Original subtitles

Tom is our insect wrangler,

who's gonna help us set up a demonstration

on one of the coolest animals on Earth, the bombardier beetle.

This animal is a chemical warrior.

This guy has a couple of chemicals in his abdomen,

and it's able to shoot out boiling hot streams

of a really toxic liquid

that have the same sort of mix as rocket fuel.

-GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Oh, wow. -PETER WARD: There it goes.

TSOUKALOS: How cool.

You can actually see the squirts, the mist, the vapor.

What was the evolutionary process of this beetle

for that defense mechanism to even exist?

It defies evolution.

*

NARRATOR: Houston, Texas.

December 11, 1992.

In one of the strangest alien abduction cases on record,

eight different people report being taken

onto an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Even stranger is the fact that the same eight people

were allegedly abducted again three days later.

Derrel Sims, a former U.S. intelligence operative,

is the first to investigate these separate cases

as a single event.

DERREL SIMS: All these people came back

with the same identical information.

Exact same story, same location, same entity, same everything.

I was just absolutely amazed

at the clarity of their information.

These people were kept separate and apart from each other.

No one had any knowledge of any mass abduction.

NARRATOR: Each of the self-described abductees

reported being taken aboard a small craft

that transported them to a much larger spaceship.

And once inside,

they encountered other abductees that were not human.

They were all led out through this massive hallway.

It looked like a museum.

They seem to have collected species, animals, people,

all kinds of things.

This room that they found themselves in

that was straight out of a science fiction movie

with these glass tubes and glass cases.

And according to their eyewitness reports,

in these glass cases,

they saw creatures that they had never seen before,

but also creatures from planet Earth.

When we look out into the cosmos we have to ask,

is it filled with beings of different kinds

of-of types of animalistic characteristics?

Bird-headed beings, other animal-headed beings

that exist within the cosmos.

DAVID CHILDRESS: Thousands of abductees

have given us information

on a wide variety of extraterrestrial beings

in all kinds of shapes and forms.

And so we would think, really,

that in this universe there are extraterrestrial entities

of every form, size and shape that we can possibly imagine.

Insectoid, octopoid,

looking like giant cats or birds.

Is there some actual genetic connection

with some of these extraterrestrials

being of a lineage from animals that we have here on Earth?

NARRATOR: Could the accounts given by the eight people

who were abducted in Houston,

and numerous other reports of encounters

with animal-like aliens,

point to the possibility that humans

are not the only life-form on Earth

to have been captured and examined

by extraterrestrial visitors?

In 1859, biologist Charles Darwin

introduced the world to the theory of evolution,

with his book, On the Origin of Species.

In it, he proposed that gradual multi-generational changes,

occurring due to natural selection,

had resulted in the modification of all existing species.

While scientists agree that this process does, in fact,

take place to some extent, in recent years,

evidence has been presented that suggests evolution alone

cannot account for all of the species present

in the animal kingdom.

WARD: There's one species of dog,

but look at it-- from Chihuahuas to St. Bernards,

to bulldogs, everything in between.

And all that has happened in less than a few thousand years.

This is crazy.

This is like going from this generalized wolf-like creature

into this huge variety of dogs.

JOHN BRANDENBURG: There are fossils of giraffes

with short necks,

and then we have the present.

And there's no intermediate form.

If you suddenly give a giraffe

a much longer neck than it had before,

a lot of things have to change.

Its blood pressure regulation has to change.

It's got to have a different heart.

It's going to be eating different things

with a long neck.

All of that software for the animal has to be rewritten.

And you're telling me this all happens overnight.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists propose

that if some,

or possibly all of the life-forms on Earth

cannot be explained

as the product of natural selection, or evolution,

it may, in fact, offer proof,

of not only intelligent design,

but also what they believe to be extraterrestrial intervention.

And they say the overwhelming evidence can be found

by examining the practices of ancient cultures

all over the world.

