Whether you agreed with him or not, he made you stop and consider alternative explanations to many long held beliefs about the history and origins of man and our societies. Thinking is such a precious commodity these days.

as a fiction writer.

If he donated the money to some good cause, I suppose that would give him an excuse - having parted fools and their money. Did he ever help people?

Just make shit up. If it's sensational enough, the rubes will waste their money on it. He knew his marks well. So does Trump.

He regularly has these pathetic and grifting fabulists. They all chew on their cigars purporting intelligent conversation when everything they push is lying for $ gain. Flint Dibble exposed Graham HANDcock on his show. It was pretty funny. I suggest following Dibble's quest against pseudoarcheology.

As a kid I found his books amazing. Made me look at things differently. While I don’t share many of his view about cause, he was great at calling BS on lazy science.

instead of something Daniken pulled out of his butt.

I meant what I said.

I think it opened a lot of peoples' minds to what could be possible. Anyone who still thinks we're alone in this great big universe is close minded.

Believe in old time angels? I think they were aliens. Flame on!

They think there is no way the ancient Egyptian and Mayan peoples could have built these amazing monuments on their own. Meanwhile, in much of Europe, many grass huts were being constructed Graham Hancock is an infamous spinner of this pure bullshit/nonsense.

The published version of "Chariots of the Gods" was basically co-written by the former editor of the Nazi Party's newspaper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Utermann

Pathetic weasels consumed by hate. Just like the fat orange imbecile.

With over 30 billion smart devices running every day. I've seen lots of bullsh7t though. Big heaps of that.

... today we have politicians and influencers making a good living on still believing fairy tales like his.

hieroglyphics knew that that the clueless von Deniken claimed were depictions of alien astronauts had clear meanings in the context of each culture's mythology and cosmology. He spawned an entire industry of amateurs looking at artifacts and drawing sensationalistic conclusions based on nothing but their own imaginations. Junk science.

Same type of brain-dead fools. High on their own bullshit.

There were multiple science fiction stories about aliens visiting Earth in the past written decades before Chariots of the Gods.

Per Wikipedia:

While I can say that I never bought into von Däniken's crap, I did read "Worlds In Collision" by Velikovsky in the 70s.

Hey, I was a dumb teenager.

Boy did that through me for a loop.

.... selling ancient alien stuff was a safer grift.

What a POS.

His books and pseudo-archeology has ruined many things, and rotted the brains of so many people.

and many of them have led us to where we are today.