Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Chapter 9 ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS, COSMIC COLLISIONS, AND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

This chapter covers three pseudoscientific theories that share a number of similarities. All three emerged suddenly and rapidly became very popular with readers who, while otherwise well educated, had little background in the specific fields the theories are concerned with. All three theories were developed by articulate but scientifically untrained individuals who had little knowledge of how scientific theories are really validated. Finally, even after thorough refutations, all three theories still command dedicated bands of followers whose belief in them has an almost religious fervor.

ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS

The “ancient astronaut” theory of Erich von Daniken was amazingly popular during the 1970s and has adherents to this day. Von Daniken proposed that Earth was repeatedly visited in the historic past by intelligent beings from other worlds. The “ancient astronauts” gave ancient cultures the knowledge and skills that enabled them to create some of the great wonders of the ancient world such as the Great Pyramid, the statues on Easter Island, and the huge markings on Peru’s Nazca Desert. Von Daniken claimed that there was clear evidence of these ancient astronauts (whom primitive humans viewed as gods) in the drawings, carvings, myths, and legends of ancient peoples and that the ancient astronaut theory solves many archeological mysteries.

Von Daniken was not the first promoter of this theory (Krupp 1981; Story 1976), but he is certainly the most successful. He made millions of dollars from his numerous books, movies, television shows, and lectures. Von Daniken was a master of that popular technique among proponents of pseudoscience, looking for mysteries where none exist (Radner and Radner 1982). He searched the archeological literature to find unexplained reports, objects, and phenomena and then attributed them to the ancient astronauts. His style of writing was such as to direct readers’ thoughts away from other possible explanations for the phenomena in question. “How could such and such have been produced,” he asks rhetorically, “if not by ancient astronauts?” The reader, whose knowledge of archeology is limited, doesn’t know how the object was actually produced and so accepts the ancient astronauts explanation. Von Daaniken developed this technique further: He may fabricate a mystery where one never existed in the first place. His comments about the Piri Re‘is map, a map dated to 1513 showing the Mediterranean area, illustrate this technique. Von Daniken claims that the map is “absolutely accurate” and that “the coasts of North and South America and even the contours of the Antarctic were also perfectly delineated” (von Daniken 1970, p. 30). What is the explanation for this great accuracy? “Comparisons with modern photographs of our globe taken from satellites showed that the original of the Piri Re’is maps [sic] must have been aerial photographs taken from a very great height. How can that be explained? A spaceship hovers high above Cairo and points its camera straight down” (p. 31).

Even if the reader of the above scenario doesn’t immediately accept von Daniken’s explanation for the great accuracy of the Piri Re‘is map (in spite of von Daniken’s frequent use of the plural, there is only one map), the mystery of the map’s great accuracy will certainly stay in mind. But there is no mystery that needs explaining in the first place. The Piri Re’is map is a very good map—but only in comparison with other maps of its day (Story, 1976). Hapgood (1966) has pointed out numerous inaccuracies in the map, such as leaving off half of the island of Cuba. This would hardly be expected from the advanced civilization von Daniken proposes. In this instance, as in so many others, von Daniken lies to his readers. He fabricates evidence and distorts the facts with the sole purpose of supporting his theories. Readers unaware of the detailed archeological research on the various pseudomysteries that von Daniken makes up are tricked into thinking that the evidence for the ancient astronaut theory is much stronger than it really is. Another nonmystery concerns an island in the Nile called Elephantine. Von Daniken (1970) says it is called Elephantine “even in the oldest texts” because the island is shaped “like an elephant.” But how, he asks, “did the ancient Egyptians know that? This shape can be recognized only from an airplane at a great height” (p. 84). In fact, the island is not shaped like an elephant. A glance at a map reveals it to be rather long and pointed at one end. The island bears the name it does because there may have been elephants on it at one time and because it was the site of ivory trading (Story 1976). Again, von Daniken has lied to his readers.

Von Daniken was at his most creative when he discussed the alleged mysteries of ancient Egypt. The Pyramids of Egypt fascinate him, as do the mummies. More than anything else, von Daniken’s distorted and inaccurate writings on ancient Egypt were responsible for the belief in “pyramid power,” the idea that the shape of the pyramid is itself magical and possesses preservative powers.

PYRAMID POWER

Influenced by Erich von Daniken’s claims that Egyptian mummies had been preserved by some process unknown to science, pyramid power became quite a craze in the world of pseudoscience for a brief time in the mid-1970s. The idea was that the pyramidal shape itself was magical and filled with a mysterious energy and power. In Toth and Nielsen’s (1976) Pyramid Power, we are told that pyramid power is “the fuel of the future” (frontispiece). The back cover of King’s (1977) Pyramid Energy Handbook hints that pyramids can “deepen your ESP” and “make your plants grow.” MacRobert (1986) reports that it is not unusual to see people walking around with pyramid-shaped hats at New Age gatherings. I recall seeing an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper supplement for a pyramid-shaped doghouse guaranteed to rid dogs of fleas.

Pyramid power claims have actually been tested. Alter (1973) and Simmons (1973) showed that pyramid- shaped containers were no more effective than any other shape at preserving organic matter (flowers or meat) placed in them. Nor did putting dull razor blades in a pyramid-shaped holder restore them to sharpness, contrary to a frequent claim of pyramid power promoters. Nonetheless, it was certainly possible to obtain testimonials from people who swore that putting a razor blade under a pyramid made it sharper. How could they believe that? As anyone who has used razor blades knows, even a dull blade can be used if it is needed badly enough. The pyramid power believer puts a dull blade under a pyramid at night and then shaves with it the next morning. Expecting it to be sharper, he perceives it as sharper, but never bothers to make any real measurements of the sharpness. Thus, the belief is perpetuated.

Von Daniken (1970) tells us that the primitive Egyptians couldn’t possibly have built the pyramids by themselves. The entire culture of ancient Egypt “appears suddenly and without transition with a fantastic ready made civilization” (p. 95). Certainly the Egyptians couldn’t have evolved such an advanced culture so rapidly; it must have been due to infusions of advanced knowledge from extraterrestrial visitors. As usual, von Daniken’s facts are simply wrong, as any text on Egyptian history shows (see, for example, Mertz 1978). The evolution of Egyptian culture is well known from the time of the region’s unification, about 3100 B.C.E., through the Old Kingdom, about 2680 to 2180 B.C.E., to the New Kingdom, about 1600 to 1085 B.C.E. The New Kingdom was the period of the Great Pyramids.

Contrary to von Daniken’s claims, the Pyramids did not simply spring up out of the desert with no history of development. The history of the Pyramids can be traced from their predecessors, called mastabas, which were small brick tombs. One famous pyramid shows that the pyramid builders occasionally made errors. This pyramid, at Meidum, was originally built with its walls too steep to support its own weight. The top part of the structure collapsed into the rubble now found at the base of the pyramid. This is hardly the kind of accuracy one would expect from superadvanced space-traveling beings. The Egyptian engineers, like any intelligent humans, learned from their mistakes, and later pyramids were built with less steep sides.

Von Daniken (1970) made other claims about the Pyramids that simply aren’t true. He asked, “Is it really a coincidence that the height of the pyramid of Cheops multiplied by a thousand million—98,000,000 miles— corresponds approximately to the distance between the earth and sun?” (p. 98) The answer is clearly yes. And von Daniken even managed to get the distance between Earth and the Sun wrong: It is 93 million, not 98 million miles.