Carl Sagan and ancient aliens

[lpetrich]

Eric von Däniken with his ancient astronauts was far from the first to speculate about ancient aliens, though he made the notion very well-known with books like "Chariots of the Gods?" It goes all the way to Helena Petrovna von Hahn Blavatsky, the inventor and plagiarizer of Theosophy (Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts - Jason Colavito).

From "Flying Saucers Have Landed", Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, 1953, is

About eighteen million years ago, say the strange and ancient legends of our little planet, at a time when Mars, Venus and Earth were in close conjunction, along a magnetic path so formed came a huge, shining, radiant vessel of dazzling power and beauty, bringing to earth ‘thrice thirty-five’ human beings, of perfection beyond our highest ideals; gods rather than men; divine kings of archaic memory, under whose benign world-government a shambling, hermaphrodite monster was evolved into thinking, sexual man.

referencing various Theosophists' works.

Carl Sagan himself speculated about that. Around 1955, in a very formal sort of restaurant, he once asserted "I say to you, Jesus was extraterrestrial". In 1966, he published more speculations about that in his coauthored book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" (Chapter 33, "Consequences of Direct Contact").

CS first tries to estimate how often the Solar System has been visited by interstellar travelers on survey missions. Doing so requires a lot of hand-waving, so I don't think that anyone has good numbers on that.

He then gets into accounts of contact, briefly dismissing recent claimed contacts. Like by a UFO contactee who was put on trial for fraud, with CS testifying in that trial.

Then some Earthlings' contacts with some other Earthlings. Like some Tlingit people who had remembered being visited by La Pérouse's expedition a century earlier, though in mangled form. La Pérouse's ships were turned into black birds with white wings, for instance. An old man went aboard one of them and discovered that there were fellow human beings on board.

CS decided on some criteria:

• The account is committed to written record soon after the event
• A major change is effected in the contacted society after the encounter
• No attempt is made by the contacting civilization to disguise its exogenous nature

Coauthor I.S. Shklovsky then mentions some speculations by Soviet ethnologist M.M. Agrest back in 1959. Speculations like that Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed by nuclear-bomb explosions and that the Biblical account of their destruction is what nuclear-bomb explosions would look like to them.

Then what are likely depictions of some people in ritual costumes.

He then gets into the issue of the Sumerian Apkallu. He starts with three surviving accounts, from historians Alexander Polyhistor, Abydenus, and Apollodorus. They all reference a contemporary of Alexander the Great, the priest and historian Berosus. Oannes and other Apkallu looked like fish, but with a human head inside the fish's head and human legs coming out of the tail. They'd be on land during the day, and in the water at night. They were described as "animals endowed with reason", "beings", "semi-daemons", and as "personages", but not as gods, a description that suggested ET's to Carl Sagan.

From FRAGMENTS OF CHALDÆAN HISTORY, BEROSSUS: FROM ALEXANDER POLYHISTOR.

At Babylon there was (in these times) a great resort of people of various nations, who inhabited Chaldæa, and lived in a lawless manner like the beasts of the field. In the first year there appeared, from that part of the Erythræan sea which borders upon Babylonia, an animal destitute of (or endowed with) reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice too, and language, was articulate and human; and a representation of him is preserved even to this day.

This Being was accustomed to pass the day among men; but took no food at that season; and he gave them an insight into letters and sciences, and arts of every kind. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and shewed them how to collect the fruits; in short, he instructed them in every thing which could tend to soften manners and humanize their lives. From that time, nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions. And when the sun had set, this Being Oannes, retired again into the sea, and passed the night in the deep; for he was amphibious.

CS then mentions how in Sumerian mythology, stars are gods that form a seemingly representative and democratic assembly. Sort of like some galactic federation.

One can be skeptical of stories like that, because they seem like Just So Stories to explain how their tellers acquired technologies that they have no memory of inventing. Something very likely for technologies several centuries or millennia old.

Carl Sagan is very cautious here, unlike Erich von Däniken and most other ancient-alien believers.


