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Faking History: Essays on Aliens, Atlantis, Monsters, and More
Could the story of earth’s history be radically different than historians and archaeologists have led us to believe? Cable television, book publishers, and a bewildering array of websites tell us that human history is a tapestry of aliens, Atlantis, monsters, and more. But is there any truth to these “alternatives” to mainstream history?
Since 2001, skeptical xenoarchaeologist Jason Colavito has investigated the weird, the wild, and the wacky in search of the truth about ancient history. He interrogates “alternative” history’s most important claims to reveal the real facts that sit behind the speculation.
What you are about to read is a collection of fifty of Colavito’s best essays on fake history and false claims, covering everything from Atlantis to Chupacabra to Stonehenge to UFOs, and even the demonic power of the humble dinner fork. Across these essays Colavito shines the light of reason to separate fact from speculation, to expose lies and fraud, and to get to the bottom of what’s behind claims for ancient astronauts and “alternative” history—drawing on the actual ancient texts TV’s talking heads don’t want you to actually read.
If you’ve ever wondered whether cable TV documentaries are telling you the truth about aliens and Atlantis, read on and learn what TV won’t tell you about faking history…
Since 2001, skeptical xenoarchaeologist Jason Colavito has investigated the weird, the wild, and the wacky in search of the truth about ancient history. He interrogates “alternative” history’s most important claims to reveal the real facts that sit behind the speculation.
What you are about to read is a collection of fifty of Colavito’s best essays on fake history and false claims, covering everything from Atlantis to Chupacabra to Stonehenge to UFOs, and even the demonic power of the humble dinner fork. Across these essays Colavito shines the light of reason to separate fact from speculation, to expose lies and fraud, and to get to the bottom of what’s behind claims for ancient astronauts and “alternative” history—drawing on the actual ancient texts TV’s talking heads don’t want you to actually read.
If you’ve ever wondered whether cable TV documentaries are telling you the truth about aliens and Atlantis, read on and learn what TV won’t tell you about faking history…
320 pages, Paperback
First published March 21, 2013
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August 18, 2023
A COLLECTION OF COLAVITO’S ARTICLES FROM SKEPTICAL PUBLICATIONS
Author Jason Colavito wrote in the Introduction to this 2013 book, “In 2009, the History Channel screened ‘Ancient Aliens,’ a two-hour special intended as a pilot for a future series… I got a phone call from my father telling me that … [they] saw my name in it. I turned on the show in a subsequent showing, and there I was … my name prominently displayed. The narrator was discussed von Däniken’s theories … As scare quotes I never said scrolled across my name… and my name burst into an evil blood red---implying without words that the show took a negative view of my work… ‘Ancient Aliens’ rekindled my passion for truth, and in the intervening years, I have investigated hundreds of claims made by every manner of alternative historian… I have published these in… Skeptic magazine… as well as my website… What you are about to read is a collection of fifty of my best essays on fake history and false claims…”
He observes, “von Däniken’s most important source was not scientific literature, or even first-hand observation; instead, von Däniken derived much of his information and wild speculation from ‘The Morning of the Magicians.’ [Authors] Pauwels and Bergier misquote out-of-con text passages from Vedic Indian literature to claim that India experienced atomic warfare ten thousand years ago… von Däniken … repeated these claims for an international audience…” (Pg. 80)
He notes, “David Hatcher Childress… In his ‘Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria and the Pacific’ … mistakenly called ‘Cukra’ in ‘Morning,’ has now become ‘Gurkha’ … This incurred because Erich von Däniken, or his publisher, mistakenly transliterated Cukra as Gurkha in the German edition of ‘Chariots of the Gods?’ … in Childress the material has been rearranged lines altered words dropped, and ellipses added… So now we have a conflated, rewritten version of an English translation of a questionable French translation of a Sanskrit original. ‘Authentic verses’ indeed.” (Pg. 96-97)
He recounts, “A British engineer named James Churchward… falsely claiming to be a colonel… decided to invent his own lost world… He removed the Naacal from the Maya lands and placed them instead on Mu, a fictitious Pacific continent… Of course no Naaca tablets have ever been brought to light, and they are obviously a fiction… Churchward was familiar with the tenets of Theosophy…While I can’t confirm that Churchward was directly copying Blavatsky, the parallels between the two make independence rather unlikely…” (Pg. 101-103)
