Ancient Astronauts

[mgs16925]

I'm kind of surprised no-one mentioned the inherent racism and ethnocentrism of the idea. People question pyramids in Africa and South America (the easiest artificial structure to build) but never say aliens were responsible for the Greeks building the Parthenon. The only European site anyone ever brings up in this discussion is Stonehenge, which is basically just a temple sitting next to a major stone-age city.

Erich von Däniken, who popularized the idea, was especially bad about this kind of thing, cherry-picking images from ancient cultures that kind of look like a spaceship if you squint and ignoring that every element in it has a separate identity in the culture. He also systematically ignored the experimental failures of "inspired" works like the pyramid that collapsed during construction or the one that is bent because they changed the construction angle half-way through to prevent collapse.

 

[Marik2]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what your thoughts on ancient astronauts were? I always find the topic very compelling, because you just never know.

For more info see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts

Seen a couple of shows from it, its plausible but they really think that every deity out there could have been an alien.

Which basically means that the whole world was covered with aliens.

And thats just way too ludicrous.

 

[commodorejohn]

Oh hell yeah. Buzz Aldrin's like, eighty already.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

Its always amazing that modern day people assume that because ancient cultures only had simple tools, that the people were stupid. Look at ancient Greek structures like the Parthenon. The columns of the building are built at a slight curvature to compensate for viewing the building from a distance. The Greeks built this structure without the help of modeling equipment or sophisticated measuring tools.

Simple tools do not mean simple minds.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I'm kind of surprised no-one mentioned the inherent racism and ethnocentrism of the idea. People question pyramids in Africa and South America (the easiest artificial structure to build) but never say aliens were responsible for the Greeks building the Parthenon. The only European site anyone ever brings up in this discussion is Stonehenge, which is basically just a temple sitting next to a major stone-age city.

Erich von Däniken, who popularized the idea, was especially bad about this kind of thing, cherry-picking images from ancient cultures that kind of look like a spaceship if you squint and ignoring that every element in it has a separate identity in the culture. He also systematically ignored the experimental failures of "inspired" works like the pyramid that collapsed during construction or the one that is bent because they changed the construction angle half-way through to prevent collapse.

That's a really good point. I suppose that's inherent to us, we cannot easily accept that another "tribe" can do better things than our own, possibly with fewer resources. Few enough people today understand how something as ubiquitous as cell phones, TVs, cars, or water treatment work, so I'm not surprised that there are people who have difficulty believe that a "primitive" civilization in "poor" areas like Africa or South America built structures that remain standing today. That would make ancient aliens the equivalent of divine intervention, which humans are just too eager to claim during extraordinary events. And racism, obviously, cuz if you might as well proudly wave your bigotry flag when making stupid claims...

 

[GodofCider]

I think they're real. A lot of things don't add up, I mean, have you ever read the Bible? Any time they mention an encounter with angels, they were probably actually aliens. Plus there are structures and ruins across the world that would be impossible to manufacture given their age.

Or, you know, it might happen to be that both scenarios are fiction...just saying.

 

[SodaDew]

I've always been creeped out by this kind of stuff, I don't know why.

 

[Beliyal]

I think they're real. A lot of things don't add up, I mean, have you ever read the Bible? Any time they mention an encounter with angels, they were probably actually aliens. Plus there are structures and ruins across the world that would be impossible to manufacture given their age.

It's wrong to interpret the Bible through the modern eyes. It was not written by "modern" people. When interpreting ancient texts, we have to put them in context; ancient context. Modern way of thinking is clouding our judgement. The easiest way to read the Bible and other ancient texts is to interpret them in a way that pleases us and that makes sense to us, the readers from the 21st century. Readers whose heads are filled with thousands of new information, with thousands of films watched, books read and so on. "Lights on the sky" to a modern reader sounds like something that he doesn't know the definition of, so we attribute it to "aliens". Two thousand years ago, it would be "lightning". Now we know what is lightning, so it no longer fits into "strange, unexplainable things", but something else does; like aliens for example. So, seeing aliens in ancient texts is, according to my opinion, not an eligible proof.

There's ancient art and their supposed depictions of aliens. And it has the same problem as texts. We see them the way we want to see them. That art is strange by default, so we connect it to something that is strange to us, now, in the 21st century. Or we purely lack the knowledge about the culture that the art belongs to, and we fail to recognize a quite simple depiction of something from their mythology that is no way connected, even remotely, to possible aliens.

