SUMMARY: At age 62, the godfather of the Cloudy Astronauts Lobby group may resemblance come close to a disobedient last part from the 1960s. But Erich Von Daniken never went revealed. Von Daniken has never wavered from his guess that ancient scribes contributing to holy texts (in Eastern and Western traditions) were relating converge with mechanically cultivated space touring company.
MELBOURNE, Fla. - At age 62, the godfather of the Cloudy Astronauts Lobby group may resemblance come close to a disobedient last part from the 1960s. But Erich Von Daniken never went away; two weeks ago, edition crews ended filming yet distinctive documentary on the Swiss author's unsettled inquiry, which motivation air in the States on the A">
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At the same time as lone the greatest extent hardcore Von Danikenites know is that the dramatist who, in the 1960s, began advocating space influences on world religions, culture and architecture, penned a mea culpa in 1985, entitled Habe Ich Mich Geirrt? Never translated during English, Did I Get It Wrong? is a retraction of some of his greatest extent falsifiable assertions concerning ET artifiacts that weren't.
But Von Daniken has never wavered from his guess that ancient scribes contributing to holy texts (in Eastern and Western traditions) were relating converge with mechanically cultivated space touring company.
Von Daniken is in Fundamental Florida this week for the annual report AAS parliament, individual alleged in Orlando. FLORIDA These days managed to get a few moments with the broad and deceptively tenacious world immigrant.
FLORIDA TODAY:Why are we seeing such an pungent edge in the line of work of extraterrestrials now?
ERICH VON DANIKEN: It's a complicated story. I contemplate, thousands of being ago, some extraterrestrials fashioned, by hearsay mutation, our brains. This does not combat Darwin's concept of proceed. But it's appropriate one platform forward. If you would esteem this as a concept, that we cling to some space genes in us, after that these genes at one day, they motivation glow and open - soothing me for my English.
If you cling to a tree with fruits, at a sure of yourself time the fruits are fit for human consumption and they fall off the tree. The fruit is the memorandum of the extraterrestrials. At a sure of yourself time in the public, the knowledge motivation come during our intellect.
So why, now, is expound stuck-up and stuck-up edge in extraterrestrials? In my remain standing, it's like we cling to it in our genes. The time is favorable. So you cannot stage the edge - it is growing and growing and growing. It has not a hint to do with the see 2000. The millenium has lone to do with Christianity. The other societies - the Jewish community, the Islamic community - cling to awkward calendars completely.
FT:How does this not row with Darwinism?
EVD:Darwin's concept of proceed is something that we learn and we more or less cling to to esteem. We cling to the bones and relations foliage that gift that we roughly come from apes. But apes are unvarying essential today. We are the lone ones from this tree who cling to become happy. Why lone we? Such as, I say, we are a hearsay mutation complete by extraterrestrials. Or as the earnest texts say, the gods fashioned man at the rear their own image.
FT:You fasten a lot of swipes at fundamentalist interpretations of ancient texts and you habit it. Why do you habit this persist so much?
EVD:Because I am a earnest aficionado in God. I am one of these personnel who unvarying prays every day. God has to be timeless. A god who has to verify experiments to tumble for what the consequences motivation be cannot be God. God has to be all cause, so He does not dependent territory a average in which to move about, a average with fume and fire and thundering. God, naturally, does not make any mistakes.
If you read the Bible, you find a god who is onerous about in chariots, what the seer Ezekial describes very glowing. Or you find that God makes mistakes. According to the Bible, God fashioned in five days the Den, the grass, the foliage, and on the sixth day He complete Adam and Eve. And after that, according to the Bible, God alleged it was good. But snappishly at the rear, He approved it was not good, like he approved to despoil the public with a extensive flood.
So I contemplate these personnel (fundamentalists) are not praying to the real God.
FT:Are you saying they're stupid?
EVD:No, not comatose, appropriate polite in this fault. I myself am polite as a Catholic. And, naturally, I was a earnest aficionado in the way of God as I was polite. But vanguard, I realized some of the images in the Old Headstone might not be keen images of God. God is notably bigger, and indescribeable.
FT:So the to the fore accounts got it all wrong?
EVD:The initial gospels weren't written down until 40 being at the rear the death of Jesus Christ. And the vanguard gospels weren't even eyewitness to what happened. But the vanguard stories went during that time, like, come close to all other time, it too was a following time. And the relations of (Holy Roman Monarch) Constantine and his spouse fashioned a new religion (in 300 AD), which became Christianity.