He explains, “von Däniken claimed in ‘The Gold of the Gods’ [that Ecuadorian caves] contained a vast library of … writings of an alien civilization. Von Däniken had claimed … to have personally visited this metal library, but he was forced to admit that he had fabricated his account … after its alleged discoverer… stated that he had never taken von Däniken to the cave. In an interview with Playboy magazine … von Däniken claimed his false personal account was … ‘theatrical effect’ (i.e., dramatic license) and that the cave really existed, though he would not travel there himself because he feared the Ecuadorian would assassinate him… and ‘I really don’t care too much’ about the only extraterrestrial artifacts that could prove his theories beyond doubt.” (Pg. 105) Von Däniken continued to write books, but they sold fewer copies, and he was no longer the media darling…” (Pg. 106-107)
He argues, “Ignatius Donnelly, Erich von Däniken, and Giorgio Tsoukalos have chosen to interpret some ‘ancient texts’ literally and others symbolically, mostly according to how well these texts support their preconceived notions… this ad hoc method supports diametrically opposed results with equal certainty. Any attempt to impose a blanket rule---even the ancient astronaut theorists’ own rule… that texts should be taken at face value---inevitably produces a paradox whereby ‘ancient texts’ confirm and deny the same ‘facts.’ The reason for this should be obvious: ‘Ancient texts’ are no monolithic, literal records of what happened in the past… Every ancient document has its own unique history, composition, biases, and … even false and fictitious elements… [rather than to] attempt to use the texts to justify a prefabricated theory.” (Pg. 135)
He suggests, “I find Genesis 6:4 interesting, but I think it belongs in the boarder context of early Near Eastern myth… We know that in other Near Eastern cultures, the gods had sons and these sons were considered superhuman beings… By 100 BCE, the writers of the Jewish apocryphal text called the ‘Book of Giants’ … included … antediluvian giants. This… suggests that there was a tradition that the giants of Genesis reflected a Jewish interpretation of the widespread Near Eastern claim that the giants of old were the sons of the pagan gods… it seems to me that the origins of Genesis 6:4 are to be found in Near Eastern hero stories that would have been the common folk culture of the region.” (Pg. 164-165)
He says of Ivan Van Sertima’s book ‘They Came Before Columbus,’ “In discussing the alleged ‘connections’ between the Nubian people of the Sudan and the Olmecs of Mexico, van Sertima make a rather bizarre argument that … the Nubians … adopted and modified Egyptian culture, building their own pyramids and making statues of Egyptian gods… He first identifies that … dogs in ancient Egypt … were mummified by pharaohs… He then … says that the ‘Nubians,’ whom he confuses with Kushites, ‘were fascinated by horses’ and buried HORSES in Kushite royal tombs along with full chariots… Van Sertima intends us to believe that the Olmec were visited by the Kushites during the high point of their culture… Van Sertima relies entirely upon one academic journal article for this claim: Gordon F. Ekholm’s 1946 ‘American Antiquity’ article ‘Wheeled Toys in Mexico.’ … It’s painful to see that entire careers can be built on misunderstandings, fabrications, and likes just because no one ever bothered to check the sources.” (Pg. 200-203)
He concludes, “The false mysteries of fake history haven’t changed more than an iota in more than one hundred and fifty years. Ignatius Donnelly’s ‘Atlantis: The Antediluvian World’ (1882) set the stage for ‘alternative’ history… Science has demonstrated the falsity of … a sunken continent existing in the Atlantic; the wild dissimilarities in composition, purpose, and date of the Old and New World pyramids; the elaborate evolutionary tree of Indo-European myth… And yet… No matter how much work archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, history, biology, and every other discipline put in to explaining the human past, ‘alternative’ theories never change… How else can we explain why ‘alternative’ authors still rely on sources that were out of date when Donnelly used them in 1882?... Arguments that were speculative in the 1860s do not become suddenly true against facts simply by virtue of age… The saddest thing is that a century from now, those who truly care about history will still be fighting the same battles against the same purveyors of false history.” (Pg. 296-297)
This book will be of keen interest to those seeking critiques of ‘ancient astronaut’ theories, etc.
