Saturday, March 28, 2020

A few holes in an Ancient Alien theory

Zecharia Sitchin has several books out about mankind's beginnings based on his study of the cuneiform tablets dug up from the ancient Sumerian haunts in the Middle East.  Accordingly to his theory, the 'Those who came from the Stars,' the Annunaki, traveled from the Orion constellation to earth many thousands of years ago in order to mine gold here on earth.

Once they got here, they determined that the labor required to obtain the gold was just too much for their alien hands, and so they co-opted a local species of ape (our forebearers) to make it smart enough to do the slave labor involved in mining the gold, and once they trained the slaves, they could kick back and just count the ingots that their slaves dug up.

Or words to that effect, that's the Sitchin theory.  Now, I can buy that these aliens may have appeared eons ago, and that they may have had a hand in altering the DNA in our ancestors to some extent, but what I don't buy is that they couldn't figure out how to extract gold from our planet without help.

This is a civilization that traveled through space hundreds of thousands of light years away, and once they got here, they climbed down the ladder from their space ships with a pick ax, a pan and a shovel and got frustrated at how hard gold mining was.

Gimme a break.  These guys given their technology could have melted a mountain or two with their ray guns, contained the resultant lava in their tractor beams, isolated, refined and extracted the gold from the lava, all from the comfy confines of their environmentally controlled space ships.  No need to get their hands dirty, or maybe their tentacles, whatever.

For them to monkey around with the DNA of some aboriginal primates, wait a few generations for these primates to wise up enough to take orders from the Annunaki masters, that really doesn't square with common sense.

A guy can only swallow so much malarkey.






18 comments:

LL said...

The guy should go on a no-malarky tour...oh, that's been done. Shucks.

Gold is not rare in the universe. It's created when neutron stars collide and while they don't collide all of the time, it's often enough to put a LOT of gold out there. And the Sun is not particularly rich metalically. It's somewhere in the middle. So if you want to mine gold - lots of gold, you'd go to a Star rich in metals, and mine the planets that were created during the accretion phase of stellar formation.

I saw the feature film COWBOYS AND ALIENS during my quarantine and the aliens in the film (hostile to humans) were mining gold in the desert southwest. I wonder if that's where your guy got the idea? Or maybe Hollywood stole it from him? In any event, the cowboys and Indians defeated the alien hoard and blew up their space ship. There may have been anal probing involved but the film spared us that.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Killjoy! Logic over theory?

Unknown said...

I often laugh at the theories of Erich von Daniken (author of Chariots of the Gods.)
One of his theories was that aliens had to help the ancient Egyptians because they
lacked the technology to manipulate the heavy stones to construct the pyramids. Any
culture that had the water level, the wheel, ropes, draft animals and knowledge of the
inclined plane could certainly build the pyramids.


The Romans had all of that plus multiple reeved block and tackle. Just a few years
ago, historical researchers discovered the function of some metal-reinforced slots
the walls of the Collusieum. They dropped in jib arm cranes to raise the blocks for
the walls. They may have been primitive by modern standards, but the Romans could
rig like pros.


drjim said...

Well said, Fredd!

I can't watch any of the "ancient alien" genre 'cuz it's just sooooo full of holes.

The X-Files has better basing in science than some of those shows.....

Fredd said...

LL: I think the Cowboys and Aliens script was filched from Sitchins, as the guy came up with his theory a few decades ago. Didn't see the movie, it sounded just too dang hokey for me by the title. And I don't do hokey.

Fredd said...

Unknown: the sticking point in your log rolling, rope pulling theory about building the pyramids is that each of those blocks at times weighed many tons, and to move each block hundreds of miles up the Nile from Aswan (where they were quarried) and into place, it would take many many thousands of humans working full time like dogs for hundreds of years.

The sticking point: if that's all the ancient Egyptians were doing with every able bodied man, woman and child, there was not enough food available in the entire known world at the time to fuel such an effort. And they wouldn't have had the spare time on their hands to be able to grow the crops anyway, they would be too busy pulling on those ropes and pulleys.

Nope, ropes and pulleys? Doesn't wash.

Fredd said...

Fool: logic, schmogic. It just doesn't add up. Now, don't get me wrong: I still think that the earth was lousy with aliens for many thousands of years, and that Area 51 is teeming with tentacled space creatures from outer space.

I just don't buy the proposition that these aliens needed human help doing anything.

