All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens S07E05 Aliens And The Red Planet

[Man Narrating]
Nuclear annihilation-

This would have been
an absolutely devastating event.

Mysterious pyramids-

There are, apparently,
these unusual structures there.

And evidence of life
billions of years ago.

Researchers found objects...

that looked extremely similar
to microorganisms here on Earth.

[Narrator]
Throughout human history...

the planet Mars
has captured our imagination.

But is it simply because
of its striking red color...

and prominence in the night sky?

Or might there be a more profound
extraterrestrial connection?

[ Man ]
NASA knows there is life on Mars...

but for some reason,
it does not want that information out.

[Narrator]
Millions of people around the world...

believe we have been visited in the past
by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

Did ancient aliens
really help to shape our history?

And if so, might they have come
from the Red Planet of Mars?

[Narrator]
Cape Canaveral, Florida.

August 20, 1975.

[Man] Ignition. We have liftoff.

[Narrator] The United States
launches a Titan rocket...

carrying the Viking spacecraft.

Viking is embarking
on a 420-million-mile journey...

to one of the most prominent sights
in the night sky-

Mars.

If all goes well, in 11 months...

the unmanned probe will touch down
on the martian surface...

and search for evidence of life.

Mainstream scientists say Mars
is most likely a dead planet...

because of its incredible temperature
swings and high levels of solar radiation.

So why is NASA spending
a billion dollars to explore it?

[ Man ]
The night sky is an astounding thing.

To the naked eye, the Red Planet
could be seen with its special colors.

After all, it's the biggest thing
you see up there past the moon.

So it's been a special object
of fascination and reverence...

because religious systems often
were associated with the planets...

and the stars,
the sky in general.

Speculations about what's there.

Is intelligent life there?
Are the gods there?

That's gone on for a long time.

[ Man ♪2 ]
Our dream for life on Mars...

probably goes back
even to the ancient times...

when we were just doing
naked-eye observation.

It's the planet
that really stands out...

that we now know is very close to Earth
in terms of physical conditions.

Even though Venus is much more
like Earth in size and gravity...

it's a hellhole in the solar system.

But Mars-Mars is out there
within our grasp.

[Narrator] Among the first to record
this fiery red ball in the night sky...

were ancient Egyptian astronomers.

In 1534 B.C...

they placed Mars on humanity's
first chart of the known cosmos-

the Senenmut star map.

Two and a half centuries later...

the Egyptians painted the planet Mars
on the ceiling of the tomb of SETI I.

But while the Egyptians
honored Mars...

many other ancient cultures feared it...

because they associated the Red Planet
with death, destruction and war.

According to some anthropologists...

this is because the planet
glows red...

like the color of blood
spilled on the battlefield.

The association of the Red Planet
with the gods of war goes way back.

In ancient Babylon...

Mars was named after Nergal...

the god of fire, death and destruction...

essentially a god of war.

The Greeks named Mars after Ares,
their god of war.

The Romans, "Mars,"
that is their god of war.

[ Shouting, Screaming ]

[ Young ]
Rome was a warrior culture.

So this martial emphasis,
all connected to the Red Planet...

is accounting for the great armies
that conquered the known world.

A very successful story and very
much aligned with the planet Mars.

[ Shouting ]

[Narrator] In 42 B.C.,
the Roman forces of Augustus...

waged the Battle of Philippi
against Marcus Brutus...

as Augustus tried to avenge
the assassination of his adopted father...

Julius Caesar.

[ Man ] Augustus pledged
to the god of war, Mars...

that if he won this battle,
he would build a great temple for him.

[ Shouting ]

So he won the battle,
became Caesar Augustus...

one of the greatest
of the Roman emperors...

and he created the Temple of Mars.

And whenever Rome
would declare war...

the temple doors
would be thrown open.

[ Man ] It was called
a Temple to Mars the Avenger.

Famously, we say the "gates of war"
nowadays, right?

And it was the gates of Mars's temple
that were opened or closed...

depending upon whether
there was a war going on.

From India to Rome...

all of the ancient societies
had a reverence for Mars...

a great closeness to Mars.

