Original subtitles

>> NARRATOR: A young man's

spiritual journey.

>> ERICH VON DANIKEN: I was a

boy, 16 years old, when I said,

"This is not God.

What are we talking about?"

>> NARRATOR: A controversial

bestseller.

>> GEORGE NOORY: I was

mesmerized by it.

I couldn't put it down.

>> NARRATOR: And a scientific

theory that threatened to change

the world.

>> DAVID CHILDRESS: Everything

was turned upside-down

by Erich von Daniken.

>> NARRATOR: Just what are the

facts behind Erich von Daniken

and ancient astronaut theory?

What were the divine

inspirations...

>> GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: The

ancient Egyptians did build the

pyramids with the assistance of

the Guardians of the Sky.

>> NARRATOR: ...the bizarre

revelations...

>> JASON MARTELL: We're just

starting to rediscover ancient

technology that did exist

thousands of years ago.

>> NARRATOR: ...and the

shocking conclusions that were

too incredible to be ignored?

>> ROBERT BAUVAL: Even if there

is a chance in ten million that

he is right, then everything

changes.

>> VON DANIKEN: We have been

visited, and these visitors

will return to Earth again.

>> NARRATOR: Millions of

people around the world believe

we have been visited in the past

by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

Did ancient aliens really help

to shape our history,

and if so,

what does this say

not only about mankind's past

not only about mankind's past but about its future?

But about its future?

>> NARRATOR: Minneapolis,

Minnesota,

October, 2012.

>> I want to introduce.

Erich von Daniken.

>> NARRATOR: Hundreds gather to

hear iconic author and

researcher Erich von Daniken

speak at the Paradigm Symposium,

a four-day event focused on

exploring ancient cosmology,

anthropology, archaeology, and

science fiction.

>> VON DANIKEN: Maybe we have

been visited from outer space.

Where's the proof?

What can we find?

>> NARRATOR: His books have sold

over 65 million copies

worldwide.

He is a hero to some

and a heretic to others,

but Erich von Daniken's

controversial theories have

captured the attention of the

world and ignited a movement

known as ancient astronaut

theory.

>> VON DANIKEN: The scientific

community, they were always

afraid to think in this way.

We have to change our thinking.

>> NARRATOR: Von Daniken's

research has taken him all over

the world to investigate the

unexplained mysteries

of ancient cultures.

He has spent his lifetime daring

to question what mainstream

scholars hold to be true.

>> VON DANIKEN: We are the

descendents, ladies and

gentlemen, we are the offsprings

of these extraterrestrials,

of these extraterrestrials, and it's not by coincidence.

And it's not by coincidence.

>> NARRATOR: Erich von Daniken's

rise to notoriety began in

February, 1968, when the Swiss

hotel manager-turned-author

published his groundbreaking

book Chariots of the Gods.

In it, the young writer

theorized that intelligent

extraterrestrial beings visited.

Earth in the distant past and

made contact with mankind.

It caused a sensation,

selling an impressive 500,000

copies in its first year of

publication.

>> BAUVAL: When the book first

appeared was the year where we

landed a man on the moon,

and so there's a whole belief

now that it was possible to

travel into space, that we would

send people to space.

>> CHILDRESS: Many people were

very excited about this whole

new ancient astronaut theory.

They thought it made sense.

We were coming ourselves into.

We were coming ourselves into the modern space age.

The modern space age.

>> MIKE BARA: People were

really, really interested in

these kinds of subjects and

wondering if maybe there had

been something that we had

secretly discovered on the moon

that may have pointed towards

extraterrestrial origins for

man.

>> NICK REDFERN: Although the

phenomenon of ancient astronauts

has been around since the '50s,

it was reavon Daniken who

opened the doors to where it

became part of the popular

culture.

>> CHRISTOPHER O'BRIEN:

Chariots of the Godswas a very

crucial book for me because it

opened my eyes up to the

possibility that ancient

cultures may have been in

connection with or interacting

with some sort of off-planet

intelligence.

