Original subtitles

kid, I would just,

out of nowhere, start saying things.

Things like, "Mom, in my last life

I was shot down and killed."

BOB GOOD: Suzanne Ghanem identified

25 different relatives of her prior life.

And their relationship.

RAMY ROMANY: There was literally no explanation

of how Om Seti knew the things she knew,

of how she understood the ancient language,

how she predicted the placement of ruins under the ground.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: You have thousands of reports

of reincarnation.

So one has to wonder whether there is something behind that.

WILLIAM HENRY: Did extraterrestrials come to Earth

and tweak the human body to serve as a vehicle for the soul?

And if so,

what is the purpose?

*

*

NARRATOR: Lafayette, Louisiana.

2001.

Aside from having an unusual obsession with airplanes

and World War II,

James Leininger was, by all accounts,

a normal three-year-old.

That is, before he began having

-(gunfire) -a strange recurring nightmare.

I would have these nightmares,

and it would be just me kicking and screaming,

me with my legs physically in the air,

kicking up at the ceiling, screaming,

"Plane crash on fire, little man can't get out."

And that was every night for almost a year.

And then I would just, out of nowhere, start saying things.

Things like "Mom, in my last life

I was shot down and killed."

NARRATOR: James would draw elaborate

airplane dogfight scenes.

He also seemed to have an eerie and inexplicable knowledge

of World War II aircraft,

right down to their components.

This is a drawing I did when I was, when I was much younger.

And this is one of the ones I signed "James 3."

My dad asked me one day, "Why do you sign it 'James 3'?"

And I just turned to him and simply said,

"'Cause I'm the third James."

I was the junior, junior.

And then, one day, my father asked me

the name of the ship that I was on and I said, "Natoma."

NARRATOR: After doing some research,

James' father found that there was, in fact,

an aircraft carrier named the USS Natoma Bay (CVE 62).

The boy could also indicate on a map

the exact location of where the plane

he claimed to be flying went down.

-(plane crashes) -In Chichijima, Japan.

LEININGER: Eventually, my father found a ship roster.

And they went down the line

and saw names that they had recognized that I had said.

And then they came to James.

James McCready Huston.

-(weapons firing) -This man was killed

when he was shot down over the island Chichijima.

NARRATOR: While James Leininger's memories

of his so-called past life remained vivid in his youth,

they began to fade as he became an adult.

But what he is able to remember still brings back

powerful emotions.

LEININGER: My memories of James Huston

and the things that he underwent

have mostly all but gone.

I can remember this one snapshot.

You...

(voice breaking): I'm sorry.

And you hear, you just hear this, this crackling.

And it's just this loud banging and this distant just...

(imitates explosions)

And you can see these black dots in the sky.

You look up.

And eventually you see this plane start to come down.

And it hits the water.

And it's black after that.

You don't hear anything. You don't see anything.

It's just... it's done.

NARRATOR: Although mainstream science

widely dismisses the concept of reincarnation,

leading academic institutions,

such as the University of Virginia,

Duke University,

and the University of British Columbia,

have entire departments devoted to its study.

And, according to their research,

a mounting body of evidence suggests

that the ability of some to vividly recall past lives

may, in fact, be a real occurrence.

TSOUKALOS: You have thousands of reports.

So one has to wonder whether there is something behind that.

There are studies that have been made on these things,

and I wonder how long it'll be until mainstream science

agrees with the idea that something happens to us

after death.

The basic idea of reincarnation is that, upon your death,

your soul departs your body.

You go to your version of heaven

and then you come down into a new body.

An easy way to understand this

is that you can upload files from your computer

to the cloud

and then download files to a new computer.

NARRATOR: But while scientists are just beginning

to entertain the notion that reincarnation

may be a real occurrence,

the idea of a soul leaving one human body

and entering another can be traced back thousands of years,

to the very beginning of Egyptian civilization.

Turin, Italy.

On display at the Egyptian Museum

is the Turin King List, or Royal Canon,

which dates back to the 13th century BC.

