Original subtitles

NARRATOR: It is the world's first known civilization

and also its most mysterious.

WILLIAM HENRY: What's remarkable about the Sumerians

is they invent the wheel,

they invent mathematics,

they invent writing,

but we don't know where they came from or who they were.

NARRATOR: The Sumerians are credited with dozens of innovations

that are essential to modern society.

We live with the legacy pioneered by

the Sumerian civilization.

NARRATOR: And they claimed that it was all made possible

by beings who came down from the sky.

DAVID CHILDRESS: These gods coming to Earth,

they gave them gifts.

They gave them knowledge.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the ancient Sumerian tablets

contain the secrets of our alien past?

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: The first civilization

began right there,

due to a direct intervention

by extraterrestrials visiting from another planet.

NARRATOR: There is a doorway in the universe.

Beyond it is the promise of truth.

It demands we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

NARRATOR: In the heart of the Middle East,

there is a region known as the Fertile Crescent.

It is believed to be the very first place

with organized farming, in which humans cleared

and modified vegetation to grow crops.

Within this region was Mesopotamia,

where several of the world's first-known civilizations

emerged thousands of years ago.

In ancient Mesopotamia,

you had gardens, you had control of water.

Now it's completely different. Now it's arid.

You look at that place and think, well, wait,

what was this?

The climate was different.

The vegetation was completely different then.

NARRATOR: Often called the Cradle of Civilization,

Mesopotamia was the home of the Akkadian Empire

that arose in 2334 BC,

the Assyrian Empire that began in 2025 BC,

and the Babylonian Empire,

established in 1894 BC.

For centuries, archaeologists thought

these were the earliest peoples to inhabit the area.

But in the 1800s, ancient clay tablets

were discovered that would dramatically alter

the established timeline for human civilization.

In the 19th century, it was a time of great exploration

in Mesopotamia.

And they're finding these cuneiform tablets.

And there were various languages involved

with these tablets.

You had Akkadian, you had Assyrian, you had Babylonian.

But in the mid-1800s, the Reverend Edward Hincks,

an Irish scholar with Trinity College, Dublin,

began to notice there was evidence of a much older script.

And this was very important.

It meant that there must be some other earlier civilization.

NARRATOR: In 1869, more than two decades after Edward Hincks discovered

this unique cuneiform language,

archaeologists gave it the name "Sumerian."

This was based on Akkadian writings

that referenced the land of Sumer,

which scholars believed to be the place

where the mysterious language originated.

Then, in 1877, at the ancient site of Girsu,

in present-day Iraq,

nine massive stone statues were found,

all depicting a king named Gudea,

who ruled over 4,100 years ago.

Engraved on each of the statues was Sumerian writing,

indicating to scholars that these were

the first depictions ever found of a Sumerian.

HUGH NEWMAN: The discovery of the Gudea statues at Girsu

was definitive proof that Sumerian cuneiform text

came from a lost civilization.

And the fact is, people have been discovering

Sumerian structures and artifacts,

and crediting them to other civilizations.

So now they knew there was a civilization called

the Sumerian,

but it wasn't until the 1920s,

when thousands of artifacts and cuneiform texts

had been discovered, that they realized

how far this civilization went back.

NARRATOR: In 1928,

an article appeared in the Scientific American Magazine

with the subtitle,

"Who Were the Ancient Sumerians?

No One Knows."

But after nearly a century of collecting clues,

archaeologists had determined at least one indisputable fact:

the Sumerians were the earliest civilization ever discovered,

emerging around 5000 BC

and pre-dating all other known civilizations

by at least 2,500 years.

IRVING FINKEL: The Sumerians disappeared from sight entirely.

They were extinct, like the dinosaurs.

And the only reason that we know about them today

is with the advent of archeology,

when people excavated in the Middle East,

and they found evidence of the Sumerians

and their archeology and their writing.

NARRATOR: Once archaeologists became aware of the Sumerian civilization,

they launched major excavations in Iraq,

and began to discover that the Sumerians were responsible

for many world-changing innovations,

like the wheel.

