@cstross Now, that concept worked out *much* better.
My photos of the Giger-designed bar in Gruyères...

@cstross Just one example among a great litany of things wrong with his books/theories.

Nearby, he even has his own walking path based around the events of his life.

When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.

Däniken's 'paleo-contact' claims of extraterrestrial influences on early human development, attracted a dedicated following, despite his earlier convictions for theft, fraud and embezzlement (and robust debunking of his theories). Films, soundtracks, and even prog concept albums followed his books.

🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.

#ancientaliens

Switzerland seems hellbent on filling every nanometre with nature that looks like something from a 1950s pulp sci-fi book cover.