One fad to gain widespread popularity
in the 1970s was the “ancient astronaut” theory to explain away examples of
high technological or engineering advancements from the past. Concurrently,
this theory was also applied to interpret ancient hieroglyphics and indigenous
art from the perspective that the images, which relate stories of traditional history,
actually are primitive interpretations of alien visitors to planet Earth.
Such an idea seems preposterous to many;
however, the ancient astronaut theory still persists in popular culture and is no
more evident than in the Ancient Aliens
series produced by, ironically, The History Channel. I find the ancient
astronaut theory is shaded at the very least with a sense of Western cultural
superiority, and at worst, racism. It says, essentially, that since we cannot
figure out how the Egyptians built the pyramids, or how Central and South American
pre-Columbian cultures emerged, a superior race must somehow be
responsible.
Proponents of the ancient alien theory
are generally harmless, but it has manifested itself in pseudo-religious cults such
as Heaven’s Gate, whose origins in
the early 1970s and belief in alien visitors eventually led to a mass suicide
in 1997. More notably, science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard leveraged the theory
as a basis for his own personal tax shelter, the Church of Scientology.
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| Ancient petroglyphs in Val Camonica, Italy, often mistaken as images of alien astronauts. |
Nevertheless, despite all that, I
do have a great affection for the programs of the 1970s that explored strange
and unexplained phenomenon. Some were honest investigations into truly mysterious
structures or artifacts, while others projected wild conclusions with no basis
in fact. Two documentaries that unarguably contributed to the mass appeal of the
ancient astronaut theory is producer Alan Landsburg’s 1973 documentaries In Search of Ancient Astronauts and In Search of Ancient Mysteries. The
films are available below from the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel:
Inspired by author Erich von
Däniken’s 1970 bestseller, Chariot of the
Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, a book which sat on the shelves of
many households during that decade, these two films serve as the pilots for Landsburg‘s
landmark syndicated television documentary series In Search of . . . , narrated by Leonard Nimoy. Rod Serling, however,
serves as the narrator for these first two efforts, and was, in fact, slated to
continue narration duties for the series until his early passing in 1975 at age
50.
What I like about these films is that
they capture a moment in time in the wake of the Apollo moon landings when the
human race was trying to reorient its place in the universe. If we can land on other
worlds, could it not be possible that an alien race landed on our world? It’s
not an illogical question; however, it is a logical fallacy to then project an
unsupported conclusion (aliens visited the planet Earth) to reinterpret ancient
technology and mysteries as having a deus
ex machina causality.
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| One of many images formed by the Nazca Lines in Peru, only visible from a great altitude, often cited as examples of alien influence. |
Mysteries, such as the Nazca
Lines in Peru or the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, are mentioned, but only in light of
the ancient astronaut theory. One such "mystery" discussed in In Search of Ancient Mysteries, is the Antikythera Mechanism, a
subject reviewed in my article, The
Antikythera Mechanism: A Relic of Ancient Greek Science, which studies the high-level of engineering, science, and math that went into the construction
of the device - which stands as a testament to the ingenuity of the human mind,
and not as a relic of ancient alien technology.
The great mystery of the
Antikythera Mechanism, which is dated to the first century BCE, is that it
utilized a differential gear; technology thought not to have existed before
13th century Europe. The
device showed the position of the known planets in the sky any
time of the year. Once the operator set the position of the Sun or Moon on the
front plate, the Antikythera Mechanism automatically adjusted all the dials
providing solar, lunar and planetary data for the corresponding time indicated
by the user. This research, however, was published in 1959 by Derek de Solla Price of Yale University in Scientific American and therefore was available to the producers of the In Search of films.
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| The Antikythera Mechanism |
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| The Mitchell-Hedges Skull |
The Outer Space Connection (1975): The last of three documentaries produced by Alan Landsburg and narrated by Rod Serling that include In Search of Ancient Astronauts and In Search of Ancient Mysteries.
The producers of In Search of Ancient Astronauts, however, do give
rational scientific thought a place in the film, albeit right at the very end, in the form
of Carl Sagan, who was at the time one of the directors of the Mariner Mars Mission:
The question
arises, might there have been a visit to the Earth in historical times? There
are several popular books on the subject, it’s an idea people find exciting. It’s
a kind of . . . mmm . . . scientific justification of theological belief which people would
rather believe in any case. It’s kind of modern dress for old-time religion, but
what about that? Is that possible or not? I can only say that you can’t exclude
the possibility, but there is not a smidgen of evidence that is compelling.
Sagan’s words have indeed proved prophetic since
forty years later there has yet to be found any compelling evidence that intelligent alien life has ever visited
the planet Earth. Granted, sometimes we are
hard-pressed to find evidence of intelligent human life as well.
Despite all that, these films
continue to leave me with a sense of wonder and an appreciation for the sophistication
of past cultures. There are still mysteries of the ancient world, and if relics
like the Antikythera Mechanism are just one example one must wonder what other products
of human ingenuity were invented and where the level of our technology would be
today had they not been forever lost to time.
Related Content on the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube Channel
William Shatner hosts this 1976 documentary based on Erich von Däniken’s book Mysteries of the Gods:
A short documentary I
produced on the Antikythera Mechanism:
