All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens s15e06 The World Before Time.eng

NARRATOR:
Ancient stories

that describe civilizations
long before our own.

FELICIA BEARDSLEY:
Oral histories

always talk about
the "before the before."

When gods and people
walked the land.

NARRATOR:
New discoveries

that challenge
conventional history.

MARK CARLOTTO:
These Meso-American sites

actually extends
the time frame for archeology

from 10,000 years to...
tens of thousands of years.

NARRATOR:
And monumental structures

that suggest that
everything we think we know

about our planet is wrong.

DAVID CHILDRESS: This
pyramid city is so deep in the ocean,

it must be 50,000 years old.

GEORGE NOORY:
There's no question in my mind

that preexisting civilizations

on this planet
had high technology.

They had help from
the extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: But if human
civilizations existed on Earth

tens of thousands of years ago,

what happened to them?

And could it be only a matter
of time before their fate...

becomes our own?

NARRATOR:
There is a doorway

in the universe.

Beyond it is
the promise of truth.

It demands
we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is
right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

? ?

NARRATOR:
April 2018.

A groundbreaking paper
is published

by NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt

and astrophysicist Adam Frank

that tackles
an intriguing question.

Might advanced civilizations
have existed on Earth

in the remote past that have
been completely lost to history?

MICHAEL DENNIN: This paper
asked a very interesting question,

which is: can we detect
ancient civilizations

that are tens of thousands
of years old?

And the intriguing answer
is really no.

Because all evidence of these
civilizations and remnants

of them would've been
destroyed in that time frame.

CHILDRESS:
The evidence for them would be

hard to find, they were saying.

Cataclysms and Earth changes
in the past

would have erased the evidence
for these civilizations.

DENNIN: You know,
we're only a couple hundred years

into a technological
civilization.

That's not a very long
time frame in the fossil record.

So, if our civilization
got wiped out,

we would possibly
disappear from that record

in the future.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS:
Once humankind is gone,

all those skyscrapers,

all the results
of human civilization

will be gone
after a thousand years.

So, who knows what will

be left after 100,000 years,

or in some cases, hundreds
of thousands of years.

NARRATOR: According
to mainstream archaeology,

the Earth's earliest
civilization emerged

in the area of modern-day Iraq
around 3000 BC.

But the surviving histories
of many ancient peoples

tell of an earlier age,

one where mortals
and beings known as "gods"

lived side by side.

Oral histories
have been around generations

upon generations
upon generations.

And they always talk about
the "before the before,"

when gods and people
walked the land.

BETTANY HUGHES: Hesiod was
a-a Greek author who wrote

that there were
Five Ages of Man:

the Golden Age,
the Silver Age, the Bronze Age,

the Age of Heroes
and the Age of Iron.

In the Golden Age,
basically, people were

living beautiful lives
along with the gods.

And he thought this was real,
he didn't think this was a myth.

BEARDSLEY: The Aztecs
have other ages of man.

Other cultures have
similar ways of breaking up time

and going back into deep time.

It's their understanding
of their origins.

When we look into
the historical records

of the Greeks and the Aztecs,

they're often talking
about ages.

Often, ages that span
many thousands of years.

And it opens up the possibility
that humanity, in fact, has gone

through intermittent
periods of dark and light

for many, many thousands
of years, for millennia.

And it's just part
of our experience here on Earth.

NARRATOR: Stories of an
age before modern humans

can even be found
in early Judaic texts,

which describe a race of humans
that existed on the Earth

long before the biblical Adam.

ARIEL BAR TZADOK:
The pre-Adamic civilizations

are hinted to in the Bible.

There is a curious genealogy,
which is portrayed

in the Book of Genesis,
Chapter 36,

which states these are the kings

who reigned in the land of Edom,

prior to there being
a king in Israel.

There was intelligent,
technologically advanced

civilizations
of a humanoid nature

here on Earth prior to Adam.

According
to Enochian literature,

we have a record of it
being technologically advanced,

even to the point
of having nuclear technology.

? ?

CARLOTTO: I think
there's extensive knowledge

from many cultures,
many traditions

that something existed

before our modern human
civilization developed.

There might have been,
uh, other, uh,

civilizations on Earth, um,
that predated us

that were not the only
technological civilization

on the planet,
but just the latest one.

That there had been
previous ones that existed

that were destroyed and that

had become forgotten over time.

