Prehistory Yes, Aliens No

During the past few decades, there has been accumulating evidence that ancient artifacts, recently discovered, could not have been made with the primitive technologies available at the time.  Therefore, some speculative hypotheses claim that those artifacts must have been made by aliens from other planets. 

Those hypotheses, however, run into two major obstacles.

First, the ancient artifacts, while seemingly impossible to manufacture with the copper chisels of ancient times, also show no examples of any advanced technologies per se.  For example, there are ancient granite blocks, cut with such astounding precision that, even today, it would be impossible to do so without laser-like, computerized electronic tools.  Yes, that is evidence that there was some kind of unknown technology involved, but where are the tools and machinery that must have been used?  We find none.

Second, the actual items made by that technology, while amazingly precise in their manufacture, are made out of rocks.  One would think that advanced technologists would have built, not only megalithic (stone) structures, but also steel, aluminum and titanium buildings as well.  Why didn’t they?

It seems paradoxical then, that while we do indeed have evidence of the ability of ancient engineers to lift fifteen-ton stones more than 400 feet upward, we have no ancient documentation, no contemporaneous diagrams, nor any such illustrations that would give us a clue as to how they did that.  Why not?  (Such documents as do exist are neither precise nor explanatory.)

Therefore, we have a paradox.  They could not have done it, but they did it.  They had the knowledge, but never recorded it, nor passed it on. 

A further paradox is that, if they could have done the amazing things that they clearly did do, then they could have done much more that.  They apparently did not.  Why not?

Perhaps some ancient cataclysm destroyed the evidence, but it seems unlikely that every last rudimentary tool, such as a flashlight, or a masonry screw, would have been lost without a trace.  It is as if their one and only material was stone.  Yes, they did have copper tools, but copper is a soft metal, inadequate for fine precision working of granite, such as we find among ancient ruins. 

There should be something more, but we find nothing sufficient to explain how the ancients built the pyramids, for example.  Adding to the mystery, we must wonder how the ancients even planned the Great Pyramid.  The preliminary work, and acquiring the knowledge of how to do it, must have taken many years.  Yet, from concept to completion, this massive project seems to have been abruptly accomplished, perhaps in as little as twenty years.  Nothing of this magnitude is preceded by earlier pyramids.  Not even the ones which are presumed to be older can compare.  They are by contrast, piles of rock without the elaborate inner structures of the Great Pyramid. The Great Pyramid is exponentially more advanced than even the two more recent large pyramids.

So, it’s not just a question of how did they do it, but even, how did they get the knowledge to do it, and how did they get the ability to plan it out beforehand?  All of that necessary and preliminary activity seems to have been underestimated by historians.

The complexity and difficulties involved make it understandable that some people would resort to hypotheses about ancient alien technology, but not only is that the lazy way out, but it is contradicted by the necessary follow up questions.  Are we to assume that the supposed aliens, at some point, just got up and left, taking with them all their knowledge?  Why did they do so?  Did nobody at the time record this departure?

These two obstacles do not conclusively disprove the idea of ancient alien interventions in human history, but they do require a more disciplined, and skeptical approach to thinking about ancient artifacts.  It seems far more likely that ancient technologies were the result of ancient humans who, using primitive methods, devised ingenious techniques to perform tasks of engineering that even today cannot be achieved without powerful engines, advanced materials, and computerized electronics.

That, at least, would explain the use of rocks as their primary building material.

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