On April 12, 2013, just a little bit too late for April Fool’s Day, Ancient Aliens aired “The Viking Gods” as episode 11 of season 5. It was a sober and compelling examination of the evidence.
Just kidding. It’s nonsense.
The show features a smattering of real Norse scholars. I don’t know why they are willing to appear on such a show; perhaps they’ve never seen it. I suspect, though, that Timothy R. Tangherlini, Professor and Chair of the Scandinavian Section at UCLA, and Kirsten Wolf, Professor and Chair of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wanted to dispel certain misconceptions about the Viking-Age Norse. Wolf says that, contrary to popular opinion, the Norse “were enormously sophisticated in terms of technology: ship-building, bridge-building, fortress-building….”
Her point is completely valid, of course, but it’s not one you want to make on Ancient Aliens because they are going to seize on any such statements and snatch those accomplishments from the hands of whatever group of humans is being discussed and place them in the freaky, attenuated fingers of little green men. And sure enough, the narrator jumps in to say,
But many researchers remain baffled at how the Vikings became so socially, politically and technologically advanced, especially while living in the cold, harsh environment of the North.
Ancient Aliens has taught me that researchers and scholars exist in a permanent state of bafflement. Still, I suppose it’s better than a state of permanent but unfounded certainty.
Just how were the Norse Vikings able to manage such technological and geographical feats? Are their fortresses and journeys to unknown continents evidence that the Vikings had access to extraterrestrial knowledge? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and believe the proof can be found by examining the religious beliefs of this mysterious people.
I’d like to pause briefly to discuss nomenclature: Norse Vikings? As opposed to what? Chinese Vikings? I also noticed that, although the program mentions some dates, the terms “medieval” and “Middle Ages” are never used. The Vikings are at times referred to as “ancient.” I realize the show is called Ancient Aliens, but do they think we don’t know the difference between ancient and medieval?
Regardless, while I would never diminish the accomplishments of medieval Scandinavians, there’s nothing completely baffling or inexplicable about their technological advancements. Consider their ships: they were superb, but, basically, they were boats. Humans have been building boats since someone first said, “you know, it would be quicker to cross that body of water than to go around it.” Viking ships were built by skilled craftsmen without any input from aliens. Why would aliens need ocean-going ships anyway?
Gokstad ship: built by humans. Source: Wikipedia
But wait, there’s more proof of alien intervention:
An account of the attack on Lindisfarne says the assault coincided with extraordinary whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons crisscrossing the skies. Could these strange events be coincidence?
Well, not the dragons. I imagine they were made up, misinterpreted and/or were exaggerations of some natural phenomenon. The rest of it? That’s just weather. Sometimes weather happens. But you never know. After all, the Vikings were a mysterious people.
The Vikings…flourished from the late 8th century to the 11th century in what is today Norway, Sweden and Denmark, but unlike other ancient civilizations, like Greece, Rome or Egypt, relatively little is known about this mysterious people, as few written records or hieroglyphs have survived.
Okay, there aren’t many hieroglyphs, since the Norse didn’t use hieroglyphs (runes are not hieroglyphs), but as the narrator is saying this, we see on the screen a picture from Flateyjarbók, which, as its name implies, is a book–a huge book, filled with letters and words and even sentences. So important and precious is this book that it was one of the first two manuscripts (along with the main manuscript of the so-called Poetic Edda) that Denmark repatriated to Iceland. A significant proportion of the population went to the shore to greet the ship bearing the two books.
The corpus of Old Norse literature is vast. The Icelanders took to literacy with wild abandon. Admittedly, this material was written down later than the events described–in some cases much later–but quite a lot is known about Viking-Age Norse culture, from their own writings and from the writings of others. They really aren’t that mysterious.
It is true that there are questions when it comes to the mythology. We have limited sources. Some of those sources are difficult, confusing and contradictory. Some of the sources (especially Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda and Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum) were written by Christians long after Norse mythology had ceased to be an active religion. They euhemerized, synthesized, interpreted and probably misinterpreted. Consequently, we have limited knowledge about how the religion was actually practiced, and we are probably mistaken in trying to force consistency and coherency onto Norse mythology: beliefs change over time and differ regionally. Ancient Aliens recognizes this problem:
Because little information has survived related to the origin of Norse or Viking gods, modern scholars depend on a pair of Icelandic books written several hundred years after the Viking Age, called the Eddas.
