Exobiology: Ancient Astronauts: Part One

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’.

Scholars when they research the polytheistic gods of ancient civilizations and cultures start with the assumption that the gods are imaginary inventions of the fertile human mind and purely mythical beings. I start with the opposite assumption, that is that ancient peoples depicted real (extraterrestrial) beings which to them were so advanced as to be deities - the gods. The concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ now should form the basis for some serious academic study by those scholars.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence(s) or ETI have explored our neck of the cosmic woods, finding Planet Earth. Planet Earth has probably been under observation by visitors from the stars as far back into pre-human history as you care to go (thus ‘ancient astronauts’), probably even earlier still.

If one or more such visitations happened in our historical past, there might be some suggestive evidence of same; and thus the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ has come to pass. The man who most popularised the idea of ‘ancient astronauts’ was Erich Von Daniken, (though many both before and after him had similar ideas). He had the germ of a good idea, but got rather carried away with the concept and started seeing ancient astronauts behind every pyramid and megalith in existence. No, I don’t believe for a moment that aliens, or humans assisted by aliens, built the pyramids or the statues at Easter Island or any other type of archaeological monument. If for no other reason, mythologies around the world credit the ‘gods’ with creating humankind with the idea that humans would do the hard work while the ‘gods’ eat, drank and made merry!

Evidence suggestive of ancient astronauts will probably best be found in those sorts of myths and legends, advanced human knowledge of scientific concepts out of sync with that particular culture, or in art works, or other archaeological works that are suggestive of an awareness of sky beings (another common theme in mythology). Nearly all cultures have stories and pictograms about/of sky beings, including the Australian aborigine and American Indians. Myths and legends surrounding, say, the Greek/Roman/Norse gods can be interpreted in an ancient astronaut context (ditto for other religious beings), or perhaps the Wheel of Ezekiel and the ‘star’ of Bethlehem are suggestive. While the etchings on the Plain of Nazca were certainly not runways, they can easily be interpreted as mammoth human constructions designed to be viewed by sky beings.

So what evidence do I offer up that the ‘gods’ were really real, albeit actual flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials? Well, there’s the consistency of the tales within each culture and often parallel consistencies between ancient societies and their mythologies. For example, parallel ideas central to a ‘paradise’ or to ‘sky beings’ or to ‘wars fought in heaven’. Then there are the images of the ‘gods’ as wall paintings or rock carvings or as statutes, frescos, etc. So what? Well, these images are contemporary with the reign of the ‘gods; it’s as if the ‘gods’ sat for their portraits. The ‘gods’ weren’t camera shy! If the ‘gods’ didn’t exist, why would the ancient Greeks go to so much trouble as to construct the massive Statue of Zeus at Olympia which occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was 12 meters (40 feet) tall; the Colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue of the Greek god Helios, god of the Sun, some 35 meters (110 ft) tall; or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus which was dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis and took 120 years to build. Oh, all of these are listed as being three of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. That’s big league territory. Sorry, not one of the Seven Ancient Wonders was devoted to ‘God’.

Then there is the nature of some of those images. I mean if you look at, or read a description of the Egyptian god Seth (Set), it just screams out ‘I’m an extraterrestrial’.

Then there’s a whole pot-full of mythological creatures – the Centaur, unicorns, the Sphinx, the Griffin, Pegasus, the Minotaur, mermaids, dragons, etc. which might be non-humanoid extraterrestrial life forms. Or, more realistic perhaps in light of the grays, are the myths and legends shared by many cultures dealing with elves, dwarfs, gnomes, the fairy-folk, the wee-people, and other smallish beings that aren’t quite human. It strikes me as more logical that these ‘wee folk’ actually exist, and that’s why all the references to, and belief in, them, exist. That is vis-à-vis references to, and belief in them, not because they are real, but because there is some psychological, sociological or cultural necessity to invent imaginary beings, calling it mythology (as opposed to literary fiction).

To be continued...