Chariots of the Gods

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken (born April 14, 1935) is a controversial Swiss author best known for his books which present claims of evidence for extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, most prominently Chariots of the Gods published in 1968. The original tile of the book was Memories of the Future, but it is famously known as Chariots of the Gods.

Von Däniken is one of the key figures responsible for popularizing the paleocontact and ancient astronaut hypotheses.

Von Däniken claimed that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and has entered the local Solar System in the past, and that evidence of this past contact is abundant. He also claims that human evolution may have been manipulated through means of genetic engineering by extraterrestrial beings.

The evidence that von Däniken has put forward to support his paleocontact hypotheses can be categorized as follows:

Artifacts have been found which are alleged to represent a higher technological knowledge than existed at the times when they were manufactured. Von Däniken maintains that these artifacts have been manufactured either by extraterrestrial visitors, or by humans who obtained the necessary knowledge from them. Such artifacts include the Anikythera mechanism, Stonehedge, the statues of Easter Island , and the Piri Reis map.

In ancient art throughout the world, themes are observed which can be interpreted to illustrate astronauts, air and space vehicles, non-human but intelligent creatures, and artifacts of a high technology. Von Däniken also points out details that are similar in the art of unrelated cultures.

Origins of religions might be a reaction to contact with an alien race by primitive humans.

The humans considered the technology of the aliens to be supernatural and the aliens themselves to be gods. According to von Däniken, the oral and literal traditions of most religions contain references to visitors from "stars" and vehicles traveling through air and space. These, he says, should be interpreted as literal descriptions which have changed during the passage of time and have become more obscure, rather than as symbolic or mythical fiction. One such is Ezekiel's revelation in the Old Testament, which he interprets as a detailed description of a landing spacecraft.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” –Carl Sagan

The heavens will forever captivate and ignite the curiosity and imagination of mankind. We can see throughout history our fascination with the stars, and the determination to unlock the mysteries of existence still fervently exists today. For the bulk of our time on this planet, man has been bound to exploration of the heavens strictly from the surface, able only to chart patterns of celestial bodies discernable with the naked eye. As technologies have advanced, so has our desire to see beyond the night sky and reach out to the great beyond.

It took courage to write Chariots, and it takes courage to read it because its theories do not fit into the mosaic of traditional archaeology. Two basic questions are posed within its first pages:

Are there intelligent beings in the cosmos?

Have they visited Earth in the past?

Von Daniken does succeed, in his own way, in answering these questions, and does arguments is that the modern perception of ancient history in regards to the origins of life has been distorted to conform to a theory: Evolution. Although evolution may be less plausible and more difficult to explain and prove than Daniken’s hypothesis, provide a realistic, fact-based, and entertaining postulation. One of his early it is more “earth-based,” and thus much easier to accept by common people.

“Our historical past is pieced together from indirect knowledge. Excavations, old text, caves drawings, legends, and so forth were used to construct a working hypothesis. From all this material an impressive and interesting mosaic was made, but it was the product of a preconceived pattern of thought into which the parts could always be fitted, though often with cement that was all too visible. An event must have happened in such and such a way. In that way and no other.” –Chariots of the Gods pg. 16

In chapters three and four von Daniken begins to lay out an extensive list of proofs for his claim of exterritorial visitation in ancient times. There are far too many to name in this synopsis, however some of the more astounding, and even of these there are many, I would like to touch on. I have included a visual reverence for each of the following examples in the slide show below.

(1) Ariel Atlases – In the early eighteenth century two atlases preserved in the Berlin State University were found to contain exact reproductions of the Mediterranean Sea and the region around the Dead Sea. After careful analysis an even more astounding visual discovery was made. These maps were not only absolutely accurate of those areas, but also in regards to the coasts of North and South America and even the contours of the Antarctic. Interior topographical information was also drawn with extreme accuracy.