The first stone potter's wheel with an axle

was found in the Sumerian city of Ur,

and dated to 3129 BC.

This eventually led to the first wheeled vehicles.

Most of the things that we take for granted,

the Sumerians invented.

That's why they're so crucially important.

The Sumerians are key in writing.

The Sumerians are key in mathematics.

The Sumerians are the ones that invent the plow.

They're the ones that first start to work copper.

They're the ones that first understand how to smelt metals.

NARRATOR: The Sumerians also built some of the first known

pyramidal structures.

NEWMAN: When it comes to the Sumerian ziggurats,

and the temples they constructed,

most of the construction was made of mud brick.

So, much of this is either washed away

or been buried over time.

But there are elements of the temples,

such as the giant statues, which have survived.

They are made of stone.

And some of them are in amazing condition.

NARRATOR: According to mainstream historians,

the first ziggurats were built around 4000 BC,

predating the earliest step pyramids in Egypt

by 1,300 years.

But perhaps even more impressive is that the Sumerians designed

these structures by using an advanced counting system.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: One of the first civilizations

to really implement mathematics was the ancient Sumerians.

And the interesting thing is they used mathematics

on a base 60 system-- that's called sexagesimal--

as opposed to the decimal system, with ten,

that we use today.

FINKEL: It gives you much more flexibility

in the use of numbers

than if you just use a decimal system.

And it led to all sorts of extraordinary discoveries

in mathematics, in astronomy and other things as well.

For example, they could make

accurate plans of a major building to scale,

and they could calculate how many bricks they needed.

In fact, they had a very modern approach

to the practical problems of, for example,

architecture and calculation.

NARRATOR: While much has been discovered over the past 100 years

about the Sumerians and their accomplishments,

the origin of this highly developed culture

remains a mystery.

What's remarkable about the Sumerians

is nobody knows where they came from.

We don't know who they were.

RABBI ARIEL BAR TZADOK: The ancient Sumerians had technology,

they had science.

And this is even thousands of years before

the great rise of the civilizations in Egypt.

Where did this knowledge come from?

How did they acquire such profound information?

NARRATOR: What could explain how this mysterious group of people

so rapidly advanced from hunter-gatherers

to form the world's first civilization?

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

the answer can be found

by examining the recently translated Sumerian tablets

that describe otherworldly beings

who descended from the sky.

NARRATOR: When archaeologists began uncovering Sumerian relics

in the 19th century, they knew nothing

about this long-lost civilization.

Artifacts offered few clues about the Sumerian culture,

and many of their structures,

which were made from mud bricks,

had almost completely eroded.

But fortunately, what did manage to survive the ravages of time

were thousands of clay tablets containing Sumerian writing.

LYNN: The Sumerians had a fully developed phonetic language

that they had written on clay tablets

in what's called cuneiform.

"Cuneiform" comes from the Latin cuneus,

meaning, literally, "wedge."

And what they did is they had reed styluses

that had a wedge shape, and they would use wet clay

and imprint those into such a way

that it would be writing.

HUSSAIN: One of the great things that the Sumerians did was

precisely writing with a stylus in clay,

and then firing the clay so it becomes a brick.

And over the centuries,

that brick becomes essentially stone.

And so, unlike papyrus,

that gets damaged, you know,

we find out all the time

about papyri that get discovered,

and we can't open them. They're too fragile.

That's not the case with these tablets.

NARRATOR: The first tablets were discovered

before archaeologists were even aware

that there was a Sumerian civilization,

but linguists received an important tool

to help decipher them in 1850.

British archeologist Austen Henry Layard

was leading excavation efforts

at an ancient Assyrian palace

when he came upon a library

of more than 30,000 cuneiform tablets.

Some of the tablets contained not only the mysterious writing

that would later be identified as Sumerian

but also Babylonian cuneiform next to it,

which linguists had deciphered a few years earlier.

Finally, scholars had what they needed

to translate the unknown language,

but it would be several more decades

before they could effectively read the texts.

HENRY: It wasn't until the early 20th century

that we could actually translate these cuneiform tablets.

And so we went for a period of many thousands of years

not knowing about these people.

