The Nazca lines in Peru, which he claims may have been constructed by humans as crude replicas of previous alien structures

A different TV documentary, Horizon Special: The Case of the Ancient Astronauts directed by Graham Massey, was released in 1977 and examined von Däniken's claims. [29] [30] [31] I'm a fan of the first season of Ancient Aliens and I wanted to read this book because it seems to be the one that started it all.A UFO convention is heading for Manchester". About Winchester. January 5, 2017 . Retrieved March 27, 2017.

Chariots of the Gods ( German: Erinnerungen an die Zukunft, lit.'memories of the future') is a 1970 West German documentary film directed by Harald Reinl. It is based on Erich von Däniken's book Chariots of the Gods?, a pseudoscientific book that theorizes extraterrestrials impacted early human life and evolution. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. [3] [4] Synopsis [ edit ] It involves the hypothesis that the technologies and religions of many ancient civilizations were given to them by ancient astronauts who were welcomed as gods.The second school of thought is that the burning of the library of Alexandria destroyed many important documents and books regarding the construction of pyramids. It is said that some technologies mastered by the Egyptians were more advanced than those we possess today. Roughly about one third of his book is basically, “ they helped us, we can go out there and help others in the same way they helped us“.

Von Däniken brought the Nazca Lines to public prominence in Chariots of the Gods? [29] with his proposal that the lines were built on instructions from extraterrestrial beings as airfields for their spaceships. [30] In his 1998 book Arrival of The Gods, he added that some of the pictures depicted extraterrestrials. [30] The idea did not originate with von Däniken; it began after people who first saw the lines from the air made joking comparisons to Martian "canals", [29] and had already been published by others. [31] This is not to deny that there are mysteries in the past, but then so are there in any field of human study - that does not mean that we have to postulate such excesses based on so little evidence. I can't resist going off on the same vein again - How can anyone imagine talking animals? Surely ancient India was home to intelligent (and highly literate) animals as well as the sporadic aliens, all conspiring to befuddle the poor humans into worshiping them and then mythologizing them. Orser, Charles E. (2003). Race and practice in archaeological interpretation. University of Pennsylvania Press. p.73. ISBN 978-0812237504. I soon lost my grin, became profoundly curious, and what followed was a wonderful experience, unusual in evert respect, an undertaking which was done exclusively in my spare time, since NASA, my employer, is not engaged in such matters.Secrets of Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus': An Earthquake, Never-Seen Photos and Nightmarish Monster". The Hollywood Reporter. May 16, 2012 . Retrieved March 15, 2017. a b Lingeman, Richard R. (March 31, 1974). "Erich von Daniken's Genesis". The New York Times . Retrieved March 20, 2017. Examples include Ezekiel's vision of the angels and the wheels, which Von Däniken interprets as a description of a spacecraft; the Ark of the Covenant, which is explained as a device intended for communication with an alien race; and the destruction of Sodom by fire and brimstone, which is interpreted as a nuclear explosion. [1] [14] [15] [16] Von Däniken attempts to draw an analogy with the " cargo cults" that formed during and after World War II, when once-isolated tribes in the South Pacific mistook the advanced American and Japanese soldiers for gods. [2] [12]

No subject matter expert finds any of these claims to be credible. He is at best doing the equivalent of looking up at the clouds in the sky and seeing the shapes of things that are simply not there. this belief distorts and detracts from the real human story, the one told by credible evidence. This is not trivial at a time when our species is growing rapidly and becoming more technologically powerful while also continuing to struggle with violence, ethnocentrism, racism, and scientific illiteracy. We are unlikely to solve our biggest problems until we accept the scientific discovery of ourselves and consistently value a reality-based worldview. But for millions of people, this is more difficult than it should be because they have been seduced by fictions such as the one that says ancient astronauts were at the center of our shared past. Further Reading

Customer reviews

Oh and let’s not forget that the 3,000 year-old carvings in the Egyptian New Kingdom Temple are supposedly images of helicopter-like machines Von Däniken's books have been translated into 28 languages, and have sold 60 million copies worldwide. From his books two full-length documentary films have been produced: Chariots of the Gods and Messages of the Gods. Of the more than 3,000 lectures which Erich von Däniken has given in 25 countries, over 500 were presented at universities. Fluent in four languages, Erich von Däniken is an avid researcher and a compulsive traveller, averaging 100'000 miles each year to remote spots of the Earth. This enables him to closely examine the phenomena about which he writes.