NARRATOR: Could it be
that these ancient stories

are more than just
fanciful tales,

and that our planet
has witnessed the rise and fall

of more than one so-called
"advanced civilization"?

TSOUKALOS: We have stories
of the Golden Era,

when the so-called "gods"
still mingled among men.

So, you have to wonder,
what gods,

and what time,
and who were they?

According to mainstream
archeology, the gods were

nothing but a figment
of our ancestors' imagination.

And I wholeheartedly
disagree with this,

because our ancestors
were very clear

in distinguishing
gods of nature,

and gods who actually
descended from the sky

physically and taught mankind
in various disciplines.

So, if there's a prehistoric
civilization, what I'm saying is

that that knowledge did come
from the extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: A central
idea behind what is known

as "ancient astronaut theory"
is the notion

that extraterrestrials came
to Earth in the distant past

and altered
the course of humanity.

If the various stories
of ancient civilizations

are true,
including those concerning

gods living among mortals,

could it mean
that alien visitations

may have happened
more than once?

Ancient astronaut theorists
believe

that not only is such
a profound notion possible,

but that evidence can be found

by examining the stories
of the Sumerian civilization

that emerged 5,000 years ago...

and the beings
they called the Anunnaki.

TSOUKALOS:
The term "Anunnaki" means

"those who from
the heavens came."

And our ancestors thought
they were being visited

by these divine magical beings.

CHILDRESS:
In the ancient Sumerian texts,

they were described as

bringing knowledge and science.

They were often depicted
as bird-type people.

NARRATOR:
Curiously, a similar figure

to the bird-headed Anunnaki

exists in cave art
discovered in Lascaux, France,

which dates back
to roughly 16,000 BC.

In the Lascaux cave,
is a deep shaft

with an incredible
pictorial story on the wall.

It shows a huge
bull-like creature,

next to which is a birdman,

a figure with a bird's beak.

HENRY:
The Birdman of Lascaux

was considered to be
a-a shamanistic figure.

But we have to ask the question:
could this be something more?

Could this be
an otherworldly being,

an extraterrestrial being,
who interacted

with this prehistoric culture
in France?

NARRATOR:
In 2019,

archaeologists
in Indonesia announced

that they had
discovered rock art in a cave

on the island of Sulawesi

that they believe was created

at least 44,000 years ago.

If true, it is
the oldest pictorial record

of storytelling ever found.

And curiously, among the images
painted on the cave walls

is a depiction of a humanlike
figure with a bird's head.

The paintings depict a group
of eight humanoid hunters

approaching a group of animals.

And one of them appears

to have a very large bird beak.

44,000 years ago,

we have these birdmen
in Indonesia.

18,000 years ago,
they're in France.

So, what are the chances
of these birdmen figures

being just, uh,
coincidently created

in these different areas?

We have to ask ourselves:
are these birdmen

actually representatives
of the Anunnaki

who are extraterrestrials,
who came

all over the world
in prehistory?

NARRATOR:
But if,

as ancient astronaut theorists
insist,

the Earth played host to
numerous advanced civilizations

long before our own,
what happened to them?

And why is there no hard
evidence to prove they existed?

For many, the answer can be
found hiding in plain sight,

and the hard evidence exists
in the form of objects

made using the only substance
that can stand the test of time,

stone.

NARRATOR:
Aerospace engineer

and satellite imaging expert
Dr. Mark Carlotto

has spent the past three years
investigating

some of the world's most
impressive archaeological sites.

After closely examining

each site's precise
geographical orientation,

he has come
to the incredible conclusion

that many ancient structures
provide evidence

of being far older
than has been suggested

by mainstream archaeology

and were likely built tens
of thousands of years ago.

CARLOTTO:
If you look at many monuments,

uh, today, um,

they're often built
with respect,

uh, to the cardinal directions.

So, knowledge of the Earth,
of astronomy,

of the heavens was
very important in alignments.

NARRATOR: Because most of
the world's megalithic structures

were built so that they would be
in precise alignment

with the Earth's
cardinal directions of north,

south, east and west,

Dr. Carlotto's investigation
had a breakthrough

after he noticed
that Teotihuac�n,

the ancient complex north
of Mexico City,

didn't properly line up.

An extraordinary possibility
then occurred to him:

perhaps the structure was built

tens of thousands of years
earlier,

when the Earth's poles were not
in their current locations.

It was an idea that was not
as farfetched as it seems.