>> NOORY: I was mesmerized by

it; I couldn't put it down.

It might've been the first book

I read cover to cover in one

day.

His theories were just

phenomenal where he talked about

the possibility of

extraterrestrial visitations.

>> NARRATOR: By using rhetorical

questions, von Daniken suggested

that evidence of alien close

encounters could be found in

everything from ancient

religious texts and mysterious

stone carvings to monumental

structures and monoliths located

all over the world.

>> BARA: What he basically says

is, you can no longer look at

the traditional interpretations

of historical events,

historical monuments,

historical structures,

historical cultures at face

value.

You have to look at this in a

much broader context of what

could be perhaps

extraterrestrial intervention.

>> CHILDRESS: One of the things

that Erich did was to take very

familiar Bible stories and

reinterpret them...

where people are interacting

with angels.

They're even taken up into space

in fiery chariots and things

like that, and what it was

was a re-examination of

what we're taught.

>> NARRATOR: But despite being

well received by the public,

scholars and scientists regarded

von Daniken's claims as

pseudoscience.

>> VON DANIKEN: I expected to

be ridiculed, but I did not

expect the unfair way in which

the ridiculing happened in the

media.

I wa that time attacked.

"Erich von Daniken said..."

In reality, in Chariots of the.

Gods, I had 238 question marks.

Nobody read the question marks.

>> O'BRIEN: Trailblazers tend

to become targets, and so

academia for many years has

slagged von Daniken,

saying it's sloppy research,

it's sloppy thinking,

it's sloppy analysis.

However, as the years have gone

on, more and more of his... his

early work has now kind of been

vindicated by other people,

and I think we can all trace

back this interest in this

subject to von Daniken's

groundbreaking work.

>> MARTELL: All the great

thinkers of our time and in

the past have been people

who challenged the norm.

So Erich von Daniken really

challenged the norm of academia

to show that these things that

we thought of as just religious

myths actually have scientific

merit, and we need to look

into them further.

>> NARRATOR: But what was the

source for Erich von Daniken's

groundbreaking theory?

Where did the notion of alien

astronauts visiting the earth in

the ancient past come from?

>> VON DANIKEN: I was educated

in a boarding school led

by Jesuits.

Three years, we had to translate

parts of the Bible from one

language into the other.

In the first Book of Moses...

[rumbling]

...the Lord descends from the

heavens down to Earth on a holy

mountain.

With smoke and fire and loud

noise and trembling, and

everyone was afraid.

That was the moment when I

said, "This is not God."

What are we talking about?

My God does not need a vehicle

in which to move around, which

trembles and makes smoke

"and loud noise."

And it was the Jesuit priest who

said, "Erich, maybe you should

read a Book of Enoch."

>> NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch

was excluded from the Bible and

is still considered

controversial by many

theologians.

But for von Daniken, it was

proof of something much greater.

>> VON DANIKEN: It says that

Enoch was taken away from our

planet Earth by the Lord in a

fiery chariot.

Now, we knew nothing in the past

about flying machines.

So, in religious terms, they say

now he has his flight

into the heaven.

But in my eyes, Enoch, he sees

something which in reality

was a spaceship.

>> NARRATOR: This omitted

account of Enoch's journey

only raised more questions

for von Daniken.

He turned his focus to the story

of the biblical prophet Ezekiel.

Like Enoch, Ezekiel is also

taken away in a fiery vehicle,

a vehicle he describes in great

technical detail in the pages of

the Old Testament.

Von Daniken brought the strange

texts to the attention.

>> VON DANIKEN: So the priest

said, "Ezekiel has a vision."

I said, "No, that's not the

vision because he describes

the noise."

He compares the noise with

the thundering of a waterfall.

It's not a vision.

It's something different.

Something like rocket engines.

Now we are talking about contact

with extraterrestrials, space

travel, so it all came together.

>> CHILDRESS: Erich wasn't

completely rejecting religion

or the idea of God.

Or even angels for that matter.

He was looking at things

differently but still keeping

a certain spirituality and

knowledge of universal truths.

>> VON DANIKEN: I have grown

up as a Catholic, a Christian,

and I clearly say I am still one

of these believers in God.

I pray every evening.

We will never lose God, never,

when we deal with ancient

when we deal with ancient astronauts.

Astronauts.

>> NARRATOR: Is it possible,

as Erich von Daniken and other

ancient astronaut researchers

suggest, that the evidence for

real-life close encounters can

be found embedded in the pages

of the Holy Bible?

It was a question that the Swiss

teenager was determined

to answer.

And his search now took him to

the Egyptian desert and the

mysterious structures known...

mysterious structures known... as the Great Pyramids.

As the Great Pyramids.

>> NARRATOR: Northeastern Egypt,

>> NARRATOR: Northeastern Egypt, 1954.

1954.

At the age of 19, Erich von.

Daniken traveled to Giza,

three miles from Cairo.

There he could examine the

Egyptian pyramids firsthand.

>> VON DANIKEN: I visited Egypt

for the first time when I was,

well, a youngster.

That was long before Chariots

of the Gods.

And it impressed me

very, very much.

I always had the feeling this

is not only done by humans.

Somebody must have done

the planning.

Of course, I learned at that

time that archaeology says

this building is made by a

pharaoh with the name of Cheops.

I asked, "Where does the name.

Cheops come from?"

Because we don't have a statue

of Cheops.

We don't have a mummy of Cheops.

You would think if somebody

makes this gigantic building

like the Great Pyramid, he would

be proud and he would say,

"Hey, I did it. I was the one

who constructed this."

But the Great Pyramid is the

total anonymity.

>> PHILLIP COPPENS: The.

Great Pyramid has always

intrigued the ancient alien

theory for a number of reasons.

It's the last surviving wonder

of the ancient world, and nobody

has been able to explain how

precisely it was built.

Erich is not saying that aliens

built it.

Erich is saying that the

pyramids, specifically the Great.

Pyramid, the way it is explained

by academics today does not fit

with what his research

is indicating.

>> NARRATOR: The puzzling way in

which the Great Pyramid was

constructed and the mystery

surrounding its purpose, served

to fuel both the Swiss

teenager's curiosity and

his imagination.

Could it be that everything his

teachers had told him about

ancient civilizations was false?

>> NOORY: The pyramids in Egypt

are probably one of the greatest

wonders of this planet.

Some people say that they're,

you know, landing marks for

extraterrestrials, power plants,

stabilizers for the planet

creating energy waves.

There's no doubt that somebody

had to provide the information

to help get this thing built

because they're just too

immense, they're too accurate.

>> TSOUKALOS: There is

absolutely no question that

the Great Pyramids of Giza

were built by human beings.

The ancient Egyptians did it.

However, what the ancient

Egyptian texts also tell us,

that the ancient Egyptians did

build the pyramids, but with the

assistance of the Guardians of

the Sky.

>> NARRATOR: Was it possible the

early Egyptians had received

otherworldly knowledge in order

to construct the Great Pyramid

of Giza?

And if so, could proof be found

by examining other

by examining other archaeological sites?

Archaeological sites?

1971...

Eastern India.

It was here, at the Sanskrit.

College in Calcutta, that Erich

von Daniken met with Professor.

Dileep Kanjilal to study the.

Vedic Sanskrit, an ancient

language used in religious.

Hindu texts.

>> VON DANIKEN: Professor Dileep.

Kanjilal has gone through old

Indian texts and made modern

versions of it.

Now, it comes out in the old

books, the so-called gods, they

used flying machines to travel

from heaven to Earth.

>> TSOUKALOS: According to the

ancient Vedic texts of India,

the gods descended from the sky

in flying vehicles.

They refer to those vehicles

as "vimanas."