Then, suddenly, there's an explosion

of knowledge about them in the 20th century.

FINKEL: The ancient Mesopotamians,

they used those clay tablets

for all sorts of documents--

private and permanent, and long term and short term.

And we can read them today as if they've just been written.

NARRATOR: Researchers discovered detailed business ledgers,

official government correspondence,

and even medical texts.

But most interesting to ancient astronaut theorists

is a set of seven tablets known as the Enuma Elish,

that describe powerful beings who came down from the sky.

The Enuma Elish consists

of two different books,

and in both books,

it speaks that long ago,

the gods created humans in order to spread knowledge

here on planet Earth.

LYNN: The Enuma Elish is a very important creation myth.

And it indicated that these gods--

what they call the Anunnaki, which quite literally means

from the sky to the earth--

came to create man in their image.

NEWMAN: The Anunnaki are the founder gods

of their civilization.

And they were masters

of the arts and sciences,

bringing civilizing qualities

to this part of the world.

HUSSAIN: So for the Sumerians,

their knowledge wasn't self-derived.

Their inventions, their great things

were not of their own design.

They were taught by the gods.

CHILDRESS: The Anunnaki nurtured the Sumerians

to create this great civilization.

But who were the Anunnaki?

Were they extraterrestrials?

That's what the Sumerians are saying.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the Anunnaki were not gods

but otherworldly visitors?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest further evidence can be found

in a recently translated Sumerian tablet

that sheds new light on a famous story of the Bible.

Dr. Irving Finkel,

one of the world's foremost experts on cuneiform writing

and a curator at the British Museum,

publishes a translation of a Sumerian tablet

that dates back 3,700 years.

The text contains a passage that is nearly identical

to the biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood.

Now, anybody who's ever read the Book of Genesis

and knows about the flood there with an ark and Noah

and the animals of both genders and so forth...

...is astonished when they read

the Sumerian text for the first time.

Because it's a funny thing. They are the same story.

When this tablet came across the desk to me,

it was one of those heart-stopping moments.

The tablet is at least a thousand years older

than the story in the Bible.

So, of course, this means

that the Sumerian story and the biblical story

are inseparably bound together.

There's no doubt about it.

NARRATOR: The tablet deciphered by Dr. Finkel

is part of a Sumerian story known as the Epic of Gilgamesh,

whose protagonist is believed to be based

on a historical king who ruled in the third millennium BC.

HUSSAIN: The oldest story in the Western world is

the Epic of Gilgamesh.

This is a story that's at least 4,000 years old.

FINKEL: It covers a lot of things, but among other things,

the restless search for immortality

and the fact that man was deprived of immortality.

NARRATOR: In addition to descriptions of a Great Flood,

the Epic of Gilgamesh also includes

the story of the Anunnaki

and their relationship with humankind.

According to the text, Enlil, who is the Anunnaki king,

is in conflict with his brother Enki,

who is the creator of the first humans.

HENRY: Enki is seen as benevolent and an advocate

for the advancement of humankind.

But Enlil is seen as sort of militaristic and anti-human.

And so throughout the Sumerian epics,

there's this continuing battle

between these two opposing forces, these brothers.

The two brothers have very different thoughts

about this new human race that is rapidly multiplying.

King Enlil wants to send

a great deluge to Earth to destroy humankind,

which he sees as getting out of control,

but Enki fights to save the civilization

he had helped to create.

HENRY: In the story we're told that the god Enki takes aside

one of the human beings

and tells him to build an ark and to take them to safety.

CHILDRESS: According to the Sumerians themselves,

there's this other civilization that's pre-flood,

and it had all of this knowledge as well.

They had writing, they had the wheel,

they had mathematics, they had...

all these agricultural sciences, too.

But the flood wiped out these people.

What was left were the Sumerians.

NEWMAN: After the flood, it was said

that the gods imparted specific knowledge

and wisdom and teachings

to certain Sumerians to go and restart civilization.

And this is where the whole Sumerian culture

is said to have emerged from.

