All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens Origins s02e07 Are We Alone.eng

NARRATOR:
Unexplained transmissions

from the farthest reaches
of the cosmos,

mysterious objects
entering our solar system,

and mounting evidence
we are not alone.

For nearly two decades,

Ancient Aliens has
traveled the globe

exploring towering
megalithic structures,

mysterious artifacts,

and stories
of otherworldly beings,

in a quest for evidence
that might reveal the truth

of our extraterrestrial origins.

Astronomers have been searching
the universe for decades,

and personally, I think
there's a really good chance

that soon we'll discover
an inhabited planet.

NARRATOR:
Now we take a look back

through the
Ancient Aliens archives

to the show's very origins,

to examine the evidence
that we are not alone.

We have never been alone.

? ?

Since the beginning
of humankind,

people have been wondering:

Is there other intelligent life
in the cosmos?

And, of course, to people like
the three of us, the answer is

a resounding yes.

And what's even
more exciting is that

we now live in a time
where we might find

- undeniable proof.
- WILLIAM HENRY: Absolutely.

I mean, the James Webb telescope

can survey practically
the entire universe,

and astronomers have
detected these mysterious

interstellar objects

that are moving in ways
they're not supposed to.

Yeah, right. And scientists

have been actively searching
for extraterrestrial life

since the 1960s.

And we talked about this
way back in season one

of Ancient Aliens
in an episode called

"The Return."

NARRATOR:
Throughout human history,

man has gazed up at the stars
in awe and with wonder.

Our ancient ancestors
charted their movements,

identified constellations,

and marked time by creating
celestial-based calendars.

The stars also became the source
of countless myths and legends.

Many of these describe
visitors coming down to Earth

from somewhere out there.

Others speak
of entire civilizations

existing out in the cosmos.

MICHAEL CREMO:
The ancient Sanskrit writings of India

tell us, for example, there are

400,000 humanlike species

scattered throughout the cosmos

in different planets,
different solar systems,

even different dimensions.

NARRATOR:
But where are these alien beings?

Did they come to Earth
in the past,

as the ancient astronaut
theory suggests, and then leave?

If so, will they ever come back?

Today, scientists
around the world

have stopped waiting around
and are taking steps

to find intelligent
extraterrestrial life.

Will technology
finally be able to prove

what our ancient ancestors
believed thousands of years ago?

In 1960, astronomer
and physicist Frank Drake

set up an unusual telescope
in the hills of West Virginia.

The strange device was made from

surplus World War II
radar equipment.

But rather than containing
a traditional optical lens,

it housed
a directional radio antenna.

PAUL DAVIES:
A few simple calculations showed

that radio telescopes
have the power

to transmit and receive

across literally
interstellar distances.

We're talking many light-years.

So, Frank Drake, uh,
turned a radio telescope

on a couple of nearby stars

and tuned in to see
if he could pick up

a message from the aliens.

So, this was a sort of
crazy thing to do.

NARRATOR:
Drake failed to pick up any sounds that day,

but the science of
radio astronomy was born.

If we couldn't see
aliens in space,

maybe we could hear them.

MICHAEL DENNIN:
The things we focused on in the past

for searching
for extraterrestrial life

is really passively trying
to discover signals

on the basis that if they were

technologically advanced,
they would have

some form of electricity
like we do,

and all electricity
generates radiation,

and it sends out the signals,
and hopefully we detect it.

NARRATOR:
In 1961, Frank Drake and a group of astronomers,

physicists and biologists

formed a privately-funded
organization called SETI,

the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Their goal was to focus
massive radio telescopes

towards space and listen.

Drake estimated the probability

that intelligent life
existed out in the universe

in a formula that became known
as the Drake equation.

SARA SEAGER:
The Drake equation is like a bridge between

scientists and nonscientists

because it explains
what you would want to know

to give a number about
how common alien life could be.

JENNIFER HELDMANN: There are multiple,
uh, factors within the Drake equation,

like the fraction of stars
that could have planets

and the fraction of those
planets that could be habitable

and the fraction of those
that might have liquid water

and how many could have
evolved intelligent life.

And then one important factor

is the lifetime
of those civilizations,

and that is a big unknown.

Uh, we only know of one.
That's ourselves.

And, uh, how long
are we gonna be around?

That's to be determined.

NARRATOR:
Using his equation, Drake estimated

that over 100 million
advanced civilizations

could exist in just
the Milky Way galaxy.

BILL BIRNES:
SETI presupposes

that if you've got
an alien civilization

capable of traveling,

that's developed electronics,
they have a fingerprint.

That fingerprint
is a repetitive signal.

A repetitive signal
will tell them

that it's not just noise,
junk frequencies out there,

but a real attempt
at communicating,

maybe not with us
but with each other.

NARRATOR:
But what if SETI intercepts

a transmission
from another world?

What would happen next?

According to SETI's
post-detection protocols,

once an extraterrestrial
radio signal is confirmed,

news of the event
should be kept secret

until the authorities
have been notified.

The government will then decide

whether or not
to try and make contact.

DAVIES:
I think all bets are off, because

here is this message,
it could contain

enormously important
information that would

transform our society
and maybe destabilize it.

What is it gonna mean for
the future of our civilization?

These are momentous questions.

NARRATOR:
Today, SETI continues to scan the vicinities

of nearby stars for
artificially-produced signals

using several of
the world's largest telescopes.

In the next several years,

when it becomes
fully operational,

SETI's new Allen Telescope Array

will allow
for the reconnaissance

of up to a million stars.

SEAGER:
SETI has to search a huge, huge area.

They'll tell you that, now,

they have searched
the equivalent of like

a glass of water compared
to the entire ocean on Earth.

They have a long way to go.

NARRATOR: While SETI listens passively
to signals from outer space,

NASA has attempted
to contact alien life directly

through messages
sent aboard its space probes.

DENNIN:
It's a long shot,

but there's no reason in my mind

not to expect
that life evolved elsewhere.

What's harder to predict
or try and understand is:

How likely is it

that it happened close enough
that there'd be someone

we could actually
communicate with?

NARRATOR:
In 1972, NASA agreed to attach small plaques

onto the outside of
its twin Pioneer space probes,

the first human-built objects

destined to leave
our solar system.

NASA contacted
Cornell University professor

Dr. Carl Sagan
to craft the message.

DENNIN:
Carl Sagan was one of the most active astronomers

in the search for life
outside our planet.

He was a very
prominent scientist,

he was an excellent astronomer,

and he really did a lot to
help us understand how we might

contact other life or detect
life elsewhere in the universe.

NARRATOR:
Sagan, along with SETI founder Frank Drake,

designed a gold-anodized
aluminum plaque

measuring roughly
six-by-nine inches

that contained a collection
of symbolic images

representing humans and Earth.

ALBERT HARRISON:
The man and a woman were nude.

And the gentleman was holding

one arm up like this,
in what was intended to be

a sign of, uh,
a sign of greeting.

NARRATOR: A schematic design of
the solar system was also shown,

with the planned trajectory

of the Pioneer spacecraft
marked on it,

and a diagram of
14 pulsar stars around the sun

made a chart
that might help someone

work out
where the craft originated.

DENNIN: We tried to give them
an idea of where we're located,

and that's an interesting
problem is to figure out

how you would tell someone
where you're located

in space, 'cause you don't know
where they're gonna find it.

