It‘s Probably (not) Aliens!

Harvard Professor Avi Loeb is back, and he wants you to believe that the new interstellar object screaming through our solar system, 3I/Atlas, is a hostile alien spacecraft sent to destroy us. In this episode, Tristan and Scott (who is currently possessed by Professor X) break down why this claim is "objectively wrong" and why the reality, a 14-billion-year-old "Universe Placenta" from the dawn of time, is infinitely cooler than the sci-fi grift. We discuss the "thick disc" of the galaxy, why scientific pre-prints are a media hacker's best friend, and whether the X-Men actually have a space program.

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Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled debunking of ancient astronaut theories for an emergency broadcast: We might have actually found aliens this time. No, really.

Scott and Tristan break down the discovery of the Cheyava Falls rock by the Perseverance rover. This dusty red doorstop features "leopard spots," which, on Earth, are a chemically specific signature of biological life. We discuss the rigorous science behind the "COLD" scale (Confidence of Life Detection), why this rock might be the most important thing ever drilled, and the agonizing reality that it is currently stuck millions of kilometres away because the Mars Sample Return mission is wildly over budget.

Then, to make sure you don't leave this episode feeling too hopeful, Tristan explains why finding independent microbial life on Mars might actually confirm that the "Great Filter" is ahead of us, and that we are all doomed.

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re kicking off the new season by doing the one thing Ancient Aliens refuses to do: admitting we were wrong.

First, Scott has entered his "Napalm Era" and held the podcast hostage to talk about the 2025 animated masterpiece K-Pop: Demon Hunters (and the specific lyrics that have rewired his brain). Once we get that out of our system, we open the mailbag to face the music.

We issue mea culpas for mixing up our Star Trek treaties (Khitomer vs. Algeron is serious business), failing to understand how mirrors and thermodynamics work, and forgetting that lighthouses are actually very pretty. We also revisit Lord of the Flies to discuss why William Golding might have just been sick of dealing with British private school boys, and clarify that Spider-Man (Supaidāman) gave us giant robots, but he didn't invent them.

Finally, we tackle a listener email that sends us down a rabbit hole regarding the philosophical roots of fascism. Tristan explains how the transition from Enlightenment empiricism to Romanticism's "triumph of the will" explains everything from the Flat Earth movement to the modern political divide.

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A woman posts 25+ TikToks about falling in love with her psychiatrist who "manipulated" her by complimenting her glasses. She confides in ChatGPT (named Henry) which validates every delusion. This spirals into a broader discussion about how Ancient Aliens and conspiracy media systematically exploit vulnerable people experiencing mental health crises, turning psychological suffering into profits through algorithmic radicalization and targeted advertising. Also: why capitalism makes this worse, Pigouvian taxes, and that time someone thought an elephant was a mermaid.

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ancient Aliens loves to portray angels not as divine messengers, but as heavenly soldiers armed with advanced weaponry, turning biblical stories into "battle reports" of alien soldiers. But this isn't just a weird sci-fi twist; it taps into a much older, darker tradition. We trace the long, strange history of how Christianity, a religion born from oppressed people, was transformed into a tool for imperial conquest. It's a journey that starts with a Roman emperor seeing a cross in the sky and hearing the words "by this sign, conquer," leads directly to the Crusades, and helps justify centuries of colonization. Finally, we explore how this ancient ideology of holy war echoes in the chants of the modern far-right and gets a secular facelift in the pseudo-history of warrior aliens. 

Stuff mentioned in the episode:

• Tom Lehrer
• "Wernher von Braun" song by Tom Lehrer
• The Bible, Annotated Beyond All Possible Usefulness by Zach Weinersmith
• Emperor Constantine
• Battle of the Milvian Bridge
• Chi-Rho symbol
• Council of Clermont
• Pope Urban II's call for the First Crusade
• Dum Diversus (1452)
• Doctrine of Discovery
• Liberation Theology
• The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott
• José's video on Tucker Carlson and UFO documentaries

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You've seen it on TikTok: a wild theory connecting a sacred mountain in the Middle East, fallen angels, the Roswell crash, and the number 33. Welcome to the Mount Hermon conspiracy, the belief that a supernatural coordinate system, the 33rd parallel, serves as a global energy grid for aliens and angels alike. It’s a theory so powerful that it supposedly dictates everything from ancient history to modern warfare.

So, is the Earth a giant D20 crisscrossed with energy lines? Scott and Tristan (armed with sangria and cream ale) dive into the numbers. They use some good old-fashioned math, statistical analysis, and a lesson on how latitude and longitude actually work to show why this "worldwide grid" has a tolerance for error so wide you could fly a V-2 rocket through it. Then, they get into the real history of Mount Hermon, a site sacred to countless cultures long before anyone wrote about "Watchers," and explore how apocalyptic literature from 200 BCE is being twisted to serve a new narrative.

But this isn't just about debunking bad math. The hosts connect the dots from TikTok brainrot to the very real, very dangerous world of geopolitics, revealing how these conspiracies are weaponized to justify white nationalism and settler colonial projects in active war zones today.

