Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Nuclear annihilation.

This would have been an absolutely devastating event.

NARRATOR: Mysterious pyramids.

There are, apparently, these unusual structures there.

NARRATOR: And evidence of life billions of years ago.

Researchers found objects that looked

extremely similar to microorganisms here on Earth.

NARRATOR: Throughout human history,

the planet Mars has captured our imagination.

But is it simply because of its striking red color and

prominence in the night sky?

Or might there be a more profound

extraterrestrial connection?

NASA knows there is life on Mars.

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

NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world

believe we have been visited in the past

by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history?

And if so, might they have come from the red planet of Mars?

[theme music]

Cape Canaveral, Florida, August 20, 1975.

MAN [ON RADIO]: 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

sites 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 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 planets and the stars, the sky in general.

Speculations abound.

What's there?

Is intelligent life there or the gods there?

That's gone on for a long time.

ROBERT 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 hell hole 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 Senemut star map.

2 and 1/2 centuries later, the Egyptians painted the planet

Mars on the ceiling of the tomb of Seti I.

But while the Egyptians honored Mars,

many other ancient cultures feared it

because they associated the red planet with death,

destruction, and war.

According to some anthropologists,

this is because the planet glows red, like the color of blood

spilled on the battlefield.

The association of the red planet with the gods of war

goes way back.

In ancient Babylon, Mars was named after Nergal,

the god of fire, death, and destruction,

essentially a god of war.

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

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

[shouting]

Rome was a warrior culture.

So this martial emphasis all connected to the red planet

is accounting for the great armies that conquered the known

world, a very successful story, and very much

aligned with the planet Mars.

NARRATOR: In 42 BC, the Roman forces of Augustus

waged the Battle of Philippi against Marcus Brutus,

as Augustus tried to avenge the assassination of his

adopted father, Julius Caesar.

Augustus pledged to the god of war, Mars,

that if he won this battle, he would

build a great temple for him.

[shouting]

JOHN BRANDENBURG: So he won the battle,

became Caesar Augustus, one of the greatest

of the Roman emperors.

And he created the Temple of Mars.

And whenever Rome would declare war,

the temple doors would be thrown open.

RICHARD RADER: It was called a temple to Mars the Avenger.

Famously, we say the gates of war, nowadays, right.

And it was the gates of Mars's temple

that were opened or closed, depending upon whether there

was a war going on.

From India to Rome, all of the ancient societies

had a reverence for Mars, a great closeness to Mars--

very important in their pantheon, very important

in the imagination of the people that some kind

of connection with that red planet be maintained.

NARRATOR: But while many ancient societies

felt a bond with Mars, most did not identify

it as a planet like Earth.

The ancients thought the planets were

as uninhabitable as the sun.

They saw them as wandering stars.

In fact, the word "planet" means in Greek

"wandering star," planeta.

You have the fixed stars, the constellations.

But then you have these stars wandering about.

They seem to follow the sun because they appear

to move against the background of the fixed stars

the same way the sun does.

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

when astronomers finally had telescopes powerful enough

to make out features on the surface of Mars

that we started to imagine life on the red planet

as a real possibility.

SETH 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.

MAN [ON RADIO]: Nav is green for touchdown.

NARRATOR: After a 10 month journey,

Viking 1 has reached its destination.

MAN [ON RADIO]: Touchdown.

We have touchdown.

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 burrow 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.

GIL 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 thimble full, 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 test 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 3 million bacteria in a thimble full of Martian soil

to find signs of life, while Dr. Levin's

test only required 30 bacteria.

So there was a vast discrepancy in the sensitivity

of the two experiments.

And I immediately said, well, you know,

they both could be right.

We detected life, but maybe there

aren't enough bacteria per unit of soil

for the organic analysis instrument to find.

But NASA was very cautious, and they opted

to say, no organic matter.

There goes the ball game.

No life.

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

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

If he was right about the results of his test,

this would be the first proof accepted by mainstream science

that life exists outside our planet.

But ancient astronaut theorists say

an even more profound discovery regarding the red planet

has been uncovered right here on Earth.

