# Aliens built the pyramids
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 29, 2024, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943 "2024-04-29T22:08:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2024, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/101 "2024-05-03T16:40:05Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#):
>
> There’s many, many orders of magnitude difference between a beaver dam and New Your City.
Well, there is that:
> **[Deep in the Wilderness, the World’s Largest Beaver Dam Endures](https://e360.yale.edu/features/worlds-largest-beaver-dam)**
>
> The largest beaver dam on Earth was discovered via satellite imagery in 2007, and since then only one person has trekked into the Canadian wild to see it. It’s a half-mile long and has created a 17-acre lake in the northern forest — a testament to...
[https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/nature/animals/largest-beaver-dam-on-earth-wood-buffalo-national-park-alberta-lac-st-clair](https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/nature/animals/largest-beaver-dam-on-earth-wood-buffalo-national-park-alberta-lac-st-clair)
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#):
>
> It reeks of higher intelligent design in a way that beehives and termite mounds do not.
The [compass termites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitermes_meridionalis) want you to hold their beer:
[ ](http://www.raywilsonbirdphotography.co.uk/new_images/2015/Australia/NT/2015-10-28_O9A3730.jpg)
[ ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a8/ef/fc/a8effce8ef8b3a644cc1b2bc25dcf58e.png)
All parallel for miles and miles! But I see what you mean, ours look even better. In some places at least. New York, as you mentioned, for instance:
[ ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/65/23/72/6523723ef1da563ee3e901580b8ae58d.jpg)
😉
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2024, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/102 "2024-05-03T17:09:55Z")
The idea of aliens from outer space building the pyramids is preposterous. Obviously they were built by Godzilla’s baby, from his stone baby blocks.
Baby Godzilla later played with stone dolls—hence Easter Island.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2024, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/103 "2024-05-03T18:48:14Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#):
>
> Well, there is that:
>
> [Deep in the Wilderness, the World’s Largest Beaver Dam Endures - Yale E360](https://e360.yale.edu/features/worlds-largest-beaver-dam)
>
> [https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/nature/animals/largest-beaver-dam-on-earth-wood-](https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/nature/animals/largest-beaver-dam-on-earth-wood-buffalo-national-park-alberta-lac-st-clair)
According to that website, the guy who visited in 20124 only found one beaver.
He must’ve been busy…
---
### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2024, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/104 "2024-05-03T21:47:48Z")
Well, he had over 18,000 years to work on it.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2024, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/105 "2024-10-29T23:20:46Z")
[Thought I’d put this here rather than start a new thread.]
So I was chatting with a co-worker today and she brought up that she totally believes aliens built the pyramids, because how else could they build the pyramids _placing one block every 30 seconds!_
Now, of course aliens didn’t build the pyramids but where did she get that whacky number of “one block placed every 30 seconds”? So to prove her wrong, I googled it and lo and behold, it appears that number might not be that far off. There’s this:
_2.3 million blocks in 25 years._
_That’s just under 100,000 blocks per year._
_So about 300 blocks per day._
_Call it a 10 hour working day. So 30 blocks per hour._
_ **So assuming one crew, a block every 2 minutes**. Assuming 60 crews, though, that’s a block every 2 hours from each crew._
_Current estimates are that about 30,000 workers worked on the pyramids._
_Even if only 10% of them were on block shifting, that’s 50 workers per crew._
Someone debated that math but postulated:
_Let’s imagine that it takes a team of workers a full, 10-hour day to get a block from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, and set in in place (with adequate equipment, that seems like a very generous schedule, but let’s say). That means, if you have **300 teams** working on moving blocks at any given time, you’ll average one every 2 minutes, as required. If it’s a 8-man team, that means 2400 people at a time on block-raising duty. Given the many thousands of people involved with building the pyramids, that’s not remotely implausible._
And there are other reputable(ish) sites that give similar numbers. If I invented my own numbers, I could get it down to a block a second. But here’s my question, how could they work around each other? Although details differ, most scholars and Egyptologists agree a ramp system was used. [This site shows](https://www.thetimes.com/article/ancient-ramp-shows-how-pyramids-rose-from-the-sand-j5vw05705) a typical ramp system. That’s 20 men per block. I don’t see a way 300 (number from above) 10 man teams could work around each other. Even if you had, say, 3 blocks per ramp you wouldn’t be able to get a block in place that fast. And how many ramps would be needed.
I don’t believe in aliens. And I do believe they were built by men and muscle, but a stone every 30 seconds, or even two minutes, just seems unattainable. What am I missing.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2024, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/106 "2024-10-29T23:31:25Z")
The ramps just need to be wide enough for one block to go up, plus a little bit extra on the side for the mostly-empty-handed crews to come back down. Once you have that, there’s no reason to artificially limit yourself to three blocks on the ramp at a time. Maybe, if you really care about safety, you’d limit it to one block per side of the ramp, so if one slides loose, it won’t squish the crew behind it.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2024, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/107 "2024-10-29T23:49:49Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#):
>
> 2.3 million blocks in 25 years.
I have to ask where this number came from. Each of the pyramids is a different size, for one thing.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/108 "2024-10-29T23:56:44Z")
Note that the Great Pyramid is _not_ made of large finished blocks overall. What you see on the outside and in the passages is not what is going on inside. There are large chunks that are just basically rubble. Rocks that are small enough for one person to carry. The Egyptians weren’t dummies. This throws any math based in “2.5 million blocks” completely out the window and into the next county.
