Ancient Astronauts in Popular Culture - Movies and Television Series

Movies and Television Series

• The 1975 documentary film, The Outer Space Connection narrated by Rod Serling.
• The 2012 film Prometheus is themed around a group of scientists who set out to discover the origins of human life, which was placed on Earth by an ancient race of aliens.
• The basis for Prometheus and Bob is an alien 900,000 years ago attempting to educate a caveman called "Bob", and creating video tapes of his failed attempts.
• The American Independent film A Genesis Found (2009) features characters who use the theory to explain an anomalous skeleton discovered at the Moundville Archaeological Site in central Alabama.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) links (albeit by coincidence) the existence of Crystal skulls to beings that were perceived as gods by the Maya civilization, though these visitors were from another dimension rather than outer space.
• Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit television serial (1958–1959) used a version of the idea.
• The BBC, Doctor Who serial Pyramids of Mars (1975) featured a conflict on Earth between aliens of a race named the Osirans forming the basis of Egyptian mythology, and a number of other Doctor Who serials have used similar ideas.
• In The Thing, an alien ship crashes in Antarctica in 100,000 BC. A character later mentions Chariots of the Gods and the belief that the Incan civilization was developed by aliens.
• The original Battlestar Galactica and the 2003 remake depicts humans as having originated on a distant planet and formed thirteen colonies, Earth being the last and most distant. The plots of both concern a group of humans attempting to find Earth. The original 1978 series is more closely linked to the Ancient Astronaut theory, using modernized versions of ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Middle Ages costumes, as well as mixing ancient myths and religious materials into the storylines. In contrast, SyFy's 2003 remake deals little with ancient myths and legends and depicts an American-like culture, and in a twist, it is revealed that the "human" and Cylon protagonists are in fact the ancient astronauts themselves.
• The French animated TV series Il était une fois... l'Espace (1982) (English: Once Upon a Time... Space) featured far-future humans taking on the role of superior aliens to an inca-like culture. The spaceships of the human civilization also used decorative iconography derived from the Nazca lines as a wink to the theory – the ship of the main characters using a hummingbird design.
• The TV show The X-Files (1993–2002) has borrowed the theory.
• The movie Stargate (1994) featured Ra, a member of the alien species Goa'uld that came to Earth around 8000 B.C., who enslaved the ancient Egyptians, creating their culture and religion, before eventually transporting thousands of them through the Stargate to offworld mining colonies.
  • Spin-off television series Stargate SG-1 (1997–2007), Stargate Atlantis (2004–2009) and Stargate Universe (2009-2011) feature aliens called the Ancients (alternatively Alterans, Lanteans, or Anquietas) who are found to have traveled to Earth millions of years ago to start and influence human evolution. Also featured the sinister Goa'uld, who posed as gods to enslave the humans; and the benevolent Asgard, who posed as gods to protect the humans.
  • The Stargate: Ultimate Edition: Director’s Cut DVD includes a featurette interview with Erich von Däniken entitled "Is there a Stargate?".
• A 1996 episode of the animated series Gargoyles involves an ancient alien living in a hidden spaceship under Easter Island. In the episode it is concluded that this alien came to Earth long ago and inspired Moai statues which Easter Island is famous for.
• In Star Trek, the Ancient humanoids seeded the galaxy with humanoid life. The episode Plato's Stepchildren also uses this theme. The 1966 episode "Who Mourns For Adonais?" uses the idea that the Greek gods were extraterrestrials, with the crew encountering the Sun god Apollo.
  • In the Star Trek: Voyager episode Tattoo, we learn that Chakotay is descended from the Rubber Tree People who were visited by Sky Spirits 45,000 years ago. The Sky Spirits, who are actually advanced, space-faring aliens, granted these primitive humans a genetic alteration which influenced their development.
• Lilith and Adam in the manga/anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion were two extraterrestrial beings that landed on Earth and gave birth to humanity.
• While not specifically using Earth as an example, the fictional Star Wars universe has many references to aliens giving primitive races technology, or humans de-advancing into a more primitive society as time passes.