In the 1950s,

Harvard-educated scientist
Charles Hapgood

proposed a theory known
as crustal displacement,

whereby,
at certain moments in history,

the Earth's crust suddenly
and rapidly shifts positions

and, in the process,
changes the positions

of the North and South Poles.

DENNIN: Plate tectonics
have plates moving slowly

as individual separate plates.

Um, Charles had a theory

that, basically, instead
of a slow, steady movement,

he was really interested
in sudden, quick movements

of the crust as a whole.

CHILDRESS:
What Hapgood was saying

was that the thin crust
of the Earth

can slip forward on the mantle.

And, therefore,
the North Pole and South Pole

can shift somewhat,

and this causes
huge, cataclysmic changes.

CARLOTTO:
Hapgood's analysis was based

on climate data-- looking
at patterns of climate change,

uh, changes in glacial patterns,

uh, ice ages

and then correlating
those patterns

with what he believed
was the cause,

which was a shift of the poles.

Hapgood believed that,

over the last 100,000 years
or so,

that there were three previous
locations of the North Pole.

And when I looked at the imagery

of these Mesoamerican sites

and realized
that these pyramids and temples

were not aligned to north,
I thought perhaps

they were aligned
to former North Poles

that Hapgood had discovered.

Hapgood actually sent
this theory to Albert Einstein,

who endorsed it.

And when Einstein died,

he actually had Hapgood's book
open on his desk.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Carlotto believes

that some of the world's most
impressive ancient structures

not only confirm
Hapgood's theory

but radically alters
our understanding

of intelligent life
on planet Earth.

CARLOTTO:
So, my process

for analyzing these images
starts

with a geographically registered
image,

where north is up.

So, for example, uh,
here we have Teotihuac�n.

And this is where my search,
uh, began.

And let me just highlight
the four sides

so we can define a direction
towards the north.

As you can see in this image,

the pyramid is not orientated
to the cardinal directions--

north, south, east and west.

NARRATOR:
To test his theory,

Dr. Carlotto
was curious to find out

if other ancient structures

shared Teotihuac�n's
same geographic anomaly.

What I ended up doing
was developing an algorithm

as the basis for analyzing
their alignment.

So now, as we'll see
when we zoom out,

we'll find that Teotihuac�n
is aligned to other sites,

uh, nearby.

And I'll show you that
by zooming out here.

And this shows a number of other
sites in the Valley of Mexico

that are aligned
in the same g-general direction.

All of these, uh,
lines are meridians

that lead to a point east
of Hudson Bay.

NARRATOR: Incredibly,
these sites align with a location

that Hapgood proposed
was once the North Pole.

CARLOTTO: Hapgood believed
the Hudson Bay pole existed

12,000 to 18,000 years ago.

So these sites,
by virtue of their alignment

to this particular pole,
could be that old.

NARRATOR: If Dr. Carlotto's
analysis is correct,

it would date
the construction of Teotihuac�n

to at least 10,000 BC,

which is 10,000 years older

than mainstream archaeologists
propose.

And he contends

that other ancient sites
were built even earlier.

CARLOTTO: One of the most
enigmatic sites on Earth is Baalbek,

the Temple of Jupiter,
in Lebanon.

As you can see, this site

is orientated to a point
in Northern Greenland

that Hapgood believed

was a former location
of the North Pole.

NARRATOR:
Based on Hapgood's theory,

Baalbek's alignment
to Northern Greenland

would date it to
a staggering 50,000 years ago.

CARLOTTO:
Another site nearby,

the Western Wall
in the city of Jerusalem,

is aligned in the direction
of the Greenland pole.

And let's take a look
at a third site,

the Parthenon in Athens.

We believe that the original
structures at these sites--

in other words,
the original sites themselves--

were established
as long ago as 50,000 years.

NARRATOR:
According to Dr. Carlotto,

these are still not the oldest
structures that exist on Earth.

Based on Hapgood's theory,

the North Pole was located
in the Bering Sea

more than 100,000 years ago.

So, this is
the Temple of the Six Monoliths

at Ollantaytambo,

and it's the Sun Temple.

Normally,
sun temples are aligned

to the cardinal directions.
They have

an eastern side that faces
the rising sun on the equinox.

Here, the Sun Temple is tilted
approximately 45 degrees.

An alignment to the current pole
doesn't make any sense.

