Erich von Däniken

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken (Zofingen, Switzerland, April 14, 1935) is a Swiss author of several books making claims about alleged extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-seller Memories of the Future (1968).

Von Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the "paleocontact" and the ancient astronauts. The ideas expounded in his books are rejected by the vast majority of scientists and academics, who classify his work as pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology, and pseudoscience. Early in his career, he was tried and convicted on various charges of fraud or embezzlement, and even he wrote one of his books in prison.

The writer has been accused of plagiarism for his work The Gold of the Gods, where he used photographs without permission and was awarded an expedition to the Cueva de los Tayos, which would prove to be false.

Early Years

Von Däniken was born in Zofingen (Switzerland). Raised as a strict Catholic, he attended the Saint-Michel International Catholic School in Freiburg, Switzerland. During his schooling he rejected the Biblical interpretations of the Church and developed his interest in astronomy and the phenomenon of flying saucers.

At the age of 19, von Däniken was sentenced to four months in prison for robbery. Von Däniken dropped out of school and worked as an apprentice in a Swiss hotel. and as a hotel clerk in Egypt, where he was found guilty of fraud and embezzlement.

He later worked as an employee of the Rosenhügel Hotel in Davos (Switzerland), during which time he wrote Memories of the Future. In December 1964, von Däniken wrote an article entitled "Hatten unsere Vorfahren Besuch aus dem Weltraum?" ('Were our ancestors visited from space?') for the German-Canadian newspaper Der Nordwesten. The manuscript of Memories of the Future was accepted by a publisher in early 1967 and printed in March 1968.

In November 1968 von Däniken was arrested for fraud, forging hotel documents and false credit references to obtain loans worth US$130,000 over a twelve-year period. Two years later, von Däniken was convicted of "repeated and sustained" embezzlement, fraud and forgery; the court ruling alleged that the writer had been living a life in the style of a playboy. malicious and that the credit institutions were at fault for failing to properly investigate his fraudulent references. On February 13, 1970, von Däniken was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and fined CHF 3,000 (Swiss francs).). He served a year in prison before being released.

Her first book, Memories of the Future, had been published on the date of her trial, and its sales allowed her to pay off her debts and leave the hotel business. Von Däniken wrote his second book, Return to the Stars, while he was in prison.

Your ideas

Von Däniken's studies have been classified as pseudoscience or pseudohistory and he has received numerous criticisms from the serious sectors of science and archeology, by presenting numerous archaeological remains from all over the world as mysteries attributable to extraterrestrial visitors, giving his explanation without any kind of evidence.

Basically, von Däniken gives unusual explanations to certain characteristics of archaeological pieces, whose origin, according to him, would not be sufficiently documented by academic archaeology. These explanations are based on premises not proven by science, such as the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life (hypothesis accepted by science), which could have traveled through space -at some point in the past- to our planet (hypothesis not accepted by science). there is no reliable evidence). By not following any scientific method supported by real evidence verifiable by other people, he cannot be considered a scientist.

A typical example would be 3,000-year-old pre-Inca South American figures, engraved in gold, which represent what scientists consider to be plastic art inspired by insect shapes. However, these "insects" would be for von Däniken what he sees as pilot's chairs and vertical and horizontal stabilizers, with which it seems more logical to him to deduce that they would not be decorations, but aircraft similar to modern ones, which the ancient artists must have learned about through their interaction with a much more technologically advanced culture of presumed alien origin, despite no trace of them or other advanced technology having been found in the area. The relief on the lid of a Maya sarcophagus is considered another false oopart; actually, archaeologists explain that the sarcophagus of King K'inich Janaab' Pakal represents the beginning of the late king's journey to the underworld.

Because of his hypotheses, in 1991 he was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Literature (awarded by a humorous magazine) for his book Memories of the Future, in which he explained that civilization could have been influenced by alien astronauts. Here it becomes clear that von Däniken defends the scientific position of alien creationism.

In the Samaraangana sutradhara There are full chapters dedicated to describing aircraft that spit fire and mercury in the tail.

Von Däniken, Memories of the future (p. 72)

Actually, the text Samara-angana-sútradhara contains six verses (95 to 100 of chapter 31) that barely mention vímanas, without mentioning anything about fire, mercury or a tail, but it is easy to fit observations to interests, which is just the opposite of what scientists do. Much more detailed (and older) are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (both from about the 3rd century BC).

In May 2003, he opened a theme park based on his hypotheses about "astronaut gods" in Switzerland, which has been classified by scientists such as Antoine Wasserfallen, of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, as a "cultural Chernobyl."

Errors and omissions

Delhi's iron pillar, erected by Chandragupta the Great.

In Memories of the Future, von Däniken writes of the iron pillar of Delhi, India, as evidence of extraterrestrial influence by not being rusty. In an interview that appeared in Playboy magazine, when asked why the column has no trace of rust and about the evidence supporting its medieval construction system and its resistance to corrosion, von Däniken said that later Investigations led him to conclude other things, so he ruled out that the pillar was a mystery.

