Articles

| Profiles in Ancient Astronautics |
ERICH VON DÄNIKEN
Author of Chariots of the Gods

© 2009 Sven Teschke via Wikimedia Commons. Used under Creative Commons License

Coverage on JasonColavito.com:

• The 1972 ancient art fraud
• The 1972 "alien library" claim and follow-up.
• The 1974 Playboy interview • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 •
• The 1976 State Department File
• Review of Twilight of the Gods (2009) • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 •

OVERVIEW
Born in Switzerland in 1935, Erich von Däniken worked as an hotelier before embezzling money from his employer to finance his first book, Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, published in 1968. In writing his book, von Däniken drew heavily upon the work of his predecessors Robert Charroux and the team of Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. The manuscript he submitted for Chariots was heavily rewritten by a German screenwriter prior to publication, most notably to remove references to Christianity and the alleged extraterrestrial origin of Jesus.

Von Däniken’s book was an instant success, selling tens of millions of copies worldwide and spawning a craze for ancient astronauts in the United States. A film version of his book, In Search of Ancient Astronauts, was narrated by Rod Serling and spawned the 1970s TV series In Search Of…. At the height of his popularity, Von Däniken appeared on the Tonight show and was interviewed in Playboy magazine. He would eventually publish more than two dozen books on the ancient astronaut theme, largely due to the restrictive nature of his first book contract, which denied him most of the profits from his biggest bestseller.

However, Von Däniken’s popularity waned in the 1980s along with the ancient astronaut theory. His fortunes revived in the 1990s during the X-Files and alternative history craze of that decade, with an ABC-TV special celebrating Chariots of the Gods and plans for an ancient astronaut theme park, Mystery Park, which opened in Switzerland 2003 and closed three years later due to financial trouble caused by a lack of public interest.

Today Erich von Däniken is known to a new generation for his appearances on the History Channel and H2 documentary series Ancient Aliens, where he appears regularly to discuss how aliens sexually assaulted prehistoric human women.  

Credentials
Erich von Däniken does not hold and does not claim any archaeological or academic credentials.

Major Works
His major works include:

• Chariots of the Gods (1968)
• Gods from Outer Space (1970)
• The Gold of the Gods (1973)
• Twilight of the Gods (2009)
  

Major Claims

• The gods of mythology were actually extraterrestrial beings
• Extraterrestrial beings had sexual intercourse with prehistoric human beings and thus produced sexually viable hybrid offspring
• The Nazca lines were runways used by extraterrestrial spaceships
• Proof of extraterrestrials can be found in a secret cave in Ecuador visited by von Däniken. (He admitted this proof was fake in 1974 and then repudiated his admission in 2011.)

Controversies

Personal Life

• At age 19 he received a four-month suspended sentence for theft
• In 1970 he was convicted of fraud for embezzling $130,000 to finance research for Chariots
• A court psychiatrist diagnosed him as a pathological liar

Professional Problems

• Chariots was edited by the German publisher to give credit to Robert Charroux after Charroux and his publisher accused von Däniken of plagiarism in 1969, including copying specific phrasing from Charroux
• In 1974, he admitted to fabricating evidence in his works, including the secret alien cave in Ecuador, claiming that he was merely exercising poetic license for dramatic effect
• When confronted with claims that cannot be supported by proof, such as the claim that aliens invented the banana, von Däniken resorts to claiming his claims are “jokes”
• He routinely self-plagiarizes in his books, reprinting entire pages or chapters of earlier books, with minor modifications, and claiming it as new work.
  
• He made racist statements in Signs of the Gods, where he claimed that Africans were an inferior creation that dissatisfied extraterrestrials, who created white people as a superior replacement.

Catchphrase

“I’m only asking the question.”