top, like in your
kitchen. There's no wave to it or
anything. This was machined.
Narrator: The sandstone and andesite
stones at Pumapunku would have been easily
worked with the most basis stoneworking
tools. The idea that diamond-tipped power
saws were needed is ridiculous. The red
sandstone was relatively soft and easy to
work with and even though andesite is
pretty hard, because of the way it cooled,
it could easily be flaked-off using stones
as soft as 5.5 on the Mohs scale. Such
pounding stones where found all over the
andesite quarries in the area. Contrary to
"Ancient Aliens" claims that
archaeologists are baffled by Pumapunku,
archaeologists know the basics about how
Pumapunku's stones were cut and shaped.
This is partly because there is evidence
for this all over the site itself. They
actually used a method that almost all
ancient stoneworkers used. They used hard
pounding stones to pound-out troughs-like
depressions. Later on, they used flat
stones and sand to grind the stone to make
a polished surface. We will see later on
that this also how the Egyptians thousands
of years before this made their flat
surfaced granite monuments like obelisks.
Sand, as we will see later when we look at
Egypt, has extremely hard particles in it
and if placed between a flat surface and
a rock, can polish even the hardest stones
known to man. In fact, the harder the
stone is, the better it can be polished
using sand. We will also see how sand can
turn a piece of copper into a very
efficient granite saw or granite drill, a
method which the Egyptians utilized quite
well. Some stones as Pumapunku that
"Ancient Aliens" would never show the
cameras are the ones that are in the
middle of this process. They show that at
same time a stone was being pounded with
stone hammers, which created these trough-
like depressions, the grinding and
polishing was taking place on the other
end of the stone. Unfinished stones like
this one clearly show how they were shaped
and it wasn't with lasers. There is also
unmistakable evidence of stone hammers
having been used in places that were never
meant to be visible, like where certain
stones would be connected with one another
And because of that, it's hard for me to
believe Erich von Däniken in this next
clip because it would mean that the alien
toolbox had a laser gun right next to a
stone hammer.
Däniken: Extraterrestrials arrive, the
spaceship stands in orbit. Only a smaller
space vehicle comes down like a space
shuttle. So, just to protect the
instruments, they make overnight, with
their technology, what we call a "base
camp." Of course made out of stones found
on Earth, because you don't transport
granite or diorite from another solar
system. And then they disappeared, but the
wall of their base camp is still there.
Narrator: It is true that stone tools
would not be enough to construct Pumapunku
especially for some of the finer points.
For that, they would need metal chisels
and the equivalent of a carpenter's square
Entire studies have been done detailing
how these cuts were made, and nothing
spectacular is required except some metal
tools like chisels. The arguments against
this are usually either that a particular
culture did not yet know how to cast
metals, or that copper chisels would have
been too weak. On the first point, we know
that the pre-Incan Andean culture was very
skilled at fashioning metals and creating
metal alloys. In fact, the people who
built Pumapunku were even pouring copper
alloys into molds right on site, showing
that they had more than enough capability
to form all kinds of metal tools. But the
question is, what about the tools'
strength? Well, even if they were pouring
pure copper into a mold, it would still
work, but it would need sharpening often.
But because archaeologists actually found
a few of these metal cramps used by them
on site, we now know they were using a
very strong copper-arsenic-nickel alloy,
which made a much stronger final product.
Arsenic acts as a deoxidant, preventing
the metal from becoming too brittle, and
nickel was used in copper alloys,
specifically to make strong chisels.
Once you understand that they had the
ability to make strong metal tools in a
huge variety of shapes, there is no part
of Pumapunku's stonework that would have
been too difficult for them. Well, what
about these 90 degree right angles that
"Ancient Aliens" makes so much about?
Childress: One of the amazing things here
at Pumapunku is the precision of the
blocks. You can see with this block of
granite, that it's really been cut at very
accurate right angles.
Narrator: To make flat surfaces with right
angles, you don't need alien technology.