Author Jason Colavito wrote in the Introduction to this 2013 book, “In 2009, the History Channel screened ‘Ancient Aliens,’ a two-hour special intended as a pilot for a future series… I got a phone call from my father telling me that … [they] saw my name in it. I turned on the show in a subsequent showing, and there I was … my name prominently displayed. The narrator was discussed von Däniken’s theories … As scare quotes I never said scrolled across my name… and my name burst into an evil blood red---implying without words that the show took a negative view of my work… ‘Ancient Aliens’ rekindled my passion for truth, and in the intervening years, I have investigated hundreds of claims made by every manner of alternative historian… I have published these in… Skeptic magazine… as well as my website… What you are about to read is a collection of fifty of my best essays on fake history and false claims…”
He observes, “von Däniken’s most important source was not scientific literature, or even first-hand observation; instead, von Däniken derived much of his information and wild speculation from ‘The Morning of the Magicians.’ [Authors] Pauwels and Bergier misquote out-of-con text passages from Vedic Indian literature to claim that India experienced atomic warfare ten thousand years ago… von Däniken … repeated these claims for an international audience…” (Pg. 80)
He notes, “David Hatcher Childress… In his ‘Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria and the Pacific’ … mistakenly called ‘Cukra’ in ‘Morning,’ has now become ‘Gurkha’ … This incurred because Erich von Däniken, or his publisher, mistakenly transliterated Cukra as Gurkha in the German edition of ‘Chariots of the Gods?’ … in Childress the material has been rearranged lines altered words dropped, and ellipses added… So now we have a conflated, rewritten version of an English translation of a questionable French translation of a Sanskrit original. ‘Authentic verses’ indeed.” (Pg. 96-97)
He recounts, “A British engineer named James Churchward… falsely claiming to be a colonel… decided to invent his own lost world… He removed the Naacal from the Maya lands and placed them instead on Mu, a fictitious Pacific continent… Of course no Naaca tablets have ever been brought to light, and they are obviously a fiction… Churchward was familiar with the tenets of Theosophy…While I can’t confirm that Churchward was directly copying Blavatsky, the parallels between the two make independence rather unlikely…” (Pg. 101-103)
He explains, “von Däniken claimed in ‘The Gold of the Gods’ [that Ecuadorian caves] contained a vast library of … writings of an alien civilization. Von Däniken had claimed … to have personally visited this metal library, but he was forced to admit that he had fabricated his account … after its alleged discoverer… stated that he had never taken von Däniken to the cave. In an interview with Playboy magazine … von Däniken claimed his false personal account was … ‘theatrical effect’ (i.e., dramatic license) and that the cave really existed, though he would not travel there himself because he feared the Ecuadorian would assassinate him… and ‘I really don’t care too much’ about the only extraterrestrial artifacts that could prove his theories beyond doubt.” (Pg. 105) Von Däniken continued to write books, but they sold fewer copies, and he was no longer the media darling…” (Pg. 106-107)
He argues, “Ignatius Donnelly, Erich von Däniken, and Giorgio Tsoukalos have chosen to interpret some ‘ancient texts’ literally and others symbolically, mostly according to how well these texts support their preconceived notions… this ad hoc method supports diametrically opposed results with equal certainty. Any attempt to impose a blanket rule---even the ancient astronaut theorists’ own rule… that texts should be taken at face value---inevitably produces a paradox whereby ‘ancient texts’ confirm and deny the same ‘facts.’ The reason for this should be obvious: ‘Ancient texts’ are no monolithic, literal records of what happened in the past… Every ancient document has its own unique history, composition, biases, and … even false and fictitious elements… [rather than to] attempt to use the texts to justify a prefabricated theory.” (Pg. 135)
He suggests, “I find Genesis 6:4 interesting, but I think it belongs in the boarder context of early Near Eastern myth… We know that in other Near Eastern cultures, the gods had sons and these sons were considered superhuman beings… By 100 BCE, the writers of the Jewish apocryphal text called the ‘Book of Giants’ … included … antediluvian giants. This… suggests that there was a tradition that the giants of Genesis reflected a Jewish interpretation of the widespread Near Eastern claim that the giants of old were the sons of the pagan gods… it seems to me that the origins of Genesis 6:4 are to be found in Near Eastern hero stories that would have been the common folk culture of the region.” (Pg. 164-165)
