Original subtitles

FOX: Stonehenge -- what was its true purpose?

One of the great mysteries of the world,

and we're standing in the middle of it.

Was it a primitive calendar, an altar to the gods,

or was it something otherworldly?

It definitely feels sacred.

A revolutionary new theory has brought

this 5,000-year-old puzzle back into the headlines.

And the truth could be hidden...

[ Stone ringing ]

That's so cool. - That is amazing.

FOX: ...just below the surface.

McKINLEY: It looks like there may have been

some surgical intervention.

FOX: That's amazing.

FOX: It seems like there's an ancient power at work here.

Up to 30 ley lines all converge at Stonehenge.

And I want to find the truth behind it.

HANCOCK: Megalithic technology is

the missing piece of the puzzle.

- Whoa! - That's what it's all about.

FOX: All across the world, our ancient ancestors

left behind towering mysteries and enchanting myths.

That looks like a magic wand.

As an actress, I've been lucky enough

to peak behind the curtain at some of these ancient sites.

I've never been in a crypt before.

And it's ignited an insatiable curiosity in me

to know more about these lost worlds...

It's amazing that under our feet there's so much history.

...some of which are still buried deep in our distant past.

That is amazing!

♪♪

♪♪

FOX: There's something epic, exciting,

deeply mysterious about Stonehenge,

and I am someone who's drawn into fantasy and magic

and these ancient mysteries.

♪♪

I've traveled over 5,000 miles

deep into the British countryside

to Salisbury Plain, and for the first time,

I'll see the greatest unsolved puzzle of the ancient world --

Stonehenge.

There's a strange feeling when you visit.

You know, there's definitely energy and power,

and it's such an amazing thing

to think these people built this.

I'm with Mark Conroy,

a local historical expert who is as obsessed

with this ancient stone monument as I am...

I want to know why they put it there.

I want to get to a truth if a truth exists.

Places like this hold a key.

Get ready. It's gonna appear on the horizon.

FOX: For centuries, Stonehenge has mystified the world

with its logic-defying construction

and science-baffling sophistication.

Around 3000 B.C., construction began.

That's 500 years before the Great Pyramids.

The stones, up to 30-feet tall and averaging 25 tons,

were shaped by hand and placed with such laser-like precision

that the monument perfectly tracks the sun

during the summer and winter solstices.

It tracks the lunar cycle,

and it can even predict eclipses.

This is 2,000 years before

the science of astronomy was even invented,

at least as far as we know.

Okay. Here I go.

FOX: Humans have been gathering here for 5,000 years,

but we still don't know why.

The mysterious people who built this monument died

with their secrets.

It's almost like being on another planet.

Most visitors are required to stay 30 feet away from the site,

but today, I have special permission

to step inside the heart of the monument.

It's an honor to get to do this.

We're very, very lucky.

♪♪

♪♪

They're so massive,

and also it just makes you aware

of what a small part of history

your little life is on this Earth

and that we're a part of this story

that's been going for millions of years.

It definitely had some sort of sacred purpose that was...

divine.

♪♪

How did our ancestors build Stonehenge?

And why did they do it?

Meet Si Cleggett, archaeologist

and leather-jacket-wearing wizard

worthy of his own Tolkien novel.

He has given his life to answering

these centuries-old questions

and has overseen some of the most extensive excavations

ever performed in the Stonehenge landscape.

- You must be Megan. - Megan.

- It's a pleasure to meet you. - How are you?

- How are you? - Great to see you.

- How are you, sir? - Good, good.

Welcome to Stonehenge, the place to be.

FOX: Si doesn't look like what you would picture

a mainstream archaeologist to look like.

He definitely has at least visited

Middle Earth once or twice.

Right. So from the very beginning,

the very first part of Stonehenge

is an enormous bank and ditch

that runs 360 degrees all the way around us.

It's right here just in front of it.

CLEGGETT: Yep. Right in front of you.

Stonehenge was built in phases.

First, at about 3000 B.C.,

they created a circular enclosure out of earth --

the bank and ditch that now surrounds the entire monument.

500 years later, the stones come in.

The huge stones, called sarsens,

were placed forming a horseshoe pattern.

Then a massive ring of these giant stones

was added to create the complete outer circle.

300 years later, the smaller stones,

or bluestones, were placed in the center.

In total, it's estimated this would have taken

10 million man-hours to complete.

You end up with a massive cultural imprint

that involves not just one

but a whole range of communities over time,

finally ending around about 1800 B.C. to 1500 B.C.

Si and his colleagues believe the construction of Stonehenge

took about 1,500 years.

At that time, that meant over 50 generations of workers,

and even before construction could start,

getting all these stones here

would have been a monumental task.

CLEGGETT: The sarsen came from anywhere between here

and 30 miles plus to the north.

The bluestones are the smaller ones.

These had their origins

in the Preseli Mountains in Wales.

How far away is that?

That's getting on for 150, 170 miles away at least.

FOX: So the 90,000-pound sarsen stones,

the giant sandstones that were arranged

to create the outer ring,

came from as far as 30 miles away,

and the smaller bluestones, some weighing over 8,000 pounds,

came from southwest Wales, nearly 200 miles away.

We're talking millions of pounds of stone,

and no one really knows how they transported it,

but to me, the most profound mystery of Stonehenge

isn't how they did it.

It's why they did it.

What drove them to build and perfect this spot

for over 1,500 years?

So, what are some of the theories

of what Stonehenge actually was?

Well, the landscape itself started out essentially

as a place where people chose to bury their dead.

You could argue that this is a place

where shaman or priests

connected with the afterlife or with their gods.

You can suggest this is a place for the worship

of celestial bodies -- the sun and the moon.

There could have been a whole load of things going on.

What do you think it was?

Ooh.

As an archaeologist or as a person?

[ Laughs ] Are archaeologists not people?

[ Laughing ] Depends what day it is, really.

So, as a person, what do I think this is?

Amazing.

As an archaeologist?

Probably the biggest mystery mankind's got on the planet.

FOX: And on the front lines of deciphering that mystery

is Wessex Archaeology,

just 10 miles south of Stonehenge.

CLEGGETT: So, if you go through here...

For decades, some of the top scientists in the field

have worked around the clock

trying to finally unlock the secrets of Stonehenge.

What's the most far-out theory

that you're willing to entertain?

[ Laughs ] I heard a guy during a conference,

and he was suggesting the henges were designed

so that when the sun shines through the circle,

it comes out the opposite end of the Earth,

and that's why the Earth spins on its axis.

He presented that at an archaeological conference?

No, he presented it after a number of beverages.

[ Laughing ]

But the really cool thing is we're slowly discovering more.

The Stonehenge landscape

is a center point of humans' activity.

Stonehenge is the most visible part of that landscape,

but, actually, that's only 1% of the story.

It's saturated with structures beyond Stonehenge.

Shall I show you? Yes.

FOX: Stonehenge is just one piece of a massive puzzle

of mysterious structures that stretches for at least

30 miles in every direction,

like The Cursus,

a giant, two-mile-long, man-made oval;

Silbury Hill,

the biggest prehistoric mound in Europe,

equal in size to one of the pyramids in Giza;

and the Avebury Standing Stones,

a circle 10 times the size of Stonehenge.

It's a landscape was not only visited time and time again,

but people settled in and around the area.

Just two miles northeast of Stonehenge

is believed to have been a community

of thousands of people and homes,

making it one of the largest ancient settlements

in the world at the time.

This is a community barbecue on a grand scale.

And at the center of it all is Stonehenge.

There had to be something that they were seeing

or experiencing there that they felt was profound.

We understand they're creating sacred spaces.

But the illusive bit is, what were they doing in there?

Yeah. It's like an eternal Sudoku puzzle.

Ha! Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right.

What is it that keeps you from just,

"Oh, I've been doing this for 40 years.

We're never gonna know"?

It's because becoming an archaeologist

has given me my own time machine.

It's like holding something in your hand

and the last time somebody held that,

the empire of Rome was collapsing.

