Sungods in Exile is a book published pseudonymously in 1978 under the name David Agamon, allegedly from the notes of a Dr Karyl Robin-Evans whom Agamon claimed was a professor at Oxford University.

The book tells of a 1947 expedition to Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

 in which the scientist visited Bayan Har Mountains

Bayan Har Mountains

The Bayan Har mountains are a mountain range in south-central part of Qinghai Province and the northwestern part of Sichuan Province in the People's Republic of China. It can be viewed as one of the branches of the Kunlun Mountains...

. Robin-Evans claimed that the Dropa tribe was of extraterrestrial origin and had crashed on Earth. The book featured photographs of the tribe and the alleged Dropa stones which contained messages from the extraterrestrials.

Although researchers were unable to locate Dr Karyl Robin-Evans, the Dropa stones appeared regularly in the UFO subculture and author Hartwig Hausdorf popularized the story in his 1998 book The Chinese Roswell. Later variations of the story added a fictional Professor Tsum Um Nui of the Beijing Academy for Ancient Studies who decoded the language of the stones.

In 1995, British author David Gamon admitted in Fortean Times

Fortean Times

Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing and then I Feel Good Publishing , it is now published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. As of December 2010, its circulation was approximately 18,000...

that he had written Sungods in Exile as a hoax under the Agamon pseudonym, inspired by the popularity of Erich von Däniken

Erich von Däniken

Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...

 and his books on ancient astronauts. The source material for the story was taken from a 1960s magazine article in Russian Digest, and a 1973 French science fiction novel Les disques de Biem-Kara, (The discs of Biem-Kara), by Daniel Piret.