All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S16E06.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-T7ST_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR:
Millions of people
around the world

believe we have been visited
in the past

by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

For over a decade,
the hit TV series Ancient Aliens

has examined the profound
and highly controversial theory

that extraterrestrials came
to Earth thousands of years ago

and quite possibly never left.

Now, on a special
two-hour Ancient Aliens event...

WILLIAM SHATNER:
I think it's utterly,

utterly fascinating.

NARRATOR:
...William Shatner
will boldly go

where he has never gone before,

talking to scientists,
spiritual leaders,

and, of course,
ancient astronaut theorists

in an attempt
to answer the question:

could it be that Earth
has been visited

by extraterrestrials?

SHATNER:
Convincing me
about ancient aliens

is the first step
to convincing me

about the existence
of a higher power.

So, convince me.

Hello, I'm William Shatner.

And we have around here
this roundtable

of experts
in esoteric knowledge,

practical knowledge,

but also people
who are equally curious

about aliens.

I love the idea
that we've been visited,

we have been, we will be,
we are, by aliens,

but I have my doubts.

I want to be convinced

of what you guys know
and what you guys have done

for a decade and more
on Ancient Aliens.

So, I throw it open.

You.

-(laughter)
-Giorgio.

There are ancient texts
and oral traditions

that have been handed down
for thousands of years.

And pretty much,
they all begin in the same way,

that a long, long time ago,

someone taught us how to build

the ancient structures,

how to figure out mathematics
and agriculture

and all those different things.

The ancient astronaut theory
suggests that at some point,

we've had teachers.

And they have far more
advanced technology

that our ancestors
thought was divine or magic.

NARRATOR:
Ancient astronaut theory
challenges

humankind's most established
understandings of history,

archaeology, science
and religion.

Proponents suggest
that the truth

behind the very origins
of the human race

is far different
and far more profound

than what we've been taught.

TSOUKALOS:
Ancient cultures have
these very detailed stories

of the so-called gods,

and described someone
descending from the sky.

We have these stories worldwide.

And so, the ancient astronaut
theory suggests

that these gods were

flesh-and-blood
extraterrestrials

whom our ancestors
misinterpreted as divine

only because they
descended from the sky.

All civilizations talk about
beings coming from the sky

to assist humankind
in development.

They taught astrology,
astronomy,

how to make offensive
and defensive weapons.

CHILDRESS:
And these traditions

-are all over the world.
-Mm-hmm.

And what they say is,
there were these avatars.

Like Osiris, like Viracocha,
coming from the sky.

Their mission was
to bring civilization to man

and to teach them medicine,

-arts, metallurgy...
-Yes.

...how to build things,
construction, architecture.

Everything that we know.

Well, let me ask you a question
about legends, then.

'Cause this is all legendary.

Legends are, uh, verbal.

HENRY:
They're oral traditions.

-They're oral traditions.
-The entire... Yeah.

And if I told you a joke,
the whole joke

would be different when it got
to the other end of the table.

-Sure.
-Legends are oral traditions

told around a campfire
that change.

-Well...
-But not by ordinary people.

By priests and people
trained with memory skills...

...when you're dealing
with aborigine peoples,

oral traditions were actually
very rigidly passed on

from generation to generation.

SHATNER:
Okay, I'm good with that.

But all of you spent a lifetime
studying evidence

that ancient aliens came here,
are here, were here.

I need you to explain to me
the timeline.

Did Erich von Daniken
start it all,

or was-was he the...

-He popularized it.
-CHILDRESS: Yeah,

and Ancient Aliens

is-is continuing that today.

NARRATOR:
In 1968,

Swiss author Erich von Daniken

published what would
become the seminal book

for the ancient astronaut
theory, Chariots of the Gods?

The highly controversial text
posed the question,

did aliens come to Earth
centuries ago?

It caused an instant sensation,
and two years later,

a feature-length documentary
based on Von Daniken's book

was so highly regarded

that it was nominated
for an Academy Award.

Chariots of the Gods? was
one of the most impactful

and most intriguing publications
in the modern history.

The questions made people
seek an answer.

Chariots of the Gods? led
to a fundamental rethink

about our history, our origins

and indeed our place
in the cosmos.

MICHAEL DENNIN:
It helped motivate and push
science a little bit

to think
about things differently.

Now, the other feature,
I think, that's interesting is

in this space in the
intersection between religion,

science and other ways
of thinking about the world,

you added a new piece
in the new dynamic.

When I was ten years old, my dad
read Erich von Daniken's book

and gave it to me and said,
"Read this, son,

it'll open your mind."

So, that led me
to be a scientist,

to find out, "Well, I want
to know what-what this

really is saying."

And if these things
actually did happen,

what can we learn from it
that we could use today

to make our lives better today?

Yeah.

I think we can have
him join on a Zoom call.

SHATNER:
Let's get Erich von Daniken,

father of the ancient alien
theory, on screen.

There he is.
Erich von Daniken, how are you?

-CHILDRESS: Hi, Erich.
-TSOUKALOS: Good to see you.

Hi. Hi.

Erich, tell me what
the ancient alien theory is.

I spent six years
in a Catholic boarding school

led by Jesuits in Switzerland.

And there we had to translate
parts of the Bible

from Latin to Greek
and from Greek to German.

And I was a deep,
absolute deep believer in God.

By the way, I still,
as an old man,

I still am a believer in God.

But God, for me, as a boy,
had to have some qualities.

For example, God does not need
a vehicle in which

to move from point A to point B.

God is all over.
Our God is timeless.

Now, while making
these translations,

I came together
with the God

who had vehicles,
he was moving around.

Uh, written by the prophet
of Ezekiel,

by Moses and others.

So, I simply had doubts
in my own Catholic education,

and I discovered
the Book of Enoch.

Talk to us about Enoch.

Enoch is mentioned in the Bible
very, very, uh, short.

In the beginning, you learn

he was the seventh patriarch

before the great flood.

He was the first human
who disappeared

with his body into the sky.

NARRATOR:
Enoch is one
of the earliest patriarchs

mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.

He was the great-grandfather
of Noah,

the man credited with building
the ark that saved humankind

and two of every animal
from the great flood.

But where the Hebrew Bible
only mentions Enoch briefly,

his detailed story is told
through more than 100 chapters

in a book that bears his name.

The Book of Enoch can still
be found in the Bible

used by the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church.

And when archaeologists
unearthed

the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947,

they found
that 11 different manuscripts

of the Book of Enoch
had been preserved,

indicating that it was
considered a work

of vital importance.

Enoch was an incredibly
popular book, uh,

in the time leading up to
the formation of Christianity.

In the book,
the character of Enoch,

it was said, he walked with God
and then was no more.

But the tradition grew
that Enoch never died.

In fact, the tradition has

that he becomes
the scribe of God.

He is the only one in heaven
allowed to sit,

you know, along with God.

And he actually writes
these things down

and he reveals information
to humanity.

NARRATOR:
One curious passage
from the Book of Enoch

tells the story of two angels
who visit Enoch

and take him up to heaven
in what is described

as a fiery chariot.

VON DANIKEN:
It's fascinating because Enoch

speaks in the first person.

The "I" version.

"I did. I heard. I learned."

Now, Enoch has no language
of technology.

He doesn't know what a spaceship
is or a mother spaceship.

He says, "We were
over the planet Earth.

"I saw the round face,
the round face of the Earth.

"And up there was something
like gigantic diamonds.

Doors opened
and doors closed automatically."

He was in space
in a mother spaceship.

And finally, he stands before
the throne of the almighty God.

But this is all nonsense.

If we really would have to do
with the almighty God,

God would never have stand up
from his throne,

take a few steps to Enoch,

and shake his hand
and welcome him.

