Erich von Däniken’s thesis, that extraterrestrials have visited Earth in the distant past and interacted with human cultures, is not in and of itself a ridiculous prospect. It should not be rejected based on any preconceptions or prejudices about such a theory, but rather on the basis of its weak, erroneous, and misrepresented evidence. The fact is that there is a long history to the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence, much estimable work has been done in this field, and there remains strong reason to believe in the possibility of alien life, theoretically, and out there, in the cosmos, rather than down here on Earth. Inventor and electrical genius Nikola Tesla believed at the end of the 19th century that radio communication could be established with extraterrestrial civilizations, and throughout the 20th century, this line of reasoning has developed into numerous SETI projects, SETI standing for Seach for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and radio searches have long been a focus of such projects. Indeed, when such searches find anything unusual in our galaxy, the presence of extra-terrestrial life or technology is often the first conjecture that astronomers and scientists consider. Tesla himself mistakenly believed he had detected a radio signal from Mars, and similarly, in the 1960s, when the regular radio signals of a pulsar were first detected, astronomers labeled it LGM-1, for “Little Green Men.” Many noteworthy astronomers in the 1960s were preoccupied with SETI. In 1962, a Soviet astronomer, I.S. Shklovsky, wrote a major work on the topic, titled Universe, Life, Intelligence, and in 1966, Harvard astronomer Carl Sagan, a champion of science and skeptical thought, collaborated with Schklovsky on a revision and translation of his work, expanding the scope of the study, and publishing it for English-speaking readers under the title Intelligent Life in the Universe. This book introduced the concept to the public that intelligent life not only may exist but actually seems statistically probable, given the size and complexity of our galaxy. More than this, it suggested that there may be civilizations more advanced than our own, which have already achieved interstellar spaceflight. This notion had been around for a long time by then, and had been debated by scientists already, most notably by Enrico Fermi, among his fellow physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where it is said that Fermi, during one such conversation, blurted out something to the effect of “Where is everybody?” Fermi set forth a paradox through the following chain of reasoning. If, considering the billions of stars in the galaxy and the likelihood that other planets could be found within the habitable zones of their solar systems, and therefore extra-terrestrial intelligent life is likely, it follows that, since many stars are far older than our own, and thus many of these civilizations would have developed interstellar travel in the distant past. Therefore, Earth should logically have been visited before by these ETs. On the surface, this reasoning seems like a slam dunk scientific theory to help support the ancient astronauts theory, but Fermi’s entire point was that there is no convincing evidence for such visitation, which is what makes it paradoxical. This is not something that is taken lightly by scientists and mathematicians. Paradoxes beg to be resolved, so many have since examined Fermi’s logic and even developed various equations and solutions to the problem. Much of Fermi’s reasoning was based on assumptions about the likelihood of multiple developments, not just the likelihood of habitable planets, but the likelihood of the evolution of intelligent life on them and the likelihood of their achievements in spaceflight. In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake developed an equation to better discern these likelihoods, taking into account most of these variables. Not only was the development of interstellar travel considered, but also the development of deep space probes. In 1972, Drake and Sagan had designed a message to be included on the Pioneer space probes that could potentially communicate something about humanity to extra-terrestrials who might encounter the probes after they left the solar system. They came up with a plaque of aluminum dipped in gold, representing humanity’s mastery of metallurgy. On it was etched a diagram of two hydrogen atoms, the math related to which would serve as the key for all further measurements, as the plaque also included a sort of map. A representation of our solar system was given, with the probe’s path shown, and a series of radiating lines was depicted that should allow for the triangulation of our Sun in relation to a number of pulsars. Lastly, two nude human figures were depicted, male and female and unfortunately both very white looking. Rather ridiculously, NASA insisted on erasing the line that depicted the woman’s vulva before the creation of plaque. So it really did end up representing humanity in that it reflects our numerous prejudices and small-minded hangups. A few years after the plaque was launched, astrophysicist Michael Hart proposed the Hart-Tipler conjecture, based on the idea that, if other intelligent civilizations had developed, then similar such probes, or more advanced, self-replicating probes, would have been encountered. His solution to the Fermi paradox is that no