Manchester, England.

September 2015.

Researchers from the University of Manchester

use the latest medical imaging technology

to reveal the first look inside

more than 800 mummies from ancient Egypt.

The deceased are not humans,

but crocodiles,

cats, baboons, birds,

and numerous other species painstakingly preserved

for thousands of years.

When we think of mummies,

we tend to think of people being mummified.

But what we actually find out is that Egyptians

also mummified a tremendous amount

of cats, dogs, alligators--

all sorts of things were being mummified in ancient Egypt.

NARRATOR: The mummification of animals was so pervasive

that in 2015, archaeologists discovered

that a catacomb underneath a temple dedicated to Anubis,

the canine god of the dead,

held a staggering eight million dog mummies.

The dogs were thought to have

a direct connection with Anubis, the lord of the underworld.

That was the jackal-headed god,

so when a dog died, it could carry a message.

NARRATOR: It is believed that as many as 70 million animals

were mummified at sites like this throughout Egypt,

which is roughly the same as the number of human mummies

that have been found.

70 million is just the ones that have been found, right?

Some presumably have gotten lost, have decomposed.

So the fact that there's that many

means that this practice was widespread,

and also that it continued over a long period of time.

This went on for the whole 2,000 to 3,000 years

of ancient Egyptian civilization.

NARRATOR: But why did the ancient Egyptians

mummify their animals?

RAMY ROMANY: In Saqqara,

you see thousands of birds mummified

right next to each other, thousands of them.

The reason that huge amount of animals were mummified in Egypt

was because they believed those animals were sacred.

They are the equivalent

to lighting a candle when you go to a church.

You bring a mummified animal that the god would employ.

Historians believe that the reason for this

is that Egyptian people originally were animist.

In other words, they saw the entire universe

around them as filled with life.

And they attributed deity, divinity,

to the animals in their universe.

NARRATOR: But it wasn't just in ancient Egypt

where animals were so highly revered.

Similar practices of animal worship

can be found among the ancient Sumerians,

the Maya and Aztec of Mesoamerica,

and the Australian aborigines, just to name a few.

And in each of these separate cultures can be found stories

in which animals are involved in encounters with alien visitors,

otherwise known as gods.

Animals have always played

a very interesting role in the Bible.

One of the races of angels themselves

who was witnessed by Ezekiel in his famous chariot vision

are in Hebrew called chayot,

which translates as "animals."

And indeed, they had the faces of animals.

Lions, eagles and the like.

So, in all these parallel cultures,

we have a crossover of-of spiritual beings,

and extraterrestrial beings, manifesting in these forms

that's repeated over and over again.

Could it be that these were the same extraterrestrial beings

that were visiting each of these cultures at different times?

NARRATOR: If cultures all across the world revered animals

as having a connection with gods that came down from the sky,

could this be evidence that certain Earthly creatures

possess a link to extraterrestrial entities?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest

that some of the planet's non-human life forms

may even be directly related

to mankind's ancient alien ancestors.

NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt.

Within the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut,

one of the few female pharaohs of ancient Egypt,

is a carving of the bull god Apis,

depicted with a solar disk above his head.

Although he is little known today

among the pantheon of Egyptian deities,

historians suggest Apis was the very first god

to be worshipped in Egypt, emerging around 3,000 B.C.

He was considered to be the creator of humanity.

Animals were so important in ancient Egypt

that one of the creation myths starts with a bull.

The bull that comes out of nowhere,

the bull that comes out of the sky,

that appears in the middle of the endless ocean,

is the one that creates humanity.

That bull is the father of all humanity.

In many, many mythic traditions, it is an animal

or sometimes a council of animal that creates people.

And different cultures have different animals

that played very, very formative roles.

Sometimes this is a particular ancestor to humankind.

Sometimes it's an ancestor to a particular tribe

or a group of people.

