If you know me, you’ve probably witnessed me, either online or in person, mention the television program “Ancient Aliens.” I max out at like four personality traits, and ripping on that particular show is in the top two, easy. It’s got everything: poorly researched history, selective adherence to scientific principles, and blind confidence. Good lord, the confidence. These people talk about ancient computer code hidden in human DNA and hinted at in prehistoric cave paintings like it’s the most blatantly obvious aspect of our society. It’s like a magic trick. First, the pledge: we’re legitimate archaeologists, here to learn about the history of the world, and then share our new-found knowledge with you. Then, the turn: we’re actually fucking maniacs, and you should know that the Earth has an invisible system of inter-connected ley lines, forming an ancient power grid in which pyramids used to store and distribute electricity all over the globe. Something, something, Nikola Tesla. Then, finally, the prestige: and we’re going to convince you that those two things are not mutually exclusive, and that the wild donkey shit we just expelled from our mouths is in fact 100% real. Now, for most people, obviously, this trick falls flat. The vast majority of educated individuals have too much respect for the scientific method (or just basic common sense) to entertain these notions for even a second. But that’s the thing about magic. It’s only effective on people who want to believe. Skeptics don’t factor into the act at all.
And, oh, boy, are there lots of people who want to believe in “Ancient Astronaut Theory.” Last weekend, while having lunch with my friend Josh, I brought up the fact that I was going to be attending the first ever AlienCon Dallas. He asked me how many of the attendees I expected to be “in on the joke,” like I was. My answer was that I figured it would be roughly 50/50. I. WAS. WRONG. While there were others like me, continuously trying and failing to pass eruptions of laughter off as coughing fits, we were very much in the minority. Most of the people there were all in. And, let me tell ‘ya, ridiculously stubborn devotion to provably false ideas is a lot less adorable when it’s being perpetrated by six thousand people in close proximity to you.
I attended an hour-long lecture, given by one of the more legitimate members of the “Ancient Aliens” cast, in which he used his knowledge of psychology and Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to analyze the science fiction film “Arrival.” He compared each main character to aspects of the viewer’s personality, stating that your reaction to each one would tell you something about yourself. It was awesome. It felt so much like being back in film school, that I almost started taking shoddy notes that I would look at later and be confused by. This was a real learning experience, for everyone involved, but when he opened the floor up to questions, the first person tried to prove that math wasn’t real, and the second said that since the word “alien” contained the word “lie,” it was itself a sign of an even bigger conspiracy than we had previously imagined. Neither one of these statements was a question, nor in fact did they have anything to do with what the man had spent forty-five minutes talking about. To be fair, the woman who spoke of the “alien lie” did actually have something interesting to add, saying that she thought the spacecrafts from the movie were shaped like contact lenses, indicating our ability to see new perspectives, but that was only after she got some serious vibes from the lecturer that she was being nuts. And math guy brought absolutely nothing to the table. It almost didn’t matter what the dude on stage had said, people needed to know about the great math hoax.
In his book, The True Believer, longshoreman and occasional moral philosopher Eric Hoffer claimed that when someone joins a mass movement, the group’s message doesn’t necessarily play a part in their decision to join. What they say is almost irrelevant, as it takes a back seat to how being a part of the group makes the individual feel. It gives you a purpose, a place where you feel welcome. It makes you feel important and smart, in a world that so often tells you that you’re insignificant and stupid. Nowhere have I ever seen this concept played out in real life more than at AlienCon. What I saw was a building full of people who needed to be heard, and to know that there were others who felt the same. While many of the attendees’ social skills left much to be desired (use your inside voice, commit to as straight a path as possible when walking though a crowd, etc.), I only witnessed a few instances of people being outright pricks. Most people looked happy, like they had just exhaled for the first time in maybe a lifetime. Like they were home. Something about this specific topic of space aliens resonated with them, enough that they were willing to devote their time and money to it, but it wasn’t about that. Not really. It was about finally belonging to something bigger than themselves. In that light, I felt kinda shitty for laughing at them.
