Article: Erich von Däniken – 14.04.1935 ∗ 10.01.2026
It is with great sadness and shock that we must announce that Erich von Däniken passed away on January 10, 2026.
Our thoughts are with his family. His friends around the world also mourn his passing, as do the millions of readers of his books and the many colleagues who had the privilege of working with him for decades. His "Research Society for Archaeology, Astronautics, and SETI" (A.A.S.) and all those interested in Paleo SETI research have received the news with dismay. The official obituary can be found here as a PDF: Nachruf_EvD_offiziell (only in German language at the moment)
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Article: ZURICH, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Best-selling Swiss author Erich von Daeniken, who built a lucrative career on his argument, rubbished by scientists and archaeologists, that humanity owes much of its development to the intervention of extraterrestrials, has died aged 90.
"Chariots of the Gods?", published in 1968, sold millions of copies with its thesis that advanced aliens had repeatedly visited Earth, leaving their mark in the form of Inca and Egyptian ruins, cave drawings and other physical monuments.
"It took courage to write this book, and it will take courage to read it," the work begins.
It acknowledged that scholars would dismiss it as nonsense, but insisted that "the past teemed with unknown gods who visited the primeval earth in manned spaceships".
SCHOLARS DISMISS THEORIES AS PSEUDOSCIENCE
Academics wrote books refuting his theories, criticising him as a purveyor of some of the more fantastical notions of pseudoscience. German news magazine Der Spiegel even had a 1973 cover story titled "The Daeniken Hoax".
Nevertheless, legions of fans snapped up his more than 40 books and watched his television specials and documentary films. The over 70 million books that he sold were translated into more than 30 languages.
Von Daeniken spent the early part of his working life managing a hotel in eastern Switzerland, where a fraud conviction landed him in jail for 18 months.
Article: BERLIN (Associated Press) Jan 11
Von Däniken's representatives announced on his website on Sunday that he had died the previous day in a hospital in central Switzerland.
In 1964, he was appointed manager of a hotel in the exclusive resort town of Davos and began writing his first book. Its publication and rapid commercial success were quickly followed by accusations of tax dodging and financial impropriety, for which he again spent time behind bars.
By the time he left prison, "Chariots of the Gods" was earning von Däniken a fortune and a second book "Gods from Outer Space" was ready for publication, allowing him to commit himself to his paranormal passion and travel the world in search of new mysteries to uncover.
Throughout the 1970s von Däniken undertook countless field trips to Egypt, India, and above all Latin America, whose ancient cultures held a particular fascination for the amateur archaeologist.
In 1991 von Däniken gained the damning accolade of being the first recipient of the "Ig Nobel" prize for literature — for raising the public awareness of science through questionable experiments or claims.
Article: ..., he swindled his employer (a resort hotel in the Swiss Alps) for $130,000 to finance his travel to far-flung destinations in preparation for his first book. He was convicted and served one year of a 3 and ½ year sentence. "Chariots of the Gods?" was turned down by several different publishers until one agreed on the condition that a professional writer be brought in to fix the manuscript. This was Utz Utermann, previously best known as the editor of a Nazi Party newspaper. Just saying.
If Daniken had any writing chops, he could have turned his ancient astronaut thing into an entertaining science-fiction series. Instead, he plowed ahead with his outlandish theory and exploiting an impressionable public newly inspired by the U.S. moon landings. Most galling is the utter contempt Daniken seemed to have for the human race. To imply out of hand that ancient civilizations were incapable of constructing anything better than a mud hut is profoundly insulting. It also ignores historical and scientific research that traces the ingenuity, technology, and development of ancient human cultures. But of course, ol' Erich had no use for that and instead endlessly claimed that experts (esp. archaeologists) had something to hide.
Article: (The filmmaker Roland Emmerich) notes that the idea for (the 1994 film) "Stargate" originated with the 1970 documentary "Chariots of the Gods," which he saw while in film school in Munich. Based on the book by Erik von Daniken, the doc theorizes that "aliens created all civilizations," he says. "That got me thinking I could make a movie about that."
