On Advanced Prehistoric Civilizations, Space Aliens, and the Alleged Genetic Engineering of the Human Species (especially the first two)

“Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.” ―Plato, Timaeus/Critias

     Now that I am living in America and not in a cave in tropical Asia, and now that I am interacting with westerners on a relatively (for me) large scale, and now that I am coming across more countercultural (or just fringe) theories regarding the world in general, I have encountered many times by now certain theories regarding humanity that are very interesting, even if I do not entirely accept them. Some people that I like and admire believe these theories. So, because I am continually coming across these beliefs I intend to give my take on three of the big ones, namely: 1) the idea that technologically advanced (maybe even more advanced than us) civilizations existed on this earth in prehistoric times; 2) the idea that alien beings are coming to this earth in UFOs with some sort of agenda, possibly with certain government agencies knowing all about it; and 3) the idea that we humans, members of the species Homo sapiens, have been artificially created by the non-human beings mentioned in the second idea, and did not evolve entirely naturally in accordance with more or less Darwinian theories. Those of you who watch me on the Brian Ruhe Show will be familiar with my arguments, but here they are in condensed form, in the form of printed words.

1) Advanced Prehistoric Civilizations.

     The arguments in favor of technologically advanced antediluvian civilizations usually point to stone monuments and buildings. The structures are assembled so skillfully that a knife blade cannot be inserted between the blocks of stone, and archeologists often have no clear idea of how they could have been built, or how the stone blocks could have been cut so straightly and smoothly, or how they could have been moved many miles to the building site. Also some of these structures evidently are built at points that form some remarkable geometrical configuration with other such structures in other, very distant parts of the world. Also the building techniques in these distant places may be similar, which suggests communication over thousands of miles in prehistoric times, itself suggesting a vast civilization. And then there are claims that some structures, like pyramids, generate energy in some mysterious way.

     My first and main argument against all of this is that these structures are still made of stone, and are thus NOT indicative of a technologically very advanced civilization. Nowadays with our relatively high level of technology such stone structures are obsolete, but that is the only kind that remains from these presumedly advanced prehistoric civilizations. All it would take would be an aluminum pyramid or two to clinch the argument decisively, or even some steel girders reinforcing the masonry like we have today, but there is none. Structures remaining from the stone age are all of stone, as would be expected. Also in the archeological digs around these sites there are no artifacts found that are made of materials not in keeping with the age of the structure, or later than that age—there are no high tech remains other than a few problematic anomalies, like maybe a crude battery…which also happens to be made of stone, or maybe pottery.

     The argument to explain this is that materials other than stone cannot survive thousands of years without disintegrating, but that is not necessarily true. If some modern technological object is exposed to the elements for thousands or just hundreds of years, it will probably weather away to dust or to nothing, true. But if it is covered by mud or earth or some such it may last tens of thousands of years. Just a few decades ago in the UK, for example, wooden spears were uncovered which were approximately 100,000 years old, even before the presumed advent of Homo sapiens, because they had been buried in mud and preserved. And thus far nothing remarkably high tech has been found in this way. So prehistoric technologically advanced civilizations may have existed, but at present there is no hard evidence in favor of that other than inexplicable construction techniques for stone structures, possibly coincidental positions, and reports of mysterious energy, of which, if it truly exists, the builders themselves may have been oblivious.

     There is still the possibility that there was an advanced civilization somewhere in the temperate zone, but the mile-thick ice sheets of the latest glaciation of the Ice Age wiped out all sign of it. But that is conjecture not backed up by evidence of course. I am still waiting for an aluminum pyramid, or at least a prehistoric pop can.

     Before moving on to the next grand theory I will mention that the most well-known ancient advanced civilization proposed by advocates is Atlantis. I have read the oldest known mention of Atlantis in the dialogues of Plato, and my guess based on that is that the “continent of Atlantis” was really the island of Crete, with the great civilization being the Minoan or Aegean Civilization. After all, in the original legend as told by Plato, the Atlanteans attempted to conquer Greece and were defeated by a coalition of city-states led by Athens. So if a group of Bronze Age Greeks were able to defeat them it is improbable that the Atlantean soldiers were armed with anything so advanced as rifles, rockets, or vorpal blades. It may simply be a garbled ancient account of the Cretans attempting to conquer the mainland of Mycenaean Greece, but failing. According to the legend Atlantis sank under the sea, but this also could be a garbled version of the end of the Minoan Civilization, which was preceded by the explosion of the volcanic island of Thera just seventy miles from the coast of Crete, itself a populated island of the Crete-based empire, which covered the larger island with volcanic ash, crashing its agricultural economy, and may have destroyed much of the Minoan navy with accompanying tsunamis. Some time after this Crete itself was invaded and conquered by Greeks, who based their new civilization on the more advanced but still Bronze Age Aegean Civilization.

