Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Mysterious skulls.

BRIEN FOERSTER: The DNA didn't match anything

known to be human.

NARRATOR: Bizarre mutations.

DAVID WILCOCK: This could be reptilian type

of humanoid life.

NARRATOR: And terrifying monsters.

JONATHAN YOUNG: The Apache had a demonic figure

who could petrify you through its gaze.

NARRATOR: In cultures throughout the world,

there are stories of strange humanlike gods.

Could our ancestors have really encountered

these otherworldly beings?

And might they have a connection to us?

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: What we have are remnants

of the teachers that visited mankind in the remote past.

JASON MARTELL: Our DNA contains a lost extraterrestrial gene

that's now resurfacing at the right time.

NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization,

mankind has credited its origins to gods

and other visitors from the stars.

What if it were true?

Did extraterrestrial beings

really help to shape our history?

And if so, might humans be just one link

in the chain of alien evolution?

NARRATOR: Paracas skull number 44.

Discovered in 2012,

it has a weight of 2.8 pounds,

25% heavier than the average adult male skull.

It has a cranial capacity of 1,500 cubic centimeters,

20% greater than normal.

And it is missing a sagittal suture,

the connective tissue joint

found between the parietal bones in all human skulls.

This is just one of hundreds of strange, misshapen skulls

that have been found on the southern coast of Peru,

dating back to 1927.

It was at this time

that archaeologist Julio Tello first excavated

a massive burial complex,

thought to have been built by the Paracas people

who lived in the region from 800 BC to 100 BC.

Julio C. Tello was the father of Peruvian archaeology...

and in the 1920s, he discovered mummy bundles.

And in each mummy bundle was a person with an elongated skull.

They were buried in family mausoleums,

in some cases as deep as 30 feet into the bedrock.

NARRATOR: Mainstream archaeologists say

the elongation is most likely the result of head binding,

which involves wrapping the heads of infants

while their skulls are still soft

in order to change the shape.

It is a practice found in numerous cultures

throughout the world

that dates back thousands of years.

But why would people desire

to elongate the heads of their children?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that head binding originated with primitive humans

who were attempting to imitate

the appearance of extraterrestrial visitors.

But according to researcher Brien Foerster,

the assistant director of the Paracas History Museum,

head binding would not account

for the other anomalies that the Paracas skulls exhibit.

FOERSTER: About five percent of the elongated skulls

that we find in Paracas are so complex in shape and size

that it's hard to believe that they're the result

of any form of cranial deformation or head binding.

Not only are they elongated vertically,

but also the eye sockets are much larger than normal.

There are two holes in the back of the skull

called foramen,

through which blood and nerve flow occurred.

And also their jaws were very robust.

WILCOCK: Among the largest of them

we find skulls 60% heavier than normal human skulls

and a brain capacity that is 2.5 times

larger than the normal human brain.

NARRATOR: But if these elongated skulls were not the result

of the ancient practice of head binding,

then just who or what were these mysterious beings?

In 2014,

DNA testing was performed on Paracas skull number 44,

which rendered surprising results.

FOERSTER: Some initial DNA testing has been done,

and the results, according to the geneticist,

are quite startling.

There were certain segments of the DNA

that didn't match anything known to be human.

What it suggests to me is that Paracas could very well

have been an ancient bloodline related to Homo sapiens

but not specifically Homo sapiens itself.

When you look at this kind of archaeological evidence,

you're seeing concrete, tangible,

DNA-testable proof

that extraterrestrials walked on Earth

right among us.

Personally, I think it is quite possible

that what we have there

are remnants of the so-called teachers

that visited mankind in the remote past.

NARRATOR: Could it be that this skull

and other similar skulls found in southern Peru

are something other than human?

While mainstream scholars continue

to dismiss this possibility, there is now evidence

that at one time the Earth was inhabited

by other species that possessed intelligence equal to

or even greater than humans.

Gibraltar.

September 1, 2014.

Inside Gorham's Cave on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea,

anthropologists announce a finding

that fundamentally changes our understanding

of early human history.

A pattern of cross-hatched lines carved into the rock

over 39,000 years ago

is the first known example of cave art

created not by our ancestors

but by another intelligent species,

the Neanderthals.

WILLIAM LEONARD: Previous to this, it was generally regarded

that only anatomically modern humans had that capability,

that cave paintings and etchings and making of figurines

was really something that was restricted to modern humans.

And so the Gibraltar site clearly indicates

that Neanderthals had the capacity

for symbolic representation.

NARRATOR: Like humans, Neanderthals

are thought to have evolved from Homo erectus,

but contrary to popular belief, they are not our ancestors.

They were actually a separate species

that lived alongside early humans.

More and more evidence is coming to light, uh, that suggests

that Neanderthals were at least socially intelligent,

at least thinking in symbolic behavior,

uh, and therefore may have even been... as far as we know,

may have been even more intelligent than-than us.

PETER WARD: We find lots of evidence

that Neanderthals used tools,

perhaps in different ways than we did.

Certainly, the discovery of graves where flowers are buried.

They loved their children just as we love ours.

The technology available to them is only now being discovered.

NARRATOR: DNA studies show

that Neanderthals lived among modern humans

for thousands of years

and interbred with them before becoming extinct.

And they were not the only other intelligent

humanlike species in prehistoric times.

In 2003, scientists identified floresiensis...

Known as the Hobbit people... In Indonesia.

And as recently as 2008,

the species Denisovan hominin was discovered

in southern Siberia.

LEONARD: What is intriguing about this find

is the DNA evidence suggests

that they are genetically distinct from both Neanderthals

and anatomically modern humans,

suggesting perhaps that at 40,000 years ago,

you had as many as three different human forms

on planet Earth.

WARD: No, there absolutely have to be

still unknown human lineages out there.

Whether they are totally different species or varieties.

I'm sure that the paleontologists

of the present day

and the near future will find more of our family tree.

WILCOCK: What we're now seeing is

a Lord of the Rings type situation

in which there are multiple hominid populations

coexisting on Earth at the same time.

When we look at the Denisovans,

we're seeing that they actually have traces in their DNA

of a species that is completely

unlike anything we've seen anywhere else on Earth.

We don't know where it comes from,

and we don't know who these people are.

It's a complete baffling mystery.

NARRATOR: Did Neanderthals and other ancient hominids

possess capabilities on par with,

or perhaps even exceeding, those of our human ancestors?

And if science is only now

discovering the truth about these species,

then what other forms of intelligent life

may have also roamed the Earth thousands of years ago?

Might humans have shared the Earth with,

and interbred with, species not indigenous to this planet?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

there may be further clues to be found

with Paracas skull number 44,

by reconstructing its face.

NARRATOR: New York City.

March 27, 2015.

Brien Foerster has enlisted artist Marcia Moore

to help him examine Paracas skull number 44

in an entirely new way.

Drawing on her experience

doing facial reconstructions with 3-D models,

Marcia will try to bring the ancient skull back to life

by scanning it onto a computer

and digitally rebuilding its face.

So, the first thing that we're going to do...

- I'm going to get a visual. - Mm-hmm.

And now it's going to laser-cut slices of this skull.

(chirping)

And it's going to patch up this entire skull

to make a 3-D model.

And we'll get to an accurate feel of this individual.

If you'd like to take your skull away from the carousel.

Up here on the computer...

This is how we generated the... the skull model.

With all of these little dots, the laser picked up

and was able to create a fairly accurate rendering

of this skull.

FOERSTER: That's amazing.

NARRATOR: Analyzing the bone structure,

Marcia begins to generate virtual layers

of muscle and tissue

to re-create the facial anatomy of the Paracas skull.

You can tell by this skull, the cheeks are prominent.

The chin is very prominent.

The eyes... obviously the sockets are much larger,

and that's always difficult.

I'm adding a little bit more length to the neck.

I think that probably this skull had a very strong neck,

so added material there.

Create the cranial formation of the skull.

NARRATOR: Based on the shape of the skull,

Marcia approximates where to add additional tissue and muscle

until finally... a face emerges.

FOERSTER: That's remarkable.

MOORE: Yeah, so I'm going to show you

the... the build-up,

slowly building up the cheeks,

the jawline, the eyes.

