Home Podcasts It‘s Probably (not) Aliens!
It‘s Probably (not) Aliens!

It‘s Probably (not) Aliens!

Tristan Johnson & Scott Niswander 161 Episodes Jun 16, 2026

Historian Tristan Johnson and regular human Scott Niswander debunk the ancient astronaut theory presented in History Channel's Ancient Aliens. Each week they explore the real history behind ancient monuments and forgotten civilizations, separating fact from fiction. The show aims to appreciate the achievements of ancient societies without attributing them to extraterrestrial visitors.

Episodes

Walking Amogus
Walking Amogus Jun 16, 2026 01:09:09 David Jacobs spent his retirement from teaching history at Temple University convinced that alien-human hybrids he calls hubrids are quietly moving into apartments in Philadelphia, taking jobs, and waiting for a signal to enslave the planet. The catch is that these telepathic interstellar conquerors apparently cannot work a toaster, order a coffee, or figure out when to clap at a concert,
The Real Mantis Was The Exploitation We Made Along The Way
The Real Mantis Was The Exploitation We Made Along The Way Jun 9, 2026 01:20:42 Somewhere in the deep lore of alien abduction, past the gray guys who run the equipment, sits a manager. Six to nine feet of praying mantis, purple robe for rank, telepathic, standing at the head of the table while the drones do the wet work. It regards you the way a farmer regards livestock. This week, Tristan brings on Stanford (yes, the one we verbally abused all of last season, now a
Rosicrucianism Was Just A 1614 S***post
Rosicrucianism Was Just A 1614 S***post Jun 2, 2026 01:11:58 In 1980, a mysterious stranger named R.C. Christian spent the equivalent of $200,000 to erect 19-foot-tall, 119-ton granite monuments in rural Georgia. Ancient Aliens wants you to believe the "Georgia Guidestones" are an extraterrestrial warning to keep the human population under 500 million, passed down by the secret Rosicrucian order. Tristan and guest Sarah Davis Baker are here to info
Nikola Tesla Was Never Forgotten, He Was Just Sad
Nikola Tesla Was Never Forgotten, He Was Just Sad May 26, 2026 01:39:15 Ancient Aliens wants you to believe Nikola Tesla was an alien conduit whose secret death ray was buried by the FBI. The actual story: the "vault" they seized in 1943 contained a Wheatstone bridge, which was the 1940s version of a multimeter you could order from a catalogue. The MIT physicist who wrote the dismissive evaluation report was, no joke, John G. Trump, uncle of the current US pr
Tartaria: A Russian Psyop For People Who Hate Drywall
Tartaria: A Russian Psyop For People Who Hate Drywall May 19, 2026 01:44:16 Have you ever looked at a beautiful old train station and felt something had been lost? Good news: the something is "labour protections." Bad news: a Russian topologist from the 1980s has a different theory, and it's currently eating TikTok.This week, Tristan is joined by Mia Mulder, who happens to have made the definitive YouTube video on this exact topic two years ago and then forgot sh
Leonardo da Vinci Was Just A Guy With ADHD
Leonardo da Vinci Was Just A Guy With ADHD May 12, 2026 01:11:35 Ancient Aliens claims Leonardo da Vinci was contacted by extraterrestrials, in person or telepathically, and given blueprints for tanks, helicopters, and parachutes centuries ahead of his time. Tristan and guest host Sophie Edwards (We Have Always Existed) walk through what's actually in the sketches. Sophie also has a YouTube channel called We Have Always Existed about gender-nonconformi
Anarchist praxis in the 17th century (a love story)
Anarchist praxis in the 17th century (a love story) May 5, 2026 01:34:28 Tristan flies solo without Scott (now on baby duty) and brings in Phil and Kevin from the Pixelit podcast to crack open Nan Madol, the stone complex sitting on a coral reef in Pohnpei. Ancient Aliens says it was built by giants from the stars who ran a hybrid breeding program before culling the survivors. The actual story is way better: a feudal dynasty extracted so much labour from its p
We Should've Had Shovels For Hands
We Should've Had Shovels For Hands Apr 28, 2026 02:04:50 Ancient Aliens wants you to believe the Toba super-eruption 74,000 years ago was an alien population cull, a "cosmic reset button" to wipe out noisy, rebellious humanity 1.0 and replace us with a genetically upgraded, obedient slave race that then built all the pyramids. Tristan walks Scott through the claim piece by piece: the Anunnaki population control panic, the inside-job volcano the
Struck Down In His Prime At 90 Years Young
Struck Down In His Prime At 90 Years Young Apr 21, 2026 01:22:41 Season premiere corrections episode! Erich von Däniken is dead (despite what the Ancient Aliens community assured us about his extraordinary health), Ash Ketchum retired, and nobody told Tristan, and a listener named Leif has been emailing corrections since the Biden administration. This episode: batteries, Thailand's impressive colonial-era diplomacy, why calling medieval people historic
The Clearest UFO Photo of 2026 Costs $12 at Party City
The Clearest UFO Photo of 2026 Costs $12 at Party City Mar 26, 2026 00:39:20 Tristan flies solo while Scott's on paternity leave to bring you an emergency episode about the "clearest UFO photograph of 2026"; a viral image of a sharp, metallic object over Acapulco that got AI-enhanced, scored 97% authentic by some unnamed tool, and landed in a news cycle where the President had just promised the alien files were coming. It's a $12 Party City balloon bouquet shaped
Magnets: How Do They (Not) Work?
Magnets: How Do They (Not) Work? Mar 3, 2026 01:15:40 Ancient Aliens claims the 3,000 standing stones at Carnac in Brittany are quartz-rich geomagnetic batteries that beam GPS signals to extraterrestrials. In this episode, Tristan takes us deeper into the actual physics of magnetism than this podcast has possibly ever gone, and it turns out the Earth's magnetic field is so weak your fridge magnets are millions of times more powerful, quartz
Coral Castle: Women Always Be Wanting You To Make Megaliths
Coral Castle: Women Always Be Wanting You To Make Megaliths Feb 24, 2026 01:47:26 A Latvian immigrant, barely five feet tall, builds one of the strangest tourist attractions in North America out of coral stone, and Ancient Aliens can only think to credit aliens with it. In this role-reversed birthday episode, Scott takes the research chair to investigate Coral Castle, the sprawling stone garden in Homestead, Florida that features astronomical alignments, stone rocking

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