I should preface this by mentioning that I realize this is a bit of a controversial book. And the show that it inspired, Ancient Aliens, may be even more controversial in its claims. But who doesn’t like a good ol’ conspiracy theory or “out there” claims? I, for one, love hearing flat-earthers try to back their claims. But let me be clear – this book only asks questions and puts forward hypotheses as to possible answers. And the author even acknowledges how crazy these may sound.
Chariots of the Gods
Author: Erich von Daniken
Pages: 220
Format: Paperback
Published: January 1, 1968
Publisher: Berkley Books
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: July 23, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
When Ancient Aliens premiered in 2009 on, get this, the History Channel, I thought it was fascinating. Now, I didn’t necessarily believe the claims in the show. But you couldn’t deny certain coincidences and correlations in artwork, literature, myths and religions throughout history. If you’re somehow not familiar with the basic premise, it purports that early humans were visited by aliens.
Now, don’t let the craziness of the show color your view of the book that inspired it.
The book is really quite interesting. It asks a lot of questions and hypothesizes answers. Nowhere does the author state that these hypotheses are based in fact or any kind of research. He’s merely asking the questions and suggesting that more research should be done into supporting or refuting his hypotheses.
He isn’t saying that aliens absolutely visited us and challenging people to prove him wrong. He puts out some evidence as to why he believes ancient aliens may have visited the earth and had an influence on ancient humans.
In fact, the author concedes in his Forward and the Introduction on how difficult the book was to get published and how outlandish these ideas are. And don’t forget – the book was published in 1968. Although, with as much research that’s been done since not to mention technological improvements, it seems like people still view these thoughts as lunacy.
I think what it amounts to is people are so offended with the idea that humanity couldn’t be what it is today without the outside influence of some technologically advanced aliens. Why? We all need help from time to time. Why is that so offensive to us?
If I’m being honest, I don’t think his ideas are even remotely outlandish. I would happily believe that we’ve been visited in the past to our betterment. I only lament that I probably won’t witness something like it in my own lifetime.
I will say, with the understanding of the time in which this book was written, that there are some fairly racist and sexist remarks in the book. I haven’t read any of the authors other works or heard interviews with him. So I don’t know if he’d still write like that today. But there it is…
Overall, I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars. I thought it was very interesting, although I too would like more research done and would have liked to see some more solid evidence. This was the first of Von Daniken’s works on this subject, so maybe future volumes will elucidate. At any rate, it was interesting enough, if dated and “out there.”
