I use the word "outlandish" deliberately, because he not only propounds dozens of claims about the origins of earthly cultures, he also has an entire book on the "Face on Mars," which is supposedly evidence of an advanced civilization on the Red Planet that was later wiped out by a cataclysm, but which turns out to be a bigass pile of rocks that only looks like a face if you (1) aim your camera at it from one specific direction, (2) make sure the photograph is grainy and low-resolution, and (3) squint your eyes at it real hard.
Hancock is not above messing with the facts to make them fit his favorite pseudoarchaeological "theories." RationalWiki, never ones to mince words, describe a tiff he got into over the Egyptian pyramids:
[H]e aligned the Giza complex to the constellation of Orion as it was some 10,000 years ago, although the BBC program Horizon thought otherwise. They claimed that Hancock had fiddled with the locations of some of the temples to fit in with his own theories, and had even ignored the texts carved on the temples themselves, which explained quite clearly why and when they had been built. Hancock cried foul to the Broadcasting Standards Commission, who politely told him to sod off.
So he's a little suspect right from the get-go. Then add to this the fact that he's appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, which by itself reduces someone's credibility level to the dimensions of your typical subatomic particle.
Despite this, his books are international bestsellers, which makes a writer like myself grind my teeth down to nubs.
But all envy aside, I decided to read Underworld. I figured at least it was worth the time from the standpoint of entertainment.
There's no doubt he's got a compelling style, with a keen eye for description and detail, and does know a good deal about the places he visits. You can see why unwary readers find him convincing. But if you start looking at just about all of his claims with any care at all, you find that his foremost talent is cherry-picking.
Historian Garrett Fagan's 2006 book Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public gives dozens of examples of Hancock's selective use of evidence -- such as his claim that Antarctica was ice-free six thousand years ago (ignoring geological and ice core data showing that it's been completely glaciated for at least a hundred thousand years), and that the Bolivian archaeological site of Tiwanaku has been the subject of "minimal archaeology" and is "a mysterious site about which very little is known" (actually, it's been extensively studied, including radioisotope analysis strongly contradicting Hancock's assertion that it's over ten thousand years old).
So the approach appears to be "mention only the evidence that supports your claim, and cite only people who agree with you."
Hell, it worked for Erich von Däniken, right?
To take one example from Underworld, there's Yonaguni Monument, which I had never heard of before. Yonaguni is an underwater rock formation in the Ryukyu Island chain. There's no doubt it's peculiar:
The edges are dead-straight, some with corners at perfect right angles. Here's what Hancock writes about it:
The first anomalous structure that was discovered at Yonaguni lies below glowering cliffs of the southern shore of the island. Local divers call it Iseki Point ("Monument Point"). Into its south face, at a depth of about 18 meters, an area of terracing with conspicuous flat planes and right angles has been cut. Two huge parallel blocks weighing about 30 tonnes each and separated by a gap of less than 10 centimeters have been placed upright side by side at its northwest corner. In about five meters of water at the very top of the structure there is a kidney-shaped "pool" and nearby is a feature that many divers believe is a crude rock-carved image of a turtle. At the base of the monument, in 27 meters of water, there is a clearly defined stone-paved path oriented toward the east...Two kilometers west of Iseki Point is the "Palace." Here an underwater passageway leads into the northern end of a spacious chamber with megalithic walls and ceiling. At the southern end of the chamber a tall, lintelled doorway leads into a second smaller chamber beyond. At the end of that chamber is a vertical, rock-hewn shaft that emerges outside on the roof of the "Palace." Nearby a flat rock bears a pattern of strange, deep grooves. A little further east there is a second megalithic passage roofed by a gigantic slab that fits snugly against the tops of the supporting walls.
What's remarkable -- and insidious -- about the way this is written is that without giving any actual evidence, he deliberately chooses verbs implying that Yonaguni is an artificial construct. "Cut." "Placed upright." "Carved." "Paved." "Oriented." "Hewn." Even the nouns do this: "Passageway." "Roof." "Lintel." "Ceiling." "Terrace." "Path."
Once he sets you up this way, the rest of his argument -- if I can dignify it by that name -- goes something like this:
- Is Yonaguni a manmade structure? Sure looks like it to me.
- To cut and place enormous stones with that precision requires significantly advanced technology.
- But it's under twenty-some-odd meters of water! So it must have been built when the sea level was lower.
- When was the sea level that low? Tens of thousands of years ago. So that must be when Yonaguni was built.
- So the Ryukyu Islands were inhabited by a highly technological culture twenty thousand years ago. Q.E.D.
The trouble is, the scientific consensus (I can almost hear Hancock shouting "to hell with the scientific consensus!", but we'll soldier on anyhow) is that Yonaguni is a completely natural formation, formed from shale and sandstone of Lower Miocene age. Archaeologist Carl Feagans has studied the formation extensively, and after an analysis of the features of the structure (which I encourage you to read in its entirety) has the following to say:
The first and primary claim made about the Yonaguni Formation, that it is an artificial, megalithic construction, is not upheld. Not if you’re a rational person who cares about evidence...
[N]one of the “features” [described as artificial] are supported by evidence that corroborates the claim. There’s a lot of talk about “tool marks” but no evidence of these is shown. There’s talk about artifacts, but no discussion on why they could not have been lost a sea by other means. There’s a lot of “looks like” analogies but no physical evidence to show why they are anything more than pareidolia or imagination.[T]here’s no evidence that the YF is anything more than a naturally occurring formation of shale and sandstone originally deposited in the Miocene and uplifted and inundated in the Pleistocene.
Look, I understand how easy it is to be fooled. Only fifteen kilometers from where I live is a lovely spot called Lucifer Falls. The bedrock around here is similar to Yonaguni -- shale, slate, limestone, and sandstone -- albeit a great deal older (our rocks are Devonian in age).
And all along the path to Lucifer Falls are rocks with squared-off corners, some so flat they look like they must have been cut by humans. But no. Other than a few obvious stairs, walls, and platforms, the area around the falls is completely natural. The rocks simply fractured that way.
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But Hancock knows all too well that "it's cool, but it's a natural rock formation" doesn't sell near as well as stuff like Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria. So don't expect the cherry-picking to stop any time soon.
As far as Underworld goes, I guess I'll persist with reading it a bit more. I've gotta be able to tell my son that at least I gave it the ol' college try.
But if Hancock brings up Ancient Aliens, I'm fucking done.
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