But if we now change
our reference

and look at an earlier pole,

this, uh, pole thought to have
existed in the Bering Sea,

then the orientation of the
Sun Temple makes perfect sense.

So what's significant
about this analysis

is that it actually extends
the time frame

for archaeology
from 10,000 years

to tens of thousands of years

to perhaps 100,000 years
or more.

So it's my contention that
the five ages of the Aztecs,

the five ages of the Greeks

and the previous and current
locations of the pole

are all correlated.

They all tell the same story.

CHILDRESS: The idea
that cataclysmic pole shifts

actually occurred,
uh, is startling.

These structures can be much
older than archaeologists admit.

And, ultimately, hundreds,
thousands of years later,

people found them again
and-and started reusing them.

It's a fascinating thought.

NARRATOR: Are the
remnants of long-lost civilizations

still standing today?

Civilizations
that existed on Earth

as much as 100,000 years ago,

but misinterpreted by scholars
as being much more recent?

Perhaps the proof can be found
by examining

physical evidence
of ancient writing

dating back
more than 10,000 years.

NARRATOR:
Geologist Dr. Robert Schoch

and his colleague
Dr. Manu Seyfzadeh

announce a discovery that has
the potential to radically alter

the currently accepted timeline
of human history.

They believe they have found
hieroglyphic writing

at the 12,000-year-old
archaeological site

of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.

If true, it would predate
the earliest known writing

by thousands of years.

SCHOCH: At Gobekli Tepe,
I'm convinced now

that we have evidence
of actual--

what we can only call writing,

symbolic notation,

writing on some of the pillars.

We're still trying
to interpret them.

But if this analysis is correct,

they had writing.

And according to standard
conventional thinking

up until now,

writing and literacy
did not exist anywhere on Earth

until 6,000 or 7,000 years
after Gobekli Tepe.

And what we see at Gobekli Tepe,

I don't believe
that's the beginning.

NARRATOR: Could the strange
symbols found on the stone pillars

at Gobekli Tepe
represent a writing system

that was developed
by a long-lost civilization,

one that thrived
more than 12,000 years ago?

As far as ancient astronaut
theorists are concerned,

physical evidence of lost
civilizations has been found

that they believe
to be much, much older.

Canadian explorer
Paulina Zelitsky and her team

are conducting an oceanic survey
off the coast

when they detect
curious formations

more than 2,000 feet underwater.

HUGH NEWMAN:
They found

when they were taking images,
some kind

of pyramidical structure
and other structures.

There were circular areas.

There was what appeared to be

some kind of city
built down there.

It was about
two square kilometers in size.

And so, this is
something quite astonishing

if this is, you know, a reality.

CHILDRESS: This pyramid city
is so deep in the ocean

that geologists
and archaeologists are saying

that it must be 50,000 years old

for sea levels
to-to be that low.

NARRATOR:
50,000 years old?

Might the formations
found off the coast of Cuba

corroborate the findings
of Dr. Mark Carlotto,

who suggests that the alignments
of Baalbek,

the Greek Parthenon

and numerous other
ancient structures

date back some 50,000 years?

We've got ruins
all over the world

that are underwater.

Ruins have been found underwater
in Lake Titicaca.

The formation of Yonaguni

off the southern Japanese island
of Yonaguni.

We have underwater cities
around India,

such as Dwarka, which is
the famous home of Krishna.

And Indian archaeologists
for years

thought it was
just a mythical city

until they started finding

these underwater ruins
off of Gujarat.

There's over 200
known sunken cities

in the Mediterranean.

So, much of the evidence

for early civilizations
on planet Earth

would be underwater today.

So, they were obviously built
at a time

when the ocean levels
and the seas and the continents

were quite different
than they are today.

HUGHES:
All of this evidence tells us

that there were extraordinary
civilizations and cultures

that have been lost to the story
of the world until now.

NARRATOR:
Although many of the world's

known underwater ruins
still await excavation

due to the difficulty
of reaching them

and retrieving artifacts,
it is hoped

that divers will someday be able
to examine these structures

and find symbols
carved into them that match

those found at Gobekli Tepe.

But as far as Dr. Robert Schoch
is concerned,

the wait may already be over.

In 1991, he ignited
a firestorm of controversy

when he suggested
the Great Sphinx of Giza

was built long before
the age of the pharaohs.

SCHOCH:
At that time,

all the Egyptologists agreed

that the Sphinx had been carved
in 2500 BC,

that it was carved from scratch
from the limestone bedrock.