Very important in their pantheon...

very important
in the imagination of the people...

that some kind of connection
with that red planet be maintained.

[Narrator] But while many
ancient societies felt a bond with Mars...

most did not identify it
as a planet like Earth.

The ancients thought planets
were as uninhabitable as the sun.

They saw them as wandering stars.

In fact, the word "planet" means
in Greek "wandering star," planeta.

You have the fixed stars,
the constellations...

but then you have these stars
wandering about.

They seem to follow the sun...

because they appear to move against
the background of the fixed stars...

the same way the sun does.

[Narrator] It wasn't until
the 17th and 18th centuries...

when astronomers finally
had telescopes powerful enough...

to make out features
on the surface of Mars...

that we started to imagine life
on the Red Planet as a real possibility.

By the 1860s, an Italian astronomer
by the name of Angelo Secchi...

thought he saw straight lines
crisscrossing the surface...

of our little ruddy buddy
up there, Mars.

And he called them "canali."

The idea was picked up by an American
astronomer by the name of Percival Lowell.

And Percival Lowell built his own
observatory down in Flagstaff, Arizona.

He spent a lot of time looking
through a telescope at Mars.

And he wrote books about this.
He was articulate. He was clever.

And he convinced a lot of the public and
some of the scientific establishment...

that there really was
a civilization on Mars...

busy digging up their planet because
they needed to irrigate their crops.

[Narrator] But why has Mars fascinated
humankind throughout history?

Is it simply due to the planet's
proximity to Earth...

and its striking red color
in the night sky?

Or is it possible, as ancient
astronaut theorists contend...

that Mars really was at one time
inhabited by intelligent life?

The Cydonia region of Mars...

July 20, 1976.

An alien spacecraft sent from Earth
touches down on the Red Planet.

[Man On Radio]
Nav is green for touchdown.

[Narrator] After a 10-month journey,
Viking 1 has reached its destination.

[Man On Radio]
Touchdown. We have touchdown.

[ Cheering ]

[Narrator] To NASA scientists,
it's a momentous event.

For the first time in its history...

the United States has a probe
on another planet.

Viking was the first spacecraft...

to actually attempt
a soft landing on Mars...

and give us an actual feel...

a taste for what the conditions
were on the surface.

We looked out at those pictures
of the surface...

and they looked so much
like the Pacific deserts here...

like Death Valley.

We all half expected to see
a miner and his burro...

come walking up
over the nearest rise.

[Narrator] Scientists knew that finding
definitive signs of life on Mars...

was a long shot.

But when the Viking lander performed
four tests on the martian soil...

looking for microbial life...

it returned surprising
and controversial results.

Dr. Gil Levin designed one of the tests
that the Viking probe performed.

[ Man ] Microorganisms breathe
just like you or I or anything else...

and then they give off
carbon dioxide.

So we got a tiny sample,
a thimbleful of the soil...

put into a little container.

It was monitored for seven days
continuously...

to see if there are any bubbles
forming in the tube.

Surprisingly, the tests...

came up positive for life...

by the criteria that had been
approved by NASA.

[Narrator] However,
the result of another important test...

one looking for organic matter on
the martian surface, was negative.

But Dr. Levin says the other test...

wasn't nearly as sensitive
as his experiment.

It needed three million bacteria
in a thimbleful of martian soil...

to find signs of life...

while Dr. Levin's test
only required 30 bacteria.

So there was a vast discrepancy
in the sensitivity of the two experiments.

And I immediately said, "Well,
you know, they both could be right."

We detected life, but maybe there
aren't enough bacteria per unit of soil...

for the organic analysis
instrument to find.

But NASA was very cautious...

and they opted to say
no organic matter.

There goes the ball game.
No life.

[Narrator] Dr. Levin has
fought NASA for almost 40 years...

on whether the Viking probe
found evidence of life on Mars.

If he was right about
the results of his test...

this would be the first proof
accepted by mainstream science...

that life exists outside
our planet.

But ancient astronaut theorists...

say an even more profound discovery
regarding the Red Planet...

has been uncovered
right here on Earth-

mysterious relics that may reveal
an actual visitation of beings...

from Mars.