intelligent life exists other than humanity. An alternative theory that has developed is the firstborn hypothesis, that humanity just happens to be the first to develop intelligence and thus is the most advanced of all such civilizations. More recently, in the 1990s, another concept was proposed by one Robin Hanson, an economist, of the Great Filter, some obstacle to the development of intelligent life that has not been taken into account by the probabilities previously put forward. The most commonly agreed upon filter is abiogenesis, the emergence of life from non-life on a molecular, chemical level. Other potential filters include the development of high technology, which may not be as likely as assumed, and the potential that other intelligent civilizations simply depleted their resources and destroyed themselves. I think the last of these is very telling, since humanity itself, having never achieved interstellar travel, seems bound on a path toward resource depletion and self-destruction. But of course, ancient astronaut theorists don’t get this deep into the weeds in the scientific considerations of extra-terrestrial life. Erich von Däniken and all the talking heads on Ancient Aliens will just say there is evidence that aliens have been here, so there is no paradox. But in order to be actual evidence, and not mere talking points, it must be reliable and reproducible. And such evidence has never been provided. This is Historical Blindness.

In the Oscar-nominated documentary In Search of Ancient Astronauts, based entirely on the work of Erich von Däniken, host Rod Serling described New Guinea natives searching the skies for the return of WWII pilots, whom they worshipped as gods. What the film describes is what are called “cargo cults,” a term that is not really used anymore because it presupposes the confusion and primitiveness of the native peoples who developed the beliefs. The fact is that these beliefs typically revolved around the relative abundance of life when colonial powers arrived, bringing with them additional resources as gifts, or in the case of WWII, when outside forces, both Japanese and Allied, distributed and airdropped goods to the native islanders in order to gain their favor, since they were using their islands as airbases. What’s important here is that, the film suggests this is a parallel to the ancient aliens claim, but in reality, likely just off camera, abandoned airstrips and control towers, empty barracks and even actual planes, not straw models, were left behind on these islands. For this to serve as an analogy for ancient astronauts, it begs the question, where are the remains of the visitors’ technology, such as that left behind for Melanesian islanders to remember their visitors? This would be the reliable evidence that would make the Fermi paradox less paradoxical. What is von Däniken’s answer? It is just what you would expect. The pyramids, or other ancient monuments, all of which need no extra-terrestrial technology to explain. I just wrapped a 6-episode arc on pyramid nonsense, so I won’t spend much time on that. Von Däniken, predictably, claims that pyramids just appeared out of nowhere, with no historical precedent, which is just a lie, denying all archaeological evidence for the development of pyramid building from mounds to mastabas to step pyramids and the Bent pyramid to true pyramids and finally the massive Giza pyramids, built over natural rock outcroppings to aid in their construction. He repeats the often-repeated pyramidology nonsense of Charles Piazzi Smyth about pyramid measurements reflecting pi, which, of course, if it were true—which it’s not—would still not mean aliens were involved. And like many another pyramid huckster even today, he claims that it would not have been possible to move such large stones into place, or even to cut them. The simple truth, cutting through all the BS with Occam’s Razor and subscribed to by any Egyptologist and archaeologist who has studied the evidence is that the soft limestone blocks, which we know were quarried in Aswan, were cut using copper tools, including drills, chisels, and saws. Others protest that the hard granite used in the King’s chamber could not have been quarried with copper tools, and that’s true. Evidence suggests these materials were quarried using simple sand abrasion techniques, using quartz sand, and took far longer. And this is why only about one tenth of one percent of the materials used were granite. Again, no alien technology needed. Von Däniken protests that plentiful food would have been needed to feed all the workers, and this is true, but so what? Egypt was the bread basket of the Mediterranean, producing plenty of grain, and if we recall, even the earliest reports about the pyramid’s construction, told to Herodotus, were focused on how much food Khufu provided to feed his laborers. Von Däniken also suggests that wood was not plentiful enough to provide the rollers and sledges needed to move the stone blocks. First of all, hieroglyphic texts record that Egypt engaged in regular trade with Lebanon, importing a great deal of cedarwood. Good evidence for the commonality of wood was found in Tutankhamen’s tomb, wherein most of the artifacts were wooden. And second, it seems to me that if von Däniken protests that they didn’t have the wood they would need to move the blocks, then he is tacitly admitting that they could have moved the blocks if they had the wood, which they did.

