He served one year of this sentence before being released. He unsuccessfully entered a plea of nullity, on the grounds that his intentions were not malicious and that the credit institutions were at fault for failing adequately to research his references, and on 13 February 1970 he was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment and was also fined 3,000 francs. Two years later, von Däniken was convicted for "repeated and sustained" embezzlement, fraud, and forgery, with the court ruling that the writer had been living a " playboy" lifestyle. He used the money for foreign travel to research his book. In November 1968, von Däniken was arrested for fraud, after falsifying hotel records and credit references in order to take out loans for $130,000 over a period of twelve years. In 1970, Der Spiegel referred to the hype over Däniken as Dänikitis. Von Däniken was paid 7 percent of the book's turnover, while 3 percent went to Utermann. Against all expectations, the book gained widespread interest and became a bestseller. The re-write of Chariots of the Gods? was accepted for publication early in 1967, but not printed until March 1968. Utermann was a former editor of the Nazi Party's newspaper Völkischer Beobachter and had been a Nazi bestselling author. Econ Verlag (now part of Ullstein Verlag) was willing to publish the book after a complete reworking by a professional author, Utz Utermann, who used the pseudonym of Wilhelm Roggersdorf. The draft of the book was turned down by several publishers. įollowing his release, von Däniken became a manager of the Hotel Rosenhügel in Davos, Switzerland, during which time he wrote Chariots of the Gods? ( German: Erinnerungen an die Zukunft, literally "Memories of the Future"), working on the manuscript late at night after the hotel's guests had retired. While in Egypt, he was involved in a jewelry deal which resulted in a nine-month conviction for fraud and embezzlement upon his return to Switzerland. In December 1964, von Däniken wrote Hatten unsere Vorfahren Besuch aus dem Weltraum? ("Were Our Ancestors Visited from Space?") for the German-Canadian periodical Der Nordwesten. He left the school and was apprenticed to a Swiss hotelier for a time, before moving to Egypt. At the age of 19, he was given a four-month suspended sentence for theft. During his time at the school he rejected the church's interpretations of the Bible and developed an interest in astronomy and flying saucers. Brought up as a Roman Catholic, he attended the Saint-Michel International Catholic School in Fribourg, Switzerland. Von Däniken was born in Zofingen, Aargau. He designed Mystery Park (now known as Jungfrau Park), a theme park located in Interlaken, Switzerland, that opened in May 2003. Von Däniken later became a co-founder of the Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association (AAS RA). Early in his career, he was convicted and served time for several counts of fraud or embezzlement, and wrote one of his books in prison. The ideas put forth in his books are rejected by virtually all scientists and academics, who categorize his work as pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology, and pseudoscience. Von Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the "paleo-contact" and ancient astronauts hypotheses. Erich Anton Paul von Däniken ( / ˈ ɛr ɪ k f ɒ n ˈ d ɛ n ɪ k ɪ n/ German: born 14 April 1935) is a Swiss author of several books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968.
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