And it was all in
a very stylistic design,

but in an attempt
to hopefully communicate

at least some of these ideas.

NARRATOR:
Five years later, in 1977,

Dr. Sagan got a second chance

at designing
an interstellar message

when NASA agreed
to attach another one

to the Voyager space probes.

This time,
Sagan created a record album

made of gold-plated copper,

along with a series
of basic instructions

in how to make it work.

Sagan estimated
that the metallic disc

could survive in space
for at least a billion years.

DENNIN:
At this point, we obviously haven't

learned anything yet
about extraterrestrial life

'cause we haven't
been contacted back.

Um, but I think,
for our own purposes,

any time you try
and go and figure out

how you want to
communicate something,

it pushes your boundaries

and understanding
of communication itself.

SEAGER:
We all want to find aliens.

Whether it's
the planetary scientists

looking for signs of life
on another distant planet,

whether it's
the ancient alien proponents,

who want to find
signs of life of aliens

who visited in the past,

and whether it's people today

who want to have
experiences with UFOs

and aliens that have
visited them recently.

All of us are
trying to do the same thing.

NARRATOR:
While the search

for extraterrestrial beings
continues,

a new space-based telescope

is hunting for planets
that may contain life.

Are there
other Earths out there?

And if so,
how will we find them?

NARRATOR:
On March 6th, 2009,

NASA launched
a Delta II rocket into space.

On board was a new telescope

named in honor of German
astronomer Johann Kepler.

The space-based telescope
was designed specifically

to discover the existence
of earthlike planets

located outside
our own solar system.

The Kepler search is focused
on a specific section

of the Milky Way
known as Orion's Spur.

Kepler's job is
to answer the question:

How common are other Earths?

And to do this, Kepler's
looking at one part of the sky

for three and a half years.

Imagine, like,
keeping your eyes open

and staring at just
one part of the sky.

HELDMANN: And what they're
doing is they're looking at stars,

and then, as a planet
goes around that star,

when the planet
gets in front of the star,

the starlight dims just a little
bit from our vantage point,

because it's being
blocked by the planet.

And so, you look for
that dimming of those stars,

and then that's how you're
able to detect these planets.

NARRATOR: So far, the Kepler
telescope has confirmed the existence

of five planets
outside our own solar system.

NASA officials expect
to find several hundred more

exoplanets like these before
their mission is completed.

Once a planet has been located,

scientists must then determine
if it might contain water.

HELDMANN:
We know from Earth

that all life on Earth
requires liquid water.

So that is the approach
that we've been taking

for looking for life
elsewhere in the universe:

follow the water.

And so that is the step one.

DAVIES: On Earth, wherever
we find liquid water, we find life.

And it's true.

Life on Earth can exist under

an extraordinary range
of conditions.

There are extreme organisms

that live in
the scalding effluent

coming out of the Earth's crust,
deep beneath the ocean.

There are other
remarkable organisms

living in the waste pools
of nuclear reactors

and extreme radiation
environments and so on.

But the one thing
that seems to be

absolutely necessary for life
as we know it is liquid water.

NARRATOR:
To determine if a planet

contains water
and possibly life,

scientists use
special telescopes

to analyze its atmosphere.

SEAGER:
We look at the light coming from the planet,

and we split that light up,
like a rainbow.

Now, if you look
at a rainbow in the sky

and you look
really, really carefully,

you will see some dark lines.

You'll see some colors
missing from the rainbow.

And those colors are missing

because of absorption by gases
in Earth's atmosphere.

So, effectively,
we're getting a rainbow

from another planet
and we're looking for dark lines

that tell us what kind of gases
are in the atmosphere.

NARRATOR: To better understand
how life affects its atmosphere,

NASA scientists
study microbial mats

at California's
Moss Landing Wildlife Area.

BRAD BEBOUT:
Microbial mats are important to NASA

for a-a whole bunch of reasons.

The organisms
that are in microbial mats

have been on Earth
just about longer

than any other kind of organism.

They make a number of things

which we call biomarkers,
which are important

in our search for life
on other planets.

So, there are
textural biomarkers,

so when you pull up
a piece of microbial mat

and look at the surface,
what does that look like?

One of the things that we're
doing with these microbial mats

is we're measuring
the fluxes of methane.

Methane is a gas that's produced
by certain kinds of organisms

that use the organic matter
that's in these mats.

And when that methane
goes into our atmosphere,

it can be detected
by other missions

such as
terrestrial planet finders,

is one of NASA's concept
missions for looking for gases

that are produced
by life on exoplanets.

DENNIN:
We can look for the signature of oxygen

or water on a planet,
and at least

that would give us an idea
of life-forms like ourselves,

ones that are carbon-based
and use oxygen

and carbon dioxide cycles.

Our atmosphere is not stable
without living organisms.

It would've
evaporated away by now.

And so, if you're looking out
in space and you detect,

around a star,
a signature of the chemicals

that we know exist for life,

that's very strong evidence
that life is there.

That doesn't help you know
if it's intelligent life,

but it does give you
an evidence for life.

NARRATOR:
With a universe literally full of possibilities,

planet hunters focus
their search on an area

they call a Goldilocks zone.

SEAGER:
The Goldilocks zone for planets

is the place where a planet
is not too hot, not too cold,

but just the right
temperature for life.

Right now,

we know of no planets like Earth
in a Goldilocks zone.

One planet comes close.
It's called Gliese 581D.

But we're not entirely sure
if that planet is really

in the Goldilocks zone or not.

DAVIES:
In recent years, it's been recognized

that there's more than one
Goldilocks zone.

For example,
there could be life, uh, inside

icy planetesimals, these, like,
small planets or large moons.

The moon of Jupiter, Europa,
is a very good example.

Europa is liquid
beneath an ice cap.

It's liquid
underneath because of

tidal heating and friction
going on inside the planet.

So it could be
that there is life,

uh, microbial probably only,

deep down
under the ice on Europa.

HELDMANN:
It's a very challenging question,

if there's life elsewhere
in our solar system.

You have so many components
that have to come together.

We have to have
an understanding of the science.

We have to ask
the right questions.

I wish I had a tricorder
that I could just go

and, like, point
and it would say "life"

or "no life," right?
But we don't have that,

so we have to be smart
and we have to be clever,

and we have to develop
instruments that can

actually address the questions
we're trying to answer.

SEAGER:
It's inevitable.

There are so many planets
out there, it's inevitable

that we'll find one in
the Goldilocks zone any day.

NARRATOR:
But while the Kepler telescope

has only just begun
scanning the horizon,

NASA is already planning
the next step

in its search
for extraterrestrial life.

People always ask me,
"Do you expect

to find an Earth
in your lifetime?"

And I say, "Yes, absolutely."

DAVIES:
When I was a student, there was almost

nobody prepared
to argue that way.

The feeling back in
the '60s and '70s was

that even if there were
other earthlike planets,

life is such
an improbable freak event

that it would never,
ever happen anywhere else.

Now the prevailing view is,

yes, the universe
is teeming with life.

Everybody wants
to meet an alien,

but we have to start small.

We have to learn
how to walk before we can run.

GEORGE NOORY:
The fascinating thing for me

is that we're only four
and a half billion years old

in a universe that's
close to 14 billion years old.

What would happen with
some of these earthlike planets

that had a five-
or ten-billion-year

head start on us?