TSOUKALOS: Our ancestors
simply didn't understand

that when they went to that
so-called celestial realm,

that they actually went,
to put it in a simple term,

to a spaceship,
to a space station

that is told in ancient texts
that were orbiting the Earth.

VON DANIKEN:
And the Bible is full of it.

And not only the Bible.

I know many, many myths,

legends of this planet,

and all came to the same thing.

It was some gods
who created humans

but always according
their own image.

We are the copy.

We are the offsprings
of extraterrestrials.

And now you arrive
in the legend of Adam and Eve

and the so-called
"God created humans

according their own image."

SHATNER:
And how do you account
for archaeological evidence

that shows the evolution,
uh, Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon?

VON DANIKEN:
That's all correct.

I fully agree
with-with archaeology,

with the theory of evolution,

except, for our branch,
there was

an artificial mutation made
by the extraterrestrials.

And you can really compare it.

I mean,

all our family brothers
and sisters--

the apes, the gorillas,
the chimpanzees--

they still exist.

We are still of the same family.

But they have not
created intelligence,

language, information.

Only we.

Why only we,
out of the same family tree?

Because we are the product
of an artificial mutation.

HENRY: What he's saying
is our intelligence

is far greater
than the chimpanzee and gorilla.

We now know why.

We have an activated neocortex,

which is the basis
for all human civilization.

NARRATOR:
The neocortex
of the human brain

is the region responsible
for language,

logical reasoning
and conscious thought.

Many scientists believe
the activation of the neocortex

is what makes humans different

from all other
earthly creatures.

The neocortex is kind of
one layer of our cortex,

um, that is fairly unique
to Homo sapiens.

And as far as we can tell,

that's the area where activity

is occurring directly related,
particularly, to consciousness,

but probably also
some of our other senses

in the way they interact.

It is probably the part

of the brain, because of that,
that most sets us apart

from other primates.

HENRY:
There was a genetic alteration.

The National Institute
of Health,

in their own publication, says
this is not a natural fusion

of chromosome 2
that activated our neocortex.

SHATNER:
So, are you saying
that the neocortex

was activated

-by ancient aliens?
-Yes.

VON DANIKEN:
Just a small comment.

I'm a specialist
in the old writings,

and practically every old
writing says the same thing.

Some gods created humans.

Now, is this just imagination?

Worldwide, worldwide, I mean,

the Sumerians
or the biblical translation.

Or the Maya in Central America
or Plato in Greek.

Why should they all
come to the same lies,

the gods created human
according their own image?

Erich, in your opinion, for you,

what is your top example
for a physical representation

of the ancient astronaut theory?

Well, th-there are many.

One of them which everyone can
watch every year.

Just go down to Mexico,
go to the city of Chichen Itza.

There is a big pyramid

laid out in a special way.

NARRATOR:
The great pyramid of El Castillo
in Chichen Itza

was built by the Maya

sometime between the 9th
and 12th centuries AD.

It served as a temple

to the feathered
serpent god Kukulkan

and was built to reenact
his descent to Earth

through the manipulation
of light and shadow.

JON C. LOHSE:
The Castillo
is a stepped pyramid

with some
outward radiating staircases.

And these staircases have
big, high balustrades on them.

And on the autumn
and the spring equinox,

the Sun casts a shadow

across the corner
of this stepped pyramid,

and you see the shadows
of the steps

on the staircase balustrade.

Well, at the base
of the balustrade

are these big,
carved snakeheads.

And, so,
the entire image is created

of an enormous coiled serpent

that begins to descend
from this building

at this important sunrise event.

VON DANIKEN:
This message is clear.

You see god Kukulkan

coming down the step
of the pyramid

in form of triangles of light
and shadow, light and shadow.

Erich, why couldn't these people

who lived by the weather
and the Sun--

when to plant their crops,
when to harvest--

why wouldn't they divine

through observation that this
was the moment to plant?

Why does it have to prove
that an ancient alien gave them

-the knowledge?
-Well, because they say it.