Then there are buildings. I admit, and everyone will admit, that there are strange buildings, built with an astounding accuracy and remarkable craftsmanship that we believe was impossible for "primitive" people that lived before. And yes, Stonehenge is beyond fascinating (I've visited it and being there really changes perspective), but was it impossible to build? Obviously not, as it is there, still standing. This is one more time where our own judgement is clouded by our advance technology. We have cranes, drills and other advanced equipment and we no longer have the need to think creatively. We bring the crane to the site, lift the stones and there it is. And then we wonder how could anyone have done it without the cranes. Well, those people obviously had their ways of doing this. It requires a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of people, but it does not make it impossible. It is fascinating to us that someone would dedicate so much time and effort to something that has no real functional purpose, but people back then didn't see it the way we do. The issue about pyramids is much more complex, but seeing as the pyramids are there, standing for 4000 years, they can obviously be built. It would require even more planing, work, effort, time and people, but it can be done. The only problem is that we don't know how (there are theories, yes, but none are confirmed as of yet). There were some experiments to build the pyramids "in the old way", but they failed. We probably miss something that those people had, but I highly doubt it's extraterrestrial technology. Attributing everything mysterious to a higher force or alien knowledge is neither helpful nor scientific. Yes, there are things we cannot explain, and, being an archaeology student, I must admit it. We don't know what was the purpose of some things, or how they were built or even by whom in some cases. And maybe we will never know for sure, but that's not because it was done by aliens or gods (or alien gods), but because we simply cannot attain evidence about everything that some ancient culture did. We are lucky for all the info we now have, and that is really lucky. Digging out the exact thing we want to learn about is pretty difficult and, in most cases, impossible. Filling the holes with aliens is not helping, but, granted, can be entertaining and fascinating.

I do not rule out the possibility completely, but since this is my field of study, I am more inclined to dismiss it.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

I think they're real. A lot of things don't add up, I mean, have you ever read the Bible? Any time they mention an encounter with angels, they were probably actually aliens. Plus there are structures and ruins across the world that would be impossible to manufacture given their age.

YES! And what about Mt. Rushmore? There is no way that could have been formed naturally, so aliens must have visited our lovely blue world eons ago and carved the faces of this wonderful nation's most important leaders into a mountain side in South Dakota. Cuz they could see into the future, and had an odd fascination with the time span between the 18th and early 20th century. Or were just really, really, really baked.

I jump to conclusions too when someone says something I don't agree with.

In South America, Chile I believe, there are ruins that are about 10000(?) years old. No big deal, except they are made from dyrite. Dyrite is a 9 on the hardness scale, so the only way to cut it is with diamond, which is a 10. I don't doubt ancient people could've had diamonds, and I don't doubt human ingenuity, but I do doubt their ability to use them to cut large stones and then engrave perfect lines on them.

And just to mock you.

I KNOW, RIGHT! There is no mystery or strange things that happen on this planet. We are by ourselves in this infinity expanding universe. The only thing in the sky is the Sun orbiting the Earth and God smiling down on us! Now let's go make terrible arguments on more forums!

Firstly, did you perchance mean "diorite?" I can't seem to find any real information on dyrite, sans it being a dye for something.
See, it's this jumping to conclusions that annoys me the most. You took no effort to investigate *possible* ways with which "dyrite" could have been treated to allow its use in construction.
The assertion that the only way to cut it is with a diamond is laughable to say the least. It's a mineral, so it can be chiseled just like any other stone, although you'll probably go through more than a few chisels in the process. Furthermore, hardness is not the same as being indestructible. Don't believe me? Well, take a diamond, place it on an anvil, and hit it with a hammer. That's one expensive lesson on molecular stability right there...
If the ruins were constructed out of pure steel, you might have had a point. As it stands, you have a bunch of really dedicated people who either really liked a certain mineral, or had nothing better to do than to construct their buildings from it.

Yes, diorite. Haven't brushed up on my geology recently.

I understand you can smash things, but the point of it was the precision of the cuts. The blocks were cut perfectly and the lines etched into the stones were the same width and depth through the whole thing. Thats what was perplexing about it. When a metal or something is cut like that today, we use lasers and computers, neither of which they had.

