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Review of Ancient Aliens S05E10: "The Von Däniken Legacy"

4/6/2013

16 Comments

 
Since I launched JasonColavito.com in 2010, I have written about one million words on this website across the blog, articles, eBooks, and other odds and ends. Of those one million words, about 60,000 (6%) are devoted to America Unearthed, which earned me frequent complaints that I am “obsessed” with the show. By contrast, over the past three years I’ve probably written about 500,000 or more words about ancient astronauts, with more than 100,000 of them specifically about Ancient Aliens. (These are very rough estimates; some blog posts, for example, cover multiple topics.) I know for a fact that between June 2011 and June 2012, when I collected my work as my Critical Companion to Ancient Aliens, I wrote no fewer than 40,000 words on Ancient Aliens, and I’ve easily matched that in the time since. Add to that the 100,000 words on ancient astronauts contained in my Cult of Alien Gods, and the total begins to dwarf anything I’ve devoted to America Unearthed.

I bring this up because taking stock is the theme of the return episode of Ancient Aliens, S05E10 “The Von Däniken Legacy,” which takes as its focus the man who put the ancient astronaut idea into the pop culture mainstream through dishonesty and diabolical luck. It’s good, I guess, to have Ancient Aliens back, if only because its brand of fact-free lunacy is an utter delight compared to the self-serious charlatanism of America Unearthed.

I wasn’t sure whether H2’s current companion for Ancient Aliens, America’s Book of Secrets, would be any better than either, but I’ll review that separately because America’s Book of Secrets is covering ancient astronauts this week, part of a two-hour love-fest between H2, Prometheus Entertainment, and Erich von Däniken. It’s hard to remember because the past four months spent examining medieval mysteries that I actually got into this for ancient mysteries.

In The Cult of Alien Gods I tell much of the story of how Erich von Däniken developed his version of the ancient astronaut “theory,” and since 2005, I’ve filled in some additional details. The story is not terribly complicated, but it’s one Ancient Aliens doesn’t want you to know.

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken was born in Switzerland in 1935, raised a strict Catholic, and in Catholic school developed an interest in UFOs, like many youths in the early 1950s. He had a criminal record. He was convicted of theft when he was 19, and he left school to become a hotelier. He was convicted of embezzlement after leaving that job. He took another hotel position, and he stole money there, too, by falsifying records in order to obtain tens of thousands in fraudulent loans to finance his interest in space aliens and what the court later called his “playboy lifestyle.” The court psychiatrist declared him a pathological liar. Eventually, he would be convicted of embezzlement and fraud yet again, serving a year in prison.

In 1960, two French authors who were interested in the occult, Nazis, UFOs, and H. P. Lovecraft put out a book called Morning of the Magicians in which they tried to show that Lovecraft’s vision of ancient astronauts could be correlated to the “occult” truths of Theosophy and the UFO movement. Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels put together the entire case for ancient astronauts as we currently know it—from the claims about ancient atom bombs to the claims about “impossibly” precise and heavy stone architecture. Their book inspired several by Robert Charroux, who presented Bergier’s and Pauwel’s discursive, disorganized ideas in a more popular and readable format.

In 1964, von Däniken simply appropriated this material wholesale for a magazine article, and on the strength of the magazine article, he received a book deal for what became Chariots of the Gods. In his zeal to fill the book, he in places came close enough to plagiarizing Pauwels, Bergier, and Charroux that lawyers convinced the publisher to add those authors to the book’s bibliography, and in the sequels von Däniken specifically credited them by name, as if to assuage hurt feelings. Von Däniken went a step beyond his sources, though, in deciding that Jesus was a space alien along with the pagan gods.

The publisher, Econ, found the manuscript less than satisfactory, and they hired a screenwriter, Wilhelm Roggersdorf, to punch it up. En route they cut out claims about Jesus’ alien origin, and von Däniken forever after asserted Jesus was the exception to the alien rule. Roggersdorf’s version of Chariots met with great success, but much to von Däniken’s dismay, the contract he had signed with Econ stripped him of most of the profits from the book. What money he did make went to pay off debts from the embezzlement and fraud; so, with little choice but to forge ahead, while serving his prison sentence in 1970, von Däniken wrote Gods from Outer Space, a sequel he would sell to publishers worldwide on more favorable terms, and the foundation for his future financial success. After about 25 books (of which I’ve read half, all of the non-fiction volumes translated into English), von Däniken was a millionaire several times over.

