Original subtitles

*

Wow.

It's gigantic.

The rock itself is said to weigh about 500 tons.

Wow.

You want to just look down below here.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: That's amazing.

It's hovering above the water.

NIKKI TSUKAMOTO: This monolith is said to be

related to one of the first gods

that descended from the heavens to Japan,

and he traveled over the country on a sky ship

made out of a giant rock.

TSOUKALOS: So what you're telling me is that there is

a deity flying around in the sky

with a gigantic vehicle made of stone?

(speaks Japanese)

Absolutely.

*

NARRATOR: Tokyo, Japan.

May 2017.

The University of Tokyo reveals designs for electric vehicles

that are able to charge while driving on powered roadways,

enabling the Japanese to travel freely with unlimited mileage

throughout the country.

This same month, the Japanese government,

in cooperation with private companies,

unveils plans to unleash a countrywide drone

delivery system by 2020,

with self-driving trucks to follow in 2022.

And Inami Hiyama Laboratory brings to market

a new prosthetic device called MetaLimbs,

a pair of wearable robotic arms controlled by the legs and feet,

giving the user two additional hands to work with.

These are just a few of the scientific innovations

introduced by the Japanese in a single month.

And they, along with numerous others,

have helped accelerate mankind's technological advancement

at a breathtaking pace.

Yet, in the midst of this cutting-edge technology

are antiquated teahouses, palaces

and shrines dating back thousands of years

that create a stark contrast

between the old and the new.

Japan can be a puzzle to a Westerner.

On one hand, you have this modern culture

with trains that are going 250 miles hour.

Robots can serve you in the home,

can help people with handicaps walk.

They can be a robotic pet.

They have parking garages in which the cars,

uh, park themselves.

So, Japan is always on the cutting edge

of technological development and innovation.

Yet, at the same time, it cherishes and looks back

at its age-old traditions,

some of them going back several millennia, in fact.

NARRATOR: While Japan is a nation

where old world traditions

and new world technology collide,

ancient astronaut theorists suggest the two

are not as disconnected as they may seem

and that the secrets of ancient Japan

help explain why they are at the forefront of technology today,

secrets that are connected to extraterrestrial visitation.

December 18, 2007.

Ryuji Yamane of the Democratic Party of Japan,

under increasing pressure from his constituents,

publicly demands a response

from the prime minister and his cabinet

to address the surge of UFO activity over Japan,

totaling more than 300 reported sightings per month.

The cabinet's official statement

is that it "has not confirmed the existence

of unidentified flying objects from outer space."

But within a few hours, everything changes.

Just hours after this meeting,

the Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura

announced on live television

that regarding the question of extraterrestrials,

he definitely thinks they exist.

Then, a week later, the Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba

revealed that he had been carefully considering

different response scenarios for an alien invasion.

And what he said is incredible.

He said, and I quote,

"There are no grounds for us to deny

"that there are unidentified flying objects

and some life forms that controls them."

Two years later, the wife of the prime minister

came out with an extraordinary series of statements,

in which she claimed that she had been abducted by aliens,

that she had traveled on a UFO.

For the wife of the prime minister to come out

and make a statement like that was absolutely unprecedented.

I think the only reason this isn't on the front page

of every newspaper in the world is that,

certainly in the United States, we do tend to be

rather heavily focused on English-speaking countries,

and, indeed, very U.S.-centric in our outlook.

If the statements being made in Japan

were being made in America,

it would be on every major news network 24-7.

NARRATOR: Could these profound statements

coming from top Japanese government officials reveal

that they have knowledge of alien visitation?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

evidence of alien contact on these islands

dates back thousands of years,

and can be found within the teachings of Shintoism.

Shintoism is the primary religion of Japan,

with over 107 million followers,

and is designed around a set of ritual practices

that connect present-day Japan

to its ancient mystical past.

At its center are celestial beings

that, according to the Japanese people,

still roam their islands to this day.

The term "Shinto" translates as "the way of the kami,"

or, uh, "the way of the gods."

It's a tradition

that has a millennia-long history in Japan.

There are over eight million kamis,

according to the Shinto tradition,

and each one of them has

its own particular personality traits, if you will.

So, in that sense, they are quite different

from the notion of monotheistic God that we have

in traditions that are most widespread in the West.

The kami are these celestial beings

that are able to inhabit basically anything,

from a human being

to an animal, and even inanimate objects.

So on the one hand, they're these multi-dimensional beings,

but then, they also describe them

as having come down from their celestial palace in the sky,

which is called Takamagahara.

The celestial kami will come into the terrestrial world,

our world, and they need a home,

so they have these major shrines for these kami

when they come into the world,

so that they can feel at home in the terrestrial world.

The Japanese archipelago is dotted with over 81,000 shrines

that are devoted to the kami gods,

and it's believed that these are houses or places

where these extraterrestrial beings come to live

when they're on Earth.

The Japanese people will visit the shrines of the kami

with the belief that they are actually praying

to an extraterrestrial being who can fulfill their blessings.

NARRATOR: If what Shinto followers call "the kami"

really are otherworldly beings

that have been visiting Japan since ancient times,

are they still being encountered today in the form of UFOs?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining ancient Japanese structures

that defy explanation.

WILLIAM HENRY: There are thousands of these statuettes

Near the modern-day city of Osaka,

Giorgio Tsoukalos meets

with fellow ancient astronaut theorist Takeharu Mikami

to investigate one of the oldest and holiest sites

in the country-- the Ishi-no-Hoden megalith,

a Shinto shrine said to be inhabited

by an otherworldly being.

(speakinJapanese)

TSOUKALOS: Wow.

It's gigantic.

This is...

I had no idea.

I mean, it is massive.

(speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: The rock itself is said to weigh about 500 tons.

-500 tons? -Yes.

Wow!

(Mikami speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: This is said to have the soul of a god,

or kami, inside it.

Okay, so to this day,

this is the belief, that some type of spirit

lives in this,

or that the rock itself has spirit.

(Mikami speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: The spirit of a god is inside,

and the stone carries a special spiritual meaning now.

TSOUKALOS: Okay. That's amazing.

I want to... I need to walk around.

I mean, I had no idea how massive this is.

(Mikami speaks Japanese)

(Tsoukalos speaks Japanese)

So, do you want to just look down below here?

(Mikami speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: It looks like it's floating over the water.

TSOUKALOS: It really does.

-Oh. -(Mikami speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: The name for this rock is Ame-no-kishi,

or the Floating Rock from the Heavens.

(speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: So this monolith is said to be related

to one of the first gods

that descended from the heavens to Japan,

and he is said to have traveled over the country

on a sky ship made out of a giant rock,

which was called Ama no Iwafune,

which is the Heavenly Rock Ship.

So what you're telling me is that there is

an ancient Japanese legend that speaks of a deity

flying around in the sky

with a gigantic vehicle made of stone?

-(speaks Japanese) -Absolutely.

(chuckles) So, do you think

that is the reason why it was called

a vehicle made of stone, because it was so powerful and strong

and virtually indestructible that the story became

it's a vehicle made of stone?

(speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: You're absolutely right,

because the gods were...

flying over the land on a giant ship.

It wasn't a plane, because it didn't have wings.

It looked like a ship

made out of very hard material

that was like a very hard stone,

and they would descend from the heavens and down onto the land,

and thus, they would travel around the country.

TSOUKALOS: Another name for Ishi-no-Hoden

is Floating Stone.

So what did they mean by that?

The way that this is constructed here,

it seems as if it's hovering.

So did they perhaps try

to recreate one of those hovering or flying sky ships

that they themselves witnessed?

And what's so interesting to me about this massive monolith

is that there are no apparent toolmarks

to be found at any place across the stone.

How did ancient people possibly quarry and form this rock

to such exacting precision without sophisticated tools?

NARRATOR: According to the Japanese,

otherworldly beings had been visiting their islands

for over 12,000 years.

The earliest culture that we can identify in Japan

is the Jomon,

which is originally a Stone Age culture

running roughly from 10,000 BCE to 300 BCE.

It is a culture that we don't know an awful lot about,

because they had no writing system.

All we have is artifacts.

DOMINIC STEAVU: The little that we do know about the Jomon

comes from archaeological evidence.

And... one of the most representative, uh,

artifacts that is tied to the Jomon

is the Dogu statue.

NARRATOR: Approximately 15,000 Dogu figurines

resembling strange, humanoid beings

have been found throughout the Japanese islands.

