On our latest episode we share our love of Disney Plus and their connection with the National Geographic Channel (NatGeo). Within the NatGeo section of Disney Plus, you will find three great shows with Archaeologist, Albert Lin. Join us as we discuss these three shows, Albert Lin and more.
Show Transcription
[00:00:04] David: Hi, this is David Allen Lambert, I’m here with Terri O’Connell we’re your Virtual Historians and you can find out more about us at Virtual Historians.com. Thank you for tuning in. We’re really excited, now that we have had the summer sort of wrap up, to get into some great material for you to kind of investigate yourself.
And I’ll tell you a lot of you probably have Netflix or HBO Max, or maybe hopefully the Disney channel. And it’s a really great content on the Disney channel with National Geographic and Terri is the one that told me about it. So I’ll let Terri introduce us a little bit more.
[00:00:46] Terri: So first let’s straighten it up. It’s Disney Plus, cause the Disney channels completely different. So Disney Plus. So on the National Geographic Channel, which is now streaming the older episodes, on Disney Plus, is a gentleman by the name of Albert Lin, he is an archaeologist. He’s with the National Geographic Explorer and has a PhD in material science from the UC San Diego.
He has 3 different shows currently streaming on Disney Plus.
[00:01:24] David: Three! Wow. I only knew about the one. So I am glad you are telling this story. Go ahead.
[00:01:31] Terri: There’s three. So there’s The Lost Cities with Albert Lin. There’s The Buried Secrets of the Bible and The Lost Treasures of the Maya. I’ve watched all of them.
[00:01:47] David: You have watched all of them. Okay. So you are an Albert Lin follower then.
[00:01:51] Terri: Yeah. And I started following him actually on Twitter because I just find the work he’s doing is amazing. Because not only is he a man who is out there doing these great digs, in these great places, and hacking his way through these rainforests.
He had an accident and has had part of his leg amputated. So he’s on a…
[00:02:13] David: he has a prosthesis leg.
[00:02:16] Terri: Yes, Yes.
[00:02:17] David: Amazing. I’ll tell you why some of these mountains that he’s climbing and things that he’s doing, like he was in climbing to the top of this extinct volcano in Micronesia. And I don’t want to leave anybody into like enough of a spoiler that you don’t go and watch these cause again, Disney Plus. Sorry about that. I think Disney channel that shows the historian in me. But I mean, he’s done some amazing things. I mean, and for someone who has a prosthesis that just shows there’s no limits to the adventures, this explorer can do and shares all this.
But Terri, I think really why, I mean, I’m, I think we’ve kind of brought this in, is it unlike, a lot of stuff you might see on the Discovery Channel in the past or National Geographic, we’re dealing with people that are hacking their way through the forest and jungles and finding these lost cities, but he’s using 21st century tech.
[00:03:10] Terri: Its amazing!
[00:03:10] David: and that’s what really sold me.
I become an Albert Lin fan myself. And I’ll tell you, it’s great. I mean, he uses drones. I mean, these are like probably military grade, but some of the drones you had fit in the Palm of your hand. There was one that he was using to kind of map out the city of ACRA, which is the last stronghold of the Knights Templar. I’m a big DaVinci code fan and, you know, Masonic and all that, but of course the Knights Templar have a very ancient story and he was able to uncover tunnels and figure out where things were and where the stronghold was. And perhaps even where gold may have been the stronghold of gold. But he used tech. I mean, he used the drones. He used mapping that he did besides the, hard and true archeology going out there. And even that was a little perilous to just see him walking around, it was almost like a water break and I’m thinking to myself, I wouldn’t want to do that myself. Afraid I’d fall into the drink.
[00:04:14] Terri: Right, right.
[00:04:16] David: So I love that episode. I can tell you that I really also enjoyed Buried Secrets of the Bible. I had forgot that I had watched that before all of this, he does some serious deep digging into both the biblical history as well as the archeology. And of course mixes it in again with tech.
[00:04:33] Terri: Their also looking at the language. Because that was the big key piece in that, was looking at the language.
[00:04:41] David: Well you know one of the episodes itself dealt with the ancient people of Micronesia and that was fascinating. These little chains of islands and how these blocks of stone were moved. I mean, almost in the same mind of stonehenge.
And of course there’s a Stonehenge episode. Stonehenge, I love personally. I was there in 1986, when I was still in high school. I’m dating myself now. And I had a newspaper article of somebody in British Columbia that made Stonehenge out of crushed cars. So I showed it to one of the security guards who was walking the fence line because you really couldn’t go up to Stonehenge.
[00:05:20] Terri: Right.
[00:05:20] David: And. I showed it to him. He goes, oh, come on over here, son. I want to show you something lifts the rope. My sister is, of course, on the other side of Stonehenge, I couldn’t get on a cell phone. Then weren’t any in the back then and say, Hey, come and take my picture. Walk me over to a stone on Stonehenge.
Terri, no lie, it had a face chiselled into it. Not in like thousands of years, you know, like as graffiti in the 1820s, like someone would spray paint, something now. So I got that firsthand, I said, can I touch it? He goes, I don’t think you’re going to damage it if you do. So. But really Albert uncovers something. And again, I don’t want to give a spoiler, which predates why people were at Stonehenge. Besides the hunter gatherers and the ancient history of the people of Britain. This really unfolds and talks about some fascinating history that I was even aware of, but this is of course dealing with my own ancestors that probably would have lived there thousands of years ago.
[00:06:18] Terri: I have to say, I think my favorite part about all of these shows is when they take out the light, our machine to create the maps. They create these maps and it’s all of the trees and everything. And then they just peel back the trees and then, oh, look, there’s this whole city.
It just gives you goosebumps.
