It’s a little like the “God of the Gaps” thing in creationism. A highly ignorant idea can somehow seem more plausible in an area where there is relatively little real knowledge.
That said…there are still the loonies who say that The Manhattan Project was secretly endowed with hidden technological knowledge by modern aliens, and the Manhattan Project is pretty damn well documented!
We’re examining a phenomenon that rejects truth and evidence in favor of (Leonard Nimoy voice) “Could it be…?” fantasizing.
Another CT is that modern technology is reverse engineered from alien technology recovered from the Roswell crash and/or was given to us in exchange for…something. cue ominous music
Actually, to be fair, Graham Hancock isn’t your typical ancient alien theorist. He gets mixed up with it, but generally he prefers a prehistoric, technologically-advanced human civilization over aliens. Also, something about psychoactive drug use by ancient people as the source for alien imagery, and gods and symbolic thought in general. (Or something. His books are fun, but long-winded, logic-hopping and wrong. I stopped reading a decade ago.)
I came in here to tell you to stop crapping on my favorite crap but, never mind. Did you want any literature, you didn’t rule that out and I have suggestions?
Well I don’t hear anything about aliens building the Great Wall despite the fact that is large enough to be the only human artifact than can maintain an unending internet argument about whether it can be seen from space.
I took some time off posting for a while but this was sometime back. I’ve been back several months now. Anyway, one of the biggest books on this was Chariots of the Gods. I’ve been enjoying this type of schlock since age 9 or so. I like historical novels, not sure how I’d feel about a romance slant.
A vote for “they’re racist.” Especially Chariots. Von Daniken seems to take a dim view of the intelligence of brown people of all shades. Yeah, he has the same view of HUMANS of all shades, but it just oozes the very racist, Eurocentric attitude of archaeology before about 1960. “Oh, look at the monkeys! Can you imagine them building anything without the guidance of white people?”
I think there’s a general assumption that “primitive” meant “stupid” when it really just means they’re just starting to figure out technologies. The people of 6000 years ago were just as intelligent as we are today, they just had fewer resources or ways to communicate progressive ideas to each other.
I don’t think the show “Ancient Aliens”, specifically, does this, as they seem to link every single fucking civilization ever to aliens. Including the Romans and probably the Greeks too.
I do relate aliens to angels who guide us, not exactly 1:1 but I do suspect that they are teaching us and inspiring us even today. What we think we invent or discover what really just the encouragement of those who love us as their children (as we are their children), helping us along our path.
In this their is the initial inspiration (build a pyramid, construct a structure supported underwater, discover nuclear energy, rocketry), and our use of it (build more, build weapons, build space stations). That was what I feel the OP was overlooking. The aliens gave the Romans the technology, they then used it for X, the Egyptians were given the technology and they used it for Y.
There were parental reasons behind how and why certain people get certain inspirations, and it does not have to be with us being dumb, just young and learning.
I brought this up in a similar thread in IMHO. I read Chariots of the Gods a dozen times as a kid and that book at least only questions the skills of brown people so yeah I agree there was a twinge of racism. I’m not saying they were White supremacists but the the view of history at the time was Euro-Centric and everyone else were the Primitive Natives so things were written from that point of view.