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest these figurines

represent the very kami the Japanese believe descended

to this world in the ancient past.

HENRY: There are thousands of these statuettes

that have been recovered, and these figures have

goggle-type eyes, and they have rivets all over their body,

indicating that they're wearing some kind of a space suit

or technological armor.

DAVID CHILDRESS: So you have to ask yourself,

were these statues sky beings

who came and directed the Japanese

to have their civilization and culture, and that ultimately,

these sky gods are their ancestors?

NARRATOR: Do the Dogu figures represent extraterrestrials

that visited Japan thousands of years ago?

And could they have descended in a craft

that resembled the monolith called Ishi-no-Hoden,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

Perhaps further clues can be found

in Japan's official historical texts,

which describe the islands

as inhabited by otherworldly beings.

Ise, Japan.

In the center of this remote coastal city

is a massive complex of 125 individual shrines

erected 2,000 years ago,

dedicated to the supreme goddess of Shintoism--

Amaterasu.

THOMAS KASULIS: When Amaterasu is residing

in the terrestrial plane, instead of the celestial plane,

her home is the Grand Shrine at Ise,

which is built without any nails,

any metal fastenings whatsoever.

It's also architecturally unlike any other shrine in Japan.

TSOUKALOS: Modern architects still have difficulty

comprehending how this palace was built.

It is the most important shrine in Shintoism,

and has been visited by hundreds of millions of pilgrims

over thousands of years.

Now, allegedly,

the shrine contains something called the Sacred Mirror,

one of Japan's three most sacred artifacts,

which are collectively known

as the Imperial Regalia of Japan.

They were given by Amaterasu to Emperor Jimmu,

the first emperor of Japan.

And they have only been seen

by the emperors and high priests of Japan.

But what were they?

And why is the public not allowed to see them?

If these are items that are brought to Earth

by celestial beings, then by definition,

that would make them of extraterrestrial origin.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Ishi-no-Hoden megalith

and the Ise Grand Shrine are physical evidence

of extraterrestrial visitations in Japan's ancient past?

And might the prime minister of Japan and his cabinet

still have connections

to these same otherworldly beings?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by more closely examining Emperor Jimmu,

and the stories that he was guided

by an intelligence that spoke to him...

from the sky.

TSOUKALOS: Why would they label a boat.

In the middle of this modern metropolis

lies the Daisen Kofun,

a tomb for one of Japan's long line of divine emperors.

Covering over 400,000 square meters, the Daisen Kofun

is considered the largest tomb by area in the world.

There are more than 160,000 kofun

dotting the Japanese archipelago,

all of which contain the remains

of emperors or their royal families.

STEAVU: There are burial mounds throughout the world.

However, there's one specific shape that exists only in Japan,

and this is the Keyhole Kofun.

JASON MARTELL: Most of these can only be seen from the sky.

This raises the question as to why emperors would be buried

in such a way that they are actually being memorialized

and being seen from the sky.

CHILDRESS: The Japanese believed that the royal family

was descended from gods that came from the sky.

So we have to wonder,

is this a way for the extraterrestrials

to identify the tombs of their ancestors?

NARRATOR: Could the thousands of kofun

dotting the Japanese islands

contain the bodies of extraterrestrial beings?

Curiously, in 2016,

researchers studying high-resolution photos

of the surface of Mars

spotted an eerily similar keyhole-shaped mound.

JASON MARTELL: Is this possibly a kofun found on Mars,

burying some lost extraterrestrial god?

If so, we can see that there's

definitely a connection between what we're seeing on Mars,

as some type of kofun burial site,

and over 160,000 of these found all over Japan.

NARRATOR: Could the kofuns in Japan,

and the alleged structure on Mars,

contain definitive proof of a link

to beings from outside our world?

To investigate this theory further,

Giorgio Tsoukalos and Takeharu Mikami

were granted special access to one of Japan's oldest tombs...

the Ishibutai Kofun.

TSOUKALOS: Oh, man, it's gigantic.

TSUKAMOTO: It's a megalith from sixth century AD.

Okay.

(speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: The largest rock on this tumulus

weighs about 77 tons.

Have they calculated the weight of all the rocks combined?

(speaking Japanese)

All together, this would weigh about 2,300 tons.

