Speaking of Ancient Aliens - I did have also read a book by Erich von Däniken when I was younger (9 or so) although I had realised that was nonsense by my stage of hunting maps for alignments it probably influenced me to think about it.
I used to read his books as exercises in critical analysis—how does he get from the data to these conclusions, and what does he ignore that doesn't fit his conclusions? Then I discovered that, as stated by Carl Sagan, von Däniken also relies on factual errors in his arguments.
5. (Miller's Law) Three points determine a curve.
6. (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.
https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html