I'm a geologist.

I went there.

I looked at the Sphinx.

Within the first couple
of minutes,

I knew
there was something amiss.

What we did is we looked
at subsurface weathering,

mineralogical changes

to figure out
when the rock was carved.

I came to the conclusion

that the Sphinx goes back
not just a few thousand years

but to the end
of the last ice age,

so to about 10,000 BC or so.

NARRATOR:
Key to Dr. Schoch's analysis

was the type of erosion
he observed

in the base of the Sphinx.

SCHOCH: You look at
the body of the Sphinx itself.

I, as a geologist,

noticed immediately
that the core body is eroded

not by wind and sand
as you expect

for the Sahara Desert,

but it is water precipitation.

NARRATOR:
Water erosion?

In the Sahara Desert?

If this analysis is correct,
what could have caused it?

SCHOCH:
There's a huge increase

in global temperatures
at 9700 BC.

This correlates

with the melting
of the glaciers,

rising of sea levels.

But when you have all this water
being put into the atmosphere,

the atmosphere
can only hold so much water.

It comes down as precipitation.

It comes down
as torrential rains.

NARRATOR:
But if,

as ancient astronaut theorists
believe,

the great Egyptian
megalithic structures

were built
more than 10,000 years ago,

what happened
to the advanced civilization

that created them?

Perhaps the answer

is closer than we think

and can be found
embedded in the pages

of the Holy Bible.

NARRATOR:
Dr. Irving Finkel,

one of the world's
foremost experts

on cuneiform writing

and a curator
at the British Museum,

publishes a book titled
The Ark Before Noah.

In it, Finkel translates
a Sumerian tablet

that dates back 3,700 years

and rewrites the biblical story

of Noah and the Great Flood.

The book sparks
a global sensation.

IRVING FINKEL:
When this tablet

came across the desk to me
and I realized

clearly how important it was,

it was one
of those heart-stopping moments.

Everybody in the world
is interested in Noah's Flood

and where it might've come from,
so it's a really big thing.

In the Bible, God decided,

because human race
was so sinful and wicked,

to destroy everything

and at the last minute,
relented enough to inform Noah

that he has to build a boat
really fast

and put all the animals in it
and shut the doors.

Then afterwards,
life could continue

when the waters went down.

But the tablet is
at least a thousand years older

than the story in the Bible.

So, of course,
this means that the question

of where the story came from

has a whole different
explanation.

JONATHAN YOUNG:
There's a similar story in India.

King Manu was warned by a fish

that there would be
a great flood.

The king built a great boat
and survived.

In an Aztec version,
a sacred couple

hide in a hollow tree
with a little corn

and somehow manage to survive
the deluge.

Other versions come
from Irish legend,

Norse lore, also from China.

This is
a terribly important motif.

We're used to history
being something

that's written down in books,

but for most
of the human experience,

history was told in stories,
shared around campfires.

It doesn't mean
that it's all made up,

and I think
it's one of those moments

where the myths are telling us
about the truth of the past.

NARRATOR:
Dutch archaeologist

Cornelis Hijszeler
is excavating a sandpit

when he notices
something strange:

a thin layer of ash
buried 50 feet deep in the soil.

NEWMAN:
It's like a layer of black ash.

Now, this suggests

there was a great conflagration
that took place,

and it dates to between 11,000
and 13,000 years ago.

NARRATOR:
Over the next few years,

the ash layer,
dubbed Usselo horizon,

is found all over the world.

CHILDRESS: The Usselo horizon
is found, actually,

in ten countries
on four continents.

In Australia, in South Africa,

in other parts of Europe
and India.

And this deposit of ash
around the world

is evidence
of a worldwide cataclysm.

NARRATOR:
Could this layer of ash

really be evidence
of a devastating global event,

like the one known as
the Great Flood, for instance?

Geologist Dr. Robert Schoch

believes the cataclysmic event

and the resulting layer of ash

was created
by a devastating solar flare,

a sudden flash
of increased brightness

on the Sun.

SCHOCH: Based on my
analysis of the evidence,

there was a major,
major solar outburst.

This caused, in a flash,

the glaciers to melt

virtually instantaneously.

It caused evaporation of water.

We have physical evidence
of this

in the geological record.

NARRATOR:
To many,

the Usselo horizon

is the strongest evidence
yet discovered

that supports stories
of the Great Flood.