Yeah.

And what Stonehenge is about are the people,

and that's also where you find the answers.

FOX: With no written records left behind,

Si and his team have turned to the real secret-keepers

to decipher why the ancients built this mysterious monument.

Oh, my God. - Exactly.

FOX: Human remains just recently pulled from the earth

could finally provide the answers.

FOX: Stonehenge is an ancient Rubik's Cube

that has never been solved,

but the scientists at Wessex Archaeology,

like Si Cleggett,

are leading the charge to decipher why it was built.

These are the people that we're trying to understand.

- These are tiny, little bones. - Mm-hmm.

FOX: They're looking for the answers in the people

who lived and died here thousands of years ago.

Mm-hmm.

FOX: People don't think of Stonehenge

as an active archaeological dig site,

but for these three recently excavated skeletons

pulled from the ground two miles from Stonehenge,

lab analysis has only just begun.

I'm the first outsider

to be given access to see these remains.

- I'll introduce Jackie. - Yeah, of course.

Jackie, Megan. Megan, Jackie.

- Hello. - Hi.

FOX: Jackie McKinley has been studying human remains

from archaeological sites for over 30 years,

and from her preliminary tests,

she's determined these children died about 4,000 years ago,

1,000 years after construction started at Stonehenge.

FOX: Do you know how old?

Yeah, we've got a whole range.

This one is about 12 years of age,

10 years of age, about 3 to 4 years of age,

and that's the order that they were laid in the grave in.

We've got a video.

So if we look here, you can see,

first one in was the oldest one we've got here

who was laid on the right side,

curled up, leg tucked up there.

Look -- going up there.

Then the second one, again, nicely tucked up inside,

and then placed over the top of them was the smallest,

the youngest one, lying here, tucked up

so that all their heads were sort of nestled together, basically.

[ Sniffles ] Stop.

I know. I know. It sounds awful,

But it is almost like

you've kind of put them to bed,

and that's quite comforting

to think that they could be that close to each other.

There's something very sweet about it, also,

which is also very sad. Yeah.

I have three kids.

What you've got to bear in mind is people --

they didn't believe that was the end.

Letting them lay together to go to the afterlife together

was something that would have been seen as quite important.

Yeah. That's the part that makes me cry.

- I know. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - [ Laughs ]

Does it seem like an entire family, you know, became ill

or there was a plague of some sort, or...

Both on the youngster and one of the older ones,

there is a condition we think is indicative

of iron deficiency -- anemia --

and made them more susceptible

to whatever it was that really did carry them off. Yeah.

There's just something about it

when you see it up close and in person.

It's really emotional for me

because these bones are like a mirror.

They're people, and they had families.

I can feel what those parents would have felt.

If I had sick children, there's nothing

that I wouldn't do to try and save them or heal them.

These newly discovered remains

are still swirling with questions,

but another skeleton found in 2002

could be the key to uncovering why this monument was built.

It's kept at the nearby Salisbury Museum,

home to one of the largest collections

of Stonehenge artifacts in the world.

This is the Amesbury Archer.

When we found this guy, everybody was --

well, jaw-dropping.

If we can open this up?

Gonna actually see inside.

- That's cool. - Yes.

FOX: Wow! You're Hulking it.

That just makes it a bit easier for us to see.

The man himself --

he was probably what I would call middle-aged,

between about 35 or 45.

FOX: The Amesbury Archer was discovered

three miles from Stonehenge,

buried with about 100 objects, including arrowheads,

wrist guards used in archery, and rare gold jewelry.

Using advanced DNA testing, Jackie and her team

have determined that he died around 2300 B.C.,

700 years after construction began at Stonehenge,

but he was born far from modern-day England.

We know that he probably came from somewhere

in the Alpine region of continental Europe.

How far of a journey would that have been for...

Probably Switzerland.

FOX: Switzerland is about 800 miles away.

Today, that's a 14-hour drive, but 5,000 years ago,

that would have been several months' journey on foot.

Clearly, there was something pulling him towards this site.

