# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/101 "2024-01-31T01:06:00Z")
I quite liked von Daniken, when I was around 13 years old. I should read his books again. Or maybe just one book. Or maybe the introduction, or the back cover. I have mentiomed on these boards that I am Zimbabwean, a country named after [Great Zimbabwe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe), a fairly stunning city with stonework, built and inhabited from the 11th to 15th century. There are a huge number of similar sites (less large) all over the country. I lived within bicycle riding distance of one, I’ve been to probably more than 20. Yet still, there persists the idea that it was not the local Shona people who are Black) and it must have been Portuguese or Arabs who built Great Zimbabwe. We do not get any ancient aliens arguements, but there sure is a lot of racism in that theory. (Not arguing with you, @Measure_for_Measure) ---
**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 31, 2024, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/102 "2024-01-31T03:03:32Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > When it was pointed out that the Nazca lines, that von Däniken hypothesized were inter-stellar aircraft runways, were generally about a foot wide, it began to occur to me that not all published authors had a clue about what they were talking about. But what if they had really small spaceships around 4 inches wide, such as a flying saucer? 🤡 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/103 "2024-01-31T04:12:56Z")
… as discussed in this documentary. [![](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mjk1Cwip1zI/X2JCTjkxFuI/AAAAAAABOEY/jf33v2N7eykVlQ8SUOsQ4mhnO5zzuvj5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1289/TALES13-405.jpg) ](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mjk1Cwip1zI/X2JCTjkxFuI/AAAAAAABOEY/jf33v2N7eykVlQ8SUOsQ4mhnO5zzuvj5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1289/TALES13-405.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/104 "2024-01-31T04:30:54Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The large standing stones i.e. what everyone understands to be “Stonehenge”. But in any case, no: the [first pyramid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk#Anu_District) dates to 4000 BCE. The first phase of Stonehenge only to 3100 BCE. I didn’t say “The first _Egyptian_ pyramids.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/105 "2024-01-31T09:01:31Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But in any case, no: the [first pyramid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk#Anu_District) dates to 4000 BCE. The first phase of Stonehenge only to 3100 BCE. That’s a ziggurat, not a pyramid. Sorry - confusing the two is a pet peeve of mine. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/106 "2024-01-31T10:21:51Z")
Ziggurats _are_ pyramids. Or do you get peeved when the American structures are called pyramids, too? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/107 "2024-01-31T13:04:38Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ziggurats _are_ pyramids. No they’re not. Hence two different words. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Or do you get peeved when the American structures are called pyramids, too? A little bit, but by this point it’s become so deeply entrenched that it’s not worth fighting. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/108 "2024-01-31T13:56:17Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > No they’re not. Hence two different words. Nah. This would work if you said a _ziggurat_ isn’t a _mer_. But both are kinds of pyramids. That people use the local name for one and not the other doesn’t signify. They are both monumental structures with roughly triangular sides. Pyramids. A _ziggurat_ is a pyramid. A _mer_ is a pyramid. A _teocalli_ is a pyramid. Monks Mound is a pyramid. > [@Alessan](#): > > A little bit, but by this point it’s become so deeply entrenched that it’s not worth fighting. The stepped pyramids in Egypt must _really_ grate, then… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/109 "2024-01-31T13:57:12Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Or the pre-alien spin on it: “I wonder where the white people that made it went?” I was coming in to bring this up. Long before people were thinking about extraterrestrials doing things, they were wondering who had built megastructures in the ancient world and attributing then to the Lost Tribes of Israel or some European civilization. This kind of think is much more clearly racist, because it implies that the local (non-white) people weren’t capable of such things: The Ruins of Zimbabwe The “Mound Builders” mounds Cahokia Mayan Pyramids “Mystery Hill” (“America’s Stonehenge”) Gungywamp Speculation about the builders of these and other structures gave rise to speculation about, among others, Irish curraugh-traveling monks, Vikings, Prince Madoc of Wales, Chinese explorers, Roman sailors, and others. I have an entire 1950s book claiming that lots of such European (and Asian) explorers came to North America and set up structures to puzzle future inhabitants – Charles Boland’s **They All Discovered America** I’ve often thought you could make up an interesting guidebook of monuments raised to European pre-Columbian voyagers. There’s a monument to Prince Henry Sinclair in Westford, MA, a monument to Leif Ericson (standing in a foreshortened Viking ship) on Charlesbank West in Boston, markers at Mystery Hill/America’s Stonehenge in Salem, NH, a marker to Prince Madoc in Kentucky, etc. ---
