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The Prophet of the Space Gods
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The Prophet of the Space Gods
by Per Borgaard, author, journalist
Translated by Claus Larsen
30 million books by the Swiss-born writer Erich von Däniken has been printed globally, in 35 different languages. All over the world, he has become famously controversional for his two claims, that go against all scientific dogma: One claim is that Earth in ancient times have been visited by creatures from space, and the other that these non-human guests have programmed humanity, as if we were biological computers.
Von Däniken believes that the space aliens gave our ancestors the gift of thinking and ingrained us with the desire to return to space. We will only have fulfilled the obligation, which the unknown star people in the mists of yore heaped on our forefathers together with their gift of intelligence, when we have conquered the immense distances of space and travel to other star systems. Then, we will be free.
The most fantastic thing about the Däniken phenomenon is, that he became the prophet of the space gods. There is hardly a thought or an idea in his books that haven't been seen or heard before. Whole paragraphs seem like nostalgic rendezvous with the more fantastic books of childhood.
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He is not even the the first who presented these thoughts as if they were seriously considered ideas. Among others, the Russian Alexander Kazantsev, the Australian Andrew Tomas and the English Harold Wilkins, Raymond Drake, and Brinsley le Poer Trench (now Lord Clancarty) had more or less supported arguments that favored non-Terran beings had influenced the human race in its infancy.
The classical question is: How could the pyramid-built Egyptian civilization arise so abruptly, so to speak from one day to the other, without help from highly developed, technically advanced creatures from space?
"But, they didn't", whisper archaeologists. "We know, that over several thousands of years, a primitive civilization developed slowly in the
But the protests from the archaeologists have so far drowned in the flood of words from the "astro- archaeologists", especially from the Italian Peter Kolosimo, which also predated Däniken, and bitterly has accused the more successful Swiss of stealing the material from him.
Däniken is by far the most known of the astro- archaeologists. He is also the only one becoming a multi-millionaire from it.
The reason is primarily that Däniken writes fluently, and without a shadow of a doubt. His first book was written in 1967-68, while he himself was caught up in massive personal problems. Some years earlier, he had taken a lease on the hotel "Rosenhügel" in Davos and had been entangled in some economical transactions which brought him before trial in 1969, accused of fraud.
Däniken himself claims that it was a purely bookkeeping problem, that wouldn't have been particularly serious in other countries than
At any rate, the hotel owner in Davos ended up in Regensdorf prison in Zürich, while at the same time the money from his first book began pouring in. He spent the time writing his other book, and the money kept pouring in. Few years later, he was a millionaire.
But success is not the same as being right, and while Däniken's books sell in record numbers, the evidence against his hypotheses are piling up. People who read his books simply find him untrustworthy.
A Danish writer, Willy Wegner, has examined five randomly chosen pieces of "evidence" from Erich von Däniken's litany of claims. Däniken has in several books made a big issue out of the holy well of the Mayans, on the
"How did this waterhole come to be? Why was it declared a holy well? Why this waterhole, where there are more of the same kind?" Däniken asks, who considers the very existence of the well a mystery.
The mundane truth is, that the well is a hole of a type quite often found in areas with chalk in the underground. These holes are also found in
And the reason the "Well of Virgins" was chosen can most likely be found in the fact that the other well in
The mystery is gone for everyone except Däniken, who also describes the other well's position in very dramatic terms: "Close to 70 meters from the Mayan observatory there is an exact copy of the holy well of Chichen Izta hidden in the jungle. This hole, guarded by snakes, poisonous millipedes and pestering insects..."
Initially, you get the impression that this Cenote can be found in a "green hell", but in reality, it lies less than 70 m from the old hotel Mayaland, as well as a rock's throw from the Pan American HIghway, that goes from North to South on the American continents. Another road is literally on the edge of the cenote.
Willy Wegner has also looked at Däniken's star turn, the lid on the sarcophagus from
"You see here a humanoid creature, sitting with the torso bent forward - in a race car position. Every child today will identify his vehicle as a rocket. The pointed front end continues to strange grooved expansions that resembles sucking holes, the rocket's body becomes wider and from the tail we see flames coming out. The creature, bent forward, operates a number of indeterminable control instruments, and the heel of the left foot rests on some sort of pedal." Däniken believes the figure to be clad in a tight-fitting suit and short, checkered pants.
An American professor, Charles H. Long, provides a somewhat different interpretation:
"Lid from a secret sarcophagus from the
Willy Wegner has also amused himself by comparing Däniken's descroptions of the "space pilot" in two of his books. The descriptions are very different in a number of ways: The man in "Chariots of the Gods" is described as a race driver, in "In search of ancient gods - my pictorial evidence for the impossible", as an astronaut in the commando pod.
Wegner notices that the astronaut lives up to the beauty ideals of the Mayans has had his nose artificially changed with wax or putty:
"That will be quite inexpedient for astronauts. Under the heavy gravitational forces during launch, the poor guy will have it smeared over his face, and into his eyes."
At any rate, the
They also found it beautiful to be cross-eyed: They put a ball on a string in the middle of the forehead, when they got a little older, to make them cross-eyed. We can see this from other reliefs as well.
"Even though the Mayans were in reality cone-headed and cross-eyed, they did remarkably well, but we have no reason to believe that they flew around in space vehicles", says Willy Wegner.
Other experts have concluded that the "astronaut suit" really is the normal dress for high-ranking Mayans. The "commando pods" are stylized religious symbols, e.g. a crucifix figure is also found in other temples, and stylized corn leaves. Corn represented the source of life to the Mayans, and quite literally so: It was their most important source of food.
