The (Supposed) History Channel

So, the other day I was watching the History Channel and it made me question the validity of their channel name.

The show I was watching was called Ancient Aliens, and it was on all day, the way History Channel has a 'theme' every day.

Now, in my more youthy youth I fully enjoyed the occasional ghost/alien/conspiracy theory special (...okay, a lot of them). The problem is even as a ten year old I had this wonderful ability called "Critical Thinking" and while it wasn't as strong as it is now I still had the ability to realize things that were unlikely if not outright impossible.

But, even then, I don't think that the crazy conspiracy shows were THIS freaking crazy.

I used to be able to get to about the 35-45 minute mark before conspiracies generally got too crazy (History Channel alien/ghost/conspiracy documentaries have pattern of starting tame and working their way up). Meaning I could tolerate a decent amount of crazy before the skeptical part of my brain took over.

Now, with the conspiracy shows (Ancient Aliens, Brad Meltzer's Decoded) start with the stretching that most shows didn't get into right away. And when I say stretch, I mean Mr. Fantastic style stretching.

Here are the tweets I made while watching this show when it was on: "Hey, remember when History Channel was about history? What happened? Ancient Aliens isn't history its baseless speculation, at best." "Seriously, I don't mind them showing alternative theories, but actually try to portray all sides fairly. Don't give into the crazy!" "It's almost like coincidence doesn't exist to these people. Seriously? Now you're trying to convince me a pharaoh might've been an alien? No" "No, no Egyptian pharaoh was ever an alien. No. Where is the sane archeologist calling out these idiots? Where is the science? DNA test even?" "Ancient Aliens, I hate you."

Yes, you probably read those tweets correctly, Ancient Aliens tried to say that Pharaoh Akhenaten (whose body we have probably found) was either an alien, or of alien descent explaining his unusual appearance (in artwork) and religion. This was Thirty minutes into a two-hour program. No expert was called in to say, "That's bullshit his DNA is completely human."

More on the decline of the History Channel later.