Then CS gets into other possibilities, like some monitor of Earthling technology that would radio home if it detects evidence of sufficiently advanced technology.

Then what ET's might want with us. Certainly not natural resources, because they could get all that stuff much closer to home. Consider "V", in which the Visitors want to steal the Earth's water and eat us. That is absolute nonsense. Water is H2O, and hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe with oxygen the third most common one in our Galaxy. If they can't get water from comets in their system, then they can get it from comets in ours. As to human flesh, they'd have to be some sort of weird gourmands to find human flesh anything special. Why that and not (say) octopus flesh or caterpillar flesh or moss or bread mold? Also, as meat animals, we are very bad. Though we are very big by animal-kingdom standards, we grow slowly and reproduce slowly by animal-kingdom standards. Most livestock species beat us in growth speed, and some can easily beat us in reproduction rate. Your average domestic sow can easily outcompete the likes of Michelle Duggar, and Ms. Duggar is close to the limit for our species.

There are other reasons for hostile action that are likely more plausible, like disliking competition.

 

[WAB]

I just outed myself as a quasi-Jesus-as-spaceman theorist, in steve_bank's "What is self" thread, post #30; then in post #32 I made a reference to the ruins at Pumapunku in Bolivia in my closing para:

I'm an Aristotelian at heart, though I love a lot about Plato, especially his time reckoning of a 'great cataclysm' that he believed happened some six or so millennia before his time, which ties very nicely into the very destroyed ruins of Pumapunku in Bolivia, at least according to Archaeologist Karl Schmidt, who has of course been mostly ignored by the usual suspects...ain't goin' there.

My father was a firm believer in AAT. When I was around nine or ten he whipped out Erich von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods, along with the Bible, to the pertinent parts of Ezekiel, for my brother and I to wonder over. My bro and I have been sort of into the whole thing ever since. This would have been around 1973 or 1974. My father was all of around thirty at the time.

The part that bugs me and my older brother is that my father worked as a civil servant at West Point for his entire career. At some point, he went from being a believer in the Ancient Astronaut Theory to completely denying it. By this time he had risen to a position of some authority, with many people under him. He hobnobbed with colonels and even generals, often going to their houses. He had the honor of meeting and talking to Gregory Peck when the actor was filming some scenes for MacArthur at West Point.

My brother and I could never get a good answer out of him as to why his had such a dramatic change in opinion. It can't be because of any great change in political or religious beliefs, since he was a hardcore atheist and pretty much a solid right wing conservative from straight out of the chute.

At 74 now, my father wants no talk of AAT, and denies that there is even a scrap of evidence anywhere for such an idea as visitation from aliens. One has to wonder how this should be, when as a young man he would read all the pertinent material on the subject, and would sit my brother and me down to watch documentaries about it. He was almost passionate about it.

Anyway, thanks for putting this here.

 

[lpetrich]

That's weird. I once knew a rather vehement advocate of Erich von Däniken's ancient-alien theories. I mentioned space colonies to him, and he asked "You can't be serious?" I didn't pursue it any further, but I was happy that I got under his skin with something.

 

[lpetrich]

The Soviet Search for Ancient Astronauts - Jason Colavito

Like its consumer goods, the Soviet ancient astronaut theory was derivative, clunky, and an ersatz copy of the West. But unlike Soviet cars and clothes, the Soviet ancient astronaut theory was influential.

It was a way of combating the Opium of the People by providing "rational" explanations for ancient mysteries and beliefs.

The Soviet mathematician Matest M. Agrest (1915-2005) sparked the Soviet ancient astronaut craze nearly a decade before the theory gained widespread popularity in the West. In 1959, he proposed that Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed by an extraterrestrial nuclear device (which conveniently also killed Lot’s wife in the presence of witnesses), and that the terrace of Baalbek in Lebanon was a launch pad for alien spacecraft. Because Agrest was a scientist, unlike earlier European and American writers, his work attained a spurious credibility, especially with Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels, who saw in it not the anti-religious propaganda it was but rather confirmation that H. P. Lovecraft and Charles Fort had been on to something. His work found its way into Morning of the Magicians (1960), through which it was disseminated to Erich von Daniken, Zecharia Sitchin, and countless others.

