Agreed that the wonderful Nan Madol is a mghtily-impressive (but also overkill-looking) phenomenon for a 334 km2 island 1000 miles from New Guinea, 2000 from The Philippines, 3000 from Hawaii and 6500 from Easter Island. Agreed that an "Ancient Aliens" case looks stronger here than almost anywhere else you can think of, given apparent disproportionality between civilisational possibilities and size of achievement. Agreed that Childress and Tsoukalos handle this one reasonably nicely - and even bring along a structural engineer.
Agreed that 92 artificially-reinforced islands over 200 acres is an impressive structure that may or may not be associated conceivably with a date in the 12th or 13th centuries.
Agreed that it is kind of weird that local legend believes stones were dropped by a giant bird, that ships carrying excavated remains from the complex sank irretrievably with their finds on board, and that the 2 underwater drones used on the episode both suddenly malfunctioned on their approach to the undesea parts of the walls!
Perhaps conventional archaeology REALLY IS on the backfoot here, allowing Childress and co. to hit home with their claim?
But (what should be) a first - and apparently insurmountable - issue here is the way that Childress's claim that there are 250 million tonnes of moved basalt columns at Nan Madol has to be set against other accounts which speak of 750,000 tonnes. While the latter is also a large amount of rock, and while rafts might indeed sink carrying even a single pillar of basalt, there is a 333-fold difference at stake here which would need to be accounted for before we get on to anything else!
We allow "Ancient Aliens" to fly off into the realms of the fantastic (wonderful/scary) - that is indeed why we watch. But we attach enough faith in the show's makers and presenters to assume that basic facts supplied to us are indeed basic facts.
But is that in fact the case?
Agreed that 92 artificially-reinforced islands over 200 acres is an impressive structure that may or may not be associated conceivably with a date in the 12th or 13th centuries.
Agreed that it is kind of weird that local legend believes stones were dropped by a giant bird, that ships carrying excavated remains from the complex sank irretrievably with their finds on board, and that the 2 underwater drones used on the episode both suddenly malfunctioned on their approach to the undesea parts of the walls!
Perhaps conventional archaeology REALLY IS on the backfoot here, allowing Childress and co. to hit home with their claim?
But (what should be) a first - and apparently insurmountable - issue here is the way that Childress's claim that there are 250 million tonnes of moved basalt columns at Nan Madol has to be set against other accounts which speak of 750,000 tonnes. While the latter is also a large amount of rock, and while rafts might indeed sink carrying even a single pillar of basalt, there is a 333-fold difference at stake here which would need to be accounted for before we get on to anything else!
We allow "Ancient Aliens" to fly off into the realms of the fantastic (wonderful/scary) - that is indeed why we watch. But we attach enough faith in the show's makers and presenters to assume that basic facts supplied to us are indeed basic facts.
But is that in fact the case?
