alt Hacker Newsvon Däniken was the original Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, aka "aliens" meme guy. He never met an archeological artifact that didn't look like alien technology to him.
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What really drives me nuts about von Däniken (and Tsoukalos, Childress, et al. …) is that he contradicts himself. (Sorry, I don’t care about this stuff enough to have a recent example.) His position isn’t consistent.
Zecharia Sitchin’s arguments are also frequently not good but he at least seemed to be trying to construct a consistent whole whereas these other guys will just say anything.
VD wasn't the original, not even close. Peter Kolosimo had best sellers on the same subject years earlier, as did others.
I heard Däniken speak about 30 years ago, and exchanged a few words with him afterwards. He was a brilliant orator and came across as highly sophisticated. His arguments were contrived and I recognized that even as a child, but he was nothing like the natives of the YouTube era who do it for the likes and memes. He was completely sincere in his own belief of what he said.
Ancient Aliens ought to be required viewing in schools, because they are very careful to employ enthymeme and reported speech to make a series of statements each one of which is technically true, yet have implications which are false. Gaining the skill to recognise when these kinds of claims are being made is, I feel, essential for the electorate in a democracy.