When I was young and having access to internet (but pre social media) I loved looking into these theories, prompted by Discovery Channel's "Quest for the lost civilization" and stumbling upon these books from the 1970s. It felt like doing research and archaeology on the nascent internet.

I was surprised to see these ideas becoming so mainstream with Ancient Aliens, and then somehow finding overlap with the alt-right, antivax and Covid-doubters. This made me really turn off of taking this seriously.