Ancient Astronauts - Overview

Overview

Proponents of ancient astronaut theories often maintain that humans are either descendants or creations of extraterrestrial beings who landed on Earth thousands of years ago. An associated idea is that much of human knowledge, religion, and culture came from extraterrestrial visitors in ancient times, in that ancient astronauts acted as a "mother culture". Ancient astronaut proponents also believe that travelers from outer space known as "astronauts" or "spacemen" built many of the structures on earth such as the pyramids in Egypt and the Moai stone heads of Easter Island or aided humans in building them.

Proponents argue that the evidence for ancient astronauts comes from supposed gaps in historical and archaeological records, and they also maintain that absent or incomplete explanations of historical or archaeological data point to the existence of ancient astronauts. The evidence is said to include archaeological artifacts that they argue are anachronistic or beyond the presumed technical capabilities of the historical cultures with which they are associated (sometimes referred to as "Out-of-place artifacts"); and artwork and legends which are interpreted as depicting extraterrestrial contact or technologies. Legitimate academics have responded that gaps in contemporary knowledge of the past need not demonstrate that such speculative ancient astronaut ideas are a necessary conclusion to draw.

Thomas Gold, a professor of astronomy, suggested a "garbage theory" for the origin of life, proposing that life on earth might have spread from a pile of waste products accidentally dumped on Earth long ago by extraterrestrials.

The television series Ancient Aliens on the History channel features the main proponents in the ancient astronaut theory, and includes interviews with Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, David Childress, Erich von Däniken, Steven Greer and Nick Pope.