Then I.S. Shklovskii and Mars's moon Phobos being hollow, and therefore built by ET's. The book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" has a chapter on this speculation.

Western scholars attributed this interest in ETs and ancient astronauts to the Soviet commitment to atheism, materialism, and evolution.

ET's were also a nice counterargument to "Goddidit!"

The consequences of these official dogmas was that much of the Soviet “evidence” for ancient astronauts was highly suspect, interpreted according to Communist doctrine, and in many cases outright fabrications. Even Jacques Bergier, himself no strict adherent to truth, found the Soviet works suffused with “antireligious propaganda” and poor quality evidence: “Unfortunately, they accept such evidence a little too easily, and it is not always very convincing” (Extraterrestrial Visitation, p. 133).

But that did not stop Erich von Däniken, Zecharia Sitchin, etc. from using Soviet arguments.

Soviet interest in ancient astronauts declined along with the power and influence of the Soviet Union. After the fall of the USSR, Orthodox Christianity saw a resurgence, effectively ending any (semi-)official program of ancient astronaut studies.

 

[WAB]

Thanks again, Ipetrich.

I should probably, to make this easy on myself, say a few things first:

While I have been interested, and even fascinated at times with the AAT, I have never seen what I imagined might be alien craft, though I've seen the usual and ubiquitous reddish jumpy, skittery things here in the Mohave desert night skies (more on that if you want, if not, forget it), while my brother claims he most certainly has. Silly to use the term UFO I think, since anything one sees in the sky that one cannot identify with certainty is by definition a UFO. Right? Wrong?

Anyway, no doubt you are aware of the well-documented mass sightings in upstate NY, from the early 1980's through the 1990's?

Well....Deep breath...

My brother says he was out and about with his friends one evening, cruising down Route 52, in the summer of 1983, when they all saw a giant triangular object "moving slowly over the treetops." They pulled the car over, along with several other motorists. My brother claims that it was massive, blocked out a vast amount of the formerly visible stars, moved extremely slowly, and was very low, just over the tops of the trees, and was dead silent. He repeats over and over that he could have thrown a rock at it and hit it.

Long story longer— I was most likely drunk out of my mind that night, since I was playing with a band at the time—so I did not see any of these alleged craft, ever. Not that I really tried. I was too busy getting drunk and stoned to Black Sabbath to spend any amount of time looking through Holes in the Sky and thinking too much about Symptoms of the Universe.

At the time, my father, already swayed completely away from AAT, and any "nonsense" like alien spacecraft, when my brother excitedly told him about it, waved his hand, and said, "I know what you THINK you saw." That just angered my brother. A while later, my father explained to him that what he had seen was a "flight of ultralights". My brother insisted that this could not have been the case, since there was dead silence. Apparently, ultralights are powered by motors that sound like lawnmowers. I don't know, and don't care. Machines have always hated me, for which I am now a cook, a poet, and all gurly on the inside.

Before I leave that upstate phenom off, there are loads of testimony and documentation of sightings in and around the area, for about a decade, not to mention a famous scientist who was sent there to debunk the whole thing but who wound up becoming a believer, and who even did a cameo on Close Encounters of the Third Kind [Can't remember his name and my eyes are exhausted so I do not want to go and roll the bones with Yagooglebing].

*

Lastly - and again, I will have to wait until later to get more into it, I do find the ruins of Pumapunku to be rather baffling. I also see no good reason to think that ancient people could tool andesite that precisely, to perfect right angles (sandstone, maybe? I dunno); and I also don't see any good reason to think that Karl Schmidt is/was out of his mind. I'd bet my last nickel that he is/was more capable of coming to an informed and educated view on such things than a good deal of the people who so casually mock and dismiss him (along with scores of equally well-credited scientists and professionals who find AAT compelling).

