Ancient Aliens will never cease to amaze me with its lazy fallacious arguments presented as ironclad evidence for their ideas. In Season 14, Episode 12, Islands of Fire, they turn to bastardizing Hawaiian legends to support their spurious claims. Jason Colavito does a good job dismantling this episode and others though their mythological, archaeological, and historical claims, but another claim caught my attention in particular.
As is often the case in many cultures, the Hawaiian royal family are claimed to be direct descendants from the gods. To the ancient alien theorists , this is taken at face value to prove their ideas. I see instead a recurring theme where power-hungry control freaks lie to people as justification for their power grabs. It is much more probable, considering the dearth of evidence despite 14 seasons of repetitive nonsense posing as documentary proof.
Historically, we see a few basic claims:
- "I am a god. Obey me or die!"
- "I am descended from the gods. Obey me or die!
- "I was chosen by the gods. Obey me or die!
Only in the past few hundred years have the ideas of democracy replaced these theocratic claims with "the will of the people," which falls apart just as quickly as ancient aliens theory under any rigorous analysis. Are extraterrestrials responsible for past or present human development? Do governments represent and serve the populations they govern? The answer to both is, "no." At least, I have not seen a speck of evidence that can withstand scrutiny.