# Ancient Astronaut Theory. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 22, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862 "2015-07-22T08:06:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/41 "2015-07-28T12:08:11Z")
It seems that UFOs peaked in the 1950s-very few new reports, and almost NO pictures…which is odd, since everybody has a cellphone camera. Why is this? I guess you can only watch so many UFO “documentaries” (featuring old yellowing newspaper clippings from the 1950s). Anyway, if the aliens visited in the past, they seem uninterested in recent visiting. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/42 "2015-07-28T12:52:18Z")
> [@MostlyUseless](#): > > The few times anymore I pause on the “History” (read, Hitler and aliens) channel, I am always amazed that anyone would give 1 second of credence to the idiot with the goofy hair. The irony, of course, is that he himself is obviously a [Centauri](http://devil.oshinchan.com/screencaps/Babylon5/midnight23.jpg) interloper operating undercover as a human to discredit the idea of alien visitors. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/43 "2015-07-28T18:48:34Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > It seems that UFOs peaked in the 1950s-very few new reports, and almost NO pictures…which is odd, since everybody has a cellphone camera. Why is this? I guess you can only watch so many UFO “documentaries” (featuring old yellowing newspaper clippings from the 1950s). > Anyway, if the aliens visited in the past, they seem uninterested in recent visiting. All the UFO lovers became Bigfoot hunters. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/44 "2015-07-28T18:49:10Z")
Why does is always have to be ancient aliens? I think it was probably young aliens who raided dad’s ‘joy juice’ and took the family spaceship for a little joyride. Drunken party aliens would answer a lot of the “why” questions. Why was Stonehenge built? Drunken, bored frat aliens. Why pyramids? To simulate the stack of empty joy juice cans on their home planet. Why would an advanced space vehicle crash? IPCUI (Inter Planetary Cruising Under the Influence). Crop circles? Aliens staggering around for hours in a drunken stupor. They did the same thing in parking lots, it just doesn’t show up the next day. Ectoplasma as sign of ghost activity? Nah, it’s alien puke. Boy, was dad pissed when they got home! “Boy, where you been? It’s light years past your curfew!!! There better not be a scratch on that space ship! And what’s that I smell on your breath? Go to your room!” ---
**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:** [July 29, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/45 "2015-07-29T23:20:05Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > There is a huge difference between awe or wonder - both of which are perfectly reasonable responses to nature and… > > playing a game of “Wouldn’t it be great if…” > > Nature is pretty staggeringly cool as it is. There’s no need to invent any crazy stories or mythology or Gods or Alien Conspiracies or whatever else to spice it up. Just because we are not capable of building worlds or sun doesn’t mean that there has to be a human-analog out there who is capable of doing so. There’s no reason to invent aliens or gods or fairies, but we do because our primate brains have evolved cognitive modules for detecting agency and intention in other creatures, just like we have modules for detecting human faces. And since in both cases the cost of a false positive is lower than the cost of a false negative, we tend to see agency where there is none, just as we see faces in clouds, leaves, or photos of Martian rocks. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/46 "2015-07-29T23:34:21Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > . . . just as we see faces in clouds, leaves, or photos of Martian rocks. Grin! Just the other day, I saw a cloud that was a wonderfully close likeness of a human hand in the “flipping the bird” position. By the time I could stop my car and get my camera ready, it had drifted enough to lose the resemblance. Damn clouds! It’s a conspiracy, I’m certain! ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/47 "2015-07-29T23:39:53Z")
I believe the Alien Astronaut theory is an excellent method for the perpetrators of said theory to make an excellent living. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/48 "2015-07-30T01:18:52Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Grin! Just the other day, I saw a cloud that was a wonderfully close likeness of a human hand in the “flipping the bird” position. > > By the time I could stop my car and get my camera ready, it had drifted enough to lose the resemblance. Damn clouds! It’s a conspiracy, I’m certain! Chemtrails, dude. It was the chemtrails. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/49 "2015-07-30T02:21:07Z")
I have a secret fondness for the ancient aliens folks. Years before I ever heard of this genre of …err… specialists (?), I, too, spent a moment going hmmmm when comparing the various creation stories of geographically and time period separated civilizations and wondering if there was some significance there. Once I passed my teens, though, I realized any such similarity was based on man’s inability to paint an accurate picture of his history and surroundings with the limited toolbox he possessed. Ergo, he invents a story based on what seemed mysterious to him. Clearly there were things moving around in the sky, movement means life, so possibly something up there came to visit granddad back in the day. The movement in the sky was there to view by anyone on this planet in any era. Hence the similar stories. Although…I would still like to know what the deal is with the Nazca lines. Just sayin’. 🙂 ---