The papyrus includes a list

detailing the ancient Egyptian rulers,

extending back to the very start of Egyptian civilization.

We see all the timelines, and all the kings were there,

but the first two groups of names

on that list...

were gods,

the gods of Egypt,

who they believed ruled before the kings.

NARRATOR: Although scholars fully accept

the chronology from the rule of King Menes onward,

they discount the time before his reign around 3000 BC,

a time when these alleged gods ruled over Egypt.

One of the first names to be found on the list

is the god Osiris.

WILLIAM BRAMLEY: Osiris was depicted as a human-like god.

He had human features.

But one of the most curious things about Osiris

is that he was shown with green skin.

HENRY: Osiris is thought to have come from

the star system Orion originally.

And was part of a group of extraterrestrials

that came to Earth.

What's interesting about the ancient Egyptian gods

is they could also die.

They weren't necessarily immortal.

And when the god Osiris died,

centuries ago according to Egyptian mythology,

he was reborn

as his own son, Horus.

And Horus became a physical incarnation on Earth.

And it is believed by the ancient Egyptians

that all the pharaohs became gods incarnate.

And once one particular pharaoh died,

the spirit would then go into the next pharaoh.

And so on, and so on.

So this, this cycle of reincarnation continued.

In the ancient Egyptian creation mythology,

the god Ptah

came from Sirius and fashioned the human body.

We have to ask the question:

did extraterrestrials come to Earth

and tweak the human body to serve as a vehicle for the soul?

NARRATOR: If the stories of the Egyptian gods

incarnating into human bodies are true,

do all humans possess souls that have been passed down

from the beginning of mankind,

and may have originated

beyond Earth?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining recent case studies into past lives

that scientists find too remarkable to dismiss.

ROMANY: NARRATOR: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1967.

Renowned psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson

launches the Division of Personality Studies

at the University of Virginia,

making it one of the first educational institutions

to devote serious research into the study of reincarnation.

Over his 40-year career,

Dr. Stevenson extensively studied more than 3,000 cases

of individuals who reported past life memories.

And he was able to objectively validate the claims being made

in an astounding 1,200 instances.

The body of work by Ian Stevenson

is exceptionally credible.

It's painstakingly documenting instances of things

that are suggestive of reincarnation.

Now, what makes a case credible is that the person

has specific knowledge that they couldn't possibly have.

NARRATOR: Dr. Stevenson traveled

throughout the world to meet with people

claiming to have knowledge of their past lives.

You are now fully relaxed.

NARRATOR: He used various methodologies,

including hypnosis, to obtain pertinent details

from his subjects, and then would set out

to authenticate and document the evidence.

One of his most striking case studies was Suzanne Ghanem,

who was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1963.

She insisted from a young age that in her previous life

she had been Hanan Monsour, a Lebanese women

who had passed away just ten days before Suzanne was born.

At the age of two, she shared with her parents

the name of Hanan's husband and her three children,

and later scribbled a phone number on a scrap of paper.

Dr. Stevenson would discover

that the number matched the Monsours' home phone number,

except that the last two digits were reversed.

GOOD: Suzanne Ghanem

holds the record for being able to identify

relatives of her prior life.

She walked into a room and identified

25 different relatives by name and their relationship.

NARRATOR: In another case study,

Dr. Stevenson traveled to India

to research the claims of one of the most notorious

reincarnations in the region.

CHILDRESS: There's the interesting case

of Shanti Devi in India.

She was born in 1926, and at the age of four

she began telling her parents that she was

the reincarnation of this other woman

from another town called Mathura.

NARRATOR: Mathura is a small village

over 100 miles away from Shanti's hometown of Delhi.

By the time Shanti Devi was nine years old,

she had convinced her parents of her prior existence,

and was put in contact with her former family.

The young girl spoke directly with the man she claimed

she was married to in her previous life.

JASON MARTELL: Shanti Devi

gives very accurate information,

knows exactly where she lived in this past life,

the names of people in her family,

her husband specifically.

