1. Question: Can we travel to the stars?
A lot of Astronomers make the following statement: The ancient astronaut theory is invalid and does not have to be discussed any further for one simple reason: The distances in the Universe are too vast for space travel. Albert Einstein showed us in his Theory of Relativity (E=mc2) that faster-then-light travel is not possible. Even speeds close to the speed of light require so much energy that they never could be achieved.

Even close star systems are 4-20 light years away from earth and it is very unlikely that intelligent life exists there. Even if an intelligence could reach 50% of the speed of light a spaceship would take at least 50 years to come here. Of course they would need another 50 years to get back home. That would make “expeditions” of other intelligences extremely unlikely, especially if their planet would be 1000 light years or more away.

Answer/Argument:
This is a very interesting point indeed. Because if the above is correct, we really don't have to discuss anything any further. But let's look at this a bit more closely: So we know the universe is vast and the stars and surrounding planets are far away. That's a fact and nobody disputes this. But here is another fact. ANY distance can be travelled by ANY object that has ANY speed that is not zero. Makes sense? So what does that mean? It means that somebody can walk around the world just like somebody who uses an airplane. It just takes longer. Yes, a lot longer. But nevertheless it's possible. And people have done it. Every trip, no matter how long, is just a matter of TIME. In 1972 the spacecrafts Voyager 1 and 2 were launched and both left our solar system just recently. The speed of both is not even snail's pace in relation to cosmic distances. But even as slow as they are, they WILL get there eventually. The scientists that built the two spacecraft are so certain about this, they included a message to extraterrestrial intelligences that might capture them sometime. So that is proof that astronomers do believe in extraterrestrial life :) But that's a different story...

So, we established that all we need to reach the stars is time. But do we have time? Not in our hectic, self-centered world. In our western society everything evolves around our own egos. Maybe one generation up or down. But that's about it. Very few explorers in human history ever went on a trip that they knew they would not come back from. But there were a few. Even fewer explorers ever set out and knew that they would never reach to where they were going.

But we do know that in ancient societies kingdoms have been built to last centuries. Strict rules were put in place in order to ensure that certain families rule over many generations. In fact, this type of society was much more successful then our modern and young democracies. A few peoples even built into their society models that many things will take several generations to complete. One example is the cathedral of Cologne in Germany. The project was so huge and time consuming that the original builders knew it was impossible to complete in one lifetime and needed many generations for completion. Imagine an advanced society that thinks like this but in terms of space exploration. What if an expedition to the stars would be planned not with the restriction of the lifetimes of a few individuals but many GENERATIONS. All over sudden we could think in much larger terms or distances.

A star that's e.g. 200 light years away could be reached in 400 years if we somehow managed to reach 50% of the speed of light. 400 years, that would be 5 generations. If we somehow could build such a spaceship that's able to house the needs of many generations of space travelers, distances would not be measured in light years anymore, but the number of generations.

Those Generation Spaceships are not a new idea. Science Fiction writers and early rocket scientists proposed the idea of an “interstellar ark” as early as the 1920s. In the 1970s and 80s NASA proposed several ideas and concepts how those spaceships could look like. Here are some examples:

Image source: Wikipedia commons

Image source: Wikipedia commons

The idea seems to "flare up" every five years or so and is usually introduced as "brand new". Recent examples are the National Geographic issue No1/2013. A great recent visualization of the Generation spaceship concept is rendered in the Hollywood movie "Elysium" with Matt Damon. The movie's plot is rather poor, but if you are interested how such a Generation Spaceship could look like, it's worth watching.

The amazing thing about Generation Spaceships is that they are very doable with technology that is already known to us today or it would need relatively little to overcome existing problems. Yes they would be huge and it would take many resources of all people of the whole planet, but doable they would be.

In fact we already made our first attempt to create such a Genereation Spaceship. It was called Biosphere 2 and was constructed in the late 80s/early 90s as an experiment for scientists to live in a completely self contained biological atmosphere, separated from the rest of the world. The experiment was conducted over 2 years and then a second mission for about 10 month, before everything fell apart due to political reasons.

Experts are arguing about if the experiment was a success or not, but I believe it was a good start and it shows that with a little tweaking the technology could be ready for such an undertaking. Unfortunately Society and human factors like funding, greed etc. are still the major factor of why we as a society are not ready for such a step, yet. 200 years from now, maybe...