We find this very commonly

in the Northwest coast Native American groups,

where you'd have different clans

that would have different lineages

sacredly founded by different animals.

The Wolf Clan, the Bear Clan, the Frog Clan.

And you can even see this reflected

in their totem poles of those groups.

(woman speaking in native language over P.A.)

NARRATOR: Many ancient cultures throughout the world

not only had stories that humans were created by animals,

but also depicted their gods with animal features.

JONATHAN YOUNG: Ganesh, the Indian Hindu god,

the one with the head of an elephant,

could intervene and solve problems for the faithful.

The monkey god Hanuman was a bit of a trickster,

but he could be seen interacting

with human beings, walking among us.

In Aboriginal stories from Australia,

the creator of the universe was a rainbow serpent.

Many of the animal gods were described

as descending from the sky.

The Egyptians believed in Thoth, a god with a head of an ibis

who taught science, philosophy and magic.

Khepri had the head of a scarab

and played a major role in the creation of the world.

ROMANY: Most of the gods were depicted

with the animal head and a human body because

ancient Egyptians knew that the head had the wisdom.

NARRATOR: If the ancient stories of flying monkeys

and animal-headed gods are literal accounts

of what our ancestors witnessed,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,

is this evidence that humankind was created

by otherworldly beings that are genetically connected

to animals that still roam the Earth today?

Or did the extraterrestrials disguise themselves as animals

to appear more friendly and acceptable to early humans?

HENRY: We could be dealing with extraterrestrials,

extraterrestrials who chose to incarnate

as cats and dogs and other animals,

in order to guide humans,

and also to disguise their true form,

to manifest on Earth in a form

that would be perhaps more palatable to humans.

Zeus is one of our most well-known gods

from the Greek Pantheon.

And we have Zeus transforming himself into a bull,

which is part of the story

of how the people of Europe were formed or Europa.

We have Zeus transforming himself into a swan,

Zeus and Leda.

In the traditions of West Africa,

the voudon traditions, Papa Legba as he's sometimes called,

very often appears as a variety of animals.

In the Native American Pawnee culture,

the sky god, the creator god, the Great Spirit,

would never come in direct form,

but use animal forms, many different animals,

as a way to communicate with the humans.

NARRATOR: In the Pawnee tradition,

young men entering adulthood would go out on vision quests.

They would isolate themselves from the tribe,

perform ritual prayers and fast.

Through this process, they would enter a trancelike state

in hopes of communicating with these intelligent animals.

TOK THOMPSON: A bear might come up to you and say hi.

It might be a caterpillar, it might be a squirrel.

But at some point, something interacted with you.

Some animal actually interacted with you.

And that was held to be very, very profound

in terms of your own identity,

in terms of your own spirituality.

So the idea is that each animal, therefore,

is connected to their own sort of animal spirit.

So that a singular caribou is in part in touch

with this sort of larger caribou spirit.

So, in terms of the vision quest,

you might figure out who your guardian spirit was.

NARRATOR: Similarly, in India,

the prophets known as "rishis" would describe animal encounters

after extensive meditation.

-(singing in native language) -And in Mesoamerican

and Pueblan cultures,

shamans would use powerful psychedelic plants

to not only communicate with otherworldly creatures,

but in some cases, transform into the animals themselves.

In all these traditions,

the encounters are taken very seriously.

These animal energies are very real and tangible,

and the wisdom is extremely valuable.

NARRATOR: Some ancient astronaut theorists propose

that while extraterrestrials may disguise themselves as animals,

they may also have a real physiological relation

to certain creatures on Earth.

And they suggest

that those creatures were put on this planet

-with a very specific purpose... -(growling)

-(bird screeching) -...one that is vital

to the advancement of humanity.

NARRATOR: Thousand Oaks, California.

May 2017.

Ancient Astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos

visits the Ventura BioCenter

to examine one of Earth's most curious creatures--

the bombardier beetle.

