Ancient Aliens, Easter Island, and Truth

For a safe and sane society, reason and science must take precedence over fantasy and entertainment, for reality cannot be fooled

It began the morning of February 7, 2024, with an email from PBS that they just released for online viewing their NOVA special on Easter Island, which I watched out of a lifelong interest in this remote outpost of Polynesian culture in the Southeastern Pacific. In 2002, I visited the island, called Rapa Nui by the indigenous inhabitants, and have written about it periodically in response to claims about the enigmatic moʻai statues staring ominously into the distance somehow being connected to ancient aliens, an ancient civilization, the lost peoples of Atlantis, and assorted paranormal or supernatural forces.

Photographs by the author from a 2002 trip to Rapa Nui, one stop among many in a circumnavigation of the globe by 747 airliner in which the author was a guest lecturer.

It’s an old idea I first encountered when I read Intelligent Life in the Universe by I. S. Shklovsky and Carl Sagan, who in 1966 speculated in one chapter on the possibility of “paleocontact” (an earlier instantiation of “ancient alien visitation”). Shklovsky and Sagan were skeptical, but like good Bayesian reasoners they were open-minded and put a small probability on ancient contact. A decade later, in his book The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken, the historian Ronald Story suggested that this may have been the genesis of Erich von Däniken's ancient aliens theory, first floated in his wildly popular bestselling 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? (The question mark was dropped in later editions.) In his foreword to Story’s book, here is what Sagan had to say about von Däniken's “research”:

That writing as careless as von Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of von Däniken.

Ouch!

We have also published articles in Skeptic analyzing other alternative archaeologies, such as those by Graham Hancock (see, for example, Marc Defant’s feature article here), but the best point-by-point analysis of the television series I’ve encountered is Chris White’s 3-hour documentary film Ancient Aliens Debunked, which is well worth the time for both its content and as an object lesson in proper skepticism in addressing each claim with evidence and rationality.

Photo by Marc Defant, originally published in his feature story in Skeptic on alternative archaeology theories.

With all this in mind, the morning of the PBS email I recalled that the popular History Channel series Ancient Aliens, staring the preternaturally enthusiastic Giorgio Tsoukalos, a long-time UFOlogist and television producer, had featured Easter Island in at least one episode of his show, this one, for example (Season 8, Episode 2), subtitled “Massive Sculptures Created with Anti-Gravity Tech:

So I tagged him on X:

Over the years I have tweeted many times about Ancient Aliens, and tagged Giorgio in most of them, but never received a reply even to direct questions I asked him. To my astonishment, this time he responded:

This jolted me back in my chair. Had I misremembered or misrepresented Giorgio? I went online and Googled “Ancient Aliens, Easter Island,” and found a treasure trove of examples that counter Tsoukalos’s claim in this tweet. For example, in this clip from the show, regularly featured guest Linda Howe suggests that the original inhabitants of Rapa Nui were not even fully human, much less pure Polynesian:

In a different episode from the show, Tsoukalos himself suggests that the moʻai statues “walked” from the quarry to their present position on the island, not through what the NOVA expert guests propose (that the original peoples using ropes and manpower rocked the statues back and forth and forward in a gradual process), but through alien levitation technology…

In yet another episode of Ancient Aliens, both Giorgio Tsoukalos and Linda Howe recount the Rapa Nui myth of the Birdman, which anthropologists suggest arose from the cult of the Tangatu-mana—a human body with a bird head and associated with fertility and worship of migratory seabirds—that emerged during the decline of the moʻai culture on the island. Instead, Tsoukalos and Howe conjecture that the Birdman myth is a description of aliens visiting the planet long long ago…

At this point in my morning my browser was filling up with example after example from Ancient Aliens that gainsaid everything Giorgio Tsoukalos claimed in his rebuttal to my challenge. So I posted one more clip, this one (at the 34:24 mark in the episode) a direct claim by Tsoukalos that the moʻai statures were moved through anti-gravity levitation technology provided by extraterrestrials (the visuals accompanying the voice over show a moʻai statue “levitating” into place):

Screen shot from this episode of Ancient Aliens depicting how the moʻai statues were moved into place via extraterrestrial anti-gravitation levitation technology.

To his credit, Giorgio then posted a longer reply to my tweet thread that is well worth reading. Here is the text (after repeating his first tweet text above):

The earliest and most ancient cultures all speak of having received help from above by the so-called gods who imparted their knowledge to them. They were our first teachers and is documented in the earliest creation stories. By you suggesting that these stories are only fantasy you, in fact, are the one belittling and degrading our ancestors' intelligence by saying they didn't know what the heck they were talking about. To suggest that we've had teachers at some point is never wrong. It is one of the most prevalent themes in ancient literature and you are disingenuous by conveniently ignoring this fact. Go to Rapa Nui. Go speak with the Elders. Go ahead and tell them they're wrong about their first teachers. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Anyone who says that our ancestors only come up with these stories "in order to explain away their place in nature" (which is an often used explanation for the earliest creation stories that read like sci-fi), then I'd like to gently remind everyone that our ancestors lived in and with nature more than any of us modern people ever have. They knew "nature"! And lucky for all of us today, they were intelligent enough to distinguish actual natural events from what they clearly distinguished as something out of the ordinary, not found in nature. That is why they wrote it down in the first place. BECAUSE what they witnessed was not "nature."