NARRATOR: Could the fact that the same account of a Great Flood

appears in both the Hebrew Bible and a Sumerian story

written at least a thousand years earlier

support the notion

that this was a real event?

One caused by otherworldly visitors?

And if so, who were these beings?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining an alternate translation

of the Sumerian tablets

that reveals incredible and highly controversial details

about the Anunnaki.

NARRATOR: A controversial book is published

called The 12th Planet which contains

a new translation of ancient Sumerian tablets.

Its author, 56-year-old Zecharia Sitchin,

is a Sumerian researcher

who has spent more than a decade

studying the cuneiform writing.

Sitchin's translation suggests

that the origins of the Sumerian civilization

and their gods, the Anunnaki,

are far more profound

than mainstream scholars suggest.

Zechariah Sitchin was in a unique position,

being raised on the Hebrew Bible...

...being able to speak ancient languages,

and, specifically, being able to translate cuneiform script.

He was able to deduce the story

and tell us what's the meaning behind a lot of these tablets.

VON DÄNIKEN: My friend Zecharia Sitchin was a brilliant man,

and the idea of the Anunnaki, in his meaning,

were the teachers from outer space.

The Anunnakis were extraterrestrial visitors.

They were here.

And they created humans according to their own image.

HENRY: In Sitchin's interpretation of the Sumerian stories,

after the flood, the Anunnaki returned to the Earth.

But they start to take a... sort of a step away from humanity.

In fact, they start to vanish from the story,

but they leave behind teachers who instruct humanity

in the various arts and sciences

and rudimentary knowledge about civilization

and how to conduct themselves.

And this, according to Sitchin,

is the origin of the Sumerians.

This is where they got their knowledge.

This is why they're the first with all of their

discoveries and inventions, and it comes from the Anunnaki.

NARRATOR: While the Sumerians themselves identified the Anunnaki

as beings who came down from the sky,

most scholars interpreted them as fictional characters.

But Sitchin claimed that the texts are clearly

historical accounts of extraterrestrials

that the Sumerians encountered,

and he says they even specify

what planet these visitors came from.

Zecharia Sitchin postulates

that the Anunnaki were actually ancient astronauts

coming from a planet he called Nibiru.

A planet that was out of our vision,

and that it was on an elliptical trajectory,

and that it only came by Earth every 3,000 or so years.

NARRATOR: As Sitchin anticipated,

when he introduced the world to his controversial translation

of the Sumerian creation story in the 1970s,

the academic community was quick to dismiss it.

His critics claimed that a planet

with an elliptical orbit like Nibiru

could never exist in Earth's solar system.

But 40 years later, in 2016,

astronomers at Caltech announced that they had found evidence

of a new celestial object just beyond Pluto.

KAKU: The recent discovery

by two astronomers at Caltech

is incredible.

They find evidence

that in our solar system,

there could be a Planet X

that goes around the solar system,

perhaps once every few thousand years,

in a highly elliptical orbit.

NARRATOR: While astronomers have yet to confirm

the existence of Planet X,

some researchers believe

its theoretical location and orbit

align exactly with what Zechariah Sitchin

claimed to find 40 years earlier

in the ancient Sumerian tablets.

And another discovery in the 1980s

echoed one of his even more profound theories.

HENRY: A pillar of Zacharia Sitchin's hypothesis

was his belief that the Anunnaki

had genetically altered the human genome

around 250,000 years ago.

Now, we have discovered something quite remarkable.

Scientists looking into the human genome

discovered a genetic alteration

that fused two of our chromosomes

into one very important chromosome

around 250,000 years ago

that suddenly unlocked human potential,

gave us our human abilities,

including the ability to do mathematics,

to produce art, to do science.

NARRATOR: Might the discovery that the human genome

underwent a major change 250,000 years ago

help to validate Sitchin's translation

of the cuneiform tablets?

Could the Anunnaki have played a role in creating humans,

as described in the Sumerian texts?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest this also lends support to the notion

that human DNA was manipulated

by extraterrestrials.

TSOUKALOS: It's amazing to see

that somewhere this new genetic makeup began,

and there is nobody before that that had this.

So, how did this all happen?

