Original subtitles

NARRATOR: He is the personification of evil.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan was the source of torture,

and death, and destruction.

NARRATOR: He is the ruler of hell.

He grew arrogant, and he lost his heavenly position.

He was thrown out of the heavens and fell.

NARRATOR: And he commands an army

of demons united on a vengeful quest to destroy mankind.

REV. BOB LARSON: A demon needs a body to accomplish its people

purposes.

You can't have her.

So they can bring about their plan of death and destruction.

NARRATOR: But is the character known as the Prince of Darkness

merely a myth, or could he be something much, much more?

DAVID CHILDRESS: Satan may well be a person of God an angel

and ET.

Who's been maligned in a sense.

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, could evidence be found in centuries-old stories

of a fallen angel?

Could there really be a Satan conspiracy?

He is called Satan, Lucifer, the devil.

And his name conjures up horrifying images

of a horned demon whose sole purpose is

to corrupt and destroy mankind.

HENRY ANSGAR KELLY: Satan is portrayed as the enemy of God,

trying to destroy good people, to make good people bad,

and to keep them from being saved, keep them from going

to heaven so that they can go to hell, where he's in charge.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan has become the catchall

for the embodiment of evil.

When we think of Satan, I think there are two different ways

that our brains can go.

The first is this almost comical character that

rules over the land of flames.

The red guy with the horns and the pitchfork.

But then on the darker side, I think that Satan has become

this very, very terrifying, frightening embodiment of evil

who causes man to do terrible things, who

is the source of torture, and death, and destruction.

NARRATOR: But are these perceptions of Satan correct?

Is he really the master of all things evil in the universe?

Lakeland, Florida, 2012.

Hundreds of faithful followers congregate at the United Church

to witness the removal of demons from those who believe they're

possessed by the devil.

You let him go.

All the pain and the hurt you've caused this man.

You let him go.

REV. BOB LARSON: The devil wants to get even.

How else to hurt the heart of God

to the greatest possible extent, but to harm

the beloved of his creation, the height of his creation?

The thing that God loves most...

Humanity, human beings, me, you.

Every single person on Earth.

NARRATOR: In the ritual known as exorcism,

a priest or minister performs a sacred rite

in order to confront Satan and drive him back to hell.

It is a ceremony that dates back hundreds and perhaps thousands

of years and is considered quite controversial even

within the Catholic church.

I torment you by the blood of Christ.

REV. BOB LARSON: When I'm battling Satan,

there are a lot of mind games going on.

And it's a bit of a chess match.

You think you have her, don't you?

- Don't you? - Yes.

You think she's yours, don't you?

Well, she's not.

REV. BOB LARSON [VOICEOVER]: So I

have to be mentally and spiritually prepared for that.

How long have you had her?

Long time.

Yeah?

Well, now it's going to be a short time.

Torment!

Torment!

Torment you!

NARRATOR: But just who or what is sacred?

And why is he determined to corrupt all of humanity?

Perhaps the answers can be found in the myths and legends that

describe Satan's ancient origins.

ADAM BLAI: In the beginning, Satan

was one of the angels that was created

by God before the physical universe was created.

And there was basically a sphere of angels around God worshiping.

God.

And Satan at that time was Lucifer, or the Day Star.

He was the brightest of the angels.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Satan is actually one of the archangels.

He is one of the high angels, one of the highest ranking,

one of the most beautiful.

The most beloved.

He is beloved of God.

He is a bringer of light.

HENRY ANSGAR KELLY: When God created man in his image,

he ordered all the angels to worship his image in this man.

And Satan refused.

He says look, they're mud people.

We're made out of fire.

I'm not going to do it.

And so he gets kicked out.

JONATHAN YOUNG: He grew arrogant.

He began to challenge God.

And for this arrogance, he lost his heavenly position.

He was thrown out of the heavens and fell.

ADAM BLAI: When Lucifer was cast down,

it was instant and abrupt and total.

