Throughout the world, mysterious ancient stones shaped into perfect spheres are found. Many of them show clear evidence of being manmade, and some completely defy explanation. The mystery of the stone spheres could provide clues about humankind’s past.
“Ancient Aliens: Season 20” spans the globe in search of proof of human interaction with alien life forms of the benevolent kind. It’s sort of a counter-intuitive take on the nature of first-contact events by advanced civilizations from distant star systems or galaxies.
Season 20 begins with Mayan astronomers in modern-day Central America flourishing for 2000 years. The final date on the calendar occurred in 2012, creating speculation at the time about the end of the world. Happily, such fears proved unfounded. Though much is known about Mayan history, many of the artifacts have been destroyed over the centuries.
In a familiar pattern of religious bigotry, the zealous Spaniards sought to convert the indigenous population to Christianity, in part by burning many of the records. Though volumes of Mayan codices or manuscripts have been lost to time, scholars have slowly learned to decipher the ones that are available. The Mayans marked the year 3114 BCE as the beginning of creation. In this first episode, an array of Mayan scholars describe the timelines of Mayan civilization, peppered with conjecture regarding vapor trails in the sky and alien visitors. The tenuous evidence consists of such relics as sculptures depicting beings wearing helmets, begging the question: Does the content of “Ancient Aliens” consist of fictional mythology or recorded history? Probably some of both.
Ongoing research continues to try to make sense of the breadth of the Mayan world. Discoveries include carved monuments in the round and pyramids hidden under the trees of the jungle canopy called El Mirador, which dates back to 600 BCE. In 2003, Dr. Richard Hansen found previously undiscovered Mayan ruins in the Mirador jungle, and then in December 2022, Hansen announced results of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) surveys revealing an entire civilization rivaling that of the Egyptians. At one time, densely populated Mayan civilization mysteriously died out around 900 CE due to drought, warfare, and environmental degradation. Amid the ruins, LiDAR technology exposed an elevated, four-lane-equivalent roadway network not easily explained. Possible alien interventions include the dissemination of knowledge such as astronomy, math, and other sciences. With much of the Mayan ruins yet to be analyzed, the future may expose additional surprises.
The second episode delves into stargates, portals to other worlds, reminiscent of the story entitled “The Meteor Girl,” which appeared in Astounding Stories in 1931 – the first dramatization of a door through space and time. While research into the Mayans from Episode 1 contains at least a thread of plausibility, prospective accounts of stargates detour into something much more fanciful. How the Golden Disc of the Sungod, as described by the Incas, for example, powers the activation of the stargate is a stretch, to say the least. Questions abound, such as whether Buda was an extraterrestrial traveling to Earth via Stargate or whether there is a Stargate hidden within the Bermuda Triangle, the lesser-known Michigan Triangle, or even Area 51. Answers, by comparison, remain elusive.
Episode 3 considers crashed alien spacecraft or UAP (Unidentified Aerial/Anomalous Phenomenon), as well as whistleblowers coming forward with accusations of government cover-ups. Unfortunately, the seemingly unexplained encounters by eyewitnesses get regularly debunked due to a lack of credible evidence. Pentagon investigators invariably claim the sightings have more conventional explanations, such as weather balloons. Project Blue Book, an ostensible government investigation into UFOs lasting 18 years from 1951 until 1969, actually constituted an effort to discredit the claims and control the narrative. Even today, the push and pull between claimants and government officials continues unabated.
The next episode covers SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence – a program that scours the heavens in the hopes of making contact with otherworldly beings. Aided by the James Webb telescope – the most powerful such device ever created, which also has the ability to detect the chemical makeup of far-off planets previously unseeable – humans can see farther back into space and time than ever before. Among other goals, SETI seeks to identify inhabitable planets in other star systems enormous distances from earth. As recently as 2024, new evidence continues to be uncovered as scientists try to discern whether or not we are alone in the universe.
Enter Jacques Vallee, a UFO pioneer who stands at the forefront of the field, pointing out that UFOs have captivated Earth civilizations for millennia. Eyewitness accounts, on the other, have proved inconclusive. Despite widespread skepticism, Vallee continues to insist that aliens have always been among us.
Informative elements of the series include a discussion regarding ARPAnet’s transition to the Internet and the origins of global communication networks. Additional references to Steven Spielberg and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” also do a nice job of rounding out his contribution to the topic of UFOs. Audiences can infer hints of Carl Sagan’s “Contact,” a novel later brought to the screen by director Robert Zemeckis, which also postulates benign alien influences. Alas, and once again, much of the evidence – despite the application of AI – is circumstantial rather than direct.
Episode 6 on the second disc begins with “The Teachers,” which highlights Aristotle’s musings about human-like gods that inform human activity. Going back further, the Sumerians invented agriculture and the wheel, with suggestions that they had some otherworldly help to do so because of the profound impact such innovations had on society and because they often occurred contemporaneously across the planet. Speculation even includes the manipulation of human DNA by aliens.
The next segments involve giant stone boxes or tombs in Egypt, possibly constructed with the help of beings from somewhere else. Later, Linda Moulton Howe investigates events containing “high strangeness” in an attempt to bring otherwise unexplained occurrences into the mainstream. Her story is followed by alien abductions of the chosen in an attempt to explain the nature of close encounters. Lastly, the series examines incongruities in Puma Punku, a settlement located in the former Inca Empire, now modern-day Peru.
The descriptions of the encounters grow increasingly bizarre as Season 20 progresses, and it’s important to remember that people say and do outrageous things all the time – these days, probably more than ever. Despite potential reservations, the series offers much food for thought and will likely pique the curiosity of like-minded viewers. At the end of the day, “Ancient Aliens: Season 20” demonstrates as much as anything that if one searches for proof of a theory, it can usually be found, no matter how tenuous the support. While mixing conventional history with daring theorization lends credibility to the proceedings, and the daring conjectures certainly titillate, they never quite produce the smoking gun that would allay persistent doubt. The compelling stories offer lots of show but a lot less go. Perhaps more saliently, if we are not alone, the prospect of benevolent aliens showering the people of Earth with advanced knowledge belies our own experiences regarding first contact. Descendents of Native American tribes can recount the perilous encounters with technologically advanced peoples from a faraway place that often end badly. Along those lines, maybe it wouldn’t be so awful if we were alone in the universe, though, as Arthur C. Clarke famously intoned, “Whether we are alone or not alone in the universe, both are equally terrifying.”
Now available on DVD
