You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.

Welcome to Digging of Ancient Aliens.

This is the podcast where we examine alternative history and ancient alien narratives in popular media.

Do these ideas hold water to an archaeologist or are there better explanations out there?

We are now on episode 74 and I am Frederik, your guide into the world of Sudo Archaeology.

This time we will look back at two sites that we actually has covered in the past, but with some new information and approaches.

Today's excursion is based on the Ancient Alien episode Mystery Mysterious Structures from season eight.

And this is basically a clip show from past episodes.

A bit of a issue with Ancient Aliens is that they tend to reuse material over time.

But to add a few new things to all of this, I'll discuss Ancient Aliens, Graham Hancock's latest season of Ancient Apocalypse, and a tiktoker who is trying to say that Rapa Nui or well, Easter island, that it's more commonly known as, is either Aliens, Atlantis or both.

And in the second half we will look at the Coral castle and if this modern megalithic structure could be alien intervention, a hint it's not.

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Now that we are finished with our preparations, let's dig into the episode.

Right, so let's return to the Muai statues.

Now we have already visited Rapa Nui or Easter island twice, but apparently it's it's time to return again to the island.

We first went here in episode 27 where we discussed the Moab statues and the second time was in episode 34 where we focus more on, well, Thor Heyidal's racist approach to the island and the 2020 Ioanauda is et al paper claiming a link between the Polynesian islands and Colombia.

And like a lazy sitcom, I could make this segment into just a clip show of those two episodes.

But let's try to avoid this instead.

I want to grab things from Ancient aliens that they bring up and some of the tiktoker named Jenna James and a bit of Graham Hancock's new series, Ancient Apocalypse.

So it will be a clip show, but it will contain some new content and maybe a little bit also new information for you.

So as we learned, this episode is one of those episodes where the writers have ran out of ideas.

Basically there are not many new clips or information in the ancient alien part of this.

What's interesting is that they actually bring up a myth that's actually been studied from an archaeological perspective.

According to the oral history of the Rapa Nui, the Moai were moved in a very unusual way.

They all reply basically the same thing.

The Moai walked to the ahu and that's the only explanation that they give.

Right.

So this is something we did in fact cover in episode 27.

Lippo Hunt and Haua conducted experimental archaeology in 2013 and demonstrated that you can move these blocks by walking them.

Here we have a great example on how archaeologists investigate myth and use them for a foundation for an experiment.

And they tested the idea of walking a moai statue and they succeeded.

They could prove that, well, you can get them to actually walk using ropes.

And a relatively small team of people doing this, basically just rocking it back and forth while moving it forward.

And the bass then kind of is used as a to gain momentum and it kind of.

It looks like it walks.

And there's a link to that video in the show notes if you want to go and watch it by yourself.

It's really interesting stuff.

But this is an experiment that's not covered by at all by the alternative history crowd.

And you can ask yourself, why not?

Here is precisely what they actually ask him for academia using myth as a basis for their experiments.

Now, it so happens that Graham Hancock visits Rapa Nui in Ancient Apocalypse in the new season.

And while I've not watched the whole thing, I kinda watched two of the episodes and read the transcript due to a certain TikTok referencing this episode.

What struck me was that Hancock never mentioned the movement of the statue or seem to see death as any sort of mystery.

When the first Europeans arrived in 1722, the Rapa Nui culture had already been nearly wiped out.

And few could imagine how such primitive people could have created the Moai.

How in the heck did they make these?

Where did they come from and how did they move them?

Nobody has the answer.

He bring up that they were moved, but he don't really focus on how.

He don't really seem to care about that.

It can be editing, of course, it can be editing from the producers of the show.

And there might have been more to this, but I mean, it's strange that the study from 2013 was not brought up because it's something Hancock actively asking for in his books.

In his episode, we take this myth and we test them.

Instead we get this weird idea that the island has some sort of lost civilization connected to the meteor striking 10,000 years ago.

