More scientifically literate world, "Chariots of the Gods" falls flat?

But it looks like ISO did not start till April 1977.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0074007/episodes/?season=1

I have to stand corrected. In Search Of Ancient Astronauts was a 1973 documentary, narrated by Rod Serling, not an installment of the Leonard Nimoy show. But the documentary inspired the TV show, according to wikipedia.

Rod Serling apparently hosted ISOAA. He was a Unitarian Universalist, a faith that prides itself on rationality. A paycheque is a paycheque, I guess, and he set a fruitful precedent for liberal humanist Steve Allen fronting Pat Robertson's Don't Ask Me, Ask God a decade later. (The show has a sci-fi installment about a dystopian future where families have been abolished by the evil secular governent and only get to meet one another once a year.)
 
I'm not sure that lack of scientific *literacy* is necessarily what gives rise to these sorts of theories gaining a foothold. Take any random pseudoscientific theory, and realistically, only a small percentage of the population is going to know the specific principles well enough to determine on their own if it makes any sense or not. The other day I was reading a particle physicist's rebuttal of the "science" of Bob Lazar, a guy who once claimed to have worked at Area 51 on reverse-engineering alien technology. But I can't say I truly understood many of the highlighted statements from Lazar *or* the physicist's debunking, though I trust that the latter was correct. When it comes to something like "ancient aliens," it's a mix of pseudoscience and pseudohistory, and again, how many people know the history in enough detail to spot poor reasoning, incorrect facts, or obvious BS?

It seems like what we have instead is more like a collective attitude problem - we're a little too quick to take stock in "theories" that just sound interesting or sensational without stopping to ask if their basis is solid. I suspect that for something like Chariots of the Gods, the public reaction was probably divided between (a) people predisposed in its favor, who read it and thought it to be at least somewhat accurate and well-researched, and (b) people predisposed against it, who likely mostly ignored it. The number of skeptics who decided to read it for whatever reason is probably relatively small. Maybe if the predominant response was a more neutral skepticism - neither accepting nor rejecting it out of hand, but an eagerness for public discussion and analysis (that would presumably eventually discredit it) - then fewer such works would be written and published in the future.
 
I'm not sure that lack of scientific *literacy* is necessarily what gives rise to these sorts of theories gaining a foothold. Take any random pseudoscientific theory, and realistically, only a small percentage of the population is going to know the specific principles well enough to determine on their own if it makes any sense or not. The other day I was reading a particle physicist's rebuttal of the "science" of Bob Lazar, a guy who once claimed to have worked at Area 51 on reverse-engineering alien technology. But I can't say I truly understood many of the highlighted statements from Lazar *or* the physicist's debunking, though I trust that the latter was correct. When it comes to something like "ancient aliens," it's a mix of pseudoscience and pseudohistory, and again, how many people know the history in enough detail to spot poor reasoning, incorrect facts, or obvious BS?

After reading Moses and Monotheism, I came away thinking it was pretty obvious that the religion of the Old Testament was a surviving remnant of the Egyptian cult of Akhenaten. But almost every serious commentator I've read since, including people who are as as athetistic as Freud was, considers it to be a load of BS. So now I just kind of assume that they're correct.
 
It was very much a product of its time and a combination of various factors:

-The seemingly boundless potential of the space age
- A plentiful shaker of nascent new age mysticism courtesy of the 1960s
- A general belief in progress and rationality over superstition, but...
- Something of a loss of faith in tradition and traditional explanations, leading to a rise of interest in conspiracy theories. The old ideas and beliefs had seemingly failed, leading to many grasping for straws in other directions
- A lack of many of the scientific tools and discoveries that would later disprove many of the wilder assumptions and deductions. The best source of information for most was from encyclopedias and libraries, rather than being able to get the information needed to refute whatever one wanted from the electric internet.

Together, these create a ripe soil for Chariots of the Gods and In Search Of. I like the soundtrack and cinematography of the former and the delightful innocence of the latter, even if both have been thoroughly disproved.

The time of Chariots of the Gods and its ilk, the late 1960s and early 1970s, was a very interesting one. In many ways, it seems to have the feeling of the frontier to it, of being on the cusp of discovering the answers to many mysteries and questions through new or rediscovered learning. The answers turned out to be a lot more prosaic and even staid than Von Daniken and others surmised, which is humourous in and of itself.

To lead to it falling flat, you'd need to have a society with more advanced computing allowing a wider spread of expert knowledge on esoteric subjects; or a whole collection of cultural changes that butterfly the late 60s fin de siecle mood.
 
In continuing the above, going into the 1970s, aliens were the new gods. All the old mysticism gave way to a new sort of scientific mysticism. But for all the same reasons. One was a lack of the individual imagination of a person to think people could do something, or something could happen without some sort of super intervention or super power. In that past, it was super-natural, in the present it became super science. People hold perceptions of reality to their own limitations of knowledge. "I couldn't build the pyramids. I can't think how other people could build the pyramids. Something else must have". Another is this sad plea of hope to a cold, uncaring universe for someone to care. Aliens visiting us meant we had space friends and could feel warm and safe in that knowledge. Which oddly gets distorted to the other end of there also being evil aliens who want to get us, which satiates our instinctual need for hate and fear and grows out of our human instinct towards paranoia that what we felt was good (alien friends) is fleeting. Preparing for the bad feeling by making it happen by inventing the idea of bad aliens. And visiting aliens are both made up anyway.

If you feel that means your fellow humans are emotionally primitive, wrap themselves up in knots of their own invented phobias and happiness and psychosis, and that because of their flaws the humans race can never fix the human race, then you may fall into that camp of people who are looking to the stars for someone to save you because only an outside intelligence could then make that change. And we've tied ourselves into an interesting knot there.

That's a very thoughtful consideration of underlying motivations.

I boil it down into a poster:

51Gzt0WcWbL._SL500_AC_SS350_.jpg


Scientific Literacy doesn't stop the human imagination and human bias. To give an extreme example, the very high level of PhDs amongst members of the Aum Shinrikyo death cult (most famous for the Sarin attacks in the Tokyo Underground) who have since openly admitted much of their interest and later fanaticism was driven by interpretations of Asimov's Foundation Series and various anime shows like Yamato. Both blatantly have no grounding in reality yet a lot of people with science related doctorates very much enjoy sci-fi so they embraced it - particularly they embraced the image of the Foundation's role in Asimov's galaxy, where eggheads save civilisation from itself.

Wish fulfilment is not the case here (well not nessecarily) but you get the idea - being better educated doesn't stop humans giving odd ideas a chance if they are intrigued by them. The great Emperor explains above why the Ancient Astronaut Theory particularly appealed to people at the time.

Ancient Astronaut Theory is very interesting as a concept. I read Chariots of the Gods as someone who knew the gist and had no confidence in the idea. Purely because its a neat idea. On release I can see more 'normal' people in your more scientific world ultimately throwing it in the trash but probably wouldn't effect initial sales or the people who embrace it as an idea as opposed to a realistic theory.

Compared to other UFO-related groundless pulp science coming out at the time its also a lot more sober then books that talk about Reptilians and Plaedians living underground fighting transdimensional wars against the Nordics all the while the US Air Force is retro-fitting tech from the Greys, generations -even eons- ahead of ourselves but not bothering to use it, etc, etc.

EDIT: Sorry, in relation to the OP maybe he can't find a semi reputable publisher and it ends up just one of many of the 'nutter' books like I alluded to above with a hideous cover and it gets lost in the shuffle. Maybe poor sales see him beef up the wierdness to appeal to this UFO hardcore and it remains very much a minority interest book "Martians Built the Pyramids with Android Slaves!".

This limits relatively mainstream 'historical' ufology to interpretting supposed pre-Roswell saucer sightings while Ancient Astronauts in its much more garish form is considered really weird. Bit like the divide between general members of the public and the more hardcore set on the matter of MIBs. To most its a series of high concept comedy films and they are simply government agents. But UFO enthusiasts know the truth - they know they are robotic servitors of an Alien race.
 
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Rod Serling apparently hosted ISOAA. He was a Unitarian Universalist, a faith that prides itself on rationality. A paycheque is a paycheque, I guess, and he set a fruitful precedent for liberal humanist Steve Allen fronting Pat Robertson's Don't Ask Me, Ask God a decade later. (The show has a sci-fi installment about a dystopian future where families have been abolished by the evil secular governent and only get to meet one another once a year.)

So, Thanksgiving?
 

Marc

Donor
I can't help but think that the opening premise: A more scientifically literate world, utterly butterflies modern history on so many levels.
 
Another piece of evidence for the "Star Child" thing being vogue for the 1970s: Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, which was a major hit for both Klaatu and the Carpenters.


Honestly, if you want the book to fail, have a more level headed 1960s. The 1970s was a post-trauma of soul searching and reassessment and wanting warm fuzzy feelings. It was like a divorcee going through a deep depression for two years and then taking up yoga and joining the book club. If the 1960s is eased off even just a bit, just ever so much more level headed, then the 1970s do not become desperate to be saved (by whatever savior idea they decide to follow) because there isn't a feeling of there being something that they need to be saved from.
 