For reference, I saw it in an episode of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel last year. Really interesting.

 

[Scabadus]

It's an interesting topic with a lot of stories and 'proof' that's little mroe than hearsay, but if you do your reasearch there are some archeology digs and findings that have really wierd artifacts. Sure, most of them probably have perfectly sensible terrestrial explinations, but we havn't figured them out yet so they're still unknown and interesting.

Another interesting point: the creation of life is a really really rare thing. There is incredibly strong evidence that life only started once on Earth, i.e. that every being alive can be traced back to one single strand of DNA-like material billions of years ago (I won't go into why now because it's fairly long and complicated, but just trust me this evidence is here). Taking this extreme rarity into account, it's theoretically possible that life never started on Earth, at least by itself. It's plausible that such a rare event never happened, instead it was 'helped along' by extra terrestrial life.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

I think they're real. A lot of things don't add up, I mean, have you ever read the Bible? Any time they mention an encounter with angels, they were probably actually aliens. Plus there are structures and ruins across the world that would be impossible to manufacture given their age.

It's wrong to interpret the Bible through the modern eyes. It was not written by "modern" people. When interpreting ancient texts, we have to put them in context; ancient context. Modern way of thinking is clouding our judgement. The easiest way to read the Bible and other ancient texts is to interpret them in a way that pleases us and that makes sense to us, the readers from the 21st century. Readers whose heads are filled with thousands of new information, with thousands of films watched, books read and so on. "Lights on the sky" to a modern reader sounds like something that he doesn't know the definition of, so we attribute it to "aliens". Two thousand years ago, it would be "lightning". Now we know what is lightning, so it no longer fits into "strange, unexplainable things", but something else does; like aliens for example. So, seeing aliens in ancient texts is, according to my opinion, not an eligible proof.

There's ancient art and their supposed depictions of aliens. And it has the same problem as texts. We see them the way we want to see them. That art is strange by default, so we connect it to something that is strange to us, now, in the 21st century. Or we purely lack the knowledge about the culture that the art belongs to, and we fail to recognize a quite simple depiction of something from their mythology that is no way connected, even remotely, to possible aliens.

Then there are buildings. I admit, and everyone will admit, that there are strange buildings, built with an astounding accuracy and remarkable craftsmanship that we believe was impossible for "primitive" people that lived before. And yes, Stonehenge is beyond fascinating (I've visited it and being there really changes perspective), but was it impossible to build? Obviously not, as it is there, still standing. This is one more time where our own judgement is clouded by our advance technology. We have cranes, drills and other advanced equipment and we no longer have the need to think creatively. We bring the crane to the site, lift the stones and there it is. And then we wonder how could anyone have done it without the cranes. Well, those people obviously had their ways of doing this. It requires a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of people, but it does not make it impossible. It is fascinating to us that someone would dedicate so much time and effort to something that has no real functional purpose, but people back then didn't see it the way we do. The issue about pyramids is much more complex, but seeing as the pyramids are there, standing for 4000 years, they can obviously be built. It would require even more planing, work, effort, time and people, but it can be done. The only problem is that we don't know how (there are theories, yes, but none are confirmed as of yet). There were some experiments to build the pyramids "in the old way", but they failed. We probably miss something that those people had, but I highly doubt it's extraterrestrial technology. Attributing everything mysterious to a higher force or alien knowledge is neither helpful nor scientific. Yes, there are things we cannot explain, and, being an archaeology student, I must admit it. We don't know what was the purpose of some things, or how they were built or even by whom in some cases. And maybe we will never know for sure, but that's not because it was done by aliens or gods (or alien gods), but because we simply cannot attain evidence about everything that some ancient culture did. We are lucky for all the info we now have, and that is really lucky. Digging out the exact thing we want to learn about is pretty difficult and, in most cases, impossible. Filling the holes with aliens is not helping, but, granted, can be entertaining and fascinating.

I do not rule out the possibility completely, but since this is my field of study, I am more inclined to dismiss it.

Reading biblical texts with a brain from any time can be dangerous. I realize the translations and meanings have changed, but some things are probably best described by aliens. Not the lights in the sky, or the burning bush, thats lighting and some good shrooms. The angel encounters are the strangest. Besides another reference to drugs, what else explains seeing and talking to angels? And don't say "god" or "angels."

