# Ancient astronaut believers: Are they racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 27, 2024, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730 "2024-01-27T07:13:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/21 "2024-01-27T20:02:14Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > The Easter Island Moai were created between 1100 and 1600 AD, and are used as examples of Ancient Astronaut artifacts. BTW, we visited the Western Wyoming Community College (great place) and saw an Easter Island head which a class had constructed and moved with no more tools than were available to the inhabitants at the time. > [@joebuck20](#): > > I once saw an Ancient Aliens episode (don’t judge me - they often have it on in the breakroom at work, and it almost always causes me to roll my eyes so far into the back of my head as to see gray matter) where they suggested Einstein was inspired by aliens to come up with the theory of relativity. The CEO of some software company claimed that microprocessors had alien design influence. I never saw any aliens when I worked for Intel, and if they were behind the project I was working on they were damned incompetent. As for the topic, when I read these books a long time ago, there was a combination racist and lack of acceptance that “primitive” cultures could do big things if they put their mind to them. Maybe it was embarrassment that Europeans did almost none of the cool stuff. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/22 "2024-01-27T20:23:47Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > I’m not sure, but I think the point is that human beings could not have built them, so they must have involved extraterrestials. The real point seems to be that _brown_ people couldn’t make them, thus… Not for all the ancient alien crazys but far too many. > [@suranyi](#): > > It’s worth remembering: Ancient people may not have had our current technology, but they were just as smart as we are. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/23 "2024-01-27T21:50:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Is that because their construction methods were heavily documented, while the other megastructures weren’t? Were there any mysteries in Roman architecture? The formula for Roman concrete was a mystery for centuries. No one ever wondered if aliens gave them the recipe. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/24 "2024-01-27T21:51:18Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > It’s worth remembering: Ancient people may not have had our current technology, but they were just as smart as we are. And it’s also worth stating that brown and black people today are just as smart as white people today. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/25 "2024-01-27T22:29:46Z")
- If the belief is actually true that ET’s did do those things, is it still raciest? - Also saying that ET’s built something does not mean that the local population could not also build that thing. - If one is saying that those brown people couldn’t have built those things, with evidence of their existence right there that would seem to be racist, but if you said that humanity could not have built those things and it must be ET’s I’m not so sure. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/26 "2024-01-27T22:34:46Z")
I like Tyrus’ version of the trope: For millions of years, we lived in caves and tents. Then aliens came down and taught us how to build pyramids. We sexually abused them. Or ate them. Or both. Since then, they have been boycotting Earth. Every now and then, they will send over a flying saucer, but when they see that we are still idiots, they go back to their home planet. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/27 "2024-01-27T22:44:16Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Maybe sometimes, probably not most of the time? I mean, people who believe in conspiracy theories don’t usually think through all of the logical implications of their beliefs While it is possible to label believers as bigots where the dominant theme is credulous stupidity, there is heavy overlap in general between conspiracy theories and racism/anti-Semitism. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/28 "2024-01-28T02:35:02Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > If the belief is actually true that ET’s did do those things, is it still raciest? I cannot stress strongly enough that ETs did NOT do these things. We know this because the belief that they did came from racists. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/29 "2024-01-28T02:53:31Z")
I think that almost all (but not 100%) of the Ancient Alien/Astronaut theorists are at least passively racist, but that the origins probably go back even further. A lot of AA theory comes out of various fringe archeology, which itself seemed to embrace at it’s origins (evolved substantially since) "This stuff is so cool, why when the modern people around it are so primitive (read not white, not Christian). So IMHO (and that’s all it is), combine the overt racism, with the passive underlying racism inherent in a good bit of the parent discipline, and you get a substantial amount of subtle or over racism across the field. Not all of course - and many who are only getting into it from overproduced unresearched (I almost typed under-researched, but who am I kidding) popular entertainment are probably fully unaware of such as mentioned in the OP itself. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/30 "2024-01-28T03:26:04Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > The Easter Island Moai were created between 1100 and 1600 AD, and are used as examples of Ancient Astronaut artifacts. Yet no one claimed that Roman concrete, much older and which for centuries has confounded scientists for its long lasting properties came from a similar source. I think the AA belief has its roots in racism Whether current proponents are aware is another story. Absolutely. I had a discussion on another (work) message board, with someone who thought Machu Picchu couldn’t have been built without aircraft. I pointed out to him that by the time Machu Picchu was completed, the Tower of London was 400 years old and Notre Dame du Paris 200. And no one ever talked about ancient aliens or lost civilizations building _them._ He also repeated the tired canard that Machu Picchu’s stonework was so precise that a knifeblade couldn’t fit between the stones, and that we couldn’t reproduce it with modern methods. All I had to do to refute that was post some pictures of the stones, as well as the outbuildings that the Peruvians had restored. As pointed out above, it’s only structures in “exotic” lands - the Pyramids, Easter Island, Chichen Itza, Great Zimbabwe - that attract these crackbrain theories. No one ever seems to wonder about the aliens who built Skara Brae or the Parthenon. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/31 "2024-01-28T03:40:04Z")
Wait. So am I understanding that the places where these unexplainable sites are were totally populated by brown folks? None were where primarily a lighter skinned people were? People who believe ancient aliens built these things think that no brown person could’ve possibly figured out how to do it? Does that make the dumb believer racist or the supposed alien racist? Or, perhaps smart for going where an abler workforce was? Not going where the freezing whiteys were. Huddling in their caves. Eating frozen food. And coloring on the walls. I think maybe we are putting too much brains in the alien believers heads. There obviously aren’t very many geniuses in the group. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/32 "2024-01-28T03:54:07Z")
I never thought of ancient aliens being racist, to me it wasn’t about race, just that humans were too stupid to build these things, all humans. What the aliens brought to a fledgling species was knowledge and with that knowledge the ancient cultures built these great monuments. The reason to build them is unknown. Maybe to honor the aliens for their gift of knowledge, or maybe to get the aliens to come back by showing how much they can achieve. Generations after the aliens left, people began to not care and move on with their lives and the reverence for the aliens waned and eventually forgotten. Wars, famines, plagues and drought were just more important then aliens. These stories are just as plausible to me as Mt Olympus and Greek gods and other religious creation myths. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/33 "2024-01-28T04:12:53Z")
> [@pirviii](#): > > I never thought of ancient aliens being racist, to me it wasn’t about race, just that humans were too stupid to build these things, all humans. But the point is that the belief isn’t _all humans_. It only is applied to non-Western civilizations. And it’s almost exclusively proposed by Westerners. They simply aren’t willing to accept that anyone but their own direct ancestors could be so clever. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/34 "2024-01-28T04:16:08Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > But the point is that the belief isn’t _all humans_. That may be their belief, it’s not mine, and it’s my story so I’m right. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/35 "2024-01-28T04:34:42Z")
And it is not only ancient Alien dudes that are often racist in their beliefs, it is also the hyper diffusionists. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/36 "2024-01-28T04:36:58Z")
> [@Retzbu\_Tox](#): > > Hancock’s recent and controversial ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ series on Netflix presented yet another rehash of the idea that a master race’s lost civilization came up with all the great advances of antiquity, and then brought their ideas to all the other cultures that couldn’t possibly have invented such things on their own. Oh Lord, yes… sis and I were stuck watching a series of these (or was it someone else’s equivalent?) at a waiting room one afternoon and after some time it was like: “So what’s the big reveal? Every time we find another place where a society existed, we find they put a large number of cut rocks, or bricks, on top of one another neatly (if they had access to large amounts of those). Civilizations do that.” _“Between when the seas took Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas…”_ If we’re going to have a Hyborian Age I want Conan in it. Heck, some of the old cultures even did it to themselves. “Cyclopean walls” – the Greeks retelling a myth that it was the Cyclopes themselves who quarried and heaped the stones for the Mycenaean city walls. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I pointed out to him that by the time Machu Picchu was completed, the Tower of London was 400 years old and Notre Dame du Paris 200. And no one ever talked about ancient aliens or lost civilizations building _them._ > > He also repeated the tired canard that Machu Picchu’s stonework was so precise that a knifeblade couldn’t fit between the stones, and that we couldn’t reproduce it with modern methods. All I had to do to refute that was post some pictures of the stones, as well as the outbuildings that the Peruvians had restored Heh, that’s one thing with the story of the various manmade “wonders” isn’t it, there is always this component of exaggerated, mythified representation – sometimes worked up to hype up the discovery – that then is ripe fodder for abuse in the retelling. Sometimes it’s not deprecatory to the people but just overhyped to the point of silliness, you want to say, hey, have you actually **looked** at the buildings and artifacts? They look just like what you expect of something from the period _that was made by skilled craftsmen_. State-of-the-art for their time. That’s impressive enough for me. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > So am I understanding that the places where these unexplainable sites are were totally populated by brown folks? > None were where primarily a lighter skinned people were? Well… there’s this erm, unusual claim – not on the aliens side but on the lost-Earth-civilization side: [The Bosnian Pyramids: One of the Greatest Finds Ever? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)](https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/bosnian-pyramid-discovery-0013212) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/37 "2024-01-28T05:35:48Z")
I’ve just developed the theory that the Roman Dodecahedra were made by Ancient Astronauts. That’s why we can’t figure what they were for, they were an essential part of the Ancient Spacecraft. The AA’s needed them as replacement parts, but some, no doubt the defective ones, were left behind to bedevil archeologists, both amateur and professional. Or maybe I’ve just been reading the Dodecahedron thread too much. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/38 "2024-01-28T06:18:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > > [@kanicbird](#): > > > > If the belief is actually true that ET’s did do those things, is it still raciest? > > I cannot stress strongly enough that ETs did NOT do these things. We know this because the belief that they did came from racists. I cannot stress this strongly enough: We don’t know these things were not constructed by aliens because the idea came from racists. If that were the criteria, pretty much every idea devised in Europe pre-1800 would be wrong. We know they weren’t created by aliens because the idea is pretty batshit insane, and there’s absolutely 0 actual evidence of aliens visiting Earth, much less sticking around and building things. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/39 "2024-01-28T12:46:16Z")
Playing one of my favorite roles of devil’s advocate here: If the conclusion is that humanity could not have built them, but the brown humans did, is that not reverse racism, saying that only the browns are capable enough could have done such a work? > [@ParallelLines](#): > > "This stuff is so cool, why when the modern people around it are so primitive (read not white, not Christian). > [@scabpicker](#): > > We know they weren’t created by aliens because the idea is pretty batshit insane, and there’s absolutely 0 actual evidence of aliens visiting Earth, much less sticking around and building things. This brings up another aspect, that Europeans have a history and tradition of crediting works and inspiration of works to what are basically ET’s - God, gods, goddesses and angels and the like. OK some are of earth, but some are of the heavens (and some are hybrids). ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/40 "2024-01-28T13:13:39Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Well… there’s this erm, unusual claim – not on the aliens side but on the lost-Earth-civilization side: > [The Bosnian Pyramids: One of the Greatest Finds Ever? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)](https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/bosnian-pyramid-discovery-0013212) Complete garbage, devised to please nationalistic sentiments. > **[Bosnian pyramid claims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_pyramid_claims)** > > The Bosnian pyramid claims are pseudoarchaeological theories put forward to explain the formation of a cluster of natural hills in the area of Visoko in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 2005, Semir Osmanagić, a Bosnian-American businessman based in Houston, Texas, has claimed that these hills are the largest human-made ancient pyramids on Earth. His claims have been overwhelmingly refuted by scientists but he has proceeded to promote the area as a tourist attraction.\[ Direct study of the sit... > [@](#): > > Colin Woodard, writing for the _[Smithsonian Magazine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Magazine)_ in December 2009, has suggested that the ‘Bosnian pyramid’ phenomenon may be a societal reaction to the widespread destruction and horrors of the [Bosnian War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War) which ended in 1995. He notes that Bosnian leaders, including one prime minister and two presidents, and many Bosnian news outlets have welcomed the theory. It appears to flatter a large and receptive domestic audience with an idea that their homeland was once the seat of a great ancient civilization, and holds out a kind of promise of a bright economic future. Conversely, Woodard notes, those in Bosnia who have attempted to expose the project as a nationalist hoax “have been shouted down and called anti-Bosnian”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730.md?page=3)