Trivia

For half a century, he tried to prove that human ancestors had been visited by aliens. He summarized his theories in book form: he sold almost 70 million copies, and they were published in over 30 languages.

No Swiss person has sold more books than him.

His rise to fame as an author was soon followed by the darkest period of his life: Von Däniken was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison in 1970. The charges were embezzlement, fraud, and forgery. This did not diminish his popularity: he published books every year, which sold millions of copies.

Erich von Däniken was a Swiss author of several pseudoscientific books which made claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968.

Even as a child, he was fascinated by the idea of extraterrestrial life. He tirelessly defended his theory, even though no one wanted to read his early writings in the mid-1960s. After being rejected by 20 publishers, his first book, "Memories of the future," was published in 1968. It became a surprise success.

He was one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the "paleo-contact" and ancient astronauts hypotheses.

In 1966, when Däniken was writing his first book, scientists Carl Sagan and I. S. Shklovskii had written about the possibility of paleocontact and extraterrestrial visitation claims in one chapter of their book Intelligent Life in the Universe, leading author Ronald Story to speculate in his book The Space-gods Revealed that this may have been the genesis of Däniken's ideas. Many ideas from this book appeared in different form in Däniken's books.

Erich von Däniken was the co-founder of the Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association (AAS RA).

Von Däniken doesn't just want to draw attention to extraterrestrial life in his books. In 2003, he opened the "Mystery Park" in Interlaken. Three years later, the amusement park had to close again due to financial problems. In 2010, the park was redesigned and reopened as Jungfrau Park. In 2025, it was sold to two investors: The former "Mystery Park" is to be developed into a future campus under the name "Etherlaken.".

Early in his career, he was convicted and served time for several counts of fraud or embezzlement, and wrote one of his books in prison.