This, again, is a reconstruction,

but it's an interpretation

of what this physical could have looked like.

And here it is.

Well, you have brought a 2,000-year-old skull to life.

And answers some questions, but presents many more.

Absolutely.

FOERSTER: Marcia's interpretation

I find very intriguing

because what she has been able to represent

is atypical of the native people

that we find in coastal Peru today.

The Paracas culture disappeared 2,000 years ago.

They left no descendants,

nor did they leave oral tradition

or written documentation of any sort.

So we have no idea, in fact,

who they were and where they came from.

From Marcia's interpretation, I believe that it is possible

that beings have come from other parts of our universe

to this planet

and have mingled with the genetics that were here.

I believe that they're a subspecies of humanity.

NARRATOR: Could this be the face

of an alien-human hybrid?

Or might Paracas skull number 44

have origins completely outside of planet Earth,

as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

TSOUKALOS: I have seen those skulls close up.

And the moment I was able to do this,

it changes everything

because if you compare a skull

where you can prove

that the skull was artificially elongated,

and you compare that to one of the Paracas skulls,

then you can see a marked difference between the two.

I think, personally,

that they are themselves the extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Is Paracas skull number 44 evidence

of another intelligent... Perhaps even extraterrestrial...

Species living among humans in the distant past?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that the facial reconstruction does resemble an ancient ruler

that they believe was from the stars...

The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten.

CHILDRESS: He has big eyes, he has an extended head.

And in some ways,

he looks like one of the Atenists like Akhenaten,

or their children with large extended heads.

NARRATOR: Akhenaten ruled in the 14th century BC,

and was considered a heretical pharaoh

for changing the polytheistic religion of ancient Egypt.

He declared there was only one god... Aten.

A god he depicted as a disk in the sky.

CHILDRESS: Akhenaten became enthralled with the Aten disk.

And the Aten disk was something that was supposedly the sun,

but it was depicted in a completely different way

than the Egyptians had depicted the sun before.

And so it's interesting to think of the Aten disk

as possibly some kind of a spaceship.

And so, when you see these Atenists like Akhenaten,

you have to wonder

if they're not some kind of extraterrestrials.

They look a lot like Grey aliens.

NARRATOR: Akhenaten's reign also marked

a radical change in art, transitioning

from idealistic portrayals of people

to much more realistic renditions...

A fact which has only added to the speculation

about the ancient pharaoh and his family's origins.

WILCOCK: There are so many illustrations of them

painted on the temple walls,

as well as granite sculptures of Akhenaten,

of his wife Nefertiti,

of their daughter Meritaten.

Even King Tut was one of the children

of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

There are busts of King Tut

that also show an elongated skull.

We're also seeing that they have a very narrow ribcage.

And the distance between their neck

and their waist is longer

than typical humans would have on Earth.

You look at this granite bust of Meritaten,

where her head extends all the way back, there's no hair,

and you tell me that if a guy

actually made that as a mistake

that he would still be allowed to work

or even allowed to finish the sculpture?

He was sculpting what they really look like.

NARRATOR: Is the facial reconstruction

of the Paracas skull

the face of an ancient astronaut?

Does its similarity to the depictions

of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten provide evidence

that our planet has, in fact,

been visited by extraterrestrials?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and believe that further proof of an extraterrestrial presence

here on Earth can be found

within humanity itself.

NARRATOR: Houston, Texas.

2010.

Doctors at the Texas Heart Institute

examine a 59-year-old man

complaining of chest pains

and make an astounding discovery:

The patient has a three-chambered heart,

similar to that of a reptile.

Researchers attributed the rare condition

to an evolutionary phenomenon

called atavism,

when a lost trait of a distant ancestor

reemerges in a modern organism.

GAGE CRUMP: So the idea is, if you look at where

we evolve from, we were first fish.

Fish have a two-chambered heart.

And then we came on land... We're more like a reptile.

That has a three-chambered heart.

And then eventually a four-chambered heart

as we became mammals and then humans.

So interestingly, during development,

that same sequence of evolution

is played out again as embryos.

So if there's any sort of defect in the embryo along the way,

it could get stalled out at that earlier state.

