Ancient Astronauts, Cosmic Collisions and Other Popular Theories About Man's Past [Paperback]

William H. Stiebing Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1984

This book critically evaluates many of these popular hypotheses about man's early history. It presents the most important evidence and arguments for and against theories of a universal flood, the lost continent of Atlantis, mysterious pyramid powers, pre-Columbian voyages to America by ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians, and Velikovsky's cosmic catastrophism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 217 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; First Edition edition (September 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879752858
• ISBN-13: 978-0879752859
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #365,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A breath of fresh air, June 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ancient astronauts, cosmic collisions, and other popular theories about man's past (Paperback)

In the face of so much nonsense out there about the ancient past and the public's seemingly limitless capacity to listen anyone but the experts (consult the depressingly ebullient reader reactions to Hancock's crashingly unoriginal and largely fictional "Fingerprints of the Gods" at this site), Stiebing's book comes as a breath of fresh air. He is lucid, concise, factual, and reasonable. In successive chapters, he tackles the flood myth, Atlantis, Velikovsky's colliding-planets theory, ancient astronauts, the pyramids, mythic (and factual, in the case of the Norse) pre-Colombian voyages to the Americas, and ends with an assessment of the main characteristics of "popular" theories. In each case, he clearly lays out the much-despised "conventional" position on these issues: how, for instance, geology completely fails to uphold the proposition of a universal flood or how the pyramids were almost certainly built by Egyptians as tombs for their god-kings some 4,500 years ago and not by Atlanteans, refugees from a Martian civil war, or mysterious bearded figures from Antartica. What was striking to this reader was how many of the supposed "discoveries" and "theories" of recent pseudoscientific works like Hancock's (published in 1995) have long been argued and disproven already (Stiebing's book came out in 1984). Yet the "popular theorists" just continue to rehash the old, long discredited "evidence," never address countervailing opinion in detail, and sell thousands upon thousands of books. There can be no better indication of their utter disregard for the truth -- or of their motives.

Stiebing recognizes that part of the appeal of "popular theories" about the past stems not only from their sensational nature but also from a communication gap between mainstream scholars and the general public, few of whom have any idea what academics do or how they arrive at their dates, hypotheses, or conclusions. Stiebing ends with the hope that "Perhaps with concerted effort we can narrow the communication gap between scholars and the general public and make people less intellectually unwary than they have been heretofore. If so, popular theories may become less popular in the future." We must now admit, almost 15 years on, that his optimism has proven unwarranted. Despite excellent TV shows like "Archaeology" and "NOVA," the mass media continue to tout endlessly the "mysteries" of Atlantis, the Bible, ancient astronauts, the pyramids, etc. Charlatans like John A. West, Robert Schoch and Graham Hancock continue to get more airtime to view their nonsensical and untenable positions than any "mainstream" archaeologist. You can bet your bottom dollar that Hancock's crock has sold far more copies than M. Lehner's superb "The Complete Pyramids," a mainstream work that charts the rise and demise of the pyramid-building era of Egyptian history. The communication gap that Stiebing identified in 1984, it seems, is wider than ever.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed dose of rationality., November 29, 1998

By 

Michael Bulger (Rochester, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ancient Astronauts, Cosmic Collisions and Other Popular Theories About Man's Past (Paperback)

If you feel even the slightest sense of dismay at the size of the "new age/occult" section in your local bookstore as compared to that of the "science/nature" section, you will probably enjoy this book. If you never noticed the discrepancy, well, you're probably not reading this review. An earlier review of this book criticizes Stiebing for focusing his critique of ancient astronauts on the mistakes made by a single proponent. A full description of the egregious errors made by _all_ proponents of notions of ancient astronauts, however, would fill thousands of pages. There will always be some new crackpot that Stiebing has missed. Stiebing's book examines a number of other pseudoscientific subjects, and is not limited to ancient astronauts, and whatever your personal feelings about the reality of such things may be, this book is an invaluable counterpoint to the flood of irrational "literature" that currently chokes bookstores everywhere--the flood that gives the lie to the persistent notion that such "alternative" viewpoints are somehow censored by an all-powerful scientific establishment. For a real idea of the nature of this mythical power, try to find this book in the store nearest you. Now try to find one by von Daniken. 'Nuff said.

13 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This man needs to open up his mind, July 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ancient Astronauts, Cosmic Collisions and Other Popular Theories About Man's Past (Paperback)

Although I enjoyed reading most of Stiebling's work, his writing is somewhat hypocritical. He criticizes modern far-fetched theories too much while many of his own theories are far-fetched themselves. Also, he makes assumptions, such as giving credit to Khufu as the builder of the Great Pyramid. This was proven wrong by Zecharia Sitchin in The Wars of Gods and Men. He gives credible issues a bad name. For example, he throws out the theory of ancient astronauts by only looking at the mistakes made by one researcher. If he would just open his mind and examine works such as those of Zecharia Sitchin, he may think differently. If you're interested in the other side of such issues as Noah's Ark and Atlantis, check out this book, but if you want something that doesn't just touch on the subject, find something else.