Maybe it was a side-effect of my mother's crazy theory, which she narrated to me again and again, that the Pushpaka Vimana in the epic Ramayana was a real aeroplane; and the sights described as Rama, Lakshmana and Sita flew back to Ayodhya from Sri Lanka was really written from first hand accounts. An alien astronaut preserved in a pyramid * Thousand-year-old spaceflight navigation charts * Computer astronomy from Incan and Egyptian ruins * A map of the land beneath the ice cap of Antarctica * A giant spaceport discovered in the Andes Includes remarkable photos that document mankind's first contact with aliens at the dawn of civilization. It might be because when you are mature, you will start questioning the problematic parts of the book which you missed when you read it earlier. The book is based on the hypothesis that many of the technologies of ancient civilizations and religions are derived from space travelers, who are accepted as gods. Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods is a work of monumental importance--the first book to introduce the shocking theory that ancient Earth had been visited by aliens.

The concept of ancient extraterrestrials has been used as a plot element in television shows and movies like Star Trek (which actually addressed the question before von Däniken's book was published), Stargate, The Thing, The X-Files, the Alien franchise (most notably, Prometheus), Neon Genesis Evangelion, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Eternals.

The worldwide best-seller and was followed by 32 more books, including The Eyes of the Sphinx, Twilight of the Gods, History Is Wrong, Evidence of the Gods, and Odyssey of the Gods. Go check out Ronald Story's The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken.

Von Daeniken is almost impressive in how he's able to have his ideas totally collapse even just by looking at the 'facts' that he himself presents in the same paragraph as his ideas. It shows the sheer absence of clear, scientific thought among the masses and the adherence to half-truths, myths and conspiracy theories.This world-famous bestseller has withstood the test of time, inspiring countless books and films, including the author's own popular sequel, "The Eyes of the Sphinx.

The topics of aliens and ancient civilizations have been hot topics for conspiracy theory perpetrators for a long time now. On my first read many years ago, I loved this book more and even recommended it to a few of my friends.I would have more respect for people who have actually studied the matter and went in a little deeper on a spiritual level and then critcized his thinking and/or books rather than one who "brushes" upon the superficial side of it all. Most of his "arguments" consist of something along the lines of "We're not really sure how pre-historic people built this, so aliens did it. The film was released in 1970 in West Germany and first appeared in the United States the following year. While managing director of a Swiss hotel, he wrote his first book, Chariots of the Gods, which was an immediate bestseller in the United States, Germany, and later in 38 other countries.

meters) is a massive and heavy one, and no one is sure how they raised it to that height at that time despite many hypotheses like Lohner's rope roll and all. Von Daniken's ideas have been the inspiration for a wide range of TV series, including the History Channel's hit Ancient Aliens. By looking at human history and the ruins of ancient civilisations with an open mind, Erich von Daniken offers a new solution to these eternal mysteries in Chariots of the Gods. So who cares how ridiculous it is to blame 'mathematicians' for their theories on the human ability to withstand high-speed travel?

I am sure most people will pan this book - unsubstantiated, inaccurate, baseless, ridiculous, blah, blah, blah. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 43rd Academy Awards in 1971. In the sagas, apparently, the Earth is "remarkably" described as a disc or ball (what should they have described it as!