Erich von Däniken’s Still at It!

I had no idea that Erich von Däniken was still alive.

von Däniken is the author of Chariots of the Gods? and other books that promoted his theory that ancient civilizations had contact with alien races and worshipped them as gods. The alien visitors in turn gave the ancient humans technologies that allowed them to build wonders that would’ve been beyond their abilities – things like Stonehenge and the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. In his books, he suggests the figures depicted in some ancient art pieces were actually astronauts in spacesuits or flying spacecraft, and that stories about beings who descended from the heavens and flew through the air should be interpreted literally: as primitive descriptions of visitors from other worlds.

Most scientists view von Däniken as a crackpot and his theories as bunk. Even as thirteen-year-old reading his books, I thought of his stuff as entertaining pseudo-science and raw material for my Dungeons and Dragons games.

von Däniken appears to be alive, well and still selling his “aliens” theories, according to Science Blogs, which has an article covering a lecture he gave on October 17th. According to Florian Freistetter, who attended the lecture, there were somewhere between 600 and 700 people in attendance, and they all seemed to be von Däniken true-believers. Freistetter took notes at the lecture, and it would seem that von Däniken is still as big a crackpot (if not bigger) as ever. If you’re of a scientific bent but like hearing about wacky pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, you’ll find the article quite amusing.