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Have ancient aliens visited Earth?

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Naw. Tonight, turn the lights low, make sure someone remembers to leave the package of popcorn near the nuke.

Okay, Britain’s Daily Mail asks, “Have aliens already visited Earth? NASA book suggests that ancient rock art could have been created by extraterrestrials.” :

Have aliens already visited Earth? Nasa book suggests that ancient rock art could have been created by extraterrestrials

A new book details the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti)

In it the authors discuss the methods through which we might find aliens

These include searching for signs of life on planets or finding messages

The book details some of the challenges ahead for making first contact

But ultimately the authors say it is something that might happen one day
More.

Wow. When someone we know tried researching this, the NASA page turned up blank. There was another book by the apparent same author, Psychology of Space Exploration (2011), a psychologist from U. Wisc. Madison, who does TED talks.

The rock art that forms part of his evidence dates back to only a few thousand years ago. There is art at Lascaux from 15000 years ago,. Hmm. Not good evidence that anyone anywhere built rockets to get here.

But, in defense of the ancient—and obviously human—African artists, that sort of rock art tends to be iconic, not representative. It is useless to wonder why they did not even try representational art.

Look, take it from an artsie: The ancient world was leery of representational art. They knew little of how nature really worked so they justifiably feared invoking realities with realistic images. = They could have portrayed what the chief’s wife really looked like, but … it was safer to go with an approved Chief’s Wife Image, even if it wasn’t very representative of her at all.

But their defense would be that it is what everyone does, so … surely the lady would surely not wish to be portrayed as a strange lady … a lady not understood in our culture … ?

NASA seems to have been trying to disown the book. Weird disappearances from download sites. A friend suggests, there’s been infighting at NASA, with internal politics making it impossible to get anything done. Also, that it is easy to abandon a contractor like Vakoch if the thing sounds strange and doesn’t take off.

But it is, back now here it is. Some ous think it utter bosh, but if you are an American, you paid for it, so here it is.

Note re weird portrayals in early human art forms (from a traditional artsie): Realism in art forms was something of a revolution. Of course people who built great monuments could have drawn the human figure accurately. But few wanted to do so. The mood is captured in a local Greek wit (2500 years ago) joking that when the goddess Venus saw her image by the sculptor Praxiteles’ she said, “Alas, where has Praxiteles seen ME naked?.” By that time, people had a more relaxed view of the gods, and did not think it was necessarily their duty to stone Praxiteles and destroy the statue.

If you don’t understand what the wit is getting at, sign up for some *traditional* arts courses. Maybe a local Christian university still offers them. *Traditional* arts courses do not encourage you to whine about your problems, but to appreciate with an expert’s eye the representation of life—as it is or could be.

See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (cosmology).

Comments
Have ancient earths visited Aliens?Mung
June 6, 2014
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Joe, you're absolutely right. The Bible is very clear about aliens not only visiting the earth but also teaching humans about technology (mostly metallurgy), taking over entire nations and establishing various kinds of alien (elohim) worship with massive temples, pyramids and even human sacrifices. Some of them were total jerks! We see the remnants of these alien cults all over the place. The Bible writes about the elohim of Egypt being very powerful, having the ability to change sticks into snakes and water into blood. Yahweh is said to have chosen Israel for himself while the other elohim chose other nations such as Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, etc. Take a look at these pictures of Baalbek, Lebanon. Some of those quarried stones weigh over 1000 tons! Imagine stone age and bronze age people transporting giant stones miles away and lifting them into place (some of those stones were bigger than apartment buildings!) without some kind of advanced technology. The evidence for aliens is all around us. Too bad there has been a systematic effort by the powers that be to hide this part of our history.Mapou
June 1, 2014
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In India it isn't even a question. It is accepted that ancient aliens have visited us.Joe
June 1, 2014
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The Bible reads like an ancient aliens collection of books.Joe
June 1, 2014
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As you say, the book may be accessed with no difficulty. So much for a conspiracy theories based on access problems.
The rock art that forms part of his evidence dates back to only a few thousand years ago...
It is an edited volume, each chapter with a different author. There is no single "his." It was published as part of "The NASA History Series," and presents a history of NASA's involvement with SETI research, the empirical and conceptual issues, etc. There is no suggestion that neolithic rock art is of extraterrestrial origin. Edmonson's chapter is summarized as follows in the introduction:
"Cognitive scientist William Edmondson argues that symbolic communication—in which the connection between sign and signified is arbitrary—is intrinsically limited for communicating with extraterrestrials. In “Constraints on Message Construction for Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” He points out the difficulty of interpreting symbolic artifacts created by other humans, such as the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age rock art of Northumberland or the Voynich manuscript, a late-15th- or 16th-century manuscript that appears to be linguistic in form but remains indecipherable to scholars." (p. xxvii-xxix)
The Edmondson quote in the Mail article is actually a quotemine. Here is the full Edmondson quote:
"Consider again, therefore, the desirability of establishing symbolic/linguistic communication with ETI. It is helpful to review some parallels from human existence that pose problems for us today. One of these is “rock art,” which consists of patterns or shapes cut into rock many thousands of years ago. Such ancient stone carvings can be found in many countries, and the example in Figure 15.1 is from Doddington Moor, Northumbria, England. We can say little, if anything, about what these patterns signify, why they were cut into rocks, or who created them. For all intents and purposes, they might have been made by aliens. Unless we find a readable exegesis of them produced at the time they were made, we will never be able to say with certainty what the patterns mean." (p. 241-242)
In short, neolithic rock art is introduced in this book (in the Edmondson) chapter as an exemplar of the difficulties entailed in interpreting symbolic artifacts, even those created by humans, not as evidence of extraterrestrial activity. You've access to the book, and therefore no excuse for trusting secondary sources.Reciprocating Bill
June 1, 2014
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There was a book and documentary back in the 70s about the same subject. Chariots of the Gods. It was the worst bit of cherry picking of evidence that I have seen until recently.Acartia_bogart
June 1, 2014
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