He says of Ivan Van Sertima’s book ‘They Came Before Columbus,’ “In discussing the alleged ‘connections’ between the Nubian people of the Sudan and the Olmecs of Mexico, van Sertima make a rather bizarre argument that … the Nubians … adopted and modified Egyptian culture, building their own pyramids and making statues of Egyptian gods… He first identifies that … dogs in ancient Egypt … were mummified by pharaohs… He then … says that the ‘Nubians,’ whom he confuses with Kushites, ‘were fascinated by horses’ and buried HORSES in Kushite royal tombs along with full chariots… Van Sertima intends us to believe that the Olmec were visited by the Kushites during the high point of their culture… Van Sertima relies entirely upon one academic journal article for this claim: Gordon F. Ekholm’s 1946 ‘American Antiquity’ article ‘Wheeled Toys in Mexico.’ … It’s painful to see that entire careers can be built on misunderstandings, fabrications, and likes just because no one ever bothered to check the sources.” (Pg. 200-203)
He concludes, “The false mysteries of fake history haven’t changed more than an iota in more than one hundred and fifty years. Ignatius Donnelly’s ‘Atlantis: The Antediluvian World’ (1882) set the stage for ‘alternative’ history… Science has demonstrated the falsity of … a sunken continent existing in the Atlantic; the wild dissimilarities in composition, purpose, and date of the Old and New World pyramids; the elaborate evolutionary tree of Indo-European myth… And yet… No matter how much work archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, history, biology, and every other discipline put in to explaining the human past, ‘alternative’ theories never change… How else can we explain why ‘alternative’ authors still rely on sources that were out of date when Donnelly used them in 1882?... Arguments that were speculative in the 1860s do not become suddenly true against facts simply by virtue of age… The saddest thing is that a century from now, those who truly care about history will still be fighting the same battles against the same purveyors of false history.” (Pg. 296-297)
This book will be of keen interest to those seeking critiques of ‘ancient astronaut’ theories, etc.
February 24, 2019
FAKING HISTORY is a collection of essays on (pseudo-)history and (pseudo-)archaeology, often on the theme of Erich von Daniken's CHARIOTS OF THE GODS? and related "ancient astronaut" nonsense but digressing into other things, like "Lost Tribe" pseudo-anthropology "proving" that Native Americans weren't the first human population in the New World (because Bible and racism); Afrocentrism proving that Africa did everything first; and so on. I remember enjoying this a lot more back in 2014, but I think it's because I lacked perspective. There are better, meatier works of skeptical inquiry out there, and this book is a collection of blog posts and popular articles.
That means Colavito spends a lot of time ridiculing the various "researchers" (and to be sure, they are ridiculous) and little time laying out the scholarly consensus - those times he does this are the clear winners of the collection. A valuable theme to take away is the cyclic nature of pseudo-scholarship: many of these "theories" can be traced back to a single source, misreading, misinterpretation, hoax, fraud, etc., with all future iterations flowing outward from it. Pseudo-scholarship is, if nothing else, lazy. The best overall chapters are Colavito's own argument that the entire "ancient astronaut theory" (specifically that physical aliens visited earth in the distant past and physically influenced the mostly non-European human societies) was derived from the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft via some guys in France (who were then shamelessly plagiarized by Erich von Daniken).
2 stars; not compelling enough for newbies, not meaty enough for the informed reader of skeptical literature. Though maybe I'm being too harsh, since neither L. Sprague de Camp's LOST CONTINENTS nor (especially!) Clifford A. Wilson's CRASH GO THE CHARIOTS were particularly scholarly in their treatment. (The gold standard there is still THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE MYSTERY---SOLVED!)
That means Colavito spends a lot of time ridiculing the various "researchers" (and to be sure, they are ridiculous) and little time laying out the scholarly consensus - those times he does this are the clear winners of the collection. A valuable theme to take away is the cyclic nature of pseudo-scholarship: many of these "theories" can be traced back to a single source, misreading, misinterpretation, hoax, fraud, etc., with all future iterations flowing outward from it. Pseudo-scholarship is, if nothing else, lazy. The best overall chapters are Colavito's own argument that the entire "ancient astronaut theory" (specifically that physical aliens visited earth in the distant past and physically influenced the mostly non-European human societies) was derived from the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft via some guys in France (who were then shamelessly plagiarized by Erich von Daniken).
2 stars; not compelling enough for newbies, not meaty enough for the informed reader of skeptical literature. Though maybe I'm being too harsh, since neither L. Sprague de Camp's LOST CONTINENTS nor (especially!) Clifford A. Wilson's CRASH GO THE CHARIOTS were particularly scholarly in their treatment. (The gold standard there is still THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE MYSTERY---SOLVED!)