Mysterious relics that may reveal an actual visitation

of beings from Mars.

Teotihuacan, Mexico.

In 2003, archeologists in this ancient city

made a startling discovery.

A previously unknown tunnel lies 45 feet

beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent,

one of the most sacred pyramids on the continent.

Working underground, scientists methodically

explored the debris-filled tunnel using a robotic probe

with an infrared scanner.

After some 250 feet, they reached a side cave.

JOHN BRANDENBURG: The tail end of the tunnel-- terminus

of the tunnel was loaded with yellowish, metallic-looking

orbs, apparently colored clay.

EDWIN BARNHART: The orbs are very interesting objects.

I've never seen anything like them

in any kind of other archeological context.

On the inside, they are clay.

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

so they look like golden balls.

NARRATOR: What purpose these golden balls served is unknown.

But some archeologists believe the cavern

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

Like the clay balls, the walls were

also covered in gold flecks.

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

it would have shimmered with 1,000 points of light,

resembling the cosmos.

DAVID WILCOCK: These beautiful orbs of yellow material

strongly suggest that someone was illustrating planets.

We do know that the Mayan calendar is heavily calibrated

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

specifically the inner planets.

NARRATOR: The red planet's connection

to the Mayan calendar is portrayed in the Dresden Codex.

This rare book from Mayan antiquity

describes the calendar in relation

to Mars' movements across the sky.

The Dresden Codex is one of four remaining books

that the Maya wrote.

It is, in many regards, an astronomical almanac.

There are many different sections

of the book that talk about different astronomical

phenomena.

One of them is the planet Mars.

There is an almanac near the end of the book that breaks up days

into 10 groups of 78 days, equaling 780 days,

which is the cyanotic period of Mars-- in other words, the time

in which it takes Mars to get back

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

NARRATOR: Scholars believe Mars played

an important role in the Maya astrology that's

described in the Dresden Codex.

Above that Almanac is a sky band

shown with various aspects of celestial symbols

we recognize out of hieroglyphs.

And hanging off of it is this interesting

dragon-like creature.

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

NARRATOR: Why did the planet Mars feature so

prominently in Maya astronomy?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest the answer may be found

in a little known myth surrounding

the story of the feathered serpent god, whose

temple sits above the secret tunnel

that contains the golden orbs.

In the Mayan tradition, their great god, often pictured

as a feathered serpent, was said to have

been responsible for the death of the god of Mars.

Flayed him to death.

That's stripping off the skin.

It's a horrific ritual that was actually done

in other ways in that culture.

But the idea is, death by that means

absorbs the power of the enemy.

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

EDWIN BARNHART: There are certain drawings that

show comets that look like they have

feathers coming off the back.

The flames are depicted as feathers.

And some scholars believe there's

a connection between the look of the flying feathered serpent

and these comets.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Mayan myth

of the feathered serpent describes an actual event,

a cataclysmic comet strike that destroyed

the Martian atmosphere?

[explosion]

After studying the red planet for decades,

mainstream scientists admit it's entirely

possible this impact occurred on Mars in the distant past.

JOHN BRANDENBURG: If you look at the Martian landscape,

it's heavily cratered compared to Earth.

Mars is next to the asteroid belt. In fact, in some ways,

it defines the inner edge of the asteroid belt.

So Mars is constantly being hammered

by asteroids relative to Earth.

You always have the risk, and of course we've seen that here

on Earth, of having large asteroids

or comets hit the planet and cause

tremendous ecological damage.

The most famous example of that is the Chicxulub asteroid

that may or may not have been the final nail

in the dinosaurs' coffin.

And certainly that could have happened at Mars because it

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

and possibly deflect asteroids.

NARRATOR: In his book, "Life and Death on Mars,"

physicist John Brandenburg describes an impact

crater in the Leo region of Mars that's more

than 125 miles in diameter.

He believes this comet strike may

have caused a profound disruption

to Mars' planetary system.

JOHN BRANDENBURG: It's a large double ring crater.

Only, this happened to a planet that only gets

half the sunlight of Earth.

