Ye are gods

 

Some lesser known facts about Stanley Kubrick´s weird masterpiece "2001: Space Odyssey". Note the quasi-religious messaging of both Clarke´s novel and the film. But...but...I thought we were an atheist and secular civilization?! 

The dharma of Disclosure Day

 

Will religious people be shocked by UFO disclosure? Our man Brad believes that at least Buddhists won´t. For instance, there is an "alien" bodhisattva arriving on a "UFO" in the Lotus Sutra. Yes, that would be Gadgadasvara alias the Bodhisattva Wondrous Sound. Disclosure happened already 2000 years ago, it seems! So what seems to be the prob? See also link below. 

A description of an alien visit in the Lotus Sutra

OK Boomer

 

Credit: The Fourth Way 

Denying the Moon landing must be the most "Boomer" thing ever. I mean, dude, come on. What year is it? 1971? When the Hare Krishna were still edgy??? What´s up next? The face on Mars? Däniken´s musings on Mayan astronauts? Even flat earthism feels old and almost establishment these days, and that stuff didn´t really take off until about ten years ago. 

But perhaps I shouldn´t say anything, since I think/hope there might be *something* (anything) to the UFO phenomenon. That started before the Boomers were even born...

We´re all getting older.  

Is it possible?

 

Overheard on the internets. A professional artisan is angry at the TV show "Ancient Aliens".  

>>>Stonemason and sculptor here. I think I wrote this under a video of yours years ago, but at the risk of repeating myself:

>>>We learn how to do these things as apprentices. Anyone who cares to learn how can split large stones without power tools or create smooth surfaces and right angles. We use power tools in our everyday work because it's faster, not because it's impossible otherwise.

>>>If you want me to make you, say, a life size human sculpture without any power tools, I can, but I doubt you could pay me for the time it would take. Labour is more expensive nowadays, I'm not working for food, housing, and the prospect of honouring my god-king. Those times are over, I need cold hard cash.

Mythos

 

An uncritical tribute to the recently deceased Erich von Däniken. Is this the "official" story c/o Däniken´s most devoted supporters? 

I also believed in Erich´s speculations when I was 11 years old, but stopped doing it at the age of 13 or so. I prefer Carl Sagan, thank you. Besides, I simply couldn´t be as sycophantic as this content-creator. But...note the religious angle. As I suspected. 

Fun fact: I became more positive towards Sagan when I realized that he might have been more pantheistic than many people realize. Amen!

Memories of the future

 

Erich von Däniken (who passed away two days ago) actually had a YouTube channel. It´s still up, also containing a lot of non-Däniken material from the new agey streaming service Gaia. The above video was posted recently in December, but surely Däniken looks younger than 90 years old here?  

Däniken´s books feels "so 1970´s" and I´m still surprised that he managed to survive into the 2020´s. Not the man himself, but his ideas. Personally, I´ve always seen him as a fossil from a much simpler time when everything seemed possible and every alternative idea looked somehow legit. I suppose Däniken managed to rebrand himself for the American market - which is considerable - and off it went. Yes, that would be "Ancient Aliens". And, I suppose, the Gaia streaming service.

I admit that I intensely dislike the idea of ancient astronauts visiting Earth. It´s almost ugly. You have to be a complete ignoramus to take this seriously. "If a Stone Age petroglyph looks like an astronaut in my subjective rendering, it must *be* an astronaut. QED". That´s the take. Even for 1970-ish counter-culture, this is breathtakingly naive. 

At the same time, it´s fascinating how Däniken and other Schwärmers of this type simultaneously both dis-enchant and re-enchant the world. On one level, speculations about ancient aliens are atheist, since they suggest that the "gods" were really physical space aliens in nuts-and-bolts craft. Nothing supernatural to see here! But on another level, Däniken also creates a new mythological narrative. After all, nobody can see the aliens and only a select few believe in their existence. Science denies knowledge. Is it a conspiracy? In the clip above, Däniken even calls the aliens "teachers", a term many New Age believers will probably associate with "Ascended Masters". 