You only need a square or a simple
equivalent. It's important to keep in mind
that Pumapunku would have been built
thousands of years after the Egyptians,
who had all kinds of squares and
plumb-bobs and levels and so on. It's a
pretty basic stoneworking tool. That being
said, despite what "Ancient Aliens" says,
Pumapunku is not all perfect right angles.
You can even see this, ironically enough,
as the "Ancient Aliens" crew goes around
with carpenter's squares. You can see that
some of them are simply not square. Also,
they make claims like "all the H-blocks
are the same dimensions," which they say
suggests that they were made by a big
machine. But not only would that not be
the only conclusion if it were true. It's
not even true. The dimensions of the
H-blocks are not all the same, though they
are close. It's probably the case that
they were made using the same plans.
Speaking of plans,
Tsoukalos: Mainstream archaeologists say
that Pumapunku was built by the Aymara
Indians, and we would all have to agree
that in order to build something like
Pumapunku, you need writing, you need
planning, and you need some sort of a idea
where which piece goes and how it
ultimately all fits together. But there is
one thing that all the mainstream
archaeologists agree upon, that the Aymara
didn't have any writing. So how is it
possible that they built all of this
without plans?
Narrator: The builders of Pumapunku may
not have had an alphabet, but they did use
the common iconography or artwork of their
culture called "Yaya-Mama." All the icons
on the site are Yaya-Mama, not secret
alien code, and this is but one of the
many indications of the culture and time
that it was built. But my point is, that
like many cultures, they used pictures
instead of an alphabet and most building
plans are done through pictures like
blueprints, for example. So saying that no
alphabet means no planning is pretty
ridiculous in my opinion. Well, what about
moving the stones and lifting them into
place? Surely that would have required
levitation.
Childress: How these massive blocks of
granite were moved from their quarries
and brought here to Pumapunku would have
required some kind of super technology:
levitation and anti-gravity, huge lifting
vehicles, something that ancient aliens
would have had.
Narrator: If they did know how to levitate
these stones, then they put far too much
effort into creating places in the stones
to attach ropes to. Many stones at
Pumapunku have grooves several
centimeters in width and depth on two
adjacent faces for holding ropes. They
even had special places cut into the
stones that Pumapunku scholars call
"hoisting grips," all very strange things
to do if they could simply levitate these
blocks. And to make matters worse for the
ancient astronaut theory here, according
to archaeologist Jean-Pierre Protzen, who
is an expert on Pumapunku, there is almost
no stone at the Pumapunku site that does
not have what he calls "drag marks" on
one of its faces where it has been, well,
dragged to the site. "Ancient Aliens"
throws up another false dilemma here.
Tsoukalos: What nobody talks about here
is the irrefutable fact that we are at an
altitude of 12,800 feet which means we are
above the natural tree line. No trees ever
grew in that area, meaning no trees were
cut down in order to use wooden rollers.
The wooden roller theory falls by the
wayside.
Narrator: This is like saying that there
is not way the Egyptians used wood because
trees didn't grow in Egypt, which is true.
The difference is is that while the
Egyptians had to import wood from places
like Lebanon, it would have been far
easier for those at Pumapunku to solve
this problem. All they would have had to
do is simply walk down the hill a little
bit. OK, well what about this claim:
Tsoukalos: Logic does not exist at
Pumapunku because there, we have
megalithic structures which just lie about
this entire site as if ripped apart by
some sort of a great force.
Narrator: I propose that logic still
exists at Pumapunku and that the scattered
state of the complex can easily be
explained. Quoting from archaeologist
Alexei Vranich "the high quality of the
stones made it attractive building
material for houses, churches, plazas,
bridges, even railways." In other words,
the stones were pulled down and hauled off
by locals for building material. In fact,
we have the 400 year old writings of a
visitor to Pumapunku who said that the
looting was in full swing even back then.
He wrote that if the site was closer to
town, he didn't think that there would
have been any stones left at all.
