Well, he certainly looks like an astronaut.

 

Erich von Däniken, a giant in the field of alternative ancient history, has spent most of his life examining evidence of alien contact and technology in ancient cultures.  Von Däniken’s 2017 book Astronaut Gods of the Maya contains more than 200 full-color photographs like the one above from his personal archives.  He reveals how the “gods” portrayed in Maya art and myth were in fact technologically advanced visitors who gifted the Maya with scientific and engineering knowledge.  The Maya interpreted these visitors as divine.  Certainly, their civilization was one of the most highly developed in ancient America.

 

The evidence is not limited to the Maya or Mesoamerica, either.  Examples of similar advanced technology in art and myth appear in other ancient cultures as far away as India and China.

 

We can debate whether Mayan civilization flourished thanks to help from extraterrestrial visitors in spacesuits, but one fact on which archaeologists all agree is that Mayan civilization declined rapidly in the 8th and 9th centuries.  Every single one of its great urban centers was abandoned – pyramids, monuments, and all.  Although dozens of theories seek to explain it, the collapse of the Mayan civilization remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries.