Ancient Astronaut Theories
A New Twist on an Ancient Meme
In 1968, Erich von Daniken wrote a book, Chariots of the Gods, proclaiming the idea that aliens had visited and influenced Earth in ancient times. His thesis was the logical progression of the ideas of Carl Sagan and other evolutionists who claimed that intelligent life must have evolved many times in the universe. Naturally, if intelligent life had evolved many times, then surely they had become spacefaring cultures and paid Earth a visit!
Von Daniken interpreted Ezekiel’s vision of the wheels within wheels as an encounter with an alien spaceship. Following Von Daniken, another ancient astronaut theorist who interpreted Ezekiel's "wheels within a wheel" passage as an encounter with a spaceship, was Josef F. Blumrich, a former NASA engineer. In his 1974 book, The Spaceships of Ezekiel, Blumrich argued that the prophet Ezekiel described a literal spacecraft, and he produced detailed technical drawings of the hypothesized vehicle based on Ezekiel’s biblical account. As this theme progressed over the past fifty years, it has come to be called the “Ancient Astronauts” theory.
About ten years later, Zechariah Sitchin wrote a book called The 12th Planet, in which he interpreted the Sumerian theogony of their gods, called the Annunaki, as a family of ancient aliens from the Planet Nibiru, which visited Earth every 3,600 years. Sitchin expanded on The 12th Planet with a series of seven books called The Earth Chronicles, which attained a cult following.
The film series known as the Alien franchise further developed this idea in fiction. In Alien Prometheus, a group of scientists and explorers from Earth travel to a distant star system to meet the “Engineers,” the alien race that created life on Earth, only to discover the Engineers intended to exterminate humanity as a failed experiment.
Von Daniken’s and Sitchin’s Ancient Astronaut theories were further popularized by shows like Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM, now continued by George Noory. The talk show host, Joe Rogan, has interviewed several people across the spectrum of ancient astronauts and ancient high technology theories, including Bob Lazar and Jeremy Corbell, who claimed the US Government was reverse engineering alien technology at Area 51.
From this millieu of various fringe theories about human origins emerge two general hypotheses: Ancient Astronauts seeded life on Earth, and a lost ancient worldwide high technology civilization existed leaving many of the ruins found around the world.
It is my position that the first, while being mostly nonsense, is partially based on the demonic invasion of the Earth after the Fall. The idea that beings from “up there” in Heaven, left their domain and came “down here” on Earth comes straight from Genesis 6 and Jude 6.
And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;
The second hypothesis, ancient high technology, has a firm basis in the reality of our ancient pre-deluvian and post-deluvian ancestors. The amazing feats of the ancients were the fruit of the minds of men made in the image of God, not the work of aliens.
This is great. How do we get you on Rogan?