TSOUKALOS: Wow!

That's incredible.

Can we go inside?

-Yes. -All right.

Wow.

So I presume one of these rocks up there

is the one that's 77 tons.

We would have great difficulty achieving that today.

And I'm not saying we can't do it.

Of course we can do it.

But we would use sophisticated,

high-tech, heavy machinery.

TSUKAMOTO: Excavation visitors have found wooden sleds

that are said to have been the tools

they used to drag and carry

these large rocks across the fields.

However, we don't know exactly how and from where

these rocks were carried from.

Yeah, I completely and utterly disagree with that notion.

You put 77 tons on wood,

it crushes into dust.

So that's wonderful that these sleds were found,

but I highly doubt

that 77 tons were on wooden sleds.

Because I've once seen a five-ton block being placed

on wooden rollers,

and it got crushed into oblivion.

This area here,

it's very hilly, uh, mountainous.

So in those ancient texts,

does it say how these stones were moved into position?

(speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: Traditionally, there were a group

of very skilled artisans or architects

who held a lot of, uh, secret skills and technology

that was only kept to them.

But, unfortunately,

we don't know what exactly those skills and technologies were.

TSOUKALOS: I agree that there was engineering knowledge

that has been lost.

And to build something like this,

does he presume that this knowledge

may have come from some of those kamis or celestial beings

that are in Japanese mythologies?

(Mikami speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: So the further back in history we go,

-the greater these monuments become. -TSOUKALOS: Yes.

So the technology was there from the very beginning.

And if we go back in time

to follow these roots of these beings, we will go back

to prehistoric times of the-the era, the age

of the kamis or the deities.

Ancient Japanese Shintos believe

that once you die, you would be put into a coffin

that was shaped like a boat

and then travel to the land of the gods.

You know, that's so fascinating, because...

there are stories of flying boats

all around the world.

In ancient Egypt,

you have the sun barges descending from the sky.

In Native American cultures,

you have the flying canoes.

Why would they label a boat a flying boat?

Well, could it be perhaps because they didn't have

the vocabulary to say "airplane"?

I don't think our ancestors pulled this

out of their own imagination.

I think they actually saw flying boats,

and thus the legends were born.

NARRATOR: Might the Ishibutai Kofun have been built

with the help of extraterrestrial beings,

beings that were also present on Mars in the distant past?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest further clues can be found

by examining another mysterious megalithic structure,

one that some believe represents the so-called flying boats

that, according to the ancient Japanese stories,

were used to travel to the land of the gods.

TSOUKALOS: So this could be some type of representation

NARRATOR: Hitachi Province, Japan.

1803.

Local fishermen on the Harayadori shore

spot an unusual craft drifting in the distance.

When the vessel washes ashore,

they are astonished by what they witness.

NICK POPE: This craft was likened to the shape

of a Japanese incense burner.

It is almost literally a flying disk,

a flying saucer.

On the outside of this craft

were multiple small metal plates,

uh, not too dissimilar to heat-resistant tiles

that you'd find, say, on a space shuttle.

NICK REDFERN: A hatch opened,

and a young woman came out of the craft

dressed in clothes that had never been seen before

and speaking a language that nobody understood

in the slightest.

CHILDRESS: When they looked inside the craft,

they could see hieroglyphs

and strange writing all inside of the craft.

POPE: The story of the strange Utsuro Bune craft

appears in three different Japanese texts.

Even today, modern historians, uh, struggle to understand

what this means.

Nobody can really decipher this.

CHILDRESS: Japanese today are very familiar with this story.

And to them, this is a curious story

of one of the gods of their ancestry

who had somehow arrived there on the island

in this mysterious craft

and then departed.

NARRATOR: Could the Utsuro Bune incident

have marked the return of extraterrestrial beings

that were present in Japan in the distant past?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and claim further evidence can be found

by examining a strange monolithic stone

that many believe was carved to resemble the very craft

that have been visiting Japan for thousands of years.

Asuka Park, Japan.

April 2017.

Does that say "rock ship"?

-"Masuda Rock Ship, this way." -Oh, all right.

NARRATOR: Giorgio Tsoukalos

and ancient astronaut theorist Takeharu Mikami

set out to examine Masuda-no-Iwafune,

an 800-ton rock structure

that was carved from a single piece of granite and resembles

no other architecture in Japan.