[Narrator] Teotihuacan, Mexico.

In 2003, archaeologists in this ancient
city made a startling discovery.

A previously unknown tunnel...

lies 45 feet beneath the Temple
of the Feathered Serpent...

one of the most sacred pyramids
on the continent.

Working underground...

scientists methodically explored
the debris-filled tunnel...

using a robotic probe
with an infrared scanner.

After some 250 feet,
they reached a side cave.

The tail end of the tunnel-
terminus of the tunnel...

was loaded with, uh,
yellowish metallic-looking orbs...

apparently colored clay.

[ Man ]
The orbs are very interesting objects.

I've never seen anything like them in
any kind of other archaeological context.

On the inside, they are clay.

On the outside, they're coated
with some sort of gold flecks...

so they look like golden balls.

[Narrator] What purpose these
golden balls served is unknown.

But some archaeologists believe...

the cavern in which they were found
was a place of sacred ritual.

Like the clay balls...

the walls were also covered
in gold flecks.

So if the cavern was illuminated
by a torch during a ceremony...

it would have shimmered
with a thousand points of light...

resembling the cosmos.

[ Man ] These beautiful orbs
of yellow material...

strongly suggest that someone
was illustrating planets.

We do know that the Mayan calendar
is heavily calibrated...

to the orbital parameters
of the planets in our solar system...

specifically the inner planets.

[Narrator] The Red Planet's
connection to the Mayan calendar...

is portrayed in the Dresden Codex.

This rare book
from Mayan antiquity...

describes the calendar in relation
to Mars's movements across the sky.

The Dresden Codex is one of four
remaining books that the Maya wrote.

It is, in many regards,
an astronomical almanac.

There are many different
sections of the book...

that talk about different
astronomical phenomena.

One of them is the planet Mars.

There is an almanac
near the end of the book...

that breaks up days
into 10 groups of 78 days...

equaling 780 days...

which is the synodic period of Mars.

In other words, the time
in which it takes Mars...

to get back to the same place
on the horizon from a human perspective.

[Narrator] Scholars believe Mars played
an important role in the Maya astrology...

that's described in
the Dresden Codex.

Above that almanac is a sky band...

shown with various aspects
of celestial symbols...

we recognize out of hieroglyphs.

And hanging off of it
is this interesting dragon-like creature.

That dragon-like creature
is recognized as the face of Mars.

[Narrator]
Why did the planet Mars...

feature so prominently
in Maya astronomy?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest
the answer may be found...

in a little-known myth surrounding
the story of the feathered serpent god...

whose temple sits above the secret
tunnel that contains the golden orbs.

In the Mayan tradition, their great god,
often pictured as a feathered serpent...

was said to have been responsible
for the death of the god of Mars...

flayed him to death.

That's stripping off the skin.

It's a horrific ritual that was actually
done in other ways in that culture.

But the idea is
death by that means...

absorbs the power of the enemy.

But the name of their god also
is associated with the comets.

[ Barnhart ] There are certain
drawings that show comets...

that look like they have feathers
coming off the back.

That the flames
are depicted as feathers.

And some scholars believe
there's a connection...

between the look of the flying
feathered serpent and these comets.

[Narrator] Is it possible that the Mayan
myth of the feathered serpent...

describes an actual event-

a cataclysmic comet strike...

that destroyed
the martian atmosphere?

After studying the Red Planet
for decades...

mainstream scientists admit...

it's entirely possible this impact
occurred on Mars in the distant past.

[ Brandenburg ]
If you look at the martian landscape...

it's heavily cratered
compared to Earth.

Mars is next to the asteroid belt.

In fact, in some ways, it defines
the inner edge of the asteroid belt.

So Mars is constantly being hammered
by asteroids relative to Earth.

You always have the risk, and of
course, we've seen it here on Earth...

of having large asteroids
or comets hit the planet...

and cause tremendous
ecological damage.

The most famous example of that
is the Chicxulub asteroid...

that may or may not have been
the final nail in the dinosaurs' coffin.

And certainly that
could've happened at Mars...

because it doesn't have a large moon
to help shield the planet...

and possibly deflect asteroids.

