First released in 1970, the German documentary Chariots of the Gods tests the proposition that you can prove anything with stock footage and a narrator.

Chariots of the Gods takes viewers on a tour through some of the most visually impressive locations ever seen by human eyes.  Look at the ruins of the Aztec and Inca civilizations!  Behold a Mayan observatory!  Marvel at Egypt’s pyramids!  Trace the amazing Nazca Lines of South America!  View the amazing “heads” of Easter Island!  Be amazed that an ancient civilization was able to create a primitive battery!  Feast your eyes upon colorful cave drawings of mythic beasts and powerful wizards!  Examine this skull of a 200,000 year-old bison and think about just how long living things have inhabited this amazing planet!

And then read the ancient texts and consider how every civilization wrote of certain shared events, suggesting that the legendary cataclysms of mythology were based on things that actually happened.  Read the words of men and women who lived centuries ago and consider that humans have always been trying to figure out how things work.  Humans have always been curious and imaginative creatures and the fact that, from the beginning of time, they were inspired to record their stories indicates that we have an instinctual understanding of the importance of history.

It takes your breath away but, according to this documentary, it shouldn’t.

All of those things that you think humans did?  According to Chariots of the Gods, it was the aliens.  The aliens built the pyramids.  The aliens inspired the cave drawings.  All of those ancient texts are actually about spaceships landing on Earth and the aliens saying, “Hi.”  The great flood that appears in both the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh?  Aliens!  Enoch’s journey into Heaven?  Aliens!  Elijah’s ascension?  Aliens!  The Nazca lines?  An alien airport!  The statues of Easter Island?  Alien robots!  Chariots of the Gods opens by suggesting that the human race is basically just a big cargo cult, worshipping stuff left behind by the aliens.

Seriously, what a depressing way to look at the world!  Instead of marveling at the determination of ancient man, this documentary says that the whole thing was done by aliens and the humans were apparently just standing off to the side.  Forget about celebrating ingenuity and imagination.  The aliens did it all and all of the ancient stories and all of the cave drawings should be taken very literally because it’s not like the ancient artists could have just been really talented or creative.  Instead, when the authors of the Epic of Gilgamesh wrote about Gilgamesh floating over the Earth, it was because it really happened!  Imagination had nothing to do with it.

In the tradition of most pseudoscience documents, Chariots of the Gods is one of those documentaries that makes its point by basically refusing to accept that any other viable theories exist.  Repeatedly, we’re flatly told that “scientists agree….,” as if every scientist has signed off on the idea of ancient aliens.  The documentary’s narrator often informs us that there’s no way ancient people could have constructed and moved giant statues or monuments but he fails to mention that numerous studies that have argued and demonstrated that actually ancient people could very well have done all of that.  Essentially, Chariots of the Gods is a travelogue in which we are shown stock footage of some really cool sights while the narrator says, “I bet an alien did that!”

Silly as it was, Chariots of the Gods was still a box office hit and it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature.  It’s pseudoscientific legacy lives on today.