__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 Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. The book tells of a 1947 expedition to

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

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 Mountain ...

. 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, otherwise known as the Dzopa stones, Dropas stones or Drop-ka stones, are claimed by some ufologists and pseudoarchaeologists to be a series of at least 716 circular stone discs, that are supposedly 12,000 years old, on which tin ...

which contained messages from the extraterrestrials. Although researchers were unable to locate Karyl Robin-Evans, the Dropa stones appeared regularly in the UFO subculture 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 (2001 to 2005), Dennis Publishing (2005 to 2 ...

'' 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 books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling ''Chariots of the Gods?'', published in 1968. Von D ...

and his books on

ancient astronauts Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this ...

. 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