[Narrator] In his book,
Life and Death on Mars...

physicist John Brandenburg
describes an impact crater...

in the Lyot region of Mars that's
more than 125 miles in diameter.

He believes this comet strike...

may have caused a profound disruption
to Mars's planetary system.

[ Brandenburg ]
It's a large double-ring crater.

Only this happened to a planet that
only gets half the sunlight of Earth...

and has one quarter
of its surface area.

So this would have been an absolutely
devastating, planet-climate-changing event.

There may have been
a very dramatic event...

where some other leftover piece
from the birth of the solar system...

some big asteroid,
sort of made a close fly-by...

sort of a fender-bender
collision with Mars...

and just stripped off
a lot of the atmosphere.

That's a very popular way to look at
what may have gone wrong with Mars.

[Narrator] But if Mars fostered life
long ago before losing its atmosphere...

could intelligent life,
and perhaps even civilization...

have existed and even flourished
on the Red Planet?

And if so, where would the inhabitants
have gone after the cataclysm?

Some say the answers to
these questions can be found...

in the origin story
of Earth's first civilization.

[Narrator] Mosul, Iraq. 1849.

During an excavation
of the biblical city of Nineveh...

a team led by the eminent British
archaeologist Austen Henry Layard...

discovered the ruins of the ancient
Assyrian library of Ashurbanipal.

Among the priceless relics
Layard recovered from the library...

is a series of cuneiform tablets
called the Enûma Eliš...

also known as
"The Seven Tablets of Creation."

[ Woman ] The tablets are,
essentially, text in columnar style...

no more than
eight to 10 inches tall...

uh, six to seven inches wide...

which were made of clay.

And while the clay was just
in the process of setting...

a stylus would be used
by a trained scribe...

to etch the stories of
our existence on this planet.

[Narrator] The Seven Tablets
of Creation tell a story...

about a group of gods
called the Anunnaki...

who came from heaven
to give birth to the human race.

But some ancient astronaut theorists
believe the original translations...

completed in the 19th century by some
of the best scholars of the day...

are flawed.

The professors,
certainly brilliant brains...

had no idea of space travel...

not to speak of extraterrestrials.

So they all, without exception...

made the translations in the belief...

that the stories had to do
with the almighty God.

In the old texts, we have,
for example, a word like "heaven."

For example,
Abraham was taken up to heaven...

and brought back to Earth.

So we should change the word
"heaven" into the word "space"...

so it makes sense.

[Narrator] Using what they say is a more
accurate translation of this origin myth...

ancient astronaut theorists
believe the tablets tell a story...

about the Anunnaki coming from space
to colonize both Mars and Earth.

According to some researchers...

the Sumerians had a number
of myths about Mars...

including that the Anunnaki...

used Mars as a supply base
to come here to Earth.

And subsequently the Anunnaki
then ruled the Earth...

as these extraterrestrial god-kings...

while humans began to create
the many civilizations on our planet.

And eventually the Anunnaki left
to go back to their own planet.

Or did they?

[Narrator] Is it possible that the Anunnaki
gods in our ancient origin stories...

were actually extraterrestrial beings...

and that they created the structures
that some believe they see on Mars?

And if so, did they
then journey to Earth?

[ Wilcock ] We see multiple references
in the cuneiform tablets...

that are allegedly the records
of the Anunnaki.

That, in fact,
they did originate from Mars.

That this is not a dead, isolated,
rocky world with nothing on it...

but there was life.

[Narrator]
But according to modern translation...

of Sumerian and Babylonian
origin myths...

a cataclysmic event
occurred on Mars...

an event that sounds
remarkably similar...

to ancient Mesoamerican myths...

about a feathered serpent
flaying the Red Planet.

[ CHILDRESS ] While the Anunnaki were
using Mars as a supply base for Earth...

at some point
there was a catastrophe.

There was some asteroid
or comet strike on Mars.

It ripped the atmosphere
from Mars.

It changed the climate.

And Mars couldn't be used as a habitable
space base for the Anunnaki anymore.

