Look at the documentary channels and you’ll realise there are a lot of people who not only believe there are aliens out there, but that they have been visiting and even monitoring planet Earth since time immemorial. At first you think it’s madness, but as you listen to the arguments, all of a sudden you’re not so sure anymore…
There has for a long time been a heated debate about whether or not there is life beyond the realms of what we know, i.e. outside of our planet. While scientists calculate the mathematical probability of some kind of lifeform existing elsewhere in the universe, given its vastness, many others claim to have actually seen UFOs, actual aliens, and even to have been abducted aboard spaceships.
Add Roswell, conspiracy theories about whether or not we actually ever made it to the moon, and purported visits by aliens such as Valiant Thor, and there is a lot of material for a lively debate and widely diverging theories on the subject.
Many question how the pyramids could have been built without outside help
One of these takes the topic of alien life, UFOs and visitors from other worlds a step further and places it not so much in the future or even the present, but in our long and distant past. For believers in the concept of ‘ancient astronauts’, it is not only beyond doubt that aliens exist, have visited the earth and interacted with humans, but they also believe that this contact is so old and frequent that it is woven into the very fabric of who we are and what we have achieved both today and long ago. According to these people, there are many signs that point not to a scary future meeting with intelligent beings from outer space, but to an existing, benevolent relationship.
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE UNEXPLAINED
One’s first reaction is to discard such ideas out of hand as being preposterous, but listen to the ‘evidence’ and arguments put forward by believers in ancient alien visitations and you begin to doubt just enough to make it a puzzling and fascinating concept. You see, if you’ve ever wondered how on earth the ancient Egyptians managed to build huge, complex pyramids up to 4,500 years ago, without the benefit of laser cutting, giant cranes and advanced hydraulic lifts, you’re getting close to the kind of reasoning put forward by proponents of ancient astronaut theories.
Believers in ancient astronauts think their teachings formed the basis of human civilisations and technolog
As we would struggle to build the pyramids even today, how is it indeed possible that the ancient Egyptians succeeded in doing so in an age long before electricity, advanced machinery or computers? The same puzzling mystery surrounds pyramid structures elsewhere in the world, Stonehenge, and the puzzling giant geoglyphs found in distant parts of the planet, but especially in Peru and Chile, where the uniquely dry and still conditions of the Atacama Desert have preserved 1,500 to 3,500 year-old features such as the Nazca Lines and the Atacama Giant.
Features like this were made on the ground but can only be seen from high in the air
There is as yet no satisfactory explanation for the huge geoglyphs depicting animals, people and what appear to be deities, which cannot be seen from the ground but only take shape from very high up. Some glimpses can be had from mountain peaks, but they only really come into view from aircraft, which begs the question: how could an ancient and modestly advanced Amerindian civilisation create these if they couldn’t see what they were making and never witnessed the end result? Placing these giant and geometrically complex markings on the ground without having a visual reference requires a level of advanced technical know-how, which it is hard to believe the local Indians had that long ago.
The world abounds in ancient rock paintings depicting ‘otherworldly’ creatures
We know that civilisations have come and gone, like the mystical Atlantis, or Tartessus, said to be buried in the swamps of the Doñana nature reserve near Cádiz, but even so there is no explanation yet as to how our ancestors could have built such huge-scaled, advanced structures, which appear to line up with important celestial movements and often depict famous constellations. For some, the answer is clear: they simply could not have been made by humans alone, so ergo these and other baffling creations – like the Moai, or Easter Island statues – must have been constructed with the aid of visiting intelligent extraterrestrial beings.
Egyptian hieroglyphs depict strange craft and what look like astronauts
THE SIGNS ARE OUT THERE…
Those who follow this line of thinking also point to ancient wall carvings and paintings found in different parts of the globe that depict not only people, animals and other natural or manmade phenomena, but also what appear to be people wearing motorbike helmets. Extrapolated further, and away from outlandish military helmets, they look like the kind of headgear worn by astronauts and fighter jet pilots. It does get a little odd when you zoom into some wall carvings and even Egyptian hieroglyphs, and discover what look very much like helicopters, aeroplanes, and…UFOs.
Why indeed have we always turned our gaze to the heavens?
According to ancient space travel theorists, these wall paintings and carvings, just like the unexplained marvels of an ancient past, all point to something coming from the skies. Most religions on earth have also always tended to look up to the heavens, where gods, angels and demons are said to reside. Ancient philosophers point to the fact that virtually all religions’ scriptures made reference to beings that descended to the earth from the sky. They quote passages describing them as looking like humans, but being larger, more ‘luminous’ and sometimes winged.
Though the forces of good and bad exist within this realm, it is said that the ancient travellers to our world came not with bad intentions, but to help us develop, and that they have continued to monitor and guide us. One of the whackier concepts is that the moon is actually a hollow metal spacecraft used precisely for this purpose, and that the UFOs some ‘spot’ are evidence of regular information gathering sorties. Seen in this way, the aliens take on the role of guiding shepherd and protector (in other words,
Gods) and even Satan is said to have become a fallen angel not because he was evil, but because he defied instructions and taught us too much, thereby giving us the means to do harm before we were ready.
MAYBE WE ARE ALIENS OURSELVES
Could the moon be a spaceship from which we are being monitored?
The evidence for all of this is said to be found within the holy books and also ancient traditions of different faiths and cultures. Some take the concept even further, believing not only that it was visiting aliens who seeded life on earth, but that we ourselves are the product of a bloodline that stems from primitive early mankind evolved from hominids, and the visiting aliens. While adhering to the theory of evolution, this belief does appear to answer some fascinating questions that remain unsolved, such as why there is a so-called missing link in the paleontological evidence set discovered so far.
The official sciences, and of course national and international institutions, refute any and all theories put forward by the believers in ancient astronauts, but you cannot help but wonder if there is indeed something to them. For me, the idea that there are more civilised ‘relatives’ out there keeping a worried eye out for us is far more appealing than fearing evil green aliens bent on taking over our planet. Lord knows, we are bad enough ourselves and could really do with more ‘alien emissaries’ such as Valiant Thor, who was supposedly sent to earth in 1957 to meet with President Eisenhower and his inner circle. If he and his kind really could help us solve our problems, now that would be a deity worth following.