For ancient astronaut theorists,
proof of a global flood

could offer some
of the most compelling evidence

that extraterrestrial
intervention

occurred on Earth
in the distant past.

In the Babylonian poem

the Epic of Gilgamesh,

the hero, Utnapishtim,

is told of a coming flood
by the god Enki.

In Vedic texts,

King Manu is alerted
by Lord Vishnu,

who appeared
in the form of a fish.

And in the biblical tale,
Noah is warned by God.

The common denominator

in the flood myths
around the world

is that there was
an otherworldly being,

an extraterrestrial being
who is providing knowledge

to certain humans
of what is to come.

This tells us
that there was definitely

an extraterrestrial connection.

NARRATOR:
If advanced civilizations

existed on Earth
that were lost to history,

could the story of the Flood
explain what happened?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,

and suggest that
further evidence can be found

within the Dead Sea Scrolls,

discovered in a cave
in Jerusalem in 1947.

? ?

COLLINS:
Some Bedouin shepherds

came across these jars,

and inside these were
ancient texts.

Very quickly,
archaeologists and linguists

started to realize
that these contained

Jewish religious literature
that were

of incredible importance,

not just to the Jewish people

but to the world as a whole.

NARRATOR:
Among the texts is a story

that describes the birth of Noah

that doesn't appear
in the Old Testament.

TSOUKALOS:
Noah is described

of having skin
that is whiter than snow,

of having hair that is

whiter than the whitest of wool,

and Noah's eyes were brighter
than the Sun.

Now, when Noah was born,

the father, Lamech,
went to his father, Methuselah,

and says, "This is not my son.

What happened here?"

And Methuselah then says

he may have come
from a different place

where man has met the angels.

Now, we need to first figure out

what is the kernel of truth.

And in my opinion, it
certainly was not a giant ship

made out of wood.

And you combine that with Noah,

who looks very otherworldly--

well, there's your answer.

? ?

NARRATOR: Could a worldwide
flood explain the disappearance

of an advanced civilization
that preceded our own?

And if so, were there survivors

that kept the memory
of this pre-Flood world alive

through oral traditions?

Ancient astronaut theorists
believe

that not only did
an advanced civilization exist

for many centuries
before the Great Flood,

but that remnants
of its lost technology

can be found...

all over the world.

NARRATOR: Researchers with
the Israel Antiquities Authority

studying the Dead Sea Scrolls

make a major discovery.

Using state-of-the-art
imaging technology,

they uncover a passage
of ancient text

previously unseen
by the naked eye.

These researchers
have discovered a new passage

in the Dead Sea Scrolls
that indicates that Noah's Ark

wasn't in the shape
of a ship at all,

but was in the shape
of a pyramid.

NARRATOR: Curiously,
this is not the first time

that Noah's Ark
has been depicted as a pyramid.

In the 15th century,
Italian artist Lorenzo Ghiberti

created his masterpiece...

...a series of ten panels
that depict scenes

from the Old Testament.

HENRY: The Italian sculptor
Lorenzo Ghiberti was selected

to create the doors going
into the new Florence cathedral,

the Il Doumo.

These doors are called
the "Gates of Paradise."

And something that is
very extraordinary about them

is that in one instance he shows
Noah's Ark as a pyramid

that resembles
the Great Pyramid of Giza.

CHILDRESS:
Was it possible that Lorenzo,

while he was working
for the Church...

learned about the true nature
of Noah's Ark

and then depicted it
in his sculpture?

NARRATOR:
According to historians,

the Pyramid of Djoser,
constructed in 2600 BC,

was the first pyramid
ever built in Egypt,

and the Great Pyramid was built
100 years later.

But the dating
of the Great Pyramid,

and the two smaller pyramids
that stand next to it,

is a point of major contention,

with many researchers suggesting
they were built much earlier.

The step pyramid of Djoser
is considered

the world's first pyramid.

It's a six-tiered pyramid

built very near
the Giza plateau.

CHILDRESS:
Egyptologists often assume

that the older pyramids are...

less well created and smaller,

such as Djoser's pyramid,
and that ultimately,

their building
got better and better,

until they finally built
the Great Pyramid

as their, uh,
final construction masterpiece.

But it may be
completely reversed of that,

and that the Great Pyramid,

which is by far the best
of all the pyramids,

is actually the oldest
of the pyramids.

