History Main / AncientAstronauts

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', this is one of the many options you have should you come across a pre-spaceflight sentient alien species. If you have an observation post in orbit, a random event can end with a Great Pyramid constructed on the planet, built "to appease a deity descended from the sky".

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Needless to say, the reason this proposal isn't taken seriously by a majority of scientists, even the many quite open to the idea of alien life existing; is the lack of any evidence. Because of this it is very firmly in the realm of psuedoscience with people pushing it either ignorant of reality or seeking monetary or fame through it. All of the commonly cited claims are contradicted by multiple findings in multiple fields of study.
** '''Claim''': "Ancient people didn't have the knowledge or technology to create works such as the Egyptian Pyramids." [[labelnote:Explanation why this isn't true]]Ancient people weren't stupid and were no less intelligent than modern people. Even grand works of engineering are surprisingly simple mechanically with a basic knowledge of leverage, layout design, and a lot of time or labor. All great works of engineering such as the Egyptian Pyramids and Stonehenge were preceeded by simpler works along the same design, giving a clear line of progression. All of said works also show quarries, toolmarks, and engineering clues showing they were made with the tools avalible at the time. Anyone claiming otherwise is either ignorant of this, or exhibiting falsehoods to make lots of money through talks and promotions.[[/labelnote]]
** '''Claim''': "Ancient technologies too advanced for their time have been found." [[labelnote:Explanation why this isn't true]]All recovered artifacts found in archaeological digs have been shown to be feasible to construct with the tools and knowledge available at the time. An entire field called Experimental Archaeology exists specifically to recreate tools and wares from ancient times, with techniques or knowledge that existed back then. Claims of technology seemingly "lightyears" ahead of what is expected are all either explainable this way, or turned out to be forgeries exhibited for lots of money.[[/labelnote]]
** '''Claim''': "Writings talk about 'gods' coming down from the sky that could be ancient explorers or engineers." [[labelnote:Explanation why this isn't true]]In the modern age people talk about [[{{Franchise/Superman}} a flying man who rescues people from harm]], [[{{Franchise/Pokemon}} friendly monsters that accompany children on adventures]], [[{{Franchise/Godzilla}} a giant radioactive dinosaur]], and [[{{Franchise/StarTrek}} a crew of a ship that can travel through space]]; despite none of those being real. People have been creating complete fiction or exaggerating reality into fiction since the capability of telling stories has existed. While real events are often documented in history texts, telling which was actual witnessed history, what was complete fiction, and what might, at best, be a heavily distorted retelling of historic events long after the fact is effectively impossible. Stories are thusly not considered scientific documentation as they cannot be fully relied on without supporting evidence. Besides, the sky and the celestial bodies have always fascinated humanity, even more so when lack of pollution showed the stars in all their glory and lack of electricity means that the dark of the night is almost absolute; so it is not strange at all that the sky would be included in all the "grander than life" fantasies.[[/labelnote]]
** '''Claim:''' "This ancient drawing shows something that can only be astronauts, a spaceship or both."[[labelnote:Explanation why this isn't true]]Besides the posibility that the ancient folks were just being imaginative, as said, those claims always jump straight to the "it has to be aliens!" conclusion and ignores other simpler explanations. Those things in the sky may be alien ships, or just birds. People with strange helmets may be astronauts... or just people with helmets.[[/labelnote]]
[[/folder]]

* The Australian satire ''Go to Hell!'' (1997) by Ray Nowland has a lot of fun with this trope: CorruptCorporateExecutive G.D. builds a space ark to escape the destruction of his planet, planning to set himself up on an InsignificantLittleBluePlanet as AGodAmI. But he's opposed by his teenage rebel son Red (who bears an unusual resemblance to {{Satan}}) who gives humanity a helping hand.

*** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Osira is an Ancient Alien Astronaut who landed in Egypt and claims to have been worshiped and responsible for the pyramids. Her story is however rather self serving and the only thing actually known about her interactions with the Ancient Egyptians is that they bound and imprisoned her in a multilayered seal when they found they couldn't kill her.

