All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S03E05.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

>> NARRATOR: A 1,000‐year‐old

temple built to commemorate a

visitation by a god.

A coronation stone believed to

be a gateway to the heavens.

And strange chants designed for

communicating with otherworldly

beings.

>> JONATHAN YOUNG: To enter

ritual allows us to reenter

a space where the gods are

alive, and allows us to spend

time with them.

>> CLIFFORD MAHOOTY: You are

going into a frequency and

harmony to actually talk

directly with those beings that

are supernatural.

>> NARRATOR: Throughout the

world, ancient rites and rituals

connect us to another dimension.

But just who or what are we

communicating with?

>> DAVID CHILDRESS: All over the

world, ancient people and modern

people are using rituals to

connect them with gods, yet

these gods may well be ancient

astronauts.

>> 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 shape

our history?

And if so, might we find the

evidence in our most sacred

rituals?

The Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Here among the ancient Mayan

ruins of Chichen Itza stands the

great pyramid of El Castillo.

Built by the pre‐Colombian Maya

sometime between the ninth and

12th centuries A. D., El Castillo

served as a temple to the

feathered serpent god Kukulkan.

It is also believed to be the

site of the Mayans' most

important ritual: human

sacrifice.

>> WILLIAM BRAMLEY: They would

bring human victims up the

stairs of their temples, they

would cut out their beating

hearts, and that would be the

form of sacrifice the Mayans

engaged in.

>> RICK ROSS: In the rituals,

there was the central importance

of blood sacrifice.

That by shedding blood, they

could empower their desire and

be granted what they wanted.

So there is a theme of blood

that runs through this system of

sacrifice.

That blood must be shed.

>> NARRATOR: Although ritual

sacrifice is no longer practiced

at El Castillo...

(horn blowing)

worshippers still come to

celebrate a time when the Mayans

say god Kukulkan descended from

the heavens to bring wisdom

to man.

They light fires to unite with

the spiritual realm, perform

sacred dances and repeat prayers

in numerical sequences to enter

a deep state of meditation.

But the most powerful ritual

that takes place at El Castillo

is a reenactment of Kukulkan's

descent to Earth, a reenactment

that is literally built into the

pyramid itself.

>> JON C. LOHSE: El Castillo

is a stepped pyramid with some

outward radiating staircases.

And these staircases have big

high balustrades on them.

And on the autumn and the spring

equinox, the sun casts a shadow

across the corner of this

stepped pyramid, and you see the

shadows of the steps on the

staircase balustrade.

>> ERICH VON DANIKEN: This is a

model of the pyramid of Chechen

Itza in Mexico.

And every year, on March 21,

when the sun goes up, directly

on the stairway here is created

triangles of light and shadow

coming down the stairs, which

represents god Kukulkan has

descended to the humans.

At the end, you see the face of

god Kukulkan.

On, uh, September 21, it's the

opposite.

This time, when the sun rises up

in the morning, god Kukulkan

goes up the stairs and ends in a

bright light up on the little

temple, which means god Kukulkan

visited the earthlings, teach

them, and after a certain

period, he disappeared again

into the sky with the promise to

return one day.

>> PHILIP COPPENS: What we see

happening in Chichen Itza is a

light phenomenon.

We really see technology being

displayed here.

We see that somebody engineered

this so that each equinox,

people would experience a

stone serpent coming alive.

There was a visual reminder of

this connection to the gods.

>> BILL BIRNES: It could be that

not only are the Mayan

celebrating their

extraterrestrial ancestors, but

it could well be that the

ancient aliens who came to Earth

instructed the societies that

they helped to maintain a

connection with them by

performing certain rituals,

celebrations at the appearance

of stars and keeping the story

of the extraterrestrials alive

in their legends.

>> NARRATOR: Did the Maya really

conduct these elaborate and

bloody rituals to honor

a mythical deity?

Or might they have been, as

ancient astronaut theorists

contend, commemorating an actual

visitation by extraterrestrial

beings?

>> RICHARD RADER: A ritual is

absolutely a way to kind of

reconnect with, uh, with the

gods.

So not only are you reenacting

your faith in this god, right,

you are actually reenacting the

original moment when the god did

a very specific thing.

>> CHILDRESS: All over the

world, ancient people and modern

people are using the rituals to

connect them with gods, yet

these gods may well be ancient

astronauts.

