It actually has its roots in hyperdiffusionism, an early 1900s idea that some lost civilization invented all these technologies and did all the impressive things, and anyone who did anything neat is descended from them. This lost master race - surprise! This is totally a nazi thing. The people who came up with this were nazis.

The modern appeal comes from a lot of racism (it's never aimed at, say, Romans), a lot from anti-intellectualism (the news constantly peddles bald-faced lies through "experts" so all experts are untrustworthy), and sadly I think a lot comes from the US de-funding schools (you never got a real history class so the first youtube conspiracy theorist you hear is your first exposure to "history" and you don't know better). And some of it is still nazis.

There is the "non-white people could not have possibly stacked rocks this big!" thing

I honestly think it’s mostly just this.

I think a lot of it is ego protection for people who don't want to grapple with themselves not understanding how the world is put together. "well, I can't figure out how to stack rocks, so how could someone else 5000 years ago have done it? something like this can only have been done by hyper-advanced technology" like John Fetterman recently being scared shitless by some pipework

Aliens built the big ben.

I refuse to believe white people could ever stop killing people long enough to make jt.

It’s just branch of anti-intellectualism. It comes from the same place as vaccine skepticism and extreme views about homeschooling. The ivory tower academics want you to believe that their mundane explanations for mundane things are correct, but what if wild speculation based on things I made up instead?

It’s also just kind of fun, like astrology. If you’re taking it seriously then you should be institutionalized, but if you just view it as a weird hobby/LARP/creative writing exercise then sure, why not indulge a bit? Who are you hurting by seeing what kind of crazy thing they say next? It’s so far outside anything that would be taken seriously that it feels pretty safe to put in the list of things you can enjoy knowing that it’s all pure fiction, even if some people believe it.

I haven't really looked into this specifically, but my vibe is that it's people without any class or material analysis trying to explain a world that isn't explainable with typical liberal theories. It's the same reason people go anti-vax or blame one specific racial minority for all the world's problems: things are fucked up, and what they learned in school doesn't answer the question.

I'd also argue that this kind of thinking is more common with petite bourgeois types, as they're more resistant to a class analysis, as doing so would paint them and their people as the bad guy.

false consciousness

"The government is hiding alien technology from us and preventing our lives to becoming better by it!"

Maybe.

There is the "non-white people could not have possibly stacked rocks this big!" thing

This boils down to white supremacy. If you asked well, what about the Carthage, Etruscans, the Greeks, the Roman’s, etc. they’d give you a bunch of bullshit about the Western Seat of Ideas.

1. fun theories

2. trying to find corroborative evidence for flood/atlantis/whatever

It would be more cool if space aliens were real and liked to kick it.

basically what's said already in this thread, but the podcast covered this lol