It has one quarter of the surface area.

So this would have been an absolutely devastating

planet climate-changing event.

SETH SHOSTAK: There may have been a very dramatic event

where some other leftover piece from the birth

of the solar system, some big asteroid,

sort of made a close flyby, sort of a fender bender collision

with Mars and just stripped off a lot of the atmosphere.

That's a very popular way to look at what

may have gone wrong with Mars.

NARRATOR: But if Mars fostered life long ago,

before losing its atmosphere, could intelligent life

and perhaps even civilization have existed and even

flourished on the red planet?

And if so, where would the inhabitants

have gone after the cataclysm?

Some say the answers to these questions

can be found in the origin story of Earth's first civilization.

Mosul, Iraq, 1849.

During an excavation of the biblical city of Nineveh,

a team led by the eminent British archeologist Austin

Henry Layard discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian

library of Ashurbanipal.

Among the priceless relics Layard

recovered from the library is a series of cuneiform tablets

called the "Enuma Eilish," also known as the Seven Tablets

of Creation.

M.J. EVANS: The tablets are essentially

text in columnar style, no more than 8 to 10 inches

tall, 6 to 7 inches wide, which were made of clay.

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

a stylus would be used by a trained

scribe to etch the stories of our existence on this planet.

NARRATOR: The Seven Tablets of Creation

tell a story about a group of gods

called the Anunnaki who came from heaven to give

birth to the human race.

But some ancient astronaut theorists

believe the original translations, completed

in the 19th century by some of the best scholars of the day,

are flawed.

ERICH VON DANIKEN: The professors, certainly

brilliant brains, had no idea of space travel,

not to speak of extraterrestrials.

So they all, without exception, made the translations

in the belief that the stories had

to do with the Almighty God.

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

For example, Abraham was taken up to heaven

and brought back to Earth.

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

"space," so it makes sense.

NARRATOR: Using what they say is a more accurate translation

of this origin myth, ancient astronaut theorists

believe the tablets tell a story about the Anunnaki

coming from the space to colonize both Mars and Earth.

DAVID CHILDRESS: According to some researchers,

the Sumerians had a number of myths about Mars,

including that the Anunnaki used Mars as a supply base

to come here to Earth.

And subsequently, the Anunnaki then ruled the earth

as these extraterrestrial god-kings,

while humans began to create the many civilizations

on our planet.

And eventually, the Annunaki left

to go back to their own planet.

Or did they?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Anunnaki gods

in our ancient origin stories were actually

extraterrestrial beings and that they

created the structures that some believe they see on Mars?

And if so, did they then journey to Earth?

DAVID WILCOCK: We see multiple references in the cuneiform

tablets that are allegedly the records of the Annunaki

that, in fact, they did originate from Mars,

that this is not a dead, isolated, rocky world

with nothing on it, but there was life.

NARRATOR: But according to modern translation of Sumerian

and Babylonian origin myths, a cataclysmic event

occurred on Mars, an event that sounds remarkably

similar to ancient Mesoamerican myths

about a feathered serpent flaying the red planet.

DAVID CHILDRESS: While the Annunaki were using Mars

as a supply base for Earth, at some point

there was a catastrophe.

There was some asteroid/comet strike on Mars.

It ripped the atmosphere from Mars.

It changed the climate.

And Mars couldn't be used as a habitable space

base for the Anunnaki anymore.

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

we may find structures, pyramids, ziggurats, even

giant statues carved into rock on Mars, which are really

relics of the Anunnaki and the time

when they occupied that planet.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Some have suggested that Mars may have

had an atmosphere, and it got annihilated

about 65 million years ago.

What some have suggested is that before this annihilation

occurred, that that civilization was able to escape to Earth.

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

NARRATOR: Scientists say they've found powerful evidence

of this lost civilization.

They believe they may have discovered a nuclear signature

in the Martian atmosphere that matches

Earth's after a nuclear test.

During the height of the Cold War,

we were detonating a very large hydrogen bonds in the open air.

And it produces a gas called xenon 129.

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

The only process we know to produce this xenon 129

is a nuclear explosion.