But come on. There was a dude there selling colored pencil drawings of Donald Trump greeting an alien emissary on the White House lawn. How am I supposed to not laugh at that? That’s just not fair. I often have to remind myself that things can have more than one adjective applied to them. Something can be equally funny and sad, or heartwarming, or dangerous, all at the same time. And I do think that “Ancient Aliens” probably is dangerous, in its own silly way. By presenting itself as real science, it messes with the audience’s understanding of what is and isn’t factual. One of the reasons I watch the show is because I view it as fiction, and can therefore recognize interesting ideas that I might one day use (steal) for something I write. There is the occasional mind-blowing idea on “Ancient Aliens,” and I like to put myself in situations where I might encounter mind-blowing ideas. But to instantly believe that those ideas apply to my real life, and then refuse to listen to any evidence to the contrary, is not a healthy way to go about it. There were many more children than I expected to see at AlienCon, and the way their parents were presenting the “information” to them was kinda bumming me out. When grownups believe stupid, incorrect things, it’s funny. I mean, it’s funny when kids believe stupid shit too, but it helps put the mind at ease to think that there’s an adult somewhere who’s going to straighten them out. Even if all of “mainstream science” does prove to be a huge lie, it’s still how we run our world, and you have to understand it before you can do anything to change it. What makes imagination so dope is the idea that you’re thinking up something that’s off the beaten path. But if there’s no path to begin with, you’re just living in the fucking woods.
Speaking of ideas, I was really hoping to be exposed to some at the alien convention. But, sadly, this was not the case. Every episode of “Ancient Aliens” is pretty much the same, but they do mix it up a little. Someone will say something and then move on, and I’ll be stuck thinking about it obsessively for the next week and a half. But this convention had none of that. It was as if every person I encountered, even my fellow attendees, had been handed a script, full of half-assed synopses of past episodes. The closest anyone came to saying something genuinely unexpected was when this one guy told the entire room of people that standing in the central chamber of one of the pyramids at Giza temporarily cured him of his food poisoning. That’s right: temporarily. He was sick, presumably vomiting and pooping his pants, until he stepped inside the central chamber. Then he felt totally fine, as the pyramid’s healing powers went to work on his body. Then he left, and just started puking and shitting all over again. Upon hearing this, I had several questions, though I didn’t go up to the microphone to ask him. 1. How long were you in the central chamber? Was it only for a couple minutes, or some other amount of time that could have conceivably coincided with just, like, not throwing up, for a little bit? Or was it for long enough that you were certain that, for whatever amount of time you were in the central chamber, you would be okay? If that’s the case, did you think you were cured for life? If yes, how upset were you when you left the central chamber? If no, what was your thought process, knowing you were going to have to leave, eventually? 2. Was that the only ailment that the central chamber treated, or merely the most interesting one for this story? I can do something with this idea, but it’s just about a guy shitting his pants inside one of the Wonders of the World. I wanted to hear something that I couldn’t have come up with myself, and that ain’t it.
