History Channel and Aliens...really?

It makes me sad when I see the History channel airing shows like Ancient Aliens.

Although I completely believe in the likeliness of there being intelligent space traveling life more advanced than our own out there, I have a hard time listening to some of the 'facts' people are trying to pass off as evidence of past alien visits to Earth.

This blog is meant to clear up some of the more commonly heard rumors and myths that supposedly stack up as 'evidence' to many Ancient Alien theorists. What's sad, is most of the information I'll present has been found by doing a few quick google searches :/

It seems to me, that many people who claim to be 'ancient alien theorists' have almost taken it to be a new religion or way of life. And with many religions, despite having hard facts in front of the believer, they choose to ignore or discredit them for one reason or another. The thing is, ancient alien theorists claim to have actual scientific and factual evidence behind their way of thinking, when they don't.

There are numerous fallacies that appear over and over again in these types of shows.

1) Appeal to authority - Using an authority figure to make an argument seem more valid. Often 'authors' and 'experts' are interviewed to give claims of ordinary people more credibility. It is few and far between when we hear from an actual historian, or anthropologist.

2) Argument from ignorance - Assuming a claim is true, because it cannot be proven false."Well there is NO way humans could have made something like this, therefore, it must be Aliens".

3) Straw man argument - A misrepresentation of the opponents position. Sometimes when a fact is presented to discredit ancient alien theory, the believers in ancient alien theory will say something along the lines of 'well how can you not believe there is intelligent life out there?'.

I'm sure there are more. Just take a read through 'Chariot's of the Gods' and you can pick out a fallacy on almost every page. Anyway, I've gotten off track a bit, but I'm not a professional writer and this blog is mostly for my own peace of mind. So, hope you enjoy!