Image source: Wikipedia commons, Author: John de Dios

Aside from Generation Spaceships – which I believe are the best way to travel to the stars – there is the ever popular, ever disputed faster then light travel. With what we currently know this is not possible. Although in the recent decades Quantum Physics made quite a bit of progress and scientists sometimes observe effects that can't be explained by “regular” physics. So we might not have seen the end of this discussion after all.

2. There are too many stars! Nobody can come here by coincidence!
So let's say we can get to the stars with generation spaceships as explained above. There are trillions of stars out there. Even if there is intelligent life out there on a tiny percent of planets (that we don't know exist), the coincidence that they would find our small, insignificant planet is so remote, that we don't have to waste any time or money to do any Ancient Astronaut research, especially since life on earth is such a rare coincidence by itself.

Answer:
It's pretty naive to think that space travellers would take of in a random direction and chance to hit intelligent live at some point in time by coincidence. In recent years telescopes and other detection instruments have hugely improved. The Kepler space telescope alone detected thousands of planets outside of our solar system. A few years ago we even found planets that are located in the “habitable” zone around other stars and are good candidates for extraterrestrial life. Wouldn't it be a good guess, that we would pick such a planet to go to instead of randomly “point and shoot”?

3. Isn't the Ancient Astronaut Theory nothing but a bunch of "looks like" mysteries?
Ancient Astronaut Theorists always point out ancient carvings, drawings etc. And say “That looks like and astronaut, a spaceship or anything other technical. But the archeologists say it's a flower, jaguar, snake or other natural “down to earth” things. Doesn't Occams Razor suggest that the simplest explanation tends to be the right one? I mean you can see sheep in clouds, faces in smoke. Why not see aliens and spaceships in ancient carvings?

Answer:
I can best answer this question with some examples. Look at the following:

Image source: Cyclist carving. http://richard-seaman.com

This is the photo of a carving on a temple wall in Indonesia. What do we see? In the middle a figurine that's standing or walking. The person holds something in their hands. The person is surrounded by flowers, possibly a lotus plant. Now somebody could go out of their way to explain the above carving with the symbolism of the depicted flowers etc. The fact that it looks like a bicycle could easily dismissed as a simple “looks like” mystery. Occams Razor?Not this time. This carving is actually not ancient. It was made during the time of colonization of Indonesia. The artist never saw a bicycle before and had no idea what it was. He was fascinated when he saw this magic thing that allowed the rider to go in incredible speed. He had no idea what it was or how it worked. So he had to carve what he knew. So the wheels became flowers as the whole thing was beautiful and flowers were the most beautiful thing he knew. This carving is widely considered as a “cute odditity” among archeologists, yet it is one of the best examples of depictions of misunderstood technology.

Now look at this:

It becomes clear that this carving is not showing a human body with a lions head. If you look closely you can see an eye and the beginning of the nose. You can clearly see that the human head wears a helmet. But helmets are nothing special. What is special is that on the right side of the helmet emerges a tube that enters in a small box.On the left side of the helmet you can clearly see a snout of an animal and out of this snout there is smoke or fire shooting. This carving is roughly 1500 years old. Would it be newer, nobody would have a problem to say that the above is a misunderstood Hepa filter of some sort.

What those two examples show is that the simplest explanation does not always have to be the right one.

4. Wasn't the Ancient Astronaut Theory and many of it's pillars already debunked?
Many “pillars” of the ancient astronaut theory have been dismissed or “debunked” over the last two decades. And that by famous scientists. Yet many ancient astronaut publications contain the same old things over and over. Eg. Everybody now knows that the Easter Island statues were built by humans, not aliens. Science found out exactly how they were built and when they were built. But yet, they keep appearing in books about ancient astronauts over and over.

Answer:
Well just because a Dr. or Prof. Has an explanation for something, doesn't necessarily mean it is the right one. A good example for such an “explanation” is the main temple of Olantaytambo in Peru. There, perched high above the village of Olantay of today is a structure built with gigantic monolitic stones. Each stone weighs thousands of tons and could only be lifted with advanced technology today. Only the biggest cranes available to heavy construction companies could move them.

Yet, the ancient inhabitants were able to move them with those technical help. At least that is what archeologists suggest. The argument was made that all you need to move heavy rocks is people. Lot's of them. It was calculated that the combined strength of about 2000 men were able to move the gigantic stones up the hill. So-and-so many people, moving so-and-so many tons. The math adds up and that is all that matters. It seems like a no brainer, case closed and another “pillar” of the Paleoseti theory gone. All that is left is that a book has to be published that can be quoted by the critics. In many forum discussions I was attacked by critics that dismiss the “ancient had technical help from outside” theory, because of the calculations that were published.