"Ancient Aliens" says that Pumapunku is
17,000 years old. This is what Vranich
said of this claim: "The idea that
Tiwanaku is 14,000 years old is based on
a rather faulty study done in 1926. Since
then, there has been a huge quantity of
work both on the archaeology and geology
of the area and all data indicates that
Tiwanaku existed from around A.D. 300 to
500." For more information on the faulty
study he is referring to here, I will
quote at length from Jason Colavito,
who has been debunking ancient astronaut
theories for years in his books and blogs.
He said the following about this claim:
"Tiwanaku is not 17,000 years old. This
date derives from the work of Arthur
Posnansky, who tried to apply
archaeolastronomy to the site but did so
in ways that modern scholars do not
recognize as legitimate. Posnansky
proposed a date of 15,000 B.P. (before
present, i.e. 13,000 BCE), which the
geniuses on "Ancient Aliens" misread as
15,000 BCE, adding an extra 2,000 years
onto Posnansky's already flawed dates.
Here's what he did wrong. Posnansky
assumed that the Kalasasaya temple at
Tiwanaku was laid out with perfect
accuracy to align to the equinoxes and
solstices that he felt (but could not
prove) were important to the Tiwanaku
people. Thus, on a certain day the sun was
supposed to rise above one rock at the
temple and set behind another. (Ah, but
which rock should we choose?) Since the
current ruins do not align with these
celestial events accurately, he concluded
that the ruins must have been built at a
time when they would have aligned with
that event. Since the sun and sky change
positions at a predictable rate due to the
gradual changes in the angle of the
Earth's axis, he concluded that the
Kalasasaya temple was built in 13,000 BCE
as a solar observatory, despite no other
evidence of solar astronomy at the site.
The long and the short of it is that
Posnansky assumed celestial alignments and
assumed flawless construction and then
used his assumptions to "prove" that his
assumptions were correct." Colavito also
has this picture of the site with the
caption, "Pick a rock, any rock. One of
them must align with something." This
site has been dated using a huge variety
of methods, things like carbon dating,
the type of metals they used, the debris
found in certain places, the type of
iconography they used. Literally every
kind of dating method applied comes to the
same conclusion. It was constructed in the
early Middle Ages. Before we conclude this
section on Pumapunku, there are two other
claims I wanted to address.
Däniken: The Spanish conqueror asked the
Inca, the people living there, including
the king of the Inca, 'What is this
Pumapunku?' And they all said 'It's not
us. Its not our forefather who make this.
This were made by the gods in one single
night.' Usually a king is proud about
what his people did, about the precision
and so on. In that case, the chief of the
people said 'No, it was not us. It was
the gods who made it.'
Narrator: If you understand a little about
the Incan imperial system and religion,
you will understand why the Incans didn't
claim the site, and even why they claimed
that it had a supernatural origin. Part
of the Incan state religion was that the
Incan empire was the first civilization
and it was created by God Himself. It was
a very convenient idea for bolstering the
Incan case for the right to rule everyone
else. When the Incans arrived at
Pumapunku, the site had already been
abandoned for at least a hundred years.
Admitting that there was a pre-Incan
culture at all, let alone one with more
skill than them, would have been
detrimental to the whole scheme. So they
slightly modified their already existing
mythology to include Pumapunku. So instead
of Viracocha creating the Incan capital,
he also created Pumapunku. And just like
that, the Incans were still the oldest and
greatest civilization, even though
everyone probably knew it wasn't true.
And finally, "Ancient Aliens" says the
following about what the ancient local
people believed regarding who constructed
Pumapunku:
"Ancient Aliens" Narrator: Local legends
suggest that Tiwanaku was built as a site
of religious pilgrimage to celebrate the
arrival of sky gods.
Narrator: But this is a total lie.
Viracocha came from the sea, not from the
sky. This is a very sneaky move by
"Ancient Aliens" in my opinion.
So in conclusion, the stones are not made
of granite and diorite, the stones were
easily workable with the tools available
to the Andean culture, tools which we
know included high-quality metal alloy
chisels. These tools would have been more
than sufficient to make the angles seen at
Pumapunku. The faces of the rocks have
been finished using a polishing technique
after being rough cut using stone hammers
evidenced by the unfinished stones and
hidden areas of the finished stones. The
moving of the stones was not as difficult
as "Ancient Aliens" makes it seem,
especially when you take into account that
they are telling people that the stones
weigh 600 tons more that they actually do.
