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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient astronauts | 5/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:16:51.153763+00:00 | kb-cron |
==== The Book of Invasions ==== Childress and others have written that the passage in the Book of Invasions describing the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Ireland, records "the arrival of aliens in spacecraft with cloaking devices" at Slieve Anierin. The text states "so that they were the Tuatha De Danand who came to Ireland. In this wise they came, in dark clouds. They landed on the mountains of Conmaicne Rein in Connacht and they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights".
=== Ancient artwork ===
==== Worldwide petroglyphic evidence ==== Ancient astronaut proponents believe Hopi cave drawings of Kachinas (spirit beings) found in the desert link the origins of the Hopi and Zuni tribes with "star people". They point to similar etchings elsewhere as evidence that extraterrestrials visited many different ancient civilizations. Other artistic support for the ancient astronaut hypothesis has been sought in Palaeolithic cave paintings. Wondjina in Australia and in the Rock Drawings in Valcamonica, in Italy (seen above) are said to bear a resemblance to present day astronauts. Supporters of the ancient astronaut hypothesis sometimes argue that similarities such as dome shaped heads, interpreted as beings wearing space helmets, prove that early man was visited by an extraterrestrial race.
==== Medieval and Renaissance art ====
More support of this hypothesis draws upon what are said to be representations of flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects in Medieval and Renaissance art.
Some examples of these said objects include an ovoid shape in the sky of the painting Madonna con Bambino e San Giovannino (Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John), an unidentified flying object in the Annunciazione (Annunciation) (1486) by Carlo Crivelli, a "spherical object with antennae" that appears similar to Sputnik in Bonaventura Salimbeni's Santissima Trinita (Holy Trinity) (1595), and many such unidentified flying objects in Masolino Da Panicale's Miracolo della neve (Miracle of the Snow) (1428). According to Italian art expert Diego Cuoghi, these objects contain religious symbolism behind them as most paintings of the time were of religious subjects. In such artworks, he says that angels and "radiant clouds" often appear in the sky. He says the object in the Madonna and Child is one of these radiant clouds, the object in the Annunciazione is a vortex of angels, the Sputnik-like object of Santissima Trinita is a globe representing creation with two sceptres held by God and Christ, and the Miracolo della neve contains many lenticular clouds.
==== Nazca Lines ====
The ancient Nazca Lines are hundreds of huge ground drawings etched into the high desert of southern Peru. Some are stylized animals and humanoid figures, while others are merely straight lines hundreds of meters long. As the figures were made to be seen from a great height, they have been linked with the ancient astronaut hypothesis. In the 1970s, the pseudohistorical writer Erich von Däniken popularized a notion that the Nazca lines and figures could have been made "according to instructions from aircraft" and that the longer and wider lines might be runways for spacecraft. According to archaeologist Kenneth Feder, Von Däniken's extraterrestrial interpretation is not supported by any evidence. Feder wrote that "the lines are interpreted by archaeologists as ceremonial pathways of the ancient Nazca people; they were used precisely in this way in the fairly recent past." Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky re-created one of the figures using only wooden stakes and string.
=== Ancient artifacts ===
==== Ancient flying machines ==== Proponents of the ancient astronauts idea say some artifacts discovered in Egypt (the Saqqara Bird) and Colombia-Ecuador (Quimbaya artifacts) are similar to modern planes and gliders. These artifacts have been interpreted by mainstream archaeologists, however, as stylized representations of birds and insects.
=== Ancient structures and megalithic sites ===
Proposed evidence for ancient astronauts includes the existence of ancient monuments and megalithic ruins such as the Giza pyramids of Egypt, Machu Picchu in Peru, or Baalbek in Lebanon, the Moai of Easter Island and Stonehenge of England. Supporters say that these stone structures could not have been built with the technical abilities and tools of the people of the time and further argue that many could not be duplicated even today. They suggest that the large size of the building stones, the precision with which they were laid, and the distances many were transported leaves the question open as to who constructed these sites. These ideas are categorically rejected by mainstream archeology. Some mainstream archeologists have participated in experiments to move large megaliths. These experiments have succeeded in moving megaliths up to at least 40 tons, and some have speculated that with a larger workforce larger megaliths could be towed with the use of known ancient technology.
==== Pyramids of Egypt ==== Von Däniken states that ancient Egypt, with its great structures of the Giza pyramid complex such as the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx of Giza, became a "fantastic, ready-made civilization" suddenly and without transitions and development. Ancient astronaut proponents suggest that sites like the pyramids of Giza were instead constructed by extraterrestrials. However, archaeological evidence demonstrates not only the long cultural trajectory of prehistoric Egypt but also the developmental processes the ancient Egyptians underwent. Egyptian tombs began with important leaders of villages being buried in the bedrock and covered with mounds of earth. Eventually, the first pharaohs had tombs covered with single-story, mud-brick, square structures called mastabas. The stepped pyramid developed out of multiple mastabas being stacked on each one in one structure. This led to the construction of pharaoh Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara, which is known from records to have been built by the ancient Egyptian architect and advisor Imhotep. It was pharaoh Sneferu who had his pyramid transitioned from a stepped to a true pyramid like the well-known pyramids of Giza. A papyrus document like a logbook kept by an official called inspector Merer has also been discovered with records of the construction of the Great Pyramid.