Daniken's opponents usually point out that the ancient cultures were no where near as incompetent as he makes them out to be and they must be at least capable of understanding and implementing the visitors directions, which in and of itself is an impressive feat. A typical argument is that these ancient cultures were obviously stupid and incapable of achieving such a magnificent feat and therefore aliens helped them. A large portion of his data is derived from archaeological sites and ancient myths and he simply assumes the truth of ancient astronauts. When confronted with his fraud von Daniken claimed that his deception was justified because some needed the evidence to believe his claims. The logical question to ask after this assertion is to wonder where is the proof of these claims? Well the answer is that much of it was hoaxed, such as some fabricated photographs of pottery supposedly attained in an archaeological dig that were painted with flying saucers supposedly dating from biblical times. He instead asserts that instead of prehistoric humans developing their own technology, extraterrestrial beings taught the early humans art and science. He directly confronts the idea that ancient cultures are capable of retaining a culture or civilization of any sort. As the name implies its champion supporter was Erich von Daniken, an author and 'researcher' into these phenomena. This is commonly referred to as the ancient astronaut theory and generally contains that aliens are responsible for most if not all of the most ancient civilizations on earth. The essential basis behind the Erich von Däniken Theory is that there was a certain extraterrestrial influence upon the construction of the Nazca lines.

Erich von daniken fraud