The idiots in the media call it "conspiracy theorists"..............space exploration is not all that different from deep ocean exploration.............we made the moon.........just like a canoe is not fit for the deep ocean but a cargo ship is.........a bigger star cruiser would and has made it from solar system to solar system........just like the African explorers from Egypt, Ethiopia, Nubia..........to many other Negroid African kingdoms made it to America....................probably 20,000 years before Columbus......the same basic way Columbus did....a ship big enough to sail across the Atlantic.....the same they do now...................

Once a race can fly..................the American Wright brothers............................to the Soviets, who were the 1st in space........to the Americans......with whoever went up there............................on the moon...................................it is just a progression of technology.........look up at the sky at night.........and you will see quite a few stars..............they are like our sun.....which is a star...........but as you people are so smart i guess u knew...............it is not as difficult to do space exploration as you think...............computers have gotten better...........just like they went from the Wright Flyer to jet planes.........super sonic ones........

I bet a bunch of different types of aliens have been coming here for millions of years.........

Overview[edit]

Ancient astronauts proponents suggest that aliens came to Earth long ago, citing artifacts such as this ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seal.

Proponents of the ancient astronaut hypothesis often maintain that humans are either descendants or creations of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) who landed on Earth thousands of years ago. An associated idea is that humans evolved independently, but that much of human knowledge, religion, and culture came from extraterrestrial visitors in ancient times, in that ancient astronauts acted as a "mother culture". Some ancient astronaut proponents also believe that travelers from outer space, referred to as "astronauts" (or "spacemen") built many of the structures on Earth (such as Egyptian pyramids and the Moai stone heads of Easter Island) or aided humans in building them.^[7][8]

Various terms are used to reference claims about ancient astronauts, such as ancient aliens,^[9] ancient ufonauts,^[10] ancient space pilots,^[11] paleocontact,^[12] astronaut- or alien gods,^[13][14] or paleo- or Bible-SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence).^[15][16]

Ancient astronauts hypothesis of creation[edit]

Proponents argue that the evidence for ancient astronauts comes from documentary gaps in historical and archaeological records, and they also maintain that absent or incomplete explanations of historical or archaeological data point to the existence of ancient astronauts. The evidence is argued to include archaeological artifacts that they deem anachronistic, or beyond the accepted technical capabilities of the historical cultures with which they are associated. These are sometimes referred to as "out-of-place artifacts"; and include artwork and legends which are interpreted in a modern sense as depicting extraterrestrial contact or technologies.^[17]

Scholars have responded that gaps in contemporary knowledge are not evidence of the existence of ancient astronauts, and that advocates have not provided any convincing anecdotal or physical evidence of an artifact that might conceivably be the product of ETI contact. According to astrophysicist Carl Sagan, "In the long litany of 'ancient astronaut' pop archaeology, the cases of apparent interest have perfectly reasonable alternative explanations, or have been misreported, or are simple prevarications, hoaxes and distortions".^[18]

Hypothesis origins and proponents[edit]

Paleocontact or "ancient astronaut" narratives first appeared in the early science fiction of the late 19th to early 20th century. The idea was proposed in earnest by Harold T. Wilkins in 1954; it received some consideration as a serious hypothesis during the 1960s. Critics of the theory emerged throughout the 1970s, discrediting Von Daniken's theory.^{[clarification needed]} Ufologists separated the idea from the UFO controversy. By the early 1980s little remaining support of the theory could be found.^[19]

Shklovskii and Sagan[edit]

A Dogū figurine from Japan (dated 1000–400 BCE). Ancient astronaut proponents suggest that these may represent extraterrestrial visitors.

Votive relief of the winged priest of Dudu on display at the Louvre Museum, France.

In Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966) astrophysicists Iosif Shklovsky [Shklovskii] and Carl Sagan devote a chapter to the argument that scientists and historians should seriously consider the possibility that extraterrestrial contact occurred during recorded history; however, Shklovskii and Sagan stressed that these ideas were speculative and unproven.^[20] Shklovskii and Sagan argued that sub-lightspeed interstellar travel by extraterrestrial life was a certainty when considering technologies that were established or feasible in the late 1960s;^[21] that repeated instances of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth were plausible;^[22] and that pre-scientific narratives can offer a potentially reliable means of describing contact with aliens.

Sagan illustrates this hypothesis by citing the 1786 expedition of French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse, which made the earliest first contact between European and Tlingit cultures. The contact story was preserved as an oral tradition by the preliterate Tlingit. Over a century after its occurrence it was then recorded by anthropologist George T. Emmons. Although it is framed in a Tlingit cultural and spiritual paradigm, the story remained an accurate telling of the 1786 encounter. According to Sagan, this proved how "under certain circumstances, a brief contact with an alien civilization will be recorded in a re-constructible manner. He further states that the reconstruction will be greatly aided if 1) the account is committed to written record soon after the event; 2) a major change is effected in the contacted society; and 3) no attempt is made by the contacting civilization to disguise its exogenous nature."^[23]

Additionally, Shklovskii and Sagan cited tales of Oannes, a fishlike being attributed with teaching agriculture, mathematics, and the arts to early Sumerians, as deserving closer scrutiny as a possible instance of paleocontact due to its consistency and detail.^[24]

In his 1979 book Broca's Brain, Sagan suggested that he and Shklovskii might have inspired the wave of 1970s ancient astronaut books, expressing disapproval of "von Däniken and other uncritical writers" who seemingly built on these ideas not as guarded speculations but as "valid evidence of extraterrestrial contact."^[25] Sagan argued that while many legends, artifacts, and purported out-of-place artifacts were cited in support of ancient astronaut hypotheses, "very few require more than passing mention" and could be easily explained with more conventional hypotheses. Sagan also reiterated his earlier conclusion that extraterrestrial visits to Earth were possible but unproven, and improbable.^[26]