There are very detailed

descriptions: What these vimanas

looked like, how they traveled

from place to place, what was

necessary in order to pilot

them, all those things are

described in ancient Hindu texts

that are thousands of years old.

>> CHILDRESS: And for Erich,

he naturally felt that these

vimanas were real nuts-and-

bolts aircraft.

And of course, he's saying

these are the vehicles of the

ancient astronauts.

>> TSOUKALOS: When Erich first

went to India, he explored

a whole bunch of different

sites, and he quickly

came to the realization that

India is a treasure trove for

the ancient astronaut theory,

because all over India, we can

find these magnificent temple

towers that are referred to as

"stupas" and also "vimanas."

And so we have to ask ourselves,

where did the form

for a stupa come from?

>> COPPENS: Another great

contribution of Erich is that

he focused on India.

Very few people had really

studied the ancient Indian

civilization, even though it is

thousands of years old.

And what he saw there were

structures which were alleged to

have been replicas of vimanas.

>> VON DANIKEN: So many Hindu

temple in the Far East, they are

representations in their

architecture what was going up

in the sky.

So the upper part of a Hindu

temple often is seen as a flying

object, as a vimana.

>> COPPENS: And basically what

we're being confronted with is

the realization that these

people built in stone objects

which they seem to have seen

in the sky.

>> MARTELL: When we look at the

most ancient records we have,

coming out of the Vedic texts in

India, there are clear

descriptions of aerial battles

taking place with vimanas.

So this really starts to raise

the question about our own cycle

of history.

Is it completely linear?

Or is it possible that we're

just starting to rediscover

exist thousands of years ago?

>> CHILDRESS: Ancient texts all

over the world talk about flying

vehicles, people who could fly

through the air, flying horses.

But it was Erich who really put

it together.

That the gods weren't just

flying around like Superman;

They had to get into some kind

of nuts-and-bolts craft, just

like we do, and go somewhere.

And this was the chariots of the

gods.

>> VON DANIKEN: Enoch tells us

about the Guardians of the Sky

who came down.

He says they are called fallen

angels and they wanted to have

sex with humans, and the

offspring of it were giants.

So there were sexual contacts

between extraterrestrials and

the humans.

>> TSOUKALOS: What does this

mean?

Well, it's very simple.

Erich von Daniken's

interpretation was, we are

nothing else but hybrids of an

extraterrestrial race that

jump-started our civilization

thousands and thousands of years

ago.

And that extraterrestrials, in.

And that extraterrestrials, in fact, gave us intelligence.

Fact, gave us intelligence.

Homo sapiens existed for 250,000

years.

But only in the last 50,000

years, this quantum leap all of

a sudden happened where we went

from munching bananas in a cave

to essentially building

civilizations.

>> COPPENS: Science is holding

out great hope and expectation

that at one point they will find

this missing link between

everything else on Planet Earth

and us.

But despite looking for over 150

years, they haven't come any

closer.

The answer might be found in

what our ancestors have always

said, which is that we have been

made by the gods, that we are

not like anything else here on.

Planet Earth.

We stand out, because we have

been created.

>> LINDA MOULTON HOWE: As we

look at the whole history of

this planet, there is this huge

question.

How many advanced intelligences

have been on this planet maybe

for millions of years,

terraforming, manipulating

genes in all kinds of life, and

that maybe even modern human

is one of those manipulated

genetic creations.

>> BAUVAL: Imagine all the

knowledge human beings

possessed.

Astronomy, mathematics,

engineering and writing, were

brought down from heaven by the

gods.

It does raise the question, is.

Daniken right?

Because even if there is the

faintest possibility, a chance

in a million, a chance in ten

million that he is right, then

everything changes.

>> NARRATOR: Do ancient

religious texts really provide

evidence of alien contact with

cultures throughout history?

Chariots of the Godshad

opened the door to much

discussion, speculation, and

criticism.

But its enormous success also

gave the Swiss writer the

ability to travel the world in

search of more answers.

