"Every time he sees something he can?t understand, he attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing,
he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet."
- Carl Sagan
"Every time he sees something he can?t understand, he attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing,
he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet."
- Carl Sagan
On 2026-01-12, Steve Coltrin <spcoltri@omcl.org> wrote:
"Every time he sees something he can?t understand, he attributes it to
extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing,
he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet."
- Carl Sagan
Having actually read several of von D„niken's books, I think this >characterization is spot-on.
RIP, Erich von D„niken (1935-2026), Swiss writer who became an
international bestselling author by opportunistically writing about
fringe and pseudoscience topics. He popularized the idea that early
human cultures were visited by extraterrestrials who helped build
monumental works and became revered as gods; a concept that was
picked up numerous times by science fiction writers.
Haven't read him, but I had always assumed he was a guy who had found a
grift and was milking it. So he actually believed this stuff?
Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
On 2026-01-12, Steve Coltrin <spcoltri@omcl.org> wrote:
"Every time he sees something he can?t understand, he attributes it to
extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing,
he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet."
- Carl Sagan
Having actually read several of von D„niken's books, I think this >>characterization is spot-on.
Haven't read him, but I had always assumed he was a guy who had found a
grift and was milking it. So he actually believed this stuff?
In article <slrn10maiae.24af.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>,
Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
On 2026-01-12, Steve Coltrin <spcoltri@omcl.org> wrote:
"Every time he sees something he can???t understand, he
attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he
understands almost nothing, he sees evidence of extraterrestrial
intelligence all over the planet." - Carl Sagan
Having actually read several of von D??niken's books, I think
this characterization is spot-on.
Haven't read him, but I had always assumed he was a guy who had found
a grift and was milking it. So he actually believed this stuff?
Christian Weisgerber wrote:
RIP, Erich von D„niken (1935-2026), Swiss writer who became anI believe that SF writers got there first. But in those stories the
international bestselling author by opportunistically writing about
fringe and pseudoscience topics. He popularized the idea that early
human cultures were visited by extraterrestrials who helped build
monumental works and became revered as gods; a concept that was picked
up numerous times by science fiction writers.
aliens were more clever, passing on information rather than building
useless objects.
Still, given how stupid we are, perhaps aliens would also be dumb enough
to think:
"We need to help these poor people! Gimme three pyramids, stat!"
William Hyde
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:57:05 -0500, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
Christian Weisgerber wrote:
RIP, Erich von D„niken (1935-2026), Swiss writer who became anI believe that SF writers got there first. But in those stories the
international bestselling author by opportunistically writing about
fringe and pseudoscience topics. He popularized the idea that early
human cultures were visited by extraterrestrials who helped build
monumental works and became revered as gods; a concept that was
picked up numerous times by science fiction writers.
aliens were more clever, passing on information rather than building
useless objects.
Still, given how stupid we are, perhaps aliens would also be dumb enough
to think:
"We need to help these poor people! Gimme three pyramids, stat!"
I recall Arthur C Clarke saying[*] that they came very close to going
with a pyramid-shaped monolith before choosing the slab, and how it
might have had a deleterious effect on 2001's performance, due to the association with von Daniken.
*: probably "The Lost Worlds of 2001"
"Every time he sees something he can?t understand, he attributes it
to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost
nothing, he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over
the planet."
- Carl Sagan
Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember an eerily similar controversy a generation earlier: "Worlds in Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky. Compare and contrast.
So Sagan was saying Von Danken was a Fundamentalist or Evangelical
of xxxx religion?
In _Erscheinungen_ (1974, "Apparitions") he wrote with equal
conviction about... ghosts. Surely those third-hand anecdotes about
spectral figures haunting English castles must have some truth!
Belief in the paranormal and in extraterrestrials was indeed more
widespread and publicly respectable in some expert and elite circles
in the 1960s-1970s than it tends to be among comparable experts
today.
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 22:03:09 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber wrote:
In _Erscheinungen_ (1974, "Apparitions") he wrote with equal
conviction about... ghosts. Surely those third-hand anecdotes about
spectral figures haunting English castles must have some truth!
I?ve always wondered where ghosts got their clothes from. Is there an afterlife for clothes?
And where did the Headless Horseman get his horse?
On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:28:29 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer wrote:
Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember an eerily similar
controversy a generation earlier: "Worlds in Collision" by Immanuel
Velikovsky. Compare and contrast.
Scientists live in deathly fear of being taken for cranks, or being misinterpreted by cranks.
E.g. Soddy and Rutherford arguing over whether to use the old
alchemical term ?transmutation? when they succeeded in converting one chemical element into another.
E.g. Bretz?s discovery of the glacial flooding episodes that created
the Scablands of the US Pacific Northwest, at just about the time that geology thought it had got rid of the religious baggage of the
Noachian Flood idea.
E.g. Wegener being ridiculed over the idea that South America and
Africa were once joined together, only to break up and drift apart
over time. It took decades for him to be proven correct.
Velikovsky was wrong, but Sagan argued that it wasn?t necessary to assassinate his character as well. And yes, it turns out worlds have collided, though perhaps not quite to the cosmic-billiards-type extent
that he claimed -- one current theory is that our own Earth-Moon
system was created by the collision of the precursor Earth with a (now-destroyed) body called ?Theia?.
On 12 Jan 2026 19:50:05 GMT, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
Haven't read him, but I had always assumed he was a guy who had found a
grift and was milking it. So he actually believed this stuff?
You can't deny he saw things in a different perspective.
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