BBC Focus Magazine

[Dark One]

I've just finished reading chariots of the gods and I was wondering what you guys thought of it?
For those who haven't read it, the basic theory is that we are the descendants/engineered creations of humanoid aliens who visited Earth in early pre-history, teaching early man the rudiments of civilisation and generally pooking their noses in. Hookey as it might sound, the author gives plenty of examples in historical texts, archaeology and mythology. A lot of them, once presented as being derived from our ancestors real interactions with aliens, make an eerie kind of sense. The famous 'wheels within wheels' passage in Ezekiel in the bible is a standout one.

Any thoughts? Already I feel the eyes of the Wolf upon me, but before you tear me apart with talons of logic, I am not endorsing this theory, just wondering what you all think of it. I think its as good as any other

[Willxx]

Read it many years ago, before Von Danniken(sp?) admitted/was caught out in lies that he constructed evidence around his theories to make his work more "entertaining", sort of like a Da Vinci Code with UFO's

[Dark One]

I should have seen it coming really. You should never trust a man who uses so many exclamation marks. And man does he love an exclamation mark. I still think its an interesting theory though. It seems like something we'd do if we came across a primitive alien civilisation.

[Shadowwolf]

Did someone call?

I think its as good as any other

Oh no, no, no, no, nooooo

It's a hypotheses yes but it's not as good as any other, some hypotheses are fairly unlikely and thus no where near as good as alternative explanations. Von Daniken's stuff is amongst the fairly unlikely and the so called proof provided is really no more than a tenuous tapestry of convenient interpretation, misinterpretation, conflation, heroic leaps of faith, false logic and bad scholarship. Work often done with the outcome arrived at before the evidence is mustered, thus they then dig about the past looking for anything they can use to plug into their pre-conceived belief and fairly oblivious to everything else. And that's just the links they're trying to make for alien visitation, they're just nothing whatsoever beyond mere assertion when they start down the hybridisation or creation path. His notions are on equal footing with other similar fictions but are nowhere near the scientific hypotheses on how life originated.

Every claim or element of evidence proffered by these ancient alien folks has a far more plausible and very terrestrial explanation. They are also sparse and scattered, a snippet here and a snippet there, furthermore every last bit they've got is exactly what we might expect to find were there no alien visitation at all. There is not one jot of evidence that could only have come from out there, no detritus from advanced products turning up in ancient digs, no advanced construction ancient facilities, zip, nada, bupkis. Nothing that could not have been done by humans by themselves, like those Nazca lines that Daniken (as far as I recall) claims to be runways for alien craft because some are straight and look like runways to him.

As for Ezekiel, the same Ezekiel who says, "Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel (4:12)," and threatens a whitewashed wall (13:15)? So this one bit about wheels within wheels is plucked from a whole heap of nonsense written by a guy who really seems to have parted company with sanity and not on amicable terms. Reading spaceships into a madman's fevered vision of wheels within wheels with the faces of eagles and lions in them whilst winged angels fly alongside is somewhat unwarranted.

[Dark One]

My entrails lie scattered in the aftermath of that logical mauling

[Lateralman]

“Luke, - I am your father.”

[Shadowwolf]

Oh less a mauling and more a helpful pointer I think, mauling only comes to work like Daniken's

Btw regards his many exclamation marks, I don't know if you've ever seen him but that's how he talks, in fact if you subject yourself to Ancient Aliens that's how they all tend to talk, wild and exuberant as part of the sell.

[nemisis1960]

can't comment
not read it
after reading SW's logical helpful pointers ill give it a miss

[Shadowwolf]

A wise choice Mr Nem, nonsense in a package that looks reasonable on the surface and it's fairly old as well. Hancock is more recent and better written if you must, not as wildly sensational but still quite mistaken and falls for a lot of the same mistakes of reason that Daniken makes.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Can I also recommend 'UFOs and How To See Them', by Jenny Randles. ?

http://www.newdawnbooks.info/Reviews/UF ... _Them.html

You can pick up a used copy here for very little money.
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/UFOS-SEE-JENN ... 5238401/bd

[Shadowwolf]

Can I also recommend 'UFOs and How To See Them',

That's easy, go outside and preferably at night in a place not saturated in artificial light, look up, wait, see an unidentified light, congratulations you can go home now.

Pro-tips for increasing your chances are to observe when Venus is visible but be uninformed of this, near marshes or boggy ground, power stations, airports and flight-paths, especially military airbases and cities / urban areas during celebrations when the sky can be filled with drifting fiery lights.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Actually it's quite a good read Mr.S, what it does is show that most of what is interpreted as 'alien' actually has a perfectly rational, and often quite terrestrial explanation.

It's not rocket science but it's at the opposite end of the scale to the likes of Von Daniken.

[Shadowwolf]

It might be, I was just riffing on the title

[M Paul Lloyd]

It is a bit ambiguous I must admit, but intentionally so I believe.