The problem is that most of the critics never visited Ollantaytambo. Because once you have seen the site, you immediately understand that all of those calculations don't work. And here is why.

Take a look at this photo I took during my Peru visit in 2005:

What makes this photo interesting is the fact that it shows a good overview of the megalithic temple of Olantaytambo. You can see the huge stones marked in red. Those are the stones archeologists think hundreds and thousands of workers dragged up the mountain to its current location. You can read more about this if you go to my Olantaytambo page. What's interesting for now is the group of tourists that stand on the left side of the photo.

Just count the number of people that stand there. If you counted 16, you are correct. Now we do a little quick and dirty Photoshop magic. The next photo shows the group of 16 people cloned 6 times and spread all over the temple area. That's 16x6=96 people.

It starts to look crowded, doesn't it? Now imagine multiplying those people by 5 and then doubling them again. Then you have 1000 workers. Those numbers of workers are needed to drag the blocks up the hill. It just does not work, there isn't enough space on the platform for that many people. Let alone hard working ones. And you don't have to be a Professor to figure this one out! You just have to go there and look for yourself.

Why has nobody ever pointed that out? Well a somebody smart wrote it in a book. So it has to be right...

Something I find really offensive, though, is that critics always seem to use the word "debunked" if they talk about a difference of opinion in regards to the Ancient Astronaut Theory. "Debunking" means to me that you resolve something that was made up to decive. This is not a way productive discussions take place.

Let me make one thing really clear. I think that the Ancient Astronaut Theory is a VALID Theory that nobody will "debunk". The word "debunk" is deeply disrespectful in a scientific context. Maria Reiche, the great grand dame of Nazca research theorized after years of research that she thinks the Nazca lines were some kind of a calendar. Today many researchers don't think this is right. But nobody ever said Maria Reiche's Theory was "debunked". Why is that?

5. We have not found a single shred of evidence of extraterrestrials in any archeological dig. If the aliens were in fact here shouldn't we have found something by now. Something clearly extraterrestrial in origin?

Answer:
I can see the point. We humans, especially we “civilized” ones have a bad history of leaving things behind. Trash is littering our oceans and forests, and every time we had an “encounter” with native people we left something behind, just like every war leaves tank ruins etc.

But what would happen if further in the future our way of thinking will change? What if our “environmental” consciousness progresses?

The “civilized” world is already aware that we can't pollute our environment forever and if we want to conserve our nature and – ultimately – our society, we have to change the way we live our lives.

That means that new more environmentally friendly products will be produced for pretty much everything. Our modern cars are already made with end-of-life recycling procedures in place. As I'm writing this I'm eating my soup with a spoon that's made entirely of corn starch.
Although the spoon feels like plastic, it will be completely dissolved within weeks of it going to the landfill. More and more products like this will be introduced and eventually all our products will be like this. It's not a matter of IF that happens, it's a matter of WHEN.
Now imagine a society that is hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of ours. Especially a society that lived for many generations in spaceships where everything HAS to be recycled.
It would be easy and natural for them to use only products that are completely bio degradeable, and they must have had operating procedures in place that made sure to leave as little trace as possible.

And I think this is exactly what happend in the past.

The ancient astronauts were using instruments and equipment that did not leave any trace if lost or broken. I'm convinced the Ancient Astronauts were very aware not to leave any technological traces behind that our ancestors could misuse. (But every perfect plan has its flaws. A few items might have been forgotten, but this is another subject, you can read about here.)

Another problem is that ANYTHING found that is out of the ordinary is declared a fake! How can you proof something if the proof is "not admissable"? The best example for this are the crystal skulls. The Belize skull from Luubantun in Belize was declared a fake because they found microscopic tool marks on it. The Lady that found the skull, said, no she swore! that she found the skull in the ruins of the ancient Maya city. Why would she lie? Her family never sold the skull or gained any advantage from it. If there are modern tool marks on the skull, but it WAS found in ancient ruins, isn't that the proof that everybody wants? So ancient astronaut theorists can't win. On the one hand a proof is wanted, on the other hand no proof is accepted.

 

6. There are no scientific works whatsoever in the Paleo-Seti field. Every Paleo-Seti publication is written in popular style for a non scientific audience. Therefore the Paleo-Seti Theory can't be taken seriously. Furthermore pretty much all authors in the Paleo-Seti field are not archeologists, and very rarely have a degree in any related field. How can you take them seriously?

