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 古代洞穴壁画

描述神秘人物的古代美术作品的发现引起了“古代宇航员理论”的产生，该理论称，外星人造访过史前人类，可能曾与他们互动并分享知识。该理论的拥护者常常举出特定的例子，如意大利卡摩尼加(Val Camonica)现场的特殊石雕以及澳大利亚的旺吉纳岩石壁画(Wandjina Petroglyph) 现场(上图)。但若以科学方法来检验这些例子，它们就站不住脚了。卡摩尼加的两个热门“外星人”形象是从200,000多幅画中挑选出来的--非常明显的确认偏颇迹象。而在旺吉纳现场的实验表明，有些壁画已经被重画过无数次了，随着时间的推移，这些画按照艺术家的想法而演变，从而产生了未知的原创美术作品。