It was a search that would take

him halfway across the globe, to

see firsthand the ancient

see firsthand the ancient ruins of South America.

Ruins of South America.

>> NARRATOR: Bolivia, South.

America.

Here lie the ruins of Puma.

Punku, a mysterious temple

complex located in the ancient

city of Tiahuanaco.

It is believed to have been

built about 2,000 years ago.

The year he published his

bestselling book Chariots of

the Gods, author Erich von.

Daniken made a pilgrimage to

this archaeological site for

more proof of his controversial

theory that extraterrestrial

beings had visited Earth in the

beings had visited Earth in the distant past.

Distant past.

>> VON DANIKEN: Puma Punku is in

the highland of Bolivia.

You stand there and you are

absolutely shocked.

There are gigantic platforms

laying around.

At that time, in 1968, there was

no archaeological work done up

there.

>> MARTELL: When Erich von.

Daniken arrived at Puma Punku,

here he found evidence, clearly,

of lost high technology.

We see laser-perfection drilled

holes, stone that has been

somehow liquefied, or almost

kind of made vitrified, and

stuck together.

This is not possible without the.

This is not possible without the use of high technology.

Use of high technology.

>> CHILDRESS: Erich was able

to see these "H" blocks.

They're big granite blocks all

articulated and cut as if they

were pre-manufactured, and in

such a way that they would fit

together and create these giant

walls.

It was such a high-tech kind of

construction that it boggled

everyone's mind.

>> COPPENS: So what we have in.

Puma Punku is the traditional...

What I would say Erich von.

Daniken tackling archaeology.

There is, within the methodology

of how these stones were

constructed, a certain degree of

difficulty which our ancestors

simply never attained in the

surrounding landscape of.

Tiahuanaco.

Stone carvers basically told him

that it was almost impossible

or extremely difficult to create

these artifacts, and that

specifically why they would be

doing it is something which

doing it is something which really defies explanation.

Really defies explanation.

>> NARRATOR: Another aspect of.

Puma Punku that captivated

von Daniken was the legend of

its creation, as put forward by

the indigenous people of the

region.

>> TSOUKALOS: The population

living there are called the.

Aymara.

And the Aymara themselves say

that they had no involvement in

building Puma Punku.

In fact, when you ask them who

built Puma Punku, they will

point to the sky and they will

say, "Los Dioses."

The gods.

>> VON DANIKEN: In Puma Punk

they say, "The gods constructed

the place in one night."

This makes sense.

You have an extraterrestrial

crew, they come down to Earth.

So they construct with their

tools just something which we

would call today a basic camp.

They behaved themselves like

archaeologists would do: They

learn.

They teach a little to humans,

they learn their language...

One day they disappeared,

their job is over.

They take all their instruments

back to the mother spaceship,

and left are only a few ruins of

the basic camp.

>> NARRATOR: Was Puma Punku

really a base camp for

extraterrestrials that visited.

Earth in the distant past?

And were the magnificent stones

that make up the ruins made with

the help of advanced building

methods?

For Erich von Daniken the answer

was clearly "yes," and it

compelled him to continue his

search nearly 3,000 miles away

at the ruins of another ancient

at the ruins of another ancient city.

City.

Chichén Itzá, Mexico.

Located on the Yucatán.

Peninsula are the ruins of an

ancient Mayan city that thrived

ancient Mayan city that thrived from 750 to 1200 A.D.

from 750 to 1200 A.D.

It was here, in 1969,

that Erich von Daniken had

an amazing realization involving

the city's central pyramid of El

the city's central pyramid of El Castillo.

Castillo.

>> VON DANIKEN: I was standing

before this great pyramid.

I understood nothing.

I took every possible literature

from Central American

archaeologists to learn what's

archaeologists to learn what's this all about.

This all about.

And then I learned again,

they are talking of visitors

from outside.

From outside. Of course they call them gods.

Of course they call them gods.

>> TSOUKALOS: According to the

ancient Mayan myths, their main

deity was Quetzalcoatl or.

