In the hit movie Guardians of the Galaxy, released in 2014, the main characters travel throughout space searching for the villain, Ronan. Along the way, Peter Quill and his crewmates encounter many different life forms on many other planets. They make new friends and allies, all while exploring the galaxy searching for a common enemy, and this story is fictional. A Sci-Fi movie about the adventures of Peter Quill and what he does as a human to make it through the film and defeat Ronan with his friends. His friends may have been non-human, from a raccoon named Rocket to a tree that can only repeat the words “I am Groot,” but in the end, they defeated the enemy together. Aliens have always been a hot topic when discussing monuments that seem impossible for humans to build, like the Great Pyramids of Giza. The Pyramids have stood for over 4,500 years, and people have been questioning how humans could have possibly made such a structure without help. In the video What if Aliens Built the Pyramids? By Lifes Biggest Questions, they make claims saying they believe aliens built the Pyramids due to the confusion around the mathematics, how they align with the stars, and other strange qualities that don’t make sense. Yet humans were able to build the Pyramids, align them with the stars and significant landmarks, have precise mathematics, and do it all in 20 years without the help of aliens.

“We suspect they were built four and a half millennia ago, but why, well, we don’t know” (1:16)

The person says that we don’t have evidence on why the Egyptians built the great pyramids. However, through historical evidence and artifacts left behind by the Egyptians, many reasons that the Egyptians built them as tombs for their rulers. Brian Handwerk wrote Pyramids at Giza, saying, “To prepare for the next world they erected temples to the gods and massive pyramid tombs for themselves.” Like many other religions, they built the Pyramids for their gods and higher beings to worship them. Ancient Egypt’s religious beliefs intertwine with many factors, like the stars, landmarks, and death. Like all religions, they had a center of worship for their gods, and the Pyramids were just that, another part of their pervasive belief system.

In the article Ancient Egypt, they wrote that the Egyptians “believed that a second self-called the ka lived within every human being. When the physical body expired, the ka enjoyed eternal life.” The people who achieved ka rested in the pyramids. Though many people believe there was no reason for the Pyramids, there was, and it was built for powerful pharaohs. The tombs were filled with their prized possessions as a symbol of taking their things with them; they also wrote in Ancient Egypt that “Gold, silver, and bronze artifacts were loaded into the interiors of the great tombs.” The Pyramids stood for their kings and higher power in the Egyptian belief system. They were the final resting place for kings and pharaohs. Since they were buried with everything that represented wealth or anything of worth, they were resting well since they were surrounded by wealth and jewels.

“The pyramids were built in around 20 years when the manpower and the tech suggests it should have taken closer to 600 years” (2:54)

The person claims that Pyramids were constructed extremely fast for the amount of technology available during the ancient Egypt era. Although this is true, technology was not near what we have today, and we should not doubt the ability to create the Pyramids because of it. The person also suggests we do not know how the Pyramids were built, which is true in a way, but David Cassel wrote in Building the Great Pyramid of Giza, “The Great Pyramid of Giza contains 2.3 million individual blocks of stone, meaning one block would have to be laid every five minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day, for the entire 20 years.” This was possible due to the number of workers helping build the Pyramids. There are estimates of around 10,000 to 20,000 workers helping with the construction. Many believe that there was assistance from ramps to carry the tons of bricks to build the Pyramids. Becky Little wrote How Did Egyptians Build the Pyramids? Which explained her thought process on the ramps; she wrote, “Most Egyptologists already think that Egyptians used ramp systems to build the pyramids.” 

Ramp systems would make sense as they would be able to drag the blocks up the Pyramids to build them efficiently, which can explain how they could finish them in 20 years. With such an efficient system and many workers working all at once, they were most likely able to finish everything. Another person believed that they could have possibly used rollers to assistant with the heavy bricks, Doctor Christiana Kohler, an Egyptologist mentioned in the article Building the Great Pyramid of Giza by David Cassel believes, “That by putting rollers under the stones (and by using some oxen), “a gang of eight men can actually handle a two and a half tonnes heavy block.” Though this does not answer all the questions on how the Egyptians built the Pyramids so quickly and how exactly they completed the task in the first place, the unknown is precisely what ancient Egyptians wanted. Just as any dynasty, they tried to hide their secrets, so they purposefully did not leave behind any record on how they built the Pyramids in such a short amount of time.

“They align perfectly with the Nile river, and at this point, there was no way humans could have created this on purpose” (1:46)

Among other things, they describe how the Nile being aligned with the Pyramids could not have been on purpose. Although it could have been a coincidence, many believe that the Nile river was used as a tool to create the Pyramids. So building with the Nile river would have been beneficial to the Egyptians in aiding them with their building; David Cassel mentions in the Building the Great Pyramid of Giza that “[They] transport[ed] it up the Nile River to the Great Pyramid’s building site.” He talked about hauling the bricks of limestone from its original location, up the Nile river, and to the building site, which could have been a helpful tool in how the Pyramids were aligned with the Nile river. Though we do not know the exact method used to align the Pyramids so precisely with the river, we can make assumptions off of tools that have been used for thousands of years in human history. If they did haul the limestone across the Nile, it would make sense that the Pyramids were aligned with the river since they needed to be close to the Nile to be able to build the Pyramids.

Another source also mentions that this could have been possible; Mandy Barrow wrote, “They built the pyramids next to the Nile River was so it would be easier to get the blocks to the pyramid” on the Pyramids in Egypt. The Nile river also aligns with the Milky Way. And astrologically speaking, since the Pyramids align with the Nile River, the Pyramids also align with the Milky Way. The Canadian Museum of History talks about the astronomy of the Nile river in their Mysteries of Egypt; they said, “The three pyramids represent the three stars in the belt of Orion, the Sphinx corresponds to the constellation Leo, and the Nile corresponds to the Milky Way.” This was not uncommon; many people lined up their creations with the night sky to believe that it would bring divine energy to the earth. Although when they were creating the Pyramids, it was not impossible to align buildings with the stars, we still do not know precisely how they did it. With the use of the Nile river in the design of the Pyramids and the history of astronomy and alignment of the stars with significant landmarks, the alignment of the Pyramid and the Nile was no coincidence. 

“The southern shaft of the Great Pyramid points to the constellation of Orion which is linked to the Egyptian god Osiris” (1:42)

Again they are claiming that there was no possible way for humans to complete this task, and they mentioned in another clip, “While Egyptians had some grasp of astronomy, it was in its infancy as a practice” (2:00). Let’s begin with the god Osiris, one of the most important gods in ancient Egypt. He was the god of fertility and represented the dead. Osiris represented many things to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians believed that their gods lived in Duat, which was a part of the kingdom of Osiris. Which, according to the Canadian Museum of History, “is located in the region of the sky where Orion and Sirius rise helically just ahead of the sun at dawn on the summer solstice.” They mention this in their astronomy section of Mysteries of Egypt. With this in mind, the Egyptians must have purposefully aligned the Pyramids with Orion’s belt to represent the king of Osiris. A majority of the things that the Egyptians did were religiously charged to honor their gods and respect them. By aligning the Pyramids with Orion’s belt, it represents the kings of Osiris.

A BBC news article, Pyramids lined up with the stars, talks about how “An Egyptian astronomer would have held up a plumb line and waited for the night sky to slowly pivot around the unmarked pole as the Earth rotated.” They could have used this method to map out the placement of the stars, the cardinal directions, and more. Egyptians mapped out the Pyramids to line up with the stars for bot Osiris and believe that the king would join the stars in the afterlife. Along with the stars, the three stars they line up with represent the Osiris kings. They could have also used the two stars Mizar in Ursa Major, the big dipper, and Kochab in Ursa Minor, which is the little dipper, to help with the alignment of the stars. In the article written by Hazel Muir, Pyramid Precision, she said, “Experts thought the ancient Egyptians might have watched a single star circle this imaginary point and aligned their pyramid with the circle’s centre.” There is no definitive reason why they could align the stars, but they were able to do it somehow, and it was definitely through human means.

“It seems if you divide the perimeter of the Great Pyramid by the sum of twice its height, you get Pi to an accuracy of 15 numbers” (2:06)

The math surrounding the Pyramids is complicated. The Greta Pyramid of Khufu was based on the proportions of the golden ratio. So the Pyramid could not have used Pi at all, in The Design of the Great Pyramid Khufu by Christopher Barlett, and he suggests “The Φ (Kepler) theory gives a theoretical angle of 51°49′38 (51.827°), while the π theory results in an angle of 51°51′14 (51.854°), very close to each other” which could explain the similarity. But it is possible that the Egyptians had no intention of including Pi or the Kepler theory in their construction since there is no mention of either their art or scriptures. But in The Design of the Great Pyramid Khufu by Christopher Barlett, he also mentions how “It also provides an argument that the Great Pyramid may have been designed to exhibit both ratios.” This is possible as the Egyptians did not know what Pi was until two thousand years after building the Pyramids. The mathematics is highly complicated for the Pyramids since they left behind no specific plans on how they got the very confusing numbers.

But there is no factual evidence for this yet as the Egyptians never described how they created the Pyramids. But with the mathematics we have today, we can assure that humans made this either intentionally or coincidentally. Either way, it is fascinating because Christopher Barlett, in The Design of the Great Pyramid Khufu, also mentions how “its architectural plan was rigorously based upon Egyptian aesthetic proportions of the figure and corresponded to vital anatomical parts of the body, especially the navel.” The proportion of the naval is 18:11.1, which is extremely close to the Kepler theory. They based the Pyramids off of their human proportions in their pictures of their gods and pharaohs, which is the best explanation for the ratios of the Pyramids because it would make sense for them to also base the Pyramids entirely off of their gods and pharaohs. The Pyramid’s proportions are incredible, and the capability of what humans could do before revolutionary technology today should not be overlooked. 

What can we conclude from this?

Though the idea of aliens building the Pyramids is interesting, and there is a slight possibility that aliens did build the Pyramids, there is a more significant chance that humans did. Without knowing the exact way that the Egyptians created the Pyramids, there are many questions as to how they did it. Instead of filling those questions by answering with aliens instead, we can dig deeper and look for more evidence as to how they did it. By assuming that aliens created them, we are watering down the history of the Pyramids, and the blood, sweat, and tears put into them. With the Egyptians leaving little to no record as to how they built the Pyramids, it’s easier to assume aliens made them than to research their history. Becky Little wrote How Did Egyptians Build the Pyramids? And she phrased it nicely: “The pyramids are there as mountains of stone proving the otherworldly nature of their god-kings. You stand in front of those pyramids, and you feel it’s impossible to build such a thing.” 

Featured image is a screenshot from the video “https://youtu.be/lcuck0UTKCY“