Srinivasa Ramanujan did extraordinary mathematics, and Ancient Aliens would like to credit his extraterrestrial internet provider. His accounts of dreams and devotion to the Hindu goddess Namagiri become evidence of an alien download. Scott realizes his childhood refusal to show his work could get his homework dragged into this.

We look at the expensive paper, borrowed books and mathematical community missing from that story, then follow similar claims through Brahms, Puccini and William Blake. We examine a dubious book of composer interviews, an opera with a traceable history of adaptations, and why a creative breakthrough can feel like it arrived from somewhere else. Jimmy Neutron becomes relevant. Scott remembers that taking a nap used to be part of his writing process.

Then we get into who benefits when genius is treated as something a lucky few are born with. Colonial stories about Ramanujan push Indian knowledge out of the picture; the lone-genius myth makes the people and public support behind an achievement disappear. We talk about schools that punish people for learning differently, and why feeding people and funding libraries might be a better talent strategy than waiting for a message from space.

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

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Ancient Aliens would like you to believe Angkor Wat required a trip to space college and a supply of magic water. Apparently, giving Khmer builders credit for knowing how to build things is asking too much.

We look at the religious poem being repackaged as an alien encounter, the canals used to transport sandstone, and the enormous amount of skilled, often coerced labour behind the temple. We also compare two supposedly identical pyramids that turn out to have different materials, heights and purposes. Scott has a soundboard clip about magical water. This becomes everyone's problem.

Then we follow the claim that Cambodians couldn't have built their own monuments through French colonialism, stolen antiquities and modern conspiracy content. Denying people credit for their history helped justify taking their land and heritage. We discuss efforts to bring that heritage home, and what Khmer water management and farmers' adaptations to drought and flooding can teach us about living through climate disruption.

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

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A 17-year-old peasant girl helps turn the tide of the Hundred Years' War, and Ancient Aliens would like to speak to her extraterrestrial supervisor. Apparently, Joan of Arc couldn't have rallied an army without someone uploading military strategy into her brain.

We look at what that explanation leaves out: the religious world Joan grew up in, a church bureaucracy that evaluated visions, and an exhausted French army with a very human morale problem. Then we follow her through the siege of Orléans and the fight to put Charles VII on the throne. Scott discovers that the historical figure he'd imagined as a man named Jonah Vark was, in fact, Joan of Arc.

Her capture and trial bring us to the people who got to decide whether her convictions made her useful or dangerous. We discuss her execution, the later overturning of her conviction, and the French far right's use of her as an anti-immigration mascot. Everyone seems to have a use for Joan. Giving her credit for her own choices is apparently harder.

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

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An airman touches a UFO in Rendlesham Forest, downloads a binary message into his brain, and keeps the evidence to himself for 30 years. That's the story Ancient Aliens wants us to accept. Conveniently, the message becomes public in time for television.

We examine the notebook behind the claim, the details that grow with each retelling, and why a string of ones and zeros needs more than “trust me, bro” to count as evidence. Then we follow the alleged coordinates to Hy-Brasil, an Irish phantom island that mapmakers kept copying onto maps. Scott also uses Space Jam as a unit of time. This will apparently be on the test.

The bigger problem is who gets to be humanity's chosen saviour. We connect Ancient Aliens' secret rulers to Silicon Valley's billionaire visionaries, Elon Musk's DOGE, and the idea that a special few should make decisions for everyone else. We finish with ways to check a source and challenge a revelation without waiting for another man with a notebook to save us.

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Scott is back from parental leave and asks what he missed. Tristan opens with the war in Iran. Welcome back, buddy.

We kick off the season with a news catch-up and corrections on Yellowstone's supposed apocalypse schedule, willow bark and aspirin, and how Soviet worker awards helped bosses demand more work. Scott gets challenged on Scooby-Doo continuity and Thanos's motives, then looks for the technicality that means he was right anyway. Also, Denis Leary has apparently been working this whole time. Sorry, Denis.

Along the way, we talk Artemis II, the media fixation on Hasan Piker, and The Onion's Infowars plans. A listener revisits Tristan's old warning about war with Iran, which is a miserable thing to get right. We also discuss David Wilcock's death and how to criticize harmful ideas without mocking someone's mental health. The soundboard is back, too. You've been warned.

Content note: Discussion of suicide and depression.

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David Jacobs spent his retirement from teaching history at Temple University convinced that alien-human hybrids he calls hubrids are quietly moving into apartments in Philadelphia, taking jobs, and waiting for a signal to enslave the planet. The catch is that these telepathic interstellar conquerors apparently cannot work a toaster, order a coffee, or figure out when to clap at a concert, so they abduct people to teach them. Tristan is joined by Mildred from Thought Slime, back for a record number of guest spots while Scott is on baby duty, to walk through how Jacobs assembled an entire alien class system of robed mantises, drone grays, and prototype hybrids out of nothing but hypnosis sessions, a lot of them done over the phone.

Then it stops being funny. We get into how hypnotic regression manufactures memories that feel more real than the real ones, the documented case of the woman Jacobs put through 91 sessions and the harm he caused her, and why the History Channel keeps handing this guy a microphone (the answer is ad money, mostly). Underneath the goofy lore is great replacement rhetoric with the labels swapped out: a hidden enemy that looks like you but isn't, a coming loss of everything you are, and a man selling himself as the only one who can save you. Same story Europe told about changelings centuries ago, now with a UFO strapped to it. We land somewhere more hopeful, on why actually knowing the people around you is the thing that breaks the spell.

Guest Plug:

Mildred from Thought Slime makes left-wing comedy and video essays on YouTube at youtube.com/@thoughtslime. Mildred is also, for the record, the current title-holder for most IPNA guest appearances.

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

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In 1980, a mysterious stranger named R.C. Christian spent the equivalent of $200,000 to erect 19-foot-tall, 119-ton granite monuments in rural Georgia. Ancient Aliens wants you to believe the "Georgia Guidestones" are an extraterrestrial warning to keep the human population under 500 million, passed down by the secret Rosicrucian order.

Tristan and guest Sarah Davis Baker are here to inform you that the Rosicrucian manifestos were basically 17th-century German shitposts, and the real author of the stones was actually a deeply racist, eugenics-loving physician from Iowa. We trace the absurd, irony-poisoned history of the monument, right up to the moment a completely different brand of right-wing conspiracy theorists blew it up with a bomb in 2022 because they thought it was demonic. It's a journey through the horrors of historical eugenics, elite longtermism, and the bizarre mirror world of American politics where fascists accidentally destroy other fascists' monuments.

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

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