Time Travel and Exploring Ancient Mysteries with Neil Laird

What drives us to believe in the unbelievable? Join me on this intriguing episode as we explore how "Discerning the Unknown" grew from debunking wild conspiracy theories to unraveling the psychological intricacies behind our beliefs. We start with some nostalgic reminiscing about my childhood, like those afternoons watching "The Price is Right," and how these moments shaped my curiosity. I then welcome Neil Laird, the celebrated LGBTQIA multiple Emmy-nominated director renowned for his historical documentaries on networks like Discovery and National Geographic. Our conversation spans his fascinating work, touching on time travel, reincarnation, and phenomena that defy explanation.

Next, I share my lifelong passion for ancient history, particularly Egypt, sparked by countless hours in the New York Public Library and culminating in awe-inspiring trips to Egypt itself. These experiences fueled my desire to incorporate rich historical narratives and queer characters into my writing, reflecting the historical acceptance of same-sex relationships in ancient cultures. We'll talk about the challenges faced in traditional publishing and the liberating decision to self-publish my time-travel fantasy series, ensuring the integrity of my characters and themes remains intact.

Finally, we dissect the allure of historical conspiracies and modern theories, from the mysteries of the Great Sphinx to the controversies surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing and JFK assassination. Discover how Neil and I sift through sensational claims to find simpler truths, and why people often prefer elaborate narratives. We also discuss the potential of modern technology in historical research and preservation. Stay tuned for an exciting announcement about an upcoming interview with the legendary Egyptologist, Zahi Hawass. This episode is packed with unforgettable insights and historical revelations you won't want to miss!

Chapters

• 0:06 Exploring Ancient Mysteries With Neil Laird
• 9:25 Revealing Ancient History Through Fiction
• 16:24 Publishing and Conspiracy Theory Evolution
• 27:24 Uncovering Historical Conspiracies
• 31:26 Deciphering Ancient Mysteries and Conspiracies
• 43:29 Exploring Ancient Sites and Cultures
• 53:10 Ancient Mysteries and Modern Discoveries
• 1:03:59 Meeting Famous Egyptologist, Zahi Hawass

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

The Discerning the Unknown Podcast Critical thinking in the age of misinformation. Your host is Ryan Peterson. You're gonna like this. Here's.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Ryan Peterson, and this is Discerning the Unknown. Take a look at discerningtheunknowncom for information on guests past, present and future. I'm getting more and more episodes in the can. Here. I've only got two that are officially up, that have dropped, but I'm getting some questions about the show and future guests, and so this is going to be a lot of fun. I already recorded one today that was great, with Liz Enten. We talked about her book WTF Just Happened.

Speaker 2: 1:15

And this one I'll be talking with Nir Laird, and this is one I've got to tell the story and once I bring him up I'll share it with him. But I grew up a Gen X kid and so we all remember, on the days we were sick from school, we sat or laid, I should say probably in our bedrooms, and what did we do? We got the TV in our bedroom and we watched. Price is Right. Well, I evolved a little bit since then. So I'm gonna I'm gonna tell that story. But, uh, this show has also evolved and from early on the first couple episodes, I said we were going to focus mainly on, uh, debunking conspiracy theories. I've evolved a little bit because of some of the guests that I have found interesting and I'm continuing to find that are interesting. We'll still focus on those mysteries and ancient history and debunking conspiracy theories, but we're evolving a little into the way we think, what we think and why we think it and why some people buy into those conspiracy theories and myths so easily and then they really dig down. A lot of people dig down and defend those beliefs so fiercely and I like talking about why that is and also setting people straight in the process. Hopefully we can do that. But you know, with anything we've believed all our lives, it's hard to be convinced otherwise. But I'll give it a shot. So, uh, my, uh.

Speaker 2: 2:47

My guest today is, uh is producer, director, neil laird, and he is an lgbtqia multiple emmy nominated director. Historical films for discovery, bbc, pbs, history channel, national geographic all of them and History Channel chances are. If it's on History Channel I'm going to like it and so I've seen his name a lot. Chances are if you've seen these shows on the History Channel that say Mysteries of the something Abandoned ancient, with the exception of ancient aliens, unexplained blank treasures of the lost treasures of the cities, lost cities of the Bible. If it's a show like that, chances are Neil Laird directed or produced it. I'm thrilled to have him on the show Neil Laird aired. Thank you very much. How are you?

Speaker 3: 3:48

thank you, guys. I love the introduction and, it is true, almost all my shows start with secrets of, or mysteries of or mod cities of it. It's definitely a genre that I've fit in over the years and kind of became that guy at science channel and that geo and elsewhere. So you know, stuff that I love, but it's funny, yeah. Yeah, it's got mystery in it and history in it. Neil lair's fingerprints are probably on it somewhere excellent.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Well, that's that and that's how I got into it. That's how I, for me, I discovered and became a fan of neil laird. Now, realistically, we both know neil laird isn't a household name, but I know in this household name, but I will In this household it is.

Speaker 3: 4:25

It will be after today.

Speaker 2: 4:28

But chances are, like I said, if it's on the History Channel, I'm going to like it, I'm going to enjoy it. I do things, I have a small business myself and I'll just have History Channel on in the background. Sometimes I'll watch, I'll kind of peruse it, I'll watch it intently and sometimes just have it on in the background. Sometimes I'll watch, I'll, I'll kind of peruse it, I'll watch it intently and and sometimes just have it on the background. So, and it reminded me of kind of like, honestly, being sick as a little kid and watching it's a gen x kid and watching, uh, bob barker on, the price is right, it's just always on. And so when those when I'd watch those episodes, episodes, and enjoy them and love them and always be intrigued when I'm looking at the guide, they would finish, boom, Neil Laird would pop up in the credits. And, yes, some of us actually read the credits.

Speaker 3: 5:18

I had no idea. They go by rather quickly.

Speaker 2: 5:21

And honestly, at the start I'm in Wisconsin and my snowplow guy his last name is Laird, so that stuck in my head and then the more I saw it Laird, Laird, Laird, all this, Neil Laird. And then, when I got in contact with you and you agreed to do the show. I'm like, oh man, it's Neil Laird.

Speaker 2: 5:43

And, honestly, there were a couple others Kevin Burns I'm sure you know who's passed now, but that was another one. I always thought Kevin Burns or Ken Burns, the PBS guy, and that stuck in my head. And then there was the oh, the other one well, it was Ken Burns, yeah, and so all you guys' names just stuck in my head and when I had a chance to talk to you I was so thrilled and starstruck that I thought, yeah, I've got to read the book. I you know I'm fascinated with ancient mysteries, unexplained mysteries. Some of them I buy, some of them I don't you know when it gets into the paranormal stuff. Some of them are interesting just to think about and ponder.

Speaker 2: 6:29

And time travel, reincarnation, all the stuff that you're writing about in the book, it's prime time travelers. I haven't finished it. I've gotten about halfway through and so far. And another thing I want to it's important to me to be genuine, so if I were just to tell you I couldn't put it down, it was a page turner. You'd see right through that I could put it down.

