I've always found the Ancient Aliens theory interesting, but there were just a few too many holes for me to "fully commit" to this idea.

I'm not sure deliberate racism is the main motivation behind this movement. But I am sure someone is making a lot of money--and some people should be spending less of their time and money on this topic. It seems to me to almost be another religion, giving people the excuse that aliens will come again to save us. It would be interesting to do some studies on who is attending these ancient alien conventions. Your hypothesis may indeed be confirmed.

A while back, I read a book called "The Yugas". Interesting ideas leading us towards accepting that humanity has been around a lot longer than the hunter-gatherer anthropology seems to suggest. When I catch an episode of Ancient Aliens, I can explain things in terms of the yugas.

Here is my review of that book:

https://medium.com/misogyny-central/book-review-the-yugas-1f89958b6255