In The Gold of the Gods, von Däniken claimed that he had been guided through a series of artificial tunnels to a place inside the Cueva de los Tayos (Ecuador) that contained strange statues of gold and a library on metal tablets that he considered evidence of ancient space visitors. The man von Däniken claimed had shown him these tunnels, Juan Móricz, told Der Spiegel magazine that von Däniken's descriptions came from a long conversation, and that the photos in the book had been " a tangle." Von Däniken told Playboy magazine that, although he had seen the library and other places he had described, he had fabricated some of the facts to add interest to his book. However, in 1978 he said that he had never been in the part of the cave that is illustrated in his book, only in a "side room", and that he had invented the whole descent into the cave. Geologists who have examined the area have not found any hidden cave systems. Von Däniken also wrote about a collection of gold objects in the possession of the local priest, Carlos Crespi Croci, who had special permission from the Vatican for archaeological research, but an archaeologist informed Der Spiegel that, while there were some gold pieces, many were just local imitations for tourists. Juan Moricz would demonstrate von Däniken's deceptions.

Von Däniken claimed that the Palenque sarcophagus depicts an astronaut sitting in a rocket-propelled spacecraft, wearing a space suit. However, the archaeologists see nothing special about the figure, which represents a dead Mayan monarch, wearing a traditional hairstyle and the usual Mayan jewelry, surrounded by Mayan symbols that can be seen in many other Mayan drawings. The right hand is not operating the controls of a rocket, but simply making a traditional Mayan gesture of veneration, which other figures on the sides of the sarcophagus also do. The shape of the "propulsion rockets" actually correspond to two mythical feathered serpents that join their heads at the bottom and the "flames" that rockets produce to the feathers of snakes. The supposed "engine" of the rocket under the figure is the face of a monster, symbol of the underworld.

Works

These are the works by von Däniken that have been published in Spanish (the year of the first edition is specified in brackets):

• Memories of the future (Bonnier Group, 1968)
• Carts of the gods? (Souvenir Press Ltd, 1969)
• Back to the stars (Souvenir Press Ltd, 1970) ISBN 0-285-50298-0
• Gods from Outer Space (Bantam, 1972; reprint of Return to the Stars)
• Erich von Däniken (1974) [1972]. The gold of the gods (Eduardo Videla, trad.) Barcelona, Spain: Ediciones Martínez Roca. ISBN 8427002637.
• Miracles of the Gods (Souvenir Press Ltd., 1975) ISBN 0-285-62174-2
• In Search of Ancient Gods: My Pictorial Evidence for the Impossible (Corgi books, 1976) ISBN 0-552-10073-0
• According to the Evidence (Souvenir Press, 1977) ISBN 0-285-62301-X
• Signs of the Gods (Corgi books, 1980) ISBN 0-552-11716-1
• The Stones of Kiribati: Pathways to the Gods (Corgi books, 1982) ISBN 0-552-12183-5
• The strategy of the gods: the eighth wonder (Souvenir Press, 1984) ISBN 0-285-62630-2
• The eyes of the sphinx: new discoveries about ancient Pharaonic Egypt (Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1996) ISBN 978-0-425-15130-3
• The return of the gods (Element, 1998) ISBN 1-86204-253-5
• Arrival of the Gods: Revealing the Alien Landing Sites of Nazca (Element, 1998) ISBN 1-86204-353-1
• The Gods Were Astronauts: Evidence of the True Identities of the Old "Gods" (Vega books, 2001) ISBN 1-84333-625-1
• Odyssey of the gods (Vega books, 2002) ISBN 978-1-84333-558-0
• History lies (New Page books, 2009) ISBN 978-1-60163-086-5
• Evidence of the Gods (New Page books, 2010) ISBN 978-1-60163-247-0
• The arrival of the gods: the Mayan calendar and the return of aliens (New Page books, 2010) ISBN 978-1-60163-141-1
• Remnants of the Gods: A Visual Tour of Alien Influence in Egypt, Spain, France, Turkey, and Italy (New Page Books, 2013) ISBN 1601632835

In German

• Strategie der Götter: Das Achte Weltwunder (1982) ISBN 3-430-11979-0
• Der Tag an dem die Götter kamen (1984) ISBN 3-442-08478-4
• Habe ich mich geirrt? (1985) ISBN 3-570-03059-8
• Wir alle sind Kinder der Götter (1987) C. Bertelsmann, ISBN 3-570-03060-1
• Die Augen der Sphinx (1989) C. Bertelsmann, ISBN 3-570-04390-8
• Die Spuren der Ausserirdischen (1990) (Bildband) ISBN 3-570-09419-7
• Die Steinzeit war ganz anders ISBN 3-570-03618-9
• Ausserirdische in Ägypten (1991)
• Erinnerungen an die Zukunft (1992)
• Der Götter-Schock (1992)
• Raumfahrt im Altertum ISBN 3-570-12023-6
• Auf den Spuren der Allmächtigen C (1993) Bertelsmann, ISBN 3-570-01726-5
• Botschaften und Zeichen aus dem Universum (1994) C. Bertelsmann, ISBN 3-442-12688-6
• Im Name von Zeus (2001) C. Bertelsmann, ISBN 86-331-2372-X
• Götterdämmerung (2009) KOPP Verlag 978-3942016049
• Grüße aus der Steinzeit: Wer nicht glauben will, soll sehen!(2010)
• Was ist falsch im Maya-Land?: Versteckte Technologien in Tempeln und Skulpturen, (2011)
• Was ich jahrzehntelang verschwiegen habe, (2015), ISBN 978-3864452383

Documentaries about Erich von Däniken

• Erich von Däniken: Die Videobiographie: German documentary translated into Spanish (2005). Director: Torsten Sasse. Producer: Dokumedial.