This little bug is a marvel of evolution,

or, some say, intelligent design.

-Peter, good to see you. -Giorgio, nice to see you.

-How are you? All right. -And this is Tom.

-Hi. Nice to meet you. -Hello, Tom.

Pleasure. How's it going?

Tom is our insect wrangler,

who's going to help us set up a demonstration

on one of the coolest animals on Earth, the bombardier beetle.

TSOUKALOS: That's fantastic, because about a year ago,

Erich von Daniken gave me his latest manuscript

for his newest book.

And we all know that there are these multiple creatures

that seem to defy Darwinian evolution.

And one creature that jumped out at me

that I hadn't heard before was this beetle right here.

This beetle is fascinating from an evolutionary point of view.

And in fact, it's been used by many people

to suggest that evolution doesn't work at all, and

the reason is the enormous complexity of this thing.

This animal is a chemical warrior.

It's able to shoot out boiling hot streams

of a really toxic liquid

that had the same sort of mix as rocket fuel.

-TSOUKALOS: That's amazing. -WARD: And it can shoot

over 500 of these bursts per second.

-Wow. -But the process happens

so fast, it's almost in the blink of an eye.

So we have a high-speed camera over here

that can shoot about 2,500 frames per second,

and with that camera, we can slow down this process,

and in seeing that process,

we could work out the exact sequence of events.

So let's set this up with Tom and watch this take place.

Let's do it.

Okay, guys, so what I've got is

some non-toxic, very mild adhesive.

And I'm just going to touch it to the beetle's back,

and that will suspend him in the air.

We're gonna give him a little bit

of stimulation with these forceps.

It simulates the predator and makes him feel defensive.

Oop, there it was.

NARRATOR: While it is almost imperceptible to the naked eye,

with the high-speed camera,

the beetle can be seen blasting rapid-fire streams

of deadly chemicals directed at any would-be predator.

-TSOUKALOS: Oh, wow! How cool! -PETER: There it goes!

-Projected it in that particular direction. -Right.

TSOUKALOS: You can actually see the squirts,

the mist, the vapor!

The appendage which allows this to happen can rotate.

It can move back and forth, so it can shoot this

-in lots of different directions. -TSOUKALOS: Yeah.

This is really awesome.

NARRATOR: Dr. Ward has set up

-a computer-generated... -So here he is.

...model of the bombardier beetle

to show Giorgio the incredible process

that is taking place inside its body.

WARD: You've got

the organs that produce the chemicals, and two separate

chemicals are being made.

We've got this hydroquinone,

which is actually a makeup of the organics of the creature.

It's part of his external skeleton.

The second one is a chemical called hydrogen peroxide,

which is rocket fuel.

Now if we combine these two together in a chamber,

what we can do is build this chemical material

that's gonna get really hot and blast out the back of the bug.

So one of the coolest things about this whole system,

it's got a one-way valve.

Once this chemical concoction

that's getting really hot starts reacting,

the last thing you want is having it blast back

into the interior of your body.

So it can direct it,

squirts out this super hot, super toxic material

into that predator's face.

TSOUKALOS: And one has to wonder,

what was the evolutionary process of this beetle

for that defense mechanism to even exist?

WARD: Yeah, that's the critical question.

If evolution takes place step-by-step,

what's the intermediate?

How does this thing not blow itself up

as it's experimenting through time?

How do you go from just a garden-variety beetle

-to a super beetle like this? -Mm-hmm.

TSOUKALOS: One has to wonder

if this creature perhaps

was brought here in its finished form,

or at least the genetic material for this creature

came here as a finished product.

NARRATOR: Could the physiology

of the bombardier beetle be proof

that there are animals on this planet

of extraterrestrial design?

The gases that the beetle emits can burn the skin of humans,

and if the mechanism it holds within its body

was constructed on a larger scale,

it could be a very deadly chemical weapon.