* The idea was heavily popularized by ''Chariots Of The Gods'', as mentioned above. The book was published in 1968 by Erich von Däniken, and quickly became a bestseller. It was copied lots of times, was made into at least two movies, and led to the Ancient Astronauts plot showing up in several of the examples here, such as ''[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Battlestar Galactica.]]'' He followed it with a long series of sequels, getting even more out there (in some cases also bizarrely racist, e.g. once "speculating" that races were genetically engineered by ancient aliens, Black people being a much inferior, abandoned variety in comparison with the Europeans). There's also the caveot he wrote the book that served as the TropeCodifier when imprison for tax fraud and needed money.
* [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter Before Däniken there was]] Italian [[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Peter_Kolosimo Peter Kolosimo]] (1922–1984), whose best-selling books such as ''Terra senza tempo'' ("Timeless Earth") were the first ones to present these kinds of ideas. In fact, Kolosimo was ''the'' major influencer of Däniken (read: [[{{UsefulNotes/Plagiarism}} Däniken ripped off Kolosimo]]). He was also a {{Dirty Communist|s}} who quoted heavily from Soviet "authorities" -- which plays into who heavily promoted this in the first place. After his death, he went into obscurity and his books are no longer published, but due to Däniken and later Tsoukalos, his ideas will be in pop culture and pseudoscience/conspiracy-circle currency for a long, long time. Besides Kolosimo, Däniken ripped off a lot of other people too. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Charroux Robert Charroux,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_of_the_Magicians Louis Pauwels & Jacques Bergier,]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinsley_Le_Poer_Trench,_8th_Earl_of_Clancarty Brinsley Le Poer Trench]] all wrote pre-''Chariots of the Gods'' books touting the theory that Däniken pretty clearly borrowed from as well. One supposes that's what you get when a convicted embezzler and fraudster (prior to writing this or later books, he served multiple terms in prison for different thefts) writes something.

* There is a book by a certain Wolfgang Volkrodt suggesting that von Däniken is wrong -- gods of old weren't aliens, only a secretive elite of [[SteamPunk technology users,]] awing the lesser people with "LOOK AT MY BALLOON, I'M A GOD." The guy, being an engineer, even provides plans for their steam engines. A similar theory states that the [[AdvancedAncientHumans "highly technological ancient civilization"]] wasn't aliens, only Atlanteans and possibly Lemurians, who [[AndManGrewProud blew themselves to smithereens]] long ago.

* You can find a [[http://www.snopes.com/photos/architecture/salamanca.asp carving of an astronaut]] on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Cathedral,_Salamanca New Cathedral of Salamanca,]] built in the 16th century. Ancient astronauts? No. The engraving was created in 1992 by one of the artisans restoring the cathedral, continuing the tradition of church builders and restorers including a contemporary symbol as a "signature" of their work. [[https://cathedral.org/what-to-see/exterior/vader/ The National Cathedral]] in UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC also has a [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] Grotesque. [[WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}} Stone By Day, Dark Lord of the Sith by Night...]]
* The theory of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia panspermia/exogenesis]] posits that Earth's life has an extra-terrestrial origin, but a good portion of these theories are less "extraterrestrials intentionally planted the seeds for life on Earth" and more "meteorites with the chemicals needed to develop life happened to smash into Earth from somewhere else in the universe."

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visoki_De%C4%8Dani Visoki Decani,]] a 14th-century Serbian monastery, contains an icon of the Crucifixion with what looks like [[http://www.srbinside.rs/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/freskevi.jpg two UFOs.]] Notable alien conspiracy theorists, like Erich von Däniken, have for decades considered this to be an evidence of UFO presence in medieval history. This "theory" was, of course, dismissed by the priests, who offered a more Biblical explanation of the painting.

* One of the earliest examples of this trope (perhaps [[TropeMaker the earliest]]) was in ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'', an unauthorized sequel to ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' written in 1898, where Thomas Edison invents a spaceship and launches a counterattack against the Martians. Here, it was revealed that the Martians built the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
* Also in Clarke's more famous work ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' the {{Precursors}} brought to Earth TheMonolith that would accelerate the evolution of primitive hominins.

* Explored in ''{{Literature/Alterien}}'' by Adam R. Brown.
** The Shanda'ryn, a race of aliens closely modeled after {{The Greys}}, appeared in various points of human history. Humans sometimes mistook them for figures out of their belief systems. They were also present during the time the Pyramids of Egypt were originally built, a time that predates the known Kemetic (Egyptian) Dynasties.
** The Alteriens, themselves, also assumed this role with their many voyages to Earth's past.
* Subverted in the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' books. Earth has been visited by aliens countless times throughout history, but each time it is hinted that they took a hand in humanity's development it is quickly explained that that is not the case. Despite all the aliens who seem inexplicably drawn to our blue planet, all the credit (and the blame) of our history goes to us.

