64 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: THEORY OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL GODS FILE: UFO2118
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BY PATRICK HUYGHE - OMNI
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A little more than 25 years ago, the manager of a first class Swiss hotel
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wrote a worldwide best seller titled Chariots of the Gods? Its author, Erich
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Von Daniken, captured the public imagination with a dramatic presentation of
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idea that extraterrestrials had left physical traces of their presence throu-
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ghout the world. Chariots held, for instance, that the giant stone faces on
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Easter Island off the coast of Chile were probably constructed with the help
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of extraterrestrials; the long Nazca lines, crisscrossing the plains of Peru
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and only visible from the air, Von Daniken said, were probably landing strips
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for their craft.
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By the late 1970s, however, Von Daniken's ancient astronaut theory was crumb-
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ling under an avalanche of criticism from archaeologists and astronomers. To-
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day, few believe these extraterrestrial gods ever existed. But don't tell that
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to the 350 people who met in Las Vegas last August to attend the twentieth
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anniversary conference of the Ancient Astronaut Society, or to any of the Soc-
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iety's 10,000 members in 93 countries worldwide. Twenty speakers, including
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numerous Ph.D.'s, engineers, and writers gave presentations that touched on
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everything from the spaceships of the Biblical prophet Ezekiel to the notor-
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ious face on Mars.
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Von Daniken's largest base of support, however, is not in the Unided States,
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but rather in Germnay and other nations of Europe. In 1993, for instance, Eur-
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openas saw Von Daniken star in a 25 part biweekly TV series titled On the Tra-
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ce of the Almighty. And touring the cities of Europe, Von Daniken still mana-
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ges to fill 2,000 seat auditoriums. His last nine books, all best sellers in
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Germany, have also appeared in Italy, France, Holland, Spain, Greece - every-
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where, it seems, but in the United States, England, and Australia. I must be
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blacklisted in America, says the 58 year old author with a chuckle.
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Despite such slights, Von Daniken's belief in the ancient astronaut theory
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remains firm. Each and every one of my books has had to be better than the one
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before, he says. We have had to come up with stronger proof each time out.
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Of note are the new translations of some ancient Asian Indian texts Von Danik-
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en has commissioned. They describe gigantic space cities that surrounded our
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planet thousands of years in the past, he says wit great enthusiasm. And from
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these cities, extraterrestrials used small vehicles to descend to Earth.
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Carl Sagan, a major critic of Von Daniken in the 1970s, says he has not chang-
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ed his mind. One of Sagan's original objections was the underlying assumption
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that our ancestors were apparently too stupid to create the monumental archit-
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ecture of our past.
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But it's never been my idea, Von Daniken objects, that ancient astronauts had
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constructed great buildings and temples. Mankind did. But why? Mythology and
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religion say they were dealing with the teachers that had descended from heav-
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en.
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Von Daniken's protestations are unlikely to sway his critics. The whole ancie-
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nt astronauts hypothesis was based more on pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology
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than any reasonable hypothesis about extraterrestrial intelligence, says Kend-
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rick Frazier, editor of the Skeptical Inquirer. I just don't know anybody who
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takes this seriously anymore.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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