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Ancient Aliens.
It was about 2002. I was 20.
Yes the internet existed back then but it just wasn't so pervasive. As in I didn't own a computer and that wasn't uncommon.
I bought a second hand book called Ancient Astronauts (?) by a guy called Erik Von Daniken. He's absolutely the 80s / 90s version of Graham Hancock. All the same pseudoscience strategies to popularise a bullshit theory.
I think I could best be described as a troubled young man. I drank heavily, smoked weed every day, party drugs on the weekend. When I was 18 I had left my home and a deeply religious background. I guess I was looking for some kind of secret arcane understanding of the world that wasn't religion.
I honestly don't know what I would have said if someone had have asked me directly - do you really believe that extra terrestrial beings have visited the earth in it's distant history. Like I don't know if I really truly believed it. I sure loved thinking about it though.
I changed my position over a decade or so. I went to uni, got a degree, started my career in accounting. Completely un-related to science or history or anthropology but, I certainly realised that people who have spent a lifetime studying to become experts in their field really know what they're talking about. Like it's just stupid to suggest that "every real archaologist in the world is stupid and only I can explain earth's real history".
I still am a weird guy but I don't believe in weird stuff like that anymore.
Chariot of the Gods, by Erich von Däniken, was actually published in 1968. The nonsense has been going on for quite a while.