Jeez I thought this hokum went out with the ark and Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" and "Return to the Stars" - which I fully admit to having read at around the age of 8-9 years old during a family camping holiday round Scotland (along with a healthy dose of Hitchcock's "Three Investigators" kids novels which I had an insatiable appetite for).

Anyway...then Carl Sagan happened for me and I was rescued.