     I may as well add to that theory on Atlantis a brief explanation of the claim, included in the quote from Plato above, that the Athenian army was also destroyed at the same time as Atlantis. This would fit my theory nicely, as the temporary loss of Athens’ glory and military might could easily be explained by the Bronze Age Collapse which occurred around 1200 BCE, shortly after the fall of the Minoan Civilization on Crete. A number of calamities, which included the destruction of the Minoan Civilization, resulted in a thorough collapse of civilization in the eastern Mediterranean, and the end of the Bronze Age, leading to the new Iron Age. But I have written about that fascinating topic elsewhere.

     Also I may as well add that another argument commonly relied upon by proponents of this as well as many other unorthodox theories is that there is a centuries-long worldwide conspiracy to hide the evidence of these great prehistoric civilizations because…reasons, like maybe the aforementioned societies were caucasian and thereby politically incorrect. But centuries-long worldwide conspiracies requiring hundreds of nations, some of whom hate each other and defy each other’s agendas, are very unlikely to be real, just going with Occam’s Razor as well as the natural human propensity not to keep huge secrets very well. I move on.

2) UFOs and Space Aliens.

     First I would like to say that some UFOs evidently are a legitimate phenomenon. That is, not all of them are secret military projects, deliberate hoaxes, and/or overly credulous misidentifications. So in my honest opinion there very probably are some kind of beings visiting this earth and observing us humans. But this does not mean that they are necessarily flying through space from planets orbiting other stars.

     One of the most suspicious aspects of encounters with “aliens” is that they are almost always humanoid if not downright human in their appearance. Having a degree in biology and a grasp of how evolution is supposed to work, I simply cannot believe that beings closely resembling humans are likely to evolve independently of us on some other planet. This is just the same kind of lack of imagination on the part of their advocates that ancient pagans had with regard to their gods—a belief that higher beings or beings from beyond the natural scheme of this world are like us, and thus like glorified apes. Hell, even monotheists have their God, even if he is formless, manifesting emotional foibles that are all too human. It is possible that aliens have enlisted humans as minions to interact with the rest of us, or that aliens that resemble us are much more likely to take an interest and come all the way to earth to observe us, but I think other explanations may be more likely.

     What seems most likely to me, considering the human or humanoid appearance of practically all visiting “aliens” (and even the greys and reptilians look like people in alien suits, with two legs, upright posture, two arms, two eyes, and usually two nostrils between the eyes and the single mouth), is that these beings, assuming of course that they are coming here, are coming not through the vastness of space but rather sideways through probability, or whatever extra dimensions there are besides space and time. If there are an infinite number of earths, for example in accordance with the Many Worlds Hypothesis, then some alt-humans who are more advanced than us may know how to come and observe us, perhaps just to see how a somewhat different variation on their world is functioning. Possibly it’s “alien scientists” just studying us for the sake of knowledge and trying to leave as little impact from their visits as possible.

     It may be, for all I know, that what are called greys today may have been called elves or sprites or devas or daemons or some such in earlier ages. Also they may even be more or less physical manifestations of deep subconscious archetypes. But if they are really alien beings from other planets in space, then at least that would help to resolve the Fermi Paradox (that is, the strange situation of us being apparently the only intelligent life in the observable universe, as we are not detecting any sorts of artificial signals anywhere in the vastness of space, and they ought to be there).

     With regard to conspiracy theories, I would not be at all surprised if the American government and other governments know more about these phenomena than they admit; though I am skeptical of the idea that they have already reverse-engineered alien technology that they keep secret and are deliberately shooting down alien vehicles for the sake of obtaining more of it. As with the prehistoric advanced civilizations, all it would take is the alien equivalent of a tossed pop can being discovered and put on public display for the situation to become fairly straightforward (even if still mostly inexplicable), but of course that hasn’t happened yet. My best guess is still that any genuinely nonhuman beings coming here from off-world are coming sideways through probability, which may also be the case with creatures like Bigfoot or even certain kinds of “spirits.”

     Before moving on I may as well observe that possibly the best-known alleged case of alien interaction with humans, in the USA anyway, is the alleged crashed flying saucer at Roswell, New Mexico back in the 1940s. And I am sorry to disappoint those of you who had high hopes for me, but I do think the official narrative put out by the US military spokesmen is pretty plausible, and I have no good reason not to accept it. The official narrative is 1) an actual UFO had been sighted by a military pilot flying over the state of Washington (I think) shortly before the incident, which got people into a kind of flying saucer craze; followed by 2) a kind of experimental radar deflector made of a weather balloon with metal foil taped onto it (with the tape bought surplus from a toy manufacturer so that it had a kind of hieroglyphic-looking floral design on it), crashed in a farmer’s field and could not be acknowledged as such because it was still a classified experiment; and 3) the blue alien bodies seen lying around the crashed saucer were actually from a different experiment conducted in a desert area, in which crash dummies were flung from an airplane to determine the physical damage incurred by people whose parachute doesn’t open. The blue bodies were not reported publicly until many years later, by a couple who at the time were presumably messing around in the desert and accidentally happened upon the blue dummies lying around on the ground as though dead…at which point a military jeep pulled up with a soldier yelling at them to get the hell out of there. Of course this official narrative may be false, but I see no persuasive evidence to reject it out of hand. I move on to the next one, next time.