>> NARRATOR: The Hill of

Uisneach, Ireland.

Each year, on the first day of

May, local citizens

celebrate the sacred festival of

Beltane, similar to the one

first performed by the ancient

Celts more than 2,000 years ago.

Like the ceremony at Chichen

Itza, it is designed to connect

and communicate with beings from

outside our world.

>> JOSEPH NAGY: This day was the

day when you would set fires,

bonfires.

And then you would walk your

cattle between the fires, as a

way to protect them for the

coming spring and summer.

And these Mayday fires were a

magical way of calling down

protection upon animals and

human beings.

>> NARRATOR: But why fire?

What was it about this most

basic of elements that made it

so important to the ancient

Celts?

>> NAGY: The association of

hills and fire with Beltane

suggest that this is a time when

extra vision, extra knowledge is

available.

And what the Celtic peoples were

most interested in knowing about

was in fact the otherworld.

There is this notion that at

Beltane, there is a greater

opportunity for actually perhaps

meeting people from the other‐

world or of seeing into their

world.

years ago.

We have some stories from

medieval Irish tradition where a

hero happens to come near a

sidhe‐‐ one of those

otherworldly dwellings which is

in a hill.

And the sidhe is open, and what

he sees inside it is a fire.

Now, the fire inside the

otherworldly dwelling makes it

possible to look into the

otherworldly dwelling and to see

some of the details, including

the people there and what they

look like.

>> NARRATOR: But might the fire

rituals of the Beltane Festival

have been started by the early

Celts as an attempt to recreate

the strange lights and ignitions

they saw from an alien

spacecraft?

Although no written records

exist to explain the event's

true origins, there are those

who believe that such an

incredible idea is possible.

And to prove it, they point to

a similar ceremony practiced

each year by the Kayapo people

of Brazil.

>> GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: A long

time ago, Bep Kororoti appeared

descending from the sky, and

when he landed, there was a lot

of wind.

The Earth was shaking

and trembling.

There was a lot of noise.

The appearance of Bep Kororoti

has been preserved to this day.

In fact, it's a medicine man

wearing a straw suit.

And that straw suit looks

eerily similar to a modern‐day

astronaut suit.

>> GISELA ERMEL (translated):

The Kayapo remember the very

special suit this man or alien

wore, which essentially

completely enclosed the body.

And what's more interesting is

what a neighboring tribe said,

namely the Bakairi‐‐ they

already had such a thing hanging

in a hut in the 19th century.

>> NARRATOR: But for the Kayapo,

the Bep Kororati Festival is

only one of the ways they honor

an ancient visitation by an

extraterrestrial being.

They also recount his visitation

in their everyday lives by

wearing symbolic headdresses

made of feathers.

>> ERMEL (translated): There is

this feather headdress that has

a row of feathers, and when it's

worn, it looks like a halo.

And these feathers represent

no more and no less than

outer space.

The Kayapo see outer space as

being a flat disk, spreading out

into infinity.

The band that holds these

feathers together is a symbol

for the rope that the Kayapos'

ancestors used to climb down to

Earth from a celestial world.

>> NARRATOR: Could the Kayapo

rituals of Brazil really have

been inspired by an

extraterrestrial visitation?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by examining a somewhat more

traditional ceremony‐‐ one still

performed to this day, and to an

audience of millions around

the world.

>> NARRATOR: Edinburgh Castle,

Scotland.

In the Crown Room lies a

336‐pound oblong stone block.

Known as the Stone of Destiny,

and also as the Stone of Scone,

it has been present at the

coronation of nearly every

English and Scottish monarch for

more than 800 years.

Its purpose‐‐ to unite the new

ruler with God.

And there are those who believe

it is part of a meteor that

fell to Earth more than 3,000

>> CHILDRESS: In England today,

all the kings and queens are

crowned on what's known as the

Stone of Destiny.

And this stone, according to

legend, goes back to the

biblical story of Jacob, who had

rested his head on this stone.

>> COPPENS: Jacob, in the Bible,

has a dream.

He falls asleep on a stone,

and he sees a place nearby

from which angels ascend to

Heaven, but also angels descend

to Earth.