Not only does von Däniken underestimate the ingenuity of ancient people, he also does not seem to understand exactly what modern technology is capable of. He says, “Today, in the twentieth century, no architect could build a copy of the pyramid of Cheops, even if the technical resources of every continent were at his disposal.” Yet in 1972, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco was completed, towering almost 400 feet higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza. And starting in the 1990s, many other pyramids have been built, in Las Vegas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Long Beach, California. There’s even a Pyramid Shopping Mall in Malaysia. It begins to seem like everything appears to von Däniken to be ancient alien technology because he simply doesn’t understand technology generally. This is abundantly clear when he starts talking about Egyptian mummification as evidence of alien tech. He suggests, quite stupidly, that Egyptian mummification was a kind of suspended animation technology, that ancient Egyptians were preserving themselves so that they could be revived when the alien founders of their civilization returned. If von Däniken had really read up on Egyptian mummification, he would have realized that it’s not a high-tech practice at all, and no one could be revived from a mummified state. Egyptians removed the brains of those they mummified and filled their skulls with resin. They removed all their internal organs and put them in jars. And then they saturated the entire corpse in embalming fluid that solidified, such that mummies often had to be chiseled out of their sarcophagi. The resin mummifying King Tut had to be melted using paraffin lamps, bringing him to an astonishing 932 degrees Fahrenheit just to remove him from his coffin. Mummification was not an advanced technology based on any clear understanding of biology or life, and it’s unclear how aliens would have revived corpses with no brain, heart or lungs that were essentially filled with glue. But von Däniken himself clearly has little working understanding of biology, as much of his theory is predicated on the idea that humanity was somehow born of these alien visitors. Sometimes he suggests that aliens genetically engineered humanity, using terminology that betrays a rather poor understanding of genetics, though perhaps he may be forgiven, writing in the sixties. Modern genetic data going back 800,000 years as well as mass spectrometry techniques that allow the sequencing of ancient proteins from tooth enamel, has helped to rather thoroughly map out human lineage, which split gradually from chimpanzees some 9-7 million years ago, evolving slowly, branching from common ancestors, ever since. With this information, added to archaeological evidence that reveals the slow progression of stone toolmaking and the gradual domestication of plants and animals, there is simply no genetic or archaeological evidence to support a kind of sudden “artificial mutation” producing Homo sapiens, as von Däniken suggests. Ridiculously, though, he also suggests that it was accomplished more naturally, through good old-fashioned sexual intercourse. And I think it should be obvious that alien life forms, who evolved according to very different conditions, are extremely unlikely to be biologically similar at all, let alone that we’d be compatible enough reproduce. When von Däniken makes these mistakes, he is demonstrating what Carl Sagan called “human chauvinism.” As he explains, “The most likely circumstance is that extra-terrestrial beings will look nothing like any organisms or machines familiar to us.” But as Star Trek and Star Wars attest, we tend to think about all alien life as being humanoid, because it’s hard to imagine something intelligent that is unlike ourselves. Or as 17th-century Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens put it, in a quote that Sagan and Shklovsky included in their book, “’tis a very ridiculous Opinion, that the common People have got, that ’tis impossible a rational Soul should dwell in any other Shape than ours . . . This can proceed from nothing but the Weakness, Ignorance, and Prejudice of Men.”