He may well have traveled across just to see Stonehenge

because people -- word of mouth.

People would have known that it was there. Yeah.

FOX: But the skeleton has one more story to tell,

and I think it's unlikely that he was

just traveling to see an impressive site.

We're looking at the knee.

Look at this one here. There's a knee cap there.

- Mm-hmm. - There isn't one here.

Now, that's not because it's gone missing.

It's because it was never there to start with.

He appears to have had congenital absence of a patella.

So that ligament is pushing into the bone,

so that would have been quite debilitating.

If your shoes are too tight,

you don't want to walk very far.

Imagine if your bones are grinding

on each other and your knee.

That's a long way to journey.

For me, I imagine he must have had,

you know, a good reason.

♪♪

This is another one of the graves of the same date

as the Amesbury Archer.

Let's have a look.

Just lift his skull this time.

Right, okay.

Oh.

These are the original teeth?

These are the original teeth, yeah, yeah.

They're whiter than my teeth.

Well, it's the fact -- no sugar, no tea,

none of that sort of stuff.

This is a little bit odd here.

It looks like there may have been

some surgical intervention as such.

They were doing that this long ago?

Is that common? Yeah.

There's places where it was quite common.

I had no idea that they were performing

surgeries like that back then.

Blew my mind.

It's just so much more sophisticated

than I realized people were back then.

Oh, yes.

So did he heal and survive that surgery?

Yeah. There looks to be some kind of healing there.

FOX: So 5,000 years ago, someone performed surgery here,

a man walked hundreds of miles to Stonehenge

in excruciating pain,

and three children were buried

whose lives were all cut short from illness.

It's all starting to add up.

It makes a lot of sense to me

that people would travel to Stonehenge

if they had a strong belief

that there could be some sort of relief

from whatever pain or suffering that they may have had.

Could Stonehenge have been a place of healing --

some kind of ancient hospital?

FOX: Makes a lot of sense to me

that Stonehenge was some type of a healing center.

Oh, definitely.

FOX: As early as 2500 B.C.,

people were traveling extremely long distances

to visit Stonehenge in the face of life-threatening injury,

suggesting Stonehenge could have been some sort of hospital

for the ancient world.

The healing theory -- to me, it seems the most functional.

So for it to be a place where people can go

and experience improvement in their health --

I see how you could get people to sacrifice their bodies

and their time to do this.

But what made Stonehenge so special?

Was the stone circle an ancient operating room

for advanced medical minds to do surgery,

or is there some healing power that the monument itself holds?

One of the main archaeologists of that theory

is Tim Darvill.

You've got all the connections.

[ Laughs ] That's the way it is.

FOX: To search for answers, my local expert, Mark Conroy, and I

have traveled 200 miles from Stonehenge

to the Preseli Mountains in southwest Wales.

♪♪

It's a land of myths and legends where kings rose to power,

ancient gods were said to reign,

spirits are still believed to linger,

and where the bluestones in the center of Stonehenge

were quarried before being carried hundreds of miles.

♪♪

Megan, come and meet Tim Darvill.

- Hi, Tim. - Hi, Megan.

Really good to see you.

Welcome to the magic mountain from the stones of Stonehenge.

Wow. The magic mountain.

FOX: Timothy Darvill is one of the most respected minds

on Stonehenge in the world.

He recently led the first excavation in decades

inside the rings of Stonehenge.

Our idea is that the power of the place at Stonehenge

is based on the power of these rocks,

and these rocks are powerful

because they have the potential to heal people.

That's crazy. Shall we walk?

Let's walk up and have a look.

It's quite a climb.

♪♪

Is this the only quarry, or source, for these stones?

They're only in this part of Wales.

They're only on this mountain, in fact.

Wow. According to Tim,

these mountains are the only place

the bluestones from the center of Stonehenge

could have come from.

These stones are a type of metamorphic rock

called spotted dolerite that turns a bluish hue when wet,

hence the name bluestones.

DARVILL: What we're standing in front of now

is an extraordinary stone

they're gonna use at Stonehenge. FOX: Mm-hmm.

