On Ancient Astronauts

'The fact is that man now possesses the genetic technology to create 'in his own image'. The beings we created might well call us 'gods'.'
(Foreword to Gods of the New Millennium; for a longer quote see p. 47)

'if we were to send some astronauts to a backward culture on another planet, who would doubt that they would be revered as 'gods'?'
(Gods of the New Millennium p. 11)

'I was forced to become my own greatest critic, and revise some of my own preconceptions. Such is the nature of 'research', especially when one is working at the controversial edges of science, history and religion.'
(Introduction to 'The Phoenix Solution')

'My own contribution to this genre (Gods of the New Millennium, Eridu Books, 1996) must now be seen as deeply flawed, and is recommended only in the sense that it presents a useful overview of the evidence supporting the ancient astronaut theory, demonstrating how crucially important are the ancient portrayals of the gods as human-like beings.'
(When The Gods Came Down, p. 418).

'... just because the ancients depicted their gods as human-like does not prove that the gods were flesh-and-blood beings. On the contrary, the second and third books in my trilogy explain that the gods personified various celestial bodies, both physical and metaphysical. It is clear to me now that the ancient priests 'dumbed down' their religion for mass public consumption by portraying the celestial gods in anthropomorphic forms.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts' March 2000)

'The fact that the name of the supreme god Anu meant 'Heaven' is, with hindsight, a powerful clue to the fact that Anu was not a being who resided upon the planet of Heaven, but rather a personification of the planet itself.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts' March 2000)

'it should be noted that meteorites were called 'the essence of Anu' and 'the flesh of the gods'.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts' March 2000)

'the Anunnaki were, unquestionably, denizens of the underworld... there is not a single scholar who would disagree that the Anunnaki were denizens of the underworld...'
(When The Gods Came Down p. 196)

'Why did the Anunnaki-gods reside beneath the Earth's surface? Because they came to the Earth as meteorites, which split open the surface of the Earth (as falling meteorites are prone to do) and thus entered the subterranean underworld. The translation of 'Anunnaki'... is correct, but the Anunnaki-gods came forth from Heaven to Earth as meteorites.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'Three hundred were lifted up to Heaven - they became known as the Igigi-gods - whilst three hundred remained in the Earth - these were the Anunnaki-gods. The Anunnaki were the physical gods, the Igigi their metaphysical counterparts.'
(When The Gods Came Down p. 99)

'The raising up of the Igigi to Heaven was... yet another example of the metaphysical separation of Heaven from Earth.'
(When The Gods Came Down p. 319)

'the pictograph for DIN.GIR is not a rocket but rather a celestial projectile, such as a meteorite or a comet.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'The MU was a metaphysical (i.e. imaginary, other-worldly) vehicle for ascending from Earth to Heaven...'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'the Shem was a metaphysical vehicle in which one might ascend from Earth to Heaven (as in a MU).'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'the Sons-of-God were almost certainly meteorites which impregnated Mother Earth. Hence we are told that the Sons-of-God fathered children called the Nephilim - the giants.'
(When The Gods Came Down p. 216)

'... 'Zwntw who crosses the sky nine times a night' was not an orbiting satellite but a metaphysical double-maker.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 395)

'As for the 'Seven Weapons of Anu', which descended from the skies and caused a fiery destruction in all four corners of the Earth, these were not nuclear weapons but fragments of the exploded planet, just like the Seven Sages of Egyptian lore.'
(The Phoenix Solution pp. 395-96)

'These accounts [Elijah/Etana/Adapa] are so similar to Egyptian beliefs that we must surely dismiss the idea of rockets and spacecraft, and treat all the ascents as metaphysical.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 395)

'As the centuries wore on, religion turned into big business. The profound insights of the priests began to be 'dumbed down' for public consumption. The poets set to work in rewriting the legends of the gods, portraying them as human-like heroes, with human-like emotions. The artists set to work, too, carving statues of the gods in human-like forms and poses. And the people began to think that their gods really had walked upon the face of the Earth in an age long forgotten.'
(When The Gods Came Down p. 357)

'The true story of how the gods created mankind in their own image belongs to the celestial mysteries which are revealed in my third book 'When The Gods Came Down'.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'followers of the so-called 'ancient astronaut theory' are no more foolish than 1.9 billion Christians who believe that a flesh-and-blood Son of God was sacrificed to save mankind. Both groups of believers have fallen into the same trap - a very understandable trap - of failing to see beyond the anthropomorphic barrier. And, as far as this perspective is concerned, both groups thus stand no higher than the little children who believe that a man in a red and white suit comes down the chimney at Christmas bearing gifts. We have all been believing in the same fairy tale.'
(When The Gods Came Down p. 373)

'none of this disproves Zecharia Sitchin's thesis of extraterrestrial intervention per se, but it clearly demonstrates that the warring gods of ancient mythology are not what he supposed them to be... This places the search for 'ancient astronauts' right back at square one...'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 396)

'it must be emphasised that my sequels 'The Phoenix Solution' and 'When The Gods Came Down' do not disprove the extraterrestrial theory. On the contrary, what these books do is to propose a more plausible theory for one particular tranche of the 'evidence', namely the ancient legends of 'the gods'. The outcome is that we can now put these misleading legends to one side and take a fresh look at the evolutionary anomalies of Homo sapiens, in search of purely scientific answers.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'Even if the gods of ancient mythology were not flesh-and-blood, we should still consider whether a genetic intervention by someone might explain the origins of Homo sapiens.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', March 2000)