His success afforded him the luxury of admitting that he lied, cheated, and committed fraud whenever and wherever it suited him. He told Playboy that he had lied about seeing a golden library of alien texts in Ecuador, and he admitted to others that he fabricated evidence to make his ideas seem more solid. All was fair, he said, when fighting “a war we have to win” to overturn modern science. He saw his ancient astronaut theory as a way of promoting traditional moral values and combating socialism and communism. Specifically, he told Pres. Gerald Ford that socialism was the greatest danger facing the world and conservatives needed to embrace UFO believers to win elections, and he later wrote that the aliens would punish the sexually unchaste as well as uppity feminists when they returned in 2012. (They didn’t.)

The Episode

My version of Erich von Däniken’s life is certainly a far cry from the “facts” Ancient Aliens provides. The show wrongly calls von Däniken’s ideas “scientific” and claims that he threatened to upend the world thanks to his “spiritual journey”—part of a continuing narrative that casts ancient astronauts as part of a revitalization of traditional religious beliefs. Biased words like “daring” and “groundbreaking” litter the language of the program and clue us in that no one has even a moment’s thought about making a fair documentary—a particularly striking omission when comparing Ancient Aliens to the more balanced (but still deceptive) presentation on America’s Book of Secrets, from the same executive producer, an hour later.

The blue title card returns this week, and we open in Minneapolis in October of 2012, when Erich von Däniken spoke at the Paradigm Symposium. I breathed a sigh of relief that this time they left me out of the list of skeptics whose newspaper clippings are shown—though my relief would be short-lived once America’s Book of Secrets came on.

Several speakers relate von Däniken’s idea to the space age (his fiery chariots were obviously inspired by Apollo-era rockets, not modern “anti-gravity” UFOs), and Mike Bara seems confused about the timeline, thinking that the moon landing happened before Chariots. Several other pundits talk about how the book influenced them. George Noory of Coast to Coast AM said he was “mesmerized” by the “phenomenal” book, but even the narrator is forced to note that von Däniken never really claimed anything in Chariots but instead relied on rhetorical questions to make suggestions and implications. Weirdly, even Ancient Aliens’ propaganda can’t quite manage to get past the problems with von Däniken’s books. David Childress talks about how much he loves the way von Däniken talked about how angels were aliens because it really helped restore his faith in the truth of religious texts, or something like that.

Von Däniken appears on screen to blast the media for his 238 rhetorical questions in Chariots (yes, that’s a real number), and von Däniken uses the same old defense: Nothing he said is a factual claim, only a question for which he cannot be held responsible. Is von Däniken a charlatan and a fraud? That’s not a libelous statement; I’m just asking. Jason Martell praises von Däniken for “challenging academia,” but he’s too dim to really understand what he’s talking about and mistakes rhetoric for research.

Von Däniken describes his Catholic upbringing and notes how he related the Bible to then-current space technology. A priest told von Däniken about the Book of Enoch, in which Enoch is carried to heaven in a fiery chariot (like the one the sun god uses), and von Däniken says that Ezekiel’s vision was also a UFO. Then we talk about von Däniken’s trip to the pyramids, where he is stupefied by his inability to understand how mere humans could stack stones one atop the next. But we’ve heard all this before, and I have no intention of reviewing each piece of long-debunked evidence afresh. The show is having trouble finding new ways of reviewing the same few ideas over and over season after season, but it is adamant that every episode needs to repeat material from the first two or three seasons point-for-point.

“Erich wasn’t completely rejecting religion,” Childress says, praising him for keeping “universal truths” while looking at religion differently. Von Däniken talks of his love for God, and it’s pretty clear that, as I’ve argued for ages, the ancient astronaut theory is merely an effort to take the Bible literally in an era that can’t quite countenance miracles. It’s an attempt to spiritualize science and restore the power of the god(s).