[00:06:36] David: It’s really almost like another one of my favorite shows that are on there where they drain the oceans. That’s fascinating too, where they use the technology and do the mapping. But I, I would love to have Albert as a guest, even if it’s for five minutes!
[00:06:56] Terri: Right? I’m with you on that!
Albert, if you’re listening, contact myself or Terri, we would do anything to have you as a guest on our show. Just my bended knee plug here, but, you know, we can hope. So yeah, definitely tune into Disney Plus go to the National Geographic Channel within Disney Plus, and just search on Albert Lin, L I N, or Lost Cities. I am sure the episodes, which are six in total. That you will be glued to your screen, tablet or phone.
Hey Terri, why don’t you give them the titles of the six episodes of Lost Cities that Albert has for viewers right now.
Okay. So in The Lost Cities with Albert Lin, we have The Fortress of the Knights Templar.
The Ghost City of the Pacific.
Okay. Eldorado: City of Gold, Stonehenge, Petra’s Hidden Origins and Inca Island in the Sky.
[00:08:00] David: Now, for those of you that are Indiana Jones fans, Albert Lin is like a real life Indiana Jones, but when he was in Petra, which was like the Indiana Jones. The last part of the scene where Sean Connery and him are in that stone wall, that’s Petra. And if you haven’t seen it before, it’s fascinating. And again, he brings tech and tells you all about it. And the one thing that I didn’t realize, Petra’s buildings…tombs.
[00:08:28] Terri: Oh, interesting.
[00:08:29] David: Amazing, Yeah..
So Terri, we got you interested in archeology? I was digging old bottles in my backyard when I was eight years old, trying not to cut my fingers off.
[00:08:39] Terri: Well, I grew up in the city, so I didn’t have any of that.
But I will tell you, it was watching shows like Raiders of the Lost Ark, I mean, fascinating. And then for Marine archeology watching Jacques Cousteau. My dad and I watched it all the time. I just found it fascinating, watching them, you know, diving and bringing things up. At one point we took scuba lessons and my goal was going to be to wreck dive. Unfortunately…
[00:09:06] David: I heard you turned into a wreck when you attempted to dive in Hawaii. So that’s a story all on its own.
[00:09:12] Terri: Yes, I did. I did break quite a few toes. But I have major sinus issues and I can’t equalize my, the pressure. So I couldn’t do it. So the whole family got theirs, except for me. But, its okay.
[00:09:28] David: Speaking of TV shows that kind of influenced me when I was a kid. Of course we know Leonard Nimoy from Star Trek. But there was a show that was on I want to say early eighties, at least when I was watching and maybe late seventies called, In Search Of, and he did like in search of Amelia Earhart in search, a big foot, the Bermuda triangle, all these things. If you Google search Leonard Nimoy in search of on YouTube, you can find these old episodes and they’re a little grainy and whatnot, but it was fascinating. And I was always like, I want to eventually try to find a Blu-ray box set..
[00:10:08] Terri: I guarantee you, we probably watched it too. It’s not something that rings a bell, but my dad really was into watching that kind of stuff.
[00:10:15] David: So there’s your homework for tonight, Terri.
[00:10:18] Terri: I will actually look and you know that.
[00:10:20] David: So you can relate and you can find out about Amelia Earhart as we all found out in 1980. Not that it’s much more different than we found out in 2020.
We’d love to get your feedback and what you think of Albert Lin’s show. And again, maybe we can get Albert on the show. That would be a great adventure for us to be fulfilled.
[00:10:41] Terri: I will also add this because I started following him on Twitter. All of these shows that we’ve talked about today are only one season and they were all 2019.
So my thought was that COVIDs the reason we haven’t seen anything else from him. And I believe it was last week on Instagram, he posted that there are two new episodes of Lost Cities on the Nat Geo Channel. And they’ll be on Disney mid-October.
So there are two new episodes coming out for those of you that like it, go check out net, the Nat Geo Channel to see it .Otherwise Disney and mid-October. And then, follow him on social media because I’m sure like, anybody out there they could use the support.
[00:11:30] David: Well, we’ll definitely have to put a link out there telling everyone about how we are Albert Lin fans, and definitely looking for more episodes of Lost Cities.
Hey, Terri, don’t you watch Josh Gates too?
[00:11:44] Terri: I love him. I love him cause he’s probably our age. He’s hysterical and he’s on Expedition Unknown. So that’s another great one to kind of watch along. And I want to say, I think he also did the Knights Templar and did that whole mapping and walked to the water where the boat, they went into the boats and the underneath the world.
So I think it was him. There was another show that did it, but I’m pretty sure it was Josh. So that’s another one and I too would like to have Josh come and give us a chat.
[00:12:14] David: I’m sure we could fit them into our busy schedules. So if you’re listening, Josh and Albert, both of you, we want you on Virtual Historians because people need to know more about what you’re doing.
And if you have an exciting story where virtual history of melded together for you and how you’ve used, maybe a VR headset to discover the history of your own family, or maybe some episode in history, we want to know about that, or just what you’re working with, with technology.
Don’t forget if you’re a historian or an archeologist, and you’re discovering new things with tech that you’d like the rest of the world to be part of, to learn about your journey we’d love to hear your story. We’ve had a variety of people on, in the past where we’ve discovered with drones, they’ve found log boats in Ireland, that date back hundreds of years, or peeling back the pages of history in a port city in England, in the 17th century around the time of when the Mayflower left England.
So. Tech that’s being used to reteach history in a totally different way. So people like Albert Lin, we salute you for going up there and climbing to the top of pyramids, scaling walls and climbing in caves because with your tech, we’re right there with you. Thank you so very much. And remember til later we’re virtual yours.
Thank you.
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