Answer:
How many scientific works to you know that were written by amateur archaeologists? Or amateur scientists in general? How many amateurs do you know that are taken seriously by any scientific field?

Unfortunately there is no university or college course on the Ancient Astronaut Theory you can take anywhere in the world.

Scientific study of a subject takes a lot of research and funding. There are very few “full timers” in the world of Paleo-Seti research. And all of them are book authors. And only very few of those authors make enough money to survive. They have no University or government grants behind them to back them up if their next book does not sell well. And let's face it, not a lot of them do.

Therefore Ancient Astronaut researchers have to keep their publications attractive to a broad range of readers. And unfortunately that's when scientific research DOES NOT come in handy. Scientific publications do not sell well and have a very limited readership. Steven Hawking knows exactly what I'm talking about. Not many outside the scientific community knew his name until he published is popular book “A short history of time”.
What was the secret of the book? Lay men's terms and NO FORMULAS! That and an interesting personal story is how you sell books. On top of everything are the publishing houses that want to make the most profit possible of course. Editors take whole passages out and streamline every publication. You want a scientific work with Paleo-Seti background? Try Lutz Gentes' "The reality of the Gods". Unfortunately only available in German as far as I know. Did the book sell well? No, because it's written in scientific style.
So it is not true that there are no scientific works about the Ancient Astronaut Theory, just nobody knows about them.

Also, a surprising number of scientists is very interested in the Theory. I found that out in many private conversations with Archaeologists, Geologists and others. But they all fear ridicule and not being published anymore if they say anything positive about the theory. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a fact of how science works nowadays.

You have to keep in mind that Archaeology and Anthropology are not exact sciences like Physics, chemistry or Math. While in Math 2+2 always equals 4, in archaeology one find can change EVERYTHING and can be interpreted in one way or another. In fa,t in todays Archaeological world every new major find is disputed, interpreted and then disputed again. In the end you have 50% of archaeologists saying one thing and 50% of them saying the exact opposite. If you want a prime example for this, you google "sky disc of Nebra" (sometimes referred to as the star disc of Nebra)

To come back to the original question: How can you take the Ancient Astronaut Theory seriously if very little "serious scientific" publications are around? Well I of the opinion that - scientific or not - the Ancient Astronaut Theorists have done a very good job in pointing out things that either do not work or need a fresh look in official Archaeology.

And keep in mind if two scientists argue about the same thing and have opposite opinions, one of them IS wrong. That's how science works, and the Ancient Astronaut Theory is part of it.

7. The ancient people were not stupid. They had just as much brain power as we have today. They didn't need extraterrestrial help to build the ancient monuments. They did it themselves and the monuments are a document to their ingenuity! It is insulting to the ancient people to say everything was built by aliens, because they couldn't do it themselves!

Response:
Absolutely correct! The ancients were not stupid. So why do archeologists make them look like they were? If you open pretty much any archeological book you will find out that the ancients were superstitious sex fanatics, liars (because all their legends and myths are of course completely made up) and – on top of everything – they were constantly high on drugs. They did have great artists who knew how to draw animals, penises and everything else easily identifiable, but they most definitely were on drugs when they painted beings with helmets, antennas and other technical looking equipment. Shamanism is the archeological description for ancient people on drugs.

Yes, the ancients were not stupid! They knew exactly what they drew, they knew exactly what they wrote down and knew exactly what they remembered! That's what the Ancient Astronaut Theory is saying.

But it gets very interesting if it seems that an ancient society has discrepancies in the knowledge they acquired. Societies don't evolve in one but in many directions. Our own society is the best example. We made huge advances in medicine, astronomy, computers and every other field of research. The ancient Greeks and Romans had fantastic knowledge in astronomy, architecture, medicine, weapon technology and warfare among many other things. Because their culture developed gradually in every direction.

But there are outliers during world history that just don't fit this picture. The Inca built incredible structures that we would have a hard time matching today. But otherwise they basically lived in the stone age.

The Mayas were able to calculate solar eclipses thousands of years in advance, but – according to archaeology – they did not know one of the most basic achievements of the human race: The wheel. If you visit rural Mexico today, the houses and buildings are just like they have been thousands of years ago: Twigs and bamboo. And yet, we see Tikal, Palenque, Chitzen Itza, Teotiuacan and all the other fantastic buildings.
Isn't that odd?

8. Paleo-Seti theorists only see what they want to see. They take findings out of context, compare apples to oranges and focus in on the “unusual” when - under closer inspection – the find is not unusual at all.

