The hypothesis of this book is that life on Earth is originally extraterrestrial, and then that humans were engineered. It is a clearly written book, very easy to follow the reasoning of the authors. Unlike many of the books in this “ancient astronaut” or “alternative history” field, it is well researched. But it is not perfect, and by no means a definitive or perfectly scientific proof of their hypotheses. They do have strong support for most of their ideas, but also some weaknesses that at the minimal need more proof, and definitely means the ideas cannot be called theories.
I stated that the text is well researched, but in many cases the evidence is one web site article, or one interview from a non peer reviewed source. (Of course this research is tough to get in peer reviewed sources so is somewhat of a catch-22.) However those, one bit at a time, as well as much of the mid chapters using mainly the Alcheringa text would be considered anecdotal, or as a sample number of one.
The authors did combat this weakness to varying degrees of success depending on the chapter. Early they did do a good job establishing that there is a lot of aerial phenomenon and psychic abilities that are unexplained. Some of the psychic abilities were shown in properly controlled experiments. The authors also do a good job reminding the readers a lot of what we think are assumptions, such as aliens would have similar technology to ours, and/or would be carbon based, and/or would have never previously visited to name three major ones.
The Earth being seeded does have outside evidence. Yes, asteroids and comets can carry organic molecules, and organic molecules have been discovered elsewhere. But the authors ignore the Miller-Urey experiment where those molecules were created in a proto-Earth environment. The strangeness of octopi was another proof they used, and yes, they are different, but not so different to be classified in their own phylum. They are classified, or linked, to every other mollusc.
Then the authors move into the story of alien ambush, crashing and surviving, based in the Alcheringa text. Three problems have to be overcome: 1. The story sounds like something out of a science fiction movie with a Federation, warring species, etc (though the authors would say, perhaps correctly, the science fiction is preparing us for the truth of this story); and 2. There is only one basis, the Alcheringa text; and 3. The story is not consistent with the other major origin hypothesis of the Anunnaki coming to mine gold, and engineering humans as a result.
For problem 2, the authors do a very good job with multiple lines of evidence: geography, tetktites, poleshifts, to show the incident the text says happened 780,000 years ago could yes have in fact happened then. This is a very strong point of the book.
Chapter 12 began what I was mostly interested in: the potential genetic and biological evidence for their hypothesis. And this chapter was one of the best defenses of this alien intervention hypotheses that I have seen (and I have seen and commented on quite a few). Its science is correct. There are many HARs. Many are involved in brain development. Most would be in control regions. For one he shows how it would be statistically impossible for the number of mutations to occur naturally. But what about the others? FoxP2 for example is only 2 mutations. The authors later correctly identify this as an HAR, but except for time of the sequence changes, do not attempt the same statistical defense. Or the other 100+, are they all statistically impossible? Using one could be sampling error; picking the one that proves the hypothesis. So that is a problem. A lack of proper referencing in general; a lack of peer reviewed genetic research is also a problem. At least the Scientific American a few years ago on HARs would have been better. The other main proof the low diversity is okay, but even the author admits this could be due to low starting population (we call this genetic drift, or a bottleneck.) It only supports a low population; anything else is speculation not supported by that data. And we know there are bottlenecks in human population history, from events such as Ice Ages and the Flood. One more strength is that most dates match the dates above, except maybe the Denisovan split, which I have before 780,000 years ago; in Reich’s well written book (and he is an evolutionary geneticist with his work peer reviewed), he has the Denisovans split from modern and Neanderthal between 1 million and 800,000 years ago, a little too early to support this hypothesis, and much too late to be the authors’ hypothesized first engineering. The next evidence, the chromosome 2 fusion has the same strengths and weaknesses. The event is timed correctly for their hypothesis. But the date from Reich makes the Denisovan part a problem. Also the idea that this event would not occur naturally is potentially incorrect on two counts: 1, it is a fusion at the centromeres, which are highly conserved, so a fusion/recombination event would occur at such similar sequences, and 2, telomeres protect ends from replication loss, not from recombination events (in fact telomeres are also highly conserved, so if there were more sequence, they would probably recombine too, which could have happened here, the telomeres of the two ape chromosomes recombined.) Further, I could not find the evidence the authors use for their idea with the recombination frequencies and base substitutions in PubMed, nor could I access the website in the references to check them myself. This calls into question if the assumptions and calculations his source used to get those dates are correct (otherwise such an important paper would be peer reviewed and published, as Reich’s and others work using similar calculations and assumptions are). Since no genetic material was lost, (the authors admit this) they are incorrect in suggesting this aberration, like most others, would disappear. A few other notes: What is the concurrent mutation to allow this to persist as hinted at on p 171? The gene editing technology is a good point. P 178, interbreed would not have been an H.sapiens first; it would have been a sapiens, erectus hybrid. Further hybrid breedings gets to more pure H.sapiens.
Ch 14 is are excellent, and well supported, especially the human reproductive problems and that a potential major reason for societal structures. ( I in fact have the same Lents reference ready to use). Ch 15 brings up some good points about potential ecological disaster and the need for human help. I ask again where is the story of the Anunnaki, who hypothetically came to Earth to save themselves from an ecological disaster? There likely is the first parallel the authors need for the ecology proof (if this hypothesis of alien intervention can also be substantiated.)
The authors accomplish their main goal: a scientific discussion of the evidence for alien intervention in general and in creating humans more specifically. They present a lot of consistent observations, and unlike many others in this field, do not over interpret the data. However, the goal of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not met, (they even suggest this in the ch 15) but it is the closest and best thought out yet.
Note: review and critique written by a PhD Cell and Molecular Biologist, writing as I would a peer review for a scientific article. So yes there is at least one academic giving your ideas a fair hearing. I am willing to discuss these ideas and future angles for research with them or anyone else who is interested.