They've started to shape it roughly into the form

that they want... Had it not broken...

If this had not broken,

this could have been standing at Stonehenge.

Amazing. You can almost hear the swearing

that must have come out of that crack when it first broke.

It's amazing that under our feet there's so much history.

This goes back 4,000 or 5,000 years.

But still there's that question of, why?

- Why? - Why trek all the way up here...

- Why these? - ...for these specific stones?

So what's special about these?

There's stones everywhere.

What we do have is some really important

and interesting historical documentation.

FOX: Geoffrey of Monmouth was a 12-century author

famous for his legends of King Arthur and Merlin,

and although his tales often blurred the lines

between history and myth, he was one of the first people

to ever seriously study Stonehenge,

and all of his writings had one thing in common --

that Stonehenge was a place of unexplainable healing

derived from the power of the bluestones at its center.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, -- he says these are healing stones,

and the way you use them is to make a pool of water

and use the water as a medium for healing.

This hillside that we're standing on now --

there are springs every few meters along here,

and those springs are often regarded as holy springs,

as having curative powers.

The spring is up there above us somewhere.

Let's walk up and have a look.

Okay.

Just here.

Okay. We did it.

DARVILL: What we've got is the natural spring,

but to create a pool, they've built a pile of rocks --

a sort of very crude wall across there.

It's like a modified spring here.

FOX: And they put the stones in the water

to create the healing effect?

Yes. The stone and the water together.

FOX: Although the idea of magic water healing the sick

and injured is enticing,

Tim and his team have found no science to back it up.

However, myths are often born out of some truth,

a kernel of ancient knowledge lost through the millennia,

like a game of ancient telephone.

So is there some kernel of truth

to the healing power of the bluestones?

What other qualities do these stones have

that could make them special?

Well, maybe the stones are special

because they make special noises.

We can find stones which, when you tap them... Yeah.

...they do, in fact, make a ringing noise.

[ Stone ringing ]

Did you hear it? - Yeah, I can hear it.

They make a ringing noise.

- Oh, look at that. - That's so cool.

That is amazing.

[ Ringing continues ]

♪♪

- That one is so amazing. - It will ring.

I do think we forget, when we're thinking about

archaeological evidence,

that sound is such an important part of life. Yeah.

FOX: All across the world,

there is evidence of ancients being drawn to sound,

like on the island of Malta,

where the oldest underground temple in the world

was built in 4000 B.C.

At its center is the oracle room.

Carved from limestone,

it bounces and reverberates sound in unexplainable ways.

In 2008, researchers at UCLA

tested the sounds from the oracle chamber

and discovered that it altered brain function,

putting people in a trance-like state.

1,500 years after the oracle room was completed,

the first stones at Stonehenge were erected.

Could those prehistoric builders have been creating

their own super-acoustic healing chamber?

Now we know -- anyone that has a meditation app

or does any sort of meditation know that sounds

can affect the frequencies in our brain and our brainwaves

and can put us in a more meditative state,

and that could have gone hand-in-hand

with whatever rituals were going on there.

Well, that's a really nice idea.

FOX: I want to examine this theory for myself,

so we're recording the sound of the bluestones,

and then we'll test how their frequency

affects the human body.

And if you look at the way the Stonehenge is laid out...

...it looks like it's been arranged in a way

to bounce sound.

Archaeologists believe the bluestones were rearranged

at least three times at Stonehenge

between 2400 and 2000 B.C.

Were they rearranging the stones

to tune it like a giant instrument,

getting the sound just right to heal the human body?

- Did you hear it? - I think so.

That is amazing. [ Stone ringing ]

FOX: Could the strange acoustic properties of these

Preseli bluestones found in the center of Stonehenge

actually affect the brain in a way that promotes healing?

CONROY: Time for the test.

No one has ever tested how the sound from these bluestones

affects the human body, until now.

Hi. - Hello, Megan.

- Megan. - Nice to meet you.

How are you? - Good.

FOX: I've enlisted the expertise of Dr. Ullrich Bartsch,

a neuroscientist from the University of Bristol.

