Earth in the distant past. Consequently, von Däniken’s theory would seem to be possible and probable. There could be a strong case in favour of conducting a scientific or historical inquiry to test the ancient astronaut hypothesis. This would involve an examination of claims that certain constructions could not be replicated by human beings. But having established that humans could not have achieved any of these feats without assistance would not establish a case supporting the involvement of astronauts. It still leaves open the possibility that fairies, ghosts or any of the recognized deities in the world, could have lent a hand. The ancient astronaut hypothesis does not have sufficient strength to rule out other explanations.
Von Däniken’s opponents responded by demonstrating the force of Occam’s razor, suggesting that ordinary hypotheses should be considered before invoking extraordinary explanations. Thus archaeologists and historians have demon-strated that early societies were capable of manufacturing the artefacts which had been attributed to ET visitors; it was shown how thousands of slaves could cut and drag the stones for the Great Pyramid and erect them in place. Similar explanations have been produced with regard to the construction of Stonehenge and other relics. Ancient texts and early art works have also been explained in terms of representations of natural phenomena, rather than the extra-human sources associated with ET visitors.
Few, if any, SETI researchers subscribe to any of the ancient astronaut theories. Most of von Däniken’s accounts of ancient ET visitors have been repudiated by historians, theologians and archaeologists. No data that can be used in a novel way has been discovered. Not one claim about ancient ETs has passed a simple test which requires the production of a piece of knowledge that was unavailable at the time of the visit. All that is needed is just one statement about the speed of light in an ancient tomb, a part of a computer or a laser. Most of the examples cited by von Däniken, his references to ancient drawings, or writings, are open to several interpretations. Despite his appeal to consider the ancient astronaut hypothesis as a basis for investigation, none of von Däniken’s hypotheses have the potential to rule out rival hypotheses, which is what is sought in either a good historical or scientific explanation. It is possible that astronauts visited the Earth, but this hypothesis is only one of a possible infinite number of explanations of the phenomena it attempts to explain.
Aside from the methodological problems with ancient astronaut hypotheses, they mean that the rich evocative mythology of early religious texts, symbols and truly amazing constructions, are reduced to banal science fiction, with spacemen, rocket launches and landing sites, together with deities armed with ray-guns and atomic disintegrators. Even the great mysterious edifices, like Stonehenge or the Pyramids, are reduced to points in an extraterrestrial energy distribution system akin to the national grid.
One of the superficial strengths of theories regarding extraterrestrial visitors is that of proving a negative; we can never prove that they and their UFOs do not exist, any more than we can prove that ghosts and leprechauns do not exist. But
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even when claims of UFO sightings are demonstrably mistaken, one encounters the fact that evasions of falsification frequently abound in UFO literature. But it is not just the evasion of falsifiability that causes problems; it is the appeal to the fantastic, the levels of paranoia, on which the ad hoc evasions rest. Lack of evidence is often concealed with reference to government and military cover-ups and disinformation plots. Here the imagination can run riot. Andrews (1987: 159) suggests that George Adamski, whose notorious blend of fact and fictionalized nonsense discredited Ufology, was actually a CIA disinformation agent. There are reports that astronauts have encountered UFOs and the fact that these reports are later denied by the astronauts in question is cited as evidence of a cover-up. Following many reports of contact, key witnesses are frequently alleged to have been silenced after visits from men in black suits. These particular visitors appear after a UFO report and either threaten witnesses against further revelations or remove evidence of the encounter. Sometimes the men in black suits are said to be government agents whose objective is to maintain the veil of secrecy over alien encounters, but on occasion they are held to be the EBEs themselves. Claims supporting the latter view are supported by witnesses who note the puzzlement displayed by the men in black suits to ordinary household items, their mechanical speech and other forms of alienness.
Problems with ‘nuts and bolts’ ET craft
One of the strengths in the sceptic’s position is the fact that the burden of proof must fall upon exponents of hypotheses concerning extraterrestrial visitors. For the massive obstacles in the way of this form of transport are obvious to the scientifically literate. The first obstacle concerns the sheer difficulty in imagining how a craft can travel such large distances. The enormous distances involved make reports of frequent visitations hard to comprehend. A light year is the distance light travels in one year of 31.56 million seconds at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, which is a distance of 5.88 million miles. The nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away. The fastest rocket with current technology would travel at 25,000 mph, and would take 300,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. Most theories of travel are inhibited by these distances. No vehicle, however propelled, can travel faster than the speed of light, according to Einstein’s theory which, until recently has been widely accepted by the scientific community. Even if the speed is scaled down to 10 per cent of the speed of light, visits to the stars would be prohibitive: a journey to Sirius would take eighty-eight years, which would be a one-way trip for terrestrials. However, intelligent EBEs may have solved the problem by circumventing the limitations of Einstein’s theory, or developing techniques of suspended animation, or hibernation, or by simply living longer lives.
At present no one has any idea of how to manufacture a craft that could approach anything like the speed of light. Even if this speed were attainable, a voyage across the galaxy would last for decades and the energy required would
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