**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:** [July 30, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/50 "2015-07-30T02:25:32Z")
For a long time there was a trend to come up with some sort of explanation that the precolumbian advanced Native American civilizations were externally boosted, yet it seems it was not right out from the start – reading the Conquistadores’ own account they do not seem to spend much time questioning the origins AND acknowledged that it was impressive and extraordinary. It was later on that more “intellectual” types in Europe, with time to sit and think, began theorizing there had to be something more to it. The original wild theory of course was that some people from Atlantis escaped westward as others went eastward, but there were also ancient-mariners explanations which at least were theoretically possible, including of course the lost Israelites (once staying at a Marriott, in the copy of the BOM they have in the night stand there was an illustration of a battle in which some of the warriors were in pseudo-biblical armor, but the fortress being stormed had pseudo-MesoAmerican architecture - sweet). At least when we got the Ancient Astronauts crew in the 70s it was a different story in that it was NOT someone Eurasian that must have done it. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Imagine what the sky was like 1,000 years ago well before any lights. I _have_ been under Dark Skies at 8000’+ altitude. It’s quite something else, yes. As **Slow Moving Vehicle** said, it seems we carry in us evolutionary firmware that kicks in to propose a “[god/daemon/djinn] of the gaps” whenever some observation does not quite jibe with our conscious thought process. Our minds are not factory-set to default to “nothing” but to “something”. But even when there IS a perfectly good something to explain a phenomenon or event, for many people there is almost a mirror-universe Occam’s Razor at work; it just cannot be a simple, prosaic explanation, that would be lame. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/51 "2015-07-30T03:02:39Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > I don’t care what you say. I think Giorgio A. Tsoukalos is _ **HOT** _. (Oh, come on. You don’t think everyone just tunes in to hear what he has to say;).) Until a few months back when someone mentioned this guy by name I’d only ever known about him from the “but it was aliens” meme pictures floating around the web. Up until then I swear I thought it was Rob Schneider making a guest appearance on a goofy ‘documentary’ show. (My surprise at being wrong did not however, burn with the fire of a million suns. So there’s that I guess). ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/52 "2015-07-30T13:30:14Z")
> [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > Until a few months back when someone mentioned this guy by name I’d only ever known about him from the “but it was aliens” meme pictures floating around the web. > > Up until then I swear I thought it was Rob Schneider making a guest appearance on a goofy ‘documentary’ show. > > (My surprise at being wrong did not however, burn with the fire of a million suns. So there’s that I guess). [This](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7e/39/7e/7e397eec6f3cee79034c4c4917302f81.jpg) is one of my favorite memes of him. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/53 "2015-07-30T14:18:28Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > My favorite explanation for the Fermi Paradox is that we’re simply not interesting enough for aliens to visit (or at least to stay). I recall someone comparing it to Pizarro ignoring an anthill by the side path on his way to find the Inca Empire. For any civilization advanced enough to have interstellar travel, we’re just one of many hopelessly backward primitives. They may have been here, but didn’t find a reason to come back. I’ve heard this argument, and I just find it very unlikely actually. If you’re going through the trouble of interstellar travel, there’s probably a point to it. Whether or not finding intelligent life isn’t part of their plan, I think any intelligent race of beings are likely to be interested in discovering not only another planet with life, but intelligent life with some amount of technology. From a “galactic anthropological” standpoint, that would make Earth pretty damn fascinating to almost any thinking creature, no matter how advanced. Of course, I’m assuming intelligent life is relatively rare in our galaxy. You’d have to assume most star systems are teeming with highly advanced, intelligent life to think Earth would be a pretty boring footnote among the stars. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/54 "2015-07-30T14:23:16Z")
There’s an extremely large gulf between points A and B. A. Aliens exist B. They came here and messed with us. The first is pretty much a given. The second would require extraordinary proof. However, all too many people just simply do not grok nature, evolution, humanity and the basics of Life and Intelligence. They think that because they’re not very smart, that people must’ve had help building big things like the Pyramids, because otherwise they themselves don’t understand how it happened. No, sorry, Humans are much cleverer than they imagine, life is much more complex, and there is more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in their philosophies. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862/55 "2015-07-30T21:09:01Z")
I love the show. It’s fun to think about the “what ifs”. > [@cmyk](#): > > [This](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7e/39/7e/7e397eec6f3cee79034c4c4917302f81.jpg) is one of my favorite memes of him. This is my favorite one. It cracks me up every time. The look on his face is just so perfect. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/V7VxR.jpeg "MIB meets the Aliens guy") ](https://imgur.com/gallery/V7VxR) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-astronaut-theory/725862.md?page=2)