Kukulkan, Gukumatz.

All those different names for

the exact same deity, which was

described to be a winged or a

flying serpent, or a flying

flying serpent, or a flying snake.

Snake.

Whatever it was that they saw

up in the sky could best be

described as a flying snake.

>> COPPENS: When we're looking

across the world, Chichén Itzá

is a very important location.

It is one of those places where

it is said that the gods

descended to and decreed a fate

of mankind.

And there is one specific

pyramid, El Castillo, the

castle, where you see an

intricate light show happening

on specifically the equinoxes,

March 21 and September 21.

>> VON DANIKEN: In the early

morning you see the sun rising

up, and while the sun goes up,

you see on the stairway, light

and shadow, triangles of light

and shadow.

They are produced because of the

nine platforms.

The light and shadow triangles

slowly go down the step to the

pyramid until the sun is up

there.

The message is absolutely clear.

God Kukulkan visited the earth

and disappeared again with the

promise to return in a faraway

future.

So they have given this whole

information of the return of the

gods into their temple.

>> COPPENS: And I think this is

one of the great things which.

Erich has done, not just

in the story of Chichén Itzá,

but of so many other aspects on

other places in this world as

well.

Whereby he focuses on certain

details and says, look, this is

important.

This is a detail which is

extremely difficult to create.

This is something which

traditional archaeology tends to

overlook.

>> NARRATOR: By making a

connection between the ancient.

Mayas' knowledge of astronomy

and their precise architecture,

Erich von Daniken was convinced

that there was much more to his

ancient alien hypothesis than he

had imagined.

For further proof he looked to

another Mayan temple.

One that housed what some say

was the first ancient astronaut.

Lord Pakal.

>> CHILDRESS: At the ancient

Mayan city of Palenque was a

tomb that was discovered in

the 1950s.

And inside this tomb was a lid

on the sarcophagus for Lord.

Pakal.

And that lid is, is very highly

decorated with a picture of Lord.

Pakal.

And in that picture he's doing

some really unusual things.

>> VON DANIKEN: You see a man

bending forward, almost like a

racing motorcyclist.

He has his nose on some kind of

oxygen mask.

He uses his upper hand to

manipulate the knob.

You see his lower hand, he

manipulates some controls.

He's sitting on a kind of chair.

In a sort of a capsule.

>> CHILDRESS: When Erich looked

at that lid, he saw a Mayan king

in a rocket ship.

And that guy was returning to

the stars, going back into

space.

It was an exciting

interpretation.

And it was one of the main

things in Chariots of the Gods.

And when other people looked at

that lid and saw his

explanation, they had to agree

with him.

>> NARRATOR: Could Erich von.

Daniken be correct?

Was Lord Pakal really an

extraterrestrial who visited.

Earth in the distant past?

One who perhaps shared highly

advanced knowledge with mankind?

After publishing his second

book, Gods from Outer Space, in

1970, Erich von Daniken now

found himself caught in the

crosshairs of a bitter fight

between traditional science and

conventional religion, which

denounced the notion that life

existed on other planets.

It was a battle the author

seemed ill-equipped to fight

seemed ill-equipped to fight alone.

Alone.

>> NARRATOR: In the more than

four decades since the

publication of Chariots of the.

Gods, writer and researcher.

Erich von Daniken has continued

his search for the truth about

mankind's otherworldly origins.

>> VON DANIKEN: I wish and I

hope that the society finally

starts to take this proposition

we make here serious, that the

scientific community starts to

think in this way.

But I have to exs one thing

very clear: What I do here has

nothing to do with a new

religion.

I would turn myself in my tomb

if some idiots create a new

religion according to my

thinking.

This is the last thing I wish.

Absolutely not.

>> NARRATOR: And joining Erich

von Daniken has been a small but

growing number of what have

become known as ancient

astronaut theorists... men and

women who have expanded and at

times refined von Daniken's

findings.