Well, the Poetic Edda isn’t really a book. It is a collection of poems written by different poets at different times. It is called Edda for convenience and in association with the Prose Edda, which quotes Eddic poems extensively. The Poetic Edda was written down after the Viking Age, but probably contains much earlier material.
What’s weird is that, although what they say about the Eddas isn’t entirely accurate, they are correct in their assumption that the Eddas are not a completely reliable source for Viking Age belief. Having sort of acknowledged this, what do they do? They take these stories as absolutely true and accurate accounts of real events because Odin, Thor, Frey and the gang were all aliens. Duh.
Odin, you see, had two ravens named Huginn and Muninn (thought and mind). Every day they flew through the world and then returned and reported to Odin. Or were they ravens? Let’s ask David Hatcher Childress:
Whenever he wanted to observe other worlds, find out what they were doing, he would send these two ravens out, and they would be…like…spy drones or something, and they would go to to these other countries and come back to Odin and report to him what was going on, and it would seem like what Odin had was some kind of spy planes or spy drones that he was sending out, much as we do today.
Or they could be magic birds. Actually, ravens are very intelligent and can be taught to speak. Can they do what Huginn and Muninn were supposed to do? Well, no. They’re special, a god’s magic birds. There is nothing to suggest that there is anything non-organic about them, that they are mechanical or technological.
Given their names, it is also possible to consider them as Odin’s thought and mind (or memory) externalized, perhaps as part of a magical or shamanistic ritual. There is some precedence for this. In the Prose Edda, Snorri tells the story of Thor and Loki’s visit to a giant called Utgarda-Loki. Thor and his retinue face several challenges which they fail miserably. For instance Utgarda-Loki asks Thor to lift a cat. Thor can only get one paw off the ground. Eventually, though, Utgarda-Loki reveals that it was only through magic and tricks of perception that he was able to best Thor. The cat was actually the World Serpent, which circles the world at the bottom of the ocean. Thor had managed to pull it part of the way out.
Thor and the others also directly compete with some apparently humanoid opponents whose names reveal their true natures. Thor wrestles an old woman named Elli, who brings him to one knee. She is actually old age personified. Loki loses an eating match against Logi, who eats the wooden trenchers as well as the meat. Logi means “flame,” which consumes everything in its path. Thor’s servant Thialfi loses a footrace to Hugi. Hugi, like Huginn, means “thought.” As Utgarda-Loki says, “And when Thialfi competed at running with the one called Hugi, that was my thought, and Thialfi was not likely to be able to compete with its speed” (Edda, tr. Anthony Faulkes, Everyman ed.).
But imaginary spy drones aren’t Odin’s only spy technology. He also has his high seat (hliðskjálf) from which he can observe what is going on in the world. According to Jason Martell, author of Knowledge Apocalypse: Ancient Astronauts and the Search for Planet X,
It sounds to me as if Odin was sitting in some type of a captain’s chair in a space ship above the earth, which allowed him to have this view.
To have a captain’s chair in a spaceship, don’t you need to have a spaceship? When the high seat is mentioned, there is nothing remotely spaceship-like associated with it, and again, it isn’t described in a way that makes it sound like anything technological.
But Odin isn’t the only god with pretend alien tech. Thor has a belt of strength. Or is it a bionic exoskeleton? You see, the Norse would have no way to describe a bionic exoskeleton, so the best they could come up with was “magic belt.” If they’d seen the damned thing, and the show suggests that they did, surely they could have come closer than “belt.”
Frey has a magical, foldable ship, Skíðblaðnir. Or is it a spaceship? Well, perhaps, if the Vikings couldn’t tell the difference between something that sails on the ocean and something that flies. It’s not as if they were a sea-going people or anything. Well, perhaps they had no verbs that mean “fly.” Oh wait, they totally did. For instance, they were not forced to say that the ravens (spy drones) sailed on the ocean.
