Ancient extraterrestrial astronauts mistaken for gods by our ancestors?
The Swiss author Erich von Däniken wants to demonstrate that alien explorers visited Earth thousands of years ago and were considered gods by primitive populations. The author wonders if our ancestors could have been influenced by the visit of these extraterrestrials, these “gods”!
During World War II, American troops created air bases on some remote islands in the Pacific Ocean. For the natives, who had no experience with advanced technology, the sight of those "giant metal birds" landing made them think that their gods had chosen Earth as their home.
Seeing those large planes land and take off, primitive populations considered all the technology that we consider normal to be "supernatural". What they liked most from those big planes was the food distributed for free: the American soldiers delivered large loads of food as aid to the local populations.
At the end of the war the military bases in the Pacific Ocean were closed, and as a result the supply of goods ceased. To attract ships again and invoke new deliveries of goods, believers in the cargo cult instituted rituals and religious practices, such as crudely reproducing landing strips, airplanes, and radios and imitating the behavior observed among military personnel who had operated on the site.
Thus real religions were born! This phenomenon, known as the "Cargo Cult", developed mainly in some remote corners of New Guinea and in other tribal societies of Melanesia and Micronesia coinciding with the arrival of the first Western explorer ships in the 19th century. However, similar cults have also appeared in other parts of the world.
Over the last sixty-five years the cargo cult has diminished until it almost completely disappeared. On the island of Tanna, in the Republic of Vanuatu, the cult of Jon Frum still survives, one of the best known.
It is evident that the analogy of these "canned meat" cults very likely fits into the scenario described by the theorists of the Ancient Astronauts. Something very similar could have happened in humanity's distant past. Is it possible that ancient extraterrestrial astronauts visited Earth thousands of years ago, being mistaken for divinities and giving birth to religions?
Extraterrestrials visiting Earth mistaken for gods?
On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to set foot on the Moon, just like aliens visiting from another world. Until then it had only been science fiction, but now, anything you can imagine seems possible. If man can travel in space and travel to other planets, why couldn't beings from other planets visit our planet?
In a wave of modern UFO sightings, a new theory emerges that aliens visited Earth in ancient times and were considered gods. But if it's true, shouldn't there be some proof? Maybe there is! We must only open our eyes and our imagination: the proof, perhaps, is right around us.
In 2002, the Earth probe Mars Odyssey revealed enormous deposits of ice beneath the surface of Mars. The presence of ice and the possibility of water's presence suggest that life may have been supported, or even generated, on other planets as well. After decades of orbiting shuttles and robotic rovers, the idea of sending humans back into space, to Mars and beyond, rekindles the imagination and brings back the notion that humanity and extraterrestrial beings met in the past.
In May 2008, the Vatican made a shocking statement. For the first time in its two thousand year history, the Catholic Church recognizes the possibility of the existence of intelligent life on other planets and that belief in extraterrestrials does not contradict belief in God. This means that we are entering an era in which the universe begins to be viewed differently than before. But what triggered this sudden turnaround in religious thought? Could the Church have been influenced by recent scientific discoveries?
Aliens in the sacred texts of Judaism?
If visitors from other planets were considered gods, shouldn't there be written records about it? Maybe the answer is right under our noses, in one of the most incredible places of all: the Bible!
Erich von Däniken, author of the best seller Aliens Will Return, is firmly convinced that the Earth has been visited in the past by beings from other planets, and this is absolutely consistent with his belief in God and the Bible. It's just a matter of interpretation.
«You have to understand that I deeply believe in God, but as a young man my God had to be omnipotent and would never have needed a vehicle to move or take flight»
says Erich von Däniken in an interview on the History Channel.
In what Christians call the Old Testament there are, in fact, several references to the visits of God to Earth and of his angels. Sometimes, these visits are accompanied by tremendous noise and clouds of smoke. In the Book of Ezekiel, for example, the prophet claims to have witnessed a visit from celestial beings who descended from the sky in a fantastic flying machine.