VON DÄNIKEN: A group of extraterrestrials arrived on our planet.

And one of our ancestors,

call it an ape or whatever, it doesn't matter.

They took a few cells.

They changed the DNA code in the cell.

Because of this artificial mutation,

we are breaking out of the family tree.

This is handed down in Sumerian cuneiform.

It is always a question of translation:

How do you look at these things?

NARRATOR: Could Zechariah Sitchin's translation be correct?

Were the Anunnaki real extraterrestrial beings

who helped the Sumerians develop their civilization

and also taught them about the creation of humankind?

And if so, is there any physical evidence

to support their stories of alien visitation?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and point to a site that contains

the largest megalithic stone blocks

ever discovered.

NARRATOR: Archaeologists from the British Museum

are excavating the ancient site of Girsu

when they uncover ancient walls made of mud bricks.

It would soon be determined

that these walls were part of two temples

built roughly 4,500 years ago

to venerate the Sumerian god Ningirsu.

NEWMAN: They announced the discovery of the Lord Palace of the Kings

and the White Thunderbird Temple.

Now, these are mythical sites

that have been looked for for generations.

These were only recorded in tablets and text previously,

and the whole Thunderbird mythos

is related to Ningirsu.

Ningirsu was a thunderbird

that was like the avatar of this kind of great god.

The reason why this temple was constructed

is that a king of the local city-state

had had a series of dreams

about the god Ningirsu.

NARRATOR: The story of the thunderbird god Ningirsu

comes from the account of King Gudea,

the same king whose statues were found

at this very site in 1877.

Discovered alongside those statues

were the largest cuneiform cylinders yet discovered,

inscribed by King Gudea himself.

Gudea wrote that the giant winged god Ningirsu

instructed him to build these two temples

to honor him.

TSOUKALOS: The archeologists themselves say

that this temple was built

due to a vision that a man had,

uh, where a gigantic thunderbird

descended from the sky.

And personally, I think that this

has to do with extraterrestrials

because if you know nothing

about high technology

and somebody descends from the sky in a vehicle,

well, of course you're going to signify a person with wings

because they came from the sky.

NARRATOR: Could it be that King Gudea's account of a giant winged deity

was in fact an encounter with some type of aerial vehicle

carrying an extraterrestrial visitor?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest further evidence

that the Sumerians witnessed alien craft

coming down from the sky

can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

LYNN: In the Epic of Gilgamesh,

Gilgamesh encounters the Anunnaki

at what's called the Landing Place.

The Landing Place is where the gods

came to meet with Gilgamesh.

HUSSAIN: In the text, it talks about sort of a ship

that goes from here to the heavens.

In the ancient world, that's the gods

who are transporting in chariots, you know?

In the modern world, is that a spacecraft?

Is that a rocket ship?

MARTELL: Gilgamesh was watching the gods

descending and ascending from the planet.

He actually talks about hearing loud sounds

and seeing fire and smoke

as the gods took off into the heavens.

To me, this sounds exactly like a rocket ship.

NARRATOR: In his book The 12th Planet,

Sumerian researcher Zacharia Sitchin

proposed that the Landing Place described in the epic poem

is a megalithic site that can be visited to this day.

HENRY: According to Sitchin,

the actual location is Baalbek in Lebanon,

where we find this massive platform

that resembles what we would think of as a landing port.

NARRATOR: Today, most people know Baalbek

as being the site of the Roman Temple of Jupiter,

built in the first century BC.

But beneath the temple is a massive stone platform

that is believed to have been built

thousands of years earlier.

It is constructed from megalithic blocks

that weigh as much as 800 metric tons,

or 1.6 million pounds.

That platform is incredible because it features

some of the largest stones

ever carved and created by humans long ago.

These blocks are on the fourth level up.

So, somehow, they had to be lifted up.

And in my opinion, they had a technology

imparted to the local population

by the extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,

the story of the Landing Pad

in the Epic of Gilgamesh,

along with King Gudea's encounter

with a giant winged being,

strongly suggest that the Sumerian people

witnessed flying craft coming down from the sky.

