Of course if they build UFO's they're far more advanced lol

There are lots of movies and documentaries proving ancient temples and pyramids weren't totally built buy humans. First of all there was no toolbox with advanced techniques 10.000 years ago. Second of all Noah's Ark couldn't be built by few people with an incoming rain and flood. Legends are saying that taller beings helped Noah to build the Ark. Pyramids could have been used as "heli-pads" for large aircraft. A memory to those who helped people build those massive structures ? Why only the priests had access inside Egyptian temples ? The same tradition applies to Mayans and Aztecs. Using today's technologies you can't build Kufu's pyramid and it's a fact. Why this connection to space ? The position of the pyramids, of the temples ? Is human a reminiscence of an older civilization, were we seeded ? You must believe this happened, or else the vast use of interstellar space for just 7 billion humans would be without a purpose.

Oh and I thought it was god who helped Noah or does the bible tell something about aliens? :S
No but seriously sadly (because it would be pretty interesting) there is no "proof" of ancient structures not being built by humans. Rather to the contrary - there is even that place in Egypt where they found the remains of humans picking out huge blocks of rock from a quarry for the pyramids. By hand with hand tools, not with a lasercutter. Sadly there are authors and moviemakers out there who confuse theories and hypothesis and speculations with "proof" (e.g. "the pyramids are just too advanced to be built by humans" - or "because we cannot imagine how people 6000 years ago should have moved large rocks it had to be aliens"). What you would need is POSITIVE evidence of aliens on Earth, not NEGATIVE evidence that humans probably could not have done this or that at a certain time.

You probably also could not build many of the large cathedrals in Europe with todays technology. Why? Because it was done in meticulous work by thousands of people working for decades looking into every detail of their work - no one nowadays would be willing to put that much effort into a building anymore...

That is interesting indeed. It goes a bit into the direction on the thread about thierapods I wrote in the forum here. I doubt most other species on the planet would look at the sky and try to find out what the stars are. They just are, they are beautiful, they give light and maybe they are some beings as well - but humans of course have that strong curiousity. Where that comes from - why humans are so interested in stars and celestial movements and flying - thats an interesting question. I don't think however it qualifies as a proof for alien intervention though...

I don't think you *couldn't*, but it could certainly be more expensive, time-consuming and intricate. Most cathedrals caused tens of deaths in their construction; the pyramids hundreds or possibly even thousands.

No, it's really not a fact, unless you have a source. It would have to be reimagined as to how it would be done, certainly, as techniques are different now and the use of thousands of slaves is obviously out, but there's nothing physically impossible about any of it.

Or, for all we know, they weren't nostalgic/conservative enough to care about things like ecology. Or ruined their planets and reconstructed them. Or even disassembled their planet to use as fuel for some mega-engineering project.

Remember the Kzinti Lesson: "A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." :P

Oh, come on guys, don't tell me you believe they built it on their own without any help from the skies. It's hard enough today to cut stone blocks and their dimensions aren't the size of the ones used for the pyramids, they're way smaller. The Japanese and USA tried to rebuild a REPLICA of Kufu's pyramid and they failed... remember, a replica.

There is a question : today we rise from ground to top of the highest skyscrapers in 5 to 10 years, the pyramid was built in 30 years (if I'm not wrong). For that type of building and their ancient techniques is quite a little time. With their ability to carry huge stone blocks and the whole assembly process it would have taken a lot more, like a hundred years or so, with no other help from an advanced civilization. In the meantime two more generations of Pharaohs had to berried under the pyramid. Also digging chambers under the Big Pyramid of Ghiza was a challenge, painting and writing on those walls, rising columns inside of the chamber and carry their components inside, huh ?

Right, God with a snap of two fingers built the Ark in an instant, or made it appear from a magic hat... that is soooooo (not) relevant.

Good, nuclear weapons, 'cause that is the main reason Sci-Fi movies with aliens give us the idea of a killer-species coming to destroy us or teach us things about ourselves that we didn't knew.