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Erich von Däniken has also included the strange depictions on the Nazca plain in
Däniken's theory is, that "one day, a spaceship landed on the plain, and the strange intelligent creatures founded two landing tracks using an unknown to us material. When their job on Earth was over, they flew away, leaving only the landing tracks.
Later, the local peoples tried to replicate what they had seen the space people do. That's how a plethora of lines in all possible directions appeared."
Willy Wegner points out, that there is no need for an "unknown material", but merely that the top soil has been scraped away, so the ground underneath, having a different color, became visible. That is how the lines appear, and have survived to our times, because of the special weather conditions.
The archaeologist Maria Reiche, who has been working with the Nazca riddle since 1946, has concluded that the drawings are made with very primitive methods. Some of the straight lines have astronomical meaning, which was shown already in 1939 by Dr. Poul Kosok. The meaning of the animal figures has not yet been explained.
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The strange thing about the drawings is that they are so large that they can only be seen from the air. But the Jesuit Pater Bartolomeu de Gusmao reported in the 17th century that he had seen Indians fly in hot air balloons in the
In the winter of 1975-76 Michael Debakey from the international Adventurers' Club proved that the Indians really could have made balloons of the materials available to them. Two men rose 200 meters up in the air in a balloon, high enough that the Indians in earlier times could have had an overview over the drawings from anchored balloons.
There is no need for space visits to explain the Nazca drawings.
Däniken does not make a very fortunate character, when we investigate the "evidence" closely. He has claimed that a bison skull, found in the
That caused the director of the Palaeontology museum to investigate the skull closer, and he has reached the conclusion that the hole is simply caused by the point of another bison's horn has penetrated the skull during a mating fight. There is also another possibility that the hole is caused by parasites. It can happen to domesticated animals even today.
The fifth evidence examined by Willy Wegner is the
"Däniken was good at telling tales as a kid, and he has obviously kept that skill", concludes the Danish author dryly.
The Nazca lines are geoglyphs and geometric line clearings in the Peruvian desert. They were made by the Nazca people, who flourished between 200 BCE and 600 CE along rivers and streams that flow from the The Nazca lines are communal. Their creation took hundreds of years and required a large number of people working on the project. Their size and their purpose have led some to speculate that visitors from another planet either created or directed the project. Erich von Däniken thinks that the Nazca lines formed an airfield for alien spacecraft [Chariots of the Gods? (1968), Arrival of the Gods: Revealing the Alien Landing Sites at Nazca (1998)., an idea first proposed by James W. Moseley in the October 1955 issue of Fate and made popular in the early sixties by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in The Morning of the Magicians. If Nazca was an alien airfield, it must have been a very confusing airfield, consisting as it does of giant lizards, spiders, monkeys, llamas, dogs, hummingbirds, etc., not to mention the zigzagging and crisscrossing lines and geometric designs. It was very considerate of the aliens to depict plants and animals of interest to the locals, even though it must have meant that navigation would be more difficult than a straight runway or a large clearing. Also, the airport must have been a very busy place, needing 37 miles of runway to handle all the traffic. However, it is unlikely spacecraft could have landed in the area without disturbing some of the artwork or the soil. There is no evidence of such disturbance. The alien theory is proposed mainly because some people find it difficult to believe that a race of "primitive Indians" could have had the intelligence to conceive of such a project, much less the technology to bring the concept to fruition. The evidence points elsewhere, however. The Aztecs, the Toltecs, the Inca, the Maya, etc., are proof enough that the Nazca did not need extraterrestrial help to create their art gallery in the desert. In any case, one does not need a very sophisticated technology to create large figures, geometrical shapes, and straight lines, as has been shown by the creators of so-called crop circles. The Nazca probably used grids for their giant geoglyphs, as their weavers did for their elaborate designs and patterns. The most difficult part of the project would have been moving all the stones and earth to reveal the lighter subsoil. There really is nothing mysterious about how the Nazca created their lines and figures. Some think it is mysterious that the figures have remained intact for so many hundreds of years. However, the geology of the area solves that mystery. Stones (not sand) comprise the desert surface. Rusted by humidity, their darkened color increases heat absorption. The resulting cushion of warm surface air acts as a buffer against the wind; while minerals in the soil help to solidify the stones. On the "desert pavement" thus created in this dry, rainless environment, erosion is practically nil - making for remarkable preservation of the markings (http://www.travelvantage.com/per_nazc.html; this site is now defunct). The mystery is why. Why did the Nazca engage in such a project involving so many people for so many years? G. von Breunig thinks the lines were used for running footraces. He examined the curved pathways and determined that they were partially shaped by continuous running. Anthropologist Paul Kosok briefly maintained that the lines were part of an irrigation system, but soon rejected the notion as impossible. He then speculated that the lines formed a gigantic calendar. Maria Reiche, a German immigrant and apprentice archaeologist to Julio Tello of the Modern anthropology and the lines The Nazca lines became of interest to anthropologists after they were seen from the air in the 1930s. It is unlikely that a project of this magnitude was not religious in purpose. To involve the entire community for many centuries indicates the supreme significance of the site. Like pyramids, giant statues, and other monumental art, the Nazca art speaks of permanence. It says: we are here and we are not moving. These are not nomads, nor are they hunters and gatherers. This is an agricultural society. It is, of course, a pre-scientific agricultural society, that turned to magic and superstition (i.e., religion) to assist them with their crops. The Nazca had the knowledge to irrigate, plant, harvest, collect, distribute, etc. But the weather is fickle. Things might go smoothly for years, or even centuries, and then, in a single generation entire communities are forced to leave because of extended drought or because of floods or tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, fires, or whatever else Mother Nature might hurl their way. Was this a site for worship? Was this the
Nazca lines