Gosh, you can only imagine.

NARRATOR:
As we advance our technology

in the search for
extraterrestrial life,

could we be getting closer

to finding definitive proof
that we are not alone?

As far as ancient astronaut
theorists are concerned,

we may have already detected

concrete evidence
of an alien intelligence

in the form of strange signals
coming from space.

You really have to respect
mainstream scientists

who choose to be
part of a group called

the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

DAVID CHILDRESS:
Yeah, and when it comes

to looking for advanced alien
civilizations in the cosmos,

they've been leading the charge
for over half a century.

Oh, absolutely. And in 2016,

I visited one of
their largest observatories

in Northern California,

where they have
dozens of satellite dishes

capturing radio waves
from outer space.

And what's so exciting
is that, over the years,

SETI has detected
some really unusual signals.

NARRATOR:
Delaware, Ohio.

August 15, 1977.

At Ohio State University's
Big Ear radio telescope,

astronomer Jerry R. Ehman
conducts research

for SETI, the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

While reviewing recorded data,

he detects
a highly unusual signal

originating from
the constellation Sagittarius.

They're looking for this
bandwidth of 1,420 megahertz.

And specifically,
they believe that this bandwidth

corresponds to water

and that intelligent
civilizations might encode

the electromagnetic frequency of
water with a detectable signal.

So there's Jerry Ehman,
on the Big Ear telescope,

doing his SETI work,
and a 72-second burst comes in

on the 1,420-megahertz signal.

72 seconds
of very bizarre static

that does not look natural.

It looks artificial.

It looks like something

that was intelligently
built and sent.

So, he writes, "Wow!" next
to this part of the readout,

and it is now known
as the "Wow! signal."

And still, to this day,
the Wow! signal has never

been properly explained,
nor has it been deciphered.

NARRATOR:
While there are various theories

as to what may have caused
the now famous Wow! signal,

from terrestrial radio
broadcasts to comet trails,

SETI has not ruled out
the possibility

that it may represent
modern man's

first radio contact
with extraterrestrials,

and they have plans
to reexamine the area

where it originated
in the near future.

To get a firsthand look
into this continued search

for extraterrestrial life,
in March of 2016,

researcher and publisher
Giorgio Tsoukalos

traveled to
the Allen Telescope Array

in Hat Creek, California,
where he met

with the director for
SETI research, Seth Shostak.

This is truly amazing.

What can you tell me
about this place?

Well, this place is,
uh, an observatory,

but it's a radio observatory,
so these things around us,

these 42 antennas,
they pick up radio waves.

And we're trying to pick up very
special sort of radio waves,

namely some that would tell us
somebody's out there.

By having
lots of these dishes here,

we can look at
more of the sky at once.

We can look at
multiple star systems at once.

Why radio waves?

What's so significant
about radio waves?

SETH SHOSTAK:
Radio waves go at the speed of light,

and they also, by the way,
go through all the gas

and dust that's
between the stars.

So, you know,
if you want to communicate

from one part of
the galaxy to another,

radio waves
are a great way to do it.

So, the way this works
is actually kind of simple.

I mean, the cosmic radio static,

it comes in from the sky
and it bounces off

that big reflector there,
that first one, okay?

- That's-that's
a mirror for radio waves. - Mm-hmm.

And that redirects
into this secondary reflector

on the end, on the nose there,

and then they're
directed to the receiver,

and that's inside.

That information goes through

a fiber optic
over to the control room.

So, this is where
the data coming through

the fiber optics kind of ends up

after it's been processed
in a display like this.

And what are
we looking at right here?

So, we're looking, in this case,
at three star systems

at once, okay?
So that speeds up the search.

It also allows us to determine
whether we're really

seeing E.T.
or just interference.

The data from
one of these star systems

is being displayed over
on this part of the screen here.

This is called a waterfall plot.

And that- Can you see?
Can you see that line

- of brighter dots there?
- This right here, yes. Mm-hmm.

SHOSTAK: Yeah, that's, uh, slightly
more static at that frequency,

slowly going down the dial.

That's the kind of thing
we're looking for.

So then, if this here
were an actual E.T. signal,

how would
it differentiate itself?

Uh, would it be a bit thicker,
a bit more pronounced,

a bit longer, or...
what are you looking for?

It could be all of those things.

So, what you do is,
when you find

a signal like this,
you make a test.

You'll just move
the antennas a little bit

and see if the signal goes away.

And then point it
back at the star

and see if it comes back.

You say, "Well,
that's looking promising."

You do that again,
go off, go on, go off, go on.

If you do that five or ten
times, you start to get excited.

I hope that that day
will come very soon.

SHOSTAK:
The Wow! signal continues to intrigue people.

So we are going to use
the Allen Telescope Array

to reobserve the Wow! signal,

look in the same spot
on the sky,

look over a wider range
of frequencies,

and-and if there's
something up there

and it's still broadcasting,
of course, we would find it.

NARRATOR:
While SETI has yet to find

an explanation
for the Wow! signal,

NASA's Kepler telescope team
has continued to search

for signs of alien life
in other solar systems,

despite the U.S. government's
open denial

of extraterrestrial contact.

In September 2015, after more
than five years of research,

members of
the Kepler team revealed

some incredible findings

coming from the star
KIC 8462852,

also known as "Tabby's star,"

named for the astronomer
who discovered it.

WILCOCK:
What we see from Tabby's star

is changes in light output

that are not attributable
to comets, to planets,

to asteroids
or to other fragments

that would orbit the star.

We're seeing quasiperiodic
dimmings of the light

that can be
as much as a 21% reduction

in the luminosity
that's coming out of the star.

Now, we have the scientists
who are publishing papers

in which they propose
that one of the explanations

for what they're seeing

is a massive
extraterrestrial construct

akin to something
known as a "Dyson sphere."

MIKE BARA:
The Dyson sphere

is actually a gigantic structure
built around a star,

which harnesses the energy of
the star, and could, in fact,

be used to travel

from one place to another
within the galaxy.

This story is
a total game changer,

because it suggests
that a Type II civilization,

a civilization that can harness
the power of an entire star,

actually does exist,

and we can see it
with our telescopes.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that astronomers
hunting for habitable planets

may have accidentally discovered

the first
extrasolar civilization?

If so, why do
government officials

remain reluctant
to fully acknowledge

what the findings might suggest?

According to
ancient astronaut theorists,

NASA's real fear isn't aliens.

It's how the public might react.

And for further proof,

they point
to the agency's response

to possible signs of life
on Mars.

You can't talk about
the search for intelligent life

in the cosmos without discussing
our exploration of Mars.

It is the most earthlike

of all the planets
in our solar system.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
Right, and what's incredible

is that we've been
photographing Mars

since 1965, which is
before the Moon missions.

Yeah, and we even have
evidence that NASA

may have found
microbial life-forms

on Mars back in the 1970s.

We covered this
in a 2014 episode called

"Aliens and the Red Planet."

NARRATOR:
Cape Canaveral, Florida.

August 20, 1975.

LAUNCH DIRECTOR:
Ignition. We have liftoff.

NARRATOR:
The United States launches

a Titan rocket carrying
the Viking spacecraft.

Viking is embarking on
a 420-million-mile journey

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

Mars.

If all goes well, in 11 months,
the unmanned probe

will touch down
on the Martian surface

and search for evidence of life.