And they say the most compelling detail of all

is the Sumerian description

of the god Ningirsu as a thunderbird.

When I hear that a giant thunderbird person

descended from the sky, I'm like, wait a second.

We've heard these stories before.

In North America, many First Nation myths

begin with thunderbirds,

that thunderbirds existed

out of which the so-called kachinas came,

and the kachinas were the first bringers of knowledge.

You have other stories like that also in ancient India.

Imagine you know nothing about technology

and then you see a big plane fly over your head.

Well, first of all, it looks like a bird.

And second of all, it makes a lot of noise,

thundering noise.

So, of course you would call that a thunderbird.

And that to me illustrates

an example of misunderstood technology.

NARRATOR: Within the thousands of Sumerian tablets

that have been translated

are countless stories about the Anunnaki

and their interactions with humans.

Could they be the first written accounts

of extraterrestrial encounters?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining what some researchers believe

are the remains of an Anunnaki.

NARRATOR: British archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley

undertakes an extensive excavation

of the Sumerian city of Ur.

The excavations began to reveal

an extraordinary necropolis.

And as more and more rich funerary goods,

pieces of art and jewelry started to come up,

it became clear that this was a very important center

and had been since Sumerian times.

NARRATOR: Woolley soon realized that what they had found

in the center of Ur was a massive cemetery

containing more than 1,800 graves

filled with incredible artifacts and riches,

including 16 royal tombs.

It was a very spectacular find and astonished the world.

And Woolley wrote about it in the press

as these things became clear and people rushed

to get the newspaper to find out the next episode.

Because it was very dramatic and very exciting.

NARRATOR: Woolley's team unearthed

one extraordinary relic after another,

including a gold cosmetic container

in the shape of a cockleshell,

a gold vessel in the shape of an ostrich egg,

and the head of a lion made of silver,

lapis lazuli and shell.

FINKEL: Woolley's team of archeologists excavated more than one grave

with musical instruments and gold and jewelry.

They found this classical Sumerian civilization

a very affluent one.

NARRATOR: Ur was first discovered nearly 70 years

before Woolley's excavations when, in 1853,

archaeologists unearthed a ziggurat

and found it inscribed with the name of the ancient city.

It was considered an extraordinary find,

because biblical scholars believed it was

the same city of Ur

that is mentioned in the Book of Genesis

and was the home of Abraham.

The Bible tells us the story of Abraham.

Abraham was raised

in this city of Ur.

And this is important,

because Abraham is considered to be

the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity,

and Islam alike,

because the message of Abraham

was that there is only one true God.

During Woolley's excavations in 1926,

an even more compelling find was made

relating to an event described in both the Bible

and the Sumerian text the Epic of Gilgamesh.

NEWMAN: As Woolley and his team dug beneath the burials,

they got to a depth of about 64 feet,

where they found a layer of what appeared to be silt

about 13 feet thick,

suggesting that flooding had taken place at this time.

And the team dug in other spots, 14 in all,

and found the exact same thing in all 14 locations.

And Leonard Woolley believed this was evidence

of the Great Flood found in both the Bible and Sumerian texts.

And that this was a real event.

NARRATOR: But of all the discoveries made at Ur,

perhaps none are more extraordinary

or controversial than a large stone tomb

containing the body of a Sumerian queen.

HENRY: Leonard Woolley unearthed this fabulous,

incredible tomb of Queen Puabi,

which was an astonishing discovery at the time.

They found her body intact,

covered with gold ornaments and wearing

this incredible golden headdress

with cylinder seals attached to her body

that identified her as this queen.

NARRATOR: Numerous artifacts found within the tomb

identified it as belonging to Queen Paubi.

And researchers believe she was a very important figure

based on the staggering number of jewels

that were buried with her.

When researcher Zecharia Sitchin

examined Puabi's skull decades later,

he determined that, while severely damaged,

it displayed some remarkable anomalies.

HENRY: As Zecharia Sitchin investigated

the discovery of Queen Puabi, he found

that her skull appeared to be elongated.

This led him on a line of speculation

that she must have been a Anunnaki-human hybrid.

