I'm convinced that these conspiracies are spawned from racism towards non white civilizations. It's easier for them to believe an imagined space God came there and built something rather than the indigenous people. There is also probably some need to believe that we are always at the peak of human progress in all things but in reality the story is more complicated.
I don't think it's racially motivated, it just appears that way because very few ancient civilizations were white to begin with. If Britain were an ancient civilization, we'd have the whitest kids you know telling us how Big Ben was built by the Gods, and is secretly a time machine.
And every sci-fi show ever would have an episode about it
When I was in grad school, we had our weekly seminar. A student in our group had to go give a review-presentation on a topic of their choosing each week for our brown bag lunch meetings. People would usually present on topics related or adjacent to their actual work, because doing the reading and research for their presentation was part of their larger knowledge gain and broadening related to their own field.
But this one guy presented about how the world was going to end in 2012. He was serious -- some how he had made it into grad school, fooling everyone. We all thought it was some sort of Andy Kaufmann-esque prank he was playing on it, holding a straight face while presenting -- complete with references to conspiracy websites.
He lost his funding shortly thereafter.
The weird thing is, losing his funding probably reinforced his belief in the conspiracy. Persecution complexes can be very powerful things.
That's the insidious thing about conspiracy theories once they latch onto the brain. Any consequences or conflicting information just become "them" trying to subdue or mislead you.
Same thing all numerologists will say: ah, something was wrong with the calculation. The world will actually end (insert some new date in the near future, so the grift can continue).