And so therefore, as we
explore Mars more and more...

we may find structures,
pyramids, ziggurats...

even giant statues
carved into rock on Mars...

which are really relics
of the Anunnaki...

and the time when
they occupied that planet.

[ Man ] Some have suggested that
Mars may have had an atmosphere...

and it got annihilated
about 65 million years ago.

What some have suggested is that
before this annihilation occurred...

that that civilization
was able to escape to Earth.

Now, according to this view,
we might, in fact, be the Martians.

[Narrator]
Some scientists say...

they've found powerful evidence
of this lost civilization.

They believe they may have
discovered a nuclear signature...

in the martian atmosphere that
matches Earth's after a nuclear test.

[ Brandenburg ]
During the height of the Cold War...

we were detonating very large
hydrogen bombs in the open air...

and it produces a lot of a gas
called Xenon 129.

On Mars, we've also found
a lot of Xenon 129.

The only process we know
to produce this Xenon 129...

is a nuclear explosion.

So apparently,
a very large nuclear weapon...

or weapons,
was detonated on Mars.

[ Wilcock ] If we look at
the Sumerian cuneiform tablets...

there are very clear references to a
variety of advanced forms of technology.

And it would seem pretty clear that
if we were able to get a nuclear bomb...

then why couldn't a civilization
that was superior to our own...

have developed the same technology?

[ Brandenburg ] There is a Sumerian myth
concerning the planet Mars...

having to do with some
colossal battle of the gods.

So there is elements in mythology
that look very much like...

descriptions of nuclear war.

[Narrator]
Signs of a possible nuclear blast...

myths of a comet
flaying the planet...

and a controversial NASA experiment
that may have found life.

Could these really be traces of
an ancient alien civilization on Mars?

And if so, is it possible
there are artificial structures...

buried beneath the surface
even to this day?

[Narrator]
The Ares Vallis region of Mars...

July 4, 1997.

NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft
lands on the Red Planet.

The first probe to reach
the martian surface since Viking...

Pathfinder will look for signs of water.

Since the Viking missions
in the 1970s...

mainstream scientists
have come to the conclusion...

that the planet may have once boasted
oceans full of water...

and complex life.

Billions of years ago, early
in the history of the solar system...

Mars probably looked...

in many ways,
the way the Earth did.

It did build up an atmosphere
and oceans.

The atmosphere probably
would have been equivalent...

to Earth's atmosphere at that time.

Life could well have formed
in the oceans.

[Narrator] One day after
Pathfinder touched down...

the Sojourner rover began
exploring the martian surface...

for signs of these
ancient life-forms...

using an X-ray spectrometer
and a high-powered camera.

What they discovered was...

yes, Mars, in certain places...

looks like the high desert on Earth.

And maybe there are areas which
do seem to be dried-out riverbeds.

Maybe there's water
under the surface.

The thing we've learned from the rovers
that's most interesting, I think...

is the fact that Mars
once had a wet past.

And if there was liquid water
on the surface of Mars long enough...

not just for a couple of weeks, a couple
of years, a couple of thousand years...

but for millions of years,
hundreds of millions of years...

maybe something
cooked up in that liquid.

Maybe life.

[Narrator] As the Pathfinder rover snapped
photographs of the martian surface...

it captured images of something
that puzzled some scientists.

A mountain range
they nicknamed the Twin Peaks.

In his book,
Life and Death on Mars...

Dr. John Brandenburg
says that because Mars...

has limited volcanic
and tectonic activity...

it's an open question as to how
these mountains were formed.

This interesting formation is
the tallest thing for hundreds of miles.

Most of the volcanic activity on Mars
is concentrated in the Tharsis region.

How many miles away
is that approximately?

Oh, it's, like 2,000 miles away,
to the west.

So this area is not known for
any volcanoes or anything like that?

No. And because we now know so
much more about the climate of Mars...

than we did 20 years ago.

It had an ocean.

It had long periods, apparently,
of liquid water flowing on its surface.

So all of this causes us to look
at everything on Mars with new eyes.

Mm-hmm.

And so we have these two interesting
objects. They're conjoined.

Not only are they the tallest things
for 200 miles...

but they're linked to each other.