And when he wakes up, he says,

"This is a gateway to Heaven,"

where earthly things can go to

Heaven and heavenly things can

come to Earth.

>> ANDREW COLLINS: The stone, it

was seen as an axis mundi, the

connection point between Heaven

and Earth.

It was almost like the English

strengthened their own belief

that Westminster Abbey was

the axis mundi.

They placed it within a throne

right in front of the Cosmati

pavement, and within this

Cosmati pavement are circles and

swirls and lines that represent

the universe as a whole.

And the monarch becomes what's

known as a cosmocrator, looking

over not just what was going on

on the Earth, but the stars, the

heavens as a whole, by sitting

on the throne.

>> NARRATOR: Is this ancient

stone merely a symbol of

divine rite?

Or might it at one time have

held some strange, unknown

power?

Throughout recorded history,

coronation rituals have

incorporated devices like

the Stone of Destiny as a way

of linking the new ruler

with superior beings beyond

our world.

>> COLLINS: What is coronation

in the first place?

Well, it's the idea that the

monarch can embody some kind

of cosmic consciousness‐‐

something that is divine.

And this is actually best seen

through the eyes of the old

traditions relating to the

Japanese mikados.

They would have to sit upon the

throne, which would be

considered to be at the point of

creation of the world.

>> BIRNES: There is a notion

called the divine right of kings

that, um, certain British kings

had that somehow the sovereign

is God's representative on

Planet Earth.

But for the ancients, it went

steps further.

>> NARRATOR: But if some

otherworldly power is actually

being handed down, who or what

is the source of that power?

>> GEORGE NOORY: If you were

an extraterrestrial and you

came down to this planet, one

of the first things you'd try

to do would be to mingle

with leadership.

And I think the pharaohs

believed that they might have

been gods themselves.

>> ANDREW WYATT: The king was

considered a deity.

Did he go back into his room and

sit and talk with the gods?

Uh, we don't know‐‐ we weren't

exact... we weren't there.

But he certainly did communicate

with the deities through

these rituals.

>> NARRATOR: In addition to the

Stone of Destiny, another

ritualistic symbol which

features in most coronation

ceremonies is that of

the scepter.

The scepter is a symbol of

divinely granted authority,

and in ancient times, it often

took the form of a staff or a

golden wand.

According to historians, its use

dates back to ancient Egypt, and

there are those who believe it

is connected symbolically to the

Egyptian ankh.

>> COPPENS: When it comes to the

ankh in ancient Egypt, we find

that it is intimately familiar

with Isis.

Isis symbolizes the Ankh because

she is the one who was able to

restore life.

It is the symbol of

transformation, the symbol of

alchemy, the symbol of ritual.

>> JASON MARTELL: The ankh is

always a symbol used in

Pharaonic times as a scepter,

but an interesting play on the

word "ankh" shows that it also

stems from the word Anunnaki,

which meant "those who from

Heaven came to Earth."

>> TSOUKALOS: What's fascinating

to me is that the ankh, in many

occasions, is also shown next

to the Djed pillar, and the

Djed pillar also is one of

the earliest symbols we have

in ancient Egypt, and both

symbols describe a connection

to the stars.

If you combine the two in some

of the ancient Egyptian carvings

that we see, something very

technological is described

or depicted.

Now, over time, the ankh symbol

turned into something divine,

but it never was that, because

according to the ancient

astronaut theory, ancient

symbols are based upon something

that our ancestors encountered

in real life.

>> CHILDRESS: You have to wonder

here if the original ankh wasn't

some kind of high‐tech device

that the ancient astronauts

used, and then was given to the

kings for their use.

And with a coronation ritual

and holding a scepter, suddenly,

normal people become as gods.

And today all we have is a

symbolic representation of this

high‐tech object.

>> NARRATOR: If the throne and

the scepter are identified with

a connection to otherworldly or

extraterrestrial power, what

about the most iconic of all

coronation symbols:

the crown itself?

>> COPPENS: What says kingship?

It's the crown.

It's clearly a device, whether

you see a crown as a symbol,

or whether you see a crown

as something literal,

it's clear that somehow it was

very specific, something placed

on your head established this

connection.

>> NARRATOR: Some historians

believe the idea for the crown

may have originated with the

divine image of the halo.

>> MARTELL: The Sumerians

described their gods, the

Anunnaki, as literally having

a glow about them.