Answer:
You bet! We see what we want to see! That is the big difference between ancient astronaut research and e.g. Egyptology. The Egyptologist ist only “allowed” to look at Egypt. They are not allowed to compare the Egyptian “apple” to the Mayan “orange” although they taste and look the same. The Paleo-Seti Theorist can taste both forbidden fruits and see if they have a common route.Research and progress means that sometimes we have to take a look at old contexts and give them a new meaning. That's how humans discover new and exciting things. That's how progress is made.

Yes, the ancients were not stupid! They knew exactly what they drew, they knew exactly what they wrote down and knew exactly what they remembered! That's what the Ancient Astronaut Theory is saying.

But it gets very interesting if it seems that an ancient society has discrepancies in the knowledge they acquired. Societies don't evolve in one but in many directions. Our own society is the best example. We made huge advances in medicine, astronomy, computers and every other field of research. The ancient Greeks and Romans had fantastic knowledge in astronomy, architecture, medicine, weapon technology and warfare among many other things. Because their culture developed gradually in every direction.

But there are outliers during world history that just don't fit this picture. The Inca built incredible structures that we would have a hard time matching today. But otherwise they basically lived in the stone age.

The Mayas were able to calculate solar eclipses thousands of years in advance, but – according to archeology – they did not know one of the most basic achievements of the human race: The wheel. If you visit rural Mexico today, the houses and buildings are just like they have been thousands of years ago: Twigs and bamboo. And yet, we see Tikal, Palenque, Chitzen Itza, Teotiuacan and all the other fantastic buildings.
Isn't that odd?

9. Many authors of the Ancient Astronaut Theory are publishing books about the same stuff over and over again. Same photographs, slightly different texts. They also copy each other and is someone makes a mistake, it is copied and no questions are asked. This discredits the Ancient Astronaut Theory.

Answer:
Unfortunately this is correct! The Ancient Astronaut theory has to find back to grassroots research. Researchers have to focus more on new findings then making a quick buck. I personally know authors that have never visited any of the ancient sites themselves, yet publish book after book about all kinds of things. A good indication of such an author is usually the sparing use of photographs. Due to license issues it is difficult and expensive most of the time to use other people's photos in books.
I believe very strongly that if you publish material about the Ancient Astronaut Theory, you can't do it with "armchair knowledge" alone.

10. I have seen the TV show “Ancient Aliens”. Does that show reflect the Ancient Aliens Theory correctly?

Answer:
My personal opinion about the TV series is divided.
There are quite a few good episodes, but there are also really bad ones. The same can be said about the “presenters”.
The biggest problem about the show is that very little background information is being given which would be necessary to understand the subject better. This is of course a limitation of the 45 minutes that one episode is running. But what would stop the producers to make a two episode special about key subjects like Nazca or Tiahuanaco? Instead they could drop the idiotic Big Foot and Ghost episodes that have absolutely nothing to do with the Ancient Astronaut Theory.
But overall I'm happy that the TV show is on. It keeps the discussion about the Theory alive and introduces it to new people. I think the producers should be very careful, though and keep the show within scientific principles without being “to stuffy”.

11. What do you think about UFOs?

Answer:
There is no easy answer for this. Please read my separate article about the subject.

12. Ancient astronomical alignments and the ancient people's obsession with the stars have nothing to do with extraterrestrials as you state on your website and other authors of the ancient astronaut theory often claim! The ancient people needed calendars to determine when to plant crops etc. Also, the ancient people had a deeper connection with nature in the first place. They had no TV or other distractions, so they had nothing else to do then to watch the night sky in the evening. Therefore they were fascinated with the moving stars, and all other forces of nature like lightning etc. Naturally, those forces of nature turned into gods and believe systems in ancient legends. That's what we can read in the old books today.

Answer:
The above statement needs a very complex answer. For starters the statement contradicts itself.It is absolutely correct that the ancient people were more routed in nature as we in the western societies are today. But the world is a big place and we still have cultures that live their lives close to – what we believe – the ancient societies lived theirs. So we do have a frame of reference today. All we need to do is go in the e.g. Jungle were many indigenous societies live like their ancestors thousands of years ago. The first thing you will find completely absent is the worry about time and calendars.

