The Man Who Asked If God was an Astronaut
By Dan Brown Earlier this month, Erich von Daniken died. Even though you may not know the author’s name, you are living in the world he helped to create. Simply put, this paperback writer did more than any other single person to popularize the notion that alien beings visited Earth in this planet’s distant past. He did more than Stanley Kubrick, more than Jack Kirby, more than any other artist or scientist to make that belief into a mainstream one. What was once a controversial theory is now part of the daily TV schedule, as evidenced by shows like History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. In 1968, von Daniken published the pulpy Chariots of the Gods?. It argued that there’s evidence in ancient art and architecture of advanced beings coming to this planet to help our ancestors perform feats of engineering they couldn’t have possibly accomplished themselves, such as building the pyramids. As least one mid-1970s paperback edition of the book came with the tagline, Was God an astronaut? It was followed by many sequels, including Gods From Outer Space and The Gold of the Gods. The initial volume caused a sensation. You have to keep in mind that in the 1970s, a lot of disillusioned people were searching for meaning, and rejected the answers provided by the institutions of the day, such as the Christian church. Some folks joined cults. Some signed up for EST courses. Yet others started to believe ancient carvings and structures were proof that little green men had landed on Earth thousands of years ago, gifting us technology beyond our primitive understanding that eventually allowed humanity to flourish. Naturally, von Daniken’s claims were discounted as pseudoscientific nonsense. Figures like astronomer and TV host Carl Sagan led the charge to debunk Chariots of the Gods?, but it was too late – the idea got traction, and is still an attractive one to many. Whether you think von Daniken is full of bunk or not, you can’t deny his influence: Ancient Aliens, to name just one offshoot of his books, has been running on the History Channel since 2009 and shows no signs of being cancelled anytime soon. There aren’t many series on the small screen that boast the same kind of staying power. Nineteen sixty-eight was the same year Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey debuted. Not only did the film depict the alien monolith appearing in prehistoric Africa, it also shows the extraterrestrial black slab providing the evolutionary spark that allowed hominids to make the transition from frightened ape to spacefaring species. When comic creator Jack Kirby returned to Marvel Comics in the 1970s, one of the titles he drew and wrote was The Eternals, which went one step further than von Daniken, portraying those ancient aliens as still living here. Chariots of the Gods? was also the inspiration for the Leonard Nimoy-hosted In Search of . . ., which set forth metaphysical, supernatural, and extraterrestrial explanations for mysteries from human history. The 1970s original then spawned a modern version in 2019. If the 1970s were about anything, they were about ancient aliens, Bigfoot, UFOs, and the Bermuda Triangle. People were looking for answers. Just like they are today. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