For von Däniken, it would be a detailed description of an alien sighting:
“I looked, and behold, a stormy wind advanced from the north, a great cloud, and a whirlwind of fire, which shone all around, and in the midst there was a flash of incandescent metal. As for their features, they had faces of men; then all four lion faces on the right, all four bull faces on the left and all four eagle faces.The beings came and went like lightning. I was looking at those beings, and there was a wheel on the ground next to all four. The wheels had the appearance and structure of topaz and all four had the same shape; their appearance and structure were like a wheel within another wheel.
They could move in four directions; as they proceeded they did not turn around. They had very large rims and the rims of all four were full of eyes. When those living beings moved, the wheels also moved beside them, and when the beings rose from the ground, the wheels also rose.
Wherever the spirit had pushed them, the wheels went and still rose, because the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. When they moved, they also moved; when they stopped, they also stopped and, when they rose from the ground, they also rose equally, because in the wheels there was the spirit of living beings.
Above the heads of the living beings was a kind of firmament, similar to a shining crystal, and below the firmament were their wings spread out, one towards the other; each had two covering their body. When they moved, I heard the roar of their wings, like the sound of many waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, like the roar of a storm, like the tumult of a camp." [ Ez 1,5-27 ].
Ezekiel not only describes what he sees, he also describes what he feels and overall he defines everything as “Glory of God”! The prophet also describes several four-faced winged creatures with human features, who traveled on shiny flying devices with wheels. In the “Glory of God” there is something like a throne and on it sits a being who looked human.
Ezekiel states that this being moved thanks to a vehicle equipped with wings, whose noise was similar to the roar of a waterfall. Ezekiel sees “a wheel within a wheel” and this object seems more high-tech than supernatural.
Considering that we cannot pretend that those people could grasp the difference between supernatural and high technology, Ezekiel's story could have a real historical basis interpreted with religious categories.
There is another character from the Jewish tradition that von Däniken takes as a sample to demonstrate his theses: Enoch. Enoch appears only once in the Bible, but much more often in apocryphal versions of the Old Testament. In the "Book of Enoch", it is said that this great-grandfather of Moses was kidnapped into heaven by God for three hundred years.
He is taken to heaven and there he meets "the Most High" (the Great Glory) which in the Jewish religion is one of the names of God. The Most High says to his servants:
"teach this young man our language and then teach him writing"
So Enoch begins to write books. Enoch would be the first eyewitness of contact between humanity and an extraterrestrial species.
When all these stories were written, writing was a relatively new invention, and the first things the early authors wrote down were events that actually happened. They were such important and significant events that our ancestors had to write them down. Why can't modern society accept that these stories might be true?
The gods of other religions
Not only the Bible is interested in these supernatural phenomena. Almost every religion has similar stories about deities with spectacular powers and abilities, who descend to Earth and directly influence the history of humanity.
In the ancient Sanskrit epic writings of India, there are numerous descriptions of “Vimanas”, or mythical flying machines used by deities. In one such account, the Bhāgavata Purāna, which dates back even more than 5,000 years, there is a description of a metal flying vehicle piloted by a king named Nirga.
In other Sanskrit texts such as the Mahābhārata, the Rigveda and the Rāmāyana, one can find descriptions of Vimanas up to 30 meters wide and with the same capabilities as a modern aircraft. A Vimana produced a beam of light which, when aimed at a target, consumed it with its power.
This photon beam would appear to be a laser weapon of incredible power. More than a religious text, it seems like a science fiction story! The amazing thing is that all these stories are accepted as true by modern Indian society.
It is difficult to think that these descriptions are simply the fruit of the imagination because, even if they were written thousands of years ago, they correspond to what people report today in the case of UFO sightings. Is it possible that we are faced with real "chronicles" of events that actually happened, described by the authors as best they could?
The mysterious cave paintings of the Stone Age
In addition to written testimonies, other evidence of the arrival of ancient astronauts on our planet could be found in the numerous cave paintings and stone sculptures that can be found around the world. Pictures are worth a thousand words. When we see drawings in a cave that appear to depict helmeted astronauts, what else could they be but extraterrestrial cosmonauts?