December 25, 2017
The present volume consists of a collection of essays by Jason Colavito which do an excellent job demolishing the Ancient Astronaut Theory (AAT). Which is something of shame because I've been very fond of it. Back in my late teens, I read tons on this issue and for a time, I was hooked. But at the encouragement of a co-worker at the time, I read more. And the more I read on the "mysteries" Ancient Astronaut Theorists present, the more they turned out to not be so mysterious at all.
Out of all the fringe theories (ghosts are real, bigfoot stomps around North America, Gods and angels, etc), the Ancient Astronaut Theory has been my favorite and I always felt had the most realistic chance of having some merit. Unfortunately, even the "best" evidence is swiped out from under you in Colavito's "Faking History".
Faking History doesn't only consist of arguments against AAT, there's essays working over rumors of Atlantis and Mu, Ignatius Donnelly and the like. There's a chapter on the origin of a mystery school out of Dracula and Theosophy, the Pyramids of Giza, living dinosaurs in the deep jungle, who discovered America (pre-Columbus lore). But the majority is a demolition of the AAT.
If you're a fan of the History Channels, "Ancient Aliens" or Erich von Daniken and the like, I can't recommend this book more. If you're honest, after reading it, you can't take it seriously afterwards.
Out of all the fringe theories (ghosts are real, bigfoot stomps around North America, Gods and angels, etc), the Ancient Astronaut Theory has been my favorite and I always felt had the most realistic chance of having some merit. Unfortunately, even the "best" evidence is swiped out from under you in Colavito's "Faking History".
Faking History doesn't only consist of arguments against AAT, there's essays working over rumors of Atlantis and Mu, Ignatius Donnelly and the like. There's a chapter on the origin of a mystery school out of Dracula and Theosophy, the Pyramids of Giza, living dinosaurs in the deep jungle, who discovered America (pre-Columbus lore). But the majority is a demolition of the AAT.
If you're a fan of the History Channels, "Ancient Aliens" or Erich von Daniken and the like, I can't recommend this book more. If you're honest, after reading it, you can't take it seriously afterwards.
January 22, 2024
An excellent compilation of Colavito's whole work that englobes most of the different topics he has developed in his ouvre (Lovecraft influence, misinterpretations of classical texts, ufos, pyramids, mythological justifications, etc.).
I'd recommend this to anyone who is interested in those themes and / or wants to an approach to Colavito's books. From here one can one to any one of his more specifics texts.
The only downside is that some times it gets repetitive, but that in itself is a vice of the author that repeats in his bibliography.
I'd recommend this to anyone who is interested in those themes and / or wants to an approach to Colavito's books. From here one can one to any one of his more specifics texts.
The only downside is that some times it gets repetitive, but that in itself is a vice of the author that repeats in his bibliography.
April 20, 2022
If only the ancient astronauts people did this level of research. I first reccomend reading his The Cult Of Alien Gods.
So apparently Ancient Aliens took a moment in their season 1 pilot episode to paint David Colavito in a negative light :D So this book is pretty much a response to that. You go, David :)
So apparently Ancient Aliens took a moment in their season 1 pilot episode to paint David Colavito in a negative light :D So this book is pretty much a response to that. You go, David :)
August 20, 2020
Excellent essays but the book would have been greatly helped by better editing. There were lots of typos.
September 1, 2019
Returning from his previous work exploring the connections between Lovecraftian fiction and the ancient astronaut conspiracy, Jason Colavito continues to debunk pseudo-history and pseudo-archaeological theories, mainly revolving around Erik von Däniken and ancient Atlantean conspiracies. He does an excellent job in these 50+ essays, clearly outlining the shoddy scholarship, blatant lies, and mendacity of pedlars of alternative history.
You can feel Colavito's increasing exasperation with men like von Däniken who continue to peddle their false claims even in the modern era, disguised once again in racialist terms or anti-government screeds. Colavito has a sounder argument in this than in Cult of Alien Gods but the central premise is the same: fake history harms real historical scholarship and damages historical literacy in the public.
You can feel Colavito's increasing exasperation with men like von Däniken who continue to peddle their false claims even in the modern era, disguised once again in racialist terms or anti-government screeds. Colavito has a sounder argument in this than in Cult of Alien Gods but the central premise is the same: fake history harms real historical scholarship and damages historical literacy in the public.
September 22, 2014
Shooting fish in a barrel, Colavito debunks some of the dumbest and most egregious alternative history theories in the 50 short essays collected in this volume.
This could have been fun, but the book is repetitive and rather dull.
This could have been fun, but the book is repetitive and rather dull.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews