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L/L Research was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 31 August 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Ancient astronauts. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.
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The skin colour of ancient people who succeeded to build enduring monuments such as the pyramids has no relevance for the topic. The skin color of aliens is also not relevant as it cannot be inferred from any archeological archefact (I believe). The corresponding paragraphs should, therefore, be deleted. These are in the introduction:
"Further, the history of thought surrounding the subject shows that proponents have adopted white supremacist beliefs to argue that indigenous cultures around the world were incapable of the feats of technology and culture that they achieved."
and in section Overview:
"The implication is that the non-white Indigenous people in the regions in which these monuments appear could not have built them on their own.[25] However, Dakota/Lakota Sioux writer Ruth H. Burns, in Atmos magazine, counters that ancient alien theory and the idea of extra-terrestrials in general supports the viewpoints of indigenous, non-European peoples. The denial of extra-terrestrial encounters and indigenous peoples’ stories tracing their origins to extra-terrestrials is part of “Indigenous erasure,” as it minimizes or completely discounts the viewpoints of indigenous peoples. Many indigenous peoples trace their ancestry to “star-people” or the like—extra-terrestrials who as the progenitors of indigenous peoples cannot by definition be white or “Aryan.”
A common feature in the stories portray the aliens as light-skinned or Aryan in complexion, as prominent alien astronaut proponent Erich von Däniken claims in his foundational work Chariots of the Gods?.[10][11] Some ancient astronaut proponents are thus associated with white supremacism, although their theories are sometimes applied to European cultures as well.[27][28]" Nibor76 (talk) 08:55, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The skin colour of ancient people who succeeded to build enduring monuments such as the pyramids has no relevance for the topic. The way Wikipedia works is that editors summarize what reliable expert sources say about a given topic. Sources decide what's relevant, not editors. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I kept these paragraphs, but I moved them into a separate section. Nibor76 (talk) 11:34, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nibor76 I believe that this argument is designed to put a negative spin on people who believe in this theory. there is no direct evidence or link between white supremacy and the idea that aliens seeded humans at some point. it should be deleted. Th3cur10usf00l (talk) 02:24, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly you didn't look at the cited sources which do supply a link between white supremacy and the fans of ancient astronauts. The white supremacy angle is now part of the literature on the topic, which means it stays in. Binksternet (talk) 14:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, the white supremacy argument comes from the book "The Secret Doctrine" (1888) from theosophist Helena Blavatsky, where she writes about an Aryan root race. As the Wikipedia article is on a real-life topic, theosophic arguments should be banned here. Nibor76 (talk) 08:54, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You could extrapolate that type of logic to link white supremacism to any theory. I agree with Th3cur10usf001 that connection only serves to slander those who accept the theory. 2A01:4B00:80F7:F000:B097:E320:701C:7A7C (talk) 05:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If reliable sources actually did that, Wikipedia would have to follow them. It's the rules. But there is not much danger of that, because it is just your fantasy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Section "Overview" does not give an overview[edit]
Section "Overview" does not give an overview on the ancient astronauts theory, but rather an overview on the television series "ancient aliens". The paragraph on "ancient aliens" should, therefore, be moved to section "History of ancient alien beliefs". In addition, section "Overview" gives only a single argument in favor of this theory, and it is a very weak one. The section should provide a list that gives an overview on all arguments. Nibor76 (talk) 09:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how this could be. Out of six paragraphs in the section, the "ancient aliens" TV series is mentioned once. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:55, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Overview" sections are redundant anyway. The article itself is meant to be an overview of the topic, and the lead section an overview of the article. All those contents should be moved to other sections, either existing or to be created. Cambalachero (talk) 13:52, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The text emphasizes over and over in different ways that the ancient astronaut theory is considered by mainstream scientists as pseudoscientific. All these arguments should be shifted into ony one single subsection that needs to be created and redundancies should be removed. Nibor76 (talk) 09:09, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:CSECTION. There may be redundancies to be removed, but we should not ghetto away the fact that this is all bullshit into one section. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I created a separate section and moved the arguments into this section. Redundancies that occurred in other parts of the article and were not needed for this section are kept. Nibor76 (talk) 11:38, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your changes were rightly reverted, as you made the article into a whitewash of its pseudoscientific foundation. Binksternet (talk) 13:21, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This should be an article on a real-life topic, not an article about the way people did pseudoscientific research in this area. 85.16.3.169 (talk) 13:54, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such thing. Ancient astronauts is pure pseudoscience. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:16, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ancient astronauts is considered pure pseudoscience because the Wikipedia article presents it as pseudoscience and people believe in Wikipedia. Because of this strong bias, the article should actually be deleted. Nibor76 (talk) 07:30, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ancient astronauts was considered pure pseudoscience (by reliable sources) long before Wikipedia existed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This article is a stub. It does not give an objective overview on the topic.
Instead, it focuses on defaming the proponents by focusing on irrelevant details (e.g. the white supremacy argument), on critizing the quality of television series, and on associating the topic with fictional books such as the book of Sitchin. I must admit that I have not read the book, but I have enough knowledge from Sumerian mythology to see that the cited passages are fictional. In addition, the article is outdated. The newest cited publications on the topic are from 2003 (Burak Eldom) and 2009 (Giorgio Tsoukalos). The article focuses on the most unscientific publications on this topic rather than the other way around.
My attempt to make a major revision has been cancelled. Nibor76 (talk) 07:51, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This article is a stub. This is not a stub. Wikipedia defines a stub as a very short article, see WP:STUB. As for your desired changes being undone, you first need to cite policy-based reasons and get WP:CONSENSUS. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:32, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The quality of this article is so poor that it does not matter whether my changes are being undone. Nibor76 (talk) 13:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the introduction jumps into how this is a pseudoscience. I think this is a politically motivated introduction.
the article should just say here is the theory... and leave all of that in the criticism section. just like any other theory or idea on Wikipedia.
there is no evidence that the theory is true nor that it is untrue. Th3cur10usf00l (talk) 02:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We aren't going to set up a false balance just to satisfy the reader who believes in ancient astronauts. Wikipedia represents the literature neutrally while giving proper WP:WEIGHT to sources that have more authority. Scholarly sources are the most authoritative. Binksternet (talk) 03:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"there is no evidence that the theory is true nor that it is untrue." That's not how science works. First, a theory is a well-substantiated and comprehensive explanation of the reasons an observed fact takes place the way it does and not in another way (like the theory of gravity). If anything, it can be an hypothesis... but not a scientific one, because it can not be tested. And that's the second thing: nobody needs to provide evidence that this proposal is untrue. It's up to the proponents to prove beyond any doubt that this theory is true, and that no other simpler explanation is accurate. Cambalachero (talk) 13:15, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ancient astronauts theory actually is a set of hypotheses, not a single one. Each of them may be true or false independently of the others. You cannot say that all of them are pseudoscience without proving that they are all unfalsifiable. The hypothesis "aliens visited Earth in ancient times" may be unfalsifiable, but its negation "aliens did not visit Earth in ancient times" is falsifiable because if you were to find the skeleton of an alien on Earth you would have disproved it. Nibor76 (talk) 11:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And again, that's not how falsifiability works. Find such a skeleton, study it, and then we may have hypotheses about its origin. Until then, a mere "a skeleton may be found someday" is meaningless. With that logic, we may also expect to find the skeleton of a unicorn. Cambalachero (talk) 14:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hypotheses are made before the proofs. 91.249.95.63 (talk) 16:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
and this is an article about a hypothesis. 91.249.95.63 (talk) 17:20, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
