logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2021
12m 11s

You don't need aliens to make history in...

TED
About this episode

Aliens have invaded ancient history: they've cropped up in humanity's past through popular television and movies, displacing facts with absurd yet commonplace beliefs like "aliens built the pyramids." Archaeologist Sarah Kurnick illustrates why these misconceptions perpetuate racist and xenophobic notions of history and culture -- and demonstrates how you can help debunk these dangerous, outlandish myths.

Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
How to google your symptoms without freaking out | John Whyte
Why does searching your symptoms online always leave you more frightened than before? As former chief medical officer of WebMD, physician John Whyte spent years believing more information meant better health — until he saw how too much of it was making people spiral. In a world o ... Show More
15m 6s
Apr 26
Sunday Pick: Min Jin Lee | from Design Matters
The author of the award-winning novels “Pachinko” and “Free Food for Millionaires,” Min Jin Lee, discusses her remarkable career and the long journey and intention behind her Korean diaspora novels.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/po ... Show More
1h 12m
Apr 25
What you discover when you really listen | Hrishikesh Hirway (re-release and interview)
“Every conversation has the potential to open up and reveal all the layers and layers within it, all those rooms within rooms," says musician and host of the beloved podcast Song Exploder, Hrishikesh Hirway. In this profoundly moving talk from 2022, he offers a guide to deep conv ... Show More
50m 20s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2021
ALIEN: Ancient Aliens
<p>Fragments of a map from the 1500s sparked a theory that’s been going strong for decades. It holds that extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, gifting humans with advanced tech far beyond our means. Today we investigate the mysteries that make aliens ... Show More
23m 39s
Oct 2019
Episode #97- Who Built the Pyramids? (Part I)
The Egyptian pyramids are easily the most mythologized pieces of architecture on the planet. They have inspired historical myths and misconceptions essentially as long as "history" has been a literary genre. The so-called "father of history" Herodotus was one of the first writers ... Show More
56m 1s
Sep 2019
Ancient Astronauts
The ancient world proved itself capable of remarkable feats of construction. Thousands of years later, historians and archeologists are still unsure of how such marvels were constructed. As our understanding of the capabilities of ancient empires as grown, so has the suspicion th ... Show More
47m 45s
Aug 2023
122: Finding Agartha: The Search for the Hidden City in the Center of the Earth
Cultures around the world have myths that speak of a mysterious underground kingdom that exists deep within the earth, hidden away from the primitive and violent surface-dwellers: which is us. Picture a society untouched by time, unscathed by war, and unaffected by natural disast ... Show More
39m 41s
Apr 2023
The puzzle of the pyramids
The Great Pyramids of Giza are awesome feats of engineering and precision. So who built them - and how? Was it a mysteriously super-advanced civilization now oddly extinct? Was it even aliens?Nah, course not! Rutherford and Fry investigate how these inspiring monuments were reall ... Show More
27m 57s
Jan 2023
The Puzzle of the Pyramids
The Great Pyramids of Giza are awesome feats of engineering and precision. So who built them - and how? Was it a mysteriously super-advanced civilization now oddly extinct? Was it even aliens? Nah, course not! Rutherford and Fry investigate how these inspiring monuments were real ... Show More
36m 9s