PowerCosmosAncient Astronauts
Ancient Astronauts
Also called: Paleocontact · Ancient Astronaut Theory
The claim that extraterrestrials visited Earth in the distant past and left civilization behind.In this narrative it is the explanation that joins the Anunnaki and the reptilians into a single line.
Established facts
Ancient astronaut theory holds that extraterrestrials visited Earth long ago and shaped human civilization.Switzerland's Erich von Däniken spread the idea widely with his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?.His books had sold over 70 million copies combined by 2017.Russian-American writer Zecharia Sitchin and Britain's Robert Temple are other major authors in this line.Astronomer Carl Sagan criticized the book as pseudoscience that dresses up flimsy evidence as proof of mystery.Scholars classify the theory as pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory.
In this narrativeThe ruins cited as evidence
Däniken cites the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Easter Island moai as extraterrestrial works1.He rereads Peru's Nazca lines as a spaceship runway1.The Piri Reis map becomes Earth as seen from space1.Japanese Jōmon-period clay figurines are read as wearing spacesuits1.Patterns on Egyptian temple wall carvings are interpreted as helicopter shapes1.Ruins from separate continents are lined up on one list this way.
In this narrativeReading scripture as spaceships
Däniken also rereads biblical accounts as extraterrestrial contact1.Ezekiel's vision becomes a description of a spacecraft1.The Ark of the Covenant becomes a device for communicating with aliens1.Sodom's destruction is redrawn as a nuclear explosion1.This reading turns symbols into literal technical descriptions.
In this narrativeAstronauts in world mythology
This theory holds that the gods of mythologies worldwide were really astronauts1.Massive ruins and out-of-place artifacts (OOPArts) were built with alien technology1.Early humans were created by astronauts starting from apes1.Sitchin's Anunnaki theory is grouped into this same line1.The carved lid of King Pakal's sarcophagus at Palenque is often cited as showing him piloting a spacecraft.
In this narrativeThe scholarly rebuttal
Carl Sagan pointed out that this theory underrates what ancient people were actually capable of1.Each individual ruin has a construction record explainable with period technology1.Even so, Däniken's books were commercially very successful1.Scholarly rebuttal and popular success have run side by side.
Connected concepts
- Anunnaki →Sitchin's Nibiru theory is grouped as one branch of this theory.Sumerian mythology gets reread as a spaceship record.
- Reptilians →Reptilian mythology also earns a place on the list of gods left behind by astronauts.The visiting-alien frame stretches to embrace the reptilian races too.
- Horus →Däniken reads Egyptian temple wall carvings as traces of aliens.The Horus myth sits inside that same reading.
- Archons and the Demiurge →The frame that reads world mythology's gods as astronauts often overlaps with the frame that reads them as Archons.Only the name changes on the same reading method.
Leads here fromNordic AliensReset Theory