UE, USI to cohost archaeologist who challenges claims made in popular television series

Evansville, Ind. (02/28/2024) — The Department of Archaeology at the University of Evansville (UE) and the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern Indiana (USI) will cohost an event aimed at examining the claims made by the popular program Ancient Aliens. The lecture titled Ancient Aliens: A Joke That Really Isn't Very Funny by Andrew White, PhD, is set for Thursday, March 28, 2024, and will take place from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the Smythe Auditorium, located in the Stone Family Center for Health Sciences. Admission is free and open to the public.

The television program Ancient Aliens argues that there is good evidence that space aliens interacted with ancient human societies and continue to be active here on Earth. According to White, a Research Archaeologist for the Illinois State Archaeological Survey who has confronted pseudo-archaeological claims about the human past, most of the archaeological claims made on the program are far-fetched and have been shown to be wrong. This presentation aims to expose the fallacies behind these claims and explore the shared intellectual ancestry of Ancient Aliens, eugenics, the occult, Nazism, Atlantis believers, and other pseudo-scientific belief systems.

By challenging the assertions made by Ancient Aliens, the local academic community hopes to encourage critical thinking and promote a better understanding of archaeology and our shared human past.

To learn more about the lecture, please contact archaeology@evansville.edu.