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EVIDENCE Case open

Ancient
Aliens

Case no.005, Space & aliens
ClaimVisitors from space helped build the ancient world
Exhibits4 sites on 3 continents
First filed1968, a hotel in Davos

Stand in the Peruvian desert and you can't see them. Fly over it and you can: a hummingbird, a monkey, a condor longer than a football field, drawn into the ground two thousand years ago. Drawn for whom?

Aerial photo of the Nazca hummingbird geoglyph, its long beak and spread wings drawn in pale lines across the desert.
Exhibit 005-A The Hummingbird, Nazca desert, from the airPhoto: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0

Weigh the evidence

0 of 4 rated

Four exhibits the theory is famous for. Look at each one and give your first impression. Then read both explanations. You can change your answer any time.

CASE FILE 005CHAPTER 1

A hotel manager's question

In 1968, a 32-year-old Swiss man named Erich von Däniken was managing a hotel in Davos and writing a book on the side. His publisher printed 6,000 copies under the title Memories of the Future.1

The question at its center was simple. What if the gods in ancient stories were real visitors, and our ancestors described technology they couldn't understand the only way they knew how? He pointed to the pyramids, the Nazca lines, a carved Maya tomb lid, and the prophet Ezekiel's "fiery wheels."1

By December it was a bestseller.1

Then his past caught up with him. In 1970, a Swiss court convicted him of from his time at the hotel. He wrote his second book in prison. His critics have never let that go.1

The conviction didn't slow the first book down. Its English edition, Chariots of the Gods?, kept selling, and when NBC aired a documentary based on it in 1973, more than a quarter-million copies sold in two days.1

Erich von Däniken at a lectern, pointing, with a drawing of a winged figure projected behind him.
Exhibit 005-B Von Däniken on a US lecture tour, about 1974Photo: Stephen Jackson, public domain
CASE FILE 005CHAPTER 2

The idea gets a TV show

On March 8, 2009, the History channel aired a two-hour special called Ancient Aliens. A year later it was a series.3

Its best-known face, Giorgio Tsoukalos, appears in every episode. His hair became one of the internet's most famous memes, captioned "I'm not saying it was aliens... but."3

22seasons and counting. The 22nd began in January 2026, with more than 280 episodes aired.

Scholars have been just as persistent. Historians and archaeologists call the show pseudoarchaeology, and one complained that it buries viewers under claims faster than anyone can check them.3

Giorgio Tsoukalos, smiling, his hair standing up in every direction.
Exhibit 005-C Giorgio Tsoukalos at Alien Con, 2016Photo: goatling, CC BY-SA 2.0
CASE FILE 005CHAPTER 3

The man is gone. The question isn't.

Erich von Däniken died in Switzerland in January 2026, at 90.2 By his agent's count he wrote 49 books, sold in more than 30 languages.2

75Mcopies of his books sold, according to his agent.

And the ground keeps giving up surprises. In 2024, researchers using AI to scan aerial images of the Nazca desert found 303 figures nobody had known were there.4 Nearly sixty years after his first book, people are still flying over that desert, still finding drawings, still asking who they were for.

Aerial photo of the Nazca monkey geoglyph with its spiral tail.
Exhibit 005-D The Monkey, one of the best-known figuresPhoto: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0
Illustrated portrait of Rex Marlowe, a fictional character: a weathered man with gray stubble in a canvas field jacket, holding a worn notebook.Host
Personnel file / Statement ARex MarloweThe believer caseHosted an overnight radio show about the unexplained for 20 years. Now he goes to the places in the files.

"Ask the question they won't"

Go to Puma Punku in Bolivia. Stones fitted so tightly you can't slide a knife between them. H-shaped blocks with dozens of faces, all matching. Archaeologists will tell you, in writing, that no record of the tools or techniques survives.6 That's not me saying it. That's them.

Now look at the stories. Cultures that never met each other describe gods arriving from the sky. Ezekiel describes wheels of fire. Seventy-five million people bought those books because the question makes sense. And notice what critics reach for first: a hotel manager's conviction from 1970. That's an argument about a man. It isn't an argument about a single stone.

Illustrated portrait of June Okafor, a fictional character: a woman in a blue work shirt with a pen tucked in her hair, holding manila folders.Host
Personnel file / Statement BJune OkaforThe skeptic caseSpent ten years as an insurance fraud investigator. Now she reads the original records so you don't have to.

"The mysteries keep getting solved"

Every famous exhibit has an answer that came after the book. Investigator Joe Nickell showed a small team could recreate even the largest Nazca figures in days, using tools the Nazca had.4 Maya scholars read Pakal's lid as a king at the World Tree, not a pilot.5 And we have the work logs from the Great Pyramid.7

"We don't know exactly how" is a gap in the record, not evidence of visitors. Puma Punku's builders left copper fasteners they poured into the stone.6 That's a human signature. The real mystery is how clever these people were.

Rex and June are fictional characters written for this site and appear in every file. They are not real people.

THE STRANGEST PART

The pyramid came with a diary

In 2013, a French-Egyptian team digging at an ancient port on the Red Sea found papyri from the reign of King Khufu, the pharaoh of the Great Pyramid. Some of them were a logbook kept by an official named Merer, who led a crew of about 40 men.7

The crewAbout 40 men under Merer
The cargoLimestone blocks from the Tura quarries
The routeAcross the Nile to Giza, by boat
Also loggedFood and pay sent to the builders

The monument most often credited to visitors from the stars is one of the few where we have a worker's own notes. Whether that settles the question is up to you.

GIZA TURA quarries NILE N ↑ not to scale
Exhibit 005-E Merer's route, sketch
READER FINDINGCASE FILE 005

You've seen the exhibits. Where do you land?

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On film

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The file

Made famous byChariots of the Gods?, 1968
On TVAncient Aliens, History, 2009 to now
Key figuresErich von Däniken, Giorgio Tsoukalos
StatusNo physical evidence of visitors found; some building methods still unknown

Common questions

Who started the ancient aliens theory?

Erich von Däniken made it famous with Chariots of the Gods? in 1968. He acknowledged that others had proposed similar ideas before him.

Is Ancient Aliens a documentary?

It's presented in documentary style on the History channel. Historians, archaeologists and scientists describe it as pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology.

How were the pyramids built?

By organized Egyptian work crews. Papyri found in 2013 record one crew moving limestone from the Tura quarries to Giza during Khufu's reign. Some details of the lifting methods are still debated.

What does Pakal's tomb lid show?

Maya scholars read it as the king Pakal at the base of the World Tree, either falling into the underworld at death or rising toward the heavens. Von Däniken read it as a man piloting a rocket.

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It was founded by a law professor in 1776 and banned within a decade. It has been blamed for nearly everything since.

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Photo credits: Nazca photos by Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0); Pakal lid drawing by Madman2001 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Puma Punku by Janikorpi (CC BY-SA 3.0); Great Pyramid by Warren LeMay (CC0); Erich von Däniken, about 1974, by Stephen Jackson (public domain); Giorgio Tsoukalos by goatling (CC BY-SA 2.0). All via Wikimedia Commons. Map of Merer's route drawn for this file.