I love von Daniken's hypothesis, which is that ancient man was visited by aliens and learned their techniques. I was fascinated by his photographs of carvings that were out of place for the time period and depict what does look like beings in spacesuits. I loved the way he took Biblical stories and other commonly known tales and asked the reader to question whether or not these strange gods were actually aliens.

I am very disappointed in the quality of the research and his writing style. He admits himself in the introduction that some facts are not true, and yet in the volume itself those incorrect entries are still in the text as they were in the original publication from 1969, despite the fact that is the 1999 reprinting.

He also spends great portions of the text insisting that things must be true, and spends almost more time insisting his views of a Road to El Dorado-like space traveler history must be true than he does presenting reasons that they are true. I wanted more citations--he makes lots of claims but doesn't offer evidence to back them up.

I would love to read a similar book with more evidence and less fanfare.