More later...

 

[WAB]

Lovecraft was and has been a HUGE influence on me, especially on my creative writing. His ideas and stories about dream content and dream journeys is fascinating. I have had lots of experience with hypnagogia, sleep paralysis, and recently, lucid dreaming. Sometimes I dream so vividly it's a far more rewarding thing than my waking experience, which is dead-flat depressing at the moment.

Occasionally I know that I'm dreaming, but can keep it going for a bit before my silly brain wakes me up (dammit, brain!). I have bizarre finding-money dreams, and the give away is always the same: after the five and twenty dollar bills, come twenty-seven dollar bills, eighty-three dollar bills, two hundred and six dollar bills, at which point my silly brain wakes me up.

"Madness rides the Starwind" - Lovecraft. Too bad he was a racist, which is fairly well documented, I believe.

 

[Peez]

I just posted this in another thread, but it is just so relevant that I feel compelled to post it here as well:

Peez

 

[WAB]

I just posted this in another thread, but it is just so relevant that I feel compelled to post it here as well:

Peez

Sure, but it doesn't affect the AAT theory one whit. NOT that I believe in ancient aliens. But there is almost certainly a mountain of compelling evidence for the possibility. NOT PROOF: just evidence.

What I'll never understand is the outright hostility that some people show towards ANY thinking that is not in conformity with the "accepted" dogmas of science. It just strikes me as bizarre, and highly suspicious. It's almost as if some people literally have a gun to their heads and will say anything to get that barrel pulled off.

 

[Peez]

I just posted this in another thread, but it is just so relevant that I feel compelled to post it here as well:

Peez

Sure, but it doesn't affect the AAT theory one whit.

I don't think that anyone suggested otherwise, I certainly did not. However, some people claim to have seen probable alien spaceships recently, and this is quite relevant to such claims.

NOT that I believe in ancient aliens. But there is almost certainly a mountain of compelling evidence for the possibility. NOT PROOF: just evidence.

Exactly what is "evidence for the possibility", I don't understand this phrase. I would accept that it is possible that aliens visited our planet long ago, in the same way that it is possible that the universe is actually only a few days old (having been created last Thursday, with the appearance of much greater age). I have not seen any empirical evidence that aliens actually visited our planet long ago.

What I'll never understand is the outright hostility that some people show towards ANY thinking that is not in conformity with the "accepted" dogmas of science. It just strikes me as bizarre, and highly suspicious. It's almost as if some people literally have a gun to their heads and will say anything to get that barrel pulled off.

I have not noticed such an attitude generally, though I have certainly seen people who are hostile to bad logic and pseudoscience (I have had this attitude myself, from time to time).

Peez

 

[braces_for_impact]

There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where several alien races were following clues in DNA, if I remember correctly. They ended up finding a species from outside the galaxy that had seeded our galaxy with their DNA, giving rise to all the major alien races, eventually. I always liked that idea. In the Next Gen universe, it helps explain why all those various aliens are variations of the same theme with minor cosmetic differences. There's no evidence for such a thing, but it's an interesting idea.

 

[Peez]

There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where several alien races were following clues in DNA, if I remember correctly. They ended up finding a species from outside the galaxy that had seeded our galaxy with their DNA, giving rise to all the major alien races, eventually. I always liked that idea. In the Next Gen universe, it helps explain why all those various aliens are variations of the same theme with minor cosmetic differences. There's no evidence for such a thing, but it's an interesting idea.

Agreed, it was a clever way to address the similarities among alien species (not to mention genetic compatibility, eh Spock?).

Peez

 

[skepticalbip]

I just posted this in another thread, but it is just so relevant that I feel compelled to post it here as well:

Peez

Sure, but it doesn't affect the AAT theory one whit. NOT that I believe in ancient aliens. But there is almost certainly a mountain of compelling evidence for the possibility. NOT PROOF: just evidence.