It´s this new crypto-mythology which many people find so endearing. The seemingly atheist message subtly becomes a new religion. Erich von Däniken was it´s prophet and chief evangelizer. 

As long as humans will send shit into orbit, that long Däniken´s crypto-religion will survive. In other words: probably not for another 90 years.   

Minnen av framtiden

 

Erich von Däniken har avlidit. 

UFO-författaren von Däniken död

Ufological Euhemerism

 

“`Ancient Astronaut´ Narrations: A Popular Discourse on Our Religious Past” is an article by Andreas Grünschloss, first published in the Marburg Journal of Religion in 2006 (vol 11, no 1). The article does contain some interesting information on Erich von Däniken and the Ancient Astronaut milieu, although I suppose it´s possible that aficionados (or critics) of said milieu knows everything already! The main thesis of the article is familiar to me, however. The author points out the seemingly paradoxical fact that while the ancient astronaut “theory” could be seen as a “broken myth”, in the sense that it de-enchants and explains the mysteries of the past in terms of modern technology and humanoid space-farers, it has also re-enchanted the very same past and made it mysterious again. The “discovery” that humanity´s gods are really alien astronauts is turned around, making the aliens the new gods!

Däniken´s supporters organized themselves in the Ancient Astronaut Society (AAS). I´ve heard somewhere that AAS later developed in a New Age direction. This is not confirmed by Grünschloss, who claims the exact opposite. In order to sound more “scientific” and respectable, the AAS changed its name to Archeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association (AAS RA). The author doesn´t seem to have noticed that Ra is also the Egyptian sun-god, so perhaps there is a pun in there. The membership of the AAS back in 2006 was surprisingly small: only about 800 members worldwide, of which about 600 were from German-speaking nations in Europe. However, the influence of ancient astronaut “theory” must have been far wider, since Däniken had managed to open a theme park in Interlaken in Switzerland dedicated to his ideas (the town is a popular tourist destination). Add to that various popular Hollywood films. Today, there is also the popular TV series “Ancient Aliens”.

One thing I wasn´t aware of is that Charles Hoy Fort wrote about UFOs decades before the term was coined and the phenomenon “really” born. He also speculated about alien visitations in the past, and wrote that humans might be somebody else´s “property”. Däniken is of course well aware of Fort, and also borrowed extensively from a French archeo-astronaut writer named Charroux. Grünschloss believes that one can discern clear similarities between the books of Däniken and the two aforementioned writers.

The AAS tries to put themselves forward as scientific, as a kind of Paleo-SETI. Needless to say, the article author isn´t terribly impressed by their “research”. Däniken and his associates simply repeat, over and over again, all the old claims from the 1960´s and 1970´s, including those that have been convincingly debunked (like the Mayan “astronaut” from Palenque). I also get the impression that Däniken is strongly down-playing the more “esoteric” side of his speculations, which include a belief in extrasensory perception and an interest in Theosophy. Instead, he says that “everything is technology”. The AAS, while criticizing establishment science for policing its boundaries against the likes of AAS, engage in boundary policing themselves. The group strongly condemns “UFO cults”. The author also wonders why the only aspect of modernity projected onto the ancient aliens is technology. Why not something else? I assume he has in mind such things as politics or social relations. What attracts followers to speculations about ancient aliens is precisely their simplicity, alongside a longing for the exotic and mysterious. Opposition to establishment science is (of course) also a strong driving motive.

The author then briefly discusses the bizarre Raëlian religion as an example of the esoteric-religious tendency within ancient astronaut discourse. What makes the Raëlians to peculiar is precisely that they are nominally “atheist” and “materialist”, deconstructing the ancient gods as humanoid space aliens, while nevertheless being a new religion worshipping said aliens. The author ends on a somewhat pessimistic note, arguing that it´s difficult to convince adherents of ancient astronaut “theory” with purely rational arguments. Ancient alien conspiracies will always be more exciting and easier to understand than traditional religion or the complex theories of science. The continued proliferation of this narrative has proven the author correct.

