The Chariots Flew Then and Still Do Today!
An Examination into the Influence of Alien Presence, Scientific Events and the Erroneous Beliefs and Recordings of Biblical History
The world’s major religions have concealed truths about interplanetary contact, according to the passionate book The Chariots Flew Then and Still Do Today!
Ron Pleune’s personal experience of leaving Christianity is integrated into The Chariots Flew Then and Still Do Today!, which develops an alternative history of human evolution based on the idea of contact with advanced extraterrestrial beings. In addition to this work, the book makes sweeping case against traditional religions.
Arguing that interplanetary life forms—falsely construed as “God” in monotheistic religions—began contacting and influencing human beings long before the advent of Judaism, this book forwards an extraterrestrial explanation for human development. It also raises familiar theological questions about the consistency of a God who permits suffering on Earth. UFO sightings, loose interpretations of biblical passages, and the writings of Eduard Albert Meier, who claims to have contacted people from the Pleiades stars, are marshaled in support of this extraterrestrial-based narrative of humanity’s beginnings.
While it argues for open-mindedness, the book also accuses major world religions of bad-faith indoctrination and the obfuscation of facts that point to interplanetary life. Further, many of its own positive claims rely on aggressive phrasing rather than logical reasoning. Entire words are capitalized in order to emphasize statements; alternative points of view are mocked; counterarguments are absent.
Herein, religiosity is reduced to simplistic accounts of horrific events either perpetrated in the name of God or in spite of God. In addition, contradictions arise: in places, the book discredits biblical texts in the context of traditional religions; elsewhere, it places rhetorical value on them, citing evidence of UFOs in the books of Kings and Ezekiel. A practice described as “transinterpretation,” by which the English-language Bible is adapted and rewritten in order to support claims about UFOs and extraterrestrial life, is described in unconvincing terms.
The book’s memoir portions, which recall Pleune becoming dissatisfied with Christianity and seeking alternatives, are used as a throughline, but their application is inconsistent. Even the intriguing discussion of how Pleune repressed his spiritual doubts and avoided asking difficult questions about Christianity is overshadowed by the text’s larger arguments. Elsewhere, personal information serves as anecdotal evidence for otherwise unsupported claims, and undocumented UFO sightings and major assumptions about interdimensional travel and laser-beam communication are forwarded without sufficient explanation.
Made up of a series of disjointed statements and observations, the book does not cohere in the end. Though its work is broken into five chapters, the same arguments and topics recur throughout. And critiques of various religions blend with discussions of the advanced alien life beyond Earth, resulting in a muddled text. The profusion of grammatical mistakes deepens this morass.
In the unorthodox text The Chariots Flew Then and Still Do Today!, advanced forms of life from other planets are said to be behind humanity’s origins and major religions.
Reviewed by
Willem Marx
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
