10Ancient Cave Paintings

Discoveries of ancient artwork depicting mysterious figures have helped give rise to the “Ancient Astronaut Theory”, which claims that alien beings visited prehistoric humans, possibly interacting and sharing knowledge with them. Advocates of this theory usually point to specific examples, such as a particular rock carving in the Val Camonica site in Italy, as well as the Wandjina Petroglyph (above) sites in Australia. Using these examples as evidence reaches unsturdy ground when held up to scientific scrutiny. The popular image of two “alien” figures in Val Camonica was picked out of over 200,000 drawings – a pretty clear sign of confirmation bias. Testing at the Wandjina site showed some drawings had been repainted numerous times over, with the images evolving over time at the artists’ discretion, rendering the original artwork unknown.

10 古代洞穴壁畫

描述神秘人物的古代美術作品的發現引起了“古代宇航員理論”的產生，該理論稱，外星人造訪過史前人類，可能曾與他們互動并分享知識。該理論的擁護者常常舉出特定的例子，如意大利卡摩尼加(Val Camonica)現場的特殊石雕以及澳大利亞的旺吉納巖石壁畫(Wandjina Petroglyph) 現場(上圖)。但若以科學方法來檢驗這些例子，它們就站不住腳了。卡摩尼加的兩個熱門“外星人”形象是從200,000多幅畫中挑選出來的--非常明顯的確認偏頗跡象。而在旺吉納現場的實驗表明，有些壁畫已經被重畫過無數次了，隨著時間的推移，這些畫按照藝術家的想法而演變，從而產生了未知的原創美術作品。