Cartoon of cave painting of a ufo or flying saucer
Was God an astronaut? Cartoon
Did life reach earth from outer space?
The ufo in the cartoon is projecting a dna shaped beam of energy down into the water on earth, creating the first life on the planet.
The concept of Was God an Astronaut? (as written about by Erich von Däniken, amongst others)has been revived recently with the film Prometheus by Ridley Scott, and will no doubt be aired again when the sequel is released. In Prometheus there was a scene depicting prehistoric cave paintings, although not humorously as here.
The theory that life may have been planted on Earth billions of years ago by an advanced alien civilization is sometimes known as directed panspermia. This theory was (mischievously?) proposed by Francis Crick (of dna fame) together with biologist Leslie Orgel in 1971. Directed panspermia is sometimes evoked to solve a particular problem in the science of life – science’s current inability to explain life’s origin. Of course the theory simply puts off the explanation, very much in the way that religions do
This cartoon first appeared in BBC Knowledge magazine.
Cartoon reference number: a337
