Argot Navis

History's Mysteries is one of those shows I love, much in the same way I love documentaries about ghosts or mythical beasts. Part of why I love these shows is how ridiculous they are. I mean, when the only skeptical voice on the show is the rather open-minded Robert Schoch, you know you're in for a hell of a ride.

The episode they reran today was about the Yonaguni “monument”. I'll try not to summarize too much, since most of it is contained on the two pages I just linked to. Basically, there are some stones underwater off the coast of Yonaguni that look like they could be man-made. On this show, you have Masaaki Kimura and Graham Hancock arguing that they are man-made, and Schoch arguing that they aren't, with some of the divers who have seen it pointing out that they “got a distinct feeling” that it was man-made. The main argument seems to be that it certainly has a right-angled, man-made look to it, which is not as compelling as it may, at first, sound. The other argument, as usual, is that “mainstream archaeologists and historians unquestioningly believe their theories, and they don't want them to be wrong, because that would mean rewriting history.” (I guess the cost of publishing too many new books is a deterrent?) So that's why no one is applying for funding to do a large-scale investigation there. I suspect that if someone did, they'd probably find that Schoch is right here, but Kimura points out that seeing the rocks in person is the only way you can make judgments about them, so . . . I guess I can't say anything about them.

Anyway, I really want to point out how hilariously predictable certain parts of these shows tend to be. The narrator will, inevitably, say something along the lines of, “But this would not be the first time scientists have been wrong about a supposedly mythical location.” Cue, “In 1871, Heinrich Schliemann discovered Troy, a site most archaeologists thought didn't exist.” (I notice that these shows always seem to present Schliemann as a hero of archaeology, who took on the big, bad establishment, without mentioning that he was appallingly bad about recording parts of the site he wasn't interested in, even for his time.) Cut to “the other side of the story,” about the Bimini Road probably being natural. I guess being able to reuse a lot of the narration does make it easier on the writers.