Mike Collins' "Shocking Film" on Alleged Archaeological Malpractice at Gobekli Tepe (I) Introduction

Jimmy Corsetti, the YouTube content creator behind the channel "Bright Insight," lives in the United States, but prefers to make his money from gathering a following of people (probably also largely from the States) focussed on hate-posting, attacking, denigrating, insulting academics and heritage professionals from other countries and the way they go about things. One of his favourite targets are the archaeologists and heritage managers of Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon. He has in particular taken aim at the work done by the Taş Tepeler project led by Professor Dr. Necmi Karul, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Sanliurfa Museums, involving collaboration with teams from various global universities including Japan, England, Germany, Italy, and Turkey (but not the USA).  

Corsetti adopts a deep scepticism toward mainstream archaeology and scientific consensus, paired with a fascination for alternative interpretations of human history. He portrays the past as a realm of advanced, ancient civilizations —older and more sophisticated than conventionally accepted— whose existence he believes has been suppressed or misrepresented by a corrupt academic establishment. Corsetti accuses archaeologists of mismanaging or neglecting sites, which he claims stifles genuine discovery. His approach advocates for a populist reclamation of history, urging open investigation over institutional gatekeeping, often framing official narratives as not just flawed but deliberately deceptive, while promoting his own explorations as a truer path to understanding our "lost past."

His hate-posting masquerading as a contrarian 'alternative' history has for the past eight years or so focused on the production of videos (mostly for YouTube - where he claims 1.6 million followers). Quite a few of them have been on the topic of Gobekli Tepe. In the latest effort he partners with Mike Collins of "Wandering Wolf Productions" (@WWolfProd) a YouTuber and Film producer/Drone operator making content on "Ancient History, featured on Netflix, History channel, Discovery" from Austin, TX. He created this scandal-mongering clickbait on the site at Gobekli as the first of several he made while travelling there in March 2025 with Corsetti and a female US blogger:

"GOBEKLI TEPE: Olive Trees Removed! Shocking Footage! (2025 Update) w/‪@BrightInsight‬ and ‪@NikkianaJones‬ "
Posted on You Tube by Wandering Wolf Apr 3, 2025

Below I discuss some aspects of this film and why the scandal is more their approach to the work done by foreign archaeologists, and their own behaviour as foreign guests in Turkey, than what they smugly attempt to besmirch. Shame on them.

A note on the olive trees issue (00:06 - 00:40 and 02:06 - 02:40) since they do not actually write Turkish, they rather overestimate their own "importance" in somehow directing the hand of the Turkish heritage managers and effecting "change". This is the fallacy of correlation implying causation. For the trees in general see my post: "Immortal Olive Trees" at Gobekli Tepe?".  

- -- -- --  -

To better organise this Brandolino response the text is divided into several separate posts under the common title: Mike Collins' "Shocking Film" on Alleged Archaeological Malpractice at Gobekli Tepe 

(I)   Introduction

(II):  What Jimmy Corsetti sees (and misses)

(III): Jimmy Corsetti Knows Eff-All About this Site (part two - "no landslide here")

 (IV): Mike Collins Decries Lack of Altruism and Excavation

(V):  The Lady Content-Maker's Reaction

(VI): "Tree Busters" Seriously?   

(VII):  Final Thoughts on Throwing Stones Into the Void of Ignorance

I hope that clarifies some issues for good faith actors among the people confused by the accusations being  thrown out by these three US clickbait farmers.