Patterns in Pseudo-history & How to support this project
More thoughts on recognizing patterns about reports of things that never happened but have somehow entered the historical record.
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This week I decided to add this short, extra piece to give my thoughts on some patterns in pseudo-history that I have noticed, and how they can be applied in the two pseudo-history pieces so far.
First, we see pseudo-history emerging from two different circumstances.
With the recent “Were the Dead Rabbits real?” piece we saw that people at the time of the alleged events, particularly the people who wrote the news and documented events in New York City in the middle of the nineteenth century, were not certain about what exactly was happening with the lower class gangs in their city, and, apparently, didn’t bother to write down much of what they did anyway. It seems it wasn’t something they thought people really wanted or needed to hear about.
When they did write these things down, often based them on second or third hand reports. Not surprisingly, sometimes their understanding was a little mixed up.
That was in the 1850s. Approximately 70 years later, in the 1920s, when Herbert Asbury wrote his very influential (and very entertaining) book, The Gangs of New York, he mixed things up completely. This is not surprising as his goal was to produce an entertaining book that people would buy in large numbers, and enjoy, and tell their friends about. He achieved this goal remarkably, and people are still enjoying the book over a hundred years after the time he wrote, which is roughly 170 years after the events Asbury described. Not only that, they are still telling their friends about it.
The problem is that what people are reading and telling their friends is not an accurate picture of real history. As the events, situations, and organizations discussed in the book were little known, few were familiar enough with the period of history to question what they were reading. Thus we have false reports.
While there is a linear, unbroken path of documentation from the time of the events described, the problems in the historical record begin at the time of the events described. People at the time made innaccurate reports, and these became increasingly distorted from reality as the decades went on.
While most Americans have never heard of the Dead Rabbits gang, the bulk who have tend to accept them as historical fact. I say this with no judgement.With the Nazi UFO reports, we have a second kind of problem. If the Nazis had saucer like, high performance, flying craft in World War Two, and if we have accurate, detailed reports of those craft today (notice I said “accurate”?) then we should be able to track a reliable path back to sources from the 1940s and the people who developed, flew, or worked on those craft.
However, the reports of Nazi UFOs first arose in Italy in the 1950s with books authored by someone who did not have any connection with the alleged events, the alleged saucers, or, apparently, any logical way to explain where he was getting his information. The reports arose again in the 1970s, at least 25 years later, with someone who again had no verified, documented reason to have access to the information.
In other words, unlike the stories of mid-19th Century gangs in New York City, which dated back to the time of the alleged events, the Nazi UFO ideas seem to have originated and popped up long after the events described. The reports do not originate at the proper time or place where such a report should have originated. Logically, if a historical report involves German Nazis of World War Two and their military, and the report is true, the earliest reports almost always originate with some kind of documented connection to the Nazi German military, the nation of Germany, and the years of World War Two. The Nazi UFO claims do not.
In other words, instead of originating with people making a false claim about the events that were taking place around them, and then later generations repeated the claims for generations afterwards, instead someone invented something, in this case Nazi flying saucers, and after doing so told people they were very old. These imaginary invented events and objects were believed, at least by some people, and repeated from that point on by at least some group of people.
Just to re-emphasize, these claims, while both pseudo-history, follow two distinctly different patterns and originated in different ways.
As for Nazi UFOs or Nazi flying saucers, while the idea of Nazi UFOs is definitely “fringe,” there are people who believe in them. Many but not most of these people are Nazis themselves and find the idea emotionally appealing. (I have a couple of their books in my collection and hope to write about them some day.)
In the meantime, for a light and amusing, and entirely fictional approach to the subject, consider checking out the 2012 film, Iron Sky.
Trailer for "Iron Sky," an entertaining 2012, Nazi UFO filmed
3. My final thought on patterns in pseudo-history. In both cases, the Dead Rabbits and the Nazi UFO claims is that the reports are very detailed. I think a lot of pseudo-historical claims are overly detailed.
We are shown, for example, what exactly a Nazi UFO looks like and multiple companies claim to sell “accurate” model kits based on those descriptions.
However, we have no actual physical evidence and no actual period documents that describe them or give such details. So, where did the details come from? ( Um . . , uh . . , well . . , could it be that someone, somewhere just made them up and invented them? Um, well, it could be that someone just made them up at some point.)
Same thing for the Dead Rabbits, Herbert Asbury offers more detail, and quite vivid and exciting detail, then the sources would justify.
By contrast, when one looks at real historical sources, and the way they are treated, we often have situations where a source says something, and people endlessly debate the details and context of what it refers to.This is a situation, I encountered frequently ten years ago when I went through a period where I learned everything I could about Roman Gladiators, again, for a miniature wargaming project. I hope to write about some of the things I learned here some day, but one thing I learned is that today, almost two thousand years later, the details of what Roman gladiators wore and carried and how they fought are endlessly debated among historians. Agreed upon details are often scarce and much debated.
In the meantime, recognize that Roman Gladiators and the Roman Arena are definitely an area of history where the number and quantity and rate of of popular books published and written far outstrips the amount of new information learned on the subject. In the case of the Dead Rabbits and Nazi flyings saucers, the books are scarce, but the details presented in these books outstrip the sources, yet somehow do not seem to be much debated.
Consider these some patterns when looking at questionable historical claims and trying to verify and determine the truth about them. They may prove useful.
I would like to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to leave them below. And again, encourage others to read these pieces. Share these writings and help build readership.