And this reminds me
of what we have found on planet Earth.

Now, there's alignment.

Mm-hmm.

And what's interesting,
this is the Giza Plateau from Egypt.

And it is near Cairo...

which derives from
the name in Arabic Al-Qahirah...

which means
"Camp of Mars"- "Place of Mars."

- Very interesting.
- Fascinating.

- Huh.
- And we also have found out recently...

that, at one time, the Sphinx
was covered with red paint.

So, imagine we are looking at
the Giza complex, and the Sphinx...

and a million years
of erosion has happened.

Wouldn't these things all look
kind of rounded and mounded like this?

It's conjectural.

Now I notice over here,
because it's the Giza Plateau...

we have the Sphinx.

Has something similar
been discovered on Mars...

specifically around
the Twin Peaks area?

[ Brandenburg ] Well, we have this
strange object which is nearby...

and we see that from space
and also in the picture.

And look at this.
At this alignment.

Here is the Sphinx on Earth.
Here is the pyramid.

Here is this object. And there is
what looks like a mound of stuff.

Who knows if it is
degraded archeology?

We must look at everything on Mars
now with new eyes.

In fact, when the Sphinx was
originally found in modern times...

it was buried up to its neck in rubble
and had to be excavated.

[ TSOUKALOS ] So something similar
could be going on right here.

[ Brandenburg ] There could be a much
larger structure buried beneath.

[Narrator]
Could the Twin Peaks be evidence...

that an ancient civilization
may have once existed on Mars?

A civilization whose structures
appear to resemble those on Earth?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes...

and that evidence
for this startling conclusion...

has been accumulating
for four decades.

When Viking orbiters originally started
taking pictures of the surface of Mars...

they took pictures of very intriguing
features on the plain of Cydonia.

On July 25, 1976,
they took a picture of something...

that looked for all the world
like a human face.

The whole thing kind of blew up...

when a NASA project scientist named
Toby Owen put a magnifying glass...

over a frame number
named "35A72"...

and said, "Hey, look at this."

NASA actually held a press conference
the next day...

where Owen and Gerald Soffen, who was
the chief Viking project scientist said...

you know, isn't it peculiar what
tricks of light and shadow can do?

The whole thing kind of went away a couple
hours later when we took another picture.

The problem with that is
that a couple hours later...

the Viking orbiter was nowhere
near Cydonia, and it was dark.

So there's no way that picture
could have ever existed.

[Narrator] Some believe they found not only
a human face carved into martian rock...

but also a pyramid, a cliff.

In fact, an entire city buried by
thousands of years of sand and soil.

By the late 1980s...

one researcher had even discovered
what he thought...

were mathematical relationships
among the features of Cydonia.

A cartographer
and satellite imagery expert...

from the Defense Mapping Agency
named Erol Torun...

took a look at the pyramid
and concluded that it was what he called...

the Rosetta stone of Mars.

He found a bunch of
mathematical relationships...

that pointed to other objects in the area
that he thought were artificial-looking.

They included the face,
an object called the cliff...

which is a straight line that goes on
for hundreds of meters...

a rounded mound called the tholos...

which appears to have a pathway
that goes up to the top.

[Narrator] More than 20 years
after the Viking mission...

NASA rephotographed
the Cydonia region in 1998...

and again in 2001.

The face no longer looked human...

but some scientists believe...

that was because of when and how
NASA took the newer pictures.

[ Brandenburg ]
They shot it from the side.

They shot it at morning.

It was as much a different viewing
geometry and lighting geometry...

as possible from
the original pictures.

Based on that evidence,
the face on Mars...

evidence of past climate on Mars...

a past ocean...

I have concluded that Mars
was apparently the home...

of a civilization in the past.

[Narrator] Is it possible
that an alien civilization...

existed on Mars in the distant past...

and built the structures that recent
martian probes have photographed?

If so, does the government know
more than it's telling us...

about life and death
on the Red Planet?

[Narrator] Washington, D.C.,
August 7, 1996.

On the South Lawn
of the White House...

30 years after NASA announced
the Viking mission...

had not found evidence
of life on Mars...

