Perhaps Colavito's most interesting argument is that this acceptance stemmed in part from science itself. Advances in science raised questions about religion and man's place in the universe. Such questions in turn led people to look for replacement belief systems. Segments of the population latched on to the pseudoscience of the ancient astronaut theories as an alternative to both creationism and Darwinism.
Approximately the last half of The Cult of Alien Gods switches from the focus of the Lovecraft-ancient astronaut connection to the tracing and critiquing of the continuing development of these theories. Colavito examines various works that played key roles in the genre. These include Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods, which argued that a long-lost and forgotten advanced civilization existed on Earth in roughly 10,500 BCE, and Zecharia Sitchin's The Twelfth Planet, which claimed residents of a planet that enters the inner solar system every 3,600 years were responsible for the rise of Sumerian culture. Coming from research he did for his own-web-based magazine and a 2004 article he wrote for Skeptic magazine, Colavito applies a skeptical and exacting eye to these books and the theories they espouse. Not only does he view them as pseudoscience, he sees the acceptance of their theories as evidence of Western civilization’s decline and an attack on values and ideas stemming from the Age of Enlightenment.
Here though, Colavito tends to paint with too broad a brush. For example, in asserting that 1976 was a turning point, he says: "Western civilization had run its course; its major goals — liberty, equality, fraternity — were largely, if not completely, accomplished[.] .... In such a climate it was no wonder mystery and the occult were replacing logic and reason." Similarly, he asserts that
as the education system gradually broke down in the twentieth century, ever-larger [sic] numbers of people were leaving school ignorant of methodology and indoctrinated only in diversity and political correctness. They lacked the tools to understand or to think, and they resented the educated elite who told them what was right or true.
While some underlying malaise or problems with educational systems may have contributed to the acceptance of these theories, it stretches the point to imply a systemic collapse of Western culture.
If one ignores the sporadic hyperbole, Colavito's work generally succeeds in the exploration of its two main themes. It is an admirable survey of Lovecraft's influence on modern pop culture. It serves equally well as a first-class examination and analysis of the rise of the ancient astronaut theories, their variants and the cultural conditions that nurtured them.
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