Welcome back everyone. Enjoy and review.

Avatars and Animals from Infinity

The ninth week had come and thus came a topic Ken had dreaded discussing: ancient astronauts. Only idiots believed in such things but still Ken was expected to cover this subject.

"If saucers from other worlds really have been visiting earth for the past sixty-one years, why did they wait so long before they came to look us over?" asked Ken. "The answer, if you're willing to believe a chubby pop hero from Switzerland, is that they didn't. Rather extraterrestrial beings have been using earth as a commuter stop for untold thousands of years, and the evidence is here to be seen. Erich von Daniken, a stocky Swiss writer with an impish smile, produced a book in 1969 which was to become a cult classic. His 'Chariot of the Gods', produced first in German, then in English, has gone through forty-four paperback printings and has sold more than… Uh, it has sold a lot of copies, making him and instant hero to people around the world. The success of his book has opened the field to imitators, and now it is almost impossible to go into a bookstore without seeing at least a dozen titles that suggest God was an astronaut from another star system. Von Daniken's ideas aren't new. He admits this himself, between trips to the bank. As a matter of fact, the plaudits for this theory should probably go to a Russian physicist named Argest, whose hypothesis that visitors came to our planet from a distant star and left a number of unexplained extraterrestrial monuments was published in 1961, eight years ahead of von Daniken. But even Professor Argest doesn't really deserve full credit. Imaginative science fiction writers have been playing for years with the theme that Adam and Eve were space travelers, marooned on earth when their rocket stripped its gears and parked for repairs in the Garden of Eden. Nevertheless, von Daniken popularized the theme. He took a number of literary and mythical references from our historical heritage and speculated that this planet has been visited and explored at least twice by super intelligent, non-terrestrial races. According to him, they came to earth in prehistoric times and made themselves at home, passing out gifts of wisdom and civilization which may help explain some of our more puzzling, earthbound monuments: the pyramids in Egypt, the massive carvings on the plains of Nazca in Peru, the giant stone monoliths on Easter Island, ad infinitum. On occasion, von Daniken theorizes, visitors from other worlds acted less gentlemanly, mating with earthlings, blowing up the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in an early version of the A-bomb explosion at Hiroshima, and causing the great flood which sent Noah scrambling to the nearest woodpile for the makings of the Ark. What possible basis could von Daniken have had for such an eye popping set of speculations? It might not be so far-fetched. Lets take a look at some of the 'evidence.' First, dismiss the geocentricity which allows us to think of ourselves as the only living beings in the universe. Current scientific thinking offers us a figure of something like two hundred and fifty billion star systems in our galaxy alone and the number of comparable galaxies in the infinity of the universe is a figure beyond thinking. Okay, so we have two hundred and fifty billion star systems in our own small…"

Heidi could not just help but listen. Ken sounded so bored. Walking down to the living room where Rick was reading "Land of Terror" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, translated in brail of course.

"You have something on your mind, Heidi?" asked Rick.

"You've seen, uh, sorry. Poor choice of words."

"I'm not quite that sort of blind. The most I see of you, me, anyone is a blur." Replied Rick. "But yes, I have seen many things in my lifetime."

"Do you know anything about this ancient astronaut theory?" asked Heidi.

"Well, to put it simply it is more or less a reverse of what actually happened." Stated Rick.

"Oh?"

"A bunch of uncreative space people come down, they hear the stories of gods and see their physical representations and suddenly want to be them!" Rick laughed. "That is certainly something isn't it?"

"So, how did you find out?" asked Heidi.

"Met some extraterrestrial Zeus impersonator." Replied Rick. "Zeus is for them what Elvis is for us and don't even get me started on the subject of which version is better."

"What do you mean what version? Like Harryhausen versus Disney?"

"No, you see Zeus' Egyptian counterpart is Amen-Ra and his Roman counterpart is Jupiter. You probably see where I am going with this."

"I can but Zeus? Really?" Heidi was really confused. How exactly did that happen?

"I know I would have expected Odin but never Zeus." Commented Rick. "He's more like that guy who looked like a math teacher whom sang a song that Elvis later sang."

"Who?"

"I can't remember his name. I can only remember that he looked like a math teacher."

And yet with Ken, he still continued and still sounded quite bored. "somewhat parallel manner with earth, going slightly beyond rudimentary intelligence, perhaps even developing speech and primitive civilization. That still leaves us with eight thousand planets out there, trying to grow up. Now let's take the last step. Say that only one in a thousand of these earth-type planets goes beyond simple civilization and develops a higher order capable of space flight and super intelligence. That means there are eight super planets, perhaps competing with each other for their share of dominance in the milky way, watching us in amusement the way we might watch a colony of monkeys in a local zoo. And at the same time, hoping there isn't a super-super intelligence on some neighboring galaxy that might consider them as primitive as they undoubtedly consider us. Still sound like too many super races in our own galaxy? Stop and briefly re-think the numbers. Eight billion planetary systems which scientists think are capable of producing life. That's an eight followed by a nine zeroes. We're wiping out the zeroes, all nine of them, and taking the most cautious possible estimate short of sticking to the ridiculous assumption that we are unique…"