Ever get the sneaking suspicion that you’ve lied to? Well, chances are if you’ve ever watched the History Channel, then you’ve probably been the victim of deceit. Because despite what their name might imply, much of the History Channel’s productions are far from historically accurate and trustworthy. That goes double for their reality shows which are the biggest culprits of their deceptive tactics.
Now, pretty much everybody knows how reality shows tend to bend and embellish the truth for rating’s sake. And even though reality television has been rising in popularity over the years, that part hasn’t changed much.
Not wanting to miss out on the cash cow that is reality TV. The History Channel started pumping out their own variants of the format well over a decade ago. The combo of inexperienced stars, dangerous locations, and extreme pressure to create sensational drama that will drive up the show’s ratings can come at a steep price.
While the History Channel used to be a place where you could go to watch reliable and factual documentaries. Over the years, the network has taken extensive creative liberties and is now a haven of overly dramatic reality shows and pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories. They hardly even seem concerned these days about fact-checking or even preventing outright lies from broadcast to the masses.
No, Hitler isn’t alive and hiding out under an assumed name in South America. Aliens probably don’t control the White House. And we’ve never found any definitive proof of bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. Oh yeah, and reality shows are pretty much all staged, got it?
In this video we’re going to be shining the light on several occasions where the History Channel has caught up in scandal. We’ll cover a few cases where they bent the truth or even straight-up lied to the public. As well as several times that the stars of their shows turned out to be crooks.
Alone Contestants Are Never Really ‘Alone’
In this survival reality series, participants are dropped off in the middle of nowhere with just enough supplies and gear to fend for themselves. While the show implies that they are totally alone on their little excursion, that’s not entirely accurate.
While the History Channel program stakes the claim that its contestants self-film all of the footage. There are quite a few shots that imply otherwise. Likewise, the survivalists aren’t always actually dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Often, a small town or a vast network of trails is nearby. So, despite what they might claim, help is never really that far away.
Alaskan Bush People Don’t Even Live In Alaska
History’s Alaskan Bush People might be a thoroughly entertaining program. But after sleuth-like fans started investigating the Brown family a bit deeper. They started wondering whether or not the show actually as real as it claims or if it’s scripted.
In 2015, our suspicions confirmed when cast members Bam Bam and Billy pled guilty to charges of second-degree falsification for claiming to be residents of Alaska even though they were living in other states.
In Alaska, full-time residents offered a financial incentive to remain in the state. The Alaskan Permanent Fund Division hands out that money, but after Bam Bam and Billy caught lying about their residency. They sentenced to a month in jail and forced to pay back thousands of dollars in fines and fees to the state.
Bamazon’s Murderous Scandal
In this reality series, a group of eight construction workers from Alabama travel to the jungles of Guyana, hoping to strike it rich by discovering gold. In season one, the audience introduced to Matthew Clate McDaniel, a man described as a yoga-practicing hippie-type.
They told that he believes strongly in the healing power of nature and a short clip is shown of him playing with his dog. But after cuting from the show, Mcdaniel arrested in his home state for the murder of a man named Norman Deon Crayton.
Law enforcement investigators alleged that McDaniel shot the man and left him to die alone in the woods. Who knew that this congenial and seemingly docile tree-hugger was actually a ruthless killer?
American Gun’s Richard Wyatt Not Licensed To Sell Firearms
You would think that a show that revolves around a family of gunsmiths who own and operate Gunspoke Guns would make sure that the patriarch of the family actually legally authorized to sell guns. But as it turns out, Richard Wyatt never did and we only learned about this after the show had already canceled.
The Denver Post revealed that Wyatt had stripped of his Federal Firearms License in 2012 after breaching federal gun laws and regulations. But that little setback didn’t seem to stop him from doing his thing because he continued to sell guns by conspiring with other gun dealers to keep his family-owned business afloat. Customers would buy firearms at Gunspoke, but they would then have to pick them up at other stores in the area that licensed.
But that wasn’t the last of Richard Wyatt’s legal problems. In 2017, he convicted by a federal jury of committing ten felonies ranging from conspiracy to fraud to tax evasion. Wyatt given a stiff 78-month prison sentence for hiding $1.1 million worth of income from the IRS, selling guns without a proper license, and conspiracy.
