In this paper, we prove that the rings of quaternions and of octonions over an arbitrary real closed field are algebraically closed in the sense of Eilenberg and Niven. As a consequence, we infer that some reasonable algebraic closure conditions, including the one of Eilenberg and Niven, are equivalent on the class of centrally finite alternative division rings. Furthermore, we classify centrally finite alternative division rings satisfying such equivalent algebraic closure conditions: up to isomorphism, they are either the algebraically closed fields or the rings of quaternions over real closed fields or the rings of octonions over real closed fields.