She eventually met this family and her husband

from a previous life, and lo and behold,

these people embraced her and agreed

that she is this lost relative from another life.

CHILDRESS: Eventually, Mahatma Gandhi himself

got involved in this whole story.

He had an investigation made, and in 1936

Gandhi himself said that he was satisfied that she was

the reincarnation of this other woman.

NARRATOR: In some reincarnation cases,

like that of an English woman named Dorothy Eady,

the past-life recall went much further back in history.

As a young girl, after a near-death experience,

she began recalling her life as a temple virgin in Egypt

during the reign of Seti I in the 14th century BC.

Eady eventually moved to Abydos, Egypt,

took on the name Om Seti,

and became a respected Egyptologist

and the keeper of the Temple of Seti.

ROMANY: It was all really interesting,

because she was one of very few

that perfected the ancient Egyptian language.

She could speak it.

I can translate.

I can try to read, but she could speak it.

And she would go to the other Egyptologists and tell them,

the gardens of whatever is down here.

Dig here, you'll find it.

And most thought she was just crazy.

But they dig and they find it.

She had the information.

She knew things no one else would know.

There was literally no explanation

of how she knew the things she knew,

of how she understood the language,

how she predicted the placement of ruins under the ground.

I don't think anyone up till today

has an explanation of knowing how she knew that,

because she wasn't right once and wrong three times.

She was always right.

Om Seti came back

with a very clear memory of her past life,

specifically to find her way back to Egypt,

but also to educate us.

When you'd see someone speaking about their past life

with such credibility, such accuracy,

this tells us that there is more to it than this life.

So, they are actually teaching us about other worlds,

other realities, and what we are perhaps here to do.

NARRATOR: Although Om Seti made significant contributions

to the study of ancient Egypt and its people,

it is her claim to have been reincarnated

that may be her most important legacy.

But if reincarnation is proven to exist... why?

And what does it reveal, not only about our past lives,

but also our future ones?

NARRATOR: Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt.

Opposite from the famous burial chamber of King Tut

is a small crypt: KV55.

It is known only by a number,

because even though it was discovered over a century ago,

no one is certain who was buried there.

Initially, it was thought to belong

to King Tut's father, Akhenaten,

but radiological examination

suggested the body belonged to a much younger man.

This is it, KV55 in the Valley of the Kings,

away from the public eye.

Most Egyptologists and archaeologists

are baffled and have a lot of questions.

Very little is known about this tomb.

Let's get in.

One of the most common features of all the tombs

in the Valley of the Kings

is the amount of wall paintings on the tombs

explaining everything and telling the world

that this is the tomb of that king,

and this is how great that king is.

But look at this tomb.

Completely empty.

NARRATOR: In 1907,

archaeologists allegedly found an ominous curse on the wall,

assuring that whoever occupied this tomb

would not return in a subsequent life.

When they first opened this tomb,

they found little remains of hieroglyphics on this wall

that says, "The evil one should not live again."

NARRATOR: Inside, archaeologists found a coffin

with the remains of a mummified body with an elongated head.

The right side of its skull was smashed in.

But perhaps the most striking feature of the tomb

is that, unlike all other tombs in the valley,

it was not built to keep grave robbers out

it was built specifically to keep someone-- or something--

trapped inside.

This is the burial chamber of the tomb.

Right here is exactly where the sarcophagus would have gone.

And to north, south, east and west of the sarcophagus,

were the four magical cardinal blocks

that protects the tomb from any intruders.

This is a part of some of the magical blocks

that surrounded the sarcophagus.

These rocks in every other tomb had inscriptions on the outside,

on the side facing the world,

so it protects the tomb from the world, except for this tomb.

This tomb, the rocks had hieroglyphics

with the inscriptions on the inside,

as if they intentionally wanted to protect the outside world

from the contents of this tomb.

NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians

were strong believers in reincarnation,

and even had a specific name for the part of the individual

that detaches itself from the body after death.

They referred to it as Ba.

The Ba is the personality.

The Ba is the character.

