Ancient Aliens claims the 3,000 standing stones at Carnac in Brittany are quartz-rich geomagnetic batteries that beam GPS signals to extraterrestrials. In this episode, Tristan takes us deeper into the actual physics of magnetism than this podcast has possibly ever gone, and it turns out the Earth's magnetic field is so weak your fridge magnets are millions of times more powerful, quartz can't hold a charge any more than your aluminum can, and granite is about as conductive as a floor tile. We also untangle why a Pythagorean triangle at a site with 3,000 rocks is statistically inevitable, and why the real question isn't "what did Carnac do" but why Ancient Aliens can't accept that sometimes people just build things to feel something. Plus: the MRI machine that can never be turned off, the case for a really long cable to space, and a branded non-alcoholic IPA we desperately need someone to make for us.

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Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch | Edited by Stanford

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A Latvian immigrant, barely five feet tall, builds one of the strangest tourist attractions in North America out of coral stone, and Ancient Aliens can only think to credit aliens with it. In this role-reversed birthday episode, Scott takes the research chair to investigate Coral Castle, the sprawling stone garden in Homestead, Florida that features astronomical alignments, stone rocking chairs, and a nine-ton gate a child can push open. Ancient Aliens made seven claims about it in seven minutes. Only one of them is true.

Along the way, we discover that the show's romantic "jilted lover" narrative was invented by a jeweler in the 1950s, that the "mysterious black box" was just the top of a tripod, that there's literal video footage of Ed using pulleys (which Ancient Aliens apparently didn't watch), and that Ed's own book contains some of the most unhinged things we've ever read on this podcast; and we've read Chariots of the Gods. We close by examining the "lone genius" myth, why romanticizing isolation is dangerous, and why community is, dare we say it, communing-ism.

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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

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

Music by Rod Kim | Cover art by Skutch | Edited by Stanford

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

Scott's down for the count, so his nearly-third-trimester wife Emily Pilat steps up to the mic. (This episode actually is coming out on the due date.) Together with Tristan, they travel to the Armenian highlands to investigate Karahunj, a site of 223 standing stones that conspiracy theorists call "Armenian Stonehenge." The claim? The 80 holes drilled into these stones are precisely aligned with the constellation Cygnus as it appeared 12,000 years ago, suggesting either alien contact or a lost ice-age civilization that taught Bronze Age Armenians impossible astronomy.

The reality involves a graveyard, some goats, and a guy with a Geocities website endorsed by Graham Hancock.

Along the way, they unpack the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, talk about why a Nobel Prize–winning physicist promoting archaeology doesn't automatically make him right, visit the worst website on the modern internet not owned by Elon Musk, and grapple with the uncomfortable question of what happens when legitimate failures in institutional science create vacuums that grifters are all too happy to fill. Plus: Canadian parliamentary drama, Pontius Pilate's descendant works at a Christian nonprofit, and why ancient people drew so many penises on walls.

Content Warning: Discussion of radicalization, political violence, January 6th insurrection, and the exploitation of vulnerable populations.

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 | Edited by Stanford

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