Fredd said...

Doc: never watched the X-files. But I did see the Jetsons as a kid. Now THERE'S a show that can predict the future, no holes in the plots whatsoever.

LL said...

How can you claim to be an ancient alien theorist and not watch the X-Files (modern alien theory). They found the truth, because it was out there...season after season. Skully and Mulder were the best that the FBI had.

Kid said...

Yes, total nonsense. In fact smart people have already concluded it would be much easier and cheaper to keep sifting gold from the Earth than travel to an asteroid rich in gold, mine and bring it back. You're not traveling 1500 times 5.8 trillion miles to dig it up on Earth and why would we think aliens value gold anyway? I can see searching for resources, but gold is not a life sustaining resource.

Fredd said...

LL: yes, I know that X-Files would seem to be right up my alley. Never seen a single episode, don't ask me why. Now, I've seen every episode of Ancient Aliens, and all episodes of Wheeler Dealers. Don't ask me why.

I gave up on Shark Tank, a few years ago. But saw all of LA Law, back in the day with handsome Harry Hamlin, Susan Dey and the crew. Great stuff.

Fredd said...

Kid: gold is the perfect conductor, and is indestructible, doesn't corrode, I would think aliens would place great value on the stuff. Much like you, you old gold bug you.

Kid said...

Naw, I'm done with gold. Too much malarkey going on with that stuff. S&P500 ETFs are much easier to figure out.

drjim said...

Gold is actually a mediocre conductor. Silver is best, followed by copper, then aluminum.

Gold was used extensively in electronics because it doesn't oxidize (corrode) easily, and costs less than other similar metals.

We saw "Cowboys and Aliens" when it came out. I enjoyed it, but not as much as The X-Files, which had some hilarious episodes.

"Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is a particularly good one, along with "War of the Coprophages".

Try 'em...you'll like 'em!

Beans said...

I enjoyed "Cowboys and Aliens" because it was just stupid fun. Complete suspension of belief, therefore did not want to throw things at the screen. (Don't get me started on "Braveheart." Please don't. So much wrong, costuming, armor, people...)

As to gold? Gold, platinum, iridium, and other stuffs like silver and whatever else you need, including copper, aluminum, molybdenum and, gosh darned it, all the things you find on a planet are also found in asteroids or the cloud of garbage hanging around past the last planetary orbital. If you have the ability to go a bazillion miles away to mine gold, you also have the ability to mine your own system, without having to worry about things like gravity, alien bugs, alien sentients, cows, messed up atmospheres, alien cows, alien pseudo-cows. Seriously, ever try doing anything around cows? Cows screw things up...

My personal hatred of "Ancient Aliens" is the thought that Man can't think for himself and therefore must have had an alien to teach and do things. Right up there with 'Columbus proved the world was round, before then everyone knew it was flat.' Um... yeah... no.

Ooooh, bunch of Southsea Islanders made a city 1500 years ago. Current SSI are stupid as a box of rocks, therefore city couldn't be made by them... Bunch of ancient Celto-Brits made Stonehenge, but current Brits are dumb as a box of rocks, so Aliens must have moved the stones. Bunch of ancient Egyptians made the pyramids but current Egyptians are dumb as a box of rocks so Aliens....

I could go on and on and on. Like I tend to do. But... Aliens.... yeah, no.

Fredd said...

Beans: in this example, my credulity was stretched by the theory that these aliens needed our help in mining gold (they didn't). But I am not ruling out the possibility (probability) that aliens have been here before. Too much evidence to ignore.

And those stones that our stone age people moved effortlessly, when even today we can't do what was done thousands of years ago. Pulleys, ropes, logs, that also stretches credulity.

LSP said...

Ah, Fredd, you've hit the nail on the head of the Stitchin theory. An ET race with FTL (presumably) tech wouldn't need to gin up a bunch of apes to dig up gold. They'd have 'bots directed by AIs or something.

That aside, some say ZS's archeoastronomy has merit. I wouldn't know, being a bit rusty. But Annunaki gene splicing apes to produce humans? Perhaps, but not as miners. Politicians?

Fredd said...

Padre: I have not read a single book by ZS, and only know about his works watching 'Ancient Aliens'. As far as gene splicing apes, both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer must have skipped out on the Annunaki splicing bee as they are still dumber than chimpanzees. (and everybody who votes for them as well).