Every human had a Ba,

and the Ba is the part they believed

moves out and is reincarnated in another life,

another living human.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that the concept of what the Egyptians referred to

as the Ba, or the detachment of the spirit from the body,

has been depicted in artwork throughout history.

Across the globe,

over 1.5 billion people believe in reincarnation,

including nearly all Eastern philosophies,

as well as the Kabbalistic sect of Judaism.

Tibetans, we believe rebirth.

In the Kabbalistic tradition of Judaism,

reincarnation is considered a fundamental belief.

And unlike other religions,

which believe you have only one lifetime

in which to get it right,

in the Kabbalistic tradition, it is believed

that souls are given multiple chances to get it right.

So souls are believed to reincarnate time after time.

NARRATOR: The idea of the preexistence of the soul

was once a significant doctrine of the Christian canon,

before it had been excised from the teachings

by Roman emperor Justinian the Great in 553 AD.

The early Christian belief in reincarnation

was eventually declared a heresy.

Instead of recycling to Earth over and over again,

you now only have one destination after this life.

That destination is either Heaven or it's Hell,

depending on how you behaved in life.

It was used as a control mechanism.

YOUNG: In ancient Greece, Socrates, Pythagoras

and Plato all commented on the possibility of reincarnation.

In the dialogues, Plato says,

"I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again,

and that the living spring from the dead."

So here's a strong sense of reincarnation.

CORY: There are many beliefs around the world,

that reincarnation exists.

Some people believe that certain types of souls

are able to come back, not just in one body,

but in several bodies at once to perform specific tasks.

And that's one of the reasons why

there are so many more people on the Earth today

than there used to be.

And also it is possible for you

to reincarnate from other planets.

TSOUKALOS: Oftentimes, when reincarnation is discussed,

we only talk about it

that people are reincarnated here on Earth,

and I personally always thought

that that was a limiting idea of reincarnation.

I think even extraterrestrial organisms-- biological ones--

would be reincarnated throughout the universe.

NARRATOR: If souls are indeed recycling

through various bodies, as so many cultures,

both ancient and modern, have proposed,

is this simply the natural continuation of life

or might this process be directed

towards some greater end?

One that reaches far beyond Earth?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining the stories of those who claim

to have been reincarnated with a specific purpose for humanity.

NARRATOR: Dharamshala, India,

May 17, 2015.

CROWD (chanting): We want justice!

-MAN: What do we want? -CROWD: We want freedom!

MAN: What do we want?

(crowd chanting indistinctly)

NARRATOR: Tibetan exiles in India,

including the current Dalai Lama,

renew their call for Communist China

to release the high-ranking Buddhist monk

they have held captive for the past 20 years.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is considered

one of the world's longest-held political prisoners.

He has been held captive since 1995,

when at the age of six, he was recognized

as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama,

the second most important spiritual leader of Tibet

after the Dalai Lama himself.

NICK POPE: The Dalai Lama unilaterally announced

that they'd found the Panchen Lama.

Now, the Chinese placed him under house arrest in China,

and he's not been heard from since.

The Chinese government installed, effectively,

their own candidate.

The reason for this

seems to be that the previous Panchen Lama

had spoken out against Chinese Communism,

and the Chinese government was probably worried about that.

NARRATOR: Like most other Eastern religions,

the belief in reincarnation

is central to the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.

NARRATOR: The current Dalai Lama

is the 14th in his reincarnation lineage,

but he claims to be the 74th incarnation of his spirit,

which is said to trace back to the deity Chenrezig,

the founding god of the Tibetan people.

...is a very special dedicated compassion

Buddha manifested for Tibet.

CORY: This being continues to come back through reincarnations

to simply help the Tibetan people

and the humans on the Earth

to also find their way to enlightenment.

NARRATOR: It is said that Chenrezig made a vow

that he would not rest until he had "liberated all the beings

in all the realms of suffering."

Tibetan Buddhists believe, that in the form of the Dalai Lama,

he returns to Earth in a quest to fulfill this mission.