And this was carried into more

recent times as angels with a

halo over their head.

These are the beings that from

heaven came to earth.

Kingship now wants to have

that same lineage of connection

with the gods by placing a crown

on the king's head.

>> BIRNES: That headpiece

symbolized the translation of

a human being heir apparent

into a sovereign to deify that

sovereign, to make that

sovereign extraterrestrial.

>> GIORGIO: Some of the earliest

cave drawings we can find in the

world show these humanoid beings

with haloes around their heads.

And that is very fascinating,

because if you look today at

modern‐day astronauts, if you

have the sun rising behind them,

or even just with their

flashlights that they have on

the sides of their helmets,

well, if someone who is not

knowledgeable in technology sees

this, well, it looks like their

head is surrounded by this

divine light,

which is not divine at all.

It's a light source.

So, over time, people, our

ancestors, started to imitate

the gods, these

extraterrestrials, by wearing

crowns.

>> NARRATOR: The throne...

The scepter...

The crown...

Could these symbols of

coronation have been inspired,

not by the imagination, or even

spiritual visions, but by some

sort of alien encounters?

If so, what other ancient

rituals might find their roots

in a kingdom not of this world?

>> NARRATOR: Tabasco, Mexico,

1862.

Prospectors drilling for oil

unearth a colossal stone head

weighing more than 20 tons.

50 years later, 16 more

heads are discovered, each with

a unique face, and not

characteristic of the indigenous

people.

These gigantic heads are

believed to have been carved by

a mysterious, ancient culture

known as the Olmecs.

But even more mysterious,

perhaps, is that each appears to

be wearing some sort of helmet.

>> PETER FIEBAG: The

mother‐culture of America,

Central America, were the

Olmecs.

In old images made by the

Olmecs, we can see helmeted

beings dressed in overalls

ascending.

They have wings and they have

microphones almost in front of

their mouths.

Are these heads of rulers or

priests?

Or were they maybe aliens that

they wanted to portray?

>> NARRATOR: Could these giant

Olmec heads be depictions of

visitors from another planet?

Some Ancient Astronaut theorists

believe these colossal heads

offer proof that the Olmecs

communicated directly with

otherworldly beings through

shamans‐‐ their holy men.

>> LARS KRUTAK: A shaman is

an intermediary or a messenger

between the spiritual worlds and

the world of humans.

Shamans can inherit their power

and their knowledge.

But more often than not,

they're chosen by particular

spirits.

>> COPPENS: When it comes to

the Olmecs, we know that they

say that people were taken

to become transformed into a

person who was going to make

the connection between our

world and the other world.

>> KRUTAK: In order to enter

the spiritual realm, a shaman

must use particular tools

to get there.

Musical instruments like

drums or rattles...

(man chanting)

...aid the shaman in his or her

communications with that world.

>> NARRATOR: Like the Olmecs,

many ancient cultures throughout

the centuries have believed

shamans could communicate with

otherworldly beings.

But what exactly were these

beings?

Were they really gods?

Or were they, perhaps,

extraterrestrials?

>> NANCY RED STAR: There are

star ancestors, we call them

the Makavians.

That's a Cherokee word.

And so, they are the ones that

come from another world.

>> NARRATOR: Similar to Hindus,

Buddhists, and even the ancient

Egyptians, many Native American

tribes claim to communicate with

their gods by means of

telepathy.

>> STANDING ELK: Telepathy is

basically one of the

communications that is

practiced with many spiritual

people.

Feathers work as antennas.

And they bring in a message

at times when it's necessary.

>> MAHOOTY: There's basically

three things:

chanting, drums, and song.

What it is, is that you are

going into a frequency and

harmony, to actually talk

directly with those beings that

are of supernatural.

>> NARRATOR: In the area of

Horseshoe Canyon, Utah,

graphic depictions called

petroglyphs can be found of

ancient Native American Shamans

and the otherworldly creatures

they claimed to communicate

with.

>> DAVID SUCEC: Here we have a

classic shaman, with the

hourglass figure, feet pointed

outward, arms which have bird's

feet at the end which signifies

spirituality.

And it's got the horns with

the fringes coming out.

>> NARRATOR: One of these

petroglyphs, called

the Ghost Panel, depicts nine‐

foot‐tall figures conducting

what some believe is an actual

encounter between shamans and

Star Beings.

