Suddenly, all those science-fiction/fantasy stories seem plausible now, about ancient weapons, traps and guardians staying lethally functional for thousands of years..

Many of these stories became popular because of the Egypt archeology.

Many of the early "acheologists" (they were more like tomb raiders, invading egyptian tombs, stealing the contents, and shipping to Europe) died of misterious diseases, or got mad in some way, it is where the "cursed pyramid" trope came from.

Recently it was found out that the culprit for these, was mostly fungus, the fungus locked inside those places over thousands of years, would slowly fill the air with toxic stuff, that then would poison anyone breaking in, with effects ranging from poison-related death/disease, to poison-related brain damage (thus, madness).

Also, losing technology and weapons is not new, India Oral tradition has tales that scientists estimate they were already "mythical" 6000 years ago, and they talk about "giant metal arrows that create pillars of fire and light", "air chariots that shoot other air chariots with light" and "air chariots that fire arrows that follow heat"

Or Atlantis, that was already mythical in ancient Greece (what we know of Atlantis, is about ancient greeks writing about the Atlantis myth... so to them, Atlantis was already a mythical thing).

And of course, people would always stumble into random crap left behind by earlier generations.

For example recently something puzzled many historians, when in germany archeologists found a bronze-age battlefield with traces of having people from all countries in Europe (something kinda bizarre, since until then bronze-age was considered mostly isolationist), with signs of a large scale battle (bizarre because historians thought the population to be too small then, for that happen), and lots of signs of civilisation (advanced clothing and weaponry, including signs of that the soldiers involved were some kind of special forces, having expensive clothes and weapons, multiple scars on their bones, and yet were very strong and healthy).

Or another interesting one, here on HN someone shared recently about the people found dead on tar pits are frequently murdered, not just died there stuck, and research matched ancient roman legends (To the romans, it was a legend already), about how they heard that ancient countries threw prostitutes, adulterers, enemy nobility, and other undesired people into the tar, instead of giving them normal execution and burial.

There is a very cool RPG setting called Numenera [1] (and an upcoming computer game based on it, by some of the guys behind Planescape: Torment [2]) whose premise is more-or-less that there have been several global civilizations on this planet, separated by hundreds of millions of years.

Each one either ascends to the stars or collapses, but they all leave behind remnants that continue to shape the world for those who come after them.

Given the current political and environmental turmoil worldwide, it may not be too far-fetched that we humans of today are but one page in Earth's story. Whatever happens to us, the planet will live on and others may eventually take our place.

[1]: http://www.numenera.com/what-is-numenera/ [2]: https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com

> India Oral tradition has tales that scientists estimate they were already "mythical" 6000 years ago, and they talk about "giant metal arrows that create pillars of fire and light", "air chariots that shoot other air chariots with light" and "air chariots that fire arrows that follow heat"

Do you have a source?

If you can, then read the vedas, the upanishads, ramayana, mahabharata (bhagvad gita) and other texts which do mention such weapons.

It's in the Indian Vedas, Mahabharata and Ramayana. It's worth picking up copies, they've got planetary colonies, nuclear weapons, hollow earth, even instructions on how to build anti-gravity devices, a lot of the medical science in them is more advanced than we have now, in fact just today the Indian Government announced a multi-million dollar expedition to find a plant mentioned in one of them ( http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-07-indian-state-life-savi... )

Also I realise this sounds crazy out there, but if you're interested keep an open mind and read them. The actual copies and stay away from research authors like Childress.

Do people think these stories are anything more than mythic fiction?

Oh yes. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts

It's all pseudoscience/"amateur" history though. As far as I know, no experts take it seriously.

That theory strangely fits in with a lot of religious myths quite readily though.

I grew up in a religious household and even as a kid, I couldn't help but draw parallels between current technology or science fiction and religious icons or events, before I even knew the name for that concept.

For example, in Islam the Quran mentions a steed, made of light in some tellings, whose step takes it to the farthest point within its sight.. [1]

A craft that travels at/near the speed of light?

They also have the concept of seven skies, or heavens; could it be seven planets known at the time?

What about the different orders of angels in Christianity, flying beings (again made of light in some versions) each having an increasing number of wings?

And of course there are already adaptations of the story of Atlantis as an alien mothership that crashed into the ocean and eventually sank.

In any case it's fun to think about.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraq

Do you have a link to details on the fungus theory? I haven't heard it before, but it sounds like a fascinating medical mystery.

Was a strain of Aspergilus Niger - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_.... Same kind of mold you find in your kitchen on forgotten fruit, but probably this strain was different enough from ones Europeans had exposure and immunity to that it killed a few mildly immunodepressed explorers and a tourist. I remember even a documentary about some of it... kind of boring though.

Ancient Indian mythology is creepy as fuck though, got to agree - they even mention units of time of sizes like 8.64 billion human years and longer mentioned in scriptures more than 2000 years old... I mean, I imagine they got to that by playing with exponentiation and logarithms for the first time while trippin' on some 'shrooms... but that's still a good creepy basis for some alternate history tales :)

It's a theory although it seems that most experts are skeptical:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_...

Terry Brooks!