The Polynesian came here and the statues was basically already in place.

According to Hancock, how he gets to that conclusion is a little bit unclear, especially since there's no evidence of earlier population of the island.

And he suggests it and kinda take it as a fact because how could you prove it?

You can't.

Carbon 14 stone.

What we can do is look at the archaeological record, of course, because, yeah, we can't see 14 stone.

And what traces can we find of human activity?

Well, it can be trash, it can be agriculture, slaughter, burials, fireplaces, and the list goes on.

It goes on.

Of course we have found evidence of human activity on Rapa Nui or Easter island, but it doesn't really start until 1200 CE.

While some radiocarbon dates have shown older days, they've all so far been problematic.

Terry Hunt do discuss in the Scientific American that the most likely date for people arriving to the island is around 1200 CE.

And while he do humor the idea of an earlier population, he notes that it would have been so small that it that would not appear in the archaeological record.

So would this small group be able to erect all these statues without leaving a single trace?

Well, as we discussed in the episode of the Kensington Runestone, people leave traces, especially if we build or occupy an area for a longer time.

But that's kind of the thing here.

The Hancocks and the ancient alien proponents of the world are not here to offer answers, but to sell you a mystery.

In a sense, it then gets even worse when we go to TikTok, where the source criticism of ancient aliens seems to be a paragon of light in comparison.

You should be lucky if you unaware of the comedian.

Johanna James is not a person new to the show really, or at least to my social media.

I've done some videos debunking her claims in the past.

However, she is a presence on TikTok and has been involved with the cosmic summit and similar events in the past.

Quite recently she put out a video discussing Rapa Nui and she even went there to investigate in the Maui statue herself because, yeah, that's what you do Apparently.

And if you find ancient aliens use of sources frustrating, things do not become better on TikTok in this video.

And Rapanua Jenna claims to have read multiple articles and even give us this.

Quote now in one of the papers, this is the carbon dating evidence of human presence and its age.

And there is a piece of evidence for human presence 2,400 radiocarbon years old.

And I couldn't see in the paper what that was referring to, but it's in there.

It's in the test results.

On the screen we see graphs showing the amount of samples and how old they are.

The paper is never mentioned, of course, nor is it listed in any sources provided by James.

In the graph we see that there is one sample that's 2400 years old.

The issue is that the graph is meant to show the numbers of samples taken and the number of reliable samples.

Parts of a few bars are in a different color to show samples that were not contaminated or otherwise problematic.

From a scientific perspective, the 2400 year old sample is one of those who were very uncertain and showed an extensive range of possible dates it could be applied to.

Meaning it's not really much of use to us in this case.

We should note though that this was not a paper but an article from the American scientists.

And if you are curious, the article in question is called Rethinking the Fall of Easter island, written by Terry Hunt.

So if we read the article, we learn that the samples taken in situ and in good condition are more or less 900 years old, indicating that the settlement started around 1200 CE.

As we already demonstrated here.

Hancock and others have though objected to this relatively late settlement date.

But if you've watched the Ancient Apocalypse, Graham Hancock, Series two, he does an episode on Easter island and he speaks to an archaeologist who found an ancient piece of banana seed that had been planted because you have to plant.

So it wasn't from a bird, it wasn't from the sea.

They had planted and harvested bananas like humans had.

And the dating that she had was 2, 3,000 years old.

I don't know if this is related to the banana thing or if it's separate.

If it's separate, that's cool.

If it's the same thing, that's cool.

To show that it's possible that people have been on Rapa Nui for a longer time.

Hancock in Ancient Apocalypse talk with Sonia Hua Cardinale, and she is an archaeologist that's actively working on Rapa Nui.

And in episode three, Hoa Cardinale talks about a banana seed with a 3000 BP C14 date.

Bit of a red flag is that these seeds and date are not yet published.

If Hua Cardinale gets the data out there, it might be an exciting find and might correlate with the settlement process.