There is a mountain of things we can not explain. That isn't evidence for anything other than that we don't understand. It is no more evidence for ancient aliens doing it than it is for god did it or it is for being done by the amazing mental powers of ancient people from Atlantis or it is for any other imaginative claim.

What I'll never understand is the outright hostility that some people show towards ANY thinking that is not in conformity with the "accepted" dogmas of science. It just strikes me as bizarre, and highly suspicious. It's almost as if some people literally have a gun to their heads and will say anything to get that barrel pulled off.

Disagreement is not hostility. Hell, I enjoy imagining "answers" too but I don't fool myself or claim that there is evidence.

 

[WAB]

Nonsense.

The ancient peoples in Bolivia could not have done the kind of high-tech work that was obviously done on the stones at Puma-punku. Why not just accept that and find it fascinating than argue against it?

There is no one fooling themselves here. Well, not me anyway.

 

[WAB]

There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where several alien races were following clues in DNA, if I remember correctly. They ended up finding a species from outside the galaxy that had seeded our galaxy with their DNA, giving rise to all the major alien races, eventually. I always liked that idea. In the Next Gen universe, it helps explain why all those various aliens are variations of the same theme with minor cosmetic differences. There's no evidence for such a thing, but it's an interesting idea.

Again, nonsense. No evidence? You must be kidding? No PROOF is what you want here, not "no evidence".

*

Et al:


I find it amazing that the idea of alien peoples with craft able to pass great distances in the cosmos is linked with supernatural entities such as ghosts and nonsensical creatures that defy nature like Bigfoot.

Carl Sagan was smart enough not to make that silly mistake.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I am unaware of any evidence indicating our life was seeded from another galaxy, making all life in our galaxy related.

Assuming that you mean no proof of ancient astronauts, then I concur. If you mean no evidence of ancient astronauts, none that is convincing.

If you mean simply of life outside our planet, then yes, no proof, lots of indirect evidence and conjecture.

 

[WAB]

I am unaware of any evidence indicating our life was seeded from another galaxy, making all life in our galaxy related.

Assuming that you mean no proof of ancient astronauts, then I concur. If you mean no evidence of ancient astronauts, none that is convincing.

If you mean simply of life outside our planet, then yes, no proof, lots of indirect evidence and conjecture.

Okay, I'm fine with that. Moreover, I can't see the point of arguing about things neither of us can be certain of. Peace!

 

[skepticalbip]

Nonsense.

The ancient peoples in Bolivia could not have done the kind of high-tech work that was obviously done on the stones at Puma-punku. Why not just accept that and find it fascinating than argue against it?

I don't see that I have argued against anything other than the only evidence as to the source we have is evidence that we don't know. There is evidence that the stonework in Bolivia was done because it exists but that is all we really know. It is obvious that it could be done because it was done, how and by who we don't know. Only a preconceived or confirmation bias could lead someone to positively declare that it could not have been done by people living there at the time - such absolute assurance borders on religious faith.

ETA:
It is obvious that humans were capable of such stonework at the time because the Egyptians had done work as intricate over a thousand years earlier. I am, however, not going to say that this is evidence of Egyptians visiting the Americas - only that such stonework was certainly not beyond the abilities of humans at that time.

 

[WAB]

Nonsense.

The ancient peoples in Bolivia could not have done the kind of high-tech work that was obviously done on the stones at Puma-punku. Why not just accept that and find it fascinating than argue against it?

I don't see that I have argued against anything other than the only evidence as to the source we have is evidence that we don't know. There is evidence that the stonework in Bolivia was done because it exists but that is all we really know. It is obvious that it could be done because it was done, how and by who we don't know. Only a preconceived or confirmation bias could lead someone to positively declare that it could not have been done by people living there at the time - such absolute assurance borders on religious faith.

ETA:
It is obvious that humans were capable of such stonework at the time because the Egyptians had done work as intricate over a thousand years earlier. I am, however, not going to say that this is evidence of Egyptians visiting the Americas.