Odin’s spear, Gungnir, is so well-balanced that it will always hit its target. Or as Childress raves,
Gungnir was some kind of high-tech weapon. No matter who he threw it at, it would hit it, like some laser-guided missile or something like that, that just simply could not miss its mark once it had been sent to its target.
This time they have evidence of such amazing high-tech weaponry: the Böksta Runestone, which shows a spear-wielding man on a horse, accompanied by two dogs and two birds. The man might be Odin. And he has a spear. Okay, it doesn’t look like a missile, and you can’t tell that it’s laser-guided, and it looks a lot like a spear. Also, he’s hunting an elk or a moose. I suppose it could be some sort of space-ungulate.
Odin hunts a Space-Moose. Source: Wikipedia
The late Philip Coppens explains the true nature of Thor’s hammer:
It is actually said that this weapon is able to crush mountains. Now imagine a weapon which is able to destroy an entire mountain–the hammer does not cause explosions; it is really the physical force which destroys the object. That is something that today we describe as kinetic weapons.
The scene shifts to NASA Ames where Dr. Peter Schultz of Brown University is working on the Ames Vertical Gun Range. Schultz explains that if it’s really ramped up, “you’ll start melting, vaporizing material. In a sense, this is a kinetic weapon, except we’re not pointing at anything except a target inside the tank.” According to the narrator “the destructive power of this gun displays uncanny similarities to Thor’s Hammer.” Well, they are both powerful, and they both destroy things. So do puppies, but that doesn’t make them extraterrestrial technology.
If kinetic energy weapons and laser-guided missiles (or possibly smart bombs) aren’t enough, Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge, is a wormhole.
Where did the alien Norse gods get their fabulous stuff? In many cases, from dwarfs. Coppens asks,
[A]re they real dwarfs, or…[are they] somehow more mythical, or whether the label “dwarf” actually stuck to them because they were somehow smaller. And of course today, we often describe the gray alien archetype as dwarfish as well, simply because they are smaller.
Childress also suggests that the Norse dwarfs got their name from their (lack of) height, as if mythological dwarfs were named for dwarfism, rather than the other way around. Aside from being small, dwarfs don’t have that much in common with Grays. According to John Lindow’s Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, dwarfs are “associated with the dead, with battle, with wisdom, with craftsmanship, with the supernatural, and even to some extent with the elves” (100). They are also said to live in the earth, rocks or mountains. Snorri says they were created from the maggots in the flesh of the primordial giant Ymir. They are creatures of the earth, not of the sky. Oh and while the English word “dwarf” has been associated with shortness for a long time, Norse mythological dwarfs don’t necessarily seem to be that small. Or gray. Or large-headed. Or small-bodied.
So where did the Norse gods/aliens go? Well, one might find it suspicious that they seem to have taken their spaceships, spy drones, laser-guided missiles, kinetic weapons, bionic exoskeletons and wormholes and buggered off right around the time the Scandinavians converted to Christianity. Surely there must be another explanation. Let’s look at ship burials. The Oseberg ship burial “revealed for the first time some of the Viking’s burial rituals.” Well, Oseberg was discovered 25 years after Gokstad, but okay.
Is it possible that the Vikings…buried their dead in boats in an effort to help their deceased on their journey to the afterlife?
Yes! Oh my god, YES, that IS possible! They actually asked an “Is it possible” question whose answer is “yes.” Yes, that’s how mythology works.
But wait, there’s more. Martell says “Now this seems very similar to some type of conveyance possibly going into space.” Well, yes, it does seem like that, except that it’s a sea-going ship buried in the ground.
They then describe Valhalla. Like Snorri, they conflate probably separate ideas regarding Valhalla, but they really seize on the description of it as being golden. Giorgio Tsoukalos says,
Valhalla was not a figment of our ancestors’ imaginations, but it might have been some type of an orbiting space station. The reason why I’m saying this is because we have a description of Valhalla: it is an incredible description of a place that has weird attributes.
And Martell just goes ahead and describes it as a “large metallic ship.” How the hell do you go from a “gold-bright” hall of the slain to a “large metallic ship”? It’s not a ship, and it’s not metallic.