So apparently, a very large nuclear weapon or weapons

was detonated on Mars.

If we look at the Sumerian cuneiform tablets,

there are very clear references to a variety of advanced

forms of technology.

And it would seem pretty clear that if we were

able to get a nuclear bomb, then why couldn't a civilization

that was superior to our own have

developed the same technology?

There is a Sumerian myth concerning

the planet Mars having to do with some colossal battle

of the gods.

So there is elements in mythology

that look very much like descriptions of nuclear war.

NARRATOR: Signs of a possible nuclear blast,

myths of a comet flame the planet,

and a controversial NASA experiment

that may have found life--

could these really be traces of an ancient alien civilization

on Mars?

And if so, is it possible there are

artificial structures buried beneath the surface,

even to this day?

The Ares Vallis region of Mars, July 4, 1997--

NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft lands on the red planet.

The first probe to reach the Martian

surface since Viking, Pathfinder will look for signs of water.

Since the Viking missions in the 1970s,

mainstream scientists have come to the conclusion

that the planet may have once boasted oceans

full of water and complex life.

Billions of years ago, early in the history

of the solar system, Mars probably looked, in many ways,

the way the Earth did.

It did build up an atmosphere and oceans.

The atmosphere probably would have been equivalent to Earth's

atmosphere at that time.

Life could well have formed in the oceans.

NARRATOR: One day after Pathfinder touched down,

the Sojourner Rover began exploring the Martian surface

for signs of these ancient lifeforms,

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

What they discovered was yes, Mars, in certain places,

looks like the high desert on Earth.

And maybe there are areas which do

seem to be dried out riverbeds.

Maybe there's water under the surface.

The thing we've learned from the rovers that's

most interesting, I think, is the fact

that Mars once had a wet past.

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

enough, not just for a couple of weeks, a couple of years,

a couple of thousand years, but for millions of years,

hundreds of millions of years, maybe something cooked

up in that liquid, maybe life.

NARRATOR: As the Pathfinder Rover snapped photographs

of the Martian surface, it captured images of something

that puzzled some scientists, a mountain range

they nicknamed The Twin Peaks.

In his book "Life and Death on Mars,"

Dr. John Brandenburg says that because Mars has limited

volcanic and tectonic activity, it's an open question as to how

these mountains were formed.

This interesting formation is the tallest

thing for hundreds of miles.

Most of the volcanic activity on Mars

is concentrated in the Tharsis region.

How many miles away is that, approximately?

Oh, it's like 2,000 miles away.

All right.

So-- so this area is not known for any volcanoes

or anything like that.

No.

And because we now know so much more about the climate of Mars

than we did 20 years ago, it had an ocean.

It had long periods, apparently, of liquid water

flowing on its surface.

So all of this causes us to look at everything on Mars

with new eyes.

And so we have these two interesting objects

that are conjoined.

Not only are they the tallest things for 200 miles,

but they're linked to each other.

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

Now, there's alignment.

Mm-hmm.

JOHN BRADENBERG: And what's interesting,

this is the Giza Plateau from Egypt.

And it is near Cairo, which name in Arabic

derives from the name [arabic],, which means

Camp of Mars, Place of Mars.

MAN: Very interesting.

Fascinating.

And we also have found out recently that at one time

the Sphinx was covered with red paint.

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

and a million years of erosion has happened.

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

like this?

It's conjectural.

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

we have the Sphinx.

Has something similar been discovered

on Mars, specifically around The Twin Peaks area?

Well, we have this strange object which is nearby.

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

And look at this at this alignment.

Here is the Sphinx on Earth.

Here's the pyramid.

Here's is this object.

And there is what looks like a mound of stuff.

Who knows if it is degraded archaeology?

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

In fact, when the Sphinx was originally

found in modern times, it was buried up to its neck in rubble

and was-- had to be excavated.

MAN: So something similar could be going on right here.

JOHN BRADENBERG: There could be a much larger

structure buried beneath.