Art is a little more solid than the building I think. Buildings, as you said, can be built, it just takes forever, and I know that. Don't think I'm one of those crazy conspiracy people just yet. Art is often recordings though. Just as we use video to reocrd what we've seen, they used paintings, walls, hieroglyphs, sculptures, whatever.

Many of these buildings have celestial purposes, such as tracking the Solstice and Equinox. But why? Whats the reason? Why did they care about what was in the sky and how to track it? And why did so many civilizations go through so much trouble to do so. We know Stonehenge isn't the only ancient circular stone structure to track the Sun. So why the trend?

 

[funguy2121]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what your thoughts on ancient astronauts were? I always find the topic very compelling, because you just never know.

For more info see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts

It's a compelling premise for sci-fi which to my knowledge hasn't yet been given it's due (then again, there's a whole world of written scifi that I have yet to broach). It was the one vaguely interesting thing about Aliens Vs. Predator.

Other than the geometric signs that have been left in the earth, there isn't really much evidence of their existence.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Besides another reference to drugs, what else explains seeing and talking to angels?

The social phenomenon of storytelling and the way that apocryphal incidents spread between tellers and grow in the telling. Today we call this process "urban myth." But it's no different from most myth.

Some appearances of angels were of course less organic than this, specifically symbolic, usually part of a theological argument. In Revelation they appear drenched in figurative language that assigned rich symbolic associations to things like numbers and substances (notice the emphasis throughout on the number of wings and eyes the "living creatures" are supposed to have and the specific substances of which things are composed, it's not random).

But why? Whats the reason? Why did they care about what was in the sky and how to track it?

Sweet Jesus. This is painful, man. You really can't wrap your f***** head around why the Solstices and the Equinox might be of interest to agricultural civilizations?

So all the stories that start with "an angel appeared before him" are all symbolic or grossly inflated stories. I guess I agree with you in another argument, but in this one, not as much. So EVERY time they speak of seeing angels, which is quite often in a book like the Bible, not once could it be aliens?

I was kind of thinking bigger than just agriculture. They seemed to be.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

The parts of the thoery that has evidence to back it up actually has quite astonishing evidence at that.

It would even make a lot of ancient and current monotheistic religious texts logically believable.

 

[Imperiused]

The only problem is that we don't know how (there are theories, yes, but none are confirmed as of yet).

I am personally a fan of the "internal ramp" theory posed more recently.

I understand you can smash things, but the point of it was the precision of the cuts. The blocks were cut perfectly and the lines etched into the stones were the same width and depth through the whole thing. Thats what was perplexing about it. When a metal or something is cut like that today, we use lasers and computers, neither of which they had.

The barrier into your understanding here is your terminology. The "cuts" are not cuts. When handling difficult materials, people first break and chisel the material into something resembling the shape they want. Then comes hours and hours of sanding. Never underestimate the visceral power of the "rub". And unlimited manpower hours.

 

[Beliyal]

I think they're real. A lot of things don't add up, I mean, have you ever read the Bible? Any time they mention an encounter with angels, they were probably actually aliens. Plus there are structures and ruins across the world that would be impossible to manufacture given their age.

snip

Reading biblical texts with a brain from any time can be dangerous. I realize the translations and meanings have changed, but some things are probably best described by aliens. Not the lights in the sky, or the burning bush, thats lighting and some good shrooms. The angel encounters are the strangest. Besides another reference to drugs, what else explains seeing and talking to angels? And don't say "god" or "angels."

Imagination? Religions and mythologies are full of "gods" and similar creatures coming to Earth. Besides, why only angels and gods? What about demons and things that do not come from the sky? Because, if we think about those texts as something that describes some actual happenings, we can't dismiss the ones that do not fit our explanation. Angels and other similar beings are sure as hell uncanny when you think about it from our point of view, but again, we can't look at them through our point of view. Sure, we can say it's the evidence of extraterrestrial life, I don't have any hard evidence completely against it. I mean, if you want, you don't have to restrict yourself to the Bible. There's ancient gods coming to Earth, talking, sharing knowledge and mating with people all over the world, hundreds and thousands of years before the Bible. It didn't stop, we have it too, and I'm not talking just about people who say they were abducted, but also about our media and "records". Which leads me to...