But according to ancient astronaut theorists,

Chenrezig was not merely an enlightened being,

he was an extraterrestrial visitor to Earth

in the remote past.

TSOUKALOS: In many of the renderings similar to his,

you have these Buddhas that are in this lotus position

that seem to be sitting inside some sort of vehicles.

They look like lotus flowers,

and you have them surrounded by flames and smoke.

CHILDRESS: Chenrezig is often seen floating

in a kind of UFO-shaped disc

with different objects around him.

So, it would seem that really, for Tibetan Buddhists,

the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation

of some kind of extraterrestrial god

who has chosen the Tibetan people as his people,

and he continually reincarnates over and over again,

to lead these people.

NARRATOR: According to researchers,

the vast majority of reincarnated individuals

are completely unaware of their previous lives.

But if the Dalai Lama is returning

to fulfill a recognized mission,

could there be others who knowingly come back

with a task to complete?

NARRATOR: Hillah, Iraq.

Just over 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Scattered over 2,000 acres,

in the center of the war-torn nation,

lie the ruins of one of the ancient world's greatest cities,

Babylon.

During the 1980s, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

attempted to reconstruct the city.

He built himself a replica structure

on the ancient foundation of the palace

of the sixth century Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II,

and even made plans to restore his famous Hanging Gardens.

In 1991, during the First Gulf War,

the world was introduced to Saddam Hussein,

both as a military dictator,

but also, we learned during the 1980s,

Saddam had spent over $500 million

rebuilding Babylon.

CHILDRESS: One of the interesting things

that came out in the news

around the time of the First Gulf War with Iraq,

was that Saddam Hussein believed

that he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar II.

YOUNG: Saddam Hussein said that he was

the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar.

He had coins made with his image on one side,

and Nebuchadnezzar on the other.

The original bricks in Babylon had the name

Nebuchadnezzar engraved on them.

When Saddam rebuilt the ancient city of Babylon,

he had bricks inscribed with his own name

and the name Nebuchadnezzar engraved on them as well.

NARRATOR: Nebuchadnezzar II was a powerful

and ambitious ruler, and during his reign he made Babylon

the most powerful kingdom in the region.

Much like Saddam Hussein, Nebuchadnezzar II also set out

to reconstruct the already ancient city,

specifically focusing on restoring

the Great Ziggurat of Babylon, the Etemenanki temple.

Scholars have proposed that the site may actually be

the former location of the biblical Tower of Babel,

which was constructed after the Great Flood

by orders of the ancient king, Nimrod.

TZADOK: Ancient legend tells us that King Nebuchadnezzar

was indeed himself a reincarnation of the earlier

Babylonian King Nimrod.

Nimrod was the first world dictator who created

what was a world empire.

Nimrod was of the descendants of Noah.

Now, Noah was very unique, very interesting.

He was born with certain attributes which indicated

that he was not of this world.

NARRATOR: If this is true,

could it be that Saddam Hussein was not only

a reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar II,

but also the biblical character known as Nimrod?

And might this being have returned to fulfill a mission

he was unable to complete in his earlier incarnation?

HENRY: What we're seeing here is actually

a progression of a soul, or a spirit,

beginning with Nimrod, going through Nebuchadnezzar,

and then reincarnating as Saddam Hussein,

who was trying to do exactly the same thing in each lifetime.

NARRATOR: If the existence of the human soul can be proven,

could it really carry remnants

from previous lives?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and point to a number of recent scientific

discoveries for their proof,

not only of reincarnation,

but of mankind's ancient alien origins.

NARRATOR: Stanton, Kentucky, July 2016.

(siren wailing)

A witness to the aftermath of a fatal traffic collision

takes a photograph of the scene as he drives past.

Upon examination of the picture, he notices the vestige

of a figure floating above the scene.

Many have suggested that this chilling photograph

actually shows the soul leaving the body.

And today an increasing number of scientists support the notion

that there may really be a spirit that continues on

after the body dies.

