September 3

[cerealjoe]

At work, by the coffee machine and the water cooler, there are a couple of shelves with a library and I like to browse through it once in a while - sometimes good stuff pops up. This one time there was this book that promised to me some New Age 70s alien conspiracy thing, possibly backed up by science, at least that's what the author promised. Now. I don't give up on books easily and this was the only book I had on a long train ride, still I gave up on it after 30 pages. It's not that the author is completely delusional but he sees signs of aliens everywhere. "Oh, there is a spirally looking thing in that mural - it's a clear sign that aliens must have shared with our ancestors the structure of DNA and those ancestors were just not able to replicate the helicoidal shape too well." No. Just no. It's a clear sign that spirally things have been a common symbol for humans for thousands of years, that's all. And the guy will basically look at any mural or ancient scroll and see something alien-inspired in it and pretend that it's a "clear" sign and that there are no other explanations. All those kinds of theories are fun but only to a certain point, then they get wacky and then they turn to complete crap. And this was beyond complete crap.

Comments

[abbichicken.livejournal.com]

Oh this makes me laugh with a sort of something between joy and possible shame. I ADORE von Daniken - I thought he was completely made up when I was little, and that his books were old fables of some sort. I have all of them XD I think my favourite thing about his books is that they are so consistent - an extensive AU for life and Earth itself. I had much fun going around Greece with his book about how the ancient Greeks had come in spaceships from elsewhere. Exceptional fun XD I know what you mean about them being a bit much, but I think, because I came to his work from a different place (being about four and thinking it was fiction), they still bring me a lot of joy!

Oddly he has a very successful TV series these days, which is just the same old, only on telly. I find this depressing, because it's just not the same if it's not in one of these daft old books.

[mittelfeld.livejournal.com]

We had that same paperback version in our family library when I was growing up! I don't think I ever finished reading it either, but I do remember discovering the Nazca Lines through it, which fascinated me for awhile when I was a teen. Would still love to see them in person someday.