Columbia Journalism Review
July / August 1977
Did God destroy Sodom and Gomorah with an atomic bomb? Was Moses's ark of the covenant really a giant loudspeaker through which God addressed the multitudes? Did strange creatures from outer space help Joshua fight the battle of Jericho?
If you think these questions are beyond ridiculous, you'll be surprised to learn that NBC has presented three hour-long programs that purport to ask just such questions in all seriousness. The programs have in common the theme that creatures from outer space may have visited the earth eons ago and created man and his civilizations in their image. When NBC broadcast the first of these programs, in January 1973, it invented a new television genre - the pseudoscience documentary.
The first program, "In Search of Ancient Astronauts, " was based on a book by Erich von Daniken called Chariots of the Gods? Van Daniken's books have been roundly panned for sloppiness and inaccuracy. "A massive insult to human intelligence," said the San Francisco Examiner. "A fine, naked, unscrupulous, twelve-year-old mind," said an Esquire reviewer of the author.
The NBC presentation of "In Search of Ancient Astronauts" proved, however, that there is a vast market for hooey: not only did approximately 28 million people watch the show, but in the forty-eight hours following the broadcast Bantam Books sold more than 250,000 copies of Chariots of the Gods? On January 31, 1974, NBC ran a second special of the same genre entitled "In Search of Ancient Mysteries." Since then, the "ancient astronaut" fad has spread through the media. Dozens of paperback imitations of von Daniken, bearing such titles as Was God an Ancient Astronaut?, have been rushed into print; two movies of the same ilk have been released; a third is scheduled to be released later this year.
The two NBC specials, which were produced by Alan Landsburg Productions of Los Angeles, have been syndicated and are still being shown on local stations, while a third Landsburg program, "The Outer Space Connection," premiered on NBC on March 3 of this year. Van Daniken, for his part; has written three more. books and, according to an article that appeared in The New York Times last August, 34 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. Thus, the movie, book publishing, and television industries procure audiences for one another, and the ancient-astronaut hype continues to grow.
NBC has defended its part in the hoax on the grounds that the programs were channeled through the entertainment rather than the news division. But this does not appease NBC's critics. Ronald Story, author of The Space-Gods Revealed, which was published last year and which systematically debunks van Daniken, has said: "I have a big complaint with the movie and TV producers. They've said, in effect, 'This is fact.' They've presented it as truth. It should have been labeled science fiction. "
