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Pseudoarchaeology of Mesoamerica is a diverse collection of bunkum and woo covering Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories, Mayanism, and, of course, ancient astronauts, related to the Aztec, Maya, Olmec, and Toltec civilisations of the region.

The Maya

The Palenque Astronaut

“”Palenque is a place in Mexico, and there is a large stone in the temple and on the stone is a kind of being sitting like in a rocket.

—Erich von Däniken, convicted fraudster

“”What does this relief have to tell us? Nothing? Is everything that anyone links up with space travel a stupid figment of the imagination?

—Von Däniken

“”Well I certainly don't see any need to regard him as a space man. I don't see any oxygen tubes. I see a very characteristically drawn Maya face.

—Ian Graham, Mayanist researcher and epigrapher

The Palenque Astronaut is the supposed image of an ancient astronaut seen by some on an intricately carved sarcophagus lid created by the Maya in honour of the deceased King Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal of Palenque following his death in 683 CE. The carving was discovered by Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier in a burial chamber within the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque in 1952 following four years of excavation and interpreted by Mayanist epigraphers and art historians as depicting the king on his journey to the underworld. The comparison to an astronaut was first made by early ancient astronaut theorists Guy Tarade and Andre Millou in a 1966 article for Italian magazine Clypeus and later picked up by Erich von Däniken as one of the best pieces of evidence for the theory in his book Chariots of the Gods? (1968). The relief, which von Däniken, with typical inaccuracy, describes as being discovered in 1935 and representing the god Kukumatz, will, he assures us, “make even the most die-hard sceptic stop and think.”

There sits a human being, with the upper part of his body bent forward like a racing motorcyclist; today any child would identify his vehicle as a rocket. It is pointed at the front, then changes to strangely grooved indentations like inlet ports, widens out and terminates at the tail in a darting flame. The crouching being himself is manipulating a number of undefinable controls and has the heel of his left foot on a kind of pedal.

Mayanists, however, contend that the rocket is in fact the cross-shaped world tree, a common motif in Maya art, especially funerary works, said to connect the heavens, the earth and the underworld, with the so-called "darting flames," being, in fact, the tree's roots deep in the latter. Pacal's posture is indicative of him both falling into the underworld and ready for rebirth, while the stylistic positioning of his hands in a delicate gesture common to Maya art is most likely of fashionable significance.

His clothing is appropriate: short trousers with a broad belt, a jacket with a modern Japanese opening at the neck and closely fitting bands at arms and legs. With our knowledge of similar pictures, we should be surprised if the complicated headgear were missing. And there it is with the usual indentations and tubes, and something like antennae on top.

Pascal is, in fact, depicted wearing the breechcloth, jade necklace, bracelets and anklets commonly shown being worn by upper class Maya in reliefs from the time; far from being suitably attired for space travel, not only is he not wearing the expected gloves, he is also clearly bare chested and footed. As for the so-called helmet, a detail from the side of the tomb clearly shows it to be an intricate corn-plant fertility headdress of limited value for space survival.

Our space traveller—he is clearly depicted as one—is not only bent forward tensely, he is also looking intently at an apparatus hanging in front of his face. The astronaut's front seat is separated by struts from the rear portion of the vehicle, in which symmetrically arranged boxes, circles, points and spirals can be seen.

Pacal's life is well documented in contemporary sources, none of which mention anything extraterrestrial, and his extremely earthly remains were discovered right under the lid. Von Däniken is nonetheless so seemingly convinced of his interpretation of the relief that, he states, "one must doubt the integrity" of any scholar who rejects it from "the chain of proofs," after all, he concludes, "one is not seeing ghosts when one is analysing actual objects."

The Olmecs

Olmec Colossal Heads

The Olmec Colossal Heads are massive stone heads carved into basalt boulders by the Olmecs sometime before 900 BCE. The discovery of the first head was announced in an obscure Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics publication in 1869 by Jose Maria Melgar y Serrano, in which he concluded:

what astonished me was the Ethiopic type represented. I reflected that there had undoubtedly been Negroes in this country, and that this had been in the first epoch of the world.

Melgar's initial knee-jerk reaction inspired fringe Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories and Olmec alternative origin speculations which suggest that the Olmecs were related to peoples of Africa. Cranks to have espoused such views include Ivan van Sertima in They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (1976) and Clyde Winters in Atlantis in Mexico: The Mande Discovery of America (2013). However, the features are perfectly in keeping with local indigenous people and molecular archaeology has failed to find an influx of African DNA prior to 1492. Olmec researcher Richard Diehl confirms:

There can be no doubt that the heads depict the American Indian physical type still commonly seen on the streets of Soteapan, Acayucan, and other towns in the region.

Whilst, in Chariots of the Gods? (1968), a clearly impressed Erich von Däniken, who noted a resemblance between the carved helmets and those of astronauts, wrote:

The sculptures of the Olmecs are incredible. With their beautifully helmeted giant skulls, they can only be admired on the sites where they were found, for they will never be on show in a museum. No bridge in the country could stand the weight of the colossi.

Von Däniken, it may surprise you to learn, was wrong; all seventeen of the confirmed Olmec heads are now housed in museums, including two on permanent display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Furthermore, several have been loaned out for international exhibition, dating back to 1970 when one was sent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Suggesting that von Däniken's contention that the ancient Olmecs ability to move such monoliths will forever surpass that of their modern descendants to be wildly inaccurate.