I grew up in a developed part in the western world: Rural Germany. Although m parents have not been farmers, many of my friends parent's were farmers for many generations. We once learnt the old German folk song in school “Im Maerzen der Bauer die Roesslein einspannt...” which means translated “In March the farmer puts his horses to work...”. I remember very vivid when I and my friend George (whose dad was a farmer) were sitting around their kitchen table to memorize the song for homework. George and I were maybe 7 years old.
We asked George's dad when March will be in hope we will see the big traktor he had and he answered: “Boys, this is just a folk tale. We have to start our work not in March, but when it get's warmer outside. If there is still snow in March, our horses will stay in the stable.”
How right he was! Farmers and all other people that live from the land don't need a calendar to know when to do what.

13. You have very little quotes and credits on your website. This is not scientific! Therefore you are not credible!

Answer:
If I quote out of a book, I will put quotes and/or credits in my texts. If I quote from webpages, I will post a link (unfortunately the internet is a very “fluent” medium. Websites and links change.)
The field of the ancient astronaut theory is extremely diverse. If I write about Egypt, Peru or any other culture, I touch things that are their own study fields in the universities around the world. Therefore I can't possibly know every book.

Furthermore I do my own research and think with my own head. If I have an idea by myself I strongly feel that I don't have the duty go through all the literature to check if somebody had a similar idea before me. It's a bit like in photography. Nobody owns the right to the pyramids in Egypt, so everybody can take a photo of them. Also many of them show them, each photo is a bit different.

The most ridiculous thing that happened to me was during my research of the Dolmens in Nova Scotia. There is absolutely no literature available anywhere and my own research in the subject was pretty much groundbreaking. All the hints I got at the time were from local “hearsay” from wood workers and other word of mouth sources. The only book that mentioned one of the structures was a locally published and I mentioned and quoted it on my website. After I published the story on several mailing list that dealt with archeology and Paleo-Seti, I was attacked several times because I would not list my “sources” scientifically with proper footnotes etc.

Now, how do you list sources if you have none? How do you quote somebody if there is nobody to quote? If you do your own research and discover something NEW, you will have a hard time with that.

Nobody can know every piece of literature, so it's entirely possible that somebody, somewhere had the same idea I had. You will never ever find a quote from any source on my website that I copied from somewhere. I never made money with my site and with my thoughts and I probably never will. Why would I “steal” something, put on the internet if I have absolutely no profit from it? If you find anything on my website, that you feel belongs to you or anybody else, be it a text or photograph, email me.

14. What do you think is the best proof for the Ancient Astronaut Theory?

Answer:
I try to present the best stuff on my Website.
Unfortunately, I'm a spare time researcher that has a full time day job and updating the site is sometimes difficult. It is my lifelong quest to visit all the most interesting sites myself, so that I know first hand what I am writing about. Here is a quick list of facts that I think are the best proof for the theory:

a) The worldwide similarities in myths in the ancient people. Especially myths about gods that descended from the sky and tought the ancients in all kinds of subjects.

b) The worldwide similarities of building techniques in ancient times right back to the stone age. Especially the fact that the older a site is, the more incredible is the weight of moved stones.

c) The Nazca lines in Peru.

d) Puma Punku (Tiahuanaco) and Saqsayhuaman in Bolivia and Peru. The stoneworks there are so incredible, they are very hard to explain with anything other then extraterrestrial/advanced tools and techniques.

e) The Giza plateau in Egypt and other ancient Egyptian sites.

f) The worldwide astronomical alignments of the “megalithic culture” and the ancient's “obsession” with the stars and sky. What makes this especially interesting is the combination with a)

g) Cults and rituals that are very similar worldwide and have something to do with body altering in order to look like the gods. You can read more about those cults in the "PaleoSeti Mysteries" section of this website.

15. Let's go back to the “evidence” you present. I can see your argument that all the artifacts potential aliens have left behind are gone by now or under lock and key. But honestly I don't buy it. I still need “hands on” proof that something was done with extraterrestrial technology, tools. Something like the “ultimate not disputable proof” that those aliens were here.

Answer:
Do you think the earth is round? Of course you do! But why do you think that? It's because all the evidence points to it. Photos have been taken by Astronauts, the earth's circumference has been calculated. Everything we know tells us the Earth is round.

And yet only a handful of people have every seen this fact for themselves. All we others have to trust the circumstantial evidence that the Earth is round.In fact, I find the above question very fatalistic and dangerous to be honest.
Thank god criminal courts don't argue the same way as the question above suggests or 99% of all criminals would walk free.
The question above suggests that you can only convict a murderer if you have video evidence of the killing.
Everything else would not be admissible.