Mainstream scientists say Mars
is most likely a dead planet

because of its
incredible temperature swings

and high levels
of solar radiation.

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

JONATHAN YOUNG:
The night sky is an astounding thing.

To the naked eye,
the Red Planet could be seen

with its special colors.

After all,
it's the biggest thing

you see up there past the Moon.

So it's been a special object
of fascination

and reverence because

religious systems often were
associated with the planets

and the stars,
the sky in general.

Speculations about what's there.

Is intelligent life there?
Are the gods there?

Th-That's gone on
for a long time.

BOB FRISBEE:
Our dream for life on Mars probably goes back

even to the ancient times,
when we were just doing

naked eye observation.

It's the planet
that really stands out,

that we now know is

very close to Earth,
in terms of physical conditions.

Even though Venus is
much more like Earth

in size and gravity,

it's a hellhole
in the solar system.

But Mars, Mars is out there
within our grasp.

NARRATOR:
Among the first to record this fiery red ball

in the night sky were
ancient Egyptian astronomers.

In 1534 BC,

they placed Mars
on humanity's first chart

of the known cosmos,
the Senenmut star map.

Two and a half centuries later,

the Egyptians painted
the planet Mars

on the ceiling
of the tomb of Seti I.

But while
the Egyptians honored Mars,

many other ancient cultures
feared it

because they associated
the Red Planet

with death, destruction and war.

According to
some anthropologists,

this is because
the planet glows red

like the color of blood
spilled on the battlefield.

From India to Rome,
all of the ancient societies

had a reverence for Mars,

a great closeness to Mars.

Very important
in their pantheon,

very important in
the imagination of the people

that some kind of connection

with that red planet
be maintained.

NARRATOR: But while many ancient
societies felt a bond with Mars,

most did not identify it
as a planet like Earth.

The ancients thought planets

were as uninhabitable
as the Sun.

ROBERT BAUVAL:
They saw them as

wandering stars.
In fact, the word "planet"

means, in Greek,
"wandering star," "planeta."

You have the fixed stars,
the constellations,

but then you have these-these
stars wandering about.

They seem to follow
the Sun because

they appear to move
against the background

of the fixed stars
the same way the Sun does.

NARRATOR:
It wasn't until the 17th and 18th centuries,

when astronomers
finally had telescopes

powerful enough to make out
features on the surface of Mars,

that we started to imagine
life on the Red Planet

as a real possibility.

SHOSTAK:
By the 1860s, an Italian astronomer

by the name of Angelo Secchi

thought he saw straight lines
crisscrossing the surface

of our little ruddy buddy
up there, Mars.

And he called them "canali."

The idea was picked up
by an American astronomer

by the name of Percival Lowell.

And Percival Lowell
built his own observatory

down in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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

and he wrote books about this.

He was articulate,
he was clever,

and he convinced
a lot of the public,

and some of
the scientific establishment,

that there really was
a civilization on Mars

busy digging up their planet

because they needed
to irrigate their crops.

NARRATOR:
But why has Mars

fascinated humankind
throughout history?

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

and its striking red color
in the night sky?

Or is it possible, as ancient
astronaut theorists contend,

that Mars really was,
at one time,

inhabited by intelligent life?

The Cydonia region of Mars.

July 20, 1976.

An alien spacecraft
sent from Earth touches down

on the Red Planet.

After a ten-month journey,

Viking I has reached
its destination.

- (people cheering)
- NARRATOR: To NASA scientists,

it's a momentous event.

For the first time
in its history,

the United States has
a probe on another planet.

Viking was the first spacecraft
to actually attempt

a soft landing on Mars,

and give us an actual feel,

a taste for what the conditions
were on the surface.

We looked out at those pictures
of the surface,

and they looked so much like
the Pacific deserts here,

like Death Valley.

We all half expected
to see a miner

and his burro come walking up
over the nearest rise.

NARRATOR:
Scientists knew that finding definitive

signs of life on Mars
was a long shot.

But when the Viking lander
performed four tests

on the Martian soil,
looking for microbial life,

it returned surprising
and controversial results.

Dr. Gil Levin designed

one of the tests
that the Viking probe performed.

LEVIN:
Microorganisms breathe, just like you or I

or anything else.

And then they give off
carbon dioxide.

So we got a tiny sample,
a thimbleful,

of the soil,
put into a little container.

It was monitored for
seven days continuously

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

Surprisingly, the tests

came up positive for life

by the criteria
that had been approved by NASA.

NARRATOR:
However, the result of another important test,

one looking for organic matter
on the Martian surface,

was negative.

But Dr. Levin says
the other test wasn't nearly

as sensitive as his experiment.

It needed three million bacteria
in a thimbleful of Martian soil

to find signs of life,

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

So, there was a vast discrepancy

in the sensitivity
of the two experiments.

And I immediately said,
"Well, you know,

"they both could be right.

"We detected life,
but maybe there aren't

"enough bacteria
per unit of soil

for the organic analysis
instrument to find."

But NASA was very cautious,
and they opted to say,

"no organic matter."

There goes the ball game.
No life.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Levin has fought NASA for almost 40 years

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

If he was right about
the results of his test,

this would be the first proof
accepted by mainstream science

that life exists
outside our planet.

But ancient astronaut theorists

say an even more profound
discovery regarding

the Red Planet has been
uncovered right here on Earth.

NARRATOR:
Washington, D.C.

August 7th, 1996.

On the south lawn
of the White House,

30 years after NASA announced
the Viking mission

had not found
evidence of life on Mars,

President Bill Clinton held
an historic press conference

to announce some momentous news.

Microbial life may exist
on the Red Planet after all.

Scientists had found
what they believed

to be fossilized remains
on a Martian meteorite

that crashed to Earth
12,000 years ago.

(explosion booming)

It must be confirmed by
other scientists,

but clearly,

the fact that something of
this magnitude is being explored

is another vindication

of America's space program and
our continuing support for it,

even in these tough
financial times.

FRISBEE: There was enormous
excitement over this discovery.

Based on the chemical
composition of the meteorite,

we could tell
that it was from Mars.

Inside the rock, researchers
found different chemicals,

and in particular, different
physical shapes of objects

that looked extremely similar
to microorganisms here on Earth.

NARRATOR:
Soon after the president's press conference,

scientists began to backpedal

on whether the meteorite
actually showed signs of life.

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

The image certainly looks like
some kind of a microorganism.

But the opponents said
the microorganism remains

are too small to have DNA
to be inside it.

And therefore,
it can't be a fossil.

Since then, microorganisms
have been found that small

which have DNA in them.

But it has not been resolved.

NARRATOR: But given the controversy
surrounding the possibility

that life may have
been discovered on Mars,

starting with the Viking
mission of the 1970s

and continuing
to the present day...

LAUNCH DIRECTOR:
Liftoff.

NARRATOR:
...some scientists say NASA

almost seems to be
avoiding the issue.

The space agency has
never retried Gil Levin's test

for signs of life
on the Red Planet.

It is very puzzling
as to why NASA has refused

to send life detection
experiments back to Mars.

My experiment discovered

the most remarkable thing
yet known about Mars:

that there's something
highly reactive in the soil,

chemical or biological.

But we really should
find out what it is.

It is startling
that NASA has made no attempt

to determine that issue.