Actually, no, it's not. Harder to do by hand, sure, but that's because that's a lost art. Much easier with a milling machine, to a higher degree of precision. As you said, it was a multi-decade endeavour utilising a significant proportion of an entire nation's resources, not something that sprung up overnight. It's probably comparable to the Hoover Dam in that sense; and that only took 5 years and ~100 deaths, in the 1930s.

Moving (not carrying) stone blocks would take 100 years how exactly? ...oh, right, it wouldn't. They'd do it the same way large objects are moved now; with rollers - the only difference being pulled by slaves instead of machinery. It might take hundreds of years if you had one person per block rather than doing it serially with everyone on one or two and repeat.

...so now digging and painting are things humans can't do without help? This is just getting ridiculous.

There's a replica sitting in Las Vegas right now... seems complete to me :P. If you mean another replica, try giving a source, as extraordinary claims require proof.

The whole process of building it would take a hundred years, not moving the blocks, I didn't say that.

I wasn't implying that digging and painting can't be done without help, of course it can be done much better, faster and without so many deaths as in the past. I'm not stupid, I'm a future architect and I have some logic and basics behind everything I say.

That replica in Las Vegas is a high-rise hotel with offices and public spaces built around a central core, with steel, concrete and lots of glass. I was saying about replica made with stone blocks, traditional ways and tools... ancient. There are lots of documentaries on BBC and Discovery.

Ok, now I understand, you don't believe in the fact that "ancient" aliens could've help humanity at those times to build those humongous structures... good. But you should think about this : ancient people didn't wake up over night prepared and started to build such constructions. Something or someone pushed them to do it, teach them or show them the ways. I don't believe all this will to build big started from nothing, with no influence, I mean, honestly, we're talking about more than 6000 years ago, people were not so advanced.

auroraglacialis : I recommend you to watch more of History Channel documentaries about the same subject. Lots of proof that aliens helped people to build huge structures and constructions. Those guys know what they're talking about, they're Ph.D's, not some other guys speaking about UFO's and ancient aliens.

They're PhD's, man.

In the pyramids' case, it seemed to be ego-boosting for the Pharoahs. ("My pyramid is bigger/pointier/more mystical than yours!" :cool:) Egyption society was already very advanced in mathematics and engineering.

After all, a pyramid is one of the simplest shapes you can build.. :P

Aurora has a Ph D too. :P

I don't see how a PhD even helps validate anything one has to say about aliens.

Critical path analysis (creating a flow of tasks, which others they block, and which are prerequisites for others) says it could be done in 10 years perfectly, 20-30 without much of a problem with realistic estimates.

Fair enough; I just don't see where assistance comes in there then.

...and the pyramids are (largely) solid structures built of blocks. From an engineering standpoint, the replica is more impressive from a point of pure structural engineering, even if the Great Pyramid is from a historical standpoint.

There have been human-built replicas of varying degrees of authenticity and scale - some have simply proved that all the individual parts were feasible for the egyptians with the resources of the time (copper hand tools, levers, rollers and/or sleds); others have actually built replicas of varying scale.
See: NOVA | Transcripts | This Old Pyramid | PBS - on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SiHWCTHs8g

Ancient Egypt was the most advanced civilisation at the time, and remained so until being eclipsed by the Greeks and Romans. They didn't 'wake up overnight and build it', no, but Egypt was essentially a cult of personality when it came to the Pharaohs and their desire for memorialisation. It's testament to their organisational skills, not some kind of magic suddenly inducing them to build something.

History channel aren't reputable or reliable any more; they chase audiences with sensationalist fiction disguised as documentaries combines with reality TV shows about dangerous professions. They're fine prior to around 2008, but deserve no credence recently unless you also believed the world was going to end in 2012 :P

Proof, no. Anyone can make a documentary and say "I'm an expert, teh aleins did it!!1".