'Until scientists can explain the anomalies of the human brain's early size and complexity, Sitchin's theory, however offensive, must remain a possibility, and is at least 'scientific' in the sense that geneticists should be able to either verify or negate the hypothesis.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 393)

'One of the interesting implications of the EPH is that it places one or two previously unknown planets in the Sun's 'habitable zone'. Moreover, these planets appear to have been watery, which is an essential requirement for the development of life as we know it. If there were two of these planets, and the furthermost one Planet K (Osiris) exploded first (as seems to be the case), then any life on the nearest one Planet V (Isis) would have been 'quickened' to an even greater extent than life on the Earth. It would then have had nearly 200 million years before it, too, exploded - more than enough time for intelligent life to have evolved, realised the state of its predicament and moved on.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 397)

'If 'they' were extraterrestrial, they may be extinct, for it is not easy to survive in a different planetary environment. In the long term, such survival would probably require hybridisation with an existing, native species.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 397)

'What I am trying to do, in a nutshell, is become the rational voice for the ancient astronaut theory.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'An Interview with Alan Alford', 20th July 1998)

On Erich von Daniken

'A special mention is due to Erich von Daniken, who was the first person to stimulate my interest in the anomalous history of mankind.'
(Acknowledgements to Gods of the New Millennium)

'I would like to thank someone that I have met only briefly - a Swiss writer named Erich von Daniken. It was he who captured my imagination as a young man, and inspired my quest for the truth about 'the day when the gods came down'. Even if von Daniken's theories about the gods are wrong (and I am now certain that they are), the fact is that his bold and open-minded thinking highlighted numerous anomalies in the orthodox 'explanations'. If scholars had taken von Daniken seriously back in the late 1960s, then they might well have discovered for themselves, at that time, the solution which I have presented, thirty years later, in this book.'
(Acknowledgements to When The Gods Came Down)

On Robert Temple's 'The Sirius Mystery'

'Unfortunately Temple then drew the rather illogical conclusion that this amazing knowledge could only have come from extraterrestrials, whose home was a planet in the Sirius system. I am not quite sure why Temple decided this, but his views were definitely swayed by widespread myths of ancient civilisations being founded by 'heavenly amphibians', who were often portrayed with fish-like extremities... but it seems to me that the watery homeland of these amphibious 'Nommos' fits perfectly with the Egyptian concept of planets circulating in the waters of Nun. Furthermore, the descent to the Earth of Nommo in flames 'as red as fire' directly parallels the arrival on the Earth of the Egyptian god Osiris...

In summary, Temple is correct to emphasise the importance of Sirius... but his book contains not a single word to support the idea of an extraterrestrial intervention.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 393)

On Zecharia Sitchin

'I would like to add that I retain the greatest respect for Zecharia Sitchin and his ideas, even though I no longer agree with those ideas. In my view, Sitchin has made a vital contribution to the understanding of ancient mythology by making a powerful challenge to the orthodox interpretations of 'the gods'. And on a personal note, it was Sitchin's books (second only to those of Erich von Daniken) which inspired me to make my own personal quest for the truth of this matter. For this, I thank Mr Sitchin (and Herr von Daniken) most sincerely.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'Ancient Astronauts', April 2000)

'I am indebted to an American scholar, Zecharia Sitchin... Sitchin's contribution to proving the intervention of flesh-and-blood gods in the creation of mankind cannot be overstated.'
(Foreword to Gods of the New Millennium)

'his overwhelming attention to detail... can be off-putting to many readers... the immense scope of his research... has created a virtual monopoly of knowledge... Sitchin is a difficult act to follow.'
(Foreword to Gods of the New Millennium)

'I embarked upon an exhaustive, perhaps unprecedented, critique of his theory.'
(Foreword to Gods of the New Millennium)

'At an early stage of my research into ancient Egypt, it became apparent that the Egyptians had their own, very different, ideas concerning 'the gods'.'
(Introduction to The Phoenix Solution).

'It is tempting to devote an entire chapter to the mythology discussed by Sitchin, simply because it backs up the exploded planet hypothesis in the finest detail.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 395)

'my in-depth experience with Sitchin's interpretation of ancient mythology makes me ideally qualified to refute it categorically, and present the EPH as a unique solution to the mystery of the ancient 'gods'.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 406)

'I must confess to having previously been an ardent admirer of his work...'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 393)

'none of this disproves Zecharia Sitchin's thesis of extraterrestrial intervention per se, but it clearly demonstrates that the warring gods of ancient mythology are not what he supposed them to be.'
(The Phoenix Solution p. 396)

'he has invested a lot of energy in writing seven books on this theme, and it may be difficult for him to change his stance. As a general rule, if you examine any field of science or religion, it's a case of 'dogma rules OK'. The genre of 'alternative archaeology' is no different. It is difficult to think of a single author who has ever changed his (or her) mind on any point, even when they have been researching and writing for twenty years or more.'
(www.eridu.co.uk 'An Interview with Alan Alford', 20th July 1998)

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