Speaker 2: 6:55

Okay, there was a time or two I had to go to the bathroom, I had to eat. You know, I got, I got, but I kept on honestly picking it up again and saying wait a minute, kara said earlier this and what do you mean by that? And early on the question was because it's about time travel and so I'll just present it to you. I'm still early on and I've got a question about how does Jared Jared is the main character and how does he time travel? Is it a vision, is it a dream, or is it something with his glasses? That's the question I had early on. He put on his sunglasses and then did a time travel. I guess I'm not there yet to exactly see how.

Speaker 3: 7:37

You haven't gotten to that point yet. For those owners who don't know about the book, it's very much based on my years of television. It's about a film crew that can time hop. They go back to ancient Egypt in the first book. The second book is Pompeii, which comes out in a few months, and in all the time travel, one of the things that I saw in my many trips to Egypt was something they called false door, and then they used to turn. The user with a car with a spirit of the dead can come and go theoretically, and if they want to come in the land of living, the tomb actually has a door built into it which is between the other world and this world. So if you get to that point, that's how they go through. Actually, someone actually opens up the false door and allowing them to step back into time.

Speaker 3: 8:20

But the fun thing about it is is I am the village skeptic when it comes to this. Neil Laird is on a lot of these shows but yeah, I like to be the debunker because that's part of our job as science or history or PBS or whatever. I'm not saying that everything can be explained and many of them cannot. I'm not saying archaeologists and ecotologists get it wrong. But in most cases when I go out to explore a story in a show, it's a pretty easy answer.

Speaker 3: 8:47

You can pretty easily figure out what's going on and often it's just the old adage that the absence of evidence is evidence, it's not. You dig a little deeper sometimes you realize oh, it's simply that they just haven't, you know, connected these dots yet. So the books are very much fun because it's fiction and I was able to play with that stuff and I kind of skewer a lot of those ancient alien like shows where it's a feckless crew that's in over their heads and they are about to be put to the test in something that is really real. And you know, they've been, they've been trafficking in BS for all these years. Now suddenly it's all real in front of them and they don't know how to handle the real thing. They know how to create the fiction, but they don't know how to handle the truth.

Speaker 2: 9:25

How and when did you become fascinated with ancient history, mysteries, ancient Egypt and all of that? I?

Speaker 3: 9:32

mean it goes way back, I think. I was born in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and so I didn't get much of that history. I went to a small Catholic school as well. So except for the Bible I didn't know anything about the ancient world, and even that, you know, was questioning it. But I remember when I was I went to film school, and when I graduated I went up to New York City, you know, thinking I'd become a big, you know, movie director overnight, and that did not happen. Instead I was the poor guy waiting for the phone to ring and working on schlocky horror films, if I was lucky.

Speaker 3: 10:02

So working on schlocky horror films, if I was lucky. So I started hanging out at the New York Public Library because I had a lot of time on my hands, it was free and the phone wasn't ringing. So one day I just picked up a book off the shelf about the rise of Neolithic man, which I didn't know anything about. I didn't get the prehistoric history. I became so fascinated by it that I sort of resolved to teach myself history through the books while I was waiting for the phone to ring or not ring, and I read book after book and you think man, Mesoamerica, all the early cultures.

Speaker 3: 10:32

When I got to Egypt I got particularly stuck. Egypt, just a penny dropped and I became absolutely enamored of it, and I still am. It's a very, very special place in my life and it's given me great meaning culturally and story-wise and I love the egyptian sensibility. I've traveled over there a dozen plus times making films and I never get tired of it. So when it came time to start to write that first book I knew it would have to be egypt, because I know it so well.

Speaker 3: 10:58

I didn't have to research the book, I just know it implicitly, with the thebes and and karnak and the 12 gates in the underworld. I have it in my soul already, so it was kind of fun. To actually transport people back into that world. Rather than looking at the ruins is what I've been doing for the last quarter century, trying to suss out what that ruin, those two posts and lintels in the windswept desert are. It was fun to actually take an audience back there and have you stand in front of the gates of Thebes in 1300 BC and create the world that's been in my head for so long. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:32

Well, that's one of the things I've always wondered. What is it like once you got there for the first time, say, giza, the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx? What was it like to see that, to be up right next to it?

Speaker 3: 11:45

It was just tremendous and I recommend anybody, whether it's Egypt or somebody else if you're always wondering, curious about a place, get on a plane and go there, because it's always so much better in person and once you get those feet itched and scratched, you want to go back and keep scratching those feet. Travel is just a wonderful eye-opener for anybody, particularly if people have questions about the paranormal and something. Get into. Do you see the real thing and the bedrock reality? You recognize that these were created by human beings and great societies and great cultures and they came together to to do this rather than having the need of levitation or aliens. It's all kind of right there.

Speaker 3: 12:23

It is engineering, it. It is brilliant engineering and the fact that the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians and the Greeks and the Romans did it so early and you look at that now it's sort of gobsmacking that they're still standing because they're just so beautifully put together. I can stand in front of the pyramids or Abydos, where primetime travelers face all day long and never get bored of it. There's just something mystical about it, and mystical in a way of it touches something inside me rather than thinking there's, you know, magic and mayhem afoot.

Speaker 2: 12:58

So you put the character Jared Plummer there. He's a boy from Kansas. Tell me his story. How did he come about? And, by the way, I realize this is a computer generated picture or something, but that is Paul Walker.

Speaker 3: 13:20

Is that Paul Walker? Well, he definitely wanted to give someone a check. It's actually not AI it's all. Actually it's all hand drawn, but but you know, one of the audience that I do.

Speaker 3: 13:27

Another key thing that I brought into my books is I couldn't do my television as, being a gay producer and seeing so much of the world traveling and not seeing much, so much representation of of queer characters, I really want to make sure that my characters very much are like that. Jared and Kara are both queer and they both get. Jared comes out in the first book and finds himself, and to me that was very important as being a young filmmaker who kind of came out in the field as well. But also too, I just wanted to dispel the myth that you know that people dismiss queers as someone who can't be a feminist, who can't be Indiana Jones. Jared certainly becomes that person. But also too, I've found in my travels ancient cultures are much more embracing of same sex than they are today the Egyptians, the Romans.

Speaker 3: 14:14

One of my favorite places in Egypt is a place called the Tomb of the Brothers, which is in Saqqara and it's not very visited because people don't go to Saqqara. It's the pyramid field just south of Giza. People tend to go to the Great Pyramids instead, but Saqqara has the big step pyramid. It's even older than Giza and there's an elite necropolis there and one of them is called the Tomb of the Brothers and it is two men who were clearly in love that were buried together and went off to the Duat, the Field of the Re weeds eternity together. And they were buried side by side of beautiful, loving, wonderful repainted frescoes of them kissing nose to nose. And the fact that it was built there meant a couple of things. One, that the elite accepted it. So back then it was okay for same-sex relationships to be buried next to the pyramids, next to the pharaoh. It wasn't dismissed, it wasn't denigrated. And it also shows you how much time progress often goes back, because when they found the tomb in the 60s, they called it the Tomb of the Brothers because by that point, homophobia ruled the day and they couldn't possibly accept the fact there were just two men who were in love, so they called them brothers. Some people people in positive they were siamese twins and that's why they were facing nose to nose, because they literally could not get away from each other. It's just, it's just homophobic rubbish. And I wanted to bring all that stuff to my books to say, hey, listen, progress doesn't always march forward. Sometimes, look at these cultures, just like you. Look at the engineering and and acts of love and acceptance. They're're often more open than they are today. So my book, the Long Answer to that.