And now this man has a heart that's more typical

of our distant ancestors,

- the reptiles. - (growls)

NARRATOR: While the discovery of a human

with a reptilian heart is incredibly rare,

other genetic conditions have been found

that suggest a link with reptiles.

Since the 1800s,

over 100 cases of human tails

have been reported in medical journals.

People with the disease ichthyosis

have dry, scaly skin.

And people with the diseases called syndactyly

and ectrodactyly

have fused fingers

and clawlike hands.

But if such anatomical irregularities

are a link to our ancient ancestors,

as some scientists suggest,

could it be that they are not the remnants

of a reptilian stage in human development,

but instead reveal that humans

once comingled with reptilian aliens?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and believe that further clues can be found

in the stories of China's first emperor, Fu Xi.

Fu Xi is one of the mythical rulers of China,

and he is considered to be, uh, the original

or prototypical man.

He was created along with his sister Nu Wa.

They were humanoid in form,

in the sense that their upper bodies were that of humans,

but their lower bodies were that of snakes.

And they're often represented with snake tails

intertwined together.

NARRATOR: Similar stories of reptilian humanoid beings

exist in cultures around the ancient world,

including Japan, Greece

and South America.

CHILDRESS: We even have good drawings and reliefs

of many of these fantastic creatures.

And so is it possible that some of these creatures

really are aliens that look like that?

And it seems like, in some cases,

that is probably the case.

NARRATOR: Other unusual anomalies also appear

to mirror the descriptions of divine beings

from ancient texts.

Millions of infants are born with blue patches of skin

called Mongolian spots,

evoking the blue-skinned gods

common to India and Egypt.

There have also been many cases of gigantism

throughout history,

bringing to mind biblical stories of the Nephilim...

Giants that were said to be the hybrid offspring

of humans and divine beings

called the Watchers.

Within us is the whole evolutionary development

of humankind, as well as the other species

that humans developed from...

Reptiles, fish and so forth.

Extrapolating this idea, if extraterrestrials had a hand

in retooling our DNA,

then do we also carry their genetic makeup

within us, as we would?

MARTELL: We know today that our DNA contains a lot

of junk DNA that we still don't understand.

So when we see these genetic anomalies surface

in physical form in children,

it could be that it's not an anomaly.

It's actually a lost extraterrestrial gene,

a marker that's now resurfacing at the right time.

NARRATOR: Like the Neanderthals, did extraterrestrials

breed with early man thousands of years ago?

Did they leave behind genetic evidence in our DNA

that still exists today?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest that Earth may at one time have been home

to not one alien race, but many.

NARRATOR: West Virginia.

September 1952.

Multiple witnesses report

seeing a strange ball of light shooting across the night sky

and landing in a nearby wooded area.

Those who investigate the crash site

describe seeing a ten-foot-tall

birdlike creature with glowing red eyes.

REDFERN: It was this huge, humanoid-type figure

anywhere from about ten feet to 12 feet high,

had these fiery, blazing eyes

and was emitting these sparks

and flashes of light.

It was described as having a cowl-like head,

not unlike an ace of spades card in a deck of cards.

The entire group was unanimous

in their belief that the object or the creature

was utterly real,

that it was connected with the overflight of the strange light

and it was also connected

with this red pulsating light that they saw.

NARRATOR: Curiously, Native American mythology

also describes a similar half-bird, half-human creature

that shared the planet with mankind thousands of years ago.

YOUNG: The Apache had a demonic figure in their mythology,

the giant owl man,

who could petrify you through its gaze.

It was truly a terrifying presence

that could come at any time

and particularly in the night sky, when owls fly.

TOK THOMPSON: This is a pretty common theme

in a lot of Native American mythology,

that there was a time in the past

when the Earth was overrun by pretty scary monsters

of various forms.

And the big owl... Or the owl man...

Is one of these sort of representatives.

(tribal chanting)

NARRATOR: Might the stories of owl men

and other strange creatures describe beings

that the Native Americans actually encountered?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and point to similar creation myths from across the world

of gods that resemble not just anthropomorphic birds

but also reptiles,

insects

and sea creatures.