Ship burials (and ship cremations), they claim, are supposed to replicate the gods’/aliens’ return to their home world or to the space station Valhalla. But Oseberg also contains sledges. Did the aliens’ return home also involve traversing space-snow? One other thing about Oseberg: its occupants were female. This is never mentioned on Ancient Aliens. In fact, you’d never know that there were Norse goddesses or Norse women based on the program. Anyway, except in unusual circumstances, women didn’t go to Valhalla, so Oseberg doesn’t really fit the weird scenario they’ve created.
Watching this episode, I found myself wondering if these people really believe what they’re saying, or if, in the fifth season, they’ve run out of things to talk about and will just say anything to keep the show going. However, when Bob and I went to the Paradigm Symposium, we both got the idea that these people are true believers, and Coppens did write about a Viking/ancient alien connection.
It’s just so hard to imagine the thought processes that could lead to such beliefs. First, they seem to conclude that human imagination is a comparatively recent invention, and that no one in the past could describe anything they hadn’t seen with their own eyes. Second, they make logical leaps of truly spectacular proportions. And finally, there is the ability to seize on some details, blow them up, and then ignore other details as if they weren’t there. This is particularly noticeable when they discuss the Böksta stone as an example of Odin’s spear. How on earth can they use this to support the laser-guided missile argument? He’s riding a horse (with only four legs; Odin’s steed Sleipnir usually has eight); he’s hunting an elk; he has hunting hounds; one of his birds (spy drones) is attacking the eyes of the elk. He is also accompanied by a human figure on skies, carrying a bow and arrows, possibly Ullr. It’s all sorts of terrestrial. Stunningly ordinary. If the stone does show Odin, it shows him behaving very much like a medieval Scandinavian hunter.
Skeptical Humanities 
This wae excellent reading. I learnt much about my ancestors. I have one question: Can one see some of the things in the Viking mythology as fantasies of a better, more pleasant, more efficient world. And then see if some of the fantasies have come true. About the ship burials: It is possible that the ships also or rather served another purpose than somehow being used in the next world. With tears in my eyes I remember when the wife of my dead son put his favourite leather jacket on his body and his small step son put a couloured drawing there. In their sorrow and despair they wanted to show symbolically a last time how they loved him by giving him something. They certainly knew that it was of no use to him. Were the Vikings in a similar situation when they buried someone? Goeran Hammarstroem
I don’t think we entirely understand the full significance of grave goods. They indicated status. Ship burials like Oseberg, Gokstad and Sutton Hoo in England indicated very high or royal status, but people were also buried with the tools of their trade or, in the case of women, domestic tools. Certain items probably were intended to help on the journey, but burials could also contain personal items. While the ships indicated status and were perhaps intended for a journey, I believe that the ships had been used, though they were still functional, so they may have belonged to the people buried in them. It’s difficult to say if any items had sentimental significance for the deceased or their loved ones. It’s certainly possible, but we don’t know enough about the people to say for sure. Often we don’t even know their names. In addition, many of the graves had been looted (this is true of Oseberg and Gokstad). Certainly, though, the grave goods held symbolic importance.
Aside from the near suicidal despair induced by finding out there are now 5 seasons of that nonsense known as Ancient Aliens, (There used to be shows like Archaeology sigh!) the show you described reads like a primer in first degree idiocy.
A book I really like is Davidson’s Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, which I suspect that the makers of this tripe either didn’t know about or ignored.
Frankly I’m getting tired of the nonsense that our ancestors lacked imagination. The fact is we have abundant, relatively speaking, information about the Northern peoples during this time period, and these sources do not indicate Extraterrestrials. The late Roman sources for example describe the Angles, Saxons and Jutes and we have of course a Anglo Saxon ship at Sutton Hoo. no sign of ET.
I half suspect that these fools will try to turn Beowulf into some sort of ET fantasy.
Far more interesting to me is analyzing the sources we have and to try to make sense of them in terms of Norse pre-Christian religion. I personally feel that Snorri was making a good faith effort to record the pagan religion of his ancestors. I am more doubtful about Saxo, but then maybe that is because Saxo buts the dull in dull with his writing style. However that doesn’t mean Snorri wasn’t biased or that the intellectual constraints o of his time didn’t heavily influence not just how he did his research but also how he analysed it.
