‘Three Thousand Year Old Statue Found in Cappadocia’

On April 26 2021, a Facebook user shared an image of a purported “three thousand year old statue found in Cappadocia,” in a post consisting of an image and words — but no additional information.

Facebook accounts set to English by default would see two captions, one in Portuguese and one in English:

Estátua de três mil anos encontrada na Capadócia.

Three thousand year old statue found in Cappadocia.

On May 7 2021, the image was shared to Reddit’s r/Incredibly. As with the Facebook iteration, the identical image and wording did not include any corroborating information:

The same account shared the image to r/interesting:

Top comments on the post were skeptical of the claim as it was presented, and suggested that the image might have been altered in order to prevent reverse image searches from finding what the photograph actually showed:

“Cool… Wanna post an article? Further info? Any evidence at all that this isn’t bs? Because Google brings up nothing and it even looks like the image has been slightly rotated so you can’t image reverse search.”

“Before looking into is, I would say 100% false based off the quality of this figurine. Condition is too good to be very old. After researching this claim with no evidence, and similar claims of bicycles and astronaut sculptures on old temples being debunked, my novice conclusion would be: fake … It’s a cool looking statue tho, just not very old”

“sus”

The image was popular, and clearly evoked notions of “ancient astronauts,” a concept somewhere between speculation and pseudoscience (at least according to Wikipedia, where all conspiracy theories end up as entries eventually):

“Ancient astronauts” (or “ancient aliens”) refers to the idea, often presented in a pseudoscientific way, that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies, religions, and human biology. A common position is that deities from most, if not all, religions are extraterrestrial in origin, and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans.

The idea that ancient astronauts existed is not taken seriously by most academics, and has received no credible attention in peer reviewed studies. When proponents of the idea present evidence in favor of their beliefs, it is often distorted or fabricated.

Well-known proponents in the latter half of the 20th century who have written numerous books or appear regularly in mass media include Erich von Däniken, Zecharia Sitchin, Robert K. G. Temple, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and David Hatcher Childress.

That entry included several images of artifacts argued as evidence of “ancient astronauts,” but the 3,000 year old Cappadocia statue was absent from the page entirely.

Google Image Search returned only a handful of results for the Cappadocia “ancient astronaut,” most of which pointed back to tweets from late April or early May 2021. Google suggested “artifact” as a label and returned 14 results; when we changed the text to “3000,” we found 18 iterations:

Without a specific source for the claim, determining anything else about the image was difficult, and zero results were returned on image search engine TinEye. Reverse image search did track down the earliest iteration we found, which was shared to Facebook on April 24 2021.

Otherwise, the image of a three thousand year old astronaut statue from Cappadocia was a dead end. We located no information about any anomalous finds matching the claims in the posts, and as commenters pointed out, reverse image search only went as far back as late April 2021. While we rate the claim Unknown, there’s no indication the image or explanation were at all accurate or even a little credible — and based off share counts, it was reasonably likely the explanation was added to the image in order to (successfully) obtain social media shares.

How did an astronaut come to be carved into the portico of Salamanca’s cathedral?

I don’t know if the world’s currently most famous astronaut has seen the portico of the Catedral Nueva in Salamanca, but if not, Commander Hadfield, you should get into your space capsule now and head for Spain.

The Catedral Nueva, or ‘New Cathedral’ is not new at all, as is the way of many churches in European cites. It’s a building project that started back in 1513, and was interrupted by various events, including the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The reason Chris Hadfield would be agog to see the stonework in the portico around one of the entrances is that, along with the stone leaves and foliage, there is a carving of an astronaut.

Appropriately, the astronaut is floating above the heads of those curious, baffled tourists who gather beneath it to wonder how ancient stonemasons foretold the coming of spacemen. The reason the little figure is there is because the carvings around the door needed replacement in recent years, and the stonemasons included it as a symbol of one of the most important things that had happened in history since the church was first built.

Whether you know why the stone astronaut is there or not, it’s a delightful, playful surprise in a Unesco World Heritage city that has several surprises for the first-time visitor.

Salamanca’s biggest and loveliest surprise is its enclosed Main Square. Dating from the 18th century, it’s a marvel of sandstone that seems to have survived intact, rather like the Place de Vosges in Paris. Students can, and do rent the period apartments above the shops and restaurants that occupy the ground floors. Up to 150 years ago, they would have had an unsettlingly fine view of the bullfights that took place in the plaza below. A bull’s head in stone still protrudes over one of the exits from the square to signal the fact.

3000-year-old figurine found in Turkey, Cappadocia. Even has a UFO Drawn on the face of the Ancient Alien. Mush like object from Mexico and other artifacts around the world.