TSOUKALOS: All around the world,

we have figurines and carvings and paintings,

rock paintings of these very bizarre creatures

that can be found not only on every continent,

but once you compare them,

they're also incredibly similar.

So one has to wonder

if these figurines and these statues

of these different depictions

of what they referred to as the gods,

if they're actually rooted in some type of reality.

NARRATOR: Did our ancestors really encounter

these intelligent life-forms thousands of years ago?

And if so, just what were they?

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

February 2013.

Analyzing data gathered by NASA's Kepler space telescope,

astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center

for Astrophysics announce

that six percent of all red dwarf stars

have habitable, Earth-like planets.

Because red dwarf stars burn much longer than our sun,

the discovery raises the possibility

that life on these planets could be much older

and much different than life on Earth.

The environment plays a-a really pivotal role

in sort of the direction, um, that organisms evolve.

And so you can imagine that evolution

played out on a different planet

might follow the same types of rules

but have completely different end products,

and so it'd look completely different.

WARD: Just go to any other star with planets around it.

Intelligence is going to happen because of crises.

It's going to happen because you can only survive

with that intelligence.

But it could be from a reptile,

that we were reptile-equivalent.

It could be from a quadruped.

It might be from a mollusk-like creature.

The cause is probably gonna be the same.

The end result, anatomically, totally different.

HENRY: There could be a myriad of different forms

that intelligent life takes throughout the cosmos.

When we look to the earthly record of otherworldly beings

that have visited Earth,

they exhibit different characteristics.

They have bird heads, dog heads, reptilian-type forms.

It's possible that these are the forms that these beings take

on their home planet,

and they might even coexist with beings

that are even different from them.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that, like the Neanderthals,

Denisovans and floresiensis

that existed alongside humans here on Earth,

there are similar intelligent beings

that evolved differently from us

on planets all across the universe?

And if many such species do exist,

might Earth have been visited

by more than just one race of aliens?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

that the answers lie not only in stories of divine beings

from the past but in sightings that continue

to this very day.

NARRATOR: Fort McDowell, Arizona.

February 2015.

Thousands flock to this small desert community

20 miles outside of Phoenix

to attend the annual International UFO Congress.

Many attendees and speakers

share stories of being abducted by aliens,

and their accounts describe extraterrestrials

that take a variety of physical forms.

Within the field of ufology,

there are multiple types of aliens reported.

This includes winged humanoids.

Like Mothman,

the Houston Batman.

It also includes so-called insectoids, which...

as their names suggest, they look like large insects.

And then we have the reptilians,

bipedal reptile-type creatures.

I think it's highly possible that they've adapted

and developed physically in those fashions

in relation to the conditions

on their relative home planets.

I think there are all kinds of creatures with intelligence

in this universe that would shock us.

I think your environment determines

what you're going to end up looking like eventually.

I think, after time,

that complexity of who you are physically

adapts to what that planet is.

WILCOCK: If you look at some of the Sumerian illustrations,

you see an avian bird head

on top of a very strong human body.

You look on the Egyptian paintings,

and you have a human with an elongated skull

and very green skin.

And there is a one-to-one correlation

between modern sightings that people are reporting,

both from abduction contact experiences,

as well as what we hear from insider testimony,

and what we see in the most ancient records

of contact with the gods.

It's the same people.

They never really left.

NARRATOR: Could there be a connection

between the strange-looking gods

depicted by ancient civilizations

and these present-day encounters with extraterrestrials?

Are we, in fact, seeing similar beings

to the ones described by our ancestors

thousands of years ago?

Despite the many different kinds of aliens reported,

there are certain distinct similarities

within such sightings.

MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network,

is one of the longest-lasting, most respected.

UFO research groups in the world.

MUFON's studies

of UFO landings and humanoid cases

has shown that most UFO events involving entities

revolve around sightings of creatures that are humanoid,

that's to say two arms, two legs,

a body and a head.

CHILDRESS: When we look at all of the different reports

of extraterrestrials coming here to Earth,

and they're all generally

humanoid in form.

And it would seem that the human form

is very much a universal form.

NARRATOR: If intelligent life would evolve much differently

on other planets,

as mainstream science suggests,

then why would so many people

describe encounters with extraterrestrials

that have human characteristics?

