The official website of ‘ancient astronaut’ author Erich von Däniken is reporting that he passed away on Saturday, 10th of January, at age 90.
It is with great sadness and shock that we must announce that Erich von Däniken passed away on January 10, 2026.
Our thoughts are with his family. His friends around the world also mourn his passing, as do the millions of readers of his books and the many colleagues who had the privilege of working with him for decades. His “Research Society for Archaeology, Astronautics, and SETI” (A.A.S.) and all those interested in Paleo SETI research have received the news with dismay.
Von Däniken shot to fame in 1968 with the publication of his first, and most successful book, Chariots of the Gods. He was not the first to research or write about ‘ancient astronaut’ theories – early 20th century sci-fi/horror had riffed on the idea (e.g Lovecraft), and even in the 1960s earlier books such as The Morning of the Magicians and Charroux’s One Hundred Thousand Years of Man’s Unknown History had already popularized it to some degree. Even academics such as Carl Sagan (a later vociferous critic of von Daniken) had explored ‘paleo-SETI’ – the possibility that aliens had visited Earth in earlier periods of history. But Chariots took things to another level.
The popularity of von Däniken’s books (he is said to have sold more than 60 million copies of his books) – in particular Chariots of the Gods – places him as a person of immense cultural influence. They are the progenitor of the likes of Robert Temple’s The Sirius Mystery, Zecharia Sitchin’s The 12th Planet, Graham Hancock’s immensely popular and influential Fingerprints of the Gods (though Hancock and von Däniken had differing views on the sources of advanced ancient knowledge), and the many other pale imitations. And in more recent times, von Däniken’s theories have underpinned the popular TV show Ancient Aliens.
But von Däniken’s influence went far beyond just those interested in ‘alternative archaeology’ or alien visitation, and permeated deeply into the psyche of the general public by inspiring fictional works as well: Comics mythologies like those of Jack Kirby’s Eternals took liberally from the theories presented in Chariots of the Gods, and a number of films in recent decades have played on the ‘ancient astronaut’ theme, including Stargate, Prometheus and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, among many others.
That cultural influence has no doubt led many people down a path of learning about ancient history and extraterrestrial life, and making various ancient sites, from the Nazca Lines to the pyramids of Egypt, holiday destinations – and for that reason in many ways von Däniken’s books have had a positive impact on society and knowledge. However, that praise needs to be balanced with a heavy counterweight as a result of the errors (intentional or not) presented in his books; many of his readers would also have – at the very least, initially – learned an extremely flawed version of history.
It should also be noted that von Däniken was a three-time convicted criminal, spending time in prison for fraud and embezzlement, in the 1960s-70s. That dubious history should not automatically serve to debunk his ancient astronaut claims – there are many fact-based critiques to serve that purpose – but any unbiased summary of his life (and character) should include it. More relevant to his books are criticisms that they included racist theories: Beyond the oft-leveled broad charge against the ancient astronaut theory implying that indigenous people weren’t sophisticated enough to build amazing structures, in one book von Däniken literally asked whether the “black race” was “a failure” that required extraterrestrials to “change the genetic code” to “programme a white or yellow race”.
Erich von Däniken made a huge cultural impact through his life’s work publishing and broadcasting about the ancient astronaut theory, and inspired many to deeper study and a life of research themselves. But we should be careful in the ways that people like von Däniken inspire us, and for what purpose, and be sure to build and/or modify upon their work with that in mind, to be sure we are on the right path, for the right reasons.