>> HOWE: I'm curious...

How many people here

have seen in their lifetime

some unidentified aerial object

in the sky?

How many? Hands.

You represent what I think is a

slice of humanity everywhere

because I am convinced that

telling the human family of this

planet the truth is probably

what most souls are hungering

for.

>> PAUL VON WARD: One of the

things that we know about human

behavior is that it is shaped by

our world view, our paradigm,

and I would suggest that this is

a very significant time to

change this paradigm.

We are not alone in the universe

and that we are a part of this

bigger network of life.

>> TSOUKALOS: To me, personally

I think there is a paradigm

shift going on, and it's an

incredibly positive movement

because we're all in this

together.

>> VON DANIKEN: We live in a

society which I call reasonable.

To be reasonable means to

believe what the scientists say.

So it's up to us; Just don't

accept everything the reasonable

ones say.

Please be unreasonable.

I am unreasonable.

>> CHILDRESS: What I've really

liked about Erich is that he

does bring up a lot of unusual

ideas.

Uh, he points out

inconsistencies in, uh,

mainstream archaeology.

I've never really bought into

all of Erich's conclusions, but

I was always interested in it.

So in many ways, he spurred me

to go around the world... to

remote islands, to unusual

archaeological sites.

I wanted to check them out for

myself.

Now, all of his explanations

weren't always the explanation

I would have given, but it's

what's leading me and other

people down a certain track:

Investigate this.

Go check it out for yourself.

Don't just take my word for it.

>> COPPENS: When I began to

explore ancient civilizations,

in a library in Belgium, I

stumbled upon a book by Erich

von Daniken, and I was hooked.

Because I think I was one of

thousands, if not millions, of

people who began to realize that

ancient history wasn't

clear-cut.

And he really, in me, began to

open up this exploratory

process, whereas I had always

been interested in recent

history, that really this

mystery of the ancient world was

more complex, more beautiful and

more interesting.

And so in the last two decades,

Erich has informed me on my path

of saying: We need to explore,

we need to open up our minds

into trying to understand what

our ancient ancestors were

doing, because there are still

gigantic question marks as to

how our past has been created.

>> BAUVAL: We must be open to.

Erich von Daniken.

Daniken is the first man who...

gutsily came out and faced the

world in saying: I think it's

possible... that ancient

astronauts have come to visit

our planet, and the pyramids,

the various temples, all this

was perhaps remnants of their

visits.

Now, I must say that I was a

great skeptic on the ancient

alien theory until recently.

Because everything has changed

for us skeptics.

For example, within the last 12

years we've looked at the little

patch of our galactic system,

which is the Milky Way, and so

far we've found 3,000 planets.

When we extrapolate the

possibility over the whole

galactic system, it's estimated

that there must be about a

billion planets in our galaxy

alone.

So the odds are extremely high

of finding life out there.

[rocket rumbling]

Now, having said this, if we can

go out there, why can't they

come here?

We must be open to possibility

that life on this planet has

been touched by extraterrestrial

beings.

>> TSOUKALOS: Thanks to my

grandmother, growing up, ideas

of ancient aliens and Atlantis

and all those alternative

viewpoints on history, that was

dinner table conversation at my

house.

I grew up in Switzerland, and.

Erich von Daniken was Swiss as

well, and so I started to attend

his lectures, I read and studied

all of his books.

I have been to places that Erich

has described.

It has opened my mind to

possibilities, because the big

point of Erich's books are the

questions.

What ifeverything in our past

is not the way it's presented to

be?

What ifour planet was visited

by extraterrestrials in the

past?

That means that creation is even

more magnificent than what we're

being told, because the divine

is permeating throughout the

entire universe, not just on.

Planet Earth.

In fact, Jesus himself said: My

father's home has many rooms.

And so what if that was just a

metaphor to suggest that the

universe houses a whole bunch of

different species, that the

universe is teeming with life

and we all belong to it?

