Sean Topping, Portland UFO & ET Examiner

Conventional wisdom and mainstream science indicate the first human civilization began in Sumer (modern Iraq) or perhaps the Indus valley about 4000 B.C.E. This currently accepted theory describes humans living as hunter-gathers for hundreds of thousands of years then suddenly (and nearly simultaneously) developing agriculture, written language, metallurgy, religion, architecture and labor specialization – the hallmarks of what is known as civilization.

For most people who were educated in modern Western countries, this development is presented as a natural, almost inevitable evolution of mankind. However, some scholars suggest that humankind had a little help in the rapid progression towards civilization from beings that came from the stars, thousands of years ago.

Erich von Daniken first posited the “Ancient Astronauts” theory in 1968 in the best-selling (and now somewhat disputed) book Chariots of the Gods. Von Daniken explores the connections between the physical evidence left behind by ancient civilizations – most notably the massive pyramids of Egyptian and Mesoamerican cultures. Enormous controversy surrounds von Daniken’s supposition that the bronze-age cultures could not have built such precise and enduring monuments. Modern efforts to duplicate the task using the technology of the time have either failed outright or succeeded only in marginal areas.

While not casting a vote for or against ancient astronauts, Graham Hancock explores the intricacies of particularly the Giza pyramids in Fingerprints of the Gods. His conclusion is that the technology and resources available to these ancient civilizations are woefully inadequate to account for the awesome geologic and astronomical precision of the pyramids. The equipment required to build the flat and orthagonal facing on the stones and align the 2.3 million blocks (weighing from 3-70 tons) did not exist prior to the Industrial Revolution.

In The Genesis Race, author Will Hart states that the written record of many of these ancient cultures leaves no room for interpretation of the source of the marvelous achievements of these primitive societies: it was information given by beings who ‘descended from heaven’. Other authors such as Joe Lewels, Ph.D. suggest in The God Hypothesis that every culture and civilization on Earth has its legends of visitations from extraterrestrials. Both authors note the similarities in creation myths between cultures dispersed across the ancient world that presumably could not have communicated with each other.

The heated debate rages on between mainstream and alternative with historians, theologians and anthropologists joining the fray. Is it possible that the gods (as distinguished from God) of antiquity: Enlil, Isis, Osirus, Zeus, etc., who reportedly gave humans the tools needed for civilization, were in fact extraterrestrials?

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