Hey, check out this-this square grid on the sides.

I mean, this is something that I've seen before in India,

in Mahabalipuram,

and they had something very similar on the side

of some of their rocks as well.

-Mm-hmm. -I can't wait to see the top.

Amazing.

Oh, man.

-TSUKAMOTO: Whoa. -(chuckles)

-Wow. That is... -(Tsukamoto speaks Japanese)

(chuckles) I mean,

I've never seen anything like it.

NARRATOR: While some researchers believe

the Masuda-no-Iwafune megalith is a tomb,

others claim it is meant to depict the sky boats

that are described in ancient Japanese stories.

TSOUKALOS: So, the idea is that this was the entrance

to a Buddhist temple. What do they mean by that?

Inside... I mean, where?

TSUKAMOTO: It would actually predate Buddhism in Japan,

so it wouldn't have anything to do with Buddhist temples.

Right. So,

what is the actual translation of "Masuda-no-Iwafune"?

(speaking Japanese)

"Masuda" is the name of the region,

and "iwafune" literally means

"stone ship" or "rock ship."

Okay.

(Mikami speaking Japanese)

TSUKAMOTO: Yes, it's... naturally, the iwafune

or the rock ship

would have come down from the heavens

as a vehicle for the gods

to descend upon Earth.

TSOUKALOS: So, I guess with the combination of the mythologies

of celestial beings, this could be

some type of representation of one

of those flying vehicles that our ancestors

perhaps witnessed.

NARRATOR: Could the Masuda-no-Iwafune

have been carved to resemble the so-called flying boats

that were referred to in ancient Japanese texts?

And was a similar alien craft witnessed

by Japanese fishermen in 1803?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining much more recent UFO sightings

and the long-held belief that Japan's imperial family

has a connection to otherworldly beings.

Coming up...

NARRATOR: Kyushu, Japan.

The seventh century BC.

According to Japan's earliest known historical texts,

Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, it is from this point

that the country's first ruler,

Emperor Jimmu, set out to conquer

and unify the Japanese islands.

KASULIS: He seems to have come out of Kyushu,

the southern island,

and moved across Japan to find a better place

to center the government and center his realm,

conquering people along the way,

and eventually he settles in the Yamato region.

And that becomes the center of Japan's government,

all the way until it moves to Tokyo in 1868.

STEAVU: As he was working his way northwards,

he was actually assisted

by a divine crow.

A three-legged crow, known as Yatagarasu.

"Yatagarasu" loosely translates

to "eight span crow."

So, we can imagine

that this crow would have been extremely large.

(crow screeches)

In some instances, Yatagarasu is also depicted

within a fiery orb in the sky.

TSOUKALOS: This so-called "crow"

guided him on his journey

and advised him in military matters to ensure his success.

And, when you look at ancient depictions of this crow,

it is often depicted inside some kind of an orb,

this circular disc.

So if you look at that, you have to ask,

what exactly were the ancient Japanese talking about here?

Because this, to me, sounds more

like he was being guided by some kind of a flying craft

than an actual crow.

NARRATOR: Could Japan's first Emperor, Jimmu,

and the imperial family today,

be direct descendants of extraterrestrials?

And might the three-legged crow, Yatagarasu,

really have been an alien craft?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest further evidence can be found

by examining a military coup designed to cover up

this extraterrestrial heritage.

Kyoto, Japan. 1183.

Military general Minamoto no Yoritomo

besieges the capital city of Japan,

forcing the current Emperor Antoku

and his bodyguard to flee.

For nearly 700 years after,

military dictatorships known as shogunates

maintained strict control over Japan.

Isolationist policies allowed few to enter

or exit the islands, with death as the ultimate penalty.

Only in 1867 did shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu,

facing a revolt from the Japanese people,

relinquish control of the government back to the emperor.

STEAVU: The Meiji Emperor was the first of the emperors

after the restoration.

Made a point of tracing his lineage

all the way back to Emperor Jimmu...

...and to Amaterasu, as well.

So, this notion of a divine emperor,

of a living kami at the head of Japan, was resuscitated.

They wanted to return to the original Japanese empire,

the one founded by Jimmu,

and his connection with the extraterrestrial beings.