Speaker 3: 15:47

Jared Plummer is a young kid from Kansas. I wasn't from Kansas, but there's a lot of me in him coming out. Being a producer in the field is not easy, of course, because it's not all just going somewhere and hoping things happen. You go to somewhere Egypt, Iran, syria, the places that I went you got five or six days to get your story and you got to deal with people that is aggressive. You got to deal with crew. You got to deal with all the carne getting in and out with your gear. It's a lot of pressure and you really have to rise to the occasion and you got to find your story. So it's an incredibly intense experience being in the field as a young producer and that's in the book as well that couple with Jared's sexuality. I want to say what it was like for a young person to kind of come into their own in this very strange career that I've kept television production was this what you know?

Speaker 2: 16:34

you? You, uh, the book is self-published. Um did, did you get any feedback early on? Uh, maybe trying to publish and anybody saying gosh, I don't know, neil, uh, you know a gay Indiana Jones. I don't know, neil, you know a gay Indiana Jones, I don't know if it'll do you have any resistance?

Speaker 3: 16:48

Yeah, absolutely. I tried the agents first and some of them quite loved the writing and maybe the writing is beautiful. I just didn't know whether it's on a shelf because, like like television, there's a real niche and one person said whitewash, the gay angle, and I don't want to do that. And other people wanted me to switch the characters, gender and stuff and at the end of the day, I have so many people who are traditionally published, who are still waiting for the book to get published or have not made a penny anyways, that the idea of publishing, the idea that self-publishing is somehow the poor stepsister to traditional, is really collapsed in the last 10 years.

Speaker 3: 17:24

Where you go on Amazon, you can write the book you want, you do the marketing you want and you can often get the audience that a traditionally published house won't give you. So I chose that route rather than rewriting it for the masses and you know, in many cases I might have sliced the pie in a different way. We do have some straight guys. I don't want to touch it because it's a big lead character. I can't help that. I wrote the book that I want, but it's not some hot and heavy romance, it is still. You know, if you read a few pages you know that it's there happens to be a gay theme, but it's not the driving force of the book. It is still a time travel fantasy.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Oh yeah, so far I've realized. I mean, if you're stuck on Jared's sexual preference and you're missing that he's going into the pyramids and he's in Egypt and going back and forth between ancient Egypt and current day, you're missing the main part of the book and the most fascinating part of the book. Yeah, you're not Exactly.

Speaker 3: 18:23

It's one more angle. It's one more angle than somebody I wanted to put in. It's just and again. Each of the books, the second book they go back to pompeii, as I say, and uh, cara falls in love with a real life character named julia felix. Um, but at the end of the day it's still about pompeii exploding. And will they get out in time and save themselves? Will they screw with the fabric of time? I head off to turkey on friday for a month, near the ruins of Troy, to write book three, which will be about Achilles and Patroclus and the Trojan War, and I have the Iliad and everything ready to go, or I've already died.

Speaker 3: 18:53

They get into the history and they take that with me and just kind of create the ancient world and bring in not just sexuality but really bring in a fun romp that also has the unique aspect of a modern day film crew. So in prime prime, tom pompey, they send a drone over vesuvius to get good shots you know, so it's playing with that is great.

Speaker 2: 19:15

Honestly, when I saw that that the title here and delved into it a little bit, I thought wow. And just lately, for some, some reason, pompeii has fascinated me Ever since I actually got in an argument with a guy on Facebook about whether or not the plaster casts are real people or not. Well, obviously they're plaster, but they're very much the hollowed out bodies. The hollowed out right.

Speaker 3: 19:42

Conspiracy theories. I mean again it. It's fascinating. I've dealt with so many conspiracy theories.

Speaker 3: 19:45

The first show that I made I'm gonna take it back to egypt, my thesis film actually. Um, when I was in college it was called saving the sinks. God was like 1997 or whatever. I was just a 22 year old kid and I just wanted to get to egypt somehow, after backpacking there for eight months and just falling in love with it. And I had a friend whose father was on antiquities board of Egypt and it's very expensive to shoot in Egypt. You plop a tripod down from the pyramids and it's like ten hundred pounds or something you know. Just crazy. I couldn't afford it. But he got me these free permits and passes because of who he knew.

Speaker 3: 20:18

And I want to do a story about the restoration of the Great Sphinx, and that was Zahi Hawass, who I know you're going to speak to if you haven't already, and Mark Lehner and all these really bigwigs in Egyptology were doing it. And I was a 22, 23-year-old kid. Why would they talk to me? Well, my timing was perfect because a film had just aired to great ratings on NBC called Mysteries of the Sphinx or something, with Charlton Heston narrating Moses himself claiming that the Sphinx was 10,000 years old and built by an alien race, and erosion on the Sphinx proved it without a doubt. And Zahi and Mark and the others were so incensed this thing got on the air. They said, ok, all right, kid, you could shoot your little film about the restoration of the Great Sphinx, but you have to do the counterpoint for us so we can explain everything that's wrong with that theory. And that's what I did and that's how I got into business.

Speaker 3: 21:08

It was a conspiracy theory that allowed me to make my first film dismissing that theory. And it was so easily dismissed by the water erosion versus the wind erosion and there were just so many circuit arguments that I very quickly realized on my first shoot, talking to experts like Zahi, that oh my God, if you dig a little deeper and you recognize that so many of these theories, these pyramidic theories, pyramidic theories are trying to connect dots that don't exist, you can unravel it very, very quickly. And you know that's. And I don't always chase them, I do. I've done many, many conspiracy shows since then and again, we love conspiracies. Not everything can be explained, but I really, by trial by fire. My first film was going after those pyramid, as we call it, and and then putting their feet to the fire, and it was kind of one wonderful to realize. Oh yeah, it's like I do. I do have a purpose, I can go over there and and I can, I can try to shine light on the truth and still tell a good story.

Speaker 2: 22:07

Is that somebody like yourself, or Zahi Huas as well? Is that almost insulting his intelligence to say something like that that the aliens built? Is that a complete insult to his culture? The aliens built.

Speaker 3: 22:22

Particularly to the Egyptians. And Zahi is obviously very strongly Egyptian and the reason he's so venerated over there is because everyone knows him. He's one of the most famous Egyptians, omar Sharif or whatever People know Egypt because of Zahi. So to say that and a part of it does come down to racism and come from prejudice, particularly early on, the pyramids couldn't have possibly been built by Egyptians, by Arabs, so therefore it must have been aliens, because look how primitive they are. A lot of it is just taking the idea that Africa could in any way be as sophisticated as Europe or America. There's racism and prejudice shot through some of these early paranormal theories. And to someone like Zahi and someone who's local is all the more insulting and I deal with that in the book, my character Ali, who you might have already early paranormal theories. And to someone like Zahi and someone who's local is all the more insulting and I deal with that in the book, my character Ali, who you might have already met, the sound guy.