Among the monuments that von Däniken claims are evidence of his ancient and very humanoid astronauts are the Olmec colossal stone heads. I have discussed these before, in my series on Pre-Columbian Trans Oceanic Contact theories, since some suggest their facial features indicate that ancient Black Africans colonized the Americas, while others argue that their features suggest ancient Chinese contact with the Americas. Von Däniken looks at them and sees extra-terrestrials, though not so much because of their features. Rather, he is focused on their headwear, which he calls helmets in an effort to draw a comparison with helmeted astronauts. It’s as if he has never heard of headdresses. He does this quite a lot, pointing to the Tassili site in the Sahara desert, for example, where during a specific period, figures in prehistoric rock art are depicted with “round heads,” and calling them spacemen with a kind of quintessentially human astronaut’s helmet on. And one of the central pieces of “evidence” in his book, the monolithic mo’ai statues depicting humanoid figures that stare out to sea enigmatically from the shores of Easter Island, he also calls helmeted because some used to feature additional stones on their head, which again were not space helmets, as von Däniken imagines, but rather represented the topknots worn by chieftains of the Rapa Nui people. As he did with the pyramids, von Däniken denies the possibility that monuments such as the Olmec heads and the Easter Island mo’ai could possibly have been moved and erected by mere human beings. Of the Olmec colossal heads, he even says, “they will never be on show in a museum. No bridge in the country could stand their weight.” In fact, pretty much every Olmec head has been moved and displayed in museums—all four La Ventana heads, all 10 San Lorenzo heads, and others. Even when von Däniken was writing his book, several were on display in museums, so this is just another example of him blowing hot air. Likewise, he claims, much as he did with the pyramids, that first of all, the carving and moving of the mo’ai statues on Easter Island was impossible, and that they didn’t have the wood they would need to move them—yet another tacit admission that, if they had the wood, they could have moved them. And the British explorer James Cook, who first landed on the island in 1774, reported the presence of forests there. Regardless, all claims, by von Däniken or any other pseudoarchaeologist, that the Rapa Nui people could not themselves have quarried, carved, moved and erected the statues are outright lies. In the mid-1950s, during Thor Heyerdahl’s expedition to the island, the islanders explained exactly how it was done and even demonstrated it for him. They wetted the volcanic tuff to soften it, and carved it using teardrop-shaped hand axes. They moved it easily a hundred yards using a wooden sledge and walking the statue, as we might today walk a heavy piece of furniture or major appliance to move it. And they erected it by levering and rocking the statue and pulling on it with rope, so that they could place more and more rocks beneath it, forcing it slowly up and into position. It was a remarkable display of ancestral memory, megalithic monument building, and the ingenuity of ancient man. Von Däniken dismissed it by saying “archaeologists all over the world protested against this example,” which was strictly untrue. While some archaeologists suggested that damage to the base of the statue from walking it indicated this wasn’t the way it had originally been done, more recent experiments have brought the academic community around to the technique. Regardless, even if some slight variation was required to get it just right, the demonstration proved beyond any doubt that it could be done without extra-terrestrial intervention.