Art is a little more solid than the building I think. Buildings, as you said, can be built, it just takes forever, and I know that. Don't think I'm one of those crazy conspiracy people just yet. Art is often recordings though. Just as we use video to reocrd what we've seen, they used paintings, walls, hieroglyphs, sculptures, whatever.

... this. Our art is full of these things too, and I mean contemporary art. We build our own stories and mythologies. Say, something happens to our civilization and 2000 years from now, someone finds the film District 9, not knowing we used films for entertainment. Or they find a book about aliens, or paintings of aliens. Our civilization gets lost in time, nobody knows anything about it, and they're bound to learn about us from material finds and they find our art. What are they going to think? Now, I'm not saying all ancient art was only entertainment, far from it, we have evidence that it's not. But it still doesn't mean it wasn't their imagination, or that it isn't our imagination, seeing things we want to see (or things that we somehow find uncanny or things we can't seem to understand). Now, there is one thing that keeps me in a neutral area, and it's the fact that if aliens did visit us back then, the only way those people would make an ever-lasting note about it would be exactly through mythology. So, aliens land in ancient Egypt and people want to write it down, they wouldn't write it down as we would. We would make some scientific research and write it down accompanied with some hard evidence that would still be useful thousands of years from now. And who knows, maybe the ancient people did believe that their stories are going to be perceived as true stories in thousands of years; maybe that was their best method to write it down. So yeah, I never fully support only one point of view. Despite that, I am currently more inclined to believe no aliens ever visited Earth, let alone made contact with us by building our pyramids. It could be true, although it raises much more questions than it answers. And we can't really use maybes and ifs as proofs. We have a fair amount of knowledge about those civilizations, and if they did got visited by aliens, it would probably be far more prominent in both their art and way of life.

Many of these buildings have celestial purposes, such as tracking the Solstice and Equinox. But why? Whats the reason? Why did they care about what was in the sky and how to track it? And why did so many civilizations go through so much trouble to do so. We know Stonehenge isn't the only ancient circular stone structure to track the Sun. So why the trend?

Someone already answered this. In that time, people didn't have supermarkets where they could go and just buy any food in any time of the year. Food production and crop growing took a lot of time, and seasons were followed carefully; if the crops failed, the whole culture could face death. In order to have a successful agricultural civilization, you need a good calendar, or something similar to track down the passage of time, most importantly, seasons. First calendars were lunar because the Moon is the biggest object in the sky that moves fast enough for people to make some sort of a time period based on its movement. Later on, they noticed that the Sun also has a certain period in which it makes a full circle and that it was responsible for seasons. So, paying attention to the solstices and equinoxes was one of the best way to know what crops to grow when and which food you can have in which season. And it wasn't just the Sun and the Moon; for example, in Egypt, they were very keen on following the star Sirius because it showed up on the horizon every year at the time when the Nile floods the area. The flooding of Nile would make the land fertile and basically enable life in Egypt, so they believed Sirius to be important and holy (and they identified it with their goddess Isis, who revived her husband Osiris, just as Sirius "revives" the land each year). It really was extremely important to them.

The only problem is that we don't know how (there are theories, yes, but none are confirmed as of yet).

I am personally a fan of the "internal ramp" theory posed more recently.

Yeah, that one is really good. Although, still leaves the problem of stone processing, transport, and ridiculous accuracy. But, it's nothing impossible, we just can't seem to wrap our minds around what specific methods they used.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I think they're real. A lot of things don't add up, I mean, have you ever read the Bible? Any time they mention an encounter with angels, they were probably actually aliens. Plus there are structures and ruins across the world that would be impossible to manufacture given their age.

YES! And what about Mt. Rushmore? There is no way that could have been formed naturally, so aliens must have visited our lovely blue world eons ago and carved the faces of this wonderful nation's most important leaders into a mountain side in South Dakota. Cuz they could see into the future, and had an odd fascination with the time span between the 18th and early 20th century. Or were just really, really, really baked.

I jump to conclusions too when someone says something I don't agree with.

In South America, Chile I believe, there are ruins that are about 10000(?) years old. No big deal, except they are made from dyrite. Dyrite is a 9 on the hardness scale, so the only way to cut it is with diamond, which is a 10. I don't doubt ancient people could've had diamonds, and I don't doubt human ingenuity, but I do doubt their ability to use them to cut large stones and then engrave perfect lines on them.

And just to mock you.

