__NOTOC__ ''Sungods in Exile'' is a book by David Gamon that was published in 1978 under the pseudonym David Agamon, allegedly from the notes of a Karyl Robin-Evans who was said to be a professor at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. The book tells of a 1947 expedition to

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

in which the scientist visited the

Bayan Har Mountains The Bayan Har Mountains, formerly known as the Bayen-káras or Bayan-Kara-Ula, are a mountain range in Qinghai Province, northwest China. The name is Mongolian for "Rich and Black". It can be viewed as one of the branches of the Kunlun Mounta ...

. Robin-Evans claimed that the Dropa tribe was of extraterrestrial origin and had crashed on Earth. The book featured photographs of the tribe and the alleged

Dropa stones The Dropa stones are purported pseudoarcheological artifacts. They are claimed to be a series of 12,000-year old granite discs with inscribed markings that represent an account of an extraterrestrial crash landing on Earth. Extensive inquiries ...

which contained messages from the extraterrestrials. Although researchers were unable to locate Karyl Robin-Evans, the Dropa stones appeared regularly in the

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture, cultural society that differentiates itself from the values of the conservative, standard or dominant culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures ...

and author Hartwig Hausdorf popularized the story in his 1998 book ''The Chinese Roswell''. Later variations of the story added a fictional Professor Tsum Um Nui of the equally fictional Beijing Academy for Ancient Studies who decoded the language of the stones. In 1995, British author David Gamon admitted in ''

Fortean Times ''Fortean Times'' is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing (from 1991 to 2001), I Feel Good Publishing (from 2001 to 2005), Dennis Publishing (from ...

'' that he had written ''Sungods in Exile'' as a hoax under the Agamon pseudonym,''Fortean Times'' 75 (Jun/Jul 1994), page 57 inspired by the popularity of

Erich von Däniken Erich Anton Paul von Däniken (; ; born 14 April 1935) is a Swiss author of several pseudoscientific books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling '' Chariots of the Gods?'', publis ...

and his books on

ancient astronauts Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific set of beliefs that hold that Extraterrestrial intelligence, intelligent Extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial beings (alien astronauts) visited Earth and m ...

. The source material for the story was taken from a 1960s magazine article in ''Russian Digest'', and a 1973 French science fiction novel ''Les disques de Biem-Kara'', (''The discs of Biem-Kara''), by Daniel Piret.

References

Notes Bibliography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sungods In Exile 1978 books Journalistic hoaxes UFO-related literature 1978 hoaxes