I truly think NASA knows
there is life on Mars.

But for some reason
unbeknownst to me,

it does not want
that information out.

NARRATOR:
Has NASA found definitive signs of life on Mars

that they're intentionally
keeping from the public?

And if so,
have they found evidence

that an advanced civilization
once lived on the Red Planet?

Some ancient astronaut theorists
believe they have

and, as evidence,
point to a report

commissioned by NASA in 1960...

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

if the American space program

should ever find proof
of extraterrestrial life.

BARA: The so-called Brookings
Report essentially said

that in your travels
throughout the solar system,

there is a distinct possibility

that you will
discover artifacts,

that you will actually
discover evidence

of an ancient alien presence on
Venus, on the Moon or on Mars.

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

would be potentially devastating
to the human race.

It could be catastrophic.

In fact, it used the word
"disintegrate."

BAUVAL:
I would imagine that it would be something

that would be kept secret
for a while.

I don't think
it's a bunch of men

sitting in a room
and smoking cigarettes

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

But it is a responsibility,

and I think that they would
certainly be very, very careful

as to how to
let out this knowledge.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible that not just microbial life

but also intelligent beings

once called the Red Planet
their home?

And if so, what would that mean

for the existence of life
elsewhere in the cosmos?

If life used to exist on Mars,

particularly if it formed
independently of Earth life...

...life in the universe
is all over the place.

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

...similar to Earth,
through our universe,

many of them
would have life on them.

And if there is life
different from life on Earth

that has evolved, there
would be every reason to suspect

such evolution would have gone
on, on countless other Earths

and that there would be
intelligent life

out there as well.

? ?

We want there
to be life on Mars.

We want there to be life
somewhere beyond here.

We want that transcendent
connection to the heavens.

We don't want it to be invaders,

but we don't want to be alone
in the universe.

NARRATOR: If signs of microbial
life have been found on Mars,

is it really far-fetched
to consider the possibility

of advanced life
elsewhere in the cosmos?

According to
ancient astronaut theorists,

evidence might be closer to home
than we realize.

And they suggest further clues
could be uncovered

by examining
leaked transmissions

sent by NASA astronauts.

The discoveries we are making
on Mars are incredible,

but we find equally
intriguing discoveries

in our own Earth's orbit.

We have countless photos
and videos

from NASA missions showing
unidentified flying objects

that look like spacecraft.

Yeah, and astronauts
have claimed

that they have seen things
that they couldn't explain,

and this goes all the way back
to the Apollo 11 Moon mission.

- Right.
- Yeah, and it's not just

American astronauts,
it's Russian cosmonauts, too.

So, when you have photos
and videos,

multiple eyewitness accounts,
you have to wonder:

Is there an alien presence
right above our planet?

NARRATOR:
NASA Ames Research Center.

Moffett Field, California.

On December 5th, 2011,

astronomers working
with the Kepler Space Telescope

announced the discovery
of a planet

they called Kepler-22b,
orbiting within

what's known as the habitable
zone of a distant star.

Today's discovery is
a tantalizing indication

that, with time, Kepler
may find true Earth analogs.

SHOSTAK: Kepler-22b is about
600 light-years away from Earth,

so that's a long way.

But it is, in fact, in an orbit

that means that the daytime
temperatures on that planet

might be comparable to
a summer in San Francisco.

So that's the first time
we found a planet

that might have liquid oceans,

maybe a thick atmosphere,
maybe even life.

What we'd ultimately
like to do, first, is just...

just understand how other
planetary systems are made up.

But then we really would like
to find earthlike planets.

Planets in the habitable zone
of sunlike stars.

NARRATOR:
But is it possible that NASA scientists

have been searching for life
they already know exists?

Some believe
previous voyages into space

have uncovered evidence
of an extraterrestrial presence.

CONTROL:
Houston, Discovery. How do you read? Over.

ASTRONAUT:
Discovery, Houston. Read you loud and clear.

LAUNCH DIRECTOR:
Go for main engines start.

Main engines up and burning.

Three, two, one, zero
and liftoff.

CONTROL:
Roger roll, Discovery.

NARRATOR:
On September 12th, 1991,

the Space Shuttle Discovery,
STS-48,

flew nearly 350 miles above
the surface of the Earth.

Its crew,
led by Captain John Creighton,

performed several missions,
including the deployment

of an Upper Atmosphere
Research Satellite.

CONTROL:
He is a go for free drift.

ASTRONAUT:
Okay, we're in free drift.

NARRATOR:
But while the astronauts occupied themselves

with various tasks,

a video camera
at the rear cargo bay door...

...captured footage that NASA
claims no longer exists.

But a number of amateurs

that were monitoring
the transmission

produced what they allege
is genuine footage from STS-48.

The video shows
what appears to be

a series of unidentified glowing
objects and flashing lights...

...that change direction
and accelerate rapidly.

Apparently, the space shuttle
was surrounded by some kind of,

uh, UFO, a flying saucer
type of craft.

Some kind of a shield,
at one point,

was supposedly put around
the shuttle briefly.

And then the UFO
and everything disappeared.

One of the astronauts openly
states over an open channel,

"Hey, we're being tracked
by an alien spacecraft."

And then all of a sudden, all
the transmission just ceases.

And I think what happened was
is that he must have realized

he was on the public channel,
not the private channel,

and he probably
very, very quickly

switched over
to the private channel

to describe what it was
he was seeing.

STORY MUSGRAVE: I knew everyone,
and I heard stories from everyone.

Nobody brought me any evidence.

So, one side of the coin,
it's everywhere out there.

Has it been here?
I have no evidence.

NARRATOR:
NASA officials claim the video images

show ice particles
glinting in the sun.

But is it possible

that video transmissions
from the space shuttle

captured more than what
NASA officials want to admit?

Occasionally, uh, astronauts,

shuttle astronauts
will report that they've seen

things or experienced things
in space that they can't explain

and that might be due
to an alien presence.

Ever since humankind
launched itself into space,

there have been reports where
astronauts describe something

that they saw
while being up in the spaceship.

And we have to remind ourselves
that those stories

are reported by astronauts

and not by insane people.

NARRATOR:
In 1996,

video captured aboard the Space
Shuttle Columbia, STS-80...

...reportedly shows a number
of fast-moving objects

just outside the craft.

These unidentified objects
appear as bright streaks.

Analysis of their speeds
and directions

have prompted some researchers
to dismiss the claims

that the objects were
shuttle debris or meteors.

BARA: There's space shuttle
video of two very specific missions,

STS-48 and STS-80,
which clearly show

what appear to be
powered vehicles

operating in low Earth orbit,
defying all the laws of physics

and clearly performing
the way UFOs

or extraterrestrial spacecraft
are supposedly able to perform.

NARRATOR: But American astronauts
are not the only space travelers

reporting
otherworldly encounters.

In 1985, Soviet cosmonauts
aboard the Salyut 7

reported seeing seven celestial
beings orbiting Earth.

CHILDRESS:
Six cosmonauts

claimed that, as they looked
out of the window

of the space station,
they saw what they described

as winged angels
surrounding their ship,

and that these were
luminous beings

looking like people
but also having, uh,

bizarrely, wings on them...
and they're in space.

So you have to wonder:
Uh, what's going on here?

And were these angels
some kind of extraterrestrials

in special space suits
or with fields around them

and they were investigating
the Soviet, uh, space station?