They say it in their writings,
in their mythology.

They say, "We have received

-our astronomical knowledge
from the gods."
-SHATNER: I see.

VON DANIKEN:
The first writers of the Maya

wrote down
in their holy writings

that a god
with the name of Kukulkan,

which they represented
as a snake with feathers,

descended to them
and give them their knowledge.

It's their idea,
not Erich von Daniken's.

Why have our ancestors worldwide

created
the most gigantic temples

or pyramids? Why?

The answer is,
all over the world, the same:

for the gods.

The so-called gods were teacher.

They give them information.

And it's the people
who have written down this.

SHATNER:
The-the basic question

that I want to have answers to,

and-and we're touching
on the edges of it,

but-but it seems like a...

It's-it's metaphysical.

I can't quite reach it.

Why would a civilization

all these billions
of light-years away

come here and leave?

Or, if they're here,
why aren't they displayed?

Well, I-I don't know
about the present.

But I'm a specialist
in the past, and in the past,

they wanted
to multiply intelligence.

These extraterrestrials
change our line of evolution

simply because
they wanted to multiply

intelligence in the universe.

We are simply too arrogant
to accept this.

We want to be the greatest.

We should become
a little more humble

and learn
we are not the greatest.

Erich von Daniken,

uh, what a pleasure it is
to speak to you.

We appreciate you being here,

Erich, and a pleasure
to have talked to you.

Thank you so much.

-Thank you very much, too.
-SHATNER: Um,

Talk to me
about the physical evidence

of ancient aliens.

There are many areas

of the world,
all over the world,

where gigantic
megalithic structures exist

that people point at and say,
"How did that get there?"

The crazy part: a lot
of the architectural engineering

used to build some of these
large megalithic structures

is technology
that we do not understand today.

And these temples are aligned
to specific star systems.

Why do you do that unless
you're trying to get there

or call people in?

-That's
the extraterrestrial connection.
-Well, again,

the-the whole idea
of the pondering the stars.

They had nothing to do
but lie on their back

and say,
"I see a thing here in the sky."

-TZADOK: Nothing to do?
-But, see, the ancient...
-What?

-Nothing to do?
-Well, look, well...

Just building pyramids.
All these slaves.

-Nothing to do.
-Yeah, pyramids
we can't build today.

SHATNER:
No, I'm talking about a guy

with a beard lying on his back

looking at the stars and saying,

-"Geez, I see the same..."
-TZADOK: Why not a woman?

Judging-judging from
the archaeological evidence,

I think they were very busy
doing other things.

HENRY:
When you're in Egypt and you are

in the Osirion, a temple
at a place called Abydos,

you're in a temple
that now we think

is at least 10,000 years old.

And it's composed
of red granite blocks

that weigh, on average,
about 50 tons.

And it's the perfection,
the precision.

It's an intelligence.

It's ancient astronaut evidence.

NARRATOR:
The Osirion in Abydos
is just one

of the many ancient megalithic
structures that can be found

all over the world,

built with stone blocks
that weigh

tens and even hundreds of tons.

Stonehenge in England.

The ancient temples of Malta.

Baalbek in Lebanon.

Nan Madol in Micronesia.

Sacsayhuamán in Peru.

No historical record
has ever been found

to explain how these

and dozens of other
megalithic structures were made.

By the way, where were
those megalithic blocks mined?

Was it down in the valley,
or was it up on the mountain?

That's also a great question.

It's often...
It's often many miles away.

-At Ollantaytambo...
-TSOUKALOS: Yes.

Over mountains, over valleys.

-Yeah, up-up high. Yeah.
-Over bodies of water.

CHILDRESS:
They brought

giant blocks that are weighing
60, 80 tons at Ollantaytambo.

They actually brought them
down a mountain,

up over a river,

across a river, which they
haven't been able to explain.

-TSOUKALOS: 60-ton blocks.
-Yeah, and then up...

