The Swiss writer who launched the theory that extraterrestrials helped build the great ancient civilizations has died. Erich von Däniken was 90 years old

Swiss best-selling author Erich von Däniken, who built a lucrative career on the theory – rejected by scientists and archaeologists – that humanity's development was largely due to extraterrestrial intervention, has died aged 90, according to Reuters.

His book Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968, sold millions of copies, promoting the idea that advanced extraterrestrial beings had repeatedly visited Earth, leaving traces in Inca and Egyptian ruins, petroglyphs, and other physical monuments.

“It took courage to write this book, and it will take courage to read it,” the paper begins.

The author admitted that specialists would dismiss it as nonsense, but insisted that “the past was populated by unknown gods who visited the primordial Earth in manned spaceships.”

Specialists dismiss these theories as pseudoscience

Academia published numerous books debunking his theories, criticizing him as a promoter of some of pseudoscience's most fanciful ideas. The German magazine Der Spiegel even dedicated a cover to it in 1973, under the title “The Däniken Scam”.

Yet legions of fans have bought his more than 40 books and watched his TV shows and documentaries. In total, his volumes have sold more than 70 million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages.

In the early part of his professional life, Erich von Däniken managed a hotel in eastern Switzerland, during which time he was convicted of fraud and spent 18 months in prison.

But the success of his book found him liberated, quickly becoming a bestselling author. However, he was never able to provide the “decisive evidence” to confirm the famous principle formulated by the astronomer Carl Sagan, according to which “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.

“He claims that the amazing astronomical information possessed by ancient civilizations such as the Maya is proof that there were space travelers who taught them these things. This idea fits with his questioning of the ability of the Egyptians to build the pyramids or the inhabitants of Easter Island to raise those huge stone heads,” wrote The New York Times in 1974.

The publication noted that von Däniken's method went from a denial—the idea that ancient peoples could not have made or conceived these things on their own—to a claim: that they benefited from some kind of cosmic “development assistance” program.

Such criticism never got Erich von Däniken off his feet.

“We owe it to ourselves, out of self-respect, to be rational and objective,” he wrote. “At one time, every bold theory seemed like a utopia. How many utopias have not meanwhile become everyday realities!”

Television specials devoted to his books have made him a household name in both Europe and the United States. In 2003, he opened a theme park called Mysteries of the World in Interlaken, but the project went bankrupt after only three years.

“Aliens will come to us. I expect it to happen within the next ten years”

In a text published on his website, Erich von Däniken claimed that he is not an esoteric and that his work aims to dismantle “a world of religious and, unfortunately, often scientific impostures”.

“I know from countless ancient texts that these 'gods' have promised to return. Then we will experience a shock of the gods, a total catastrophe for religion and science. And everything would have been so easy to understand – without this shock of the gods. The evidence speaks a clear language. That is what motivates me,” he wrote.

The publication in July 2021 of a landmark US government report on UFOs that did not rule out an extraterrestrial origin gave him hope.

“In the future, anyone who talks about UFOs and extraterrestrials will no longer be able to simply be ridiculed. People will gradually realize that many things are possible, although until now they considered them impossible,” declared Erich von Däniken in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

“As soon as we are ready and get used to the idea that we are not alone in the universe, aliens will come to us. I expect this to happen in the next ten years,” he said.