Erich von Däniken, the "bestselling Swiss author and self-styled maverick archaeologist who propagated the theory that thousands of years ago an advanced alien species visited Earth, mated with ancient humans, and gave them the technology, and the intelligence, to erect such marvels as the Great Pyramids," died January 10, the New York Times reported. He was 90.
Von Däniken was a 32-year-old hotel manager in Davos, Switzerland, when he published his first book, Chariots of the Gods (1968). "In breathless prose, saturated with exclamation points and folksy interjections such as 'Hey, presto!' Mr. von Däniken posited that virtually the sum of human knowledge and ability had been bestowed by extraterrestrials," the Times wrote.
He claimed that the Egyptian pyramids could have been built only with alien expertise: "Is it really a coincidence that the height of the pyramid of Cheops multiplied by a thousand million--98,000,000 miles--corresponds approximately to the distance between the earth and sun?"
Critics were unimpressed, with one anthropologist writing that the book was "a warped parody of reasoning, argumentation, as well as a vigorous exercise in selective quotation, misrepresentation and error based on ignorance."
Astrophysicist Carl Sagan said of von Däniken: "Every time he sees something he can't understand, he attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing, he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet."
Nevertheless, Chariots of the Gods sold hundreds of thousands of copies and inspired documentaries, comic books, and a movie.
"But for a certain kind of reader--and, to scientists' alarm, there were many of them--Mr. von Däniken's theories registered not only intellectually but also spiritually, constituting something like the catechism of an enlightened new faith," the Times noted, adding that the book "positioned itself squarely against the establishment, scientific or otherwise--not a hard sell in 1968."
Over the next 50 years, von Däniken published more than 40 books, though none offered much variation from his original themes or ideas. The titles include Gods From Outer Space, The Gods Were Astronauts, and Arrival of the Gods. Collectively, his books sold more than 70 million copies.