In 1957, U.S. Naval cartographer Jesuit Father Lineham concluded the maps were “fantastically” accurate–even about the most remote locations on the planet. One such location included the mountain ranges of Antarctica, which were not “officially” discovered until 1952. Incidentally, these mountains have been covered in ice for hundreds of years and have only been mapped in the present day using echo-sounding apparatus.

When compared to modern satellite images of our globe there is little doubt that these maps were drawn from aerial photos taken from a great height.

(2) Runways and Sign Posts – The Palpa Valley in the ancient city of Nazca contains a strip of clearly-manufactured, level ground some 37 miles long and 1 mile wide which is scattered with bits of stone resembling rusty iron. Observed from the air you can make out gigantic lines, laid out geometrically, some of which run parallel to each other, while others intersect or are surrounded by large trapezoidal areas.

Archaeologists say that they are Incan roads, but even a casual observer can see these are NOT roads. As von Daniken contends, of what use were roads to the Incas that ran parallel to each other? That intersected? That went only from one edge of the mountain to the other? To date there is no established chronology for this site, but measurements suggest that the lines were laid out according to astronomical plans and perhaps a calendar.

From von Daniken’s perspective, these lines appear to act as an ancient airfield.

In addition, there are enormous mountainside drawings found in many parts of Peru. These gigantic carvings dug into the ground can only be viewed from the air, or from a distance of several miles. One of the largest and most peculiar drawings stands an impressive 820 feet and can be viewed at a distance of nearly twelve miles. Beyond the obvious question of why primitive people would do such things, one must take into consideration the decades it would take to create them. These are clearly more than expressions of religion and culture: They are meant to be viewed from considerable distances.

(3) Weights and Measurements – It is one thing to carve a drawing in the ground; even without modern equipment we know that it CAN be done. Peru holds other mysteries as well. Within the Old Temple in the city of Tiahuanaco, there stands the Great Idol; a single block of red sandstone longer than 24 feet and weighing some 20 tons. But it is not only the magnitude of the sculpture that amazes, but the wealth of astronomical symbolism carved into it. Amazingly, the Idol records the state of the heavens 27,000 years ago. And if that isn’t enough, the symbolic equations are based on a round earth.

The city of Tiahuanaco is one of the great mysteries of the world. It lies at a height of more than 13,000 feet, which would make manual labor torture. Yet, inexplicably, an enormous city stood on this plateau. There are no authentic traditions documented here, only ruins which are incredibly old.

Here you will find 100-ton blocks of sandstone topped with 60-ton blocks for walls. Smooth surfaces with extremely accurate chamfers join enormous squared stones, held together with copper clamps. Holes 8 feet long are found in blocks weighing 10 tons. There is no explanation for these as yet, nor is there explanation for the 16 ½ -foot-long worn-down flagstones cut out of one piece, nor for the catastrophe that scattered precision-carved stone water conduits 6 feet long and 1 ½ feet wide about the ground like toys.

The Gate of the Son, a gigantic sculpture nearly 10 feet high and 16 ½ feet wide, carved out of a single block weighing over 10 tons, does shed some light on the ruined city. The inscriptions tell of a golden spaceship that came from the heavens to visit a woman named Oryana, who was made Mother of the Earth. According to the writings, she had four webbed fingers, gave birth to 70 Earth children, and then returned to the stars. Unfortunately, no one from any of the ages known to us ever saw Tiahuanaco when it was not in ruins. One thing is certain: Something very special happened there.

(4) God, Aliens, and the Bible – Of all the ancient texts we have access to, the last place I would have expected to find evidence of extraterrestrial visitation was the Bible, but in fact this book of contradiction and metaphor contains some of the most detailed descriptions of encounters with beings from the heavens, at least according to von Daniken.

Genesis, for example, begins with the creation of the earth and describes the event with absolute geological accuracy. How did the chronicler know that minerals preceded plants and plants preceded animals?

Genesis 1:26 – Then God said, “Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life…”

Why does God speak in the plural? One would think that the “one true god” would speak of his own creation in the singular, providing “god” did not have help?