Who's being absolutely sure? Fairly sure, yeah, but not absolutely sure. Please be careful of your language, and your accusations.

Besides I am far from alone here. There are scores of archaeologists who agree that such fine and detailed, obviously "machined" work could not have been done by the locals in that part of Bolivia at that time.



Please note the very small holes on the right of the picture. This stone is andesite, a very hard rock. Are you saying such fine work was possible with tools available to the Tiwanaku at that time?

From the Wikipedia article:

In assembling the walls of Pumapunku, each stone was finely cut to interlock with the surrounding stones. The blocks were fit together like a puzzle, forming load-bearing joints without the use of mortar. One common engineering technique involves cutting the top of the lower stone at a certain angle, and placing another stone on top of it which was cut at the same angle.[4] The precision with which these angles have been used to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry.[6] - emphasis mine

There is also the question of how such heavy stones were moved into the area with ancient technology. Llama skin ropes and ramps? Highly unlikely, given the distance.

Even more fascinating is the rampant destruction at the site, where several very heavy stones are found driven into walls of rock. Indicatative of a huge blast, perhaps atomic or some such.

Moreover: a lot of these large stones show every sign of being prefabricated and then moved.

Note I am NOT committing to anything, just throwing out the evidence and the current research.

 

[skepticalbip]

Nonsense.

The ancient peoples in Bolivia could not have done the kind of high-tech work that was obviously done on the stones at Puma-punku. Why not just accept that and find it fascinating than argue against it?

I don't see that I have argued against anything other than the only evidence as to the source we have is evidence that we don't know. There is evidence that the stonework in Bolivia was done because it exists but that is all we really know. It is obvious that it could be done because it was done, how and by who we don't know. Only a preconceived or confirmation bias could lead someone to positively declare that it could not have been done by people living there at the time - such absolute assurance borders on religious faith.

ETA:
It is obvious that humans were capable of such stonework at the time because the Egyptians had done work as intricate over a thousand years earlier. I am, however, not going to say that this is evidence of Egyptians visiting the Americas.

Who's being absolutely sure? Fairly sure, yeah, but not absolutely sure. Please be careful of your language, and your accusations.

Sorry, but your post read as absolute certainty. I saw no qualifiers in your: "The ancient peoples in Bolivia could not have done the kind of high-tech work that was obviously done on the stones at Puma-punku"

Besides I am far from alone here. There are scores of archaeologists who agree that such fine and detailed, obviously "machined" work could not have been done by the locals in that part of Bolivia at that time.

It depends on which "archaeologists" you choose to read.

Please note the very small holes on the right of the picture. This stone is andesite, a very hard rock. Are you saying such fine work was possible with tools available to the Tiwanaku at that time?

Again, there are tons of things that we don't have full understanding of. The fact that we don't understand is not support for the validity of speculations.

The ancient Egyptians did stonework that would seem "impossible" to those who wish to promote their favorite beliefs. I have read quite a few of them.

 

[WAB]

Who's being absolutely sure? Fairly sure, yeah, but not absolutely sure. Please be careful of your language, and your accusations.

Sorry, but your post read as absolute certainty. I saw no qualifiers in your: "The ancient peoples in Bolivia could not have done the kind of high-tech work that was obviously done on the stones at Puma-punku"

Besides I am far from alone here. There are scores of archaeologists who agree that such fine and detailed, obviously "machined" work could not have been done by the locals in that part of Bolivia at that time.

It depends on which "archaeologists" you choose to read.

Please note the very small holes on the right of the picture. This stone is andesite, a very hard rock. Are you saying such fine work was possible with tools available to the Tiwanaku at that time?

Again, there are tons of things that we don't have full understanding of. The fact that we don't understand is not support for the validity of speculations.

The ancient Egyptians did stonework that would seem "impossible" to those who wish to promote their favorite beliefs. I have read quite a few of them.

Spoken like a true believer, Skepticalbip.

I'm outta this silly conversation, and unsubbing from the thread.

You wish to continue this with me, it'll have to be via PM.