Giorgio Tsoukalos- IN SEARCH OF ALIENS -

Kelsey Ables

Halloween and its spooky theatrics might be over but the producer/contributor of The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens Giorgio Tsoukalos will be bringing a more real and endlessly nagging haunt to Buffalo when he visits the Tralf this Friday, November 4th .

On Ancient Aliens, Tsoukalos finds the haunting and eery from the past that’s buried in our present reality when researching aliens. You might know him by his energetic and charismatic TV persona, his wild hair or by the “meme” that as he puts it “took on a life of its own” on the internet.”

“If the memes have generated a discussion,” he said “then what more can I ask for? It shows that the themes I discuss resonate with audiences around the world.”

Did extraterrestrials spend time on Earth in the distant past? Through the show Ancient Aliens Tsoukalos delves into this topic, one that several books are written on and bioastronomers are researching at universities around the world.

“I am referencing the works of highly intelligent, knowledgeable academics,” says Tsoukalos. The question seems simple—surely we’ve all wondered about what else is out there. He looks at archeological findings and asks questions. “Many of the ancient structures were built to honor the so-called gods… were these so-called gods really all just a figment of our ancestors’ imagination?”

Tsoukalos notes that today we think of Gods as these invisible entities that physically “never existed, do not exist, and never will exist.” The gods depicted by ancient civilizations could have actually physically existed… but they weren’t gods Tsoukalos says,“Our ancestors weren’t visited by gods at all…Our ancestors thought they were visited by someone divine because our ancestors’ technological (not intellectual) frame of reference was more primitive than ours today.”

Think about how you would explain the internet to someone from the 1800s. An all omniscient entity that is everywhere and nowhere and the same time? Sound familiar? That’s because it sounds like a god or some sort of magic. This is the premise that Ancient Aliens operates under— the extraterrestrials that visited Earth thousands of years ago would have been deemed gods. Tsoukalos cites Arthur C. Clarke who said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

These ideas might seem startling to you but for Tsoukalos, they are a part of a narrative spanning much of his life. “My grandmother and the family I grew up in planted the seed early in my life” says Tsoukalos who, with “avid world travelers” as parents, had the chance to see many historical sites and museums growing up. “My grandmother, a devout Catholic, would read Edgar Cayce’s Atlantis to me as bedtime stories and tell me about the possibility of life on other planets and extraterrestrials having visited us in the past,” Tsoukalos recalls, “These were dinner table conversations at the home I grew up in.”

Tsoukalos considers the possibility that our ancestors are actually descended from extraterrestrials. It’s called ancient astronaut theory and Tsoukalos describes it as the idea that “extraterrestrials mutated our genes by artificial means and “made us” Homo sapiens.” Tsoukalos reasons that, if you believe this theory, “for all intents and purposes, we are their children.” Sure, Tsoukalos’ own parents and grandparents spoke with him about aliens but it looks like the tradition might date back further than his childhood dinner table…“I don’t think an ordinary parent ever loses complete interest in their offspring.” Looks like we might have a different kind of “big brother” out there watching us. “I myself have never suggested that the extraterrestrials left. And this is not coming from me” says Tsoukalos who has recently been fascinated with “modern-day UFO phenomenon.”

If Tsoukalos could go back to a time when extraterrestrials roamed freely he said he would return to the time when Puma Punku was built––a part of the temple at massive Tiahuanaco archeological complex on top of the Andean Plateau in Bolivia.  Stone blocks used at Puma Punku weigh as much as 131 tons. His fascination with mystery informs his interest in Puma Punku, “Stonemasons have told me that some of the stone cuts at Puma Punku are so precise and mind-boggling that they today would have great difficulty in replicating these blocks, even with their modern machinery. So one has to wonder how it was done.”

If you find yourself skeptical of Tsoukalos ideas, all the more reason to hear his talk on Friday at the Tralf. Looking at the world from what Tsoukalos calls a “bigger perspective” can really inform our actions here on Earth.  Tsoukalos challenges us to ask, “We may not be the only game in town…what are the consequences of such a realization?”

For Tsoukalos, the answer to this macrocosmic question has consequences on a microcosmic, societal level. “I think it allows you to view yourself as a citizen of this planet instead of just one particular country or culture. In the end, what we as a global society seem to have forgotten is that we’re on this blue dot together. For the moment, there is nowhere else to go. I think exploring the extraterrestrial question can lead to many positive changes and ideas to many of the problems and issues we presently face. It’s cooperation, not competition.”