Thus I think you are 100% right when you say that Snorri and others tried to make a belief system coherent and “logical”, thus ignoring , downplaying, the contradictory elements in the pagan religion. Certainly Snorri who grew up in a Christian milieu probably thought that the Pagan religion was similarily coherent.
Thus Snorri makes Odin King of the Gods, when it appears that in much of pre-Christian Scandinavia Thor was the greatest God. Further Snorri apparently turned a human, albeit son of a God Hero Balder into a God. Snorri it appears tried to rationalize the myths he knew and fit them into a whole that “made sense” to him and as such I suspect left out much that didn’t make “sense” to him. I further suspect he may have downplayed the importance of the Goddesses in Norse religion.
There is also the problem of Ragnarok. So many have rightly pointed out the painfully obvious similarity of this myth with the end of the world in the Christian Apocalypse. Ellis, among, others thinks the myth is genuine pre-Christian. Still It is hard to believe that end of the world Christian thinking did not influence the Ragnarok myth by the time it was written down.
Also another example of possible “rationalization” by Snorri is his creation of the figure Hel. It is possible that this figure is Snorri’s rationalization and not a real pre-Christian deity.
Eliis in his book thinks that Valhalla, as a bright warrior paradise is largely Snorri’s creation and that the actual realm of Valhalla is actually the realm of the dead with Odin as a God of the dead.
There is more than enough material to make a very interesting program about Norse religion, in terms of what we know, don’t know and what is questionable without having to drag ET into it.
In fact a program about Snorri, writer, diplomat and warrior would be fascinating also.
I also think Snorri was honestly presenting the mythological material as he understood it, but in some cases, he may not have fully understood it. H.R. Ellis-Davidson’s The Road to Hel is another interesting book (available on Kindle for 99 cents). She talks about how Snorri presents Valhalla. It’s been awhile, but if I recall correctly, she notes that two Eddic poems (Grimnismal and Vafthrudnismal) discuss Vahalla. One presents it as a glorious home among the gods; the other as the eternal battle. She suggests that these were probably two separate conceptions of the afterlife. Snorri put them together. This probably seemed perfectly logical to him, but he may have been mistaken. As I recall, Grimnismal also lists the names of a bunch of women who are serving the drinks in Valhalla. It is Snorri, though, who identifies them as Valkyries. He may well be right, but it’s a conclusion he drew that is not in his source.
The problem with Snorri is that people over-rely on him (whether they realize he’s the source or not). Most of what we know about Norse mythology comes from Snorri. The poems are often obscure, oblique and allusive. Without some kind of context, they don’t always make sense. Snorri and Saxo give context. I don’t remember who said it, but I read somewhere that Snorri’s version is often given precedence because he wrote in the vernacular (more “authentic”?) and he is a great storyteller, while Saxo wrote in “turgid” Latin. On top of that, while both Snorri and Saxo euhemerize, Snorri then just gets on with his primary purpose: “these guys weren’t really gods, but people came to worship them as gods. Okay, here’s the story, and here’s how it works when you’re writing poetry.” Saxo, on the other hand, continues to hammer home the euhemerization and also moralizes quite a bit. Of course, as you say, dull and wrong are not the same thing.
I need to talk connect with David or Robert as to what to do with my artifacts that are connected to this alien viking connection want to do this with the right people but have discovered something very significant
Thank you fro your comments. Also I am embarrassed by the unconscious sexism that lead me to refer to H.R. Ellis Davidson has masculine. Opps!
I agree that there appears to be a overreliance on Snorri. It appears for example has I say above that Snorri is simply wrong to have made Balder a God and that Saxo is right to made him a son of a God. Further it appears that not only should researchers be looking at Saxo, they should perhaps be consulting the Poetic Eddas.
I wonder what do you think of the idea that Odin has King of the Gods being Snorri’s version of the Norse Pantheon and that in actual fact in much of Norse Scandinavia it was in fact Thor who was the high God?
I will see about getting The Road to Hel.
First, Snorri wasn’t the first to present Baldr as one of the Aesir. He seems to be a god living in Asgard in Eddic and skaldic poems. Voluspa and Baldrs draumar, for instance, both seem to depict him as the son of Odin and Frigg. That means that, unlike many of the gods who have one parent who is a giant(ess), both Baldr’s parents are gods. Even Saxo makes him a demi-god. Whether he started as a human, I don’t know.