For example, of Van Auto in 2020, a team could, based on dental calculus, show that bananas made it to the island with a new settlement wave in around 2900 BP and it might correspond with an earlier settlement of Rapa Nui.

But again, it's not really been shown in the archaeological material.

And we might or might not have this banana seed that Hua Cardinale talks about.

But from the information we have, there is a case to be made that we should be a bit cautious regarding this claim, especially since it's announced in Ancient Apocalypse and not in a scientific journal or even in a scientific newspaper.

I've tried to find out where or where this might have been published previously, but I not managed to well, find anything in writing where, how anything about this sample, unfortunately.

But it's interesting to see how these competing ideas regarding aliens versus lost civilization use a site and different narratives in their coverage of a site.

They can rely on the same myth and the same stories, but one get Atlantis and another one gets aliens.

And it kinda demonstrate how well, how lofty they are with these claims.

It's not really about a scientific approach, it's about sensationalism, it's about views, getting ideas out there.

But let's shift over to the US of A.

And a site that's not really ancient at all.

Welcome back.

We've moved quite a bit from Easter island to Florida during the 1900s, and we're here to visit the Coral Castle, one of the few modern megalithic sites built.

And it's a place loved by ancient alien believers, conspiracy theorists and alternative energy people.

The backstory for this place goes something like this.

He was in love with a woman and he wanted to build this facility in memory of her.

And he waited for her to come from Europe.

And he waited and he waited and she never did.

But the big question is, how did this frail little man move these thousands of pounds of block by himself?

Now, if you're not familiar with this site, it's a park built by Edward Ledskelnin.

Construction started in about 1928 and continued until led Skelnyn died in 1951.

While the place is known as the Coral Castle, it's not really a causal end.

Previously it's been known as as Ed's Plains or Rock Gate Park.

But the Coral Castle, it's not really a castle.

And the coral is not really coral either.

It's actually local oolite limestone.

And LED Skylin started the project as a tribute to his, well, 16 year old fiance.

He was, what was it, 20 at the time or something like that.

Not great.

Who broke off the engagement a day before the wedding.

Eduard, originally from Latvia, then decided to move to the US in an attempt to, well, maybe mend his broken heart.

But he then instead started to construct this park as well.

Token of love to, as he called it, his Forever Sweet 16.

Barely over 5ft tall and weighing just 100 pounds, Leedskolnin is said to have carved, moved and hoisted huge multi ton stones using only a makeshift tripod.

How could this man alone construct this park?

Something often left out of the discussion is that Led Skelnyn came from a family of, well, stonemasons.

He was even trained as a mason who specialized in gravestones.

An oolite limestone is a quite porous and soft stone that can be easily quarried and worked with.

Simple too.

So when it comes to the quarry and masonry at Coral Cosa, there's no need for aliens or really specialized laser tools or anything like that.

It can be simply explained by Led Skullins training and his expertise on how to work with rock as a medium, both for sculpture or even quarrying to some extent.

In addition to this, he worked in lumber camps and for cattle drives.

So he wasn't really a frail man, so to say.

He might have been short or small, but he was not weak as people tend to frame him as.

And he was used to work hard work and figure things out as he went.

There's also claims that Ed didn't use tools, but a wide assortment of masonry tools are today on display in his old toolshed.

So make of that information as you wish.

If we go out on alternative history sites, the focus will often be how this man alone could move these stones by himself.

And the answer usually left out from these places are that for the most part he seems to have used block and tackle, something we can see in imaging images of him using these kind of tools.

So we have images of Ed Ledskalnin using block and tackle to get these, these structures and stone blocks up where he want them.

And we see these similar methods used by for example Wally Wallington that we have discussed in previous episode of couple of times.

Now this is the man who created his own Stonehenge in his backyard in an attempt to kind of figure out how you could move these giant blocks with very simple tools.

And Volington moves this very large heavy block by himself, for example, with a simple pebble as a fulcrum.

Wallington moves blocks weighing about 1 ton as if there was basically nothing.