And then suddenly, bang,
they just vanished.

NARRATOR:
If reports from trained scientists are true,

is this proof that
extraterrestrial intelligence

has been trying to contact us?

SEAN-DAVID MORTON:
Gordy Cooper approached the United Nations

about them actually
setting up, uh, a-a bureau

at the United Nations
for extraterrestrial contact.

EDGAR MITCHELL:
This is not unknown knowledge.

There are people that know,
and there seems to be

perhaps several different
species of aliens visiting here.

And it looks like,
likely they have been

for a long, long time.

NARRATOR: Might NASA really
be withholding classified information

regarding the existence
of extraterrestrial beings?

Could that explain
why particular video

and communication feeds
from space missions

have been withheld
from the public?

And if the unexplained phenomena

astronauts have encountered
in orbit

point to an alien intelligence,
is it a new presence

or one that has been
observing us

from the very beginning?

There have been a lot
of strange things observed

above our planet,

but perhaps
the most compelling of all

is the object they call
"the Black Knight satellite."

Yeah, it's fascinating,
because whatever this thing is,

there have been reports about it
for over 50 years.

TSOUKALOS:
Yeah, and, you know, there's a possibility

that we have a reference
of this satellite

in an ancient text
that's almost 2,000 years old.

We covered this
in a 2016 episode called

"The Mysterious Nine."

NARRATOR:
December 1998.

During the assembly of
the International Space Station,

U.S. astronauts spot
a large unidentified item

orbiting the Earth.

They take photographs
of the mysterious object

and post them
on the NASA website.

WILCOCK:
When you actually look

at the photographs
of the object,

it very obviously looks
artificial.

This is not a meteor.

This is not a chunk of rock.

This is something
that has a dark, streamlined,

technological appearance,

almost like some of the stealth
aircraft that we've built,

with a kind of bent nose in
the front, sort of like a hawk.

NARRATOR: Curiously, NASA
officials quickly remove the photos

and claim the object
was space debris.

Most likely, a thermal blanket

inadvertently released
from the space station.

But some independent researchers
are not convinced

and suggest that it might be
the latest evidence

of the Black Knight satellite

that first made headlines
three years before

the first man-made satellite
was launched into orbit.

In 1954,

both the San Francisco Examiner
and the Aviation Week journal

published articles detailing
what appeared to be

artificial satellites
orbiting the Earth.

It really shocked
a lot of people,

because although the concept
of satellites were known,

nobody on the planet
was flying a satellite.

The story really takes off

with a man named
Major Donald Keyhoe.

He was formerly
with the U.S. military

and wrote a number
of books on UFOs.

One of the things
that Keyhoe wrote about

was how, supposedly,
a number of military insiders

had told him
that the U.S. military

was tracking one or two
unknown satellites

of extraordinary size
in Earth orbit.

Nobody knew what they were.

This was long before Sputnik,

the first satellite
launched by the Russians,

and it gave rise to the idea
that it was extraterrestrial.

NARRATOR:
The United States Department of Defense

was said to have
recruited the assistance

of astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh
in 1953

to identify this strange object.

However, his conclusions
were never made public.

Based on its appearance
on radar in the 1960s,

scientists estimated
that the mystery satellite

weighed over ten tons.

It was not only several times
larger than anything

worldwide space programs
were capable of launching

but it also seemed
to be traveling

in an artificial orbit,

circling the Earth
from pole to pole.

The Black Knight is said
to be in a polar orbit,

which was what you would do
if you wanted to cover

the entire planet Earth
as it rotated underneath you.

Weather satellites,
spy satellites

are commonly put
into this polar orbit

in order to cover
the entire surface of the Earth.

This implies that it is
an unnatural object.

What's particularly intriguing
about this satellite

is it's not one of ours.

In other words,
the theory is that this is

an extraterrestrial satellite

that has perhaps
been monitoring planet Earth

for thousands of years.

In the 1930s,
ham radio operators claimed

they were picking up
radio signals from outer space.

And Nikola Tesla himself

claimed that he was picking up
radio signals from Mars.

So, you have to wonder:
Were ham radio operators

and even Nikola Tesla
somehow picking up signals

from this extraterrestrial ship
orbiting our planet?

WILCOCK: A ham radio operator
was able to decipher this signal

and create a matrix grid
of individual dots

that were either white or black.

When he looked at this grid,
he concluded that it was a map

of the Epsilon Bo�tis
constellation,

positioned where it would
have been 13,000 years ago.

NARRATOR:
Might this mysterious object

actually have traveled
to Earth 13,000 years ago?

And if so, was it put into orbit
by extraterrestrials

in order to observe Earth?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes

and suggest that descriptions
of an extraterrestrial satellite

can even be found
thousands of years ago,

in the Hebrew text known
as the Apocalypse of Baruch.

The Apocalypse of Baruch

is one of the best ancient
astronaut stories in existence

because it describes
an eyewitness account

of a satellite
orbiting the Earth.

Baruch describes how he sees
a magnificent bird

that watched
the happenings on the planet.

And from time to time,
this bird would extend its wings

to glean or to gather
the power of the Sun,

And after flying around,
that bird will be so exhausted,

it would retract its wings.

If we look at today's satellites
in space, it's the same story.

We have solar cells
on wings that can extend

and then they can retract
at will.

So, what if Baruch
witnessed something similar?

Baruch himself said that this is
the "guardian of the earth."

NARRATOR:
Might the mythological bird

described in
the Apocalypse of Baruch

have actually been
an observational satellite?

Could this be proof
that extraterrestrials

have been keeping watch
over our planet

for thousands of years,

as some ancient astronaut
theorists suggest?

And if intelligent life-forms
exist beyond Earth,

why haven't
they made themselves known?

Perhaps additional clues
can be uncovered

by exploring why and how

they may be deliberately
avoiding detection.

You know, every year, we learn
that there are more and more

habitable planets out there.

And it really makes you think
that there must be dozens,

even hundreds of
intelligent species out there.

Yeah, and scientists are now
on board with the probability

of other life in the universe.

And you know, it's interesting,
it's been suggested

that one of the reasons
why we haven't

detected extraterrestrials

is because more advanced races

are seeking to evade detection
by us.

Right. This is
the so-called zoo hypothesis.

And believe it or not,
it was proposed

by an astrophysicist from MIT.

NARRATOR: If extraterrestrial
beings do exist in the universe,

where are they?

That was the question
posed by Enrico Fermi,

one of the leading scientists
of the 20th century.

(explosive booming)

DAVIES:
Shortly after the Second World War,

the famous physicist
Enrico Fermi,

who was taking part
in the Manhattan Project

to build the atomic bomb,

was talking at Los Alamos
with some friends

about the reports, uh,
of flying saucers,

and Fermi, uh,
suddenly said, uh,

in relation to extraterrestrial
intelligent beings,

"Where are they?"

And he was simply
making the point

that if there was a civilization
somewhere in the galaxy,

uh, that had arisen, uh, say,
a hundred million years ago,

then they had plenty of time

to have spread
across the galaxy.

BALL:
Fermi said,

"Gee, if there's all of these
civilizations out there

on all of these planets
out there, where is everybody?"

NARRATOR:
The Fermi paradox, as it became known,

was an attempt to explain
the lack of evidence of aliens

despite the mathematical
probability of their existence.