Vimanas and Nephilim: On the planet of the ancient aliens

”Ancient Aliens Debunked” is a three-hour presentation by Chris White, scrutinizing many of the claims made in the History Channel series “Ancient Aliens”. White is backed by Michael Heiser, a somewhat free-wheeling Christian writer and Biblical scholar. The presentation (which is surprisingly well produced) is available for free on several YouTube channels. It´s not explicitly Christian, but such a perspective does shine through in the two last sections, which discuss the Flood and the Nephilim.

“Ancient Aliens” is an extremely popular TV series promoting the Ancient Astronaut Theory, according to which space aliens visited Earth in the past and decisively influenced human evolution and history. The “theory” was popularized by Erich von Däniken during the 1960´s and 1970´s. Däniken is indeed featured in the series, still going strong after all these years. Another prominent advocate, the late Zecharia Sitchin, is referenced. The series is narrated by Giorgio A Tsoukalos, a Swiss TV personality and probably a friend of Däniken´s (who is also a Swiss national).

I believed in the Ancient Astronaut Theory when I was about 12 years old, but today, I regard it as one of the more silly alternative theories. Essentially, its proponents travel around the world (usually the Third World), gasp at various ancient monuments, pronounce them “impossible” cuz reasons or something, and then draw the conclusions that aliens must be responsible. These speculations have been repeatedly and convincingly debunked ever since Däniken published his best-selling “Chariots of the Gods” back in 1968. Yet, here we go again: “Ancient Aliens” frequently features *literally the exact same silly arguments* as 50 years ago, which in my mind at least means that we´re dealing with deliberate ignoramuses. How many times must experts on Mayan iconography point out that the relief on Pakal´s tomb does not, repeat not, repeat not, show an ancient astronaut but Pakal´s death and journey to the underworld, and that its symbolism is well-known and consistent with other Mayan art from the period? There simply is no mystery there. According to “Ancient Aliens Debunked”, the rabbit hole goes even deeper. White believes that Ancient Astronaut theorists deliberately distort the evidence, making them charlatans and conmen rather than simpletons ignorant of archaeology. Clearly, I didn´t knew half of it…

The presentation speaks for itself, but a few sections stand out (at least they do to me). Thus, we finally learn what Ezekiel´s bizarre vision actually was – that one has long confused even myself (and perhaps a few Bible translators). It wasn´t a UFO-like object, but God´s chariot (the famed Merkabah) known from other Hebraic sources. It´s appearance is no mystery. But sure, I suppose some Däniken fan could claim that the chariot must have been powered by electricity and drawn by animal-human hybrids, so perhaps this won´t hurt the ancient alien scenario as much as White and Heiser hopes! Another good section deals with the Mahabharata, the claims about “vimanas” in particular. It turns out that the “vimanas” weren´t flying machines at all, but the palaces of the gods. They sure could fly, but they had no resemblance whatsoever either to modern human technology or to UFO observations. I could be wrong, but I don´t think anyone has reported seeing a hovering Vishnu temple in the night sky over New York (or New Delhi) lately! Even worse, the single best evidence for the existence of vimanas is a “channeled” text from the 1940´s, in other words a crude forgery, even apart from the fact that none of the contraptions shown in it are aerodynamic enough to take to the skies. (But, once again, I suppose you could argue that they must therefore have been powered by some unknown force, say Vril or Voor).

Another interesting section deals with “UFOs” in medieval art. In reality, we are dealing with anthropomorphic depictions of the sun and the moon, or simply with the Annunciation. This becomes clear if we put the “UFO” paintings in their proper historic and artistic contexts. I was somewhat disappointed to learn that none of the famed crystal skulls were authentic, not because I believe they are alien, but because it would be great fun if they were Mayan! And then there´s the Annunaki. It´s not entirely clear whether Zecheria Sitchin was a conscious fraud or simply a lovable old man stuck in his own delusions, but it seems that he literally couldn´t read ancient Sumerian! Heiser has debunked Sitchin before, indeed he has an entire website devoted to the subject. Essentially, nothing you ever read in Sitchin´s “Earth Chronicles” is true. Since the ancient Sumerians were an interesting and important civilization, I think Sitchin may have posthumously made them a real disservice by painting the entire field as crackpot.

The two sections which really stand out are the ones where the narrator´s Christian worldview slowly comes into focus. He accepts the reality of a world-wide flood – an idea I, as a newly minted Atlantomaniac, also find interesting and plausible. He even accepts the idea that angels may have mated with human females and given rise to the famed race of Giants. That one is much harder to believe! This, I think, is the Achilles Heel of this material: the ancient astronaut theorists might ask what is the *real* difference between angels and aliens? Note that White and, I suppose, Heiser believes that the “angels” weren´t spiritual or ethereal beings. They have solid bodies, can eat earthly food, and even look a lot like humans. They mated with humans by “changing their habitation”, an expression which the narrator believes refers to bodies. (I admit I never heard this intriguing idea before!) Thus, by discarding the angelic bodies and letting their spirits incarnate in fully human ditto, the Watchers became capable of begetting offspring with “our” women. The Nephilim or Giants were, of course, also physical creatures. It´s somewhat ironic that White believes in the most weird and extreme Biblical passage! That being said, I commend him for his honesty in laying all the cards on the table…including the wild cards.

Do we know everything about the human past? Of course not. We probably never will. However, the evidence to back the concrete claims of the Ancient Astronaut Theory simply isn´t there. Even apart from the whole thing feeling very very retro…

They have landed, and they have no intention to leave

"The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds" is the slightly frivolous title of a perfectly serious scholarly look at the religious dimensions of the UFO phenomenon. The collection contains articles by J. Gordon Melton, John A. Saliba, Robert W. Balch and others. The book deals with both UFO cults, individual contactees and the religious (or quasi-religious) aspects of alien abductions and UFO observations at large.

The general reader will probably consider the book to be a very mixed bag, but I think everyone can find some goodies in it. George Adamski, Unarius and their Space Cadillac, Heaven's Gate, Raëlians, exo-theology and an extended survey of the contactee subculture in New Zealand are some of the topics covered. There is also an extended biography of contactee-related books and pamphlets.

The contributors to this volume trace modern UFO-related religions all the way back to Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish 18th century seer who claimed to have visited other planets in the solar system and spoken to their inhabitants. A more obvious source of inspiration is Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy, whose ideas about ascended masters on Venus were taken up by Guy Ballard, the founder of the I AM Activity. Ballard claimed to have met aliens from Venus at Mount Shasta in California. His story was published in 1935. From this, it was just a short step to connect the ascended masters from other planets with the emerging UFO phenomenon, something which indeed took place during the 1950's with George Adamski as the most notorious "contactee". Apart from the Theosophical influence, the authors also see parallels with Spiritualism, since many people who claim contact with aliens act like trance mediums.

The authors make the interesting observation that the UFO subculture both "de-mythologize" and "re-mythologize". Erich von Däniken is a case in point. By claiming that the gods of ancient myth were really alien astronauts, he de-mythologizes traditional religion. Simultaneously, however, Däniken's ideas function as an ersatz religion for modern man, hence his deconstruction of ancient myths is simultaneously the erection of a new myth. Curiously, "The Gods Have Landed" doesn't mention Zecheriah Sitchin, who seems to have taken Däniken's ideas further in a more explicitly quasi-religious direction.

Ironically, many of the contributors take Carl Gustav Jung's book on flying saucers seriously. Yet, Jung could be seen as part of the phenomenon itself, rather than a dispassionate outside observer of it. It's not a coincidence that Jung has become an icon of the New Age! Sure, Jung's ideas about a collective unconscious are interesting, but it's hardly a "secular" theory - yet, it's treated as such by the (presumably) secular scholars who wrote the articles in this book. Perhaps they didn't have time to assimilate Richard Noll's "The Jung Cult", published just the year before their own book?

The most sensational piece in "The Gods Have Landed" is Balch's article on Heaven's Gate, the bizarre UFO cult which committed collective suicide just two years after "The Gods Have Landed" was published. Back in 1975-76, Balch and another budding scholar had infiltrated Heaven's Gate, then known as Human Individual Metamorphosis. At the time, the group was chaotic and easy to join (or leave). This rather unusual way of carrying out research enabled Balch to contact later defectors from the group, when it had turned cultic, inward and paranoid. Balch also encountered the cult itself in 1994, when they had suddenly re-emerged into the public limelight, even to the point of holding public meetings. My impression of Heaven's Gate is that the group was small, tightly knit and super-cultic. It seems to have been obsessed with "leaving the earthly vehicles" already at an early stage, making the mass suicide a logical development of earlier beliefs, rather than something decided on a whim. (Art Bell isn't responsible.)

Personally, I think the religious and spiritual dimensions of the flying saucer phenomenon are obvious. UFO lore contains parallels with angels, demons, sky-gods and the little people. "Serious" ufologists would rather wish that the contactees just go away. The grand dame of secular ufology, Jenny Randles, have even insinuated that Adamski might have been an CIA dupe or operative. However, I don't think the angelic-demonic-elfish character of the UFO phenomenon will go away any time soon.

The gods have indeed landed.

Chronological snobbery

"Ancient Aliens" is a series devoted to promote the ridiculous (and ridiculously popular) speculations of Erich von Däniken. Geezus. I assumed Däniken was dead!

The first few minutes of Episode One did give me some entertaining moments of "déjà vu", since I also believed in Däniken and similar writers...at the age of 12, or thereabouts. Then I read a book debunking Däniken & Friends, and realized that *real* archaeology is even more fascinating than the rather dull explanation that "aliens" from Sirius were behind it all.

The rest of the almost 90 minute "documentary" was less entertaining. I mean, these guys haven't changed a lot in 40 years, have they? The Nazca lines, the Mayan "astronaut" at Palenque, the Hindu vimanas, the Piri Reis map, "who built the Egyptian pyramids", Ezekiel's wheels within wheels...

I won't attempt a detailed debunking here (you can probably find it in cheap paperbacks published 40 years ago), but I have to complain about the Euro-centric chronological snobbery which assumes that ancient peoples were primitive blockheads and simply cannot have built large stone structures or "discovered electricity" all by themselves. Why not draw the opposite conclusion instead: the Black African Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom really were pretty smart guys. So were, I suppose, their architects.

Another thing that makes my head hurt when watching this are the philistine over-simplifications. The Nazca lines or the Mayan ruler at Palenque fit a certain cultural context, carefully described by competent scholars. So yes, we *do* know that the Mayan ruler is "descending into the underworld", rather than manning a space rocket. Yet, Däniken and his followers still babble on about the "remarkable similarities" between ancient pieces of art and modern astronauts with helmets?!

Further, "Ancient Aliens" lack a proper spiritual understanding. The idea that religious scriptures are really about flesh-and-blood alien astronauts (or is it silicon and green goo?) is another piece of warped chronological snobbery, as if the ancients didn't have a proper spiritual life featuring shamans, prophets and other visionaries of supernatural realities, not "aliens" in Flash Gordon outfits. (The only exception would be Michael Cremo, who is a devotee of the Hare Krishna movement. Presumably, he therefore believes that the "aliens" really were gods! So what's he doing on this show?)

But the worst thing is surely the illogic of it all. If the aliens came here in hovering UFO-type craft, why did the Nazca people build long "airstrips" to make them come back? If the aliens landed in Egypt, why did they teach the Pharaohs stone masonry, rather than setting up a futuristic city in the Nile delta? Why did some alien craft look like the Apollo moon rocket, surely a piece of space junk from the perspective of a civilization that can use anti-gravity to hover in a luminous craft á la wheels-within-wheels? Etc.

I admit that I stopped watching this travesty after about 45 minutes, and haven't bothered watching the other 4 episodes. This really is opium for the masses. And, of course, chronological snobbery! Not even the token sceptics can save this production, which I therefore only award one star.

Losing the legacy

Oh no, "Ancient Aliens" again. The *fifth* season?! How many silly seasons can there possibly be? And all the true believer reviewers again! "Lots of cool facts". Geezus. Good people, there are arguably *no* true facts in this series *at all*.

True to form, I've only watched one episode, "The Von Daniken Legacy". I admit that I hate Erich von Däniken. His ideas or "question marks" about aliens visiting Earth in ancient times (in pyramid-like UFOs, to boot) must be *the* worst superstition ever spawned. Homeopathy and reductionist materialism, come back, all is forgiven! Däniken's "theories" are so remarkably ridiculous in a kind of inimitable folksy style, with the main protagonist playing the role of fat German bar-owner spewing "common sense", that they almost make me weep! The fact that I used to believe in ancient aliens myself only ads insult to the injury. OK, I was only eleven at the time, but hell, I'm a perfectionist.

And yes, I need to chill and have a candy bar, I know...

OK, I'm back. Has "Ancient Aliens" become any better during my coffee break? Well...no. So here goes!

I'm not necessarily opposed to rejected knowledge claims (avid readers of my reviews, all two of them, may have noticed a certain soft spot for Bigfoot and...ahem...John Michael Greer), but Däniken's speculations really are annoying and extremely unsophisticated. Däniken, a romantic adventurer of the classical kind, has no formal training in archaeology, anthropology or comparative mythology I'm aware of. Yet, he goes around the world, see mysterious stone structures, declare them "impossible" and...voilá, this proves that aliens built them! The magnificent stone structures at Puma Punku in Bolivia are declared "impossible", when a more reasonable hypothesis is that they *aren't* impossible at all - I mean, they are there, aren't they, and they are made out of sandstone, not moon rock. That the local Natives can't build them, and point to the sky as explanation for who did, leads Däniken to conclude that...well, aliens did it. It's all so breathtakingly simple.

Another example is Lord Pakal at Palenque in Mexico, debunked at least 10,000+ times, but still going strong. If looked at horizontally and with some creative imagination, the lid of Pakal's tomb looks like a guy manning a space rocket. If looked at vertically, using scholarly knowledge of Mayan mythology and iconography, the magnificent artwork shows Pakal being symbolically sacrificed. But no, Däniken's folksy immediate impression simply must be true, or else no ratings for History Channel...

Indeed, it's precisely the populist style, pitting independent researcher against the scientific establishment, which explains part of Däniken's appeal. Däniken is our "audience substitute". While everything you read in peer-reviewed journals isn't necessarily true, there *is* a reason why archaeologists need formal training, not just the ability to run around inside megalithic monuments gasping at the sheer "impossibility" of it all. There is another salient feature of the ancient astronaut milieu, too, one Däniken is at pains to explicitly deny in this documentary. Däniken says he hasn't formed a new religion. In a purely formal sense, he is right. He is *attacking* religion by a modern form of euhemerism, in which the gods are explained away in "naturalist" fashion as space travellers in nuts-and-bolts craft. What Däniken doesn't want to see, but what surely almost everyone else spotted long ago, is that the belief in ancient astronauts is *in effect* a new kind of religion. At the very least, Däniken is offering the masses a potent substitute for religion. The large amount of spiritual types who have climbed onboard the fiery chariot surely shows what we are dealing with. As for Däniken himself, he even claims that the aliens created us and will return one day! Thus, he is specifically tailoring his speculations to an audience used to the *Christian* religion. I don't think Taoists, Shintoists or the Dogon in Mali eagerly awaits "the return of the gods"...

Claude Vorhillon and his Raëlians are the most obvious example of how "ancient aliens" can be turned into a religion (a religion which claims to be materialist, in fact). In their case, the quasi-Biblical traits are very obvious. Zecheriah Sitchin is another example of a person forming what is really a new religious movement around ideas presumably inspired by Däniken's. And Däniken himself? Isn't he really the exoteric attractor of the new creed, its Aaron so to speak? If you take the bait, I'm sure more "esoteric" people are waiting in the wings. I've heard that the Ancient Astronaut Society, which started as a Dänikenite fan club, ended up as a New Age group. Thus, paradoxically the appeal of Däniken's message could be seen as a combination of both populist anti-science and elitist "hidden knowledge", both modern irreligion and post-modern religion. An interesting object for a comparative religion study, I'm sure! These people don't understand that *they* are the ones that should be placed under the sociological and psychological microscope...

The religious/Meaning aspect is surely the reason why so many people are oblivious to the (easily spotted) contradictions in Däniken's books. How can aliens (that's *aliens*, for heaven's sake!) breed true with humans? If they can, why has no alien DNA been found in our gene pool? (Albert Einstein doesn't count.) Why would aliens need to build stone structures at Puma Punku, if they have super-advanced technology light years ahead of us? Why aren't there any *real* traces of a high technological civilization in India, if the Vedic peoples interacted with aliens? Däniken's supporters point to "mysteriously" charred stone walls as evidence for ancient A-bombs, making you wonder why the bombs didn't obliterate the whole town, rather than just charring its walls...

Seriously, should I continue?

Are there real, unsolved mysteries in the universe? Oh, definitely. You already know which ones: where do we come from, why are we here, where are we going... And why *this* fun house of a planet? I'm willing to contemplate the erroneousness of materialism, the existence of Spirit, even one or two paranormal phenomena (although hopefully not on my favourite Swiss hotel). But literal, flesh-and-blood (or green jelly) aliens scaring the living daylights out of Moses, breeding true with female ape-men, and erecting stone structures of a suspiciously-looking human provenance all around the globe just for their higher amusement (and ours?)...naaaah. It's bad archaeology, bad anthropology, bad comparative religion, and - when push comes to shove - probably even bad spirituality.

Erich von Däniken and his fiery chariots is a legacy I would rather loose. One star.

Blame it on the aliens

OK, I admit it. Some of the episodes of this season were pretty interesting, including "Aliens and the Old West", "Aliens and Evil Places" and "Aliens and the Founding Fathers". But why do the producers blame everything on aliens??? Do they really believe that every paranormal happening on the face of the planet (our planet, that is) are caused by little green men from the Dog Star?

Egyptian zoomorph gods, the bizarre "suicide forest" in Japan, Thunderbirds, Joseph Smith's meeting with Moroni, Serpent Mound in Ohio, the mysterious disappearance of a 19th century science fiction writer, even the founding of the United States (!)...everything is caused by literal aliens in literal, mechanical space ships. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman are squeezed into the scenario, since they apparently believed in extraterrestrial life, while poor George Washington supposedly encountered aliens at Valley Forge?!

A series *seriously* investigating the real or perceived paranormal events touched upon in "Ancient Aliens" might have been interesting, even if some of the stories would prove to be tall tales. Instead, we are forced to endure Erich von Däniken's super-silly "theories" (yes, the old veteran is featured in several episodes), or watch long-debunked "mysteries" such as the Montauk monster (clue: it was a dog, but not from the Dog Star).

I'm sure the sceptics reel every time they feel themselves forced to watch the "History" Channel, but why aren't the true believers up in arms against this pseudo-euhemeristic rubbish? Talk about killing a real mystery! Just blame it on the aliens...

Euhemerism on acid

"Ancient Aliens" is getting more and more embarrassing. Apparently, the Vikings learned how to build ships and practice democracy from aliens. (I didn't know aliens had people's assemblies!) The Viking attack on Lindisfarne was literally led by aliens, and Odin's ravens were mechanical devices, a kind of spy drones. Odin himself was an alien sitting in a satellite circling our planet. Seriously, this is euhemerism on acid!

The Muslim prophet Muhammad was also on a first name basis with aliens, including one Gabriel. A UFO took him from Mecca to Jerusalem during his famous "night's journey". Maybe we can get rid of "Ancient Aliens" by tipping off some local Taliban sleeper cell? OK, that was a joke, but this stuff really rubs my alien, er, onion.

When will Erich von Däniken & Co realize that there aren't just two alternative options when interpreting ancient myths: literalist fundamentalism and equally literalist "materialism", with the literal gods being literal aliens in nuts-and-bolts crafts. How about shamanic journeys, out-of-body experiences, astral worlds, etc? In a sense, "Ancient Aliens" mimic the literalness of the fundamentalism they are trying to expose, a literalness which in some cases might have been purely "exoteric". Talk about misplaced concreteness...

In a weird kind of way, this series actually makes the world less mysterious, less exciting, less enchanted... "Ancient Aliens" isn't just junk science. It's also bad spirituality.

A naïve prophet of the space age

"Chariots of the Gods" was Erich von Däniken's first book, and became an instant best-seller all over the world. It was translated to at least a dozen languages, including Swedish, Slovak, Turkish and Bengali. In Czechoslovakia, the book became so popular that the Czechoslovak Academy of Science had to publish a popularized refutation. After a visit to Turkey, a critic of Däniken said: "Even the police officers read the book. And trust me, those guys usually don't read anything at all".

"Chariots" was published in 1968. It started a craze that lasted over a decade. Däniken became an international celebrity, and is still occasionally seen on Discovery and other cable networks. Naturally, he wrote a lot of sequels, and there even used to be an organization devoted to his ideas, the Ancient Astronaut Society (AAS).

In hindsight, it's easy to laugh at Däniken's sensationalist "revelations". Those were simpler times. The book is naïve, ridiculous and prejudiced. Perhaps that explains its stunning success. The book is tailored for scientifically illiterate readers. In the US, it was originally serialized in the National Enquirer. Where else? Kids believe it too. Like many other customer reviewers, I also believed in Däniken when I was around 12 years old. No well-educated person can possibly be fooled by "Chariots of the Gods". If you want to fool the well-educated, please start a new religious cult!

Däniken claims that aliens from outer space visited our planet long ago. Our primitive ancestors worshipped them as gods. (How could the ape-men even have a religion? That takes intelligence.) The aliens impregnated some human females, thereby giving our evolution a tremendous boost forward. (Why have no alien DNA been found in our genes? And how can alien DNA be compatible with that of terrestrial primates?) The aliens then left, but evidence of their presence is still all around us: ancient monuments, cave paintings, the Nazca lines, the Mahabharata... (But no alien technology!)

This entire chain of argument is breathtakingly credulous. Nor is the rest of the book much better. To Däniken, the Egyptian gods can't be half-animal, for surely you don't worship what you eat for lunch? Ergo they were space aliens. Some cave paintings look like astronauts appearing in a haze. Therefore, they must *be* astronauts appearing in a haze. What could be simpler? And why would the pharaohs have ordered the mummification of their dead bodies, if they hadn't expected the space aliens to return and resurrect them? Why indeed...

A large part of the argument is based on chronological snobbery. It's also hopelessly Euro-centric. 40 years ago, prejudiced Westerners naturally couldn't believe that ancient, "primitive" peoples in the Third World could possibly have erected large monuments. Surely, Giza, Tiahuanaco, Sacsahuaman and Easter Island must have a supernatural explanation? Parthenon and Colosseum are, of course, something else again. I suspect a large part of Däniken's success is that his books, perhaps unconsciously, pander to this kind of prejudiced opinions. Another reason may be the interest in UFO's during the Cold War. But at bottom, Däniken is something more than a writer pondering to the philistine.

He is a prophet.

His ideas make it possible to drop the old religion (Christianity), without completely dropping gods and miracles. True, the gods are really space aliens, but they are still our "creators". By turning the gods into mysterious and high-tech aliens, Däniken makes it possible for modern man to re-enchant the world, while still being firmly rooted in the space age. This, I think, is the real key to the strange success of "Chariots of the Gods". Däniken launched a pseudoreligion. And religions are a more marketable mass commodity than science.