And he raises large megalithic blocks up several meters up into the air by himself, using nothing more than sticks and a bit of wood and just rocking the block back and forth until he get it up on the height that he wished it.

And it seems as LED Skullnin use these similar tricks too.

And we even have an example where he actually used not a pebble, but a similar method to move a very large blocks, for example, in one of the giant stone gates at the park.

And this is a massive slab.

And from the looks of it, it seemed to weigh a lot.

But what was interesting about it was that you could operate it with a finger.

This large megalithic block could be just opened and closed, moved back and forward with no power, it seems like at all.

Now, the mystery of this door was finally revealed in 1986 when it actually broke.

And beneath it was beneath the slab or beneath it, it turns out that there was a truck bearing on top of a metal shaft that allowed this block to swing freely on in the gate.

So to say, similar as Wally Wallington and his pebble under a large block that he moved across a field.

So if it's just a bit of ingenuity and tricks, how has the park become so connected with aliens and alternative technology?

He had some kind of magnetic machine down in one of his other house areas that has since been dismantled.

But it had a revolving ability.

He may have been having that things spin.

The whole place could have been anti gravity probably just pushed these into place.

This is due to Ledskonin's ability to, well, sell a story, really.

As Karon Stalsner points out in an article on Coral Castle, when Ed was asked about how he moved the blocks, Ed would just say, I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, with a bit of a smirk on his face, apparently.

And suppose someone would suggest some mystical technique, like Tibetan monk technique, singing to the stones using extraterrestrial help, or even possessing superhuman strength.

And in those cases, Ed seems to just have nodded and gone along with it all.

Explanations that seemed fun seemed to be what he preferred to tell to people.

And another often heard claim is that he worked alone at night.

And this appears to have some truth to it, according to Stallsnow.

And it might not be so much for secrecy, but basically escaping the hot Florida sun.

But of course, things are more complicated to see in the dark from the distance if you're trying to spy on what Ed is doing.

And of course you can get the feeling that he's up to something or trying to hide something in the dark.

But in reality it's just comfort in the end.

Eduard Ledskanin also cultivate his advanced technology myth by publishing pamphlets on magnetism and electricity.

And these writing have been adopted by, for example, the Free Energy movement or the Perpetual Andean people, for example.

Example.

And most of this writing seems to not really contain much advanced knowledge in today's measurements, barely in the age of Edward Leskan in two.

But it's primarily a bunch of strange ideas on how magnetism influence the world and even some darker themes.

As Brian Dunning mentioned that while these magnetic ramblings also contain a political rant that sounds like hitting Hitler could have written it.

And the museum has continued selling this mystical story today.

Benjamin Read for mention in an article for Life Science that the museum website wrote.

Coral Castle has baffled scientists and engineers and scholars since its opening in 1923.

But Coral Castle is impressive, but not really for any alternative explanations or ancient aliens at the sites in it's impressive because it demonstrates how a single person can build this massive megalithic construction with very little tools, equipment and machinery.

Basically all they need is a bit of ingenuity, some fulcrum, some levels, and then they get this structure up there.

And why it's a mystery today is because we don't need to work with stone like this any longer.

We don't have to figure these kind of things out.

And there's so many ways that you could do this without machinery.

If you try to just think about it for a moment and try to experiment.

And as Wally Wallington demonstrated, once you figure out how fulcrums and all that works, things gets a lot easier.

And the people of the past definitely understood these techniques and could utilize them in their construction work.

So while it's somewhat a mystery in the sense of the world today for archaeologists, it's not really a mystery for people who, as Edward Leskineen put it, figure out how they built the pyramids.

And on that note, I will close out this episode, but until next time, please spread the word by leaving a positive reviews on platforms like itunes, Spotify, or to your friend.

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Sandra Martellor created intro music and are outroised by the band called Tralskruh who sings their song Folie Hat.

Links to both of these artists can be found in the show notes.

Until next time, keep shoveling that science.