• The film Ice Age briefly shows an alien spacecraft trapped in ice during the Ice Age.
• One of the Spriggan chapters depicts Tezcatlipoca as an ancient astronaut during a mission in Mexico.
• In the Babylon 5 universe, many of the First Ones, and in particular the Vorlons and Shadows, visited Earth (and the homeworlds of other races) at various times in history.
• The Predator race from the movie Alien vs. Predator is described in the film as having traveled to Earth at a prehistoric time and having a culture serve them as Gods.
• In the television show Dilbert, Dilbert and Dogbert visit a museum with an exhibit supporting the theory of aliens assisting the Egyptians in the construction of the Pyramid. When Dilbert asks what happened to the aliens after the pyramids were constructed, they move to the next exhibit, which depicts the Egyptians feasting on the aliens.
• In Frederik Pohl's Gateway series of novels, the Heechee are described as an ancient alien race that visited our solar system thousands of years ago. They left behind a variety of futuristic technology, which creates many interesting opportunities for Earth.
• The Futurama episode "A Pharaoh to Remember" features an alien culture that claims to have been taught space travel, mummification (for the purpose of scaring Abbott and Costello), and pyramid building by the ancient Egyptians (instead of this happening the other way around).
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Waiting for God", Rimmer states his belief in aliens having visited Earth in ancient times, asking Lister how else the pyramids could have been built. Lister replies, "They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips."
• In the cartoon The Flintstones, leading character Fred is sometimes accompanied by Gazoo, a little green "space man" who exhibits many amazing powers.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian includes a chase sequence where Brian briefly escapes from Roman legionaries by accidentally falling into an alien spaceship.
• The idea of paleocontact appears in numerous science fiction stories and films, most notably in the first scene of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• On the TV series Earth: Final Conflict, the Atavus species traveled to Earth in the distant past and ruled over it, using Neanderthal men as slaves and a food source. The Atavus were present in Ancient Egypt as well. The Taelons (the series' main aliens) also visited Earth many times before initiating first contact in the mid-21st century.
• In the television series Space Island One, the crew of the Unity encounter a Babylonian space probe, the Tower of Babel having been a rocket rather than a literal tower to reach the heavens.
• The late-1990s television program Godzilla: The Series featured grotesque ancient astronauts who had come to Earth during the late Jurassic period or early Cretaceous period and remained on Earth, under the ocean, ever since.
• The film The Fourth Kind mentions the idea that aliens contacted the ancient Sumerians and apparently features aliens speaking the Sumerian language.
• The cartoon series The Transformers depicts the Autobots and Decepticons as ancient astronauts crashlanding on Earth 4 million years ago.
  • The Maximals and Predacons from Beast Wars take this theme one step further by time traveling to prehistoric Earth from the future (their present). They discover that another alien species called the Vok had already visited Earth, using it as an experiment which the Beast Wars had contaminated.
  • The film Transformers, Megatron chases after a mystical item from Cybertron and ends up on prehistoric Earth.
  • The film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the Dynasty of Primes visits Earth to stop The Fallen from activating the Sun Harvester.
• In an episode of Martin Mystery,Martin,his stepsister,and his father are all captured by a Synth,a creature synthesized with human and alien genes (which was giving birth at the time).After looking at the cave paintings in the Synth's cave which seem to depict a UFO dropping off a strange creature on earth,Martin states it was abandoned by its "creators" some thousand years ago. It lived in secrecy until loggers got to its forest.
  • In another episode of Martin Mystery, Martin, Java, and Diana are sent to investigate paranormal activity at a summer camp.It was discovered that the culprit was Sauros, a reptilian god that demanded the life force of young people every thousand years.It was than discovered that Sauros was not a god but an extraterrestrial that had a thousand year life cycle.
• In the Iron Man: Armored Adventures episode "Dragonseed", it's revealed that reptilian aliens known as Makluans created the Mandarin's ten rings to rule the galaxy, until one went rogue and gave the rings to Temujin's ancestor to use justly.
• The 1980 film Hangar 18 involves a UFO whose symbols are found to match those used in ancient cultures.