Her characteristics look almost alien.

Was she possibly some type of extraterrestrial?

NARRATOR: Queen Puabi's remains are now housed

at the London Museum of Natural History.

For years, Zecharia Sitchin implored

the museum to test her DNA, but they refused.

Unfortunately, mainstream science said,

"No, this isn't worthy of our time."

To me, this seems like, you know, a-an eye-opener

that we have actual remains that could be tested

and possibly confirm an extraterrestrial origin.

NARRATOR: Could the remains of Queen Puabi provide

incontrovertible evidence that the Sumerian civilization

was the product of alien intervention?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe another,

perhaps even more important question

lies in whether this mysterious civilization

is much older than archaeologists

have ever imagined.

NARRATOR: Most mainstream historians agree

that, according to the archaeological evidence,

the Sumerians appeared in Mesopotamia

around 5000 BC.

But in the cuneiform texts that have been translated,

the Sumerians themselves say that civilization

actually began with their ancestors,

who lived thousands of years earlier...

...in a time before what the Epic of Gilgamesh

and the Hebrew Bible describe

as the Great Flood.

NEWMAN: The origins of the Sumerians is still under scrutiny.

Some people have speculated

that they may have come from a lost sunken land.

Now, this is an intriguing possibility

with all the flood myths and so forth.

What is quite interesting, related to this, is the fact

that off the coast of Israel,

we have the submerged town of Atlit Yam,

which dates back to over 7000 BC.

This is a series of stone circle structures,

avenues, and communal and domestic buildings.

And so if there was a submerged area,

which the Sumerians were said to come from,

perhaps we need to look out into the Mediterranean.

NARRATOR: Do the underwater ruins of Atlit Yam,

which date back more than 9,000 years,

serve as evidence that the Sumerian stories

of a pre-flood civilization are true?

Remarkably, even older stone structures

have been discovered at the archeological site

of Göbekli Tepe,

which is located just 400 miles northwest

of ancient Sumer.

Göbekli Tepe was discovered in 1994

by Professor Klaus Schmidt

of the German Archaeological Institute.

He started finding huge standing stones.

And many of these were carved

into human form.

They would have arms on the side of them,

hands that come around to the front.

NARRATOR: Radiocarbon dating of artifacts unearthed at Göbekli Tepe

suggest the ancient site is over 12,000 years old--

more than 5,000 years older than the Sumerians.

But some researchers have noticed

a curious connection between the two cultures.

Göbekli Tepe is a massive complex.

And it features a carving of these three handbags

that appear above this bird-like creature.

And what's fascinating about this is that you can find

carvings of similar handbags about 400 miles to the south

where the ancient Sumerians lived.

And there, the handbags are held

by these winged figures called Anunnaki.

This suggests that there is

some previously unknown connection

between the Sumerians and Göbekli Tepe.

Maybe this is the answer

for where the Sumerians actually came from.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the builders of Göbekli Tepe

are the ancient ancestors of the Sumerians?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

the answer might be found in the thousands

of Sumerian texts that have yet to be translated.

HENRY: Experts estimate that up to 90%

of the original texts have been lost.

But there must be a treasure trove

still out there waiting to be translated.

And they could contain information

that will force us to rethink

everything we thought we knew about our past.

TSOUKALOS: The fact that the Sumerians were the first to come up

with mathematics...

agriculture...

astronomy...

engineering.

Our entire human civilization

is built on exactly that.

And they received this knowledge

from the so-called gods.

And to me, these people that came from the sky weren't,

you know, ethereal beings...

but extraterrestrials visiting from another planet.

NARRATOR: Does the discovery of the Sumerians

and the recent translations of their ancient clay tablets

reveal that humankind

and human civilization

are the result of alien intervention?

And might there be even more astounding revelations

about our past contained within the hundreds of tablets

that have yet to be deciphered?

And the thousands more that may still lie hidden

beneath the desert sand?

Perhaps it will be the oldest known civilization

on Earth that provides the truth

about humanity's evolution on this planet...

...and our close encounters

with extraterrestrial beings.

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