All these ancient depictions or statues portray figures dressed in a strange way for those ancient times, with unusual headgear. But are these really depictions of visitors from other worlds who landed on Earth thousands of years ago? How else to explain these curious creatures that wear helmets, have antennas, and appear to be dressed in “space” suits? The question is: what did our ancestors see that they felt compelled to portray it on cave walls?
In a city in Guatemala, there is a sculpture that disturbingly recalls a modern-day astronaut. He's wearing a helmet, there's some kind of snorkel and on his chest there are some controls or a breathing device. How was it possible to create something like this 1,500 years ago?
In Colombia, however, thousands of tomb artifacts have been found that incredibly resemble today's airplanes. There are wings, there is the fuselage and there is the fin at the tail upwards, which does not appear in nature, but which only exists in modern aerodynamics.
Did our ancestors see something similar flying in the sky?
Another very interesting artifact can be observed in the Istanbul museum. There's this space man sitting inside some kind of spaceship. You see hands and you see pipes connected to some device. He is wearing overalls and his legs are bent. Even to the untrained eye it looks very streamlined and definitely looks like something from outer space.
Our ancestors witnessed something and tried to depict it as best they could, with the cultural and imaginative categories of primitive humanity. The amazing thing is that although these human cultures were at a great distance from each other, they all recount the same experiences of alien contact, as if to testify that we are all part of a cosmic hierarchy of sentient beings.
The gods were extraterrestrials
In 1968, just a year before Neil Armstrong's epic space flight to the Moon, a book was published that forever changed the way many in the scientific and religious communities saw their home planet.
Erich von Däniken, Swiss author of The Gods Were Astronauts, wants to demonstrate that alien explorers visited Earth thousands of years ago and were considered gods by primitive populations. The author wonders if our ancestors could have been influenced by the visit of these extraterrestrials, these “gods”!
In the eyes of primitive populations, the possibilities offered by alien technology must have seemed truly supernatural forces. This would mean that we need new explanations regarding the origin of man.
Erich Von Däniken, thanks to his book, was able to point out many anomalies in history to which traditional archaeologists are unable to respond adequately. His was a revolutionary idea: gods from outer space had come to the planet and helped man create civilization. Despite the book's great popularity, von Däniken's theories are despised by scientists and derided by theologians. The scientific community continued to attribute "archaeological anomalies" to human ingenuity and technology.
Could von Däniken's theory have serious scientific value? To find the answer, research is being carried out around the world and the proof may be right before our eyes. If alien beings had visited Earth thousands of years ago, how would they have attempted to communicate with our ancestors? And isn't there some physical evidence of their time on our planet?
The mysterious Nazca Lines
An answer may lie in the Nazca desert, Peru. At the top of an arid plateau that stretches for about 80 kilometers, the landscape is decorated with countless geometric designs and figures. Flying over the desert you see lines similar to landing strips that begin and end abruptly. The longest is 23 kilometers and is straight, without any curves, and ends at one of these landing strips.
All these lines, large and small, make up gigantic figures on the ground, depicting fish, spiders, monkeys, gorillas, but so enormous that they can only be seen at high altitude. They were drawn by people or "someone", thousands of years ago. Who were the mysterious drawings of the famous Nazca Lines, visible only from high altitudes, addressed to? «The drawings are made for someone who flies! There can be no discussion about this!», states von Däniken succinctly!
The lines do not suffer erosion because the climatic conditions of that Peruvian plateau are such that there is no wind or rain. The white substance of which the lines are made was analyzed by the University of Desdra and appears to be a "crystalline glass", odorless and tasteless.
It doesn't appear to be a natural substance, so there actually seems to be something wrong with Nazca! The next step to understanding the mystery of Nazca would be to dig, but this is not permitted by the Peruvian authorities. Nazca is considered a sacred place and as such cannot be altered or investigated.
