Harald Reinl – 1970 – USA
Based on Erich von Däniken’s bestseller of the same name,
this documentary catered to the New Age scene as much as it influenced it,
stringing together slightly goofy and slightly paranoid theories, old and new,
into a volley of “evidence” suggesting that we have, in fact, not only been
visited by UFOs since before history but that these alien astronauts were
responsible for bestowing on humanity religion, engineering and astronomy. It’s a concept that caught on and stayed
lodged in the public consciousness so much that it has informed mainstream
science-fiction extensively; including The
X-Files TV show and movies like Prometheus
(2012). The only problem is that Chariots of the Gods claims to be
scientific when it is anything but, collecting only fragmentary observations
that support its thesis while shutting out everything else, such as logic,
objectivity or skeptical or contrary opinions.
The first order of business in programs like this – whether they’re
about ghosts, ESP or the occult – is always to declare that modern science
doesn’t know anything and that historians, astronomers and archaeologists are a
bunch of sticks-in-the-mud who are too afraid to admit the truth, which is that
we are surrounded by witches, cryptozoological animals, fairies, vampires,
angels, demons, and pretty much any superstitious force ever dreamed up by
man. As Carl Sagan pointed out so well
and so often, there is a delusional and pathetic type of arrogance going in
such books and documentaries. Their
arguments reveal the smallness of their thinking and their limited perspective. For example, much is made over ancient cave
pictures that resemble, we are told, men in space-suits and modern spacecraft. But everything only ever resembles NASA gear of
the 1970s, never anything more evolved.
These authors see no irony in proposing that advanced space aliens would
come all this way just to build pyramids and carve designs in rocky plains, as
landmarks for future use, but then never return to use them, and that they
would leave traces of their activity so blatantly for all to see while also
taking pains to make these traces so cryptic that only a handful of hack
writers in the 70s would be able to decipher them. The notion that space men are responsible for
our civilization is not just an insult to the bold thinkers who developed
science, industry and the arts, but a pretty sad example of low self-esteem; contending
that we could have achieved nothing without the aid of fleeting visits from
space gods. Like the 70s show In Search of… that it directly inspired,
Chariots of the Gods is bad science
whipped up by guys like von Däniken
who knew better but were really just exploiting the gullible out there for the
sake of a few bucks.