Speaker 3: 23:09

He's so sick of the Americans coming over there and grafting their sensibility on something. They come over and say we have found a lost city in the desert. He goes well, it hasn't been lost to us. Interstate 12 takes me there every day. You think it's lost to me it's like where I go to the petrol station. So the idea that we have discovered anything that a country of 80 million people knows exactly where it is is insulting to the locals because we're trying to fit it into our narrative. We want very much. We want Egypt and the Middle East and the ancient world to be that Rorschach test, or what he wanted to be, rorschach test. And you know, you get there and you realize it is a very living, breathing, modern place. The same problems as us and, yes, they're magical and mysterious, but it's still a very, very modern culture that surrounds these places.

Speaker 2: 24:00

And that seems to happen so much that if we don't understand anything, we'll put it on the aliens. The aliens must have come and did it. It's so more advanced than us, and while I do believe somewhere in the vast universe, we have no idea how big it is. Something's likely out there. I just don't know if they're here. I don't know if they built it.

Speaker 3: 24:22

I don't dismiss, I totally believe that aliens exist. I did a show with Dushi Akaku when I was on Science Channel and he says you know, anyone who doesn't think that there are aliens out there is stupid. It's just they didn't both appear necessarily. But clearly the fact that you think that we're all alone and that this is the best that the universe can offer have to have their head examined. And I agree, and there may have been contact and there may have been things that we've been inspired by elsewhere.

Speaker 3: 24:48

But to take a culture which is only 5,000 years old, which is a long grand scheme of things, or the Mayan pyramids or anything else, and to simply dismiss the locals as being the innovators by grafting on something else, it's both insulting and it's rather you know, it's rather base thinking.

Speaker 3: 25:08

It's so easy to create a conspiracy theory and a lot of it's just to tear down stuff that's already there, to tear down the establishment and feel like you're the one that toppled the regime. A lot of it is sort of wishful thinking about the people who create them, the whole moon landing people or the flat earthers. A lot of it is because they want to go after government, they want to go after the basic narrative and they want to be the one to say look, I toppled this. But when you look at it, it's just more duplicitous than the ancient alien show. Sometimes, because their argument is so clearly governed towards one ending, they decide where they want to end up and they backtrack from there. They don't discover things along the way and come to an independent conclusion. They know where their thesis is going to be answered and all their selective cherry picking leads to that answer yeah, everything you you're bringing up it, it's spinning questions in my mind.

Speaker 2: 25:59

I want to get so much. That reminds me actually like what people do with with Nostradamus um, you know, we don't necessarily know what he was talking about, you know, when we start reading the book, but then when something happens, somebody says, oh, that was it, that's what he was talking about, and kind of the same thing. I was fascinated with ancient aliens at first and you know, it was interesting to think about, interesting to ponder and wonder about. And yeah, I've noticed exactly what you've been saying recently. I think that they they found something that that is popular and is interesting and they're they're really looking to capitalize on that and uh, and yeah, some of the theories are getting a little broader right and the theories look, but a theory is a theory if you want to be answered.

Speaker 3: 26:42

Archaeologists too I've seen. Archaeologists are terribly wrong, but they're much more based on like was it 10 000 years old for 5 000 years old and they thought that, you know, culture didn't exist before x, before shadow, high off in 6 000 years, until gebo teki came along out of east turkey and, oh my god, it's ten and a half thousand years old. So clearly archaeologists are shooting in the dark too. You have a lack of evidence and you kind of have to posit a theory. So there's no question that what's out there will be revised and will be changed, but to lead to something that is, we didn't do it, that others did it. It just seemed like a lazy out and and again I did a show shortly after I did, uh, saving the sphinx you. I got very quickly hired as kind of a history mystery guy. I did a show called History Mysteries for History Channel for years, if you remember, back in the early 00s, and one of them was on Knights Templar. And this is another eye-opening experience for me because the whole premise was based.

Speaker 3: 27:41

This English writer wrote a book and somehow got it published. Thomas was based as English writer, wrote a book and somehow got it published, and his argument was the reason why the Knights Templars were all massacred and killed and driven out of the Holy Land. It's because under the Temple Mount they found the head of Christ. Rather than being buried and risen from the dead, the head of Christ was in the Temple Mount and they smuggled it out to a church in Scotland, roslyn Chapel, which is this weird church outside of Edinburgh. They use it in Da Vinci Code and other things, but it's really odd looking. It's a tiny chapel where all the pillars are festooned with very strange arcane imagery. It's from the medieval period, about the same time where the Knights Templar did seek refuge in Edinburgh before they all disappeared. But this guy's whole premise of the book was the head of Christ was buried under the chapel in Roslyn and he knew exactly where it was. It was right under the altar and people would refuse to let him get anywhere near it. But if he could get down there he could prove that everything that history has been saying was wrong and that his theory was absolutely proven. That was his big premise.

Speaker 3: 28:43

And so I did a show for History and I remember I went up there and it was too expensive to shoot, get permits. So I had a camcorder and I'm pretending to be a tourist, you know, after hours are closing and I'm shooting and I'm getting all these beautiful pans much more studied than any tourist should have. And finally, like the custodian could say, you're not just with the camera, where are you really from? And it was late in the day. I got my B-roll so I'm going to admit to him the story. So I tell him, he goes oh, what is the story this month?

Speaker 3: 29:16

What are they claiming is in here this month? And I tell him and he goes oh, is that what they're saying? I'm going to show you something. You turn your camera off. You make sure it's off. I will show you the head of Christ. All right, I turn it off. It's just me and him. Even some guy couldn't come in. He says you stay out here, just me and you, neil. And he went down in the chapel and there in Brazen Chapel there is a little stairs to go down underneath the altar and there underneath the altar is an old wooden door, just you know, very time worn and scraped, and it's got a big knob on it. Very much looks like something where they would hide something, you know, like the Ark or something special. He gets out his keys and he opens it and what is inside? A sink? A mop and a bucket and he put it rake in there and he locked it up and closed it.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Okay, you see the Antichrist, all right you can go now they got to use it for what it's appropriate for. I guess it's appropriate.

Speaker 3: 30:17

It was just a janitor's closet. They just didn't allow the author to see it, because they probably thought he was just, you know, nosing around too much. But this guy based and sold an entire book on a premise. That was that shot. It could be dismissed in seconds, just as some kid with a camera. This guy was just, you know, the gardener was showing it off, or whatever it happens over and over again, as people think that because they're denied something, that therefore there has to be conspiracy, uh, another one I did you know, I don't know how many stories you want, but I did one, a very much more modern one.

Speaker 3: 30:49

It was an ancient history. I did something in the Oklahoma City bombing also for History Channel years ago, and one of the first people I interviewed was Terry Nichols' brother. Terry Nichols was one of the bombers that found the fertilizer and stuff. He wasn't there when they blew it up, but he's currently in prison. I interviewed his brother, who lived up in the thumb of Michigan, where a lot of radicals are and a lot of, you know, the anti-government people are, and he was the very first interview I had and I'm sitting there and he seemed very pleasant and nice and he made coffee for me and sat there and as we're sitting up he goes. You know the whole Mirability was blown up by the government. You know that it was an inside job. My brother had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 3: 31:26

Okay, interesting theory, let's record. And I said why do you believe that he goes? Well, I can prove it by the fact of where the bomb blew up, because they all argued that the Ryder truck outside had all this, all the bomb and the fertilizer in it and it blew up and brought down the building. But he asked me have you ever seen a photo of the bomb crater where the Ryder truck was? At that point I'd been studying and researching this film for several months and I'd seen all the stuff on the inside of the Murrah building but nothing from the outside. And it's just true that a bomb that large would definitely blow down as well as up. And I said no, I haven't seen this. That's because there isn't one, that's because always they put they put the bombs inside the government for reasons that remain ridiculously unknown, and they did it in from the inside rather than a rider truck from my brother. So I'm thinking about this and what doesn't prove anything, but it's very interesting conspiracy idea, because it is true that there are no images out there a lot.