The stones have telltale drag marks and
hoisting holes for ropes, all showing that
they were not levitated as "Ancient Aliens
would have us believe. We know the culture
which built this monument and all the
iconography and sculptures are consistent
with that culture. And the various methods
of dating that scientists use all point
to the same time period. The idea that
Pumapunku was from Atlantean times we
now know is based on a very transparently
flawed presupposition.
AA Narrator: Perhaps the most familiar
and most mysterious megalithic structure
in all the world is the Great Pyramid of
Giza. The enormous size and weight of the
stones, multiplied by the sheer number of
them, makes one thing certain: the
construction of the Great Pyramid remains
one of the greatest marvels and mysteries
of architectural engineering.
Narrator: The Pyramids at Giza are marvels
of engineering, and there are many
theories about how they were constructed,
from the mundane to the fantastic.
George Noory: There are all kinds of
theories on how the Great Pyramid of Giza
was built. So many theories, you just sit
back and shake your head. And that
includes E.T. visitations, levitating the
blocks with some kind of sound system.
Narrator: One place we can learn a lot
about Egyptian stone cutting methods is
from the so-called "unfinished obelisk."
Here we have a 1,000 ton obelisk made of
granite, which was abandoned midway
through the project because of a crack
that developed. This stone, because it is
unfinished, gives us direct insight into
how they cut and shaped granite, as well
as other stones. On the sides we can see
how these stones were separated from the
quarry. A team of workers would line up
side-by-side and pound their sections
with a diorite pounding stone. Such
pounding stones can be found all over this
and other quarries in Egypt. This pounding
only broke off millimeters of granite at a
time, but eventually these trough-like
sections emerged at each worker's station.
After that, they would do the same thing
on the bottom of the block, until it was
supported only by a thin spine in the
middle. Then it would be snapped off using
levers. The people who created the Moai
statues at Easter Island used very similar
methods for quarrying stone, as did many
other groups around the world, as we will
see. After the stones had been roughly
shaped using pounding stones, they would
then begin to polish them with grinders.
There have been many types of stone
grinders or polishers found in ancient
Egypt. They usually had a handle with a
flat surface, which they would use to rub
against the stone with sand as the
abrasive. They were, well, sanding the
stone. The various mineral particles found
in sand are hard enough not only to polish
hard stones like granite, but also to do
what "Ancient Aliens" tries to make people
think is utterly impossible. That is, to
cut granite. The Egyptians had a variety
of ways to cut granite, mostly involving
copper and sand. There are plenty of saw
marks on granite stones in Egypt. At the
granite quarries, of course, as well as
certain notable ones like the famous
granite sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid.
The person who is doing the sawing on the
sarcophagus sawed for a while at the wrong
angle before realizing his mistake and
going in the right direction, which left
a pretty big mark for us to study. These
copper saws came in three basic styles.
One was a two-person saw, like an old-time
lumber saw. Another type was a small hand-
held saw with a wooden handle. And finally
there was a tubular saw for making holes
in granite and other stones. These saws
are depicted in several Egyptian reliefs.
Interestingly, they didn't require saw
teeth to work. They only required sand to
be placed between the saw and the stones.
The sand was what did the cutting. This
particular method of stone cutting has
been tested by ancient Egyptian tool
experts, and not only was it done, but it
was apparently quite easy to do. However,
sawing granite with copper was expensive
because the copper would wear out somewhat
quickly. Therefore, you mostly see granite
in ancient Egypt being worked with
pounding stones, finished with grinders
and chisels. The saw work was reserved
primarily for royal projects like that of
the sarcophagus. All of this really makes
"Ancient Aliens" lose credibility because
all throughout the series, they make it
sound like working with granite was only
possible using diamond-tipped alien power
tools. But, as all this related to the
Great Pyramid's construction, it's
important to remember that almost none of
the pyramid is made from granite, except
for a few things like the roof supports
for the King's Chamber. Most of the stone
was sandstone and limestone. About 85%
of the stone used in the construction of
the pyramids was relatively soft sandstone
which was quarried right on site. That's
right, the Great Pyramid was built right
in the middle of a massive sandstone
quarry, which was no doubt at least one
factor in choosing the location to build
it. The other 15% of the stones, like that
of limestone and granite, would have to be
brought in from a slightly further away
location. So, this raises another question
What about moving these stones? Surely,
the only way is by levitation, as "Ancient
Aliens" claims.