Is it possible that aliens placed certain creatures

on this planet so that humans could learn from them

and recreate their abilities?

KIRSTEN FISHER: Throughout the animal kingdom

there are other organisms that also have tremendous abilities.

The dung beetle

is able to pull upwards of 1,100 times its body weight.

The mantis shrimp, they can see things like

polarized light,

UV, infrared light.

Squids and octopus

basically change their-their body coloration,

and the patterns, and even the texture of their skin

as they move across different substrates,

which is just incredible.

NARRATOR: Many advances in human technology

have been inspired by the animal world,

an approach scientists refer to as biomimicry.

Airplanes were designed

to imitate the winged flight of birds.

(bird screeches)

Military camouflage evolved

out of observing the way squid, octopuses,

and chameleons take on the appearance

of their surroundings.

Sonar used in the navigation

of submarines and ships is a skill taken from dolphins,

whales, and bats, who emit sound waves

to locate both prey and predators.

WARD: We have stolen

so many attributes of animals in the past

for our own technologies.

We're taking on this world-view of what an animal can do,

and using technology to rebuild it.

WILCOCK: We're taking clues from the natural world

in order to develop technologies.

This may be part

of a greater hidden extraterrestrial initiative,

perhaps for a seeding of a technological

and human revolution that we're just starting to see now.

NARRATOR: Could extraterrestrial beings

have intended for mankind to study the other animals of Earth

in order to advance our technology,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

And if so, is this the continuation of an experiment

that they have been conducting with different life-forms

on Earth for thousands of years?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining the recent discovery

that humans have not always been

the most intelligent animal on the planet.

NARRATOR: Barcelona, Spain.

July 2016.

Researchers studying the genome of indigenous Australians

living in the Andaman Islands

uncover a mysterious strand of DNA

dating back 40,000 years--

a strand that is not human.

Although they do not know what species this DNA belongs to,

they theorize that if it co-mingled

with the DNA of humans,

it would likely add one more name to the ever-growing list

of intelligent hominid species

that lived alongside our ancestors.

To date, archaeologists have discovered

that at least eight other intelligent human-like species

have existed on Earth.

One of the surprises of really the last decade

has been that now that we can break into bones

and extract ancient DNA,

is-- surprise, surprise--

that we seem to have been interbreeding

with creatures that are not of our species.

We've got pieces of DNA,

these foreign, if you will, non-Homo sapiens DNA within us.

HENRY: This discovery adds

to the ever-growing list of hominid species

that were roaming around the planet in the ancient world.

And it brings up the question:

Just how many other intelligent species were there out there,

that humans, as we know them, were interacting with?

Perhaps we're gonna discover fossils of other versions

of humanity that were mated, or hybrid versions

of other animals that we have yet to discover.

NARRATOR: How is it that there were so many

other intelligent human-like species

that inhabited the planet

thousands of years ago,

but only humans remain today?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that Earth may have acted as a laboratory,

in which extraterrestrials experimented

with various life-forms, and as evidence,

point to the numerous ancient stories of hybrid creatures.

YOUNG: Hybrid creatures abound in mythology.

All over the world we get animals

that are partly one thing, partly another.

In ancient Greek we hear about the Cerberus,

a terrifying three-headed dog

who was the guardian of the portal to the underworld.

The Greeks also had the centaur, half human, half horse,

a large and impressive creature.

In Hindu mythology, we have the Naga.

These are strange-looking characters.

Serpentine at the bottom,

human torsos and heads and faces.

Even in the Qur'an, the horse that was said

to have flown Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem

was a flying horse with a human face.

Either it's all fantasy

or our ancestors witnessed these things,

and if they witnessed them, there's two options to that.

Either these creatures actually came here

or whatever extraterrestrials were here created them.

And it's a huge, huge question,

because both possibilities, in my opinion, are possible.