>> SUCEC: It looks like a group

of figures surrounding or

standing or hovering around a

central ghost‐like figure, which

is called the Holy Ghost.

If you look at the head of

the Holy Ghost, you'll see his

two eyes in the front of his

face.

But if you look to the left,

you'll see the side of his head.

This is a device which you do

not see in any prehistoric art,

and this motif is one of the

reasons why I feel that this

represents a... an event.

>> NARRATOR: Does the Ghost

Panel really depict an actual

visitation by extraterrestrial

beings?

And, if so, could the horns

coming from the shaman's head‐‐

similar to the feathers found in

the Native American headdress‐‐

really represent some sort of

antennae?

A device for giving and

receiving information or

energy...

perhaps from another world?

>> NARRATOR: And is this energy

at all connected to ritualized

chants and prayers employed by

the shaman in their effort to

communicate with Star Beings?

In the early 1980s, using a

device for measuring electric

charge called an electroscope,

biochemist Dr. Boguslaw

Lipinski claims to have

successfully measured the amount

of energy created through

rituals of prayer.

>> BOGUSLAW LIPINSKI: The

instrument called the

electroscope, measures the

flow of current between two

oppositely charged plates.

Electrons are the purest form

of energy.

And this form of energy now is

being explained by physicists in

terms of vibrations.

>> NARRATOR: In 1985, Dr.

Lipinski took his electroscope

to the shrine of Medjugorje in

Yugoslavia to measure what if

any energy is created by

large‐scale group prayer.

For decades, thousands of people

have gathered here, claiming to

see an apparition of the Virgin

Mary floating in the sky above.

>> LIPINSKI: I found out that

during the times of apparitions,

particularly when the groups of

people pray, I got the readings

on my electroscope.

This graph shows measurements

of the energy.

When people start praying, the

energy comes very quickly up.

(man chanting)

>> NARRATOR: Somewhat similar to

Dr. Lipinski's contention that

the ritual of prayer generates

energy is a scientific concept

called "quantum entanglement."

This theory supports the idea

that human beings might be able

to communicate telepathically.

>> COLLINS: The idea of quantum

entanglement is that a single

particle can split and become

two individual particles.

And they still somehow retain

a link between each other.

They can communicate with

each other.

It's not only real,

but it can explain the idea

of telepathy and remote viewing.

And if we assume that

extraterrestrials do exist, then

it becomes the most obvious form

of communication that we can use

between us.

Maybe this is already occurring.

Just maybe this has been going

on for tens of thousands

of years.

And this can easily

be induced through the use of

sound, tones and notes.

(man chanting)

>> NARRATOR: Could the

provocative implications of

quantum entanglement help to

explain why so many cultures

claim to communicate with

otherworldly beings

telepathically?

And could elaborate headdresses

like those worn by Native

Americans‐‐ and even the crowns

of ancient kings‐‐ be linked to

some sort of ancient technology

for communicating with

alien beings?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by examining more contemporary

examples:

the types of rites and rituals

still practiced by billions of

people around the world.

>> NARRATOR: The Giza Plateau,

May 26, 1954.

Egyptian archeologist

Kamal‐el‐Mallakh is lowered into

a long narrow pit he discovered

on the south side of the Great

Pyramid of Khufu.

With the use of a torch and a

mirror, he catches sight of a

large oar.

The oar belongs to a

143‐foot‐long ship that has been

buried beneath the earth.

The ship was constructed for

King Khufu, the second pharaoh

of the Fourth Dynasty, who

reigned from around 2589 to 2566

BC, and is generally accepted as

the builder of the Great

Pyramid.

It is what Egyptologists call a

solar barge; a funerary boat

that was built for the sole

purpose of carrying him across

the heavens.

>> AIDAN DODSON: The

significance of boats in the...

in funerary context, are

intended for a posthumous

pilgrimage to the city of

Abydos.

Abydos was the sacred city of

Osiris, the god of the dead.

>> ROBERT BAUVAL: The word

"god," according to the ancient

Egyptian, is "neteru."

It means "a being that came from

the cosmos."

The word "religion" doesn't

exist in ancient Egyptian.

They truly believed, they were

very adamant about this,

that their origins

is in the sky.

