These, he says, should be interpreted as literal descriptions which have changed during the passage of time and become more obscure. Von Däniken asks if the oral and literal traditions of most religions contain references to visitors from stars and vehicles traveling through air and space. According to von Däniken, humans considered the technology of the aliens to be supernatural and the aliens themselves to be gods. The book further suggests that the origins of many religions, including interpretations of the Old Testament of the Bible, are reactions to contact with an alien race. Among the artwork he describes are ancient Japanese Dogū figurines (which he believes to resemble astronauts in spacesuits) and 3,000-year-old carvings in an Egyptian New Kingdom Temple that appear to depict helicopter-like machines. Von Däniken describes elements that he believes are similar in the art of unrelated cultures. The book also suggests that ancient artwork throughout the world can be interpreted as depicting astronauts, air and space vehicles, extraterrestrials, and complex technology. He uses this same explanation to argue that cart ruts in Malta may have had extraterrestrial purposes along with similar lines in Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the Aral Sea. Further examples include an early world map known as the Piri Reis map, which von Däniken describes as showing Earth as it is seen from space, and the Nazca Lines in Peru, which he suggests may have been constructed by humans as crude replicas of previous alien structures, as a way to call the aliens back to Earth. Such artifacts include the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Moai of Easter Island.

Many of those theories have now been debunked. Von Däniken maintains that these artifacts were produced either by extraterrestrial visitors or by humans who learned the necessary knowledge from extraterrestrials. Von Däniken suggests that some ancient structures and artifacts appear to reflect more sophisticated technological knowledge than is known or presumed to have existed at the times they were manufactured. The main thesis of Chariots of the Gods is that extraterrestrial beings influenced ancient technology. Von Däniken suggests that the Nazca lines (200 BCE – CE 700) in Peru could be 'landing strips' for alien spacecraft

Erich von daniken chariot of the gods