**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 31, 2024, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/110 "2024-01-31T15:48:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > What makes an ancient structure “look like” “obvious human engineering” versus some inexplicable mysterious construct is mostly just the observer’s cultural preconceptions and background knowledge I wonder if what I suppose you might call “perceived utility” also comes into it as well; if the Roman aqueducts are less fascinating than the Pyramids or Stonehenge because it’s obvious why they were built – to irrigate Roman cities. Plumbing just ain’t as sexy as mysterious tombs or temples. ---
**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 31, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/111 "2024-01-31T19:29:50Z")
This thread tickled my memory about a long ago book that I turned out to have. [Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory by Stephen Williams (1991)](https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Archaeology-North-American-Prehistory/dp/0812282388/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=fantastic+archaeology&qid=1706728597&sr=8-1). > The landscape of the 19th century, Stephen Williams asserts, is dotted with fakes, frauds and humbugs who made fantastic claims of purported findings. This study has been designed to illuminate, debunk and instruct on the modes, methods, manners and manifestations of American archaeology over the past two centuries. The author begins with an introduction to the continent’s real past. He presents such theories of the past as the quest for the first Americans, the transoceanic search for links to distant civilizations and the meaning of ancient writings. He profiles the archaeologists behind monstrous stone giants and mysterious messages from the past, from the frauds and eccentrics to the serious pioneers who delved truthfully and successfully into America’s archaeological past. Not like I expect anyone to run out and buy the book, but it’s a reminder that believers in alien archaeology are a subset of a gigantic brigade of loons who long before the internet managed to insert their often - usually - racist theories into popular discourse, sometimes overwhelming all real understanding of archaeology. You believers, try as hard as you want to claim otherwise, are wading into a centuries-old cesspool of white over brown. Don’t pretend you can walk out the other side perfectly clean. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/112 "2024-01-31T20:17:42Z")
Well put. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/113 "2024-01-31T20:33:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Speculation about the builders of these and other structures gave rise to speculation about, among others, Irish curraugh-traveling monks, Vikings, Prince Madoc of Wales, Chinese explorers, Roman sailors, and others. I But the Norse really did. It is not beyond possibility that the Irish , etc shipwrecked in the America’s. But if so, they didnt put in a colony and didnt report it. There seems to be semi-reputable tales that Europeans were fishing the Grand Banks before Columbus. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/114 "2024-01-31T21:20:43Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > It is not beyond possibility that the Irish , etc shipwrecked in the America’s. But if so, they didnt put in a colony and didnt report it. > > There seems to be semi-reputable tales that Europeans were fishing the Grand Banks before Columbus. I think it highly likely that Breton fishers were playing the Grand Banks, and possibly stumbled on America. If they had any sort of lasting impact, though, it hasn’t shown up. It’s very possible that other travelers, including Irish monks, may have gotten to America. But people like Boland don’t just think they might have gotten blown ashore – they think they had permanent colonies in “Great Ireland” and made regular trips. That’s a whole different proposition. [https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/archeol/grterin.htm](https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/archeol/grterin.htm) ---
**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 31, 2024, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/115 "2024-01-31T23:38:02Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > As a Jew, when folks ask me if I’m white, I typically reply that I can pass. No one even asks me. I’m a tad darker than my wife, but not very dark. About 80% of the people in my classes in high school were Jewish, and not one looked brown at all. Very weird comment by Sam. Maybe we look dark by Canadian standards. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2024, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/116 "2024-02-01T00:09:09Z")
Eh, I can almost let that one pass. I grew up in southern NM, and during the summer, if I was outside, I tanned - quickly and very dark. I’ve mentioned before in other threads, but the first time my then-girlfriend, now-wife met my father it was during early summer, and he’s a tanning fiend. Between his very tight jewfro and bronze-god status (my father’s words, not mine 🙂 ) she briefly thought he was part African-American or other ‘brown’ group. I personally am an indoor person, and while I’m noticeably darker than my wife (a mut of mixed northern European groups), yeah, I pass, and I don’t think anyone would consider me as other than ‘white’ - I have my mother’s loose curls and ( 🙏 ) my father’s nose. My mother though, has the sort of “traditional” Jewish beak that makes jokes like the one in Spaceballs hit close to home. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/117 "2024-02-01T07:24:57Z")
The South African Apartheid government never considered Jews anything other than White. But I think they only were considering European Jews, and would have had _very_ different perceptions of Mizrahi Jews or worse (in their eyes), the Beta Israel. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/118 "2024-02-01T08:47:12Z")
How do you feel about people calling a trebuchet a catapult? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/119 "2024-02-01T10:31:56Z")
Just fine, since it is one. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730/120 "2024-02-01T11:38:38Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Nah. This would work if you said a _ziggurat_ isn’t a _mer_. But both are kinds of pyramids. That people use the local name for one and not the other doesn’t signify. They are both monumental structures with roughly triangular sides. Pyramids. Sure, if you define buildings solely by shape, then I guess they’re similar - albeit only in general terms. But who defines buildings solely by shape? Would you call a building a “Large building with long vaulted hall at its center?” No, you’d call it a “Cathedral” or a “Train Station”, based on what it was designed for, because buildings are primarily defined by their use. Using my (correct!) logic, pyramids and ziggurats are _not_ the same type of building, simply because pyramids are tombs, and ziggurats are temples. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-believers-are-they-racist/996730.md?page=7)