Stuff mentioned in the episode:

• Monte Carlo Simulation
• Sarah Davis Baker and her video "The uncanny horror of AI hallucinations"

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ancient Aliens claims that myths about divine "Watchers" from the Anunnaki to the Eye of Horus are actually cultural memories of extraterrestrial surveillance systems. But what if the truth is far more terrestrial and much more insidious? Tristan argues that these stories aren't about alien technology, but a very human one: the invention of divine surveillance as a tool for social control.

Join us as we unpack the 5,000-year-old con of the panopticon, a psychological prison designed to make you regulate your own behaviour. From Mesopotamian statues watching over grain silos to Jeremy Bentham's famously preserved head, they explore how ancient priests perfected a system of control so effective that modern governments and tech companies basically just copied it. So the next time you feel a pang of anxiety about that little green light on your laptop, thank an ancient priest for programming your brain to accept it. Oh, and they also redesign Catholicism to include nachos and Buzz Balls. 

Stuff mentioned in the episode:

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• Jeremy Bentham's Auto-icon at UCL
• Caitlin Doughty's YouTube channel, Ask a Mortician
• David Graeber
• Peter Kropotkin
• Elf on the Shelf
• The Panopticon
• The Benjamin Franklin Effect
• System 1 & System 2 Thinking
• Dimension 20
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years
• The Conquest of Bread
• Home Assistant
• Pi-hole
• Signal
• The ACLU
• The CCLA
• M&M Food Market
• "Shaming the Meat"

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After an 11-month hiatus that felt like a biblical epoch, Tristan and Scott are back to ask the tough questions, like "Do you remember the name of our own podcast?" and "Do Christians actually believe in angels?". The answer, according to Ancient Aliens, is that they shouldn't because angels were actually extraterrestrial visitors misunderstood by primitive humans.

Join us as we dive into the linguistic weeds, tracing words like the Hebrew malak and the Greek angelos to reveal how "messenger of God" got deliberately misinterpreted as "messenger from another planet". We'll explore similar divine go-betweens in Akkadian, Zoroastrian, and even Islamic traditions, all while trying to figure out how a Canadian PSA about a tiny, crumb-eating hippo is the key to media literacy. We connect the dots between cherry-picking ancient texts for aliens and the more sinister historical revisionism of the Lost Cause and Nazi archaeology because of course we do.

Stuff mentioned in the epsiode:

House Hippo PSA (Concerned Children's Advertisers)

Ice Angel (2000)

Assassin's Creed Isu lore

Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (angel hierarchy)

Michael (1996) - John Travolta film

Angels in the Outfield (1994)

Draw with Jazza YouTube channel

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In April 2025, the James Webb Space Telescope made a groundbreaking discovery: a distant exoplanet, K2-18b, showed signs of dimethyl sulphide. A chemical that, on Earth, is only produced by life. The media went wild with the news that we had finally found a "fart planet," the first real biosignature of alien life. But then, as quickly as it appeared, the confidence began to fade.

Join Tristan and Scott as they investigate what really happened with the planet of alien farts. First, they dive into the incredible science of how we study distant worlds, from the mind-bending coolness of transit spectroscopy to the statistical nitty-gritty of "three sigma" confidence. Then, they pull back the curtain on the systemic pressures that create these cycles of hype and retraction, exploring everything from the "publish or perish" culture in academia to the perverse incentives that cause university press offices to overstate research. This isn't just a story about a potential discovery; it's a crucial lesson in scientific literacy and a look at how the messy, brilliant, and deeply human process of science actually works.

Stuff mentioned in the episode:

K2-18b

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Cambridge University's original press release about the discovery

Dimethyl sulfide

The MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) on JWST

Transit spectroscopy

The COLd Scale (Confidence of Life Detection scale) from NASA

Phosphine on Venus controversy

'Oumuamua

ALH84001 (Martian meteorite)

The Wow! Signal

Drake Equation

Pathological science

Andrew Wakefield vaccine study

Polywater

Cold fusion

N-rays (1903)

Science communication outlets mentioned: The Conversation, Science X, Tech Explore, Medical Xpress, Phys.org

Sodium vapor process (Mary Poppins special effects)

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To kick off the new season, Scott and Tristan uphold their sacred tradition: correcting all the things they've gotten wrong. What begins as a simple corrections episode quickly spirals into a sprawling conversation about the Canada-U.S. relationship, the strategic importance of maple syrup, and a revolutionary new food group known as "pickle fries." The hosts also tackle more serious topics, including a historical correction on the Trail of Tears, a powerful submission from a caregiver about the dangerous overlap between conspiracy theories and schizophrenia, and the Mormon belief in a holy city that was literally taken up into heaven. Also, they finally settle the score on the correct pronunciation of a certain Starbucks drink.

Links to stuff Mentioned:

Charlie Angus (Canadian politician mentioned)

The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

Akira (anime film)

Ghost in the Shell

Patlabor 2

Spriggan (Netflix anime)

Mars Express (French animated film)

Nathan For You

IWW (Industrial Workers of the World/Wobblies)

The Long Walk of the Navajo

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Get new episodes early and support the show on Patreon and Nebula!

Subscribe to It's Probably (not) Aliens for weekly episodes about cool ancient history! And give us a 5-star review if you have the time. It really helps us out!

Tristan Johnson Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Scott Niswander Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube

Follow the show on Bluesky or Twitter for more updates!

Ask us questions and send us topics to talk about at ProbsNotAliens.com

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.