Speaker 3: 32:24

So a couple weeks later I was down in Memphis or somewhere and I interviewed the head of the FBI who had to during those days, was it was, was in charge of the investigation and we're making small talk again as the camera sets it up and they're getting the lights. That's me get to beat people and that's as a director. That's kind of how you get people to be comfortable with you and build a rapport as the lights and cameras and microphones are going on. So he asked where have you shot already? Who have you interviewed? I told him, and he goes oh that's, I haven't heard that theory and all hit me sounds familiar already. He goes, let me show you something. And he gets.

Speaker 3: 32:55

He gets out his little briefcase and a folder of all these photos that I requested for the show and he goes. You can take all this, but I want to show you one in particular. I wasn't going to put this in here, I wasn't going to give it to you because it's blurry. And he pulled out a photo of the bomb crater and he says the main reason we didn't release it in the press in 95 was that it was just out of focus, it just wasn't a good photo. And then we know it wouldn't be printed. You can have it, you can do whatever you want with it. Theory, theory. Dismissed in seconds, yeah, so mostly because it's just shitty. Camera work, sure. Well, in fact, I just had a guest on.

Speaker 3: 33:30

Once again, a theory is based on the lack of evidence.

Speaker 2: 33:32

There you go. I just had a guest on the other day, a doctor. We were talking about the JFK conspiracy. Probably the, you know, coined the term conspiracy theory and I fell into that myself and I know I've said if one little piece of it isn't true, that doesn't blow away the whole story, bingo. But I fell into it myself. I saw a documentary and it was one actually saying that Oswald acted alone, and I go back and forth really I have for years on the JFK conspiracy whether it was Oswald or a conspiracy.

Speaker 2: 34:10

I kind of go with the last documentary I saw. Seems to be logical and so that's kind of an opinion I'll have for a little while. But the last couple of years I thought, you know, maybe it was just Oswald and we just can't admit that it was just this idiot who did that by himself. But the documentary I saw it showed and with this resonated with me because of some law enforcement experience that I have. And they said when, when the Dallas Police Department originally got the rifle Oswald's rifle with the palm print on it, they found that the rifle was then given to the FBI who couldn't find it. They then gave it back to the Dallas PD and they had records of when they found it. Well, from my little bit of law enforcement training you know when you remove a print from an item you literally lift it off, it's gone. So Dallas PD gave it to the FBI and the FBI couldn't find it. Well, of course, because it's gone.

Speaker 2: 35:16

So I knew that and they said well, since you know, since that discrepancy, and you know it doesn't work, then the whole thing must be, must be right, you know. But, and I fell into that, I thought, ah, there you go but there's nothing wrong.

Speaker 3: 35:30

I yeah, I mean I tell people I'll bump into people that I haven't seen in years and if they ask what I do and these are people that have gone different directions with often in my small town I'm not saying small town versus new york is different, but in many ways it is because you really can't get away with that kind of stuff. Sometimes in New York and LA or London or whatever People will call you a little quicker. But I had a friend who thought he was of the world, he would see me. He goes. Let me ask you you see, make these films.

Speaker 3: 35:55

So did levitation create the pyramids? And these are otherwise sensible, intelligent people. But they watch these shows and they're fun. And look, we don't know a lot about it and there's no reason why. You know, someone growing up in Western Pennsylvania should understand old kingdom Egypt engineering. It's not expected.

Speaker 3: 36:13

So there's a lot of great and it's four and a half thousand years ago. So there clearly are some cracks in the theories or in the artifacts. So of course people are looking for a fun, exciting thing and, as you say, one guy with a gun isn't nearly as fun as a conspiracy. So I think we like to chase those things and believe that something bigger happened. And sometimes, again, I think it's two conspiracies, as they are to break down the establishment and to prove that they lied about something. Certainly the case of JFK and the moon landing. When you go back to ancient history, the mere fact that it's just a bunch of people who came together and built this in the belief that they were making a stairway to the gods is a little boring and rote. But if you've got a bunch of aliens and a Stargate coming through and there's weapons and mummies fighting or whatever, now you're talking Now, you're going to keep me up past 10 o'clock.

Speaker 3: 37:04

It's just a funner narrative and it's only when you go there and you see and say, holy shit, you do not need to enhance the pyramids or Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat. They are amazing in their own right. And it's more fascinating to me to think what was going through humans' mind. They sat there and said let's build an entire city that looks like this. That, to me, is a greater mystery than than you know. Did they get help?

Speaker 2: 37:30

yeah, yeah, that it's fun to think about, fun to like, I said, fun to ponder, yeah, and that's really why I thought this this is a good name for the show and what I'm trying to do discerning the unknown. You know, you can have your theory, you can have your thoughts and and we may never know, but you got to come on. Really, if the aliens built the pyramids, I think they would have done better.

Speaker 3: 37:51

Exactly, they would still probably be around. I mean, a pyramid. You look at it, it's pretty useless, except for the pharaoh who was building it and still robbed it's. The best he can do is just put a pyramid. It would have lasers shooting out of it and teleporting you to help say sorry, whatever, it's just a very big, pointy building. I think, yeah, again, it's like people, if they scratch a little bit and they start digging around, they realize, oh, it's very easy to explain why the earth is not flat or whatever it's. You can explain in 10 seconds to somebody if they want to listen. But I don't think they do, because if you say, they go down that rabbit hole and one leads to another, and particularly now on youtube or whatever, invariably it queues up the next thing that takes you deeper into that world and then suddenly you're, you're part of this cult.

Speaker 2: 38:44

And brings up another theory. I've heard the doctor, geologist Robert Schock speak and I've seen him on TV.

Speaker 3: 38:55

He was a Sphinx guy. I thanked my first film for him, because I made the anti-Schock documentary.

Speaker 2: 39:02

He sounds like an intelligent guy. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Is he sensationalizing it? Oh yeah, I don't buy most of it.

Speaker 3: 39:12

I mean I haven't seen him since the 90s when I was doing this thing, so I haven't borrowed him since and I had lunch with him somewhere in DC or something. We happened to bump into a conference when I was making the film Intelligent guy. That clearly is an engineer, but I remember his big argument and forgive me because I don't have other tales right now, because it's been so bloody long.

Speaker 3: 39:30

But his argument, at least on the sphinx, was that because the water and the wind arose, so the sphinx it took much longer to erode that way than four and a half thousand years and ten thousand years for that kind of erosion. That was his big thesis as a geologist. But then I met a geologist over and then said well, that's total rubbish, because there's different layers of stone that erode at different levels. So the head is much stronger and that's why it's solid. The chest. When I was there, when I was there a few years ago, you still have these, you still flakes the side of potato chips blow away from the, from the chest of the swing, so the wind comes through. That's how quickly the middle layer erodes. So, shock, in this book only talked about one type of erosion and not the others. So again, it's a selective cherry picking to get at where they want to go. And I haven't followed this theory since. Um, the other guy, graham hancock, is the same way. I haven't worked with him but I certainly know people will have. I understand why we would have paused it.

Speaker 3: 40:25

But what's interesting is I did watch the new Graham Hancock documentary on Netflix earlier this year I forget what it's called, and he clearly has a beef with archaeologists. The bad guys in all these shows he does are the archaeologists. They're like the Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Now it's a very closed, hermetic world. They don't want some ordinary people like me, you and Mr Hancock, come in and upset in the apple cart that they have an entire career based on it.

Speaker 3: 40:56

There's no question that there's a various sort of insular culture, but that does not mean they're out to dupe the populace. They want to understand that. They may want to hang on to that theory for themselves so they can get their dissertation and their PhD or whatever and all that crap, but they are not out to create some fiction to pull the wool over our eyes. It's just ridiculous. So that whole show Premis seemed to have a grudge against archaeologists, probably because he couldn't get the permits to film, and he was angry grudge against archaeologists probably because he couldn't get the permits to film and he was angry.

Speaker 2: 41:34

I think the whole field of archaeology also. It's different than faith. Really, archaeology is something you know. As these new things are found, you know, maybe there'll be a theory proposed. But as new things are found, it changes a bit and I think that's the thing we need to be accepting of that new evidence is found all the time that the theory is, you know, rethought, whereas faith, you know, it's just what we were told years ago or when we were kids, by our parents or whatever, and we have to believe that and nothing ever is going to change it well, that's what science is.

Speaker 2: 42:04

We have to alter our, our thoughts and particularly in the academic community.

Speaker 3: 42:11

I just did a film at science channel last year called ice age america, which um, was, was, was. I forget the, uh, the paleontologist's name, but he argued that the humans came to America. Homo sapiens came to America like 10,000 years before they did. I forget the actual dates and there's proof in, like the salt flats of New Mexico and some of the caves in Mexico, and he found strong evidence, inconclusive evidence. They really were there much earlier. So the Bering land Strait either was already connected or they came by a boat and his theory had amazing DNA facts.

Speaker 3: 42:50

I mean, it was all backed up with science and he was still a pariah in the paleontology community because people did not want to change their dictum. They didn't want to change the canon. The archaeological community, the academic community, is slow to change, because if this person suddenly says this, then everything I've been working on for 30 years has become moot, you know. So there is no question that there is that kind of stuff, that even within the scientific community it's hard to change minds, and that could be a part of the reaction to what shock and others and those who are going after them are, because even even people are very set in their ways, they create their narrative and it's hard to change that narrative, but it's no question that things are happening all the time. I mentioned Gevleteki, which you know viewers don't know. You know which is, which is a? Yeah, do you know what it is?

Speaker 2: 43:37

Sure.

Speaker 3: 43:38

Sure, of course, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:39

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 43:39

It's a newer site in Eastern Turkey, right, and you know it is a very much a solar, some sort of. It's hard to know exactly what it is, but it's far older than people thought. So the whole paradigm had to shift and had to go back 5,000 years to say they're building megalithic stone structures. The societies are already existing, they were coming here. There were no houses around it. So the whole paradigm that the rise of civilization came out of housing and urban development had to be thrown out of this year.

Speaker 3: 44:10

It could have been religion, it could have been mythology, it could have been what brought people together was not the sedentary farming and husbandry and growing wheat, but that certainly happened. It could have simply been religion. It could have been belief in the, the afterlife, and that's why the first thing was built was a temple to gods, or a temple to the underworld, whatever, whatever devil tech is, we don't know. So there's so much that is unknown. There's no question that that the experts have on the answer. They do not. But to come up and to suddenly dismiss that and try to say well, because you don't know that, there's no question, it was made by a guy from six galaxies away or some time traveler that came from 26th century and came back. It's a lovely fun. It's fun for sci-fi and I'm enjoying writing the books doing that. But in no way am I saying that the characters and the stories in my primetime series are true. I'm just having a fun romp with it.

Speaker 4: 45:05

You can make a religion out of this. Isn't that what L Ron Hubbard did?

Speaker 3: 45:10

Exactly A hundred years from now, they'll be bowing to Jared Plumber, the great TV producer you know and they'll be following. This is where he walked through the false door in Abydos.

Speaker 2: 45:21

All my documentaries will have gone been totally forgotten by then, but the myth of Jared the time hopper will persevere. So again, with every minute or so that you speak, it gives me more questions that I want to get at.

Speaker 3: 45:42

You've been to Petra oh many times yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:44

Three or four times.

Speaker 3: 45:44

yeah, oh, it's one of my favorite places, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:47

Oh gosh, I think really the first best look I got at that was it happened to be the day of my high school. I forget what it's called.

Speaker 3: 46:05

The church service before you graduate.

Speaker 2: 46:06

I forget the name of it. Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 3: 46:10

Yeah, yeah, but uh, a bunch of us went to see um indiana jones, but you're gonna say that, right, that was, that was the first yeah the last crusade and I saw that and I I was just enthralled. Ever since you have not seen the real thing, yet you have not been to petro. No, no, no would have to, sir you have to get on a plane and go over there. Jordan's a beautiful country and it's you know it's always welcoming.

Speaker 3: 46:31

Oh yeah, even being there. When I was at, I was there as a tourist first time. Then I went and made two or three shows there over the years, but every time you come down the approach which Indiana Jones perfectly captures, it's a wadi, a dry river, and it's very narrow and usually come down. It's very touristy, but you come down on donkeys because that's just a way to see it. No cars are allowed down there, but that makes it very authentic and feels sort of timeless, because you walk into this very, very dry riverbed with these soaring rocks and you start seeing carvings along the way, very badly eroded, and then you turn the corner and there's that library which is coming through that crap in the wadi where you can look up and see it, and it's absolutely breathtaking.

Speaker 3: 47:11

I just got to chill thinking about it right now. It's just, it's such a special art that is very deep in the bowels of the desert, the desert once again, though, when you find out that someone discovered it. You know, some british archaeologist quote unquote, and you know, in 1870 or whatever was, says he found Petra. No, you know, people have been living there non-stop since it collapsed. The Jordanians knew exactly where it was. It's just a guy from London to know where it was. Yeah well, we do that ourselves. That's. That's been done.

Speaker 3: 47:39

Columbus said he discovered America 40 million people wasn't the first 40 million people who live in here at the time 40 million people.

Speaker 2: 47:45

It wasn't the first 40 million people living here at the time, I think and that's something I obviously I'm so grateful something like Petra is still there for us to see, when something like in Afghanistan, the big Buddhist statue.

Speaker 3: 48:02

Oh yeah, the Bamiyan Buddhas yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:04

Exactly Got destroyed by the Taliban.

Speaker 3: 48:08

In our time, in our time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I stood there for you know 1,500 years and got blown up in two minutes.

Speaker 2: 48:15

Heartbroken, heartbreaking, but wasn't there, didn't actually? They find another one behind it.

Speaker 3: 48:21

Wasn't that the story?