And he was cast down to Earth to roam here

until the end of time.

NARRATOR: Although few references are made to Satan

in the Hebrew testament, he is depicted as an opposer

or accuser, and is generally acknowledged

to have been the inspiration for the serpent

in the Garden of Eden.

PASTOR BRETT PETERSON: One of the great stories in the Bible

is Adam and Eve in the garden.

We have this picture of a beautiful garden scene,

and Adam and Eve in their innocence

just enjoying God and each other and this beautiful creation.

And all of a sudden enters Satan in the form of a snake.

And he finds Eve close to the one thing,

the one law God gave mankind.

NARRATOR: According to the book of Genesis,

God placed two trees in the garden, the tree of life

and the tree of knowledge, and forbade Adam and Eve

to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge.

PATRICK COOKE: Satan convinces Eve

to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge

of good and evil.

And she convinces Adam to do that.

And of course, we see that suddenly

their whole personality changes.

PASTOR BRETT PETERSON: Prior to eating the forbidden fruit,

Adam and Eve were sinless.

It means that the one law that God gave them, they

had not disobeyed.

Satan himself decided that if he could

get them to break that one law, then sin would enter mankind.

And when Adam ate, all mankind from that point

on has been selfish, prideful, and were genetically

given the ability and really the desire

to rebel against authority and thus, obtain

the knowledge of good and evil.

NARRATOR: But is this story of Adam and Eve

really a fanciful account of how evil entered the world,

or might there be another even more profound explanation?

You can make a case that Eve actually wants to mature.

She wants to grow up.

God wants to keep us in a state of perpetual innocence,

infantility perhaps.

Eve decides that knowing everything

she can know about this world into which she has been placed

is more important even than obeying a particular command

of God.

The serpent enables her.

WILLIAM HENRY: Satan's wanting to give humanity

all this incredible wisdom that maybe can even elevate

humankind to the level of gods.

But the Old Testament God Yahweh is saying, not so fast.

Humankind aren't perhaps worthy of this knowledge.

And this becomes then the battle between God and Satan.

NARRATOR: Was the serpent's temptation of Adam and Eve

really a case of sabotage?

Was it a deliberate effort to seduce mankind into

sinning against its creator?

Or might Satan's real purpose have been to encourage mankind

to share the fruits of God's wisdom?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

more clues may lie in another book of the Hebrew testament.

Southern Israel.

This dry sun blasted desert was once the realm of Edom,

an ancient kingdom that some researchers believe was home

to the biblical figure Job.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Job

was among the wealthiest men in the kingdom

and owned enormous herds of cattle, sheep, and camels.

He was also among the most righteous,

making sacrifices to the almighty God

to atone for his transgressions and the sins of his family.

REV. BARRY H. DOWNING: In the story of Job,

Satan is part of the heavenly council of angels.

And the council meets, and God is at the council meeting.

And basically, He and Satan have a discussion.

FR.

WILLIAM FULCO: And God says, look at Job.

He's very faithful.

And Satan, in charge of quality control, says, well, of course.

You give him everything.

What do you expect?

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: And Satan actually challenges God

and says, if Job were tempted, if he no longer had all

of these wonderful things that God had given to him, what

happens to him then?

Satan convinces God that Job should be tested to see

if he is really all that good.

And this is where Satan becomes the first adversary,

the first tester of humans.

JONATHAN YOUNG: So it's interesting in this story.

Satan is actually working with God

as a kind of member of his staff or his heavenly council.

WILLIAM HENRY: The divine counsel of God

is very interesting, because we learn

that it is composed of various angelic beings, including

Satan.

And the idea is that these are advanced beings who carry out.

God's orders and God's wishes from the commands

of this council.

It really seems like we're seeing

some kind of divine bureaucracy, something

you would see in a corporate or a governmental bureaucracy.

NARRATOR: Could our notion of Satan as an evil force

be incorrect?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

there is much more to the story, and that the answer may

be found not only in the pages of the Hebrew Bible,

but on ancient scrolls...

