Back in the early 1970s when I was a teenager, I grew to love this kind of book. I, like many, was fascinated by ufos, aliens and space, that maybe the myths of the Greek gods were a retelling of ancient visitation of spacemen from other worlds.

Such books would have been scorned by my history teacher, yet these were far more interesting to me than the learned tomes we were supposed to study for O level.

This is the one I bought in 1973, which, as you can see I covered with plastic, as lovingly as any schoolboy would cover a textbook. It’s in very good condition.

Of course it was Erich von Daniken‘s famous book ‘Chariots of the Gods‘ which had really fired my imagination a little earlier. Although he was to receive much criticism from both the scientific and religious communities, I still believe there is much to be learned from his books and from other authors like Drake.

I recall one school assembly put on by some pupils around 1973 which even brought up the subject of ancient aliens. Was God and astronaut? The following day the headmaster took to the stage himself and attempted to shoot down the theory in flames. Despite this, the theory is still out there and as popular as ever.

The great thing about Drake’s writing is that whilst he is clearly learned, he writes in such an accessible way – it had to be for me to read it! I particularly enjoyed the chapter about the Ramayana of ancient India and his interpretations of it.

The general thesis of all these books is that extraterrestrials have visited ‘our domain’ in the past and have effected the course of human civilisation, perhaps even to the extent of altering our DNA through one method or another.

For me it is a wonderful adventure, and even if not all of it is true, it is highly entertaining, nevertheless. One qualification I would insert is that the understanding of the word ‘extraterrestrial’ has become more complex in recent years. I am quite sure there are other dimensions to reality, and that ours is only one.

Therefore the origin of these interlopers, whether they be in spacecraft or not, could be from the same third dimension as our own, or from the fourth or fifth dimensions, the latter which may surround us invisibly.

I think it’s important for us to keep an open mind, to explore and yes… to imagine.

Copyright Francis Barker 2020