Internet memes

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Ancient Aliens

Examples

Aliens — ancient aliens captioned variant. — Aliens
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Credit & details
Aliens
documented by Know Your Meme.
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Solar panels are so 3400 BC — ancient aliens captioned variant. — Solar panels are so 3400 BC
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Solar panels are so 3400 BC
documented by Know Your Meme.
Source media ↗

Giorgio Tsoukalos Ancient Aliens image macro: Aliens built the pyramids / Smurfs engineered my hair — Aliens built the pyramids / Smurfs engineered my hair
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Aliens built the pyramids / Smurfs engineered my hair
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Giorgio Tsoukalos Ancient Aliens image macro: Reddit / was created by aliens — Reddit / was created by aliens
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Reddit / was created by aliens
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Avatar / based on a true story

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Avatar / based on a true story

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Ancient Aliens: “I don’t know / Therefore aliens.” — A spectacularly unearned “therefore”
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The entire missing investigation is hidden inside one connective word. Admitting uncertainty should leave the question open; here it somehow supplies a very specific answer.
Underlying still: History’s Ancient Aliens, depicting Giorgio A.; Tsoukalos.
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Ancient Aliens: “I’m not saying it was aliens… / But it was aliens.” — A disclaimer with a very short lifespan
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Credit & details
The top line puts on a lab coat of restraint. The bottom line throws it straight out of the spacecraft. The repeated word makes the reversal land before any evidence can arrive.
Underlying still: History’s Ancient Aliens, depicting Giorgio A.; Tsoukalos.
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Ancient Aliens: “If ancient aliens didn’t exist, then how did they build everything?” — The conclusion volunteers as its own evidence
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Credit & details
The question smuggles in exactly what it claims to establish: aliens did the building. It is circular reasoning wearing the confident expression of a devastating rebuttal.
Underlying still: History’s Ancient Aliens, depicting Giorgio A.; Tsoukalos.
Source media ↗

About & sources

A television gesture becomes a reusable punch line: a complicated mystery receives the same implausibly simple answer, aliens.

Date

Giorgio A. Tsoukalos television still; online jokes documented in 2010 and wider image-macro circulation in 2011.

History

This exhibit selects 2011 for the broader image-macro circulation described by Know Your Meme, not the first appearance of the television program or the first online joke. The source dates early forum mockery to November 2010 and growing circulation across hub sites to mid-2011. The captions parody an explanatory habit; they are not archaeological evidence or an endorsement of ancient-astronaut claims. This uncaptioned representative still shows the gesture used by the format; the preview does not itself include the captioned joke or preserve a playable episode.

Know Your Meme — Ancient Aliens (origin and spread)

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Ancient Aliens

Examples

Pentagon releases UFO videos; murder hornets

Aliens

Solar panels are so 3400 BC

Aliens built the pyramids / Smurfs engineered my hair

Reddit / was created by aliens

Avatar / based on a true story

A spectacularly unearned “therefore”

A disclaimer with a very short lifespan

The conclusion volunteers as its own evidence

Date

History