Scrolls whose origins date back thousands of years.

Qumran, the West Bank.

Here, during a series of excavations beginning in 1949,

archaeologists unearthed hundreds of ancient scrolls.

They are believed to have been written by a Hebrew sect known

as the Essenes more than 2000 years ago.

Several of the scrolls contain fragments

of what has become known as the Book of Enoch

and the account of a rebellion launched by a group of angels

called the watchers.

ADAM BLAI: One of the most famous parts

of the Book of Enoch is the story of the watchers.

This is a story about 200 angels that were charged with watching

over mankind in its early stages and basically taking care

of us, looking out for us.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The watchers are a group

of angels who are dispatched to watch humans

and to help humans.

Now, the watchers are very interesting because they

are angels who interact with humans.

ADAM BLAI: There's a brief reference to this in Genesis.

But the Book of Enoch essentially expands that story

and tells a more full story.

This was taken out of the canon of the Bible early

in the church's life, but it was in for a period of time.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: Once the watchers begin to interact

with humans, they become infatuated

with this new species, and they become

lustful of this new species.

And all of a sudden, the original idea,

the original commands that they were given

seem a lot less interesting to them.

ADAM BLAI: They came to a point where they wanted to take wives

and have children.

And so they decided to rebel, create bodies, marry,

and bear children.

NARRATOR: According to the Book of Enoch,

the leader of this rebellion is a watcher known as Samyaza,

or Satanael.

Could this be the same character we know as Satan?

PHILIP COPPENS: So what we're seeing in the story of Samyaza

and the watchers is very similar to the story of Lucifer

in charge of the angels.

In both cases, we are confronted with a hierarchy

of a species which is between us and God, the leader of which

disagrees with God and basically wants to live amongst mankind.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: When you look at the different versions

of the Book of Enoch, the one thing that combines all of them

is that they talk about the watchers, the watchers

from heaven.

And they are the ones who gave knowledge.

And when I look at terms such as watchers from heaven,

then personally I interpret them as possible extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Do the ancient accounts of Samyaza's revolt

and Lucifer's fall suggest that Satan's efforts

to corrupt mankind in the Garden of Eden

were actually an attempt to give man forbidden knowledge?

And might these legends be based not on myth,

but on actual historical events?

Events involving extraterrestrial visitors.

Ancient astronaut theorists says yes

and believe that close examination of the Book

of Enoch may point to physical evidence of where.

Satan's so-called rebellion against God

may have actually occurred.

Mount Hermon, Lebanon.

Straddling the border of Syria, this legendary mountain,

as described in the Book of Enoch,

is the peak where Samyaza and the watchers

descended to Earth.

ADAM BLAI: In the Book of Enoch, there

is a reference to Mount Hermon.

We see the angels basically descending to Mount Hermon.

So Mount Hermon was both a place of connection with heaven

and kind of a sally port between Earth and heaven.

The watchers, being angels from heaven,

knew the sciences of heaven.

Samyaza was basically an expert in enchantment and root

cutting.

You could think of it as basically witchcraft...

The casting of spells, creating magic, and using roots

to create potions.

The Book of Enoch lists very specifically

the subjects that are taught to humans by the watchers,

by these angels who begin to share their wisdom with them.

NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch describes Mount Hermon

as the place Samyaza taught humans

about magic and medicine.

Other powerful angels passed on knowledge of metallurgy,

weapons, astrology, science, and even warfare.

SCOTT ROBERTS: The watchers delivered to humanity

the forbidden knowledge of God.

All the stories in ancient cultures, cross-cultural,

had these tales of beings that would deliver

the forbidden knowledge of the gods to humans,

and they were all condemned for it.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The watchers through Samyaza

give us extraordinary tools, which make our lives much,

much better on Earth.

So is Samyaza really a bad guy, or did he in fact

liberate humans from ignorance?