NARRATOR: Could The Twin Peaks be evidence

that an ancient civilization may have once existed

on Mars, a civilization whose structures appear

to resemble those on Earth?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and that evidence for this startling conclusion

has been accumulating for four decades.

When Viking orbiters originally

started taking pictures of the surface of Mars,

they took pictures of very intriguing features

on the Plain of Cydonia.

On July 25, 1976, they took a picture

of something that looked for all the world like a human face.

The whole thing kind of blew up when a NASA project scientist

named Toby Owen put a magnifying glass over a frame

number named 35-A72.

And said, hey, look at this.

NASA actually held a press conference the next day,

where Owen and Gerald Soffen, who

was the chief Viking project scientist, said, you know,

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

The whole thing kind of went away a couple hours later

when we took another picture.

The problem with that is that a couple hours

later, the Viking orbiter was nowhere near Cydonia,

and it was dark.

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

NARRATOR: Some believe they found not only a human face

carved into Martian rock, but also a pyramid, a cliff,

in fact, an entire city buried by thousands

of years of sand and soil.

By the late 1980s, one researcher

had even discovered what he thought

were mathematical relationship among the features of Cydonia.

A cartographer and satellite imagery expert from the Defense

Mapping Agency named Erol Torun took a look at the pyramid

and concluded that it was what he called

the Rosetta Stone of Mars.

He found a bunch of mathematical relationships that pointed

to other objects in the area that he thought

were artificial looking.

They included the face, an object

called The Cliff, which is a straight line that

goes on for hundreds of meters, a rounded mound called

The Tholus, which appears to have a pathway that

goes up to the top.

NARRATOR: More than 20 years after the Viking mission,

NASA rephotographed the Cydonia region in 1998

and again in 2001.

The face no longer looked human.

But some scientists believe that was because of wind

and how NASA took the newer pictures.

DAVID CHILDRESS: They shot it from the side.

They shot at it morning.

It was as much a different viewing

geometry and lighting geometry as possible

from the original pictures.

Based on that evidence, the face on Mars,

the evidence of past climate on Mars, a past ocean,

I have concluded that Mars was apparently the home

of a civilization in the past.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that an alien civilization

existed on Mars in the distant past

and built the structures that recent Martian

probes have photographed?

If so, does the government know more

than it's telling us about life and death on the red planet?

Washington, DC, August 7, 1996--

on the South Lawn of the White House,

30 years after NASA announced the Viking mission had not

found evidence of life on Mars, President Bill Clinton

held an historic press conference to announce

some momentous news.

Microbial life may exist on the red planet after all.

Scientists had found what they believed

to be fossilized remains on a Martian meteorite that crashed

to Earth 12,000 years ago.

It must be confirmed by other scientists.

But clearly, the fact that something of this magnitude

is being explored is another vindication of America's space

program and our continuing support for it, even

in these tough financial times.

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,

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

know 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.

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.

I would imagine that would be something that would

be kept secret for a while.

I don't think it's a bunch of men sitting in the room

and then smoking cigarettes and saying,

we're going to keep this secret.

But it is a responsibility.

And I think that they would certainly

be very, very careful as to how to let out this knowledge.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that not just microbial life,

but also intelligent beings once called

the red planet their home?

And if so, what would that mean for the existence of life

elsewhere in the cosmos?

If life used to exist on Mars, particularly if it formed

independently of Earth life, life in the universe

is all over the place.

That means that of the billions of planets discovered

now similar to Earth through our universe, many of them

would have life on them.

And if there is life different from life on Earth that

has evolved, there would be every reason

to suspect such evolution would have gone on,

on countless other Earths and that there

would be intelligent life out there as well.

We want there to be life on Mars.

We want there to be life somewhere beyond here.

We want that transcendent connection to the heavens.

We don't want it to be invaders.

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

NARRATOR: Are tales of life on Mars,

found in cultures across the world, simply mythology?

Or might Martians really have visited

Earth in the distant past, as ancient astronaut

theorists suggest?

If so, could there be evidence waiting to be

discovered on the red planet?

Perhaps with further missions to Mars,

we'll find that not only was it home to alien beings

thousands of years ago, but it still is today.