I KNOW, RIGHT! There is no mystery or strange things that happen on this planet. We are by ourselves in this infinity expanding universe. The only thing in the sky is the Sun orbiting the Earth and God smiling down on us! Now let's go make terrible arguments on more forums!

Firstly, did you perchance mean "diorite?" I can't seem to find any real information on dyrite, sans it being a dye for something.
See, it's this jumping to conclusions that annoys me the most. You took no effort to investigate *possible* ways with which "dyrite" could have been treated to allow its use in construction.
The assertion that the only way to cut it is with a diamond is laughable to say the least. It's a mineral, so it can be chiseled just like any other stone, although you'll probably go through more than a few chisels in the process. Furthermore, hardness is not the same as being indestructible. Don't believe me? Well, take a diamond, place it on an anvil, and hit it with a hammer. That's one expensive lesson on molecular stability right there...
If the ruins were constructed out of pure steel, you might have had a point. As it stands, you have a bunch of really dedicated people who either really liked a certain mineral, or had nothing better to do than to construct their buildings from it.

Yes, diorite. Haven't brushed up on my geology recently.

I understand you can smash things, but the point of it was the precision of the cuts. The blocks were cut perfectly and the lines etched into the stones were the same width and depth through the whole thing. Thats what was perplexing about it. When a metal or something is cut like that today, we use lasers and computers, neither of which they had.

For reference, I saw it in an episode of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel last year. Really interesting.

Well, let's try a different example. You know what granite is I presume? It's also incredibly hard, yet it has been used for ages as a decorative building material. The reason is quite simple. You don't "cut" it, which admittedly would be a hard bit of work, but rather break small pieces off during chiseling. Whatever detail you may see isn't smooth at all, but ragged, jagged, angled, broken, etc on the microscopic scale.

Look, the big mistake is taking anything you see on History at face value. I'm not a geologist, but even I can point out just how stupid the idea that detail on stone walls is impossible without modern tools is. Be glad you didn't you didn't post some "proof" of ancient alien things based on chemistry or quantum mechanics...

 

[Plurralbles]

it's really, really stupid to think that there were astronauts.

I'm an archaeology major. I now have a graduate thesis topic.

Glad to see people make a mockery of a field I wanted to do since I was 6...

 

[godfist88]

maybe you should find a better source than Wikipedia.

 

[trooperpaul]

It's possible but what "evidence" there is isn't enough to prove anything really.

FYI, all you physics nuts out there, do you honestly believe that Earth is the only planet capable of sustaining intelligent life? That the resources on Earth are the only ones that exist throughout the universe? If so, you are sorely mistaken. With the countless planets/solar systems/galaxies, etc., it's literally impossible that we're the only life in the universe. Hell, what we know as the universe may not even be the entire universe? There could be so much beyond dark space that we might as well be less than a speck in the grand scheme of things.

Though it's definitely unlikely we had "ancient astronauts" walking around on earth. Just as it's impossible for there to be no life or different resources on other planets, it's almost impossible for anybody to have found us unless entire galaxies have been searching for new life for billions of years.

Yes, there probably is intelligent life, but if you look at the stars, subtract the ones that couldn't support planets, the ones that could, but don't, the ones that could support planets, but not ones with life, the ones that could support a planet that could have life, but don't, the ones that have a planet that could support life, but it hasn't evolved, the planets where life hasn't evolved past single-celled organisms, the planets where multicellular organisms have evolved, but not gained independent thought, the ones where civilization never started, the ones that were destroyed by infighting, the ones where civilization progressed to the level required to build spaceships but don't, the ones that have probably destroyed themselves as soon as they split the atom, and the ones that never bothered to go outside their system, you get the grand number of three. In our galaxy!
EDIT: I forgot to mention the number of intelligent species that have been on our planet. This brings it down to one, our dear little Homo Sapiens Sapiens
(I forgot how to stick an image in here, but you can easily find what they look like. Go look in a mirror if you want.)
People just can't imagine that civilizations had nothing better to do than build monuments to awesomeness once harvest season is over.
Here's my problem:
People only believe in aliens visiting Earth because it makes them feel important. This, however, is not true. You are an insignificant bag of water and carbon, on an insignificant ball of rock, orbiting an insignificant ball of hydrogen, in an insignificant part of an insignificant galaxy in the universe, and not a single species will care about you, or your crazy theories.