Eric Von Daniken’s ancient astronaut hypotheses are far more testable than he claims they are in Chariots of the Gods (and many of his subsequent works). He posits that the prehistoric record contains evidence of alien intervention, especially concerning leaps forward in science and technology. In order to test these hypotheses (in a true scientific fashion), the first thing to apply would be one of the most core assumptions of archaeology – all societies leave behind material remains that can be interpreted in context, and then that data can be aggregated to define a specific culture. Many of Von Daniken’s claims revolve around specific artifacts that he purposefully detaches from their original cultural and physical contexts to mould his ideas around. In a true scientific process, and especially within archaeology and related fields, removing something from its original context completely destroys any possible data that can be gathered from it. By nature, the greater canons of historical and cultural knowledge do not accept data (for long, anyway – looking at you Piltdown Man) gathered in the way Von Daniken does it. 

Pretending for a moment that Chariots of the Gods is a real theory, and the greater archaeological community is actually secretly employed by the CIA to deceive the citizens of the world into believing their nefarious state-mandated Orwellian misinformation plans, what would it take to prove Von Daniken’s claims? In order to deductively prove that aliens were involved in the development of humanity, there would need to be a full Sherlock Holmes-level situation (“when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”). For right now, all of the artifacts that ancient alien “theorists” use to make their claims are either outright hoaxes or real artifacts that have well understood cultural, historical, and geographic contexts. However, let’s suppose a site were to be discovered that contained an artifact made of a metal that does not naturally occur on Earth (i.e. is genuinely of an extraterrestrial origin). Additionally, this artifact was found in situ by a team of genuine scholars, is confirmed by experts to have been manipulated by humans (or aliens), and dates to the same period as the other artifacts in the stratum. Under these circumstances, a finding could be published about human interaction with extraterrestrials – but this finding would still be subject to the peer review, repeatable testing, and other self-correcting behaviors that define scientific ways of knowing.

An example that I find interesting from Ancient Aliens is the Baghdad Battery. In a truly scientific proceeding, these artifacts would be understood within their original context – in the case of these batteries, however, the “discovery” is debated and undocumented. Wilhelm Koenig is said to have either uncovered them in an excavation or found them in the basement of the Baghdad Museum when he took over as director. There is no consensus on the age of these artifacts, or even the number of batteries found. Also, none of the wiring needed to power something like a light bulb has ever been found in context with these batteries. All of these facts combined are more than enough to discount the “battery” interpretation as portrayed by pseudoarchaeologists.