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I think the whole "ancient aliens" spiel only really became popular with the TV show, prior to that I had hardly ever heard of such a thing and even then it was unrelated to either von Daniken or his book.
 
There is way to do it

Way back on 1967 Erich von Däniken propose his manuscript at ECON Verlag
in that Time ECON wanted shifting toward Scientific books and literature by Politicians and Journalist.
So what if the Editor of ECON refuse the Manuscript as not scientific enough for new line ?

Or worst Erich von Däniken had follow advice of his friends, like Sci-Fi author Walter Ernstling (Clark Dalton)
and Presented his Manuscript to editor VPM, specialized in German Pulp Fiction and Sci-fi & Fantasy.

Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past would today consider as intriguing Sci-fi novel presented as Fictional Scientific book,
And Erich von Däniken would be just a Swiss Sci-Fi Author....
 
I think the whole "ancient aliens" spiel only really became popular with the TV show, . . .
I agree with the general premise that TV usually has the most cultural influence.

For me personally, I saw "Ancient Astronauts" or something similar at the theater. But the fact that there was a book and that the guy had a foreign name made the whole thing feel more serious and important.
 
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hammo1j

Donor
I invariably read a book cover to cover, but this was one of the 3-4 exceptions. I was in my early teens & like most that age my BS alarm was very sensitive. After a few chapters I set the thing aside & never went back. Later reading such as guys like Velikovsky made more sense, least in their presentation.

Lol! The teenage me was the exact opposite and believed every thing he said. I had all the
sequels and got kicked off divinity course for saying that everything in the bible could be explained by aliens.
 
Lol! The teenage me was the exact opposite and believed every thing he said. I had all the
sequels and got kicked off divinity course for saying that everything in the bible could be explained by aliens.
I went through phrases. After my Christian period, I was very open to the idea of astral projection. I sent off for the information advertised by the Rosicrucians advertised in the National Enquirer (feel free to laugh)

Later, I was maybe over influenced by an article in a science magazine about CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. But mainly it was because the Rosicrucian material didn't seem fully believeable, and astral projection hadn't happened even though I was kind of scared about it.

PS Was this divinity course you were kicked off of, high school or college?
 
Years later as an adult, I found a method of lucid dreaming which works for me.

It's subtle, but still pretty neat. And like so many things, it includes the zen art of allowing something to happen, rather than trying to force it to happen.
 
But the fact that there was a book and that the guy had a foreign name made the whole thing feel more serious and important.

That's kind of how I felt when I saw that Cathy Lee Crosby of That's Incredible was backing Scientology some time circa 1980. I still figured it was BS, but the fact that it was endorsed by someone seen on a prime-time TV talk show did give me a certain degree of pause.
 
I went through phrases. After my Christian period, I was very open to the idea of astral projection. I sent off for the information advertised by the Rosicrucians advertised in the National Enquirer (feel free to laugh)

Later, I was maybe over influenced by an article in a science magazine about CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. But mainly it was because the Rosicrucian material didn't seem fully believeable, and astral projection hadn't happened even though I was kind of scared about it.

PS Was this divinity course you were kicked off of, high school or college?

Weren't the Rosicrucians some obscure religious order that aspired to keep the world population under 500 million? If I recall correctly they were mystics with more pagan influence than Christian.
 
I sent off for the information advertised by the Rosicrucians advertised in the National Enquirer (feel free to laugh)

I'm not laughing at all. I used to seriously worry that my career would end by the age of 30, because of the whole Nostradamus "1999 and seven months" thing.

Here's a funny exchange I had on a conspiracy theory board over a decade ago...

ME: Given that Martin Luther's seal featured a rose and a cross, I wonder if the Xtian Christian fundamentalists will now accuse him of being a Rosicrucian?

SOMEONE ELSE: Luther was too superstitious to be a Rosicrucian.

I gather what he meant was that the Rosicrucians were more scientific than Luther by the standards of their day, but still, "too superstitious to be a Rosicrucian" just struck me as funny.
 
Weren't the Rosicrucians some obscure religious order that aspired to keep the world population under 500 million? If I recall correctly they were mystics with more pagan influence than Christian.

Well, 500 million is the number given on The Georgia Guidestones, which was apparently paid for by someone using the name R.C. Christian. Rumour has it that Ted Turner was R.C. Christian, which sorta makes sense, given that he's known to be a big backer of population-control, and lives down Georgia way.

I wouldn't imagine that the Rosicrucians back in the sixteenth century were promoting population control, at least not in the way we understand the idea today. But I'm not an authority on these things.
 
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