>> COPPENS: In the case of King

Khufu, we find that there is a

literal boat, said to be a boat

of a million years.

Even though this might appear to

be a normal ship, it is actually

something far more, and it

almost represents a spaceship,

because they didn't

just speak about years,

they spoke millions of years,

and this is precisely what

space travel is all about.

Somehow the dead body was able

to go on this voyage.

>> NARRATOR: But could funerary

boats, like the one found near

the Giza Pyramid, have been the

early Egyptians' attempt to

re‐create an alien spacecraft?

>> BIRNES: What could this

represent?

Could it mean that

the ancient Egyptians believed

that their honored dead would

then rejoin the deities in the

sky, the extraterrestrials?

>> NOORY: Ancient Egyptians were

experts at mimicking what they

they saw.

And let's assume that gods

came down from heaven, or ETs

came down from space.

The Egyptians tried to emulate

what they saw.

>> TSOUKALOS: In order to mimic

the idea of returning to the

gods who have descended from the

sky, funerary boats were

created, and the idea of

funerary boats came after the

Egyptians encountered the

heavenly barges which descended

from the sky.

>> NARRATOR: As in most modern

societies, funeral rituals are

usually based upon the notion

that the spirit moves on after

the body dies.

For some, there is the belief

that the souls or spirits of the

dead reconnect with god or some

sort of deity.

And for many ancient societies‐‐

like the Egyptians‐‐ death

also meant a return to

the stars.

>> BAUVAL: What is also

interesting about the ancient

Egyptian belief is that the

final form of conversion was

going back to the stars.

I always quote Carl Sagan on

this: "We are star stuff."

Some star exploded some billions

of years ago, and we're it.

But we're star stuff become

conscious.

Having said this, it is not

impossible that we contain

the knowledge of our origins

literally within us, and that

there's a way to retrieve that

information.

It may well be that the ancient

Egyptians had found some sort of

inner route.

>> NARRATOR: The use of funerary

boats during burial was not

unique to ancient Egypt.

The Norse Vikings also

incorporated boats into their

funeral rites, sometimes burying

their dead with actual boats,

but more often forming the shape

of a boat with large rocks above

the grave.

On certain occasions, they would

even create giant pyres to burn

their dead within these rock

formations, believing the pillar

of smoke would elevate the

deceased to the afterlife.

Burning the dead on a large pyre

was practiced in ancient Rome

as well.

And in India, most Hindus still

use funeral pyres to this day.

>> SHIMKADA: The cremation

ceremony is basically performed

by the male members of the

family, and then there are the

priests who guide them on

how to do it.

And they put them on, you know,

the pyre, and then the eldest

member of the family has to

light the fire.

And then they sit there until

everything is burned.

>> BIRNES: It purifies the soul

that it could pass on to the

next life.

>> NARRATOR: According to some

Ancient Astronaut theorists, the

idea of burning the dead may

have been inspired by an ancient

encounter with an alien

spacecraft.

>> BIRNES: There's still another

aspect to this.

If we look at the Vedic texts

and read about the Vimana; the

ancient craft that made war upon

Earth, these were craft that

came in fire.

Could it be that the passing

of the soul from one life to the

next is like the appearance of

the vimana?

The appearance in flame?

And so that flame emulates

the actual craft itself?

>> TSOUKALOS: Is it possible

that when our ancestors

witnessed rockets or spaceships

taking off and landing with

all of this fire and this

smoke that they, over time,

thought that by burning their

dead, they would imitate what

they saw in the past?

Meaning, as the body burns and

the smoke rises up to the sky,

that they were ascending into

the sky, becoming a god.

>> NARRATOR: If rituals of

burial were ancient man's

attempt to reconnect with

gods or alien visitors, did

they succeed?

Some would answer by pointing to

the billions around the world

for whom death still acts as a

gateway to Heaven...

or somewhere else far, far away.

Italy.

Pope Benedict XVI walks down

the aisle in St. Peter's

Basilica carrying a

golden crucifix.

Upon reaching the altar, he

lifts the thurible, a metal

vessel suspended from chains in

which incense is burned for

purification.

(Pope Benedict speaking Latin)

The Pope recites the Eucharist

Prayer, and then he and his

congregation consume the

consecrated bread and wine.