Childress: In order to really move massive
amounts of stone like that, they would
have had to been levitated. Somehow made
weightless and then just moved through the
air by some kind of device, perhaps even a
hand-held kind of device, like some beam
weapon.
Narrator: If levitation was the way that
the ancient Egyptians moved stones, they
had a funny way of showing it because
there are plenty of depictions of them
using wooden sleds to move everything from
blocks the size and shape of the ones used
for the pyramid, to massive 1,000 ton
monuments and obelisks, all using wooden
sleds. They even had a hieroglyph for the
word "sled," which they used often. In
fact, three such sleds have been found
intact by archaeologists and they have all
kinds of places to attach ropes to.
Speaking of ropes, ropes made out of
papyrus and other materials have been
found in Egypt, some of them with a
massive circumference, suggesting they
were used for extremely heavy objects.
Boats were used for stones that needed
to be imported. In fact, a channel was
dug from the Nile to the construction site
so no stone had to be dragged very far
anyway. So, what about the construction
of the pyramids, how exactly was it done?
Part of the reason the "Ancient Aliens"
perspective is attractive is because some
of the other popular theories concerning
the pyramid's construction have problems,
such as the single ramp theory, which
would have had to extend out more than a
mile and would have had to have more
stones in it than the pyramid itself.
Another one is the spiral ramp theory.
This one is problematic because some of
the ledges only had about 2 feet or less
to work with, certainly not enough to hold
a ledge that would carry workers and
stones the size of the ones used. Also,
a structure like the pyramid would have
had to have been constantly monitored for
geometric accuracy as it progressed
upwards, because being even a few inches
off on a lower level could cause the top
to be off by a huge amount, and a spiral
ramp would have made it impossible to
survey the geometric accuracy of the
pyramid as it progressed. Add to this that
there is no actual evidence for either of
those theories, and you can see why people
are looking for alternative. While doing
research for this documentary, I came
across a new theory about the pyramid's
construction that I had not heard before.
At first I planned to mention it only
briefly, but the more I heard of this
theory, the more convinced I became of
its validity. It was proposed not by an
Egyptologist, but by an eccentric French
architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin, and if
Jean-Pierre is correct, knowing how the
blocks were raised in the pyramid also
happens to explain some of the other
mysteries, like the purpose for the odd
shaped Grand Gallery, as well as the
purpose of the granite blocks above the
King's Chamber, and why there were 3
burial chambers cut at different levels
in the pyramid, 2 of which were unused.
I will very briefly explain this theory
but I highly encourage you to visit the
links at the website on your screen
because the specifics of this theory are
something that any pyramid enthusiast
should be very familiar with, in my
opinion. The basic idea is that there was
an internal ramp in the Great Pyramid and
workers dragged the blocks through it
until they reached the corners, at which
point the the block was repositioned for
another team to pull it up the next ramp.
Also, the exterior limestone blocks with
the polished finish would have been
positioned and aligned first to ensure
geometric accuracy and then the sandstone
blocks would have been positioned behind
them as filler. This would mean that all
the internal chambers like the Queen and
King's Chamber were built as the pyramid
progressed upward in the light of day.
This internal ramp theory, unlike some of
the others, is actually supported quite a
lot of physical evidence. For example,
in the 1980's, a French team looking for
hidden chambers conducted a full-scale
gravimetric survey of the Great Pyramid,
kind of like a giant x-ray map of the
entire pyramid. They actually found
evidence of this internal ramp through
their study, but they had no idea what to
think of the spiral pattern they saw at
the time, so they