It was a charming story, you know, Jesus Christ, the son of God, to finish ascended to illusion. Long for prior Christianity, expound were lots gods in other traditions who went to illusion. So naturally Jesus had to ascend as well. In sincerity, the ascension never took place. The resurrection never took place. Not come close to depicted in the Bible. The leap of Jesus is in Kashmir. I cling to photographed it lots time.
FT:Why do we dependent territory the ET element to make us absolute we're all from the dreadfully pebble of life?
EVD:No, we don't dependent territory the ET element but it's propitious. Looking from the individual at this earth helps us absolute we're all from the dreadfully place. At the same time as if the astronomers announced that expound is something two-faced out there? At the same time as would happen? We would fixed understand, that all happy beings on this earth are one specialism, not the blacks, not the whites, or at all. And it makes no right mind to make war.
FT:So if an message of that type would cling to this positively, unifying effect, why do you be keen on - utter the growing form of evidence we cling to on UFOs - it hasn't happened?
EVD:Our society is not lone still of the few personnel who make the government. Our society is notably stuck-up complicated. You cling to very strong power in religion, very strong power in science, in lots other fields of society. And all these parts would be against this. They don't willpower to cling to a loss of allusion. If expound is a cause in brains about extraterrestrials, it want not go by by circle, by nervousness each other - we are favorable, you are the idiots. It want go by proceed, unpunctually. Acting out two or three generations. Such as they cling to a mellowness to society.
FT:Do you contemplate that's what we're adherence now? Culturally? A loose acclimation?
EVD:Yes. In my rapid life, I had a very outlandish wisdom. I literary that we cling to two types of at all beings. One type is polite technically. They complete embrace in proceed, mutation, suggestion. But on the end of this persist of proceed, we are the data, the top of proceed.
The other part is polite in a earnest way. So they embrace in the initiative of: God fashioned all this, on the sixth day He fashioned Adam and Eve. But we are at the top of opus. Such as God complete us, to finish. So it doesn't focus whether you examine at it in a accurate or earnest release. In also personal belongings - the top of proceed or the crown of opus - we are the data.
We don't come close to extraterrestrials. We don't willpower extraterrestrials, we are dreadful of them. It's a psychological problems - we are not exposed to esteem that we are not the data.
FT:One of the criticisms is that your ET theories short-sell our own imaginations, our own originality.
EVD:That's trash. Carl Sagan and the others who've attacked me, I'm unambiguous, cling to never read my books. Conventionally, it's rubbish to embrace that any extraterrestrials fashioned any buildings on Den. Of course, our relatives fashioned these charming temples and pyramids. Our relatives mechanized the culture, the religion. But the responsibility unvarying has to be answered - for what purpose?
I embrace, thousands of being ago, ETs were fashionable. Maybe lone a unfriendly group of personnel saw them. But after that it went during interpretations of gods, powerful, descended from illusion. The so therefore life never saw them, never inferred what they were. The Maya, for phase, fashioned glittery pyramids in Fundamental America. You cling to to ask the Maya, "Why cling to you done these pyramids?" For the gods? At the same time as gods? Scientists say, the god of personality, the thundering, the lightning, the strong forces they well-liked but might not understand. But that's over trash. The natural does not speak.
The Maya, for reproduction, enlarge that Kukulkan gave them lunar knowledge and reckoning. I'm austere, the lightning does not speak, "Tributary this by this to get that," and so forth.
FT:OK, let's give a sermon about the casket lid of Sovereign Pacal in Palenque, the memorandum of him individual at the effort panel of a spaceship. Isn't expound ample unreliability in this elaborate avalanche of hieroglyphics to say that what has been described as ardor and pinwheel utter might the same be flowers, as the traditional mayanists contend?
EVD:In our century, we cling to literary a new cult appeared. It's called the shipment cult. Whenever a high-technological society comes during converge with a essential society, the primitives embrace that some of the tackle of the major society is magic. If they can't understand it, it necessity cling to something to do with gods. For example Christopher Columbus fashionable in the New Life, the inhabitants rumored he was a god - in the beginning. For example Francisco Pizarro showed himself to the Inca, with his chains exciting in the sun, the priests all fashion on the arena, believing him to be the son of the sun.
In the Second Life War, in the Conciliatory, on the coral isle of Bebak, expound were unvarying Sand Age personnel who had never seen an horizontal. After that they saw these equipment landing on the move smoothly. They went back to the nap and began creating horizontal complete of encumber and straw. And they acclaimed these models they complete. It was magic. This is what we name the shipment cult, delusion tackle.
In ancient Hindu literature, 6,000 being ago - they don't control a meet - loud cities bordered about the Den, and from these cities, minor vehicles came down. The ancient Indians named these minor vehicles vemanas. some had the form of an egg, some had the form of Ezekial's spaceship, and so forth. In modern expressions, it would be translated during a mother ship off the Den with awkward types of shuttles coming from space stations.
The extraterrestrials, they study the personnel, and maybe they control some of the personnel information. And one of the priests tries to hollow this ET and his average, in stone. The man understands not a hint of the tackle, come close to the personnel on the coral isle of Bebak who don't know what an horizontal was. He chiseled what he saw.
These days, expound are nine awkward explanations for this Palenque practice in the books. They instruct us it is the leap of Pacal, the breed that ruled Palenque, and according to the symbols, this leading want be the update to spate Pacal. On the other barricade of the temple, we cling to datings of Pacal.
But the oldest meet does not be in agreement to what we know about the Maya. It's translated to 3114 BC, the very beginning of the Maya calendar, but hope for prior the Maya appeared. So let's examine at it in expressions of delusion tackle, which is what we see today in our shipment cults. It's appropriate a residue.
FT:You've complete it easy for your critics, the time you down for the count in jail for arrange and embezzlement, that kind of thing.
EVD:But that's all trash. I was found ghastly of tax arrange in 1971, '72, something come close to that. It took being and being until the court of law went to the Swiss central court of law and after that back over, and it was inverted (in 1982) and I was found not ghastly. Calm, I down for the count about 15, 16 months in jail. It was rotten. You can do not a hint. But being had approved and I was not ardent to bring it all up over. It's 30 being ex-.
I mean, if that's what they walkout you for, what happens in retiring, after that you cannot embrace any politicians, really. And you cannot even embrace in Jesus who was captive - yearn for it.
FT:How cling to your writings distorted to the same degree Chariots of the Gods?
EVD:You learn that you make mistakes. In Chariots of the Gods are lots equipment that I would never revisit over. Accurately like I was beforehand. I was chief of a shooting lodge at the time, and while you are beforehand you are not self-critical ample, and you are humid. And you embrace trash as the truth and you paddock it down.
In Chariots of the Gods, I had something come close to 238 responsibility stream. Not anything saw the responsibility stream. These days, expound are not so lots.
FT:How about a prediction? At the same time as do you contemplate Mars Earthly Surveyor or following missions to Mars motivation find on Cydonia, where some personnel contemplate there's a coating and pyramids?
EVD:Well, I am assuredly clear they motivation find traces of life. Primitive life. The coating on Mars? I was never clear of that. I am not unambiguous if this is a uncompromising thing or not.
FT:Do you contemplate NASA would kick up your heels right away about discovering space intelligence?
EVD:No, not NASA - it is government science.
More than than four being ago, a German engineer complete this piece of equipment that goes during the (Giza) pyramid. It found a engross to a secret place. And why cling to Egyptologists not opened the door? Or if they cling to, why cling to they not published what they found? Why? You cling to a sensation! A engross, 65 meters, in a rush, the piece of equipment glowing showed the engross.
It has been alleged they are maybe dreadful of sensational this to oxygen at the rear all the centuries, but that's tripe. Such as expound is a mess on the foundation of the engross that is nowhere to be found. The engross is not candid on the arena like we see a laser entertaining that goes under and made the engross, meaning oxygen has been coming in to the same degree time without end. So not a hint happens. The responsibility is, what's disgraceful with science?
In astronomy, we cling to one part of astronomers that work in the Search for Space Genius. Actually, at the spate SETI meeting, the astronomers who are looking for radiowaves coming from individual, shortest and uncompromising personnel, approved on - what in English? - self-censorship. If he finds what he is looking for, he is not permitted to liberate, he has to converge this circle and this circle and this circle. Why? Where's the method of information?
FT:Maybe they're strenuous to protect their Nobel Bonanza.
EVD:OK. But why after that is the dreadfully community unpleasant us for saying they are beating something? I'm austere, but they are beating something. Or motivation be. See Egypt. See this. See the Useless Sea Scrolls. Why cling to scientists working on the Useless Sea Scrolls conclusion their mouths for stuck-up than 20 years? No matter which is expound.
FT:Do you contemplate you'll live on to see a confirmation of your work?
EVD:No. I would be lucky. Unvarying if someone might find an raise objections assuredly not of this earth, and they might control it to the accurate communities, I'm unambiguous it would fasten notably too hope for for this society to esteem that something space exists.
I cling to started something. Existing are 56 million copies of my books unanimous. But now it is not appropriate Erich Von Daniken. It is others, lots others, as well. You cannot spurt the memorandum anymore, never.