Yet here you are belittling and degrading our ancestors that they fantasized about someone helping them long ago, because they couldn't figure out a thunderstorm. Who exactly is degrading whom here? It ain't me, buddy. Enough.

Here was my response on X to Giorgio:

Ok @Tsoukalos that was a thoughtful reply. I appreciate that very much. My tone was perhaps a bit snarky. This is X, after all, but still. Watch the episode of @joerogan with me & @Graham__Hancock for example, as an exercise in measured dialogue on a controversial claim.

I actually like your show & enjoy watching it, even while frustrated that you don't include skeptical voices or scientific experts to inform your audience of what explanations are available, even if you don't accept them. You're not the only one. Most TV producers do not want skeptics on their shows because they fear it will alienate viewers. I disagree. I think people want to know the best available explanations & decide for themselves. I've tried to engage with UFOlogists & UAPers, for example, but with the exception of @nickpopemod (the most skeptical of the cohort) almost no one will talk to me, allow me to attend their conferences, etc.

I have been following the subject since the 1970s & the era of Erich von Däniken, Carl Sagan, et al. I love this topic. I would LOVE to believe. But the evidence you & others present is just not convincing to me (or most scientists). Yes, peoples around the world & throughout history have myths about the gods, but mythologists, historians, & anthropologists have explanations for those stories far more convincing (to me and most experts) than that the gods = ETIs. It's not impossible (even Sagan acknowledged that), but what's more likely?

Humans are fantastic storytellers. We make up stuff all the time. J.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, is a magnificent story, elements of which are common in myths around the world and throughout history. But they're fiction! This is why I think what you are doing, along with those in the UFO community, is creating a new religion, one in search of a godhead. Deities for a secular age. ETIs are often portrayed as vastly superior beings with powers beyond our feeble technologies (levitating Easter Island statues even!), smarter (even omniscient) & more moral (even omnibenevolent).

But to paraphrase Douglas Adams, isn't it enough to see ancient monumental architecture as beautiful without having to believe that there are aliens behind it too?

And, to his extra credit, Giorgio also posted on X a long list of experts that have been featured over the 20 years of the Ancient Aliens series, and it is an impressive one. However, having watched dozens of episodes I can tell you that these guests are there to provide context or background for this or that site of monumental architecture, details on how old it is, who built it, how impressive it is, etc. I do not recall seeing one of these experts offering a skeptical perspective to the ancient aliens theory, which is always “could it be that…?” “is it possible that…?” (in the “just asking questions” vain), followed by “according to ancient alien theorists X might have been built with the help of extraterrestrials…” and the like. How about featuring an archaeologist like Jo Anne Van Tilburg, the world’s leading expert on the Rapa Nui moʻai statues, to explain how nearly all archaeologists and anthropologists think the statues were really carved and moved, in addition to the ancient alien theory that the people of Rapa Nui needed extraterrestrial technology help?

I realize that this is counter to the entire premise of the show, Giorgio, so let me here re-up a proposal I floated last year to Nick Pope (who was receptive to the idea, as he appeared on my podcast and had no problem addressing my many skeptical points), and that is an on-stage dialogue or debate with myself and you and your team at one of your Ancient Aliens live shows, to see how far we can get in finding common ground in evaluating evidence to try to get answers to questions we both agree compels our attention, namely:

Are we alone in the cosmos?

Have we been visited by aliens in the past?

Are extraterrestrials monitoring our airspace now?

Are people being abducted by aliens?

Are UAPs extraterrestrial spaceships?

And, my theory:

Is belief in aliens a religious impulse? (This was the topic of one of my Scientific American columns published in 2017, Skygods for Skeptics.)

Don’t you think your fans and followers would love to see and hear another perspective, if for no other reason than the one that drives high ratings for public debates, and that is people love the tension of contested disputation?

I want to believe in aliens, Giorgio, really I do. But I want know what is actually true even more than what I want to be true, and since no one knows for sure one way or the other, the only way to get to get closer to the truth is through open conversation, dialogue, and debate, which we could have if you’re willing (Twitter skirmishes notwithstanding).

What do you say?

Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and the host of The Michael Shermer Show. His many books include Why People Believe Weird Things, The Science of Good and Evil, The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc, and Heavens on Earth. His latest book is Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational. His next book is: Truth: What it is, How to Find it, Why it Matters, to be published in 2025.