And there is a ramp there,
actually, but then they...

they move it up
to the very top of a cliff.

(wind whistling)

NARRATOR:
The cliff where the ancient site
of Ollantaytambo was built

is located at an elevation
of over 9,000 feet

in the Andes Mountains of Peru.

Historians date it to 1440 AD

and credit the Inca
with its construction.

But some scholars say
Ollantaytambo was built

upon the ruins
of a far older city,

one whose origins
remain unknown.

The gate behind me is called
the Gateway of the Gods,

and it was built
several thousand years

before the Inca arrived here.

It was built by a culture
we call the Urin Pacha.

We give them that name
because we have no idea

who they were,
where they came from

or where they went.

It's clearly evident that the
earliest parts of Ollantaytambo

dates to at least
12,000 years old, if not older.

NARRATOR:
But how could people living
thousands of years ago

have produced
such astonishing stonework,

with massive,
interlocking blocks

precisely fitted together?

Or have moved and set
colossal stones of granite,

each weighing more than 50 tons?

BILL BIRNES:
What you can't explain

is the moving of 50-ton stones

up the sheer face of a cliff

to create the walls
of the fortress.

That, in and of itself,

required more than cranes,

more than lifts,
more than scaffolds.

And part of the problem there

is that the mainstream
archaeologists are saying:

Okay, well, you got
a 60- or 80-ton block

of red granite--
all you have to do is

just get enough people,

and they supposedly didn't have
the wheel or anything,

but you had... they propose that
they're all wearing harnesses,

and you get, say, 200 people,

-Yeah? Okay.
-and they're all, you know,
to drag this block, okay?

-What's wrong with that?
-Well, there's a...

there's nothing really wrong
with it at first,

because you
can mathematically say,

okay, this block weighs 60 tons,
so we... this is how many people

we need to drag it.

But they're taking it up
onto a narrow cliff, okay?

-There's no place
for those 200 people to stand.
-SHATNER: Wow.

And they have to bring it
around corners.

So how do mainstream
archaeologists explain it?

-HENRY: They don't.
-(overlapping chatter)

No, no, no, no.

'Cause they're archaeologists.

They don't...
they're not engineers.

But when you bring in
an engineer and you say,

"Okay, now,
how are you gonna do this?"

And they don't have an answer.

They... they say,
"I don't know."

(overlapping chatter)

They're the real experts.

I would love to have
an engineer here to...

TAYLOR:
I have three different
engineering degrees.

-You-You've been in that room?
-Here. We've got one right here.

-I have three different
engineering degrees.
-(laughter)

You're just the man
I want to talk to.

(laughter)

But-but are you prejudiced?

Uh, toward what?

Towards, uh, ancient aliens.

No. In fact, I was skeptical

of a lot of the ideas
that's being thrown out,

but I always thought that there
was something more to the story.

I want to know,
could we do this?

We have places where...
where there are, like,

laser-cut rocks

that we don't even have the
tools that can do this today.

You take a master toolmaker--
my father is one.

He's looked at some
of these things and said,

"I can see the toolmarks.

Somebody used a tool machine
to cut this thing."

But that was 10,000 years ago.

HENRY:
Before the wheel.

So what we're saying is
there was civilization

prior to what we think
was civilization.

TSOUKALOS:
In the early 1990s,
Dr. Robert Schoch

proposed that,
according to his research,

the Sphinx
on the great Giza Plateau

-is at least 12,000 years old,
-Mm-hmm.

because it shows
geological features

that indicate water marks

of a long-ago flood.

HENRY:
It was assumed that the erosion
on the Sphinx

was caused by wind.

As a geologist, Schoch spent
three seconds looking at it,

saying that's not wind,
that's water.

And the only time there was
water like this in Egypt

was at the end
of the Younger Dryas, 10,000 BC.

Mm-hmm.
And so what happened was

that he was ripped apart
by the archaeological community,

because nothing before 10,000 BC
could exist on Earth,

because that is what
mainstream archaeology suggests.