So, we recorded the sounds of the bluestones.

[ Stone ringing ]

DARVILL: I'm glad you're here to record it.

And I'm interested to see how those may or may not

have some sort of affect on my brain,

and that would be very interesting... Yeah.

...some science that shows maybe Stonehenge was used

as a healing center or a healing facility.

There's definitely evidence auditorial stimulation

can influence brainwaves.

FOX: There are lots of studies that have shown

certain sound frequencies

can cause the body to lower its blood pressure,

dull pain, and in some cases, even help heal wounds.

So there's a possibility that that might just work, yes.

- Okay. - We can try and have a look.

What we're gonna use today is this EEG net.

It's a bit like a cap

which will pick up your brainwaves.

- Okay. - It's gonna be quite snug.

I have a little baby head, so... [ Laughs ] Okay.

...I think it'll be easier to get on there than you think. [ Laughs ] Yeah.

Everyone in the small town that I'm from

used to call me Peahead.

The size of the brain doesn't have anything

to do with intelligence.

You ready for this? Yeah, I'm ready.

Okay.

♪♪

There you go.

We're gonna compare different frequencies first.

FOX: Okay.

And then we're gonna play

the sounds from the bluestones

and see what it does to your brainwaves as they happen.

- All right. - Just relax.

Close your eyes.

Concentrate on your breath, and here we go.

[ Low tone plays ]

FOX: We often think of sound in terms of its volume,

but its frequency is way more powerful.

Fire alarms are calibrated to a specific frequency

that triggers the fight-or-flight response

and releases a jolt of adrenaline through the body.

[ Lower tone plays ]

By playing a range of different sound frequencies

in addition to the bluestones,

Ullrich will be able to determine

how my brain activity is affected.

♪♪

And now we're gonna play you the bluestones sounds.

Okay.

[ Stone ringing ]

FOX: The sound of Tibetan monks humming has been proven

to put the brain in a meditative state.

Could the frequency of the Preseli bluestones

have their own unique power?

[ Tapping continues ]

♪♪

♪♪

That sounds good.

That was two minutes of bluestone sounds.

This is us done for the experiment. Okay.

I will have to go and analyze the data now.

FOX: Ullrich needs two days to analyze the results,

so while I wait for the science,

I'm gonna investigate an oral tradition

that tells of a more mystical source

of Stonehenge's healing power,

which flows through this entire landscape.

I think it's important to seek out alternative theories

or alternative knowledge

because we can't just close the door on that

because it "isn't science."

FOX: That brought me to the Avebury stone circle,

a 1/2-mile-long monument located 24 miles from Stonehenge,

and many believe these two ancient sites

are connected in a way that science can't explain.

Sharing this belief is Maria Wheatley,

a modern-day Druid.

Maria, hi. How are you?

Megan, meet Maria Wheatley.

- Hi. - How are you?

Nice to meet you.

FOX: The Druids were an ancient order of Celtic priests

believed to possess profound ancient wisdom.

It was even believed that they could see the future.

The Druids today and of yesterday

knew the importance of these ancient sites.

Avebury is holy ground where people came and respected,

and they still do today.

You know, you get thousands of people. Yeah.

So this has always been deemed special.

So why do you think these ancient people

and the builders of this site chose this site specifically?

Because of what you can't see,

and that's ley lines that carry energy.

FOX: Some believe that ley lines create an invisible power grid

that crisscrosses the entire globe,

intersecting at places of power from the Pyramids of Giza

to right here in the Stonehenge landscape.

This healing energy is said

to sit just below the Earth's surface

and can affect anything it touches,

like these giant stones.

As I understand it,

the energy could possibly be harnessed, right?

Definitely. Stonehenge is really special.

It's a kind of meeting point of numerous ley lines,

all converge at Stonehenge,

up to 30 lines converging at one energetic point.

Those currents are said to be the most healing.

I think that the ancients knew this,

and I think today we can still detect that

by using dousing.

I would like to see that very much.

CONROY: Yeah, I'm game.