And if Samyaza actually is the forerunner of Satan,

has Satan actually been misrepresented

all of these years?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that Samyaza and the other watchers

were extraterrestrial beings that gave humanity

the foundations for civilization?

Then if so, how did Satan come to be so misunderstood

and misinterpreted by history?

PHILIP COPPENS: If we equal Samyaza and Satan, what we're

confronted with here is a larger framework which basically tells

us that Samyaza, Satan, were here to civilize us.

The watchers were civilizing deities.

They basically helped us to develop

our skills of civilization.

And so what we are confronted with here

is basically the conclusion that civilization the way we know

it is not something divine, but is literally satanic.

It was Satan who gave us the tools of civilization.

NARRATOR: Was Satan really a civilizing force

for early humans, as some ancient astronaut

theorists believe?

And if so, might further evidence

be found by examining other ancient myths and legends?

In ancient Sumerian, you have these very curious stories

of the Annunaki.

The Annunaki were half god, half man,

who came down from the stars.

They were instructing the Sumerians in various arts

of civilization.

They were very strange looking.

They had elongated heads.

They looked almost like insect type people,

or what they call reptilian features in a sense, or a viper

visage, as the watchers were called in the Bible.

In global cultures, we find constant references

to these giant celestial beings coming to earth

and initiating or instructing humankind.

Satan, himself is considered to be a seraphim, which

means winged serpents or fiery serpents.

But yet the word seraphim contains the words

'ser' meaning serpent, and 'raphim' them meaning giant.

NARRATOR: Was the character we know as Satan really

an extraterrestrial being, one who broke with his own species

in order to live among our distant ancestors?

Did he, along with other so-called fallen angels,

actually break with God, not out of spite or arrogance,

but instead to help mankind?

Perhaps further clues can be found in legends of a flying

serpent and in the story of a titan who was savagely punished

for all eternity.

The Yucatan Peninsula.

Here in the jungles of southern Mexico

lie the ruins of the great Mayan city Chichen Itza.

Constructed more than 1,000 years ago,

Chichen Itza was one of the largest and most

powerful cities in the Mayan world.

And dominating the site is the great pyramid

El Castillo, a temple built to honor the Mayan serpent God.

Kukulkan.

WILLIAM HENRY: Kukulkan is a name for Satan,

or for the winged serpent.

He's always portrayed as a wisdom-bearing being who

delivers this cosmic knowledge to humankind.

Often we'll see Kukulkan portrayed

as half human, or half serpent, or as a human coming

out of the mouth of a serpent.

This is how Christianity will traditionally

portray Satan, as a dragon figure

or a serpentine-like being.

The question is, why is he depicted as such?

And I think we really can find out that Kukulkan is not

unique in this sense.

NARRATOR: One of the most powerful gods

in the Mayan pantheon, Kukulkan was believed to have descended

from the stars.

He is also credited with teaching astronomy,

mathematics, and agriculture to mankind.

WILLIAM HENRY: This is identical to the Christian tradition

of Satan being the serpent of the tree of knowledge,

delivering the forbidden wisdom to humanity.

In the Book of Enoch, we learned of the watchers,

who are described as having visages of vipers

or the face of a serpent and delivering

this powerful knowledge to humankind.

So it's possible that what we're seeing

in all of these instances is the same figure,

or a representative of the same tribe of angels,

the satanic beings, or these serpentine-like angel beings.

NARRATOR: Are the stories of Satan and Kukulkan

really based on the same being, as many ancient astronaut

theorists believe?

And if so, might this same character also

be found in the myths and legends

of other ancient cultures?

PHILIP COPPENS: Satan as a creature who comes out

of nowhere to live amongst mankind

and teach us is not something which is limited to the Bible.

We find it in most traditions across the world.

NARRATOR: According to the legends of ancient Greece,

the Titan known as Prometheus sinned against the Gods

by stealing the secret of fire and giving it to man.

