Talk:Chariots of the Gods?

Derived ultimately from HP Lovecraft
Ah, that explains a lot!

I'm reading this at the moment (picked it up for 30p in second-hand book sale - good value for such an unintentionally amusing pile of hogswash) and I thought a lot of the prose sounded like something Lovecraft could have written (if Lovecraft had been an optimist, and had thought the idea of humans mating with aliens was something other than a abomination that would you drive you insane from the revelation). Wardog (talk) 19:56, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And HPL borrowed from prior authors, to be sure. Collect (talk) 18:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

It would be interesting to have a section noting any precursors -- for example, the popular 1959 BBC serial Quatermass and the Pit contained a hypothesis that mankind's primitive evolutionary stages were adjusted substantially by Martians. It might be useful to also identify any works directly influenced by Chariot (cited, of course). Mrstonky (talk) 03:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Have a look at Ancient astronauts in popular culture: There is a pretty broad range of ancient astronaut fiction (and non-fiction) even before Däniken, not to speak of what followed in the wake of his bestsellers. It's hard to pinpoint direct influences on Chariots, and give reliable sources for it. But I agree: It would be interesting! :) --Jonas kork (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

"Heavily rewritten by its editor"
So the RFC expired after a month with no comments from uninvolved editors. In an attempt to restart discussion, I'm going to explicitly suggest using the phrase "heavily rewritten by its editor" in the body of the article. Ronald Story describes Roggersdorf as "editor of the German edition" and "von Däniken's editor", and three reliable sources explicitly describe the work as having been heavily rewritten. Referring to Chariots as having been "heavily rewritten by its editor" is, I would hope, an uncontroversial combination of these two statements. Roggersdorf primarily being a screenwriter at the time could perhaps be mentioned later in the sentence, but does anybody object to the fragment "heavily rewritten by its editor"? --McGeddon (talk) 10:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * With over a week of silence since that last comment, I've gone ahead and added the adjective "heavily". --McGeddon (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Object as being a claim not specifically sourced as souch in an article falling under WP:BLP. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ronald Story (who was being used as the cited reference here) refers to the text as having been "extensively rewritten", and the Channel Four documentary speaks of "extensive rewriting". Der Spiegel described it as "total umschrieb", which we've translated as "totally rewritten" or "completely rewritten" on this talk page. In what way is this "not specifically sourced as such"? Are you afraid of near-synonyms and would rather we used Story's word "extensively"? --McGeddon (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Once we say "rewritten" - does "heavily" do anything more than add an argumentative adverb to the mix? Ford "builds" cars, it does not "heavily build cars."   Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * So you're happy that it's "specifically sourced as such", and just find the word "argumentative"? I think the adjective adds clarity to an otherwise vague statement - "rewritten by its editor" can be read as a weakly meaningless "the editor changed some of the words" or a misleadingly strong "the editor rewrote every page of the book from scratch". --McGeddon (talk) 19:28, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Rewritten" is a big step from "edited" and I would find "heavily edited" to be reasonable, but "heavily rewritten" to be rendundant here. I suggest if you ask outsiders whether they find "rewriting" to mean more than mere editing, that you will find such to be the case. Collect (talk) 19:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sure I would. So if three sources explicitly describe the work as having been "heavily rewritten", why would we rephrase that as mere "heavy editing"? --McGeddon (talk) 19:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * +1. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What you have is "extensively rewritten" and not "heavily rewritten" - and I still suggest that once a work is "rewritten" it is pretty much a waste of an adverb at best to say "heavily."  If you wish to stick to your sources, you might say "extensively rewritten" but I still think that is verbiage qua verbiage. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll restore it with "extensively", as suggested earlier in the thread. --McGeddon (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

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Lack of specificity and sourcing in Academic rebuttals section
In some ways this subsection could be viewed as the second most important section in the entire article, yet it's lacking important sourcing, save one footnote. In addition, the lack of specificity (what specifically was rebutted and evidence used for the rebuttal) results in a very information-light paragraph.

If the author of Chariots of the Gods claimed the pyramids were built by extraterrestrials, specific academic reaction and rebuttal to that extraordinary claim would be useful information relevant to the conversation around this specific work, for example. The specificities of this critical conversation seem to be largely missing, despite the implication the claims and counterclaims have much to do with the work's notoriety in the first place. --2601:647:4300:4001:EC56:9CF4:81C4:709C (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Horizon specials
The article mentions a BBC 2 Horizon Special on Chariots of the Gods? in the section Adaptations. My memory was that there were two such programs, and to describe either as an "adaptation" is incorrect. The BBC produced a critical examination of six of von Däniken's claims, by contacting experts for alternative (more mundane) explanations. After transmission, von Däniken complained that the program had ignored the weight of other evidence. The BBC therefore invited von Däniken to choose his six best pieces of evidence, which they examined in a subsequent Horizon Special. The result was the same. While I am confident that my memory is correct, does anybody have references (other than the two in the article)?74.205.219.193 (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC)