ZURICH — Erich von Däniken, the Swiss bestselling author who built a highly successful career around the widely rejected idea that extraterrestrials played a key role in human development, has died at the age of 90.
His 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? sold millions of copies, proposing that advanced alien visitors had repeatedly come to Earth and left traces of their presence in ancient structures such as Inca and Egyptian monuments, cave art, and other archaeological remains.
“It took courage to write this book, and it will take courage to read it,” the opening line declared. While acknowledging that experts would dismiss his claims as absurd, the book insisted that humanity’s distant past was filled with unknown gods who arrived in piloted spacecraft.
Theories Rejected by Scholars
Academics strongly criticised von Däniken’s ideas, labelling them pseudoscientific and publishing works that challenged his conclusions. In 1973, the German magazine Der Spiegel devoted a cover story to what it called “The Däniken Hoax.”
Despite this, his popularity remained undiminished. He published more than 40 books, appeared in television programmes and documentaries, and sold over 70 million copies worldwide, translated into more than 30 languages.
Before his rise to fame, von Däniken worked as a hotel manager in eastern Switzerland. A conviction for fraud resulted in an 18-month prison sentence. However, as Chariots of the Gods? gained global attention, he left prison as a literary sensation.
Even so, he never produced the decisive proof demanded by astronomer Carl Sagan’s principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
A 1974 New York Times article noted that von Däniken argued ancient civilizations possessed advanced astronomical knowledge because extraterrestrial visitors had taught them. This view extended to his doubts about whether societies such as the Egyptians or Easter Islanders could have constructed monumental works on their own. The newspaper described his reasoning as turning disbelief in ancient human capability into proof of alien intervention.
Criticism did little to deter him. “We owe it to our self-respect to be rational and objective,” he wrote, arguing that many ideas once dismissed as fantasy later became accepted reality.
Television adaptations of his work made him a familiar figure in Europe and the United States. In 2003, he opened a theme park called Mysteries of the World in Interlaken, though it closed after three years due to financial failure.
Expectation of an Alien Return
In writings on his website, von Däniken rejected being labelled an esoteric thinker, stating that his work aimed to expose what he saw as religious and scientific deception.
Drawing on ancient texts, he claimed that the so-called gods promised to return, predicting a future “god shock” that would disrupt both religion and science. He argued that the evidence clearly supported his views and that this conviction motivated his work.
The release of a major US government report on unidentified flying objects in July 2021, which did not exclude extraterrestrial explanations, renewed his optimism.
He told Neue Zürcher Zeitung that discussions of UFOs and alien life could no longer be dismissed outright. According to him, people would gradually accept possibilities once considered impossible.
“Once humanity is ready and accustomed to the idea that we are not alone in the universe, extraterrestrials will come,” he said, predicting their arrival within the next decade.