NARRATOR: If the hybrid creatures described

in ancient mythologies

really did exist alongside humans

and other intelligent hominids,

is it possible that Charles Darwin's theory

of natural selection played a role

in the rise of humans after all?

Could it be a case of alien intervention on Earth

creating numerous species

that were then forced to fight for survival?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining stories of an ancient cataclysm

often referred to as the Great Flood.

The Bible teaches us an ancient legend

that there was a global flood.

We all know that the sins of the people

would cause God to intervene.

But yet, the legends tell us

that the actual problem that occurred at this time

was an extraterrestrial involvement

and manipulation of human genetics.

The Bible speaks in Genesis, chapter six,

of the sons of God who came down from heaven

and took the daughters of men as wives

from which were born a race of titans.

Gibborim is the Hebrew word.

And that they unleashed terror, havoc upon the world.

The Books of Enoch teach us that these sons of God

were the angels who came down from heaven.

ERICH VON DANIKEN: The development was going

the wrong direction.

And then they decided to start the whole experiment again.

They decided to create a great flood.

(lightning cracks, thunder rumbles)

We have stories of the Great Flood

practically all over the world.

Not only in the Bible,

not only in the Gilgamesh epics,

not only in the Enûma Eli. from the Sumerian.

We have it in Central America among the Mayans.

We have it in South America

among the Kogi Indians.

They live in Colombia.

Always the Great Flood story.

But in every case, there was a so-called god

who give instructions to construct a ship.

RABBI ARIEL BAR TZADOK: And this is where ancient legends

get very interesting,

because while Noah was building his ark

and saving his animals,

other legends say that others of his generation

took other precautions.

Some building other types of ships,

which were to go to the stars.

And what is also interesting

is that the legends tell us

that not all animals were included on Noah's ark.

NARRATOR: Does the story of the Great Flood

provide evidence

that extraterrestrials have been experimenting

with different life-forms on Earth

for thousands of years?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that such experimentation continues to this day,

but that it is now being directed

by humans.

NARRATOR: Rapallo, Italy.

1988.

While studying marine life off the coast of Italy,

German biology student Christian Sommer

discovers a microscopic species

with an incredible ability:

it never dies.

The animal, a jellyfish called Turritopsis dohrnii,

repeatedly reverts back to its earliest polyp state

and begins its life cycle over and over again.

WILCOCK: Now, there's something strange going on here.

There's something

that doesn't appear to happen in any other life-form

that we've ever identified

in the millions and millions of different creatures

that live on Earth.

There is no theoretical limit

to how much this creature is able to recycle itself.

That completely defies all known scientific laws of biology

as we now see them.

NARRATOR: Scientists have nicknamed the species

"the immortal jellyfish"

and are attempting to unlock its biological secrets

in the hopes that they may hold the key

to increasing the lifespan of humans.

But how did such an incredible creature

come to exist in the first place?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

that extraterrestrials may still be seeding our planet

with new life-forms to help direct

the path of mankind's evolution.

The idea that life on Earth

may have an otherworldly origin

has fascinated mankind for thousands of years.

It was first proposed in the fifth century BC

by Greek philosopher Anaxagoras.

He believed that all living things

came from cosmic seeds

scattered throughout the universe.

He called the concept panspermia.

Significant thinkers throughout the ages

have considered this possibility:

Anaxagoras in ancient Greece,

Lord Kelvin, Fred Hoyle,

Francis Crick, the codiscoverer of DNA--

who, by the way, thought that it was too complicated

to have been developed on Earth alone--

up to Stephen Hawking, in our time,

have considered this idea

that life came from beyond the planet.

WILCOCK: Is it also possible

that what we're looking at is a series of ETs

that might have been visiting Earth

for hundreds of thousands of years

and have been systematically dropping off

some of their favorite creatures

from other biological worlds very similar to our own

that have certain special ingredients

so that once we reached a certain level of technology,

we could adapt those qualities into our own life.