But in the 1960s,
MIT astrophysicist John Ball

rebutted Fermi's hypothesis

with a controversial one
of his own:

the zoo hypothesis.

The zoo hypothesis
says that, uh,

we are in a zoo
or a wilderness area

that they have
essentially left alone

and are going to leave alone

to allow us to develop
in our own way and our own rate.

MICHAEL CROWE:
Extraterrestrials have detected us on Earth

but have chosen not
to come here, not to invade,

but rather to observe us

as we observe
animals in the zoo.

They've thought, "We'll do
a study of those Earthlings

and see what sort
of people they are."

Now, why would they do this?
Well, if, on the one hand,

we have nothing they want-
that's surely true-

and on the other hand,
we aren't able to interfere

with whatever they're doing-
that's also surely true.

They're out there
doing their own thing,

and they're not paying
any attention to us,

and we're not clever enough

to eavesdrop
on whatever they're doing.

That's the predicament we're in.

We have something that is
looking down and monitoring us.

We are on the petri dish,
and we can't get out far enough

to see what's behind those eyes
behind that microscope?

NARRATOR: If aliens are watching
us right now, where are they?

Some believe
they are sitting out in space

in what are called
Lagrange points,

named after mathematician
and astronomer Joseph Lagrange,

who discovered them in 1772.

There are five of these points
between the Sun,

the Earth and our Moon.

SEAGER:
Lagrange points are points between two bodies

where the forces
balance equally.

Think of, like,
a seesaw when you have

one really heavy person
and one really light person.

There's a kind of
balance point in there,

and that's what
a Lagrange point is.

DAVIES: Lagrange points is where
we send some of our own satellites.

And that's a point in space

where you can just
sort of sit there inert,

for millions of years
if you had to,

without having to worry about
in-course corrections.

If you go anywhere else
in the solar system,

uh, then in order to keep pace
with Earth as it orbits the Sun,

you've got to continually, uh,
change your-your position.

SEAGER:
So, people have talked about Lagrange points

as a place where
a spacecraft might hide out.

Because you don't have to do
a lot to stay in that spot.

It's sort of equally balanced
and you just get carried along.

TSOUKALOS:
If an extraterrestrial race

would've ever visited
our solar system,

they could've placed a probe
in those specific points

in order to observe us,

to record us, what have you.

So, I mean,
this is not something,

uh, that the ancient
astronaut theory has proposed.

This is, you know,
university professors,

astrophysicists,
who have proposed this.

NARRATOR:
Some argue that another reason

alien beings have yet
to reveal themselves

is because they don't yet
consider us worthy.

This forms the basis of
John Ball's jungle hypothesis.

BALL:
The jungle hypothesis just means that,

if you have animals,
such as ants,

that live in the jungle,

no matter how many of them
you have, their chances

of ever having seen
a human being are very slim.

Not because we're hiding
or anything

but we just don't have a reason
to go into the jungle

and step on anthills.

So, the idea is that
we are probably related

to advanced
extraterrestrial intelligence

similar to an anthill
might be related to humans,

and the fact
that we've never seen

any extraterrestrial
intelligence

is just, we don't have
anything they want.

HOWE:
We could actually shake hands with something

that might have been coming
and going on this planet,

for literally thousands,
perhaps millions of years,

and has kept a distance
during the last age of man,

for reasons unknown,

and maybe is waiting
for us all to finally grow up.

CROWE:
One thing that can be said

with a great deal of confidence

is that if the contact
is initiated by them,

they are going to be
not only superior to us

but greatly superior to us.

They won't be
just beginners like we are.

They will be far more
advanced than we are.

NARRATOR:
Both the jungle and zoo hypotheses

propose that alien beings
are watching us

but are, for the time being,
keeping their distance.

But what if they're not?

What if, just as our search
takes us deeper into the cosmos,

interstellar visitors
are quietly making their way

into our solar system?

Astronomers have been searching
the universe for decades,

and personally, I think
there's a really good chance

that soon we'll discover

an inhabited planet,

because of all
the new discoveries

we're making in outer space.

Like interstellar objects.

For years, we were told
it was impossible

for an asteroid from
another part of our universe

to enter our solar system,

but now astronomers
have detected three

of these interstellar travelers,

beginning with 'Oumuamua
in 2017.

Yeah, and scientists say
that 'Oumuamua

is coming from
the Pleiades star cluster.

And there are
so many ancient stories

of beings from the Pleiades
coming to Earth

that we dedicated
an entire episode to this

in 2020 called
"They Came from the Pleiades."

NARRATOR:
Maui, Hawaii.

October 19th, 2017.

Scientists at the University
of Hawai'i Haleakala Observatory

detect a strange object

traveling through
our solar system.

They initially catalog it
as an asteroid,

but after further examination,

researchers observe
that the object accelerated

as it approached the Sun,

acting more like a comet

but without any other
comet-like characteristics.

The find forces astronomers
to reclassify it

as something entirely new:
an interstellar object.

KAREN MEECH:
We'd never seen anything like this

in the solar system before.

We get an estimate of its size

at about 800 meters,
or half a kilometer in length.

Roughly a cigar-like shape.

It was moving very fast,

a little more than
195,000 miles per hour.

You get a chill sometimes

when you understand
something is very important

or is really exciting,

and that's what I felt
with this object.

NARRATOR:
Our Milky Way galaxy

is estimated to consist
of 100,000 million stars,

each indicating the presence
of a solar system.

Because the distances
between them are so vast,

astronomers believed
it was impossible

for an object
from another solar system

to reach our own, until now.

It just came from outside
our solar system,

meaning it wasn't material
from our star being created.

It's from a different
star system, somewhere else.

That's historic,
that we've actually seen it.

We now know objects can travel
from one star system to another.

NARRATOR:
Researchers dubbed the interstellar visitor

"'Oumuamua," a Hawaiian term

meaning "a messenger from afar
arriving first."

Is it possible
that the interstellar visitor

was, in fact, a messenger?

One sent on a mission
to our solar system?

MICHAEL SALLA:
Different scientists have analyzed the data

and deduced that
it's something very different

to an asteroid or a comet.

So, the scientific data
does point to it actually being

some artificial creation.

We've had open speculation
about, uh,

how this thing might be
an interstellar spacecraft,

a talk from-from
a Harvard professor.

NARRATOR:
The chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department,

Dr. Avi Loeb,
noted that the object

seemed to follow
the propulsion patterns

of a new technology
that is currently being tested

for future space missions

known as
"solar sail propulsion."

Large reflective sails
capture sunlight

to propel a craft
through the vacuum of space.

You can design, essentially,
photon sails.

So, the idea has been
to make a-a material

that reflects photons, which
is light, very efficiently.

You deploy this,
and you basically

accelerate under starlight.

And then you just cruise.

NARRATOR:
Was similar alien technology

used to propel 'Oumuamua?

BRUCE FENTON:
It makes you wonder:

You know, was that
a targeted mission,

some sort of probe that has
been sent in to look for life?

TRAVIS TAYLOR:
Before man actually went

to the Moon and walked on it,
we sent a lot of probes

around the Moon to look at it.

And it's quite likely

that some version of NASA
from some other star system

could send a probe
here to Earth.

NARRATOR:
The trajectory of the interstellar object

took it past the Sun,
where it made a turn

and then ran parallel
to Earth's orbit.