* The reason Literature/ArtemisFowl can translate the fairy language so easily is that it is similar to Ancient Egyptian, and Artemis comments this is because the Egyptians borrowed it from the fairies.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in the insulting humans sense in an Creator/IsaacAsimov short story. Spaceships are forbidden to trade with cultures that don't have anything to offer. A quick scan of the planet convinces most of the crew that humans are just a simple hunter-gatherer society, but the trader's instinct says that they do have something to offer. Played straight in that the traders do help them, giving them the wheel and tools, but the traders gain something by learning to use caricature and sketches from the human's ancient art. Sketches have an advantage of highlighting characteristics that are important, and getting rid of information that is unimportant. The space-faring culture had forgot (or never had) times without photo-realistic holograms.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov and Creator/JanetAsimov's ''Literature/NorbyAndTheLostPrincess'': It was briefly mentioned in the [[Literature/NorbysOtherSecret previous book]], but this is when the background of [[NeglectfulPrecursors the Others]] coming to Earth and taking a colony of humans with them to a different planet is explained. The Others took the community to a planet that they named Izz, but left no signs of themselves on Earth.
* In ''Literature/BloodOfTheHeroes'' time travelers discover that the Indo-European deities are actually aliens called the Teloi, who engineered modern humans out of ''Homo erectus'' when they arrived.
* The trope-savvy Game Masters of Dream Park used this as a premise for their [[ShowWithinAShow live-action adventure tournament]] in ''Literature/TheCaliforniaVoodooGame''.
* Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/ChildhoodsEnd'' invokes this, but [[spoiler:the myths aren't from memory, but precognitive visions of the aliens]].
* Inverted in ''Literature/DragonsEgg'', where mankind inadvertently jumpstarts a civilization: the barbaric Cheela, seeing a new, wandering star in the sky (an orbiting human vessel), mistake it for a god and develop astronomy and writing in order to follow it. This starts their technological development and they eventually make FirstContact. As a bonus, since the Cheela's BizarreAlienBiology operates on nuclear reaction time scales, rather than chemical, they manage to do it in ''days''.

* In the ''Literature/GalacticMarines'' series by Creator/IanDouglas, this happened with three different alien species. First the cybernetic or mechanical Builders who tinkered with the ancient human genome to create ''Homo erectus'', then the Ahn who used human slaves in ancient Mesopotamia, and finally a third species who helped humans get back on their feet after the Ahn were wiped out. Some of the conflict on Earth arises from the so-called "Ancient Astronaut" cults, who claim that aliens were benevolent gods, who will eventually return and solve all of the world's problems.
* In Creator/JamesPHogan's Literature/GiantsSeries humanity was accidentally uplifted by aliens from Minerva (which was the fifth planet in the solar system before it was blown up).
* The ''[[Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes Heirs of Empire]]'' series by Creator/DavidWeber has all of Earth's humanity be descended from the marooned crew of a spaceship after a partially successful mutiny (the spaceship in question is in fact disguised as the moon).

* C. L. Moore's Literature/NorthwestSmith stories contain a variation on this theme. It is implied that a prehistoric civilization of humans mastered spaceflight and brought back tales of the creatures they encountered on other worlds, which became the basis of later legends.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Asgardians as being this -- they started out over a million years ago as {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s whose main interest in Earth was strategic, in their war with Surtur, with a degree of curiosity related to the potential that the Eternals and Deviants demonstrated that humanity's ancestors possessed. After the creation of Yggdrasil, a cosmic prison for Surtur [[spoiler:(the original Dark Phoenix)]], they became gods, and retained an interest in Earth, protecting it from outside interference. However, when they tried to help out humanity in earnest, c. 20,000 years before the present, it resulted in the Atlantean Empire, a fusion of Marvel's Atlantis and [[Series/StargateSG1 Stargate's Ancients]]... which worked very well right up until it didn't, and the Atlanteans destroyed themselves, and nearly took the universe with them.
* In FanFic/DivineBlood The Demons and Gods are basically previous evolutions of sentience and then immortality that developed on Earth and then left to extradimensional safe havens to avoid some extinction level events. Frequent interaction with [[HumanityIsInfectious humanity]] has caused them more or less to assimilate to human culture to the point where even the basically down to Earth human-friendly set think of [[InsistentTerminology Demon and God as their species name]].
* In [[FanFic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed Equestria: A History Revealed]], aliens apparently exist in the world of Equestria, and [[spoiler:were behind the creation of Discord]]. Of course, given our [[LemonyNarrator loopy narrator]] and her lack of evidence on this matter, she may just be making it up.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E2WhoMournsForAdonais Who Mourns for Adonais]]" is the episode featuring the alien claiming to be Apollo. "Plato's Stepchildren" is an episode featuring aliens who so admired classical Greek culture that they adopted it as their own. So the aliens from "Plato's Stepchildren" have only two degrees of separation from the aliens from "Who Mourns for Adonais"!