Hit the nail right on the head. There are plenty of people with PhDs who know literally nothing about science, space, history or biology and plenty of people without them who are renowned experts. A PhD is not a "Great at everything", it's a "stuck through university long enough to submit a research paper on something very specific" - not all subjects are equal, and non enables someone to speak authoritatively on a subject on its own merits.

If large scale engineering can't occur naturally, if it requires alien intervention, how do you suppose the alien species first learned it? Is there a long unbroken chain of alien species teaching the lesser species how to achieve anything great?

Uhm... guessing that alien civilizations are able to travel to Earth, yes they are pretty advanced. Well, we are used in learning and teaching how to do great things so it is very possible. Sounds logical to me.

HNM : end of the world in 2012 was irrelevant from the beginning. But come on, we're talking about aliens here, it's impossible parts of our evolution to don't relate with them. Even their existence is real, it has to be in our conscience, or else it's a useless waste of space only for us, humans. No credence ? And what do you believe in ? That we are alone in the Universe and suddenly the ancient people knowledge of making fire, build mega-structures and do astronomy came from nowhere ?

They say believing that aliens exist makes our belief in a "God" to be much stronger. Because someone made us and made them too. There has to be a connection...

No, it wasn't. It's the same. People who believe in magic and that an ancient civilisation had some kind of special help and were humiliated, as everyone else could have predicted.

No, it isn't.

Nice strawman. Where did I ever say anything of the kind?

Oh, that's right, nowhere. Ps. you're misusing the word conscience; it doesn't mean what you think it does.

It is extremely likely aliens exist somewhere in the universe; however, they have not been to Earth to build a relatively unimpressive (certainly in the terms of any species that has achieved space travel) stone pyramid, especially not with the wealth or architectural evidence in egypt dating from the time.

Fire is not complex engineering; it's not even artificial as fires do occur from chance events such as lightning strikes. Or is that magic too? ¬_¬

Humans have a sense of curiosity. Anyone can observe a lens effect with water. Of course that would eventually be applied to the stars to determine their nature. That did not happen overnight but took hundreds of years and many, many, many incorrect ideas.

As for megastructures; a pyramid is not one. That aside, ancient egypt was a powerful society and very advanced for its time; humans existed for millions of years in a recognisable form beforehand. They had centuries of engineering experience with a clear evolution through simple structures such as File:Tomb of Khentkaus I.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

Yet religion says nothing about aliens. Indeed, their existence would outright disprove most traditional religions. Religion is the reason humanity has been held back for hundreds of years from what it might have otherwise achieved.

Well, if it were not bad enough (at least, here in South America) they're about to air their "Semana de lo desconocido" (week of the unknown, can't really think of a better translation) with, in my opinion, is the most outrageous claim made by Tsoukalos: Leonardo da Vinci was abducted by some aliens and that's the reason of his geniality! Aliens!!! History is making history by going down to unknown levels of ignorance!!! Of course they would put Leonardo as an Alien-influenced person, he's dead, he can't say "wait there, you morons, no extraterrestrials gave me my intelligence!". This is it, they failed spectacularly with the Mayan Doomsday, Nostradamus and their Alien Hunters, this is plain bad faith and I sincerely hope their ratings to drop in free fall and get out of air for Knowledge's sake once and for all. I am very pessimistic about History Channel and I wouldn't be surprised if they waited for Stephen Hawkins death to air Tsoukalos claiming he also had an Alien encounter that gave him his extraordinary mind, or Einstein, or Schrodinger or Plank..

Whether his theories re correct or not, I think it amazing, the collosal stone structures but by ancient technology yet having close tolerance fits is hard to explain away.

That doesn't make them impossible. The video I linked explored the crafting aspect and found it possible - while they didn't reach the level of precision found, this is a simple case of practice merely because nobody makes precision stone blocks any more, so while the skills are still known, people aren't as practiced.

There's no need to have ultra-high tech devices to cut 90 degrees corners and flat faces in rock. As a matter of fact, to make a wall that is completely perpendicular to the ground you only need a bob, a plumb-bob, and a little practice:
http://panamarscisa.com/AC%20plomada.jpg

TIL that a plumb bob is something other than this

http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/x...y_morten80.jpg

Well, I can see the shape similarity :P

Yes, I understand that. It is a different thing. Basically what we are seeing here is the inability of the present culture with present technology to build something in the "old style". Present technology in construction is aimed at steel, concrete and glass and large structures are built with that, but the knowledge on how to make large stone blocks and build a pyramid with them is nonexistent because it is not needed. And despite the claims of this culture that it could do anything that people in the past could do much easier, this is not quite true if one asks for an exact replica and not something that only looks similar.

No of course not, but they did not start with the big pyramids either. They had some hundreds of years to practice masonry on smaller monuments.
Much of why the pyramids are so impressive is because they show immense dedication to build them - and an immense investment of resources and human labor. This is something almost unthinkable in present times and if it would happen, it would be called fascism because basically that is what it was.

I appreciate the tipp, but I think I will not watch "History" Channel for those kinds of information. That would be like watching FOX "News" and expect real news. There are some good documentaries about these things out there but I would not really expect that specific channel to send them. And indeed I am having a PhD myself, so I am not impressed by that title per se, though I would argue that it is more than: "stuck through university long enough to submit a research paper on something very specific". At least when I started with this, we had to learn plenty of topics. I did courses in biology, chemistry, geology, some anthropology and history, mathematics, physics, earth history and ecology. I even did some Mars geology and quite a bit of resource geology. So at least in our university and in my faculty we did get a broad knowledgebase and the tools to evaluate if someone is telling nonsense or not about these topics. We are of course no experts in all of these fields, but I dare to say that I know more about biology and chemistry than someone who dropped these before going to college. Of course if a PhD in computer science talks something about archaeology, I would also be a bit careful - maybe he has done some good collaboration but maybe he just has his own ideas...still all of them would have to know what the scientific method is, how to create experiments and hypothesis and how to determine if a result is significant or not.

http://www.stephaniemcmillan.org/cod...-lifeforms.jpg
a) we are not alone even if there would be no life on other planets
b) if we did not get visits by aliens, why would that mean that there is no life on other planets? Maybe the universe is full of life, just none of them visited the Earth within the past some-thousands of years.
c) its not exactly that humans "suddenly" invented any of these capabilities. Some thousands of years are quite some time. Imagine what the world looks like in just 50 years from now and you already have to stretch your imagination - why would 1000 years development of knowledge in astronomy be called a "sudden" development. The only thing that is really a bit puzzling is what brought people to become sedentary agriculturalists and as a consequence build all these monuments. What turned a species that lived by hunting and gathering for 200000 years and more to break their backs by doing agriculture and by that reducing lifespan, health and child survival rates as well as body height and brain size. Why?

LOL - why do these people think that humans are such dumb idiots. I mean it is understandable - as an alien looking to Earth I surely would think so if I look at the TV channels and at the self-destrucive behaviour of the dominant culture. But as a human - why do we think that humans are incapable of doing something big - why the need for a god or aliens to explain that.

Oh and I thought by the way that the thing about Leonardo was already solved a long time ago by people saying that he travelled in time to the 20th century LOL. :P :D

That expression is usually used to mean that we, as the only known intelligent species, are alone.

I am suspiciously thinking about what History and Ancient Aliens are going to tell us next: Wernher von Braun was an Alien. That the famous Apollo 8 quote "Houston, be advised that there is a Santa Claus" was a coded message alerting of some lunar alien base in the dark side of the Moon. Somehow, Aliens found out that Jim Lovell was in Apollo 13 and decided it was too risky to let him set foot in the Moon and they caused the accident of the Servide Module. What else???? Ah, yes, that aliens provided the necessary technologies to NASA to get to the Moon *and contradict the other assertions.
What else can we expect from a channel like History???? And, sadly, NatGeo is going in the same path...

Dolphins, man. Dolphins.