Erich Von Däniken, the man who popularised the enduring ancient astronaut theory, has boarded his chariot of fire and returned to the stars. He’s left behind him over 60 million books about ancient aliens building pyramids and mating with us monkeys to create the human race. A plethora of books and popular archaeology (or ‘starchaeology’, as I call them) documentaries.
Alien Cave Girl Shaggers Built the Pyramids
It was in the early 1980s when browsing my favourite section of Hebden Bridge library – the one that was labelled ‘The Mind’ – that I came across his first book, Chariots of the Gods? (1968). I was a voracious reader of books about aliens and UFOs, and this was right up my street. Alien cave-girl shaggers built the pyramids? I was convinced. I was hooked.
The Chariots of the Gods? of the books title – note the cheeky question mark – was a reference to the biblical Book of Ezekiel. This ancient Hebrew prophet and had a bizarre vision of God on a flying throne with wheels within wheels and strange winged creatures with sparkling calves’ feet and four faces each – one like a man, one like an ox, one like a lion and one like an eagle…[i]
If you thought that sounds like a UFO full of weird aliens, Von Däniken was of the same opinion.
And this is what Von Däniken did. He combed ancient texts, art and archaeological sites for evidence of ancient randy astronauts. That’s not a halo over the saint’s head – it’s a space helmet! That flying chariot isn’t an apocalyptic vision, it’s a flying saucer! The weird shapes carved in the desert sands of Nazca, Peru, they’re a runway for alien spacecraft!
In my early teens I devoured his books… Chariots of the Gods, Gods From Outer Space, Gold of the Gods, Miracles of the Gods, Signs of the Gods, Return of the Gods, Oh no not more Gods….
OK, I made the last one up.
But the evidence was clear. Daniken’s overall thesis was this: Long, long ago in a galaxy far away, two ancient alien civilizations had a war and the losers picked Earth to go into hiding, building a huge network of underground tunnels to hide from the victors who were still in pursuit of them.
To throw them off their trail, the losers put some decoy beacons on the fifth planet in our solar system and the victors blew it up. All that’s left of that planet is the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter…
All makes sense, doesn’t it?
These randy aliens just couldn’t keep their hands off our primitive earth girls and by mating with them and genetic engineering, they created us! In the Book of Genesis it says:
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.[ii]
Debunking of the Gods
One day in the library searching for the latest von Daniken, my eye was caught by a book titled Some Trust in Chariots, edited by Barry B. Thiering and E. W. Castle. I rushed home expecting more ancient astronauts, randy aliens and chariots of fire, but instead found essays by scientists and historians that pulled von Daniken’s thesis apart. I was devastated.
But the more I read, the more it became clear that von Daniken’s thesis was based on misunderstanding, ignorance, cherry-picking of evidence and wild speculation.
And at the heart of the ancient astronaut thesis is the arrogant belief that ancient humans were incapable of the majestic structures they created because they were just stupid primitives without the miracle of alien technology.
It all taught me a valuable lesson – always investigate what the other side say with an open mind. Seek out the contrary view, the one you don’t agree with, the opinion you find deplorable. You never know what you might learn…
Epilogue of the Gods
Erich von Daniken had a colourful past, mostly working in the hospitality industry in Switzerland. He was imprisoned for fraud a number of times, and it was while behind bars that he wrote his best-selling debut Chariots of the Gods?[iii]
After the success of his many books, he opened a theme park in Interlaken, Switzerland called Mystery Park in 2003. The park had pavilions dedicated to various ancient mysteries related to his ancient astronaut thesis – the pyramids, the Nazca Lines, Stonehenge – but closed due to financial issues a few years later.
Although von Däniken’s arguments and evidence have been roundly debunked over the decades, he certainly had imagination and vision (if not many scruples) and he filled my young teenage brain with awe and wonder leaving me with a lifelong obsession with the weird…
Rest in extraterrestrial peace, Herr von Däniken (1935-1926)
[i] Ezekeil 1:1-28
[ii] Genesis 6:4
[iii] The Associated Press, Erich von Däniken, author who spawned alien archaeology theory, dies: Available at: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/erich-von-d%C3%A4niken-author-who-spawned-alien-archaeology-theory-dies/ar-AA1TZOo2?ocid=socialshare
Paul Weatherhead 