Odin is also important in the poetry. He is called Allfather several times (and many, many other names). He is the father of many of the Aesir. He is constantly in search of knowledge and appears to be the dominant god.
Thor is important as well and seems to have a closer direct relationship with humans–people wore Thor’s hammers, named their sons Thor-this and Thor-that. People were more likely to pray to Thor. But that may have to do with their different roles. The battle field was sacred to Odin. He’s kind of a slightly scary god. There may also be a class division, with Odin more connected to elites and Thor to more ordinary people. And, of course, people worshiped differently or favored different gods in different eras and different areas.
I know it has been speculated that Tyr was at one time a much more important god. His name is etymologically related to “deus” and “theos”–it means “god.” It’s been hypothesized that he was perhaps top god, or at least more dominant, but that Odin and Thor over time took on many of his aspects and characteristics.
Thanks for the feedback. I was relying on what Davidson said in Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. pp. 182-189, where she says such things as:
Balder is called ther son of Odin, and Snorri and many others after him have assumed that this makes him a god.
…
On the other hand, Saxo thought of Balder as a warrior on earth, who was said to be Odin’s son only in the sense that he was one of his followers, or that he was born to some human mother visited by the god.(p. 188)
But it seems necessary to show that Snorri’s story, for all its beauty and pathos, may have mislead us in our estimate of Balder. Under his magic touch, Balder has taken on the lineaments of the dying god, derived from the cult of the Vanir. If however Balder in earlier tradition was a human hero struck down in spite of the favour of the gods, and against the will of Odin, he could then belong to the company of great northern heroes whose exploits belong partly to this and partly to the other world.(p.189)
It appears that this is subject to a rather spirited and frankly interesting debate. Which might be, if it isn’t already, the subject of essays and books.
As for Thor and Odin. The idea that perhaps in some parts of Scandinavia Thor and not Odin was the high God is based on such interesting pieces of trivia as the apparent fact that at the great temple at Uppsala in Sweden there were three images of the great gods worshiped in it. The images of the Gods being grouped together. At one side was Freyr at the other side was Odin and in the middle, the biggest image was Thor. Hence the idea that perhaps here he was considerd the high god and perhaps also elsewhere.
This stuff is fascinating.
There seems to be no dispute that Tyr’s cognates (e.g. Tiwaz) ruled in other, nearby branches of the Indo-European mythos, but the Germanic branch was run by Odin/Othinn/Od/Woden long before literacy seems to have arisen in those peoples.
[…] Humanities [7:40] – The Vikings Meet Ancient Aliens, "Is It Possible?", No. – Find more informat at the website: Skeptical […]
We need to remember, that the overwhelming part of Scandinavian population was never “Vikings”… in that particular period of time, young men, who had no other possibility of substantial income than piracy, went overseas to attack and plunder preferably defenseless monasteries and peaceful coastal communities. Whatever Götiska Förbundets so romantically claimed about “the Vikings” are nothing but myths and no Scandinavian with even rudimentary sense of decency, would ever call them their ancestors but use words as “murderous rabble” and “work-avoiding marauders” rather than trying to find common cultural traits with those medieval cutthroats.http://www.studyinsweden.se/Living-in-Sweden/What-are-Swedes-like/
Have unfortunately watched it tonight on the Norwegian Discovery Channel. The only good that can be said about this show, is that it perhaps gets people interested in the Viking age and our history.
But apart from that? Damned. This is so bad that I myself could have invented better theories about Ancient Aliens.
Fortunately I’m saved from that work. Why? Because there exist a much better and more sound explanation of our gods and their relevance to space: The famous adventures of engineer Knut Berg.
OK. Perhaps not so famous. Think about it as a Norwegian cartoon where Flash Gordon is replaced with and engineer. In one of the stories he encounters a sleeper ship filled with Vikings in cyro sleep. Where they dream about fighting, eating and drinking. The story is that the Norse gods where on a recruitment trip to Earth and used Valkyries to fill up their ship with the most batshit crazy people they found: The Vikings. So now they are on their way home to use continue the fight against Jotnene with their newfound (and still batshit crazy) brothers in arms.
