QUESTION: Why did "ancient astronauts" from outer space visit places like Easter Island and the Aztec and Inca civilizations of Central and South America, but not Europe?
ANSWER: This is one of our straw-man questions, of course. Few literary frauds in recent history surpass that of Erich von Daniken, author of the seminally stupid but best-selling book "Chariots of the Gods." His basic theory is that massive stone megaliths like the ones on Easter Island, along with tales of gods in ancient mythologies and the Bible, are irrefutable signs that our ancestors were from outer space. His ancient astronauts are the key to understanding the Flood, the pyramids, the Book of Ezekiel and the alleged missing link in the evolution of apes into humans.In the early 1970s, a time when people were particularly hungry for a secular replacement for traditional religious doctrines and were discontent with orthodox science, von Daniken's fruitcake ideas caught on, inspiring an NBC-TV "documentary" called "In Search of Ancient Astronauts," which in turned inspired the "In Search of . . ." TV series and all manner of astonishing far-out books on the frontier of reason.
Von Daniken sold more than 45 million copies of his books, including one, "Gold of the Gods," in which he finds a hidden, enormous labyrinth in South America containing vast treasures of gold and such irrefutable proof of alien technology as a plastic chair.
He wrote that he was driven away from the site by primitive, hostile Indians and couldn't ever find it again. Later still he admitted he made the whole thing up: "That did not happen," he said, adding pathetically, "All the facts do exist but with other interpretations." (As a young man von Daniken was described by a court psychiatrist as a liar and criminal psychopath just before serving a year in prison for forgery, embezzlement and fraud.)
Von Daniken's message was ultimately racist: He exploited the simple-minded idea that primitives in places like the Andes and Central America could not possibly have managed their engineering feats without some kind of outside help. You know how backward those people are! Aliens must have shown them how to build those pyramids.
Debunker James Randi writes in "Flim Flam!" that at no point does von Daniken cite such architectural marvels as the Chartres Cathedral, Stonehenge, or the Parthenon, "because these wonders are European, built by people he EXPECTS to have the intelligence and ability to do such work. He cannot conceive of our brown and black brothers having the wit to conceive or the skill to build the great structures that they did leave behind."
In 1979, in "Signs of the Gods," von Daniken looked back on his scandalous career and said smugly, "I am very pleased. Surely it speaks highly for our society that a single inspired idea can set it rocking."
No, Erich; lowly, lowly.
Speaking of fruitcake theories:
QUESTION: Why do people give fruitcakes for Christmas even though everyone hates fruitcake?
ANSWER: According to USA Today - yes, our research department is on vacation this week - a MasterCard survey showed that three-fourths of those polled listed fruitcake as the present they dislike the most. An American Express survey had similar results. Yet people keep on giving fruitcake, causing Dave Barry to theorize that there is actually only one fruitcake in the world, constantly circulating, inedible.
We called the Claxton Bakery in Claxton, Ga., the world fruitcake capital.
"The surveys are incorrect. My dad's been in the business over 50 years, and he's made over 160 million pounds," said the bakery scion and co-owner, Mid Parker. If you lined up that many fruitcakes, he said, "They'd stretch almost all the way around the equator."
Parker's theory is that people really do like fruitcake, and that fruitcake-bashing is a new thing. "I never heard any negative publicity about fruitcake until a couple of years ago Johnny Carson (who stole the joke from Dave Barry) made some negative jokes about fruitcake on his show."
So who are his customers? It turns out that Claxton Bakery sells mostly to Civitan clubs, who sell the fruitcakes to raise money for community service projects, like helping the mentally retarded. No doubt that's how much of it gets into circulation: People want to be charitable; they buy the cakes, and soon the country is flooded with hard, impermeable loaves of sucrose-saturated matter impregnated by nuts and orange peel and frighteningly dyed green and red lumps of pineapple.
Why do the Civitan clubs sell fruitcake instead of chocolate cheesecake or oatmeal cookies or whatnot? According to Civitan International's Dorothy Wellborn, editor of the Civitan magazine, the fruitcake campaign began in the 1950s when a Civitan member from the Tampa area, Earl "Catfish" Carver, visited the Claxton Bakery and decided he liked the fruitcake so much he took a couple hundred pounds of it back home. At regional meetings, he told how fruitcake could be sold at fund-raisers. Fruitcake went national.
Why did he like fruitcake so much? Possibly because Claxton makes a fine fruitcake, reputably the best, but there is also the significant fact that fruitcake is the Samsonite Luggage of foodstuffs. It is indestructible. It can weather intense fund-raising. The shelf life of a Claxton fruitcake is 120 to 150 days. In the refrigerator, "It's indefinite," says baker co-owner W. Dale Parker. "It lives right on."
Just like, for example, plutonium.
Send questions to Joel Achenbach, in care of Tropic Magazine, The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132.