Von Däniken repeats the false claim that the Great Pyramid was completely anonymous—it’s not; graffiti found in the relieving chambers have Khufu’s name on it. Philip Coppens is exhumed to try to course-correct von Däniken and walk him back from claiming the aliens built the pyramids. (This long after his death, isn’t it getting ghoulish?) Although this was one of von Däniken’s original “questions” because he believed scholars were dishonest in proclaiming the pyramid a human-built tomb (“Anyone who can believe that explanation is welcome to it,” he wrote in Chariots), today under the guidance of Tsoukalos the new dogma is that the aliens merely provided the plans. Tsoukalos in fact appears to tell us that the “ancient Egyptian texts” tell us that the Egyptians built the pyramids with the help of the “guardians of the sky.”

This is false on multiple counts, as I have previously reviewed: First, the “text” is not “ancient Egyptian” but rather the Al-Khitat of Al-Maqrizi, of 1400 CE. Second, the sky guardians, or angels, taught magic; according to Al-Maqrizi, they had nothing to do with the planning or building of the pyramids, which was a human action: “King ’Adim, son of Naqtarim, was a violent and proud prince, tall in stature. It was he who ordered the rocks cut to make the pyramids, as had been done by the ancients. In his time there lived two angels cast out of heaven, and who lived in the well of Aftarah; these two angels taught magic to the Egyptians, and it is said that ’Adim, the son of El-Budchir, learned most of their sciences, after which the two angels went to Babel.” Von Däniken screwed this up in his Odyssey of the Gods (1999), where he proclaimed the text “ancient” Egyptian ((2000 English trans., p.74), and Tsoukalos took over the idea without question.

A bunch of Indian stuff is discussed, but we’ve already talked about this in the season premiere for season five, so I have nothing more to add here except to note that Coppens is a lying liar when he claims practically “no one” was studying Indian culture before von Däniken. For more than FOUR HUNDRED YEARS scholars from Europe have been studying India. I’ve also covered vimanas before, and they are just not what the idiots think they were.

Returning to the Book of Enoch, von Däniken lies in calling the Watchers the “guardians of the sky,” and then he delivers his “horny alien” hypothesis, whereby aliens somehow defy Darwinian evolution by being able to mate with human females, genetics be damned.  This, von Däniken claims, represents the moment when humans became intelligent. “We went from munching bananas in a cave to essentially building civilizations,” Tsoukalos said, unconsciously mimicking the scoffing arguments of creationists who have the same ideas but a different non-human intelligence sparking the creation.

As we lurch toward the halfway point, Ancient Aliens chooses to ignore von Däniken’s legal trouble, his plagiarism problems, and other salient facts about his career. Instead, some idiotic speculation about millions of years of alien terraforming of earth—which I can dismiss as idiotic because the show does not pretend to defend the claim with even a superficial appeal to evidence—leads us toward the second half of the show and South America.

In South America we review the mysteries of Puma Punku, to which Ancient Aliens had already devoted an entire hour. Jason Martell tells us that the stones of the site were “liquefied,” which any geologist can confirm they were not. As for the rest of the claims, we’ve been through all of them before. Tsoukalos and von Däniken cite local legends that the site was built by gods as evidence that the aliens set up the site overnight. By that evidence, we must conclude that Mycenae and Tiryns were built by Cyclopes (as the Greeks believed), and that the Roman ruins of Germany were built by the devil (as medieval Germans said). Modern legends imply nothing about ancient beliefs.

In Mexico, von Däniken relates his “realization” that visitors (which he pronounces as “whizzitors”) could be seen in all the Mexican gods, and in a bit of leftover colonialism von Däniken asserts that the Maya were not responsible for the appearance of the shadowy snake image on the Castillo temple at Chichen Itza but rather it was evidence of alien planning. The Maya knew the stars, so therefore, being brown, they could not have gained this information on their own. He is untroubled that modern white people gained such knowledge themselves.

David Childress reviews Lord Pacal’s tomb, which von Däniken declared an image of a man in a rocket ship. (It’s really an image of Pacal in the underworld in standard Maya iconography.) This is funny because Childress has flipped on this several times. In the 1990s, he thought it was bunk, and last year he endorsed it wholeheartedly. Here he is in 1992: “It was a bizarre scene, though von Däniken’s explanation didn’t quite make sense to me. The man was barefoot and wore no shirt, a typical dress for the Maya, but is this how one dresses when one is in one’s space ship? … it is unlikely that any sort of rocket power was ever used in the past or will ever be used in the future by visiting astronauts …” And then last year on Ancient Aliens: “Lord Pacal’s sarcophagus was his spaceship. He’s the original rocket man.” Now, he’s ambiguous about it again, saying only that some people “had to agree” but refusing to agree with it himself.

So, as we move into the final quarter of the show, this episode of Ancient Aliens reveals itself to be yet another disguised rerun, rehashing the same tired old ideas again and again.

It seems that von Däniken has been reading (or having read to him) my blog, since he is seen specifically expressing his displeasure with the idea that his ideas could be a “new religion,” and he says he won’t countenance it. He apparently never met Raël, who did just that, worshipping ancient aliens from the Bible. And of course the very next voices heard immediately start talking about spirituality and paradigm shifts and the longing for spiritual ideas. It’s not that ancient aliens are a new religion, but rather an attempt to revitalize old religious ideas with superficial appeals to science.

David Childress credits von Däniken for inspiring him, and Childress expresses doubt about von Däniken’s conclusions. “Don’t just take my word for it,” Childress paraphrases von Däniken. I didn’t, but of course when I don’t take his word for it, that’s not what they meant. Philip Coppens concurs that von Däniken inspired him, too. Robert Bauval professes his great respect and seems to be giving up his 1990s pose of pretending that he had no love for ancient astronauts. He claims tonight that this changed for him “recently,” but the fact that his 1994 book The Orion Mystery credits the ancient astronaut theory (in the form of Robert Temple’s Sirius Mystery) for inspiring his own career in alternative archaeology, we know that isn’t true.

Giorgio Tsoukalos says that his grandmother’s dinner table conversation about Atlantis and ancient astronauts in Switzerland inspired him to follow in von Däniken’s footsteps, but he leaves out his efforts to enter von Däniken’s orbit and his stint as von Däniken’s official English-language spokesperson back when Tsoukalos was a full-time bodybuilding promoter.

“The divine is permeated throughout the entire universe,” Tsoukalos says, and von Däniken’s own disclaimer about starting a new religion seems to have been forgotten after just five minutes.

The narrator scoffs at the “hallowed halls of academia” and suggests instead that “ordinary” people are von Däniken’s true audience and the people who hold the power to change history. This even involves “ordinary” believers in ancient astronauts questioning von von Däniken himself! Bob Blaskiewicz, a skeptic of my acquaintance, is seen questioning von Däniken at the Paradigm Symposium, and the show seems unaware that he is not a believer. At any rate, the message is exactly what I have been talking about for years now: Alternative believers truly feel that academic elites are an evil menace restricting access to truth to preserve their power and privilege. These same believers would never question whether mechanics or plumbers or architects are hoarding knowledge (“alternative architecture” anyone?), but there is a deep-seated anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism that manifests in a hostility to anyone who seems to offer specialized knowledge that requires actual work and effort to gain.

We conclude with a paean to space travel, followed by Nick Redfern’s assertion that if there were nothing to ancient astronauts the idea would have died by now. The fact is that it did die, twice. Once in the early 1980s and then again in the 1990s. It was revived in the 1990s by bottom-feeding media and again today because of the History Channel and H2’s effort to make money off any old fringe theory from In Search of…

We finish with Blaskiewicz’s question asking von Däniken what he got wrong. The edited response ignores the question and instead tells us that scientists have tunnel vision. (The actual response he delivered at the forum was that he got only one thing wrong and otherwise is 100% right.) Von Däniken, in an interview, concludes the show by contrasting “two groups” of people, the religious and the scientific. He tells us that religion sees us as the crown of creation, while scientists see us as the crown of evolution—and he faults both views for suggesting that humans are placed above the gods, er, aliens. I’ll leave you to pick apart the absurd illogic of that statement and the profound misunderstanding of both religion and science that it implies. In the end, Von Däniken wants humanity to go back to the humble beginnings he saw in primitive religion, benighted children obedient to the authority of the gods—and those, like von Däniken, who claim to speak on their behalf. Obey the aliens, obey ancient astronaut theorists. Give us all your money. No, we’re not a new religion, just a very old one. Iä, Cthulhu fhtagn!

16 Comments
Cathleen Anderson
4/6/2013 12:36:45 pm

I read some of those books when they first came out. I didn't realize what a fraud and criminal he is until much later.

