Whenever there is contact between two groups of people that have a wide difference in technology, there is a strong likelihood the primitive people will consider the people with the higher technology to have “God Like” powers.
There is evidence of this God Syndrome that comes out of the depths of New Guinea during World War II. During 1942 and 1943, the Allied Armies were fighting the Japanese Army across the Owen Stanley mountain range where there were no roads, only mountain trails. The United States Army Air Corps built several dirt airfields in the mountains to deliver supplies to our troops.
The native tribes that lived near the airfields were primitive Stone Age headhunters. In order to placate the natives, the Army Air Corps ground crews gave them food and simple tools. These airfields were abandoned once the Japanese Army had been defeated.
Several years later, research teams returned to the Owen Stanley Mountains and they visited one of the abandoned airfields. They found the natives had constructed a replica of a transport plane where they were praying for the return of the “Gods” who had given them food and gifts.
I have incorporated this theme into my novel and even included the opposite reaction, where the Atlantis survivors were given “The Demon Treatment.”