Alan Landsburg (1933–2014)

Not just a fun read (though it is that), but also a sincere effort on the part of television producer Alan Landsburg to explore the Paleo-SETI theory. There's a heavy focus on South American archaeological mysteries, which earns the book a special place in my heart; Landsburg postulates that Tiahuanaco (the ruined pre-Incan city that sits in an extremely remote and inhospitable location in Bolivia, 13,000 feet above sea level) may have been the first settlement of extraterrestrial visitors show more to Earth in ancient times. Along the way, the reader also becomes acquainted with fascinating theories like directed panspermia: the notion that "life was deliberately sent here by a technological society on some other planet," in the words of Dr. Leslie Orgel, the theory's co-author (with Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Francis Crick).

Are any definite conclusions drawn? No, but Landsburg raises a lot of interesting questions, and he was a far better writer than Erich von Däniken. In Search of Ancient Mysteries also includes a neat foreword by Rod Serling (who narrated the 1974 TV special of the same name), and many black-and-white photographs. show less

Along with Von Däniken, it was Landsburg's In Search Of... television series (and associated films and books) that really shaped a whole bunch of Gen Xers and Xennials on "ancient astronauts" and new agey stuff and other beliefs. Here you see every skeleton script for the "History" Channel's Ancient Aliens TV show. Not only in the ideas, but the faulty logic: here is something interesting, how did this come about?: ALIENS (insert Giorgio A. Tsoukalos meme).