REDFERN: There may well have been some original

proto-alien civilization that seeded the universe.

Over time, the image of creatures with two arms,

two legs, a torso and a head, two eyes and a mouth

pretty much rules throughout the entire spectrum

of UFO activity and sightings.

TSOUKALOS: Now, that would imply that our lineage

is something that is bipedal.

Whether a creature walks upright

with the face of an insect

or the face of a human doesn't really matter.

You still have a two-legged creature

that originated somewhere.

Given the number of humanoid-appearing gods,

it suggests that there is a common ancestor

for all intelligent life in the universe

and perhaps we're on the verge of rediscovering

that common ancestor.

NARRATOR: Could there be one common source

for all intelligent life in the universe?

A primordial species that seeded different planets

with beings similar to ourselves?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

the ultimate truth about mankind's origins

might be found by examining

not only our past

but also our future.

NARRATOR: June 2013.

In an article for Forbes,

graphic artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm

illustrates just how the human face might change

over the next 100,000 years.

With the help of a computational biologist

and taking into account

future technological, environmental

and genetic influences,

he came up with eerie renderings

that show an increasingly large cranium

with a pronounced forehead,

huge eyes

and more pigmented skin tone.

As far as the future, it's-it's always really hard

to predict, uh, especially in terms of Homo sapiens sapiens,

because we've been so good at, uh,

modifying our environment through our technology.

So if you try to think about what we might look like

in the future, again, it's a bit hard,

because we don't exactly know, uh,

what these environmental pressures

may be on us right now.

NARRATOR: While Lamm's work was dismissed

by some scientists as conjecture,

anthropologists have found that humanity

has changed greatly

over the past 200,000 years.

Homo sapiens have developed more delicate skeletons,

smaller faces

and more pointed chins.

And recent studies have shown

the human body is still undergoing

significant changes.

LEONARD: So over the last 40,000 to 50,000 years,

tooth sizes have reduced very, very dramatically.

And this is largely the product of expansion

of both cooking and ultimately

the development of pottery.

These cultural innovations for changing

what we eat and how we eat

led to dramatic declines

in how large our jaws were

and ultimately

what our tooth sizes look like.

The future direction of human evolution is difficult to chart,

but certainly we would think

that some continued expansion of brain size

may be something that we're gonna continue to see

as we move forward in human evolution.

NARRATOR: In 2012, scientists

from the University of Tennessee

announced findings that show that human skull size

has also increased dramatically

just since the late 1800s.

What they found is totally amazing.

The average height of the skull

increased by an astonishing eight millimeters,

or almost .3 inches.

The actual increase in brain volume

caused by this height change

is 200 cubic centimeters,

which is the size of a tennis ball.

Our jaws are becoming

longer and narrower,

and the size of the head is becoming bigger.

Well, it starts to sound pretty familiar, doesn't it?

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists speculate

that extended space travel may also lead us

to appear more like the Greys

in the distant future.

Some have suggested that the reason why the Greys

have these what appear to be atrophied bodies

is because that over time

their bodies changed.

They, too, at some point, had larger muscles,

but because they became space travelers

their muscles atrophied.

When you go to space, you don't have that pressure

pushing down on you, so those muscles aren't used,

and so you lose muscle very rapidly.

Also associated with that... Your bones

begin to atrophy.

We're talking about longer and longer missions

out into space, going to Mars, going farther.

And so astronauts will be subjected to these stresses

for a long period of time.

CHILDRESS: Is it possible that the Grey aliens

at one time looked more like us

when they were planet bound?

And so we're on that same track.

And we are becoming more and more

like these Grey aliens themselves.

Our lineage has come about due to other extraterrestrials

that are similar to us.

Perhaps the lineage began elsewhere

millions and millions of years ago.

NARRATOR: Are humans... And perhaps even other

extraterrestrial races that our ancestors encountered...

Descendants of the Greys?

Did these otherworldly travelers

generate intelligent life

not only here on Earth, but throughout the universe?

And might the course of human evolution

lead us to become more and more like them?

Perhaps we will discover

that our true destiny is to continue their mission

and one day join our alien ancestors

in the stars.