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L/L Research was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 31 August 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Ancient astronauts. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.
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The short description for this article used to be "Pseudo-scientific hypothesis" (28 c.), which has a problem: it does not say what is it about. So I changed it to "Hypothesis about past alien contacts" (36 c.), which defines it, but at the cost of leaving its rejection out. AndyTheGrump changed it again to "Pseudoscientific claims of alien contact" (40 c.), but this one left out that those are claims of past alien contacts. I think that properly defining what the claim is about takes precedence over its acceptance when writing a definition, but I'm open to proposals that may manage to do both things if someone can formulate one. Remember, there's a 40 characters limit. Cambalachero (talk) 16:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'd always assumed that the purpose of a short description was to expand on, in a few words, what could already be understood from the title, to make the topic clearer. The title refers to 'ancient' astronauts, and as such already indicates it is referring to incidents alleged to have occurred in the past. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:05, 30 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"Ancient astronauts" is not a descriptive title, but a made-up name to label this whole topic. As such, it needs to be defined. Remember that short descriptions appear in mobile article searches when users are trying to locate their desired article among many similarly-named ones; those may have never even heard about those claims and be puzzled about what "ancient astronauts" can be supposed to be.
What about "Dubious claims of past alien contact"? (36 c.) It would mundane terms instead of scientific ones, but I think it covers both things. Cambalachero (talk) 17:24, 30 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
WP:SDLENGTH says the description needs to be short – no more than about 40 characters (but this can be slightly exceeded if necessary). "Pseudoscientific claims of past alien contact" would be 45 characters, and presumably ok. I don't like 'dubious', because to my mind it still makes the claims seem more credible than WP:RS suggests they are, and misses the point that they are often mispresented as serious scholarship. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:45, 30 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
If 45 characters are acceptable, then this last proposal is fine by me. Cambalachero (talk) 17:58, 30 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Since nobody else has commented, I'll make the change now. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:10, 31 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The "In popular culture" section has this sentence:
"Ancient Aliens is a television series that features proponents of the ancient astronaut hypothesis, such as Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, David Childress, Erich von Däniken, Steven M. Greer, and Nick Pope."
Usually those sections are about the way the topic is seen in fiction. "Ancient Aliens" is a science divulgation TV program. Not a reliable or credible one, but clearly not a work of fiction. Is it a valid inclusion in that section? The reference is not a good one, as it's the page at the TV channel, which does not give evidence of it being significant enough to be mentioned here; but we can find a better one. That is, if the sentence should be kept to begin with. Cambalachero (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Take a look at the Ancient Aliens article; the show is all about ancient astronauts, and should definitely be mentioned here. There are plenty of sources in that article if you'd like to replace the current one. Schazjmd(talk) 15:47, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Unidentified aluminum artifact that is not shown to the public looks exactly like those purses that Aliens are carrying around with them. Depicted in several different countries.[edit]
I think the unidentified aluminum object with a lot of Patina, looks an awful lot like those “Purses” that the aliens carry. I‘be seen many examples on your show. The Wedge of Aiud. Also, who says the Ark of the Covenant wasn’t taken back by the Aliens? 2600:1003:B009:10:9D4B:D7AF:13FA:2D99 (talk) 00:38, 25 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Our show? We talk about TV programs, such as the "Ancient aliens" one, but we are not related to them in any way. For the official page, go hereCambalachero (talk) 03:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Reading through this it seems like it could use an editor, as the style seems off and less academic than the rest of the article. While sources are cited, language such as "this continent" implies either a direct copy/paste from source or lazy language. 142.229.82.122 (talk) 23:12, 6 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Not only that but it reads like a personal essay, and it only really discusses one particular criticism of the ancient astronaut culture, one that could easily be worked into the text of the preceding sections. The one reference appears legit, but it's not enough to carry the entire paragraph. I would be ok with deleting that section entirely, and sprinkling mentions of the cultural imperialism/implicit racism critique at appropriate points in the main body of the article. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 20:31, 9 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Criticism of pseudoscience is WP:DUE per WP:FRINGE, especially from high quality academic sources. Maybe a better idea is to improve the section? The source for the present content is [1], and a cut-down version that focuses the important points could be written, with other sourced criticism of the concept (I'm sure there's more) added. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
With an article on unambiguous fringe humbug, such as this one, a separate 'criticism' section is inappropriate. With such subjects, all content beyond a simple outline of what the proponents of pseudohistory/pseudoscience etc are proposing should be reliably-sourced 'criticism'. The article subject only meets Wikipedia notability requirements because such sources have criticised it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:23, 10 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Criticism section moved to "overview" where it was massaged into a contextual discussion. These ideas are pretty well-cited besides this great paper used, but I think the author may have been a student as the connections were awkward, the prose was mean, and certain claims were not in the citation (I have never heard of ancient aliens being responsible for genocide of the Native North American tribes before... on the other hand, arguably the Mormons were practicing a form of this in the nineteenth century so perhaps a case can be made -- but, obviously, need a source). jps (talk) 07:27, 10 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Is there more information about people with physiologically manipulated skull, as in the photo from section "Religious and cultural practices"? I think it's quite uncommon thread. Eurohunter (talk) 14:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