ERICH VON DANIKEN:
Two and a half thousand BC,

according to archaeology,
humans made the Great Pyramid.

Now, in old writings,
especially in the Book of Enoch,

and in the so-called Hitat,

which is a book
from Arabian writer,

they say the Great Pyramid
was constructed

before the Great Flood.

HENRY: What if
the Great Pyramid existed,

perhaps even for millennia,
before the Djoser Pyramid?

Then the Egyptians come along,
discover it,

decide, "Hey, maybe we
can make one of those, too,"

and that's when they build
the Djoser Pyramid?

CARLOTTO: Perhaps the...
the most similar common motif,

or style, is the pyramidal,

uh, shape that seems to exist
throughout the world--

in Egypt, in Mesoamerica,

in China-- giant earthen mounds
in the shape of pyramids.

Why pyramids?

NARRATOR: Is it possible
that pyramids were built

by cultures all around the world
because they were trying

to recreate
much older structures

that survived a great flood?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes.

And some researchers
have even suggested

that those pyramids that were
built by pre-Flood civilizations

represent a form
of lost technology.

In his 1998 book,
The Giza Power Plant,

noted machinist and engineer
Christopher Dunn

proposed that the shape,
positions of chambers

and proximity
to underground rivers

indicate the Great Pyramids of
Giza functioned as power plants.

? ?

CHILDRESS: I personally
think that the pyramids

were some kind
of energy generators.

And here we have
the strange idea

that the ark itself
wasn't a boat-type-shaped thing

but was actually a pyramid.

So was it possible that whoever
built the pyramids of Egypt

was doing so to try to preserve

their technology?

NARRATOR:
For ancient astronaut theorists,

the possibility that
the Great Pyramid served

a technological purpose
presents an intriguing question:

If a lost civilization was able
to build massive power plants,

perhaps with the assistance
of extraterrestrials,

could they also have had
the means to escape

a world-ending cataclysm
by leaving the Earth?

NARRATOR:
Geneticist Erich Jarvis

and data management company
DNAnexus

announce plans to create
a biological database

of every vertebrate species
on Earth.

The development
of this new genetic DNA database

is essentially
a modern-day version

of Noah's Ark...

where all of these animals,

their DNA is selected and kept

in these special databases.

And in the future,
we could resurrect

any of these animals
if we had to,

if there had been some
mass extinction on the planet.

NARRATOR:
But many researchers are hopeful

that by the time
a global cataclysm strikes,

humanity will have developed

the means to transport
this modern-day ark into space

and seek out a new home planet.

We don't have...

forever on this planet.

Let's say our resources
are running out.

Let's say
something else happens.

Or let's even say-- we know
and we can calculate this--

that 252 years from now,
we will be met

by a giant collision
with an asteroid.

Well, we better do something
about that.

So we better start working
on that today.

NARRATOR: In 2018,
a company named Axiom Space

revealed plans to put a hotel
in Earth's orbit.

Meanwhile, NASA is preparing
to send astronauts to Mars.

Considering humanity's current
efforts to venture into space,

if advanced civilizations
existed in Earth's distant past,

might they have done the same?

Cultures all around the world

talk about humans deciding
on their own

to leave the planet.

They call this "ascension."

In many of the flood myths,

the common theme is
that it had been prophesied,

and people knew it was coming.

Maybe their answer was
to migrate into space.

CHILDRESS: There are a number
of craters on the Moon that have

what look like pyramids

right in the middle
of the crater.

Mars apparently has similar
pyramid structures on it.

Maybe they were created by this
super civilization of the past,

just like, uh, we're going to do
in the near future.

NARRATOR: Could it be that
pyramids and other structures

were built on the Moon and Mars

not by beings
who were coming to planet Earth,

but by those
who were fleeing it?

Did Earth's refugees build
these structures to sustain them

while they sought out
a new home?

As far as ancient astronaut
theorists are concerned,

this notion presents another,

perhaps even more profound
possibility.

CHILDRESS:
With modern UFO activity,

you have to ask yourself,
are these UFOs

from this ancient civilization
that left before the cataclysm

and now they've come back?

NARRATOR: Is it possible
that civilizations

that inhabited the Earth
tens of thousands of years ago

did not die off,

but survived on another world?

And if so, might they be capable

of returning to their
home planet as alien visitors?

Perhaps as we venture deeper
into space,

we will make contact,
not with extraterrestrials,

but with mankind's
ancient ancestors.

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