Böcker av Garrett Serviss

The ancient astronaut theory has a long and winding history based, in large measure, on the fertile interaction of speculative fiction and speculative history. Its roots can be traced to Victorian era pseudoscience, including Theosophy, speculation about the existence of Atlantis, and mystical investigations of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Science fiction played its role, too. Sometimes too well.Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) drew on all of these themes to deliver one of earliest science fiction stories to present extraterrestrial beings as ancient astronauts. In the novel, Martians came down to the earth in prehistory, built the pyramids and the Sphinx, and abducted humans to use as slave labor-all claims suggested in the work of twentieth century ancient astronaut theorists.Serviss' novel may not have inspired the ancient astronaut genre, but it is a fascinating example of how the ideas available in popular culture repeatedly combined to produce the same idea time and again.

This book "" Curiosities of the Sky "" has been considered important throughout the human history. It has been out of print for decades.So that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.

What Froude says of history is true also of astronomy: it is the most impressive where it transcends explanation. It is not the mathematics of astronomy, but the wonder and the mystery that seize upon the imagination. The calculation of an eclipse owes all its prestige to the sublimity of its data; the operation, in itself, requires no more mental effort than the preparation of a railway time-table. The dominion which astronomy has always held over the minds of men is akin to that of poetry; when the former becomes merely instructive and the latter purely didactic, both lose their power over the imagination.