Classical archeology continues to provide the most plausible explanations for the site's functionality, suggesting that the lines could have been used as irrigation channels (in a place where rain is an extremely rare phenomenon!), or served as giant astronomical calendars, or they could have been paths for religious worship. The truth is that if you look at Nazca from above, you have the impression of observing a real airport, with those broad lines that look like landing strips.
No one has any idea why such a unique site as Nazca was created. According to the theory of the Ancient Astronauts, the long straight strips could have been real landing strips for extraterrestrial vehicles. Or, according to the other famous theory which hypothesizes the existence of an advanced antediluvian human civilization, these tracks would have been used by the Atlanteans before the global cataclysm that hit our planet 12,000 years ago.
But the giant geoglyphs are not the only mystery surrounding Nazca. Flying over the Nazca plateau, you can see that some of the mountains have been artificially flattened. If you make a comparison with the mountains surrounding the site, you realize that these have clear crests, while some are perfectly flat, as if cleanly cut. The real mystery is that the waste material from that flattened mountain has completely disappeared. What happened?
But why would extraterrestrials have chosen the Nazca plateau to station on Earth? If, hypothetically, an alien ship arrived on Earth and wanted to find out very quickly what the planet is made of, Nazca would be the ideal place to visit and obtain this type of information, taking samples and carrying out experiments, because the Peruvian plateau, still today, it is one of the richest regions in raw materials in the world. There is everything: gold, uranium, iron, etc… in enormous quantities. Those areas are the "summary" of the earth's mineral resources.
The famous site of Palenque in Mexico
But for Erich von Däniken and other proponents of the Ancient Astronaut theory, perhaps the most significant illustration is found in Mexico. The Mayan archaeological site of Palenque had been abandoned for centuries when it was discovered by chance by Spanish conquistadors. Deep in a secret tomb, beneath one of the centuries-old temples, is the 7-ton sarcophagus of Palenque's 7th-century ruler, Pakal the Great.
King Pakal was a mysterious Mayan leader. He was a giant two and a half meters tall and the Mayans worshiped him as if he were some kind of deity. King Pakal's sarcophagus is adorned with carvings that have become a classic example of Mayan art. Mainstream archaeologists believe the sarcophagus illustration depicts Paqual descending into the Mayan underworld, but Ancient Astronaut theorists interpret the engraving very differently.
We see a man intent on piloting a sort of capsule, with a sort of mask on his nose. With his upper hand he is manipulating a series of controls, with his lower hand he is turning something on. The heel of the left foot is on a kind of pedal and a flame can be seen outside the cap. According to Von Deniken, it could be decisive proof of the existence of extraterrestrials.
If we think about what our astronauts look like when they are in a rocket, with all their equipment on, we notice similarities. Therefore the question must be asked: does this artefact only have a symbolic value, or did they try to depict, with their limited understanding for the time, what was happening? Was King Paqual simply a Mayan king loved by all? Or is it possible that this was an important visitor from a very distant planet?
A map that shouldn't exist
In 1929, a mysterious map painted on gazelle skin was discovered. Archaeologists attribute the document to a 16th-century Turkish admiral named Piri Reis. The strangeness is that this map, in stark contrast to the others existing at that time, is that it represents emerged lands that had not yet been explored at the time. Furthermore, the map depicts the coast of Antarctica as it appears under the current ice sheet. This means that the map was created at a time when Antarctica was ice-free, that is, many millions of years ago!
The map also depicts the coasts of Europe and North Africa in detail, but it is still the illustration of northern Antarctica that astounds Ancient Astronaut theorists, given that this region would not be discovered until 300 years later. Antarctica is covered in ice 1 kilometer thick, and radar capable of reading beneath the ice was only invented in 1956, so a map from 1531 that accurately shows this topography is quite interesting.
If you overlay the Piri Ris map on a modern world map, you will be amazed to discover that the ancient map is accurate down to the smallest detail. How could the creators of that hundreds-of-years-old map know about mountains or rivers that had not yet been discovered?