For his transgression, he was doomed

to suffer a gruesome eternal punishment by being chained

to a rock and having an eagle eat his liver,

only to have the organ grow back each night

so that the eagle could continue to feast on it the next day.

RICHARD RADER: He's a god that becomes associated with humans

because he is a champion for humans.

The mythological stories talk about how Prometheus

is basically like their representative.

NARRATOR: Another such deity was the god Viracocha.

Worshipped by the ancient Inca in the Andes of South America,

Viracocha was a powerful creator god who came to Earth

to pass on celestial knowledge.

Like Prometheus, this Incan god was described as a bringer

of light and is depicted in ancient Incan sculpture

as holding two lightning bolts and wearing the sun as a crown.

WILLIAM HENRY: The Inca describe a luminous being called.

Viracocha or Viracacha, who brought knowledge of medicine,

astronomy, and other advanced sciences.

It's possible that Viracocha is the same as Samyaza or Satan

as a figure bringing this liberating wisdom to humankind

that seeks to bring us along the path of advancement

and enlightenment.

So you have to ask yourself, why would such diverse cultures

have such similar mythologies?

PHILIP COPPENS: In the case of Viracocha,

what we see is a deity which manifests itself on Earth,

lives amongst mankind, gives us sciences,

and after a number of years disappears again.

NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians had cults that worship the god.

Set, a divine being who, like Satan, ruled over darkness

and chaos.

PHILIP COPPENS: The traditional civilizing deities

who go around civilizing, educating us,

is something which we find in all traditions,

whether they are the great cultures of Egypt, Inca,

or the Mayan empires, or smaller cultures

elsewhere in the universe.

And so what we're finding is that the story of Satan

as a civilizing deity is definitely not unique,

but sits within a clear framework

across the entire world.

And it shows you that the importance of Satan

is not just something limited to the Bible,

but really tells us an awful lot about civilization as a whole.

NARRATOR: Could it be that these ancient myths were actually

describing the same creature, the fallen angel we now

refer to as Satan?

But how, then, did a creature who is so often credited

with bringing mankind knowledge and enlightenment become

thought of as the personification of all things

evil?

ERICH VON DANIKEN: The word "Lucifer" comes from Latin,

makes lux ferre, making light.

It's the same as in the Greek mythology.

Prometheus, who store the light from the gods.

It's really a sympathetic idea, that all these figures are

finally just one figure in different languages,

but they were sympathetic to the humans.

It is quite possible that our religious traditions and those

who selected the old holy texts some thousands of years

ago, they made out an evil figure out

of Lucifer and the devil.

And maybe it was the other way around.

He was the good one.

PHILIP COPPENS: When we're looking at something

like Satan, we're not necessarily

talking about morality, but we're actually exploring things

about our ancestors.

We're exploring mythology.

We're exploring accounts of our ancestors

saying that they developed civilization, not on their own,

but with the help of non-human intelligences.

And in the case of one such story,

we see that that intelligence is Satan.

DAVID CHILDRESS: In many ways, Satan

may well be a person, a god, an angel, an ET who's

maligned in a sense.

Lucifer is Prometheus.

He's the light bringer.

He's the god of hard work.

He's the one who brings us fire.

He's the one who gives us the opportunity

to do things ourselves.

NARRATOR: If the biblical character of Satan

is really based on an extraterrestrial being,

one who stole technology from his masters in order

to benefit early man, then why is he now

reviled as a creature of consummate evil?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answer may lie, not

in ancient scriptures, but in numerous accounts

of demonic possession.

Klingenberg, Germany.

Located 32 miles southeast of Frankfurt,

this small city is home to one of the most

famous and frightening cases of demonic possession

ever recorded.

In September 1973, a young woman named Anneliese Michel began

hearing voices that told her she was damned

and would rot in hell.

When medical treatments failed, she

sought the help of an exorcist.

Demonic possession is perhaps the most

frightening and visceral of all phenomena associated

with Satan.

According to Christian tradition,

possession occurs when a demon enters the body, corrupting

a person's physical and spiritual being.