Speaker 2: 48:22

No, I haven't been to Afghanistan.

Speaker 3: 48:24

It certainly is my bucket list. I would love to see it get there, but obviously I probably never will, considering it's never a good time to go to Afghanistan. There were two Buddhists, I guess, next to one another. The Taliban beat them up in 2001. But there's smaller ones along the side there and they really can't destroy them. And again, it's beautiful.

Speaker 3: 48:45

There's other carvings of Buddhists in um, angkor wat or cambodia and burma that I've seen, not quite as huge, so it was very much a tradition on that silk road. You know, people came through there and stayed and babi um, but it was such a great tragedy. It stood there and was preserved and was venerated either by non non-buddhists, for who reckon for being a beautiful thing? If people went to Afghanistan before the Taliban, before it got dodgy, that was one of the places you went. It was like going to the Eiffel Tower, the Tower Bridge or whatever. Everybody went to Bombay and Buda and it was gone in seconds.

Speaker 3: 49:19

So all the more tragic that it survived for so long. And then it was our world, where we think people are more enlightened and recognize that these things should be preserved, that it was destroyed, and when you travel the world you think about. It's all the more gratifying when you see something is still around, because how did it survive the ravages of time at all? We know so much has disappeared, but the mere fact that Angkor Wat exists or Machu Picchu exists or some of these places that really could have very easily been torn down and used to build sheds you know down in Cusco, are still there. It's wonderful that somewhere, someone on the way must have recognized this is special let's not mess with this.

Speaker 2: 49:59

Yeah, uh, it's even in America as well, when you know we're developing and all these Native American mountains are gone, you know, so we could build highways um yeah, it's so much the culture.

Speaker 3: 50:10

Just. Yeah, it's just it. Just bulldozer comes right through because the end of the day and it happens all the more time you know people hate. I talk about a friend who's who's um, who's a civil engineer in athens and he hates the job because he puts a shut, he puts a shovel. When they're going anywhere in athens. You know they're going to find something that's going to stop work for a year. They're going to find some great gravestone king. He can never get any work done.

Speaker 2: 50:36

Interesting as well. So you have been to Egypt and all these famous sites as part of your job. It was your work. Did you have a balance between business and pleasure? Were you able to see what?

Speaker 3: 50:50

you wanted to see. I still travel a lot now on holiday. The last 10 years I'm an executive. When you saw my name on other shows, I was an executive producer for the network, which meant that I was the guy in the suit quote-unquote that would give the notes and that would get it ready for science or discovery or PBS whoever my employer was. But it also meant that I wasn't in the field, that in most cases, unless it was a big blue jib special, I sent you out of the field and then I gave the notes from the network perch. So though I've done hundreds and hundreds of hours, I wasn't in the last 10 years always necessarily in the field doing them, but I did that for the first 10 or 15 years.

Speaker 3: 51:30

But that hasn't made my travels have stopped. My husband and I still go away every year, and I'm going to Troy, I'm going to, you know, turkey in 48 hours. I spent a month in Pompeii writing my last book. In last October. We went to Crete for Christmas. So clearly it's very much in our blood, it's very much what we do. But I'd say the lion's share of these great things that I've seen were certainly when I was creating these shows for the network Just because doors are open for you and you see things that the normal tourists do not. I was very privileged and very lucky to be standing there when Zahi found a tomb at the foot of the pyramid. That was a worker's tomb or whatever, and I had a camera and I could be the first to film it. It was a very, very fortunate moments in my life and you know I'm so grateful that I could turn that passion into a career.

Speaker 2: 52:20

Sure, sure. I think back to what we were saying about how things are found in archaeology. It gives us some hope that new old things are still being found. I think, when I'm thinking ahead to your book about time traveling to Pompeii, I always think I would be fascinated if, because there have been scrolls found from Pompeii in the time of Vesuvius, because there have been scrolls found from Pompeii in the time of Vesuvius, Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had new classic literature from a library in Pompeii?

Speaker 3: 52:56

Yes, I know, Fascinating and of course you know they're trying to take those Herculaneum scrolls and trying to read them. Remember, last year they were able to translate one word purple or something. So it's going to be slow going. They're not going to be able to translate one word purple or something. So it's gonna be slow going. They're not gonna be able to bring them all back but to find a cash.

Speaker 3: 53:10

In fact, my second book um the time, pompeii one of the subplots, ali who you're meeting in the first book, in the second book, his goal in pompeii is to save the cash of of classic manuscripts from socrates and sappho and cicero for posterity before the rain and lava runs down. So it's very much part of that second book. But is he a thief? Is he a cultural thief by taking back of the modern day? Can he just videotape them? But his goal is to say, if I'm going to come back here, I'm going to grab some ancient works that will be lost forever in 48 hours.

Speaker 3: 53:44

So those ideas of what is lost, I mean all my librarian friends that I met. They still have nightmares about the Library of Alexandria burning down in like 300 BC or whatever, these tragic moments of information and art that is lost. So much is not even lost and we don't know. So we just have to kind of go up what we have and every time we do find something or reinterpret something. And there's stories to be found all the time again in pompeii, because I wanted to deal with gay characters the impetus of of pompeii beyond obviously the action was some new dna and cat skin research that came out last year. Have you been to pompeii? No, never never anywhere.

Speaker 2: 54:27

I've got to do it.

Speaker 3: 54:28

Okay, okay, well, and Pompeii's amazing because the plaster casts you can tell your friend are very much real and because they still have bits and bones in them. So while they are the hollered out bodies of people screaming in their last agonizing seconds, they also find bits of bones and teeth and things. And when you come in the main entrance entrance, the amphitheater entrance in Pompeii, behind glass is about eight or nine of the most notorious ones they found, and there's two of them. They're, up until last year, called the two maidens and it was two people one who had their, their head curled up on the other's chest, holding very tightly their, their, their legs entwined and they're looking at each other and that's how they died. And they always called them the Tomb Maidens because they figured it was a mother and a child. And that's just what they found in the 1880s or whatever, not unlike the Tomb of the Two Brothers. It was just an easy moniker.

Speaker 3: 55:19

And then last year they finally did some CAT scan and DNA and find out several very interesting things. One is they are both men. They were not related by DNA. One is they are both men, they were not related by DNA and they are both between 20 and 30 years old. So we don't know if it was a gay couple that died, but the way they looked and the way they're holding each other, I use that as a springboard to create a fictional story about who these two men are.

Speaker 3: 55:41

But once again, new technology has revealed something to be totally false, and it creates a whole new narrative of who these people were, how they lived, what society was like, what sexuality was like the last moments. So we are still finding amazing discoveries, even if stuff has already been dug up and is right before our eyes. As new technologies and sensibilities change, we may find more and more and more that do dispel the conventions and the stereotypes of the past. So in that regard, the shots and the hancocks are right in questioning the big guys and the canon, but I do question when they start making broad assumptions that simply can't be based on facts sure, sure.

Speaker 2: 56:20

That's what fascinates me about ancient history and all of that to think of the things you know the ancient people were going through at the time, how they lived, how they died. Chances are they were a lot like us today, there's no human. The same species. Yeah, graffiti found in Pompeii saying you know, vote for this guy, not for that guy, this guy's great that guy's asshole. So you know a lot of the same problems.