Genesis 6:1-4 – “When the human population began to grow rapidly on the earth, the sons of God saw the beautiful women of the human race and took any they wanted as their wives. Then the Lord said, “My spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, they will live no more than 120 years. In those days, and even afterward, giants lived on the Earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes mentioned in legends of old…”

Ancient Israel had a single sacrosanct God.

Who were these “sons of God” and where did they come from? And what is to be made of all this interbreeding? Did the “sons of God” have any “special” powers?

Why do we see no evidence of this supernatural gene mixing?

Or, perhaps, we do and just don’t realize it?

Or perhaps those people are simply gone.

Of interesting note, references to “giants” can be found in many ancient books from cultural mythology of East and West, from the sagas of Tiahuanaco to the epics of the Eskimos. The theme is too common to be dismissed.

Arguably, one of the most dramatic and specifically detailed descriptions of extraterrestrial visitation comes from the book of Ezekiel. He gives precise details of the landing of a vehicle, including its arrival trajectory, mode of propulsion, and an amazing description of the vessel’s mechanics, as well as of the beings themselves.

Ezekiel 1 1-7 –“On July thirteenth of my thirtieth year, while I was with the Judean exiles beside the Kebar River in Babylon, the heavens were opened to me, and I saw visions of God…As I looked, I saw a great storm coming toward me from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. The fire inside the cloud glowed like gleaming amber. From the center of the cloud came four living beings that looked human, except that each had four faces and two pairs of wings. Their legs were strait like human legs, but their feet were split like calves feet and shone like burnished bronze…”

He goes on…

“Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a pure crystal…And when the creatures went, the wheels went by them and when the creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.”

Astonishing, I think. Ezekiel says that each wheel was in the middle of another one—a hovering hydrofoil of sorts?

Rotating turbines like those in modern jet engines?

I encourage you to read the full account.

Today’s top science fiction author would be challenged to invent a more bizarre and richly detailed narrative of an encounter with beings from the stars.

(5) Easter Island – Land of the Bird Men – 2,350 miles off the coast of Chili sits a little plot of earth, rediscovered at the beginning of the eighteenth century by European seafarers. As they approached they were amazed to see hundreds of colossal statues lying scattered about all over the island. Almost no evidence of tool usage and sculpture transport has ever been found here, however steel-hard volcanic rock had been cut through like butter. Many of these giants weigh in excess of 10,000 tons. Hundreds of gigantic statues, some of which are between 33 and 66 feet high and weigh as much as 50 tons, still stare challengingly at the visitor today.

Originally, many of the statues also wore hats, as some still do today, which interestingly enough were carved from a different rock. How are a supposedly primitive people able to accomplish such a staggering feat? Strength, determination and sheer will, I suppose. I like to give humans as much credit as I can in these debates because given enough time and dedication I believe the majority of structures and sculptures from ancient times could be and indeed were built with human hands, and built to last no less. Keep in mind that if modern humans were to suddenly disappear from the earth, within 100 to 200 years there would be almost no trace we were ever here. The ancients wanted their peoples and culture to be remembered. They wanted their structural feats to amaze and puzzle and they do even to this day.

Western culture is generally all-consumed with the here and now, with little thought of preservation. Sure, we’ve launched a record of the history of earth out into space, but we are assuming that any beings that may happen across it would have any idea how to access our information, to say nothing of understanding it. If they came here and we were not here, all they would find are the ruins of times further gone than our own, and they would be as amazed and perplexed as we often are.

Another interesting note on Easter Island is the surprising lack of written record of the people who were there. Aside from a few wooden tablets found in the eighteenth century, with strange symbols on them which have never been identified, there is no substance of writing on the island to explain who these people were, where they came from, why and how they did what they did here and, most importantly, where they went. On the island you will find sculptures that are incomplete. It is as if these people one day just packed up, left, and took nearly all physical evidence of their existence with them, save of course the fruits of their labor.

