alt Hacker Newsvon Daniken's work inspired me to travel to Nazca PE and charter an airplane to see the alien landing strips for myself. Certainly a worthwhile trip. I may even have convinced the local guide I was a True Believer, of which I am sure he has encountered his share.
I have also take a page from his books by expostulating outlandish theories to explain facts with a straight face, always ending with a quick "of course there are other explanations".
It's a hobby. Mostly harmless.
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I have always enjoyed bringing in the "you know, the bible could be read very differently if you consider God to be an alien" to certain philosophical conversations I've had with people over the years, ever since reading von Daniken's work.
As you allude to, there are always other explanations.
Obligatory Calvin & Hobbs mention: https://preview.redd.it/quintessential-dad-explanation-v0-p5...
I've created table-top RPG campaigns by cobbling together these kinds of wack theories and building a world where they are true.
>It's a hobby. Mostly harmless.
A whole bunch of current disinformation comes from people having fun with misinformation and dumb people believing it until the idea makes a life of its own.
It's not harmless at all. A lot of explicitly nefarious people use this technique to engineer the population so they can be controlled.
Yesterday, my daughter asked me if it was “a round earth day or a flat earth day” thanks to my habit of providing outlandish explanations for things, often contradicting myself in the course of a single conversation in the process (they’ve come to enjoy trying to poke holes in some absurd explanation I’ve come up with).