NARRATOR: Is humanity still under the influence

of animals introduced to Earth by otherworldly beings?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest that we are beginning to become

like our alien ancestors,

playing a hand in the evolution

of life on Earth.

WARD: One of the cutting edges of biology now

is we are taking human stem cells, putting them

into embryos of animals

and then hoping that it becomes a human organ itself.

So, this is a lot of experimentation.

We can take a DNA molecule

within an animal

and knock out specific genes.

We've been able to do that for a while.

But now we're able to replace them

with specific genes for the very first time,

which is unleashing lots of Frankenstein monsters.

Right now, what we've seen,

the most interesting and, to me, scary example of this

comes from China,

where they have taken a single gene,

inserted it into a beagle

and caused that beagle to have twice the musculature

than it otherwise would have.

These things are, like, super beagles.

And that begs the question: if you can do it to a beagle,

can you do it to a human?

Absolutely.

WILCOCK: This could be the first step

of a revolution in biology

that leads to us starting to have the type of abilities

that are commonly reported in the ancient lore

of extraterrestrial gods visiting Earth.

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that mankind is beginning to reach the level

of our alien ancestors,

as ancient astronaut theorists propose?

And do they continue to assist us in this process,

secretly introducing

incredible new life-forms on Earth?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining a new scientific endeavor

to seed Earth life

on other planets.

NARRATOR: Frankfurt, Germany.

September 2016.

German physicist Dr. Claudius Gros

of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Goethe University

introduces a new theory titled the Genesis Project,

which proposes that mankind

should not simply search for life on distant planets,

but create it.

CLAUDIUS GROS: So, in exoplanetary research,

we have realized now

that there will be planets

which will be habitable but lifeless.

And normally, people believe, well, that is bad luck

because we are looking for a second Earth.

But it offers us a new opportunity

maybe to bring life to these planets.

NARRATOR: The Genesis Project

calls for depositing single-cell living organisms

onto lifeless planets.

WARD: If you really want to kick-start this thing,

you find an already oxygenated world.

And then you can put out

cells such as ours that have a big nucleus

that can move directly into an animal grade,

which is multicellular.

CHILDRESS: In a sense, this kind of seeding

that Professor Gros is wanting to do

in the near future

is exactly the kind of thing

that extraterrestrials would have probably have done

in the remote past.

NARRATOR: In planning to transmit life

to other planets, are humans today

replicating what extraterrestrials did on Earth?

Are we continuing a cycle

that has been taking place throughout the universe

for many millions of years?

The fossil record, while it's there,

doesn't necessarily correspond

to Darwinian evolution

because you don't see the transitional creatures

in between whatever evolution there may have been.

So this suggests, to me, an outside influence,

whether it was panspermia,

direct panspermia

or, later, the artificial mutation of our genes

by extraterrestrials.

I think, in fact, it may be a combination of all three.

JASON MARTELL: It's very possible

that there have been lost cultures and species

that have literally evolved and left the planet.

When we look at the various races of extraterrestrials

that are possibly visiting us today,

there could be some connection

to various species here on Earth.

With all of these incredible stories

of ancient human-animal hybrids

and strange creatures coming from the stars

coupled with modern stories of people

that have had experiences

with animalistic-type extraterrestrials,

we have to ask if Earth is some kind of a laboratory

where extraterrestrials are experimenting

with various species,

trying to come up with different beings.

When we look out into the cosmos, we have to ask:

is it filled with beings

of different animalistic characteristics?

And as we begin to meet these beings,

are we meeting with past versions of ourselves

or perhaps future versions of ourselves?

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that extraterrestrials seeded the Earth

and continue to use it as a genetic laboratory

in which humans are just one of many experiments?

If so, could there be another species

destined to overtake us?

Or are we in the process

of merging other animals with ourselves

to become more like our alien ancestors?

Perhaps one day soon, we will learn

that such genetic manipulation

is happening not only on Earth,

but throughout the universe.

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