FOX: Dousing is an ancient technique

said to date back as far as 6000 B.C.,

used to find water, minerals, or invisible energy currents

by observing the subtle movements of a pointer.

Imagine that the stone is rooted in the ground

by about two to three feet,

and it has two energy bands beneath the ground

and energy bands coming up the face of the stone,

and these are energy points

which releases electromagnetic energy.

Let me show you how it works.

You just hold the rod parallel to the ground... Okay.

...and then slowly lift it up,

and when it picks up on the energy band,

the rod will move.

That's amazing.

And where it hits an energy band, it moves.

And let's get the top of that energy band now.

There we go. So that's one band.

Okay. I want to try.

[ Laughing ] Is that okay?

What if it rejects me?

♪♪

There we go. - There it is.

CONROY: So can you feel anything when that happens?

I could feel that.

When I hit the top, I could feel that.

WHEATLEY: This energy band here

is called the third energy band,

and a lot of people, when they stand against the stone,

feel a force that pushes them away.

Mm-hmm.

FOX: I definitely think there's something different here.

To me, I believe that the people who built Stonehenge

were very connected to their bodies

and very connected to the Earth.

You know, people maybe are so desensitized now

because we always have a cellphone in our hand.

Everybody's always trying to distract themselves.

That keeps you from being connected.

Being out here without a bunch of people around

and being quiet and having to be still,

I do feel...

it's something special.

There a hundreds of ancient sites and monuments

dotting this landscape,

with Stonehenge right at the center.

Could all these sites be channeling

a powerful invisible energy

that all converges at Stonehenge?

If so, the ancients were more advanced than we ever imagined.

FOX: If Stonehenge was an ancient healing center...

The power of Stonehenge is based on the power of these rocks.

...or a conduit for mysterious Earth energies...

FOX: That's amazing.

FOX:...the ancient people that erected it would have been

much more advanced than previously thought.

To shed some light on this possibility,

I've traveled to Bath, England,

to meet with one of my personal heroes.

[ Knocking ]

- Hi. - Hi.

- Good to see you. - How are you?

- Good to see you. - Welcome.

FOX: Graham Hancock is a world-renowned investigator

of ancient mysteries.

His books have sold more than 5 million copies

and have been translated into 27 languages.

Although controversial,

his theories on megalithic monuments,

or ancient monuments made from giant stones,

have challenged decades-old established history.

He's one of those guys that has inspired me

and inspired this journey.

I'm excited to get to talk to him.

So, I keep my office down in the basement of the house.

FOX: Your wife has you keep the office

in the basement of the house. Well, yes. Yes.

I can't have this mess exploding all over the house.

We're looking into Stonehenge and the new things

that they're discovering around it.

Is there a theory that resonates with you the most

about what Stonehenge's purpose was?

What's interesting about Stonehenge... Yeah. Mm-hmm.

...is I think that megalithic technology

was the technology and knowledge of a lost civilization.

I think this is the missing piece of the puzzle.

Where did that come from?

I think that there's been a forgotten episode

in human history.

I've made a case over quite a long time now

that the Earth encountered a comet 12,800 years ago.

Suddenly, there's flooding,

and then a huge deep freeze occurs,

and it's a devastating period,

and there's enormous extinctions. Mm-hmm.

This is not some fantasy of mine.

This is based on extremely solid science. Yeah.

And what I'm suggesting is

there were survivors of that cataclysm.

They settled around the world,

and they tried to restart their civilization,

and part of the package of ideas

that they brought was megalithic architecture. Mm.

And I see evidence for that all over the world,

and I think the British stone circles

are a part of that story. Yeah.

FOX: Graham's theory is new,

and many in the scientific community

are resistant to its claims

that about 13,000 years ago

there was an unknown civilization of humans

that possessed advanced technology,

but a comet hit the Earth, killing most of them

and extinguishing animals like the woolly mammoth

and the sabre-toothed tiger.

However, a small group of these humans survived

and used their advanced technology

to help build sites like the pyramids and Stonehenge.

This is a gigantic episode.

Historians are not taking it into account at all...

