If you’ve ever watched the History Channel for 12 hours straight you’ll soon discover that approximately 450,000 years ago aliens from Nibiru, the Anunaki, landed on Earth looking to mine gold to repair their atmosphere.  They used genetic engineering to make a race of “workers” which is different from slaves because they gave them mathematics, education, and some really cool building techniques.  But the aliens were undecided about what they should reveal and unrest soon led to members of the higher council issuing out specific information to certain individuals and that became the stories of legend in all ancient cultures.  As of present their Visa has expired and they can only observe discreetly behind fast balls of light.

Fast forward to Atlantis where all of this information was stock piled until the great cataclysm that destroyed the island which led to some people making it off the island to establish civilizations in the Americas and Egypt.  The Egyptians kept the knowledge in the hands of the powerful in order to rule and keep the masses ignorant.  This lead to specialized societies/cults/guilds that eventually became the masons.  The masons protected the knowledge and the treasure and were a powerful force for thousands of years.  An off branch of the masons became the Knights Templar who traveled to the Holy Land to retrieve artifacts.  This is also part of the Arthurian Legend in a non-Monty Python sense.  The Knights Templar protected treasure, knowledge, and pilgrims and eventually threatened the Catholic Church and a very insecure French king.  They either tried to bribe the church or were the envy of the powerful.  I’d like to point out that Nostradamus predicted all of this before his actual birth.  The Knights Templar took the treasures/sacred artifacts from the Holy Land and deposited them at St. Clair Castle in Scotland and later moved them to North America in 1362.  The final resting place of the ark of the covenant, holy grail, crucifixion cross, etc is either in the Money Pit on Oak Island, Illinois, or Wisconsin.  At this point the Knights Templar joined forces with their old allies the masons and became a Satanic cult with the purpose of establishing a utopian society in the New World.  They laid dormant until the American Revolution, which was actually a cover to find the lost Templar treasure by the British.  George Washington found the Templar treasure and that was what enabled him to win the American Revolution against great odds.  Since then the power and secret knowledge has passed down only to the elite, rich and powerful families in the U.S. with the purpose of uniting the world under one leader, the antichrist.

This disturbance in dark matter and dark energy (turns out it’s dark matter and dark energy that binds the galaxy together not the Force but you can call it whatever you want) has lead to Aliens from all over the galaxy to investigate our doings which backfired on the aliens because we have really smart reverse engineers that can’t talk about their work and always have to be video taped in shadow.  As of now aliens, or Extraterrestrial Biological Entities as they prefer to be called, are working with our government in secret.  They get to abduct so many humans for experiments and we get access to their technology and text books.  By the way you can pick up some very high quality ancient alien artifacts from your local pawn stars and have them shipped anywhere in the world including the ice roads of Alaska.  Who knows the next tree you cut down in Washington could have some valuable clues as to whereabouts of the Lindberg baby, Amelia Airheart, and Adolf Hitler.

Justin Eubank

In 2001, the BBC released this entry in the “Reality” genre,  which featured a British family , the Hymers, who were picked to relive the WWII years in an English house which had been remodeled and furnished as a house in that particular London neighborhood would have been in 1939. The experiment was to last for 9 weeks and took the participants through an accelerated verision of the war ending with V-E Day in 1945. I had seen parts of the show when it first came out and thought it would be interesting to watch it again, all the way though. So, I located it on Netflix and ordered it.

The introduction to the show outlines the process of advertising, interviewing and finally, picking the folks who become the wartime family. It also shows before and after shots of the house which is retrofitted to the proper configuration.

The family consists of a husband and wife and their grown, divorced daughter and her two young sons. The husband is a history buff with a serious interest in the war years. It wasn’t much of a surprise then, that he would be serious about the project, but watching the rest of the family adjust to life in the early forties provides most of the drama.

The creators of the show went to great lengths for realism and assembled a team of historians and   other experts to enforce rationing and blackout curtain regulations on the home. They even send the family a bomb shelter kit, which is later wired for sound to simulate the noise of air raids when the family are inside of it, having responded to the warning sirens.

While this sounds like it might be a little hoky, it actually comes off pretty well. I found that it was handled as well as it could be expected to be. I also found that the family grew on me and I became quite interested in what eventually happened to them.

This is pleasant viewing and you might even learn a bit about the British homefront during the war. I recommend it. There are also several shows in a similar vein (1900′s House, Frontier House). If you haven’t seen any of these, they offer something a bit different to the history addict.

http://www.netflix.com

http://www.amazon.com

When you consider the other usual offerings of THC any more, things don’t get a lot better. ‘Pawn Stars’!!?? another ‘reality show, this time about pawn shops? Before that was “Axe Men,” which about loggers. I suppose these shows are interesting to someone, but as far as being history, anyone of them is worth maybe an hour show, let alone a series!

Then there is the whole ‘End of the World’ class of shows which apparently grabs a lot of viewers, since they show many different variations on this type. There was one the other night which seemed to want to include all the horrible possibilities out there under one title, although I can’t (thankfully) remember it at this writing.

Of course, tied in with the ‘end of the world’ shows are the ‘Nostradamus’ offerings. I think the latest was something like ‘The Lost Book of Nostradamus.” How many shows can they do on this guy? Of couse you also have Edgar Cayce and the Mayan Calendar in the mix as well.  I wonder if any of these shows are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies which make anti-depressants? That seems like a natural tie-in. “Take 40mg of  ‘Moodsawingin’ from Acme Pharmaceuticals and you won’t care if a big rock is falling from the sky!”

Moreover, who watches this stuff? One show here or there-okay-but this many!!? Am I wrong about this? I have also noticed that a lot of the good old shows like ‘Civil War Journal’ are shown at ungodly time slots when folks are getting ready for work or in the middle of the night. Admittedly there are some occasional real history shows still being done. I noticed there is a show on tonight about the sexual revolution in the sixties. Well, sex does sell. But…I might watch that one.

So, in place of history, we often have: UFOs, Monsters (I don’t think they have ever found one) death and destruction, and reality shows, which usually involve somebody arguing profanely with someone else about what ever job it is that they are supposed to be doing. Is this all just an admission on the part of The History Channel that Americans are just so ignorant and tasteless that there is no longer any point in trying to do any better for  them?

Maybe they ought to rename it ‘The End of the World Channel”, or the “Tabloid channel”. I’m open to suggestions. I would just like to see them go back to concentrating on what they used to do well -shows about history. Well, having said my piece, I think I’ll go see if ‘Wings of the Luftwaffe’ is on the Military Channel tonight.

The British army’s experience in the American Revolution taught them a lot about the value of sharpshooters using rifles as an adjunct to the main body of soldiers carrying smoothbore muskets. As a result experimental rifle companies were finally formed in 1800 and used thereafter. (Wikipedia) I even found a sutler who sells repros of the lethal Baker flintlock rifles used by these soldiers. Also, you can get the whole collection of DVDs at Amazon.

The show was filmed in the ninties and you occasionally get guest stars who show up for an episode or two, such as Elizabeth Hurley or Pete Postalwaite. Overall, the discs are very entertaining and I believe I am addicted. Hope the mail gets here soon!

Jim