And why weren’t the first pyramids built better if there was alien tech?
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/109 "2024-10-30T00:03:36Z")
Aliens built the pyramids? Yeah, not quite. 🙄
Here’s the real story: time travelers, obviously.
A group of future humans, bored out of their minds, decide to pop back to the Jurassic period in their time machine. Once there, they recruit some good old-fashioned “muscle”—think brontosauruses (or whatever dignified name the big boys had for themselves back in the day) with a penchant for hauling rocks. Then, they take the dino crew on a quick trip to 2630 B.C., hand out some hard hats and blueprints, and voilà!—a pyramid-building dream team.
Aliens? Nah. Just some time-traveling dino-wranglers with a serious love for ancient architecture.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/110 "2024-10-30T00:03:38Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> There are large chunks that are just basically rubble. Rocks that are small enough for one person to carry.
I checked the Wikipedia article for the cite. The estimate is for the largest pyramid only. The largest is much larger than all but one of the smaller pyramids.
The cite is a [newsletter from 2002](https://web.archive.org/web/20160402214937/http://www.aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/aeragram5_2.pdf) and it includes a picture of a man standing next to some of the internal blocks, showing how small some of them are, and how roughly stacked they are.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/111 "2024-10-30T03:06:03Z")
They better check with Mr. Slate, first.
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/112 "2024-10-30T03:07:46Z")
Yabba dabba doo!
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/113 "2024-10-30T03:09:14Z")
And a happy Ack, Ack-a Dak to you.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/114 "2024-10-30T16:31:30Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#):
>
> 2.3 million blocks in 25 years.
Forget the 2.3 million blocks (already debunked, anyway). Where does the 25 years come from?
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> And a happy Ack, Ack-a Dak to you.
Waitaminute. That sounds Martian! Well, if _Martians_ built the pyramids, we don’t have to worry about aliens crossing interstellar distances to reach an unremarkable rocky planet.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/115 "2024-10-30T16:41:28Z")
Relax! Have a Cactus Juice; the Grand Poobah will be along shortly.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/116 "2024-10-30T16:46:19Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> Relax! Have a Cactus Juice; the Grand Poobah will be aIong shortly.
Mods: request thread title to be changed to: _The Great Gazoo Built the Pyramids_
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/117 "2024-10-30T16:52:25Z")
I LOVE IT!
(Thanks for the laffs)
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2024, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/118 "2024-10-30T19:08:45Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> Note that the Great Pyramid is _not_ made of large finished blocks overall. What you see on the outside and in the passages is not what is going on inside. There are large chunks that are just basically rubble. Rocks that are small enough for one person to carry. The Egyptians weren’t dummies. This throws any math based in “2.5 million blocks” completely out the window and into the next county.
EGYPT TRAVEL BLOG (confirms what most other sites agree upon) states:
_"No, the Great Pyramid is not just filled with rubble. Neither are the other pyramids alongside it on the Giza Plateau, nor the slightly older pyramids further south at Saqqara and Dashur._
_When you’re there in person you can actually see evidence of the structure, style, and substance of the interior blocks of the pyramids too in various ways._
_When you’re in the passageways and interior chambers, you can look up and see the solid blocks above and around you when you’re smack dab in the middle of the monument. Of course you could say that maybe they made the walls surrounding the interior chambers out of solid stones along with the exterior walls, but I think the first point above showed how that theory can be proven wrong from all the boring, tunneling, and hacking of new openings and tunnels that occurred much later and which found solid stone the entire way through._
_While not necessarily the case with the Great Pyramid, you can see more solid interior stones in some of the older Pyramids that haven’t held up as well and have crumbled more than 1 or 2 layers deep. This can even be seen at Giza if you look at the Queens Pyramids beside the Pyramids of Khufu (the Great one) and Menkaure. Some of the Queens Pyramids are eroded almost completely away such that you full view of the interiors of those that were solid stone too._
_So in sum, that’s a very good question, but we know from seeing where others have bored deep into these massive monuments and left new holes and tunnels through random sample portions of the monuments, as well as from similar pyramids crumbling and revealing interior layers of solid stone blocks, that the pyramids were indeed massive, ingeniously-engineered structures made of solid stone."_
While there is some smaller sized stones used for chinking, PBS NOVA states **more than 2,300,000** limestone and granite blocks were pushed, pulled, and dragged into place on the Great Pyramid. The average weight of a block is about 2.3 metric tons (2.5 tons).
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> Forget the 2.3 million blocks (already debunked, anyway).
Not debunked according to my cursory research. Even Wikipedia says, “The Great Pyramid was built by **quarrying** an estimated 2.3 million **large** blocks…”
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2024, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/119 "2024-10-31T03:21:56Z")
> [@eburacum45](#):
>
> More likely they were ordinary people, performing building works as some kind of devotional act - perhaps the same model that explains the construction of Stonehenge and other ancient megastructures around the world. People built these things because they wanted to, or were paid to do so.
And were incredibly bored. One argument I’ve seen is that a motive for building the pyramids was the long periods where farmers had nothing to do (such as the flood season the article mentions), and being paid to haul big rocks was more interesting than sitting around doing nothing.
I buy it; people will do just about anything to avoid boredom.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2024, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-built-the-pyramids/1000943/120 "2024-10-31T04:02:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> I buy it; people will do just about anything to avoid boredom.
Yep. Isn’t that why most of us are posting on, or at least reading, these boards? 😉
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