We see similar slipshod scholarship—and you can’t really even call it scholarship, since it’s more like anti-scholarship—in his other major pieces of “evidence” that he sees as working together to demonstrate the credibility of his thesis. One is the Palenque astronaut, a relief carved onto the sarcophagus lid of Pacal the Great, the Mayan governor of that region. I mentioned Pacal the Great and his sarcophagus before, since it was claimed by Ivan van Sertima that his even having a coffin was evidence of a cultural connection with Egypt, even though Pacal himself was not mummified. Well, nor was he an alien. The relief on his sarcophagus, according to von Däniken, is an unmistakable depiction of a man piloting a rocket, and by his description, it certainly does sound convincing. But of course, seeing it is a little different. What von Däniken fails to emphasize is that the “helmet” he says the pilot is wearing is an elaborate headdress that does not cover his face at all, that he is otherwise unclothed, save for a loincloth, that the only vaguely rocketlike shape, or rather tapering columnar outline within which this rocketeer is featured, is not aerodynamic at all, with numerous perpendicular appendages shown and various animal forms, serpents and birds, adorning it at awkward angles, even at its tip, where it would need to be more pointed. Nor is it even enclosed, with numerous gaps in its supposed hull, and the pilot himself even extending his head from it. If it were a rocket, then the astronaut rode it like a motorcycle, but with no helmet and no shoes on. All of this can be waved away as the result of Mayans simply not understanding the rocket technology, but the fact is that, when you compare this relief to other similar pieces of Mayan art, it is very clear that it is simply the result of the dominant artistic style, which saw tracery designs chiseled in to fill up the entire space, incorporating many of the same motifs, including the sacred maize tree and the plumed serpent bird, though tellingly, no other examples can be so mistaken for a rocketship. Additionally, with the idea of a “rocket,” von Däniken reveals that he is thinking of the rather old fashioned spaceflight technology of his own era. Where are the gyroscopic wheels within wheels capable of flight in any direction? Where are the flying saucers?

Of course, a discussion of von Däniken’s claims would not be complete without a refutation of his assertions regarding the Nazca Lines. If you are unfamiliar with these amazing geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert, they are essentially massive geometric shapes, mostly straight lines, as well as some animal figures, that were created in the distant past by removing the darker surface stones to reveal lighter colored soil beneath. The movement of these stones is not so very mysterious. Rather, it is the question of just how these geoglyphs were created when they cannot be truly observed except from the sky. They were first reported by a Spanish conquistador who thought they were trail markers in 1553, but the scope of them was not observed until Paul Kosok surveyed them by airplane in the early 1940s. This fact has led even scholarly archaeologists to consider somewhat surprising ideas, such as that ancient Peruvians had developed ballooning technology. As we will see, however, no such notions need to be entertained to explain their construction. First of all, they can be seen from nearby foothills. In fact, they were first seen for what they are by a Peruvian archaeologist looking down on the desert from a higher vantage, no flight required. And the discovery of ancient wooden pegs driven into the desert floor at the termination of some lines supports the notion that these massive glyphs were created using rather typical survey techniques. In fact, in 1983, noted skeptic Joe Nickell even proved that it was possible to do so, using the simple technologies available in ancient Peru. Working from a drawing of a geoglyph, they simply scaled it up, measured out a number of points, and connected the dots. The result was a very precise reproduction of the condor geoglyph. However, while it has proved very simple to figure out how these glyphs were created, needing no extraterrestrial or other advanced technology whatsoever, figuring out why has been trickier. Von Däniken scoffs that “Archaeologists say they are Inca roads. A preposterous idea!” In reality, no archaeologist suggests this. Among the many theories regarding their purpose, they are thought to be solstice aligned pieces of art that served ceremonial purposes, some sort of elaborate representation of star constellations or other archeoastronomy, or looms for the fabrication of extremely long textiles used for wrapping mummies. More mundane explanations suggest they were irrigation systems, or aqueducts, or markers for field division. Perhaps the simplest and most convincing is that they were involved in the worship of deities who were thought to supply water. If you want to catch the attention of the gods, then of course you mark out messages to them that can be seen from their abode in the sky. But even this, which alone should have been enough to excite von Däniken’s reckless theorizing, did not go far enough for him. Instead, he proposed the really preposterous idea that it was a “airfield.” Talk about preposterous! Once again, von Däniken thinks in terms of outmoded flight technology, that his ETs need landing strips and are therefore incapable of vertical takeoff and landing. Also, the lines are miles long, far longer than would be needed for even an airplane to land, and the desert soil there is too soft and sandy for an airstrip. And besides that, with no landing lights, all of these supposed airstrips would be rather useless as soon as the sun set.