Easter Island is a very remote, inhospitable place with no trees and scarcely enough food to sustain 2,000 people. Today only a few hundred natives call this desolate speck of land home. Given the nature and location of the island it is difficult to grasp how people of antiquity were able to survive here long enough to accomplish what they did. It is highly unlikely, however possible, that these people were sustained by ships which came and went as need be, but it would have taken many more than 2,000 men to accomplish all you find, and it is not just access to food and water that is a mystery. I can accept that given enough time and dedication it may have been possible to carve these amazing statues. We may not know the method used, but clearly it could be done. The much larger question is how did they move and erect them? That is a question only the ancients can answer. Today we can only stand in awe at these multi-ton monoliths.

Although little written history exists of Easter Island, natives to this day refer to this place as the Land of the Bird Men. An oral legend passed down through the generations tells us that flying men landed and lighted fires; flying creatures with big, staring eyes.

There are stylistic similarities between what we find here and the ruins in and around the Old Temple in Peru. There as well you find statues with haughty faces and stoic expressions, 3,125 miles away. In our way of thinking, in ancient times, that’s quite a distance to travel for the sake of providing cultural awareness. If it was the same people carving at both locations why did they leave no clear written record or explanation and why leave before the work was done?

Another ancient culture which tells of giants was discovered by the Spanish conquistadors who conquered South and Central America. The writings are called the sagas of Viracocha and they were found throughout the land. They tell of gigantic white men who came from somewhere in the sky, and of a race of “sons of the sun” (which echoes of Genesis) who instructed mankind in art and disappeared. Another common theme in these ancient writings about visitors from above is the assurance, or at least the belief, that these beings would one day return.

Although the American continent bares its own mark of ancient culture, our accurate knowledge of America is barely 1,000 years old.

It is an absolute mystery why the Incas cultivated cotton in Peru in 3000 B.C., although they did not possess the loom.

The Mayans built roads but did not use the wheel, although they knew about it.

The sculptures of the Omlecs are incredible. With their beautifully- helmeted giant sculls, they can be admired only on the sites where they were found, for they will never be on show in a museum; no bridge in the country could stand their weight. When it comes to lifting objects of the sizes I have discussed, to say nothing of transportation, our technology breaks down. We cannot even begin to understand how primitive people across the world could do the things they did. From Egypt, to South America and Peru, the ancient people seem to have taken a special pleasure in the ability to manipulate stone in such a precise way and were seemingly able to move them anywhere, to any height, with virtual disregard for size.

Would these people be at all impressed with the sky scrapers we build today? From the standpoint of height, variety of design, and speed with which we make them, I would venture to say yes. But they would note that for all of our modern technical prowess, our modern monoliths will not be here in even 1,000 years, if we are not.

Even though their motivations are not always clear, these people have much to teach us about what is possible. The more we learn about the way in which they lived and worked, the more we learn about ourselves and our own potential as the modern inhabitants of this ancient earth.

Erich von Daniken believes that extraterrestrials visited earth in ancient times, seeded us, gave us a wealth of knowledge and technology, and then left. This hypothesis has sparked a feverish debate amongst nearly all areas of science, religion, and culture. The main issue I have with Chariots of the Gods is that very little credit is given to humans. The author insists that aliens MUST have done these things, or MUST have given humans the means to do so. For me, the mere existence of something is not enough to convince me that it was constructed with the assistance of heavenly beings, and there is very little hard, credible, evidence to support the claim.

All that being said, the question remains:

Why do the majority of ancient cultures around the world speak of the same event? 

How would all these people know to build similar structures and build them to such exacting specifications? 

And most importantly, how on earth were these feats accomplished. My guess would be time, effort, and dedication. People of the time were much less distracted than we are today by media and technology. The ancient people were very much concerned with cultural preservation, and that is what you see today in Egypt and throughout the ancient landscape. These people didn’t need space people to explain to them how to stack stones on top of each other; they simply possessed a greater will to do it than we do today.

That is why our past will undoubtedly survive whatever future lies in store. My hope is that when the page is turned, there will be something left to tell the story of today so we do not become the next chapter in the puzzle- book of life on Earth. [source]

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