GOOD: The vast body of information

supporting the concept

or the idea of reincarnation

is getting stronger and stronger.

There's nothing in the science that precludes that,

and there's some information that actually supports it.

NARRATOR: In 1996,

renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose

and anesthesiologist Dr. Stuart Hameroff

developed a quantum theory of consciousness that supports

the notion of a separate state of an individual

that can exist beyond the confines of a physical body.

Their work highlights structures called microtubules,

which they suggest is the seat of the soul.

GOOD: Microtubules are light pipes

that allow electrons to flow unimpeded,

so the body can talk to itself.

It allows consciousness to flow throughout the body,

at least so the theory goes.

NARRATOR: According to their theory, the soul itself exists

in an energetic state.

When the body dies, it returns to the universe,

as it cannot be destroyed.

And in the case of near-death experiences,

it may later return to the body after resuscitation.

Their theory suggests that

what is happening is that some energetic quantum essence

of consciousness itself that can exist as pure energy

is exiting the body.

And then, when the body becomes viable again,

it is able to reinhabit the body through

using these microtubules, much like the idea of an antenna.

We have the possibility that this is an intelligent design.

That there could be intelligent beings before us

who specifically designed these biological bodies

to be vessels for the soul.

NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,

our latest scientific discoveries reflect the stories

written by our ancestors over 3,500 years ago,

detailing how the gods fashioned the human body

to possess a soul or spirit.

When you look at, uh, one of the earliest creation myths

from Mesopotamia, they talked about how,

in order for a human body to be animated,

the gods needed to connect the soul to it,

or the spiritual consciousness to it.

Otherwise it just doesn't function.

HENRY: The gods in ancient stories have all

the hallmarks of what we call extraterrestrials.

They're deeply interested in the idea of the soul, how to move

the soul from one body to another.

We call that reincarnation.

So the historical record

of extraterrestrials tweaking human bodies

suggests that the ultimate purpose

of this genetic alteration

is to make the human body a better vehicle for the soul.

NARRATOR: Are scientists on the verge of uncovering

a profound truth-- that man really does possess a soul,

and human bodies are physiologically designed

to support it, as our ancestors claimed?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and believe

the more important question... is why?

NARRATOR: New York City College of Technology.

August 2016.

Physicist Gregory Matloff publishes a paper arguing

that consciousness may extend beyond humans,

and that the universe itself might be self-aware.

Prominent scientists like Christoph Koch

and Sir Roger Penrose also support this notion.

And researchers studying reincarnation believe

it might help explain why souls are continuously recycled.

There seems to be a process where you reincarnate

repeatedly, because there is a larger consciousness

that you're a part of.

In short, we upload and download consciousness,

and we're creating a common body of information.

CORY: Cosmic consciousness is expansive.

It allows us to imagine the possibilities

beyond our 3D reality.

Beyond our limited way of seeing this reality

right here on the Earth.

NARRATOR: But if human bodies were created

as vessels for the soul by extraterrestrial beings,

as some ancient astronaut theorists propose,

was it to feed the human experience into

a shared cosmic consciousness?

And if so, could the key to uncovering the truth

about our alien origins be walking amongst us today?

Some of the souls that are currently

walking around Planet Earth

have been around for a very long time,

and may be traced back to extraterrestrials visiting

in the remote past.

The truth of our past could definitely be

part of our future.

CHILDRESS: Extraterrestrial reincarnated souls

have been with us for thousands and thousands of years,

guiding us, leading us over and over again as best they can

to help us achieve our various goals.

HENRY: We have to realize that

extraterrestrial knowledge is present in our world,

that these souls carry direct evidence and knowledge

from our past

and are perhaps being used to fulfill

the mission of these extraterrestrial beings.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that humans are designed

to carry the souls of otherworldly beings

that came to Earth thousands of years ago?

Perhaps as we learn more about reincarnation

we will be able to access ancient knowledge

seeded deep within each of us.

We may also discover that the truths

about our extraterrestrial past

are much closer than we ever realized.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS