Chariots of the Gods

Introduction

It took courage to write this book, and it will take courage to read it. Because its theories and proofs do not fit into the mosaic of traditional archaeology, constructed so laboriously and firmly cemented down, scholars will call it nonsense and put it on the Index of those books which are better left unmentioned. Laymen will withdraw into the snail-shell of their familiar world when faced with the probability that finding out about our past will be even more mysterious and adventurous than finding out about the future.

Nevertheless one thing is certain. There is something inconsistent about our past, that past which lies thousands and millions of years behind us. The past teemed with unknown gods who visited the primaeval earth in manned space-ships. Incredible technical achievements existed in the past. There is a mass of know-how which we have only partially rediscovered today.

There is something inconsistent about our archaeology! Because we find electric batteries many thousands of years old. Because we find strange beings in perfect space suits with platinum fasteners. Because we find numbers with fifteen digits—something not registered by any computer. But how did these early men acquire the ability to create these incredible things?

There is something inconsistent about our religion. A feature common to every religion is that it promises help and salvation to mankind. The primitive gods gave such promises, too. Why didn't they keep them? Why did they use ultra-modern weapons on primitive peoples? And why did they plan to destroy them?

Let us get used to the idea that the world of ideas which has grown up over the millennia is going to collapse. A few years of accurate research has already brought down the mental edifice in which we had made ourselves at home. Knowledge that was hidden in the libraries of secret societies is being rediscovered. The age of space travel is no longer an age of secrets. Space travel, which aspires to suns and stars, also plumbs the abysses of our past for us. Gods and priests, kings and heroes emerge from the dark chasms. We must challenge them to deliver up their secrets, for we have the means to find out all about our past, without leaving any gaps, if we really want to.

Modern laboratories must take over the work of archaeological research.

Archaeologists must visit the devastated sites of the past with ultra-sensitive measuring apparatus.

Priests who seek the truth must again begin to doubt everything that is established.

The gods of the dim past have left countless traces which we can read and decipher today for the first time because the problem of space travel, so topical today, was not a problem, but a reality, to the men of thousands of years ago. For I claim that our forefathers received visits from the universe in the remote past. Even though I do not yet know who these extra-terrestrial intelligences were or from which planet they came, I nevertheless proclaim that these 'strangers' annihilated part of mankind existing at the time and produced a new, perhaps the first, homo sapiens.

This assertion is revolutionary. It shatters the base on which a mental edifice that seemed to be so perfect was constructed. It is my aim to try to provide proof of this assertion.

My book would not have been written without the encouragement and collaboration of many people. I should like to thank my wife, who has seen little of me at home during the last few years, for her understanding. I should like to thank my friend Hans Neuner, my travelling companion for many thousands of miles, for his unfailing and valuable help. I should like to thank Dr Stehlin and Louis Emrich for their continuous support. I should like to thank all the NASA personnel at Houston, Cape Kennedy and Huntsville who showed me round their magnificent scientific and technical research centres. I should like to thank Professors Dr Werhner von Braun, Dr Willy Ley and Bert Slattery. I should like to thank all the countless men and women around the globe whose practical help, encouragement and conversation made this book possible.

Erich Von Daniken

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