If you’ve spent any amount of time watching the History Channel, you know about the ongoing series “Ancient Aliens.” For those not initiated into the realm of fringe historiography, Ancient Alien theorists believe that Aliens provided the knowledge and expertise for ancient peoples to build their great cities and to develop advanced technology that has since been lost. In some cases, it is believed that ancient peoples interbred with aliens or tried to emulate them. The common assumption is that anything that people living in the ancient world interpreted in religious terms (spirits, gods, angels, etc.) was in fact of alien origin.
To say that ancient alien theories are outside mainstream historical circles would be a great understatement. But what interests me is not what these theories say about the ancient world, but what they say about us. As any good history student knows, sometimes historiography says as much about the present as the past. So what does the popularly of ancient alien theories say about us? Perhaps it indicates a paradoxical rejection of, and at the same time fascination with the mysterious. On one level, it seems difficult to accept mystery. After all, the fact is we still don’t know how the ancients built some of their monumental structures or accomplished such a high degree of architectural precision. And we know that the ancient world was much more technologically advanced than we might believe at first glance. So our first instinct is to find some sort of explanation that alleviates the tension that we feel when we realize how much we don’t know. But on another level, these theories speak to our simultaneous fascination with mystery, the sensational, and the attraction to conspiracy theories. Using aliens to explain the past may be bad history, but the History Channel is well aware that it makes for good ratings!
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