When I was 12 or so, I ran into Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods. It was like a religious revelation.
About a year later, I read Crash go the Chariots by Clifford A. Wilson. I grew up.
Anyone else believe in the Ancient Astronaut theory?
by sinis 26 Replies latest jw friends
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sinis
Grew up to what?
So the ancient pictographs, "mythos", etc are all bullshit? How about the tangible evidence (Trilithon stone), puma punku, etc.?
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Terra Incognita
Terra Incognita:
"When I was 12 or so, I ran into Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods. It was like a religious revelation."
"About a year later, I read Crash go the Chariots by Clifford A. Wilson. I grew up."
Sinis:"Grew up to what?"
Grow up:
- To become an adult.
- To develop and reach maturity.
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sinis
What does that have to do with the topic? I know Phd's (science field) that believe in the A.A.T.
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Terra Incognita
I know Phd's (science field) that believe in the A.A.T.
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Anony Mous
I think there is a lot of hand-waving and imagination going on with some of these conspiracy theorists. The thing is that people see lots of small parts of a large culture, can't be bothered with researching the history and their imagination goes crazy trying to connect them all and finding patterns in them that may or may not be there:
- Megalith stones: Were built by those civilizations and usually set up as an observatory or altar. Stonehenge was built first in chalk stone, then wood, then stone and have been reconstructed several times over the ages. They are not that heavy that they cannot be moved especially now and it has been proven that the technology they had available at that time would allow them to move those stones over the relatively small distances similar to how the pyramids were built. It's a lot of work and requires a lot of people but hey, it's for your god, he will lightning you from the sky if you don't go in field service move large stones. One thing it does prove is that humans were already widespread over the earth and were building great things before and after the time the flood was supposed to be on the earth according to the biblical timeline.
- The pictographs and other depictions: Eskimo's, Native American's and other cultures were discovered by the Norse and Danish while the Western Europeans were all sitting in their churches and monasteries. Other cultures were also seafaring and did some great discoveries before that. Western civilization has been lagging greatly during the time that religion had a big influence in people's lives. Asian cultures, Eastern European cultures and South American cultures did some great things and made some large discoveries about math, astronomy and physics that even now boggle the mind (see the Mayans). The interaction between cultures and interpretation of the stories about those encounters afterwards would definitely have an influence on their art. Also, a lot of symbolism sits in the art forms especially when used in religious ceremonies or to depict great rulers, they are not to be taken as accurate descriptions of any human or other life form (for example the enlarged breasts on some statues of fertility gods).
Nazca lines were built as an observatory by the Nazca civilization, not an ancient landing strip. Pumapunku was very precisely built out of a quarry only 10km further. Maui used to be full of trees and their civilization deforested them all, some/most maybe to set up those statues, most likely they all starved after that, their legends suggest they walked the statues from the quarry which would require an estimated 1500 people.
There is more to history than just that of Western Europe and North America. If you take away the limitations a biblical viewpoint gives you and you align up with the scientific facts that people have been here for a very, very long time and have been split across continents for a very long time all of a sudden you can start thinking about how they might have evolved into a culture that was capable of great things.
Let's say we eradicate 90% of humans with nuclear warfare or by an ice age and bring everybody back to the stone age. What do you think the civilization within 1,000, 2,000, 10,000 years will think of us? Within a time span of 500 years they went from a millenia-old system of visible signs to store knowledge to invisible communication, space vehicles and very large amounts of knowledge on very small apparatus - they must have been helped by aliens from outer space!
The most plausible and accepted philosophical theories about aliens seeding the earth is that the aliens were actually bacteria on a comet and that the rest evolved from that. There is no evidence to suggest anything else. If there were intelligent space-faring aliens that planted humans then there must still be evidence of them (communications, ships, probes or radio signals) on this planet, in our galaxy or at the very least in the vicinity of the Andromeda galaxy. A civilization with those capabilities would have an enormous footprint and most likely require one or multiple Dyson spheres which has not been detected anywhere near us. They could also not have gotten away that quickly over the timespans suggested for 'helping civilizations' 1,500 years ago even at near speed-of-light velocity, their crafts would be in the vicinity of the Orion nebula right now and there has likewise been no evidence of that.