Reply
Sam
4/6/2013 08:12:02 pm

"I breathed a sigh of relief that this time they left me out of the list of skeptics whose newspaper clippings are shown—though my relief would be short-lived once America’s Book of Secrets came on." - That's a great piece of humour.

Here in Bengal (India), the translations of Daniken-books are still published with great effort. I can't help laughing out loud while reading them. Great fiction ! Aren't they?

Reply
The Other J.
4/7/2013 10:01:31 am

I'm not new to Von Danikenalia, but I am new to both Ancient Aliens and your reviews of them. That is, I never bothered with Ancient Aliens because I never swallowed his story in the first place. But the reviews here are telling, and interesting. Can someone tell me if the show is something I'd really need to dip into if I'm to get the full effect of the reviews?

That said, I watched the America's Book of Secrets, and was grinding my teeth most of the way through it. But I'll save that for the other review.

Von Daniken's story, and his followers versions, really seems like a clear-cut case of only having a hammer, so everything they see becomes a nail.

Reply
Jonas
4/14/2013 05:06:30 am

Jason, you write: "Von Däniken went a step beyond his sources, though, in deciding that Jesus was a space alien along with the pagan gods.
The publisher, Econ, found the manuscript less than satisfactory, and they hired a screenwriter, Wilhelm Roggersdorf, to punch it up. En route they cut out claims about Jesus’ alien origin, and von Däniken forever after asserted Jesus was the exception to the alien rule."

How did you reach that conclusion? What are your sources?

Reply
Jason Colavito link
4/14/2013 05:23:40 am

Sure. The Jesus-as-alien material was reported in Time magazine when Chariots was first published. I discussed it here: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/06/ancient-astronaut-hypocrisy-did-erich-von-daniken-think-jesus-was-an-astronaut.html

Roggersdorf's involvement in Chariots was documented by Der Speigel in 1969 and later by other sources, though of course von Daniken never confirmed this.

Reply
Jonas
4/14/2013 05:45:08 am

Oh, I didn't question Roggersdorf (pseudonym of Wilhelm "Utz" Utermann) - who, by the way, is mentioned by Däniken several times. He never denied Roggersdorf influence on the final text, and Roggersdorf edited Däniken's books until his death, even after Däniken went to a different publisher.

I'm highly skeptical about the Jesus-as-alien claim by the Time Magazine - I doubt it is true. Däniken never claims anything like this in his earliest published articles (which, by the way, never got him the book deal, as you write). I see no reason why he should claim that in his manuscript, yet have it changed by the publisher (but leaving all the other iconoclastic statements) - and, after the immense success, still refrain from that claim even if he believed it. Makes no sense. The media fabricating "facts" based on ill-informed hearsay, however - that seems more plausible. :)

Anyway, thanks for your source, although I think that Time magazine got it wrong.

Jason Colavito link
4/14/2013 07:18:50 am

I don't know. It's possible that Time is wrong about this, but certainly the question surrounded von Daniken, who came out against the idea in his Playboy interview. Von Daniken's direct source for Chariots was Morning of the Magicians, from which he stole many of his claims, and on p. 297-8 of the English edition, we read that Jesus was a "mutant" ultra-human, possibly through alien genetic engineering. I don't think it's impossible that von Daniken swiped this bit along with his other copying.

Jonas
4/14/2013 07:41:58 am

Sure, but I don't think it's probable that later on, he should stubbornly claim that he never identified Jesus as an astronaut, when it simply didn't matter at all. I don't know if Pauwels and Bergier had an original moment there, or were just compiling the idea from somebody else (as they did most of the time), but Jesus the astronaut wasn't particularly uncommon. I think at least one Soviet writer (Agrest? Kazanzev?) entertained that thought, and there were probably others. Following the mixture of christianity with theosophy, mixing christianity and UFOs was pretty common in the 1950s already. (Not to mention later years - think Rael and, IIRC, Unarius.)

Däniken has written a lot of stuff, but he's usually claiming he's merely speculating (depending on whom he's talking to). The Jesus-speculation doesn't seem any more outrageous that, say, his claims about genesis.
The to-and-fro that Time magazine implies just doesn't convince me.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
4/14/2013 07:50:59 am

I understand where you're coming from. Pauwels and Bergier were summarizing and then building on another writer, Louis de Broglie. Certainly there were many Jesus-UFO books at the time.

