Ancient Astronauts and Panspermia

First, let me make sure I got my definitions right.

Ancient Astronauts is about extraterrestrials having influenced the development of terrestrial life — particularly humankind — in the ancient past, often giving rise to the various myths about gods who inhabit the heavens.

Panspermia is about all life on Earth being of extraterrestrial origin. Sometimes this takes the simple, currently-deemed-most-realistic form of microbial life being carried to Earth by meteorites and/or comets; however, more popular in fiction is the Alientelligent Design version, where an extraterrestrial species of sufficient technological advancement (or perhaps even outright supernatural power) planted the seeds of life on Earth, and either left it on its own afterwards, or continued to "guide" the evolution of resulting lifeforms in a behind-the-scenes Gambit Roulette.

Now, the question that came to my mind is this: Is every example of Alientelligent Design-type Panspermia also an example of Ancient Astronauts, even if the aliens' only involvement was the original seeding of life on the planet?

edited 28th Jan '16 2:29:30 PM by MarqFJA

That does not seem to follow. Ancient Astronauts has nothing to do with seeding or creating life; rather, it is about those visitors influencing human mythology by posing as or being mistaken for gods or heroes or whatever.

• Aliens visit Earth, seed the planet with life: Panspermia.
• Aliens visit Earth, get taken for gods, inspire human mythology: Ancient Astronauts.

It is of course possible for them to coexist, but it is not automatic.

edited 28th Jan '16 2:51:03 PM by Fighteer

Well, my question was partly because Ancient Astronauts is mentioned in Panspermia's Alientelligent Design entry.

That said, does it have to involve inspiring at least some elements of human myths to count as Ancient Astronauts? My impression is that covertly influencing the course of human history/evolution without actually being noticed by humanity would suffice.

On another note, if the human race has vague Genetic Memory of them that contributed to some of their mythology and broad sociocultural tendencies, would that count for Ancient Astronauts?

edited 29th Jan '16 5:23:00 AM by MarqFJA

All of that would fall under "leaving evidence behind of their presence", which seems to be the core trope.

By "core trope", do you mean that we have yet another Missing Supertrope Syndrome case?