Circumstantial evidence is a valid form of proof and is in use in the justice system for hundreds if not thousands of years.In archaeology circumstantial evidence is pretty much the only way to proof a theory as we will never know for certain how the ancients really lived. Nobody was there. So to demand Ancient Astronaut theorist to come up with this mysterious “undeniable” physical proof is highly unscientific and – quite frankly – unfair. That's not how science works and if you think that way, you have to dismiss a big part of all scientific research and better release 99% criminals out of their cells.

16. There is so much conflicting information on the internet. I don't know how to inform myself about the Ancient Astronaut (PaleoSeti) Theory. Do you have any tips?

Answer:
For everything nowadays we have a complete “information overload” for pretty much everything and the PaleoSeti Theory is no exception. If you are new to the theory and want to start getting into it, it's pretty hard to filter out what is useful information and what not. My personal recommendation is to start with some good old books.

There are several authors I can recommend but I think the best ones are concentrated in the German language. Some of those books are a bit hard to come by in a decent English translation.

A good starting point is certainly the books by Erich von Daeniken. He was not the first one writing about the theory, but he certainly “jump started” it into the mainstream. His first two books “Chariots of the gods” and “Return to the stars” are a bit dated now, but still give you a good foundation of what the theory is all about.

Erich von Daeniken had his best ideas and wrote the best books from 1975 until about 1995. I find his books from the 80's a highpoint of PaleoSeti research. After that he lost a bit of his “drive” and focused more on repetition of what he already said in books before. With successful authors like Erich von Daeniken it sometimes happens that publishing houses “force” them to publish a new book, although they don't have anything new to say.

Highly recommended are the books of Johannes and Peter Fiebag, German brothers who write excellent stuff about the theory. Unfortunately English translations are rare from those authors.In the anglo-american world of authors, I can recommend the very well researched books of author Josef Blumrich who wrote great books in the 1970s and 80s.

Choose your books wisely. Before I purchase a book from an author I don't know, I usually do a bit of research of his/her other publications. Many newer authors have a tendency of “cashing in” on old ideas. If the authors other books include all kinds of new age stuff or many other unrelated fields, I usually don't bother. PaleoSeti research requires dedication and a scientific base, so if the author's other books are “Ghosts of ....” or “The big foot mystery...” or “Healing crystals of the ancient shamans...” I can pretty much guarantee you the books are no good.

Also, some authors are publishing books almost in quarter year intervals. I strongly believe that good books with proper research take time to write.

The most important thing one can do is go to the ancient sites in question yourself. Yes, it's time consuming and can cost money, but in the end it's really worth it. You can read a hundred books about the pyramids, but no book is a substitute for actually seeing them for yourself. No description does the gigantic stones from Saqsayhuaman in Peru justice.

If money is a problem, you can visit interesting sites and museums just around the corner were you live. Pieces of the global puzzle the Extraterrestrials left for us are all over the globe, you just have to understand them.

It's also most important to read books about archaeological sites that are not written by Ancient Astronaut Theorists to get the full picture of what a site is all about. Only then you can judge what's out there. Archaeology is NOT an exact science even if Archaeologists wouldn't agree with this statement. If you read literature about an ancient site from three different archaeologists you will get three different opinions. So it's good to know what opinions are out there, not just what Ancient Astronaut Theorists have to say.

Ten years ago internet forums used to be a great source of information and knowledge exchange. Unfortunately that is no longer the case.

17. Why are your pictures on your website so small? I tought you are a photographer. Can't you provide us with higher resolution images so we see more detail.

Answer:
I don't post higher res images because I'm a photographer. The lower resolution of my images ensure that my images are not appearing in publications without me being compensated for them. I find the images from paleoseti.com all over the internet, in blogs, other websites and everything else you can think of. Many of them do not even have an image credit. In fact if you do a search on Google Images with the keyword "Puma Punku", a good 30% of the results are the images I posted here on paleoseti.com.
I'm very realistic about stuff like that and understand that when I publish my photos on the internet that will happen. And it's fine, in fact it's kind of flattering.
What I don't like, though, is when I see my photos in commercial publications without being compensated for it. One good example was a multi million Dollar Hollywood movie production that advertised the movie with one of my dolmen shots. They never asked for permission nor did they pay me a cent for the image. I don't know about you, but I find that unfair.
For not-for-profit research projects I usually grant permission to use my images and I even send out higher res shots. But for commercial projects I charge.
I think that the images on the website have enough resolution for anybody to see what's important. If you think different and would like to see more detail in a particular shot, email me.

