Flash! Fox News Reports that Aliens May Have Built the Pyramids of Egypt!

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Flash! Fox News Reports that Aliens May Have Built the Pyramids of Egypt!

Richard Carrier

Volume 23.5, September / October 1999

Pseudoscience as news? The Fox Network’s handling of its primetime special "Opening the Lost Tombs: Live from Egypt” raises ethical questions.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a Sunday night, on the ten o'clock news. Right between a report on Y2K and another on a fine against a local construction company, Fox 5 News in New York saw fit to give us a “special report” on who built the pyramids. The graphic behind the announcer, on a backdrop of the Gizeh pyramids, asks the question: “Alien Architects?” The announcer plugs the upcoming Fox television network special “Opening the Lost Tombs: Live From Egypt,” then segues into the story with the campy introduction, “There are many mysteries in Egypt, like the pyramids. Who built them and how did they do it?” With that she introduces Fox News correspondent David Garcia, who begins his voice-over to video of the pyramids: “The ancient future, a civilization of contradiction.” Immediately we hear another voice in an Arabic accent, “a pyramid was a tomb,” followed immediately by another similar voice, “the pyramid has never been a tomb.”

This is how it begins, and it only gets worse. Besides the ramifications of this news report for the whole field of journalism-the way it was conducted, and the shoddy journalism it represents-there is the then-upcoming special that this “news report” was plugging, which aired the following Tuesday (March 2, 1999). Although that show might be excused as “entertainment,” when the same thing is done on a regular news hour, amidst real news, such an excuse is inadequate. And as I eventually discovered, it would even be ethically questionable for Fox to call its live special “entertainment.” One scholar who participated in it told me he agreed to take part in the show for no fee, on the basis that it was a “news” program. “They certainly used the word 'news',” he told me, “using that as the reason why 'no one' who was interviewed was getting paid.” If that is true, and if Fox does claim the show was entertainment, then it is pulling a fast one.

Questionable Sources

On the ten o'clock news, after we are told that the pyramids have never been a tomb, correspondent Garcia continues, “Still, modern day scholars debate not only what they are, but why they are-who, or what, built them?” He treats both claims as if they are exemplary of real scholarly debate. Does Garcia really think that? He could not be reached for comment. Then we see a man identified onscreen as “Fadel Gad, Egyptologist.” What news does he have for us? Why, just this: “Were the Egyptians thinking of UFOs at that time? Yes! A very sophisticated, highly intelligent species that had intercepted this planet Earth and had caused the evolution and the exploration of the human consciousness.” A real Egyptologist is saying this? This is what Fox News is reporting. Though I later found that Mr. Gad has extensive field experience and a master’s degree in Egyptology, he has authored no known publications, and is not a member of the International Association of Egyptologists. But there is one more thing: Fadel Gad just happens to be a co-executive producer of "Opening the Lost Tombs.” This is not mentioned in this news report. Here is a real blurring of the line between news and entertainment, with producers being portrayed as unbiased experts on news stories to drum up interest in their future entertainment programs.

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The thrust of the report was definitely not skeptical. Garcia tells us that "traditional Egyptologists” consider “even the mention of UFOs or other-world intelligence [as] heresy,” as if this were about opinion and dogma, with rival opinions as good as any other, instead of being about facts and evidence. The only skeptic presented was Zahi Hawass, “Undersecretary of State,” a truly renowned Egyptologist, widely published in the field, with a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (all far more than Fadel Gad can claim). But Dr. Hawass was not listed as an Egyptologist-instead, he was identified as an establishment bureaucrat (though it wasn't mentioned, he would also be involved in the upcoming special). Hawass explains, “People like to dream. If you meet someone who is not an archaeologist, they love to dream.” 

Recounting the claims of aliens, he concludes, “That’s a dream! My job is to let you dream, but you have to know a little bit about reality.” That is all Hawass gets to say against the ideas of Mr. Gad. No other experts or information are presented on this matter. This furthers the impression that the debate is about opinions, not facts, about heretics fighting the establishment and being arrogantly dismissed as dreamers.

Eventually, Garcia tells us, “also preserved are records, etched in stone, supporting evidence not of this Earth.” This is a tacit approval of the alien hypothesis by a mainstream journalist on a major network’s regular ten o'clock news hour. This is not a tabloid; this is supposedly a mainstream source. Yet there is no hint of skepticism.

What is this “supporting evidence” not of this Earth? Gad again: “The records indicate that we came from another place, we came from the stars.” Do they? A picture is then shown of some Egyptian hieroglyphs resembling rings, and we hear Gad declaring “they look like flying saucers!” Then comes a picture of a carving of an Egyptian in a ceremonial headdress, followed by Gad’s voice again: “They are showing figures with antennas on their head. Very mysterious.” No other interpretation is offered, no one is given the chance to rebut Gad’s reading of these glyphs.

Garcia finishes with a sappy catch-phrase ending, typical of this brand of TV journalism, “A higher intelligence, or merely dedicated hard work? Which theory is correct? Neither is proven. It is the mystery of Egypt,” an overt declaration that the aliens theory is just as good as any other, that it hasn't been “proven” that the pyramids are man-made. If the Fox network can be this gullible, or this incompetent, or this shifty, on a subject where information and experts abound, how can anyone trust anything else they report?

By now I was dreading the Fox special. I had already found the Fox Web site promoting all kinds of pseudoscience, uncritically, from mummy curses to aliens to psychics. No real journalism appears on the Web site at all, virtually no skepticism, and no references or authorities. Statements are made as if they were facts. The Titanic was sunk by a mummy’s curse; the pyramids may have been built to signal space travellers; the fifty-year-old predictions of “the celebrated American psychic” Edgar Cayce suggest the pyramids were built ten thousand years ago; that the Sphinx shows damage from the Great Flood; and a secret hall of records from Atlantis would be found under it in the late 1990s-conveniently, the very time that Fox planned to explore, live on television, new shafts opened up “beneath” the Sphinx (not exactly-more like behind it).

“Forget about everything you've ever seen or heard about” the Sphinx and the pyramids, Maury Povich says as the show begins. Then there’s a cheesy voice-over, asking the questions that set the tone for the rest of the show. “Are there clues to man’s destiny? Was it Atlantis that taught Egypt how to build? Are we the descendants of astronauts from another world?” The entire two-hour show is littered with New Age authors pushing their theories, interspersed with more interesting archaeological tours led by Zahi Hawass. Hawass is a wonderful scientist, and clearly loves his job. He embodies the excitement of archaeology, and is eager to share it with others. Around this backbone of “reality,” which included the new, “live-on-TV” discovery of an intact mummy, the exploration of an unused tomb, and the first-ever public viewing of the tomb of Osiris, the content is entirely lopsided in favor of the "heretics.” The “reality” aspect of the show is also suspect; much of it seemed staged. It was apparent that Hawass had explored many of these sites before, identifying art and translating inscriptions, in preparation for the show (and then, perhaps, “setting them up” by covering them with sand). Moreover, many archaeologists, whose comments can be read in the ANE Digest archives, note that Hawass was providing a very bad example of how to conduct a dig. Some even said they would use the video to instruct students on what not to do.

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