Some friends and family of mine watch shows like Ancient Aliens and they always ask me, “What’s the harm? It could be aliens, you don’t know!” and this always drives me up the wall. As we are learning in this class, pseudoscience like that which is portrayed in the show may appear to be harmless but on a deeper level it is anything but. Once, I saw a meme that said: “Just because white people didn’t build it, doesn’t mean aliens did!” and while that’s a bit ham-fisted, it’s also the point I want to make.

I think one of the most inherently wrong aspects of shows like Ancient Aliens is the perpetuation of racism. While it may not be shoved down your throat and blatantly rubbed in your face, these shows do promote racist ideology. The idea that people of color, especially people of color in the past, were incapable of the feats of ingenuity ancient people performed is not new and not easily let go, even though it is completely and utterly bogus. By saying “these pyramids are too great to have been built by these people,” shows like Ancient Aliens fuel racist agendas. Even if the presenters in the show don’t see the wrongness in attributing the genius of ancient humans to aliens, that doesn’t mean they’re in the right.

Shows like this always remind me of “The Myth of the Moundbuilders,” with the similar “these people couldn’t have done this awesome thing” mindset. “The Myth of the Moundbuilders” was the idea that Native Americans could not have possibly built the mounds throughout America because they were simply not intelligent or intellectual enough. This toxic, horrendous mindset created years of scientifically minded individuals crafting “theories” on how these mounds could have been built by anyone but the Native Americans who built them. They ranged anywhere from “aliens did it” to “white people from Europe did it but the Natives killed them all” and every one of these myths perpetuate racism, even if some are more violent and obvious than others.

Using a platform of science and scholarly theory, like Ancient Aliens pretends to do, only perpetuates the rightness of these blatantly wrong ideas. Casting doubt on the abilities of ancient people, especially those of color, to fuel the flame of their conspiratorial agendas is only some of the harm that comes with shows like Ancient Aliens. Not everyone who watches that show is racist, not everyone in that show is racist, but the people who are racist use that show to corroborate their racist ideology and that is a dangerous and tragic misuse of “science.”