My view is that von Däniken was an opportunist and threw everything he could glean from any number of UFO books (indeed, careful studies of von Däniken's sources find many ideas appropriated from UFO literature, not just pseudo-archaeology), and that his first draft may very well have included some of the Jesus-UFO material.

Since it never made the final cut, he had no reason to ever admit it existed. That said, von Däniken was canny enough to recognize that one of the reasons his book succeeded where other versions did not is that he took a culturally conservative view while Pauwels, Bergier, et al. were socialists and Leftists. This is all the more reason to keep Jesus as the one unique non-alien in his pantheon, to keep in the audience's good graces, especially in America where the real money could be made.

After all, von Däniken has no trouble suggesting that Yahweh is a spaceman, that Moses was abducted by aliens, and Ezekiel saw a UFO. Nor does he disagree with the idea that the star of Bethlehem could have been a UFO. It is only Jesus, unique among ALL mythic creatures in the world, that von Däniken exempts. This inconsistency suggests that his first draft may well have lacked that exemption.

Reply
Jonas
4/14/2013 07:42:08 am

Sure, but I don't think it's probable that later on, he should stubbornly claim that he never identified Jesus as an astronaut, when it simply didn't matter at all. I don't know if Pauwels and Bergier had an original moment there, or were just compiling the idea from somebody else (as they did most of the time), but Jesus the astronaut wasn't particularly uncommon. I think at least one Soviet writer (Agrest? Kazanzev?) entertained that thought, and there were probably others. Following the mixture of christianity with theosophy, mixing christianity and UFOs was pretty common in the 1950s already. (Not to mention later years - think Rael and, IIRC, Unarius.)

Däniken has written a lot of stuff, but he's usually claiming he's merely speculating (depending on whom he's talking to). The Jesus-speculation doesn't seem any more outrageous that, say, his claims about genesis.
The to-and-fro that Time magazine implies just doesn't convince me.

Reply
terry the censor
5/31/2013 08:08:40 pm

> Nick Redfern’s assertion that if there were nothing to ancient astronauts the idea would have died by now.

Oh, Nick, you didn't!

Redfern demonstrates the basic problem with these fringe topics: the marketplace drives the conclusions. Nick aspires to be a fact-based investigator of all things fringe, but he knows if he wants to make a living, he has to give the people what they want. It's embarassing.

Reply
Rob
1/4/2014 07:49:49 pm

Worked as an expat in the UK in 1977 and watched the excellent BBC2 expose of Von Daniken as a fraud. Google: Horizon Special: The Case of the Ancient Astronauts (BBC 2,1977). Was dismayed to see the H2 channel showing this crap some 25 years later.As a foreign born and educated earth scientist I am so disappointed in how ill-informed and uneducated many US-born citizens are and proud to be so. A lot has to do with right-wing nuttery and religion and a disbelief in basic scientific knowledge.

Reply
phyllis
10/15/2014 07:40:36 pm

Oh yes, Rob you are 100% correct. Americans are terribly uneducated due to their controlled "system" of education by the very ones robbing them blind.

Reply
A macias
5/1/2015 01:18:44 pm

This show is such a joke with lies and fraud!

Reply
Ray
8/8/2021 06:21:35 pm

Lifting Heavy Blocks

Use a raising fulcrum pedestal:

Dig under the block in the middle.

Cover the underside middle with graphite.

Slide supporting blocks under the supported block.

Dig out the rest of the supported block.

The supported block is now a teeter-totter.

Put weight at one end of the teeter-totter.

Add a supporting block at the raised middle.

Move the weight to the other end of the teeter-totter.

Add another supporting block at the raised middle.

Repeat until the block is raised to the needed height.

The graphite makes it easier to rotate the raised block.

No aliens are needed!

Reply
Rob P.
11/29/2021 08:51:44 am

As an American, I am embarrassed about how popular “Ancient Aliens”, is in this country. I’m very pissed off that the history channel has been spewing this racist propaganda for well over a decade. How is it that people cannot see past this nonsense is beyond me. This country is going hell in a hand basket.

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          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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