No.

...in their construction of the house of history.

Why do you think there's such resistance to new ideas

that lie outside of the consensus?

We can't help it as human beings.

We interpret things according to what we already know. Mm-hmm.

But in the vast story of human experience,

anatomically modern humans have been around

for at least 350,000 years.

Our civilization -- what is it, really?

It's just, like, a sort of outgrowth... Mm-hmm.

...from the vast story of humanity,

and how arrogant of us to say that

the little bit of knowledge that we've accumulated

in this tiny pimple on the forehead

of the giant that is the human past --

that that's what it's all about.

Let's pay attention to the giant, not the pimple.

FOX: His theory is very exciting to me

because it's changing how we view ancient humans,

and it's a disservice to assume that ancient people were stupid

or didn't know as much as we do.

There's just more to discover

that's really worth investigating.

I really, truly believe that the builders of Stonehenge

were far more sophisticated than we ever imagined,

and today it might become a lot more than just a gut feeling.

I have a call with neuroscientist Ullrich Bartsch

to find out if the sounds of the bluestones

used at Stonehenge altered my brainwaves.

If my brain reacted to the bluestones

in a "positive manner,"

I think it's too much of a coincidence

if they do prove to have, like, healing sound properties.

They were chosen.

I don't think it was an accident.

[ Computer beeping ]

Hi. How are you?

Hi, Megan. I'm good. How are you?

[ Laughing ] Good. Good to see you again.

I've finished the analysis of your data.

And I have to say,

I was extremely skeptical when you came in,

and I wasn't quite sure how this was all gonna pan out,

but in the end, I was positively surprised.

Well, that's interesting.

Have you got the files? I do.

FOX: I am really excited.

FOX: It's so cool. Oh, my God.

You made my life a little bit better.

BARTSCH: I wasn't quite sure how this all was gonna pan out.

I was extremely skeptical,

but in the end, I was positively surprised.

FOX: Dr. Ullrich Bartsch,

a neuroscientist from the University of Bristol,

tested the sounds of the Preseli bluestones

from the inner circle of Stonehenge

to determine if they can affect human brainwaves

and could promote healing.

[ Stone ringing ]

And I'm just about to hear the results.

Have you got the files? I do.

We've analyzed about 30 seconds of your brain activity

during each of the sounds.

Okay.

We can look at figure 2, which has a comparison

between the different frequencies

and the bluestones.

FOX: When compared to the other frequencies Ullrich played...

[ Stone ringing ]

...the bluestones produced the only sound

that increased alpha waves in my brain,

and that is very exciting.

You increase the amplitude of alpha waves,

which means the stone sound

seems to be very good for relaxation,

and this might be beneficial to reduce stress

and beneficial for regeneration

and maybe even healing or recovery from infections.

That's so interesting.

So it seemed to have worked.

Do you have any opinions on what that could mean

about Stonehenge using these stones?

Do you think that it's possible

they were chosen for that reason?

I think that definitely warrants

further investigation,

so there's a lot of things that we can learn

from ancient buildings and ancient civilizations.

Oh, my God.

You made my life a little bit better,

and I made your life a little bit better.

Awesome. Thank you.

FOX: I am surprised.

I thought science was gonna come in and crush my dream,

so it's unexpected and really encouraging and cool

that this sort of lines up and validates the theory

that these were used for healing.

While my brain-scan results do strengthen the theory,

we'd need way more data for anything to be definitive.

For me, this investigation has revealed

why Stonehenge is such a seductive mystery.

People were willing to walk hundreds of miles

in excruciating pain just to see it.

It sits on land that is believed to be pulsing

with an invisible and powerful energy,

and the massive stones themselves

carried hundreds of miles

because they have the ability to heal.

Like expanding your consciousness

just by being here and taking it in.

With every step we take towards the truth,

we unravel more of humanity's story --

where we come from, who we are, and where we're going.

Maybe one day Stonehenge will reveal

its deepest, darkest secrets...

One of the great mysteries of the world,

and we're standing in the middle of it.

...and I hope I'm there when it does.