They are, according to the most

sacred laws of the Church,

eating the actual body and blood

of Jesus Christ.

>> CHRIS CHAPPLE: In the Mass,

the priest is empowered by the

prayers that are said to

energize the substance of the

bread and substance of the wine

such that it becomes transformed

or transubstantiated‐‐ changed

into the living presence of the

body and the blood of Christ.

>> YOUNG: The Mass, the

Communion, the

transubstantiation of eating

the... the body of God, allows

us to ingest the divine energy.

This is called manna, or magical

energy, and the... the almost

cannibalistic aspect of the

ritual is crucial for atonement,

which is at‐onement‐‐ to become

one with the divine source.

>> NARRATOR: In the New

Testament, the Second Letter of

Peter states that believers

in this practice "become

partakers of the divine nature."

They become united with God.

The Roman Catholic Church

adheres to this interpretation

of Communion so strongly that in

the 16th century, the Council of

Trent declared anyone who denied

it subject to excommunication.

And during the infamous Spanish

Inquisition, nonbelievers were

branded as heretics and were

often burned at the stake...

or worse.

But what does it mean to become

one with the divinity?

Most historians say the ritual

of the Catholic Mass can be

traced back to the Last Supper,

when the act of Jesus serving

bread and wine to his disciples,

during what was actually a

Passover Seder, created a

powerful spiritual bond that

must not be broken.

But there are others who believe

the Catholic Mass stems from a

ritual practiced thousands of

years earlier.

>> YOUNG: Scholars have

speculated that the Mass

is actually inspired by

Egyptian mythology and a similar

ritual that was done for

the god Osiris.

The idea is, we take the divine

substance, the body of the god,

into us so that we are one with

that transcendent energy.

>> NARRATOR: The legend of

Osiris tells how he was killed

and dismembered by his jealous

brother, then resurrected from

the various parts of his body by

his wife Isis.

Egyptian priests reenacted this

ancient event with a ritual

involving clay and wheat.

>> YOUNG: The ritual has to do

with making wheat cakes that

resemble the pieces of the

dismembered god, which are then

hidden, and a... a woman playing

the... the wife, uh, goes and

finds the pieces.

And then, in the end, the

priests eat the pieces.

>> NARRATOR: Those who ate the

sacramental wheat cakes believed

they had brought the god Osiris

back to life within themselves.

But where did early Egyptians

get such a profound idea?

>> COPPENS: The question, then,

is, are they mimicking things

which they saw?

And it somehow involved this

transformation from a dead

Osiris to a person who was

regenerated.

When we're looking at some of

these rituals, really, contact

with the divine is a technology,

whether it's the ritual or

whether it's practical or

whether it's to mimic

extraterrestrials.

>> NARRATOR: Could the Roman

Catholic ceremony of eating the

body and blood of Christ

actually have its origins in

the ancient Egyptian story

of Osiris?

And if so, does it suggest that

the Catholic religion, like

other ancient beliefs, has its

roots in an extraterrestrial

encounter?

>> LOHSE: A ritual is a

participatory performance, and

the main objective of a ritual

is to communicate something

about an underlying belief or

an idea.

>> BIRNES: These ancient rituals

have coincided with the

appearance of various

constellations in the sky‐‐

various stars.

All across the world in ancient

societies, there was a belief

that human beings were placed

on Planet Earth by the

Star People.

>> YOUNG: Mythology, like

legend, has real history in it.

There's a strong sense of

connection to those sources when

one enters into ritual.

Our deepest yearnings are for

things we cannot remember.

We yearn for lost wisdom,

lost possibilities.

It seems wwork toward goals

we do not understand.

It seems we are driven by

aspirations that are truly

mysterious.

>> RED STAR: The ones who come

from another world, our

relatives, are the ones that

bring the laws and the

instructions in the ceremonies

and the rituals here so that

people will go through this

process of evolution.

>> NARRATOR: Are today's

frequently practiced rituals

such as prayers...

funerals...

and coronations...

really based on early man's

attempts to emulate ancient

alien visitors?

Or are they something even

more profound?

Could they provide an actual

means with which humans may

communicate with‐‐ or even

return to‐‐ another, perhaps

extraterrestrial, existence?

If so, we may only know the

truth when we ourselves make

the journey.

Or perhaps... when they return.

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