🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90.
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Däniken's 'paleo-contact' claims of extraterrestrial influences on early human development, attracted a dedicated following, despite his earlier convictions for theft, fraud and embezzlement (and robust debunking of his theories). Films, soundtracks, and even prog concept albums followed his books.
@Richard_Littler Some white people are desperate to believe anything to avoid having to realise that ancient brown people have constructed impressive monuments.
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
I have never heard of this and just found out, it's near Interlaken and around a children's fun fair, called "Mysty Land".
Mysty Land - Grösster Indoor- und Outdoor-Spielplatz im Berner Oberland
Das Mysty Land ist ein zauberhafter Ort, an dem Kinderaugen zum Funkeln gebracht werden und Erwachsene wieder zu Kindern werden. Auf dem Trampolin, in der Hüpfburg oder im Ballpool kommt auch der Spass garantiert nicht zu kurz.
JungfrauPark (jungfraupark.ch)
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
@Richard_Littler For a while he was going to open another theme park, in Blackpool. (It dead-ended around 2014. I used it in one of my novels …)
I am now imagining the consequences if he'd commissioned H. R. Giger to design the interiors.
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@Richard_Littler Just noting that there's a very skeevy racist subtext running just below the surface of Von Daniken's thesis—that ancient people *couldn't* have built the monumental structures they left behind, so they must have been "helped" by aliens (clearly white savior-coded).
@cstross @Richard_Littler I've met the guy back in 2004 when his bizarre theme park was relatively new. Some analogue shots right off the Migros Picture CD-ROM in this thread: https://mastodon.social/deck/@guenterhack/115877370682477543
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@Richard_Littler Just noting that there's a very skeevy racist subtext running just below the surface of Von Daniken's thesis—that ancient people *couldn't* have built the monumental structures they left behind, so they must have been "helped" by aliens (clearly white savior-coded).
@cstross @Richard_Littler It's curious that the Egyptians and Maya had to have some help from aliens but the Romans didn't, isn't it?
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@cstross @Richard_Littler It's curious that the Egyptians and Maya had to have some help from aliens but the Romans didn't, isn't it?
@datarama @Richard_Littler Exactly this.
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
@Richard_Littler Cool buildings!
I think I read one of his books as a teen. Can't remember which one though. A remember reading a lot of Charles Berlitz, which seems the same type of genre, just about the Bermuda Triangle.
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@Richard_Littler For a while he was going to open another theme park, in Blackpool. (It dead-ended around 2014. I used it in one of my novels …)
I am now imagining the consequences if he'd commissioned H. R. Giger to design the interiors.
@cstross Now, that concept worked out *much* better.
My photos of the Giger-designed bar in Gruyères... -
@Richard_Littler Just noting that there's a very skeevy racist subtext running just below the surface of Von Daniken's thesis—that ancient people *couldn't* have built the monumental structures they left behind, so they must have been "helped" by aliens (clearly white savior-coded).
@cstross @Richard_Littler Back when colonialist white supremacist racism sold well. The whole racist "ancient aliens" thing has stuck around in the decades since, but not in such profitable form I think.
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
@Richard_Littler We had raves there.
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@cstross Just one example among a great litany of things wrong with his books/theories.
@Richard_Littler @cstross also as a treat "Erich von Däniken weg" means "Erich von Däniken gone"
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@Richard_Littler For a while he was going to open another theme park, in Blackpool. (It dead-ended around 2014. I used it in one of my novels …)
I am now imagining the consequences if he'd commissioned H. R. Giger to design the interiors.
@cstross @Richard_Littler I'm imagining something like the Shandor building in the original Ghostbusters film, where the architecture makes it part of a summoning gateway.
It's a real building, too, though somewhat altered via film magic for the movie.
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@cstross Now, that concept worked out *much* better.
My photos of the Giger-designed bar in Gruyères...@Richard_Littler @cstross It's quite a place, isn't it? We went with one person who was not at all into the Alien movies who found it 'difficult'!
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
@Richard_Littler oooooh, that's interesting. Any contact between that guy and Claude Vorilhon (also known as Raël)?
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@Richard_Littler @cstross It's quite a place, isn't it? We went with one person who was not at all into the Alien movies who found it 'difficult'!
@jschwa1 @Richard_Littler @cstross
I don't mind Alien movies, but I still find it difficult even to look at the pictures, and I did have a Giger poster calendar once upon a time.
The mental image of imagining me sitting on one of those chairs, and imagining such scenes exist somewhere in the galaxy, way way far away is quite different in outcome.
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@Richard_Littler Just noting that there's a very skeevy racist subtext running just below the surface of Von Daniken's thesis—that ancient people *couldn't* have built the monumental structures they left behind, so they must have been "helped" by aliens (clearly white savior-coded).
@cstross @Richard_Littler Ugh, my old man was well into this stuff, to the extent that he'd nod-and-wink that anyone who knew what they were talking about (eg. contemporary scientists like Hawking) must be an alien. Which isn't really helpful when your own son is doing a physics degree, is it?
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.RE: https://mastodon.social/@Richard_Littler/115882082456309865
@Richard_Littler my favorite way to approach him, sitchin etc is as a separate and wonderful form of sci-fi
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
@Richard_Littler I actually went there when it was operational. Not intentionally mind you, someone else had organised the trip and I only learned what it was when I entered.
Mostly standard themepark rides all garnished with the odd "ancient aliens" stick. You could tell they poured a lot of money into it though. -
🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.@Richard_Littler A total fraud but a rich, successful fraud As an ex-archaeologist I found him but annoying but fair play to him, I suppose. He certainly tapped into the zeitgeist and there are people making bank today with much less entertaining and fun theories than he opined. And he had a cool name too which helps.
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.@Richard_Littler Same, and that's also just what my copy looks like. Tough to believe someone that well written is cray cray when you are 12 ya know?
