People who want to keep their razor blades sharp?
http://www.adam.com.au/bstett/PaPyramids13.htm
If the labour intensive methods employed by the Egyptians were used, then the cost would approach US$18 billion. It would be a brave government indeed that would suggest pyramid building as a cure for unemployment.
The paranormal gets my goat, too. Though arguably all that clowning around from the 1850s through the 1970s is what has generated the interest in Egyptian history that makes it so well-researched today.
When I was eight or so I remember visiting my Gramps' house with Daniken's "documentary" based on "Chariot of the Frauds" playing in the background. During my writing "career", I made "friends" with a successful Western writer who planned to venture into fantasy with a conspiracy theory novel based around the Bhagavad Gita encoding secret wisdom buried under the Pyramid at Giza.
Worse, my blank stare at such nonsense (I doubt he believed his premise, but hoped to ride off DaVinci code) helped earn my reputation with him as being a dim-wit.
But, seriously, just as you start to think you've seen everything, you run into educated, prominent people who believe the most bizarre notions. I ran into another writer, a successful romance novelist, who after making jokes about weirdos she met on booksigning tours turned around and expressed some equally weird idea about aliens, pyramids, and Chinese medicine.
PS. Chinese medicine is another fraud. All that talk about Chinese medicine being "holistic" and about the "entire person" is equivalent to an American believing Europe to be a land of enlightened, tolerant bliss where everybody is accepted for who they are. A feature of Chinese hospitals are long lines stretching from the doctor's office, five minute interviews, and a prescription for a mass-produced pill from the pharmacy.*
* Actually, in my case, a foot rash, the medicine actually made the rash go away.
But, we have a huge entertainment industry centered around the hope for the existence of better, more enlightened worlds, whether this be Pyramids built by eccentric space aliens or disheveled Chinese peasants who can cure cancer just by being nice to you.
-Tim