It traveled between
our planet and Mars

before it began its journey
out of our solar system.

When 'Oumuamua arrived,
nobody knew where it came from.

Then, in 2018,

an astronomer at
the University of Hertfordshire

retraced its movements
and discovered

that it came from the Pleiades.

We have to ask: Is it possible
that it was actually sent

from the Pleiades?

NARRATOR:
For ancient astronaut theorists, the revelation

that 'Oumuamua traveled
to our solar system

from the area
of the Pleiades star cluster

is highly intriguing.

The Pleiades figures into
the creation stories

of many ancient cultures
from all around the world,

where it was taught
that divine beings

came from these stars
to seed life on Earth.

If we look at the mythologies

of the Pleiades
around the world,

there's some indication
that this star cluster

is, in some way, related to
a visitation in ancient times.

NARRATOR:
Located over 400 light-years from Earth,

near the constellation
of Taurus,

the Pleiades
is commonly recognized

as seven bright stars

but actually consists
of thousands.

SHOSTAK:
The Pleiades. Everybody's heard of the Pleiades.

They're also known
as the Seven Sisters,

'cause if you have
really good eyesight,

you can see seven stars
in a very compact configuration

in the winter sky.

And, in fact, there are
a lot more stars than seven.

There are actually
3,000 stars in the Pleiades.

MICHIO KAKU:
So, the Pleiades is a star cluster.

They're not separated
by huge distances,

but they occur in a small area.

That's different
from a constellation,

where the stars could be moving
in all sorts of directions

and are separated
by huge distances.

NARRATOR: The importance of this
massive star cluster to ancient peoples

is revealed not only
by their creation stories

but also in how they oriented
their most important structures.

FENTON:
All around the world,

we find ancient structures

that have alignments that infer
a relationship to the Pleiades.

Now, these can be found
in places like Chaco Canyon,

in Mesoamerica,
in various parts of the world.

It's clear
that the ancient people

wanted to incorporate the rising
of the Pleiades in some way,

uh, with the building
of these megastructures.

NARRATOR:
Additionally, ancient artwork and artifacts

pay homage to these same stars,

with one depiction dating back
an incredible 18,000 years.

KAKU:
Perhaps the earliest reference

to the Pleiades is in
the Lascaux caves in France.

But these go back thousands
of years into antiquity,

even before
the written language.

The Pleiades constellation
shows up in various artifacts,

one of them even being
a Sumerian tablet relief

that shows what appears to be
some type of a god

coming out
of the Pleiades constellation.

An interesting artifact
coming out of the 1600s

is the Nebra sky disc, depicting
the constellation of Pleiades.

TSOUKALOS:
Worldwide, we find hundreds of references

having to do with the Pleiades.

Not just on one continent,
not just in one culture,

but in multiple continents,
in multiple cultures worldwide.

That, to me, indicates

that something happened
here on Earth

having to do with someone
visiting from the Pleiades.

ANDREW COLLINS: The seven stars making
up the star cluster of the Pleiades

are very often represented
as human figures.

Uh, in Greek mythology,

they are seven sisters.

And in India, they are
associated with the seven rishi.

These are wise benefactors
to humanity

from some kind of
astronomical place in the sky.

We have to wonder:
Why are the Pleiades

being so specifically
picked out of the night sky?

Is it possible that the Pleiades

are the place where
our sky gods have come from?

NARRATOR:
With thousands of stars in the Pleiades,

could it be a place that
contains an earthlike planet,

one that could have been
the home planet

for our extraterrestrial
ancestors?

The Kepler space telescope

has found evidence
of planets in the Pleiades.

So, Kepler works
by finding dips of light

as a planet passes
in front of the star

that it's orbiting
relative to the Earth.

Astronomers were able to see
that there is some dimming

of stars in the Pleiades,

which is likely
caused by planets.

NARRATOR:
Are we entering a new era of alien visitation?

One where we will see
the return of the Pleiadians

and other
extraterrestrial races?

Perhaps further evidence
can be found

by examining
a second interstellar object

that recently entered
our solar system.

NARRATOR:
Crimea. August 30th, 2019.

At the MARGO observatory,

amateur astronomer
Gennadiy Borisov

detects a strange object
traveling through the sky.

It is dubbed the Borisov Comet

and becomes the second
interstellar object

ever discovered
in our solar system...

...nearly two years
after 'Oumuamua

traveled from
the Pleiades star cluster.

AMY SHIRA TEITEL:
The Borisov Comet is the second known object

we found that has
interstellar origins.

It was traveling way too fast

to have come from
our own outer solar system,

which means it has to have come
from another solar system.

Whether we're
just getting better

at detecting these objects

or whether we're seeing
this new kind of thing

swinging by our Sun,
it's a really exciting time

to be looking for things

that are coming from outside
our solar system.

HENRY:
This is kind of alarming to some astronomers

because we wonder:
Are these cosmic messengers

coming here
bringing us warnings?

Are they signaling something?

Is this just the start
of more interstellar objects

entering into our solar system?

And if so,
how many more of these objects

are we going to start seeing?

MEECH:
In 2017, a paper was published

trying to estimate the number
of interstellar objects

that we might have.

One estimate suggests

that at any one moment,
we might have

one 'Oumuamua-like object

inside the orbit of Earth
at any time.

It shows us new possibilities
of what's out there.

We've had a piece of something

from another solar system
delivered to us.

I think this is
inching us closer

to the discovery
of life elsewhere.

My personal belief
is there is life out there.

NARRATOR:
Now, after the historic discovery

of two interstellar objects

that were delivered
to our solar system,

could a new age be upon us?

One that will soon
see the arrival

of intelligent beings
from another world?

HENRY:
If 'Oumuamua is an interstellar probe,

we know now that
it comes from the Pleiades.

Is the Borisov object also

some form of intelligently
directed interstellar object?

And are there other species
out there that are

also sending probes
that we soon will discover?

TSOUKALOS:
In the earliest of oral traditions

and the earliest of texts,

everybody is waiting
for someone to return.

I hope that we will
make official contact

within our lifetime, meaning
in the next 50 or so years.

I've always said
that the big secret will be,

when the hatch opens
and they walk down the ramp,

that we'll look
at each other in the mirror,

'cause they will look
like you and me.

NARRATOR:
Throughout human history,

we have looked to the stars
to guide our ships,

to align
our most sacred monuments,

and to search
for our place in the universe.

But could we have
a far more profound connection

with these distant suns?

And if so, are we on the verge

of recovering
this lost knowledge?

Perhaps now
that we are able to detect

the visitors coming
to our solar system

from the far reaches of space,

we will soon discover
the undeniable proof

that we are not alone,

we have never been alone.

I'm just blown away

by the profound new evidence
from the Webb telescope,

from SETI, interstellar objects.

We're right on the cusp
of something truly amazing.

Yeah, I mean, we've had
so many interesting discoveries

over the last, say, 20 years
that it's amazing.

I mean, scientists
are really proving

that there's life out there
in the universe.

TSOUKALOS: Right,
and when you consider that

universities like Harvard
are joining the discussion,

that is something
that 30, 40 years ago

would've been, you know,
wishful thinking,

but now it is happening.

You know,
it's baked inside of us,

into our DNA,
that we are not alone,

and, hey, we are from out there.

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