Naked And Afraid Is Completely Scripted
In Naked and Afraid a and a woman try their best to survive in an inhospitable wilderness without anything not even their clothes. Throughout the show’s run, it’s had to deal with quite a bit of controversy and scandal. And many viewers believe that it’s entirely fake.
Season 3 Contestant Honora Bowen’s testimony only seems to confirm that theory. On her blog, she says that she told to fight with contestant Matt Strutzel to shake things up and make the show more interesting. She even claims that the show’s producers coached her on what to say.
Bowen never ended up completing the challenge since she faked heat exhaustion to get out of having to do the show.
The Amelia Earhart Photo Debacle
Amelia Earheart captured the hearts and minds of the world after she disappeared while attempting her circumnavigational flight of the globe in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft in 1937. Earheart and her Navigator Fred Noonan last seen in Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937.
The show focused on a newly discovered piece of photographic evidence consisting of a photo that they claimed taken after she had vanished. They even suggested that Earhart and Noonan had survived a crash and taken captive by the Japanese.
The startling new theory caused quite a stir until a Japanese military blogger named Kota Yamano noticed some glaring inaccuracies in their claims. According to him, the photo actually taken before the infamous flight took off. Furthermore, the folks featured in the photo weren’t even Earhart and Noonan. Rather they just looked a lot like them.
After the news broke that the documentary’s claims were bogus,. The History Channel put out a statement saying that they would continue to investigate Earhart’s disappearance and that ‘historical accuracy’ is the most important thing to both them and their viewers.
Ancient Alien’s Wild Claims About Puma Punku
If you’ve ever seen an episode of History’s Ancient Aliens. Then you already know to take anything that you hear on the program with a grain of salt. Pretty much everything said in that show is either a misrepresentation of history or completely fabricated.
A great example of this is when the show discussed the ancient archaeological site of Puma Punku in Bolivia. It’s the location where the Inca believed that the world created. And over the years, it has been subject to many different outlandish theories.
While archaeologists believe that the temple constructed as early as 536 AD. The so-called experts on Ancient Aliens claim that it is instead more than 17,000 years old. They further isist that the blocks that the temple constructed out of were all perfectly uniform in nature and that they levitated even though they are quite heavy. Anyone with half a brain cell knows that that would be impossible.
Ice Road Trucker’s Jobs Really Aren’t That Dramatic
While there is no denying that driving huge trucks on at times very thin ice is pretty dangerous, History’s Ice Road Truckers goes out of its way to dial up the drama of these situations by scripting lines for the drivers and by embellishing their personas.
Really though, the show wouldn’t be half as interesting if it was just about a normal trucker who didn’t run into any trouble along their route.
The United States Government Has Always Celebrated Christmas
The History Channels 2020 holiday special Christmas Unwrapped made the claim that the US Government didn’t recognize Christmas as a national holiday and essentially just treated it as just another day between 1789-1856.
While this claim might raise a few eyebrows, it’s proven to completely untrue because the House and Senate are well-documented of having always had the day off from work. It appears as if the documentary only made the spurious claim to make the US Government look bad.
Hitler Absolutely Did Not Flee To Argentina
The pervasive rumor that Hitler escaped to Argentina isn’t just a lie, but it’s also a fairly offensive one. But even though there is very little – if any – evidence to back this insane theory, the History Channel devoted an entire series to chasing after sketchy leads in hopes to give some credibility to the thoroughly debunked hypothesis.
Adolf Hitler died in a bunker on April 30, 1945, when he shot himself in the head after learning that Soviet Troops were within a block or so of the Reich Chancellery. His wife, Eva Braun, died beside him after biting into a cyanide pill. All of that is well documented. The world let out a collective sigh of relief when the news broke that the evil Fuhrer had fallen. To suggest otherwise is downright bonkers.
Alright, we’re just about out of time for this video, but honestly, we could go on and on about how the History Channel has shamelessly lied to the public.
At this point, it’s less of a channel devoted to history as it is a collection of shoddily produced, historically questionable, and deliberately misleading reality shows. Really, the word ‘reality’ shouldn’t even associated with the garbage that they routinely put out into the world.
But perhaps we’re being a bit too harsh. What do you think about the History Channel’s programming? Do you find it just as off-putting as we do, or do you think that it’s not quite as bad as what some say? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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And as always, thanks for watching! Take care.