Speaker 3: 56:47

There's more political graffiti in Pompeii and then, of course, the brothels and all the sexual positions. And then you know the fast food joints in every corner you go by and there's McDonald's. They put on McDonald's in every street corner of Pompeii. Very little has changed in the almost 2,000 years since Pompeii died and I love that because it connects us more than we think. It's not such a vast time period between us and them and it is. We only lived 60, 70, 80 years or whatever mankind lives today. But in the grand scheme of things, 2,000 years isn't as far in the past. We are not talking about a different species. We don't evolve that quickly. We have different sized brains or we think differently.

Speaker 3: 57:30

The pyramids proved there were brilliant people back in 2,500 BC as there are today. We're the same exact species. We just changed because of location, and certainly the advent of computers or the advent of whatever else takes us to new, different worlds. But that doesn't mean we have changed in any way fundamentally as a living, breathing species. And I love that because when I look at these people and look at mummies, you look at Ramsey the Great behind his glass in the Cairo Museum. He's just a dude. He's got warts over his face and he's an old man with dodgy teeth and probably needed some really good dental care and that might have killed him. He was just like us. He just had a very nice. He's had a better life.

Speaker 2: 58:16

Yeah, well said, and I think through the course of it all, we have to learn through our mistakes. You know, and it's fascinating, now We've got the internet, almost any question you can ask in the world, you've got an answer right away. But a lot of us still look at it to watch movies of cats.

Speaker 3: 58:34

And all those answers may not be right. You don't know who are writing it. It's like chat, gpt and AI is terrifying some people because they're just taking what's out there and they're giving it the same value. So if you very much want to find out, give me three reasons why X happened. One of them could be based on a children's story or someone who just has an ax to grind against all the Italians in Rome. You don't know what they're basing that on. So fact and fiction and fantasy are being blended in a way and are being smoothed out, and they're all being sort of hidden under the same sort of offices of information, and that's a very dangerous, deadly place to be.

Speaker 2: 59:13

Got to be discerning, got to watch out for fake news you got to do your homework.

Speaker 3: 59:16

You got to do your homework.

Speaker 2: 59:17

Yeah, talking with Neil Laird folks. Emmy-nominated director, historical films. You've seen his stuff, I know you've seen his stuff on History Channel, discovery, national Geographic and a whole bunch more. Do take a look at his website. I've had it up during the show for those of you watching on video, but for those of you listening to the podcast it's neillairdcom N-E-I-L-L-A-I-R-Dcom for his book Primetime Travelers and Neil. Of course we can get the book there. Where else can we get it?

Speaker 3: 59:52

And let everybody know what's coming up. Amazon is the publisher. That's the main place to get that book, though, you know, with the second book I'll probably take it to more traditional houses as well. So stick around, join the mailing list and I can tell you where Primetime Pompeii is going to be released. And what's great about these books is, since I'm writing them very quickly in succession, I love hearing from people who do read it and their thoughts. So after you read it, be sure to tell me what you think you know pro or con about the characters or about how it moves, because then the next book I can make more of Kara or give Jared a chance to do X, or whatever I can very much change that based on the feedback One that I did jot down.

Speaker 2: 1:00:39

I wanted to talk to you about the character of Now I can't decide in my head if it's Sayid or Saeed.

Speaker 3: 1:00:43

Said, sayid, sayid, sayid.

Speaker 2: 1:00:44

It's a very common Egyptian name. Okay, I kept wanting to say, said in my head, I'm an American Midwest boy, I'm ignorant, so and I thought, gosh, I should have told him. I wish he at least would have put a Y somewhere in there so I wouldn't have gone through it.

Speaker 3: 1:01:02

You can't spell it S-A-Y-A-D, but Sayid S-A-I-D is the common pronunciation in the Arab world, so I just stuck. And Saeed, like many characters, were based on people I knew. Saeed was a tour guide. I went up with tour guide, so I used his proper name and that's how he's called. But yeah, I didn't think about that. I realized that when I was writing.

Speaker 2: 1:01:27

One time I said Sa head Said said Wait a minute, I got to back up. It's Saeed.

Speaker 3: 1:01:31

Saeed, is how you say it, if you put it in your head then you get used to it, right.

Speaker 2: 1:01:35

Okay, and one more question about your business. A director, a TV director.

Speaker 3: 1:01:42

What's a best boy? A best boy Now that's more of a cinematic, you know fiction term. We're much more cheap budgets on a film, a TV crew, so we only have four or five people. A best boy is kind of like a gaffer or a gopher that kind of does this, but mostly with the electricians and things. He's the guy that kind of helps, deals with the electrical stuff. Basically they're sort of like they're Aaron boy in a way, but no, I don't want to say Aaron boy, because it is sort of a skilled thing. They have to understand the technology. Since I don't work in fiction film, I'm sure a best boy could sit here and put me in my place and say it's far more than that. So I apologize to any best boys listening, but that's kind of what it is. It kind of helps the gaffer and the grip and those kind of people and the electrical and the uh with the um camera side of things okay, wonderful, thank you, thank you I always wondered that.

Speaker 3: 1:02:30

I could have probably looked it up. Name best boy. Yeah, I'm not a best girl. It's like I was the second best boy. It's not the.

Speaker 2: 1:02:37

The origins of it, I do not know yeah, yeah, I'll have to look that up too, okay, neil laird. Uh, we have to do it again. You got I got so many questions buzzing around in my head, in fact. Fact. Here's another thing when I was going to mention some of the shows and things you've directed and worked on, I looked on IMDB and, of course, the list is too long. So I thought, well, I'll just print that out and kind of do what I have to do. Look what happened. I printed it out.

Speaker 3: 1:03:13

This is all the stuff that director neil laird has has worked on. I haven't been there in a while I don't even know how complete the imdb page is, there's probably a few questionable ones.

Speaker 2: 1:03:24

I wish weren't on there oh really, but because of your success, you used all my ink in my printer. Now I'm a small businessman, I need that ink. Oh, you spent it all right and you?

Speaker 3: 1:03:35

bought one, and you bought one of my books too, so you look. So actually this was a net loss, this interview for you happy for that when I'm when I'm in your town I'll buy you a drink.

Speaker 4: 1:03:45

It's on me okay, uh, neil larrett, thank you very much. It's been so much fun. We got to do it again.

Speaker 3: 1:03:52

When I'm in your town, I'll buy you a drink. It's on me, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:03:54

Neil Laird, thank you very much. It's been so much fun. We got to do it again. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Okay, thank you folks. Neil Laird again, look at his website. Check it out there, neillairdcom, and check out the book Primetime Travelers. And I didn't even get a chance to ask him about Zahi Hawass, who is a friend of his, and I was going to ask him about some questions I should ask of Zahi Hawass. Zahi is coming on the show in a couple of days. I just got the confirmation from him, so he had me a little worried, but it was about three days ago when we set it up and I just wanted to confirm and he sent me a confirmation today. So we're good to go, and Zahi was probably the most famous Egyptologist in the world, so I'm going to have a fun time talking with him. Take a look at discerningtheunknowncom for guests past, present and future. I am Ryan Peterson and remember, as I always say, men should not wear flip-flops. I'm Ryan Peterson and we will talk next time.