JONATHAN YOUNG: The belief in demonic possession

is widespread.

It seems to show up pretty much all over the planet.

It was believed to be the presence of a satanic energy,

truly dark, terrible evil that could take over a person,

take over their body, take over their mind.

And they would be acting with no free will.

They would be a complete slave to the power of the dark side.

ADAM BLAI: Demons manifest on Earth

to interact with people, to afflict us

and tempt us in various ways.

The oppression involves physically

wounding us, attacking us, causing effects

on our body and our mind.

Possession is when we surrender our lower faculties to them

and they take over our body and use it as their own.

And in rare cases, they can appear

visibly to multiple people as supposed human spirits.

NARRATOR: Most Christians believe

demons are evil incarnations of the other angels who followed

Lucifer in his rebellion against the Almighty God.

They bear names like Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Moloch, and Mammon,

and are dedicated to corrupting the souls of mankind.

Biblically speaking, the demonic comes from the fallen

angels, those who fell with Lucifer during the great wars

in heaven.

And their purpose is to deceive humanity, to lead them astray,

to distract them from God.

And there are many castes.

They range from your basic thugs on the bottom

all the way up to, if you will, your intelligentsia that

is governing behind the scenes of the affairs of mankind.

ADAM BLAI: It is essentially, you

can imagine a military structure, with generals,

officers, privates.

There's basically nine levels, which are fallen angels

of various ranks serving under each other,

ultimately serving Satan.

NARRATOR: In many religious traditions,

there are sacred rites to exorcise these demons

from the bodies of the afflicted.

Let her go.

Let her go.

I come against you again, Satan, by the blood of Christ.

NARRATOR: The Reverend Bob Larson

is an evangelical minister and exorcist

who says he has come face to face with the demonic

and the truly satanic.

REV. BOB LARSON: By the blood of Christ, I torment you, Satan.

You can't have her.

She belongs to God.

I torment you.

I torment you by the blood Christ.

I torment you.

I'm here to be an instrument of God, to cast out the devil,

to free human souls.

It's not my power that does it.

It's God's power.

I'm simply the instrument that he uses.

But my mission is to get every demon possible out

of every possible human being and send them straight to hell.

How long that you have it?

Get me some oil, please.

I anoint you in the name of the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Spirit.

How long have you had this woman?

How many generations?

How many generations?

The demon is metaphysical.

It is invisible.

It's spirit.

It doesn't have a physical body.

So a demon can't really do anything evil.

A demon can't start a war, can't pull the trigger of a gun,

can't rape anybody.

A demon needs a body to accomplish its evil purposes.

So demons are looking to inhabit human souls so

that, through the physicality of human beings,

they can bring about their plan of death and destruction.

NARRATOR: According to Larson and other Christian

theologians, demonic forces have always been present on Earth

and demons are continually traveling to Earth

to sow the seeds of ruin.

But where exactly are they coming from?

Is it hell, or perhaps some place else?

REV. BOB LARSON: Both the Jewish and Christian scriptures,

as well as other religious books that

delve into the subject of demonism,

never fully describe the nature of their existence, where they

operate.

It seems to be in a kind of parallel reality,

another dimension out of our time-space continuum.

They're there, we're here.

Einstein opened a little bit of a door

into the possibility of other realms.

We are getting a small glimpse of the reality that exists

beyond our understanding.

We just need to know there's another realm out there.

And when I do an exorcism, I step in and out

of those realms.

I'm in the physical and natural realm.

But I'm also invading the realm in which demons operate.

So I step from the physical into the metaphysical.

I don't have to understand what's going on there.

I'm on a simple mission.

Not to find out everything I can about that world,

but to get the demon out of the human soul.

NARRATOR: Might devils and demons really

be beings from another realm?

And might that realm not be hell,

but an actual extraterrestrial world?

And are they really malevolent?

