The Space X founder Elon Musk received a personal invite to Egypt over his unusual tweet. Photo / File, Adam Bichler
The Space X founder Elon Musk received a personal invite to Egypt over his unusual tweet. Photo / File, Adam Bichler
The Egyptian government has invited the billionaire founder of Space X to visit the country after he claimed the Great Pyramids were built by "aliens". In an effort to put this unusual rumour about the tombs to rest, once and for all, Elon Musk was sent an invitation to see the wonders of the ancient world for himself.
On Friday the businessman tweeted a message to his 37.5 million followers claiming "Aliens built the pyramids obv[iously]".
The tweet went viral gaining over half a million likes. However one person who did not share the enthusiasm for the remarkable claim was Egypt's minister for International Cooperation, Rania al-Mashat.
"I follow your work with a lot of admiration," responded Mashat, over the weekend. ""I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders."
The off-the-cuff tweet, typical of Musk, was taken very seriously.
"Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you," she signed off.
Following up his claim with a 2017 article from the BBC, Musk pointed to the fact that the Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest building made by humans for "three thousand, eight hundred years."
I follow your work with a lot of admiration. I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders. Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you 🚀. @elonmuskhttps://t.co/Xlr7EoPXX4
As a popular source of science fiction and pseudo-science, the unfounded "ancient-astronauts" theory claims these highly technical structures which correspond to the night sky were built buy extra-terrestrial visitors.
While there are certainly a lot of questions still about how the proto-historic civilisation made the wonders, few people sincerely believe that aliens lent a hand.
The biggest question is 'why the Egyptian government is sending open invites to celebrities online?'
Space race: Egyptian Hieroglyphs have inspired fringy theories and science fiction plots. Photo / Wikimedia Commons
For the time being, Egypt will welcome few visitors from this planet or others. The coronavirus pandemic has closed many air links into the country and cancelled holiday plans, with New Zealand's MFAT advising against travel to Egypt at this time.
Although the pyramids officially reopened to visitors on 1 July, Covid-19 has seen thousands of cancelled visits to the site.
2020 was to see the launch of Cairo's Grand Egyptian Museum, a new national museum of Egyptology which contains many of the country's reclaimed treasures of antiquity including the death mask of Tutankhamun.
At the beginning of the year, Cairo was one of the Lonely Planet's must see destinations for 2020 and the country was expecting 15 million tourists to arrive.