Way better storyline than Ancient Aliens. 🙂
Check out the rune inscribed on the Oseberg ship guys!
Ancient Aliens is ridiculous. But, it’s an entertaining show good to laugh at. The sad thing is though that so many people believe everything they say. They use just enough fact to seem legit but then jump into far reaching conclusions void of any common sense. The show should have a disclaimer that it is purely for entertainment purposes. That would probably be the only “true factual” [Nomenclature!] statement made. Good post.
Well. Very Intresting, to say the very least about the lesser knowledged. But unfortunately- your as guilty as them when it comes to truly NOT UNDERSTANDING the orgy of revolutionizing inventiveness; the Vikings bestowed upon the mid-evil, middle aged world.
Like you said “Humans have been building boats since- blah, blah”
The Vikings invented the keel. A chief structural component that keeps boats from capsizing. Man’s initial knowledge of polar magnetics & the bloody compass all share ancient scandanavian origins. Not to mention other note-worthy maritime inventions that revolutionized nautical exploration.
The weapons of the great Nordic Gods our quite similar too those of their Greek contemporaries. An these weapons of the more popular Greek Gods have been compared & contrasted to weapons of the future for almost a half century now. Theirs more than one noted scholar who’s received accolades from publishing papers; that noted the uncanny similarities between greek mythos of the past & there uncanny connections to modern technology. Were have you been? & therefore why are you so out-spokenly shocked when AncientAliens does it.. Is it because AncientAliens is minus the doctorate’s?
If i wasn’t so tired, i would be more than happy to go into the strange Geomanic relationships certain Trallerborg, Daine Viking fortresses have geodenically with The Great Pyramid; the Bosnian pyramids, Delphyi (the temple of Apollo), Apollo’s mythic journeys & the great greek tower of the winds. Also the well known Micheal Lyne mysteries & Vikingdom.
I’d say what we don’t know- about what the Vikings did somehow know, could clearly fill way more than A book. Its to bad All that & the message behind perhaps a ruff messenger clearly went way over your head.
Next time do some research & think, before you write such A poor blind synopsis, about something thats clearly light-years beyond your comprehension.
There are more to this subject then most people understand. Have you ever heard about the fantastic Nordic bronze age? In Scandinavia it developed over 1000 years the prime Bronze Age craftsmanship and crafts in Europe. Only in Mycenaean Greece there is an equivalent in findings. You shall all take a look at some of the findings in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymGsUp5xiMk
The nordic bronze age fits perfect with the Hyperboreans that the Greeks had contact with in the fare north.
I understand what the author is trying to imply here, all too vividly. The issue I have is with this authors lack of objectivity. If one is to critique a theory made by approximately 20 professors with PHD’s than one should do so objectively. The authors arguments are bias in almost every single way here. To be objective one does not write sarcastically in ways to try and undermine others work that they truly believe in. In no way does he offer any tangible evidence that any point he is trying to make is legitimate, instead he or she simply is pulling quotes from the show and poking fun at them. This makes me believe that I would never want to have a healthy debate with this person, as I don’t talk to bullies nor give them any time of day. What seems to be really going on here is an author (a very well-written author at that) who seems to just hate the show ancient aliens. If one actually looks at the show Ancient Aliens from an objective stand point, while many of the theories they have seem to be a little impossible or reaching, many good points are made that simply cannot be explained. Just because the author doesn’t like one of the professor’s hair on Ancient Aliens doesn’t mean they should be able to try and infantilize him so much. He is technically a doctor and thousand of his students would probably be rather offended. I know I would be. The point here is that Viking mythology is in many way unexplained and that’s the beauty of it. Also if a real professor read this article they wouldn’t be giving out a good grade because this article is just very rude. They would score very well regarding diction and grammar. Good ole spellcheck…
Also Anton Lamont, love your points!
Besides, it wasn’t aliens, it was golems. 😉
My only note is that “skis” does not have an E in it.
Yeah thats plausible……… but ive seen a ufo. Theres plenty proof to there existence and cover up. If you dont believe try opening yout eyes , look at the sky instead of your cell phone.