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Terra Incognita
Sinis:"I know Phd's (science field) that believe in the A.A.T."
Sinis; that is an argument of authority. There are plenty of scientists who believe in creationism even though they know absolutely nothing about evolution. Once a scientist is completely outside of his field he is as ignorant as John Doe with an IQ of 90 on any other particular subject.
Those PhD's you know are absolutely no different. Example; when scientists tried to investigate Psychics to determine if they actually had "psychic powers" they failed miserably. They were easily fooled by the psychics. Until Magicians came along and exposed them. That's all that Psychics were. Magicians who pretended that their magic was real. It took one to one to know one.
As for exposing the Von Daniken illusion all it took was the most basic knowledge in a wide variety of fields and the whole thing fell apart and in the most dramatic manner. That is how pathetic the so-called evidence was.
I don't have time to get into actual details but I suggest you do get a copy of Crash go the Chariots. It's a very easy read.
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the_raisin
I actually do believe in it, though I am also not going to start looking at old paintings, or old coins, and start 'seeing' things. I mean, in some examples, like the above that unshackled provided, it seems pretty obvious what it might be. But one just never knows. I'm just a curious cat, and it makes sense to me that an ancient civilization reached our ancient civilization. I also think the history we are being fed is BS. Come on people, you really believe our ancestors were dumb? Nah, those people probably had the same technology as us. And it KILLED THEM. That would be a twist!
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JonathanH
I don't believe in it either. Simply saying "it's possible" is not at all the same as saying it's likely. I could make up just as many absurd hypothesis about ancient math and technology that would be just as "possible." Cthulu and the elder gods rose from the sea and taught mankind horrible truths of the universe, before descending back into the oceans. I could point to the "bloop" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop) as evidence for my hypothesis. That does not in anyway make it likely or plausible.
Also the flying saucers in art from centuries ago are just silly conspiracy theories.
Flying saucer iconography is a pop culture accident of the 20th century. A man by the name of Kenneth Arnold once saw some wierd lights in the sky back in the 40s or 50s (can't remember now, you can google him if you want) . He told newspaper reporters about it, claiming that they moved erratically like saucers skipping over water (he was describing the movement, not the appearence). Sensationalistic newspapers then made stories about "flying saucers from outer space" even though that wasn't at all what he had described. It caught the public attention and then hollywood grabbed onto it making movies about flying disks and saucers, and other circular spacecraft, and thus the flying saucer entered the mainstream conciousness as being the thing aliens travel in. Now the delusional saw little grey men in flying saucers rather than the satyrs and demons that haunted the worlds of their ancestors. Now when we see something that resembles that our cultural programming latches onto it and says "hey, that looks like that thing I've seen in all those movies! That must be what it is!" even if that was not at all what the artist was trying to paint.
The above example is often used in these ancient astronaught theories because it looks like a flying saucer beaming down rays of light on Jesus, but that's actually how artists used to depict halos, it even has a dove in the middle of it. Somebody from that era would recognize that and not for a second think "Wait, that looks like something visitors from another world visit us in, when I see lights in the sky I can't explain, I imagine them as being saucer shaped crafts carrying angels!". They would think "That's a halo". But out cultural programming makes us see a flying saucer beaming down lasers on jesus.
It would be a ridiculous one in a million shot that aliens actually cruised around in crafts that look exactly like the things made up by sensationalistic tabloids misquoting some guy, and the rickety low budget crafts from 50s B movies. It's like being visited by aliens and they look like klingons from startrek or Daleks from Doctor Who. What are the odds that engineers and scientists advanced enough to cross the cosmos would have the same aesthetic ideals as 1950s America?