President Bill Clinton
held an historic press conference...

to announce some momentous news-

microbial life may exist
on the Red Planet after all.

Scientists had found
what they believed...

to be fossilized remains
on a martian meteorite...

that crashed to Earth
12, 000 years ago.

It must be confirmed
by other scientists...

but clearly the fact that something
of this magnitude is being explored...

is another vindication
of America's space program...

and our continuing support for it,
even in these tough financial times.

[ Frisbee ] There was enormous
excitement over this discovery.

Based on the chemical composition
of the meteorite...

we could tell that it was from Mars.

Inside the rock, researchers
found different chemicals...

and, in particular, different
physical shapes of objects...

that looked extremely similar
to microorganisms here on Earth.

[Narrator] Soon after
the president's press conference...

scientists began to backpedal...

on whether the meteorite
actually showed signs of life.

They said the original team of experts
may have been wrong.

The image certainly looks like
some kind of a microorganism...

but the opponents said the microorganism
remains are too small...

to have D.N.A. to be inside it.

And therefore,
it can't be a fossil.

Since then, microorganisms
have been found that small...

which have D.N.A. in them.

But it has not been resolved.

[Narrator] But given the controversy
surrounding the possibility...

that life may have been discovered
on Mars...

starting with the Viking mission
of the 1970s...

and continuing to the present day-

[Man On Radio] Liftoff.

Some scientists say NASA
almost seems to be avoiding the issue.

The space agency has never
retried Gil Levin's test...

for signs of life
on the Red Planet.

It is very puzzling as to why...

NASA has refused to send
life-detection experiments back to Mars.

My experiment discovered
the most remarkable thing...

yet known about Mars.

That there is something
highly reactive in the soil-

chemical or biological.

But we really should find out
what it is.

It is startling that NASA
has made no attempt...

to determine that issue.

I truly think NASA knows
there is life on Mars...

but for some reason
unbeknownst to me...

it does not want
that information out.

[Narrator] Has NASA found
definitive signs of life on Mars...

that they're intentionally
keeping from the public?

And if so,
have they found evidence...

that an advanced civilization
once lived on the Red Planet?

Some ancient astronaut theorists
believe they have...

and as evidence, point to a report
commissioned by NASA in 1960...

that offers advice
for how to reveal the news...

if the American space program should
ever find proof of extraterrestrial life.

[ BARA ] The so-called
Brookings Report essentially said...

that in your travels
throughout the solar system...

there is a distinct possibility
that you will discover artifacts...

that you will actually discover evidence
of an ancient alien presence...

on Venus, on the moon
or on Mars.

And the implications of such
an announcement, if it were made...

would be potentially
devastating to the human race.

It could be catastrophic.

In fact,
it used the word "disintegrate."

[ BAUVAL ] I would imagine
that it would be something...

that would be kept secret
for a while.

I don't think it's a bunch of men sitting
in a room and smoking cigarettes...

and saying,
"We're gonna keep this secret."

But it is a responsibility.

And I think that they would
certainly be very, very careful...

as to how to
let out this knowledge.

[Narrator] Is it possible
that not just microbial life...

but also intelligent beings
once called the Red Planet their home?

And if so,
what would that mean...

for the existence of life
elsewhere in the cosmos?

If life used to exist on Mars...

particularly if it formed
independently of Earth life...

life in the universe
is all over the place.

That means that of the billions
of planets discovered now...

similar to Earth
through our universe...

many of them
would have life on them.

And if there is life different
from life on Earth that has evolved...

there would be every reason
to suspect such evolution...

would have gone on
on countless other earths...

and that there would be
intelligent life out there as well.

We want there to be life on Mars.

We want there to be life
somewhere beyond here.

We want that transcendent
connection to the heavens.

We don't want it to be invaders, but we
don't want to be alone in the universe.

[Narrator]
Are tales of life on Mars...

found in cultures across the world...

simply mythology?

Or might Martians really have
visited Earth in the distant past...

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

If so, could there be evidence waiting
to be discovered on the Red Planet?

Perhaps with
further missions to Mars...

we'll find that not only was it home to
alien beings thousands of years ago...

but it still is...

today.