18. Something in the Ancient Astronaut Theory doesn't make sense. The artifacts, buildings and "mysteries" you talk about and that you claim are connected, are in fact not only far apart in distance but also in TIME! The Egyptian Pyramids for example are thousands of years older compared to their Mayan "counterparts". In one article you compare the "Venus of Willendorf" figurine with an figurine found in Equador. The "Venus of Willendorf" is 25000 (!) years older then the Equadorian counterpart!. This is outragous and makes no sense! You are comparing apples to oranges.

Answer:
This is always the big "killer argument" that PaleoSeti critics seem to have. The time difference between artifacts. In reality this problem is not as big as you think. You just have think rationally about how history and memory works. Since this is a very fundamental question, this answer will be a bit longer, as I want to get it right.

I can explain what mean by giving you an example:

Every 9th grade Math book you will open all over the world will have a name in them: Pythagoras! This guy seems to be everywhere, not just in 9th grader's nightmares and the books they have to read, but also in other scientific publications of all shapes and sizes. If you wouldn't know what or who this Pythagoras is, you would think the guy is pretty much everywhere. In Russia as well as the US, in Europe just as much as in Japan.
But not only this! He is not only present in the year 2014, that guy seemed to have been around in 1950 and 1897! Heck, he might have been mentioned somewhere in 1000AD!
Now, if you do some more digging, you might unearth (literally!) an ancient text in Greece mentioning that guy in 400BC.

That's 2500 years of "Pythagoras uninterrupted"! And I'm willing to bet a thousand bucks that this guy will be around for another 10000 years if humankind survives that long. So why is nobody asking the above question when we compare a book from 1930 mentioning Pythagoras with a book from 2014?
Because we know that Pythagoras was a Greek Philisopher that lived around 530BC. We know that is was him that found the Theorem for triangles among many other things. In fact if his name is mentioned in publications they don't mean the man himself, they - most likely - mean his theorems. The name Pythagoras stands for many things: A theorem, a historic person, but most of all a memory. And memories are timeless.
Memories are carried over many thousands of years by different means. Many cultures choose writing them down, some choose oral tradition. Some make figurines, buildings and other artifacts to keep the memory alive. But they all "talk" about the same thing, something important that happend in the past. Time has no meaning for memories as long as they are kept alive. The only thing that can happen to them over time are slight variations of the same theme, the same intial event.

And that's exactly what we see all over the world. The ancient people remembered the most traumatic event in human history. The realization that there are extraterrestrials - pardon - gods that seem to have superpowers. This event - or events as I believe there where several contacts during history - where transported through time in the memories of the ancient people. That's why we see similarities worldwide (the saw the same things) and that's why time doesn't matter.

19. Sorry, but archaeology doesn't need the PaleoSeti Theory. It can explain pretty much everything without ancient Aliens. And the few mysteries left can soon be explained without the help of aliens or other "out there" things.

Answer:
This is a very poor way of seeing things, in many ways. If history has proven one thing, it is that at any time a statement like the above was made, it had to be revised not long after. A good example of this is that the way Isaac Newton explained the physics of our world in the 1700s didn't need Albert Einstein. In fact physicists until the early 1900s were pretty content with Newton's explanations. Yes, there were little things here and there that they couldn't explain, but they were sure that they will find a solution for them soon. Yet, it where those "little" problems that eventually sparked Einstein's radical ideas and gave science a completely new outlook. But in the beginning Einstein was confronted with the same sentence above.
In fact, i believe that the above statement is just as bad as medieval thought processes. The church in the 1500s didn't need science. They could explain EVERYTHING with god and a believe system. And if there where questions beyond that, they told the people not to ask those questions. Or else. Galileo Galilei would know what I'm talking about.

The question is not if archaeology NEEDS the PaleoSeti Theory. The question is, if there is validity to the theory or not.

And with the above statement we are not closer to an answer to the theory, but we are a lot closer to a medieval view of the world. Archaeology is far away from explaining everything. Such a statement is both arrogant and ignorant. Even significant archaeological sites are only excavated by a small percentage and nobody knows what finds we can still expect.

Archaeologist are only human as well. They all have different backgrounds and agendas. Unfortunately for science, an archaeologist in the middle East, for example, will come to different conclusions depending on what cultural and religious background he/she has. I can guarantee you that.

A 13 year old once asked me: "Why is history and archaeology so boring?"

Answer:
Because some people make it that way.