>> NARRATOR: Although mainstream

scholars have so far refused to

acknowledge Erich von Daniken's

controversial theories as little

more than pseudoscience, his

exhaustive efforts on behalf of

ancient astronaut theory have

started to gain acceptance...

Not in the hallowed halls of

academia...

but with ordinary citizens...

Men and women who, like the

Swiss author himself, prefer to

ask their own questions...

even if it means challenging.

Erich von Daniken himself.

>> The ancient alien hypothesis,

what did you purport

what did you purport that was wrong?

That was wrong?

>> CROWD: Five! Four! Three!

Two! One!

[cheering]

[rumbling]

>> NARRATOR: At a time when we

have just begun to explore Mars

and look forward to an era when

space travel is commonplace,

might we find the answers to the

questions mankind has been

asking for centuries?

Who are we?

Why are we here?

>> CHILDRESS: We're gonna go

back to the moon, and we're

gonna go to Mars, and so once we

become, ourselves, a

space-faring people, the idea

of ancient astronauts coming

here will be even more accepted,

I think.

>> COPPENS: It takes decades,

sometimes centuries, before a

paradigm is changed.

And I think what's going to be

shown in the next decade is that

society as a whole is going to

explore this.

And I think Erich is going to be

perceived as really the

instigator of this all, the man

who was able to pose the

question in such a way that it

became acceptable for the people

of the world to really ponder

it.

>> REDFERN: We have to bear in

mind that he was talking about

ancient astronaut stuff nearly

50 years ago and people are

still talking about it to this

day.

The important thing is, if there

was nothing to his work... the

whole phenomena would have died

a death.

>> NARRATOR: Did ancient

astronauts really come to Planet.

Earth?

And if so, what was their

purpose?

And perhaps even more important,

will they come again?

>> CHILDRESS: These highly

developed people, with high

technology, high civilization,

would interact with these

primitive humans and show them

certthings, including

agriculture and building

techniques and how to live

together in harmony in order to

try to develop civilization and

bring us to a higher state, and

the state that we're living in

today.

>> The ancient alien hypothesis,

what have you jettisoned in the

intervening time?

What did you purport that was

wrong, and what have you

revised?

>> VON DANIKEN: Of course, when

I was young I was enthusiastic,

and I was not so proper in

researching, so there were a

few things which I had to learn

I was wrong.

And then you accept you were

wrong, but you try with every

book to become better.

Because, ladies and gentlemen,

I learned we must continue to

ask the questions.

Our scientists have a tunnel

view.

They don't want to see things

which go further than their

thinking.

And that's why we all here, we

change the thinking, the

consciousness of all this

society.

Thank you.

[cheering, applause]

>> REDFERN: Inevitably, anyone

that reads von Daniken's books

and thinks carefully about his

work, whether they accept his

conclusions or not, they cannot

fail to wonder and ponder on the

idea of: Has religion actually

got it wrong, were we just

really visited by ancient aliens

and nothing else... and we've

incorporated that into our

belief systems and created these

structured religions which are

based on ancient UFO visits?

>> VON DANIKEN: Looking at our

planet, we have two groups of

human.

One group is religious.

♪

The other group is a scientific

group.

The religious group believe that.

God created everything, the

whole universe... the suns, the

solar systems, the trees, the

plants, the animal... but we

humans are the crown of

creation.

♪

The other group... the scientific

group... they think we know

everything about mutation,

selection, that we are on top of

evolution.

Now, in both cases we think we.

Now, in both cases we think we humans are the greatest.

Humans are the greatest.

There is nothing higher than we.

We have to learn that we are

just one of the million species

out there.

We havebeen visited and it

continues.

These visitors willreturn to.

Earth again.

♪

>> NARRATOR: Will mankind's

origins remain a mystery?

Perhaps the answers lie right in

front of us, in every corner of

the globe, and all we need to do

is what Erich von Daniken began

doing more than half a century

ago... keep digging...

keep exploring...

and keep watching the skies.

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