What is abundantly apparent, when one really examines von Däniken’s writings and his claims, is that he is only a compiler of claims that others made before him, and as such, he is not even the best proponent of any of them. Nor is he a good judge of their credibility. This is evidenced clearly by the fact that, like other conspiracists, he includes known frauds and hoaxes in his books, spreading them without any critical examination of them, and presenting them as if they are convincing evidence of his thesis. Several such instances can be listed. One example is in Chariots, when he refers to a papyrus fragment discovered by Alberto Tulli, which talks about what sound like UFOs. In reality, the Tulli papyrus was lost, and then the fragment translated was only found in the 1950s, during saucer mania, and was likely a fraud. Another is his assertion in 1972’s Gods from Outer Space that he read the Book of Dzyan, a work of occult knowledge said to be found in Tibet and perhaps to have originated in the lost continent of Atlantis. Von Däniken says the book was alien in origin. In fact, the “surviving fragments” von Däniken read were a hoax, written by Helena Blavatsky. It was yet another esoteric work plagiarized from a variety of Eastern religious texts and occult sources. Yet another example is his promotion of the Ica stones, a series of engraved stones from Peru that appear in some cases to depict advanced technology. As it turns out, these stones were being manufactured by a Peruvian potter as tourist souvenirs, and von Däniken was aware that this potter claimed to be the manufacturer of the stones. He did not mention this at all, and instead chose to believe that the potter was lying about making them and that the stones were actually ancient. Lastly, in his 1973 book, The Gold of the Gods, he focused on the legend of Cueva de los Tayos, a cave in the Andes that is said to contain gold plates that tell the true history of humanity. This legend was begun by one Janos Móricz, who claimed to have explored this cave and seen the “Golden Library.” His claims spurred numerous expeditions, including one mounted by a Mormon group, who suspected that the gold plates must be the same ones Joseph Smith had translated the Book of Mormon from. In the 1970s, von Däniken too made a trip, met with Móricz, and made claims about having been taken to the cave and seeing the metal plates. However, in a later interview, Móricz said it was all a lie. Von Däniken had only been in town a few days and made up an entire story based on their conversation. He had even misrepresented photos as having been taken on that nonexistent expedition. As for the story itself, Móricz was a Hungarian nationalist with interests in Nazi occultist ideas, and it is generally believed that his Golden Library, which he never produced and which no later expedition ever found, was likely a hoax meant to promote his pseudohistorical ideas, as he claimed the Golden Library was created by an ancient Magyar civilization in Mesoamerica.

When confronted with the allegations of his lying, von Däniken merely said he had made it all up merely for dramatic effect. This is typical of his blithe deflection when confronted with his deceptions and misrepresentations. For example, in Chariots, he claimed a certain iron pole near Delhi must be alien in origin, calling it “an unknown alloy from antiquity” and claiming it didn’t rust. In fact, it was resistant to rust because it was relatively pure iron, but it did rust a bit. In 1974, a Playboy interviewer confronted him on this—as well as many other inaccuracies in his writings; it’s a great read that I recommend to anyone interested—and Von Däniken merely said he had made an error, saying “we can forget about this iron thing.” The interviewer pressed him on why he hadn’t made corrections to the text in subsequent editions, and von Däniken lamely blamed his publishers: “Oh, God, I have so many times tried to correct things, and my experience has been that the corrections are almost never made.” So in the end, by his own admission, his books are littered with errors and misrepresentations that no one has bothered to correct. Or as Carl Sagan said, “I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Von Däniken.” So why, we must ask, are his theories still such popular mainstays of even mainstream entertainment like the History Channel and the Joe Rogan Experience? As Sagan said in his Foreword to my principal source, Ronald Story’s The Space-Gods Revealed: “The times are such that simplistic doctrines like von Däniken’s sell—even though they may represent, as I believe they do, a small but definite social danger.” And that social danger has only grown with time, doing more and more harm to our trust in science and history, and our recognition of outmoded racial ideas, until today it is a veritable social disease, and we find ourselves in the terminal stages of Dänikenitis.

Dänikenitis – Part Two: Human Chauvinism

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