Or might they have another, perhaps even more profound,

agenda?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

the answers may be found in the mysterious prophecies

of the Book of Revelation.

Megiddo, Israel.

Located 11 miles from Nazareth, this ancient city

is mentioned more than a dozen times in the Bible,

most prominently, in the prophetic book of Revelation.

According to the religious text, it

is outside this city on the so-called plains of Megiddo

where the forces of the Almighty God

will wage a final battle against Satan and the forces of evil.

The Book of Revelation is certainly

one of the most complicated books in the Bible.

And it belongs to a separate set of material

that's called apocalyptic.

It is a book that gives visions of the future to come.

PASTOR BRETT PETERSON: There is a battle that will take place

in a valley in Israel called Megiddo, or Har Megiddo.

Thus Armageddon, we get the term.

Satan himself will gather the armies of the world

to Megiddo to fight Jesus Christ.

ADAM BLAI: Satan takes on a more physical appearance, uses

various technologies to enslave more and more of mankind.

Ultimately, he becomes a geopolitical force, basically

essentially a dictator of the entire world.

NARRATOR: The Book of Revelation further describes

that this battle will be fought in heaven and on Earth.

Angels will descend from the sky.

Demons will spread out across the land

to destroy with fiery swords.

And the Almighty God will rain destruction down upon Earth.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: The Book of the Revelation

is really a pretty terrifying document if were to look at it

and think that these things could happen literally.

I mean, when you look at what's happening in the book,

we have cataclysms on the Earth.

We have earthquakes.

We have fire raining from the sky.

We have angels doing battle in heaven.

And then repeatedly, we have Satan coming back.

NARRATOR: But could it be that this biblical prophecy isn't

a doomsday prediction of cataclysm and war?

That it has another even more profound interpretation?

The Book of Revelation gives us

some of the clearest depictions of what not a few moderns would

call extraterrestrial activity.

Think about it.

We have supernatural beings flying through the cosmos,

blowing trumpets, casting fire upon the earth.

We have great conflict between light and darkness,

good and evil.

There's a cosmic dualism going on here that involves,

in the end, the reassertion of divine authority

over those wayward angels who had gone astray so long ago.

NARRATOR: Extraterrestrial combat?

Could the Bible's Book of Revelation really

be referring to a galactic war, one waged

over the ultimate fate of mankind?

If so, who or what is Satan?

Is he a demon, the devil, the personification of evil?

Or was he in fact a benevolent extraterrestrial being,

one who stole technology from alien beings

in an effort to lead early man out of darkness and ignorance?

If so, then why did Satan become a force for evil?

Does he seek to punish mankind for siding

with our creator against him?

Perhaps, he is testing us using alien technology

to modify human behavior in ways we have yet to understand.

He's this idea of an adversary,

this idea of a liar or a tester, combined with this concept

of Lucifer, the fallen angel, combined

with this leader of the watchers,

who also leads a rebellion.

I think that ultimately, what we find

is that Lucifer is a conflation, a character who

is a composite of all of these different ideas

and different characters.

It's important for us to remember

that Satan is part of the class of angels called seraphim.

The seraphim were sent to Earth as benefactors of humankind,

bringing wisdom.

The church has created this evil monster out of Satan, perhaps

even out of thin air, when in reality Satan's entire mission

was about bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity.

And in fact, caring about humanity,

not seeking to destroy humankind.

In a sense, Satan's not such a bad guy.

You cannot have the light without the dark.

You can't have right without wrong.

And we have to learn these things for ourselves.

And ultimately, through choice, wrong and right, we grow

and we become who we are.

And ultimately, that is to be like our makers,

to become gods ourselves.

NARRATOR: Might Satan's reputation

as the personification of evil really have been his punishment

for giving mankind scientific knowledge?

If so, might his evil acts really

be expressions of revenge against the human creatures

that abandoned him?

Or are the evil deeds associated with Satan really

a part of a grand plan, a series of moral challenges intended

to prepare us for our next, and perhaps final, close encounter?