出版社：Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
摘要：Originally published in Glot International 4,8, page 8, October 1999. Some years ago there was a great flurry of popular excitement about the theories of Erich von Däniken (1972) concerning the extraterrestrial provenance of assorted great non-European monuments. Von Däniken claimed that these structures had to have been created by aliens from outer space. His main argument in support of this theory was that they were not created by Europeans, leaving no other earthly source. Here is the great pyramid of Chichén Itzá, the announcer would intone in the artfully filmed documentary, and here passing in front of it are three or four slowmoving modern Maya people leading a burro—surely these people could not have created a structure like this, let alone their ancient (hence even slower-moving) ancestors. Many commentators observed that this technique could be used to make an equally convincing argument that the Empire State Building in New York City could not have been built by the ancestors of the New Yorkers eating donuts and playing checkers in its shadow, either.