** In the episode "Tattoo", [[UnfortunateImplications Native Americans were barely intelligent cavemen]] until they were genetically uplifted by ancient aliens.
** In the episode "Blink of an Eye", the ''crew of Voyager'' become Ancient Astronauts to a civilization on a planet that exists in enormously accelerated time; from the viewpoint of the planet, Voyager is in their sky for the sum total of civilization, and eventually they advance their technology to the point where they can go out into space to meet them. The aliens didn't know about the time dilation and by the time the explorers make contact it's more than a generation later on the planet and they start trying to shoot down the alien ship that so callously destroyed their peaceful explorers. A secondary motivation was that ''Voyager's'' presence was acting as a third pole for the planet, giving it frequent earthquakes. The ship is only saved when one of the explorers goes back to explain things, then returns to ''Voyager'' with ships specifically built to move Voyager out and break the time acceleration.
** "Dragon's Teeth" involves a race of aliens who used a naturally occurring network of dimensional tunnels to carve out an empire. When their oppressed subjects eventually overthrew them, some retreated into cryostasis to wait for a more opportune time. By the time of the series, most cultures in the Delta Quadrant only remember them as cruel trickster demons in a few very old legends. For reference, in the time they ruled (about 900 years before the series timeline), they remember the Borg as being mostly harmless and confined to a few systems.

** The episode "The Chase" winds up establishing that [[spoiler:aliens not only seeded primordial Earth with life, but also a vast collection of other planets, including Qo'noS, Vulcan, and Cardassia]].

** The Chee are a race of ageless, powerful androids living disguised among humanity after they came to the Earth thousands of years ago. They make it a point to not amass any power or control over human society, and their involvement in big events is always purely tangential. Erek King once stated that he helped build the pyramids, but then explains that he was a slave who helped haul the bricks. A few millennia later he cut and styled Catherine the Great's hair, and coined the phrase "New Deal" at a poker game at the White House in the 1930s. Another Chee is currently living as a homeless woman, but in a previous life was a very successful (unnamed) actress.

** The Chee are a race of ageless, powerful androids living disguised among humanity after they came to the Earth thousands of years ago. They make it a point to not amass any power or control over human society, and their involvement in big events is always purely tangential. Erek King once stated that he helped build the pyramids, but then explains that he was a slave who helped haul the bricks. A few millennia later he cut and styled Catherine the Great's hair, and coined the phrase "New Deal" at a poker game at the White House in the 1930s.

--> "They were white all over, and hairless. Their heads had no mouth or nose and one huge single staring shining lidless eye. ... Around the eye was a ring of silver that flashed in the sun. I saw myself in one of those eyes, a pupil in the eye of God. Their snow-white skin was coarse and wrinkled, with bright tattoos on it. I was dismayed that God could be so ugly."

** Later he tells Max and Sarah the Nazca Lines are in fact alien graffiti.
* Several episodes of ''Series/{{seaQuestDSV}}'' involve tall [[TheGreys Grey]]-like aliens, capable of walking through walls (they're actually "silicon projections"). In one episode, they possess the bodies of several ''[=seaQuest=]'' crewmembers and head to a Native American reservation, where it's revealed that the aliens have been to Earth before, long ago, and made contact with a Native American tribe.
** In their first appearance near the end of season 1 -- one of the first episodes where the show really [[JumpingTheShark started to Jump The Shark]] courtesy of ExecutiveMeddling -- they're revealed to have been visiting Earth millions of years ago, long before early hominids evolved. At first they don't even recognize humans as intelligent and don't want to communicate with them. They are interested only in the intelligent species that was around way back then and with which they had interaction -- Dolphins. So in fact they turn out to be Ancient Astronauts to the Dolphins long before Humans.
* On ''Series/{{Smallville}}'', tales of a Kryptonian visitor were the foundation of a Native American religion.

* The 1958 BBC TV serial ''Series/QuatermassAndThePit'' (and the [[Film/QuatermassAndThePit 1967 movie]] based on it) has the premise that beliefs in witchcraft and demons stemmed from the arrival of Martians early in Earth's history [[spoiler:who attempted to engineer the hominids of Earth to become the successors of their own DyingRace]].
** The 1979 sequel serial ''Series/{{Quatermass}}'' reveals another race of aliens is responsible for the existence of Stonhenge and other ancient stone rings. [[spoiler:They were originally markers to warn of spots the aliens used to harvest humans.]]

-->'''Harry:''' Bunch of idiots sitting around drinking mead, making us do all the work! Lazy Druids!

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-875 SCP-875 ("War Criminals")]]. The pictures inside the SCP-875 pyramid indicate that the SCP-875-3 InsectoidAliens taught the ancient Egyptians how to build the Pyramids.

* A lot of these theories are based on older, explicitly racist ideas to explain why different ruins in the Americas or Africa "obviously" were not built by Native Americans and Africans, but lost white people. Naturally, as you'd expect the racist versions of these are still popular [[https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/01/02/close-encounters-racist-kind in certain circles]], though even if not explicit [[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/how-to-fake-an-alien-mummy/535251/ they can be harmful]].

** A borderline example: the Sphinx was a time machine created by Rama-Tut, a human time traveler from an alternate timeline's future. A 1971 ''Comicbook/IncredibleHulk'' story had [[WeaponizedLandmark the Sphinx being left behind by aliens as a weapon.]]

This theory is often crossed over with {{Atlantis}}. Essentially runs on GodGuise; contrast with AndManGrewProud. May result in BoldlyComing. If the unknown ancestors sport special abilities which aren't derived from technology, compare OurAncestorsAreSuperheroes. Usually overlaps with NeglectfulPrecursors, as the aliens are generally implied to have lost interest in humans and/or concluded we're [[HumansAreFlawed unworthy]] [[HumansAreMorons successors]], ages ago. SubTrope of AllTheoriesAreTrue. See also BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy, for individuals rather than entire societies.

* Although not set on Earth, the VideoGame/MightAndMagic games [[spoiler:are set on worlds and ''ships'' which are colonies of an ancient race]].

* In the VideoGame/{{Resistance}} series of [=PS3=]/PSP games, it is revealed that [[spoiler:the Chimeran towers are millions of years old, and the Chimera were the result of experiments involving the DNA of an incredibly ancient and sentient, though not humanoid, species]].

** The Great Race of Yith in "Literature/TheShadowOutOfTime" is another example, and [[Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu Cthulhu]] and the other Great Old Ones are alien (possibly extradimensional) beings that came to Earth eons ago. However, they aren't just worshiped as gods, they actually kind of ''are''. What else would you call an immortal, nigh-omnipotent being that can bring about the end of the world on whim?

* The Wandjina deities of [[Myth/AboriginalAustralianMyths Western Australian Dreaming]] are often touted as evidence of ancient astronauts by all manner of western, mostly white bitches. This is due to the admitely peculiar nature of their depictions: circular objects surrounding their faces, which look like astronaut helmets, but are actually supposed to be [[HolyHalo haloes]] of feathers and lightning. Thankfully, ABoriginal activist groups have put the crazies in their place with legal copyright claims that have successfully eradicated most of this nonsense.

** The Chee are a race of ageless, powerful androids living disguised among humanity after they came to the Earth thousands of years ago. Erek, a Chee, once stated that he helped build the pyramids, but then explains that he was a slave who helped haul the bricks. He had nothing to do with the planning, engineering, or logistics of the project. He did, however, cut and style Catherine the Great's hair a few millennia later, and coined the phrase "New Deal" at a poker game at the White House in the 1930s.

* Subverted in the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' books. It is hinted at pretty heavily, and it turns out that Earth has been visited by aliens countless times throughout history (FYI: Aliens killed the dinosaurs. With an asteroid. That they were using to attack ''other'' aliens that had settled on Earth. Oh, and those first aliens? They were ants.), but each time a major revelation is set up it is immediately torn apart. Erek, a Chee (ageless android living in disguise amongst humanity), reveals that he helped build the pyramids. When he is given shocked stares at the revelation that he created the darn things he laughs it off and explains that he was a slave who helped haul the bricks, he had nothing to do with the planning, engineering, or logistics of the project (He did, however, cut and style Catherine the Great's hair a few [[strike:centuries]] millennia later). Despite all the aliens who seem inexplicably drawn to our blue planet, all the credit (and the blame) of our history goes to us.

** '''Claim:''' "This ancient drawing shows something that can only be astronauts, a spaceship or both"[[labelnote]]Besides the posibility that the ancient folks were just being imaginative, as said, those claims always jump straight to the "it has to be aliens!" conclusion and ignores other simpler explanations. Those things in the sky may be alien ships, or just birds. People with strange helmets may be astronauts... or just people with helmets.[[/labelnote]]

* In one of WebSite/SFDebris' reviews of an episode of a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' wherein Ancient Aliens "uplift" Native Americans, he points out the UnfortunateImplications of this trope as being similar to the concept of WhiteMansBurden, except with (white) [[RecycledInSpace aliens]].