What happened after this is extraordinary.

Suddenly Japan takes off.

It starts accelerating in its technological ability.

It suddenly becomes a world-conquering nation.

By the early twentieth century, Japan was a superpower

and it had amassed a vast colonial empire,

rivaling that of the greatest Western colonial empires.

And what Japan accomplished in modernization

in the span of 20 years,

it took most European nations

about 200 or even 300 years to accomplish.

CHILDRESS: So you have to wonder

with the reinstating of the royal family,

was this also a reconnection

to the technical and extraterrestrial past

that had begun centuries ago in Japan,

and is now continuing today,

possibly with the guidance of extraterrestrials?

NARRATOR: Could Japan's meteoric rise to power

be a direct result of reinstating the "divine,"

perhaps extraterrestrial, dynasty

originally established by Emperor Jimmu?

And is this why some of Japan's top government officials

have recently made statements supporting the notion

that alien visitation is real?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest further evidence of an alien presence in Japan today

can be found by examining a recent mass UFO sighting.

In July 2015, multiple witnesses in and around the city of Osaka

sighted a fleet of UFOs

moving in a quite extraordinary fashion

in broad daylight right over the city.

And various people caught them from different angles on camera.

Now, the government was quick to dismiss them as candles

or lanterns in the sky.

But the erratic movements and patterns suggested

that they were technological in nature.

NARRATOR: Similar white orbs

were reported four years earlier,

during one of the worst environmental disasters

in mankind's history.

On March 26, 2011,

two weeks after the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi

nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan,

a fleet of white orbs

was recorded hovering over the site.

If we go back and look at the history of the UFO subject,

we find a great deal of interest with,

for example, our atomic energy plants,

our nuclear missile silos.

And it suggests to me that maybe

we're seeing alien entities who are deeply concerned

by our usage of atomic power.

NARRATOR: Could the white orbs witnessed above Osaka

and Fukushima be alien craft belonging

to the same celestial beings the Japanese trace back

to their very origins?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining recent attempts by Japanese astronomers

to make contact with extraterrestrial beings.

July 1983.

At the University of Tokyo Astronomical Observatory,

astronomers Hisashi Hirabayashi and Masaki Morimoto

target a telescope towards the star Altair.

Using radio waves, they transmit a short, binary-encoded message

in an attempt to contact extraterrestrial life.

This was a groundbreaking piece of history

in terms of the search for extraterrestrial life.

This message basically told information

regarding human life, human history, DNA,

and also the location of the Earth itself.

So, any potential extraterrestrials

living in the vicinity of Altair

would potentially know where we're coming from.

CHILDRESS: The star of Altair is 16 light-years away from Earth,

and so it was expected

that the binary message would reach that star

by around 1999.

And now, from 2015 on,

the Japanese are expecting some kind of reply from their signal.

REDFERN: Now, what's particularly intriguing

is that Altair actually represents

one of the ancient Japanese gods.

This makes me wonder if the scientific community

had come to a conclusion that perhaps

their ancient god, represented by Altair,

may not have been a god after all.

CHILDRESS: So you have to wonder here,

are these Japanese astronomers

trying to contact the extraterrestrial gods

that they believe

came to Earth and started the Japanese civilization?

It would seem so.

NARRATOR: In 2010, JAXA, Japan's national space program,

announced plans to establish a base on the moon

by the year 2020.

And recently, the Shimizu Corporation unveiled designs

for their LUNAR RING project,

a massive band of solar panels surrounding the moon

that would beam limitless clean power back to Earth.

When you look at all this together,

you can't help but wonder what's going on here?

Is it about reaching out to extraterrestrials,

or is it perhaps about using

extraterrestrial knowledge and technology

that the Japanese already have?

HENRY: This suggests that the Japanese people are serious

about colonizing space

and may be working with extraterrestrials

on developing this enormously advanced technology.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that there is a link

between Japan's technological advancements

and the country's connection to extraterrestrial beings?

And are these beings the same otherworldly entities

that have been influencing the development of Japanese culture

for thousands of years?

Ancient astronaut theorists say, yes,

and believe the proof lies not only at various locations

found throughout the Japanese landscape,

but also on Earth's neighboring planets...

and one in particular...

soon to be explored.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS