Close Encounters of the Stupid Kind

I am a bit annoyed by the whole idea that ancient man may have had help kick starting civilization. I'm annoyed with one man in particular, Erich von Däniken. If you're not familiar with this crazy and his crack pot ideas than let me enlighten you. He more or less says that there were extraterrestrials who visited Earth in distant past and basically did what I mentioned in the beginning sentence. Erich von Doodooface calls this the "Ancient Astronaut theory."

What I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is the arrogance/stupidity, you pick, of not only von Daniken but also those who buy into his crap. They seem to think that ancient man simply could not be remotely smart enough to come up with the technology that they had. That ancient man was actually intelligent. True, ancient man had some strange beliefs but that doesn't mean that they couldn't figure out that if you stick a piece of copper into wine you get a reaction. Or that ancient Egyptian Pharaohs couldn't figure out how to get their citizens to build the pyramids and other projects of the State. As for the Egyptian statement it's called the citizens paying taxes with help from some slaves but let's ignore what historical documents say, ok?