A lot of people have been abducted by aliens, apparently. When the British guy asked the room how many people had been either abducted or visited by extraterrestrials, something ridiculous like two hundred people raised their hands. Even the guy was like, “wait, seriously?” This makes me sad again. Not just because I don’t believe them, but, like, yeah, it’s mainly that. When I hear people talk about being abducted by aliens, I immediately jump to the conclusion that they were victims of trauma and their minds created the story of alien abduction as a way to gloss over a memory that it hadn’t fully managed to erase. It’s just as likely that they’re remembering a particularly vivid dream, I guess, but that’s not where my brain goes. But even discounting my Dana Scully armchair psychiatry, it’s still pretty fucking sad, as these stories usually become the tellers’ defining characteristics. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t really care. People tell me wild stories about their lives all the time that I just assume are lies, but if they’re cool lies, I say keep ‘em coming. Only boring people are bored when listening to another person’s dreams, and only lame people disregard inconsequential stories simply because they didn’t actually happen. But abduction stories almost always take place in the person’s distant pass. You never hear someone say, “Guess what happened to me last Tuesday. I got abducted by motherfucking space aliens.” No, it always took place when they were kids, or young adults. This usually brings me back to my trauma theory, but that’s a real downer. My point is that the person telling that story usually doesn’t have any other badass stories about themself. You peak when you get abducted by aliens. How do you top that? You’d have to live a life of Forrest Gumpian magnitude for that to be just another cool thing about you. Something that "happened" when you were six is the best you got. But it makes you feel important. It’s a story in which you are the most important person in the room. You were chosen, and everybody needs to know it. And I don’t want to sound harsh, but, looking around at the people who said that they had been abducted, I got the feeling like the aliens were just kinda phoning it in. I’m sure the abductees are all lovely people, but, they’re not exactly who I would’ve snatched, if you catch my drift. You’d think the citizens of Sirius-B would want to study, like, Blake Griffin, or something, not a bunch of people who look like weird off-brand versions of my neighbor Pony-Tail Guy, who once confronted me and accused me of bombarding his house with a system of lasers I had apparently set up in my front yard. (As if any laser array I utilized would be so amateurish as to be detected by your low-rent infrared scanner. Get real, Keith). But no. Being abducted by aliens is by far the most interesting thing about these people, and that’s sad as shit. Then, to top it off, the people on the panel asked all those who had had such experiences to line up, so that they could tell their stories, then, upon seeing how many people were going to do just that, announced that there was no way they would be able to get to all of them. Fucking ouch. When the British dude said that, I had to get out of there, because I started having a vicarious anxiety attack for the people who were about to be denied what could very well have been the defining moment of their lives. Even typing this, hours later, I kinda want to slam three xanax and zone out watching one of those “lo-fi beats to study to” videos on youtube. I think awkward situations are funny, but this was like somebody found a way to purify the essence of every “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode and inject it directly into my heart.
Before that happened, Nick Pope, the British dude, casually mentioned that he had been at the recent “raid” of Area 51, but that that was a story for another time. I very nearly stood up and declared that I disagreed, but instead I just sat there and listened to some guy talk about the supposed alien crash in Aurora, Texas. This part pissed me off, because one time my friends Martel, Kenny, and I went to Aurora, to look at the grave site of the crashed alien creature, and it fucking rained like it was the apocalypse, and we ended up having to hang out in a truck stop for like an hour until I was confident my Volvo could make it home. Giorgio Tsoukalos was there (the convention, not the truck stop), and he made a couple jokes about his crazy hair, so that was cool. He also repeated a quote from Arthur C Clarke, stating that unknown technology is indistinguishable from magic, and said that “if you actually believe in magic, I can’t help you.” This brought forth a chorus of laughter from a whole bunch of people incapable of recognizing irony. *NOTE* I just looked Giorgio up, and found out that he is married to a woman named Krix Beeble, which is in fact the perfect name for an alien. I wanted to get up and ask Giorgio a question pertaining to sports information communication, as this is his actual field of study, but I didn’t want to get crucified and displayed like Spartacus by the convention center door. The guy who talks weird was there, too, and he seemed like he was either exhausted, over it, blazed, or some combination thereof. That was actually kinda awesome.
Over all, I enjoyed my trip to AlienCon, though in some way I can’t really qualify. Nothing I did or saw could accurately be described as “tight,” but it all combined in this gelatinous mass of an experience I’m glad I can now say I had. Will I go back next year? Ehh…probably not. Unless that dude’s giving more lectures about movies, in which case my ass will be there. They really need to step up their game, though. The people there were either not crazy at all or only kinda crazy. I’m sure there were plenty of people in attendance with very fringe views on just about everything, but they mostly kept to themselves. I’m pretty upset that nobody gave me their manifesto. The closest anyone came to that was this one guy who gave me a pamphlet explaining how unprepared the Earth actually was for first contact with extraterrestrials. But, reading through it, I concluded he had just written a novel, but was promoting it as one of the self-published pseudo-science “non-fiction” books everyone else was selling. Which is a pretty brilliant idea, actually.