Well, I for one AM an ancient astronaut enthusiast. The concept fills in all sorts of holes that contemporary archaeology can't seem to reconcile. We have so much of this world left to discover from the oceans to the Amazon jungle. We are making new discoveries every day and in the past 10 years we have discovered scientific evidence that homo sapiens lived along with neanderthals, that there were civilizations 100,000 of years before Mesopotamia. We have found stone tools 3 million years old: [smithsonianmag.com]
We can no longer say the word "impossible". Our previous origin and evolution theories are being challenged and it is only a matter of time before we discover more links between our development and "outside" interventions. Call them alien's, gods, extra-terrestrials, extra dimensional beings, etc.

This is why I have difficulty with philosophers. I read the article twice, I saw no mention of even the merest possibility of evidence on Earth. I am not proposing that there is an actual ancient astronauts story. However:

(1) Paint a line, about 600 miles wide. between Bombay and Oslo. West of that line is traditionally Animist. East of that line is traditionally non-theistic, philosophical, Buddhist, ancestor worship. Within that line, though, we see Human-ish deities acting in very human ways. The center of that line, Sumaria/Mesopotamia, is where the early technological leaps were made, the wheel, the animal-drawn wagon, alphabetic writing, etc. Does that suggest anything?

(2) An afternoon spent watching non-shopping basic cable will show numerous examples of idols looking like people in space suits, and things that look like aircraft which, when scaled up and tested, are actually capable of flight.

Let's push the research we can actually do before talking about Can't or Won't!