And they said, "Well,
can you show us anywhere else

-on the planet..."
-But hunter-gatherers were
around 10,000 years ago.

But an archaeological,
like, a structure,

-a monumental structure.
-Uh-huh. Oh, I see.

But in 1993, Gobekli Tepe
was suddenly discovered,

and mainstream archaeologists
agree that this is

a minimum of 12,000 years old.

Which is the same age
as the... as the Sphinx.

Yes.

NARRATOR:
The ancient stone complex

unearthed
in Southeastern Turkey--

known as Gobekli Tepe--

contains the world's oldest
known megalithic structures.

With monoliths weighing
up to ten tons

and sophisticated carvings,

experts say that
only an advanced civilization

could have built it.

But according
to mainstream historians,

the world's first
true civilization--

the Sumerians-- did not arise

until thousands of years
after Gobekli Tepe Was built.

One thing that I've
been working on very intensely

over the last 30-plus years

is the concept that globally,
civilization goes well back

before 5,000 years ago.

This started when I
started pushing back the age

of the Sphinx based
on the erosional features

and the geological features

that were incompatible
with the arid conditions

at the present day.

Then we had Gobekli Tepe,

and that site goes back

well over 11,000,
12,000 years ago.

PAUL BAHN:
Gobekli Tepe became

one of the most important
archaeological sites

in the world.

These limestone pillars
are up to 18 feet high.

They're beautifully dressed
and smoothed.

We've never seen work like that
from that period before.

And the geomagnetic analyses
that have been done

of what's under the surface

seem to indicate that there are

at least 20 major circular
structures in this mound,

and so far they've dug
up to half of them.

But there's still an awful lot
of work to go.

SCHOCH:
These early sites go back

to the end of the last ice age.

We now know, based on a lot
of geological data,

that there were
incredible climatic changes

at the end of the last ice age.

There were well-developed
cultures, I believe,

probably around the world

at this early period.

Okay, but when you talk about
something like ancient healing,

and we discover that...
Lister discovers, uh,

bacteria, uh, cleanliness...

why didn't they know that
4,000 years ago?

HENRY:
A key tenet
of ancient astronaut theory

is that we have lost knowledge.

We are a civilization
with amnesia.

We don't know our past.

Wow.

Somebody, uh, explain to me--

and I know a little
but not enough--

about practical knowledge
in ancient times

that, uh, is, um... unexplained.

A key tenet
of ancient astronaut theory

is that we have lost knowledge.

We are a civilization
with amnesia.

-We don't know our past.
-That's true.

-CARTER: Oh, yes.
-Oh, yeah.
-CHILDRESS: What traditions say

all over the world is there have
been civilizations before us.

They have risen and fallen.

TAYLOR:
Don't forget that the planet is

four and a half billion
years old.

-Don't forget that.
-Yeah.

We're... This solar system
has been here

for four and a half billion
years.

-Mm-hmm.
-And humanity,
as far as we know,

has only been here
for a few thousand,

-maybe tens of thousands
of years.
-Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So what happened before that?

And we know
from the fossil records

that there were
many mass extinctions.

So who's to say civilizations
don't rise and fall

for over long periods of time?

But the mass extinctions...
We-we... archaeologists know

what those mass extinctions were

and what was alive at that time

and what almost petered out.

I mean, it-it's...

-there in the earth.
-But there were...

there were civilizations there,
there were, that came and went.

-Well...
-Part of it is,

it's how we look at the past,
and modern archaeologists

are just assuming;
it's an assumption.

Well, they're
from the Stone Age.

They don't have electricity.

They don't have machines.

They don't have heavy equipment.

(clears throat):
Um, you know,

they don't have power plants
and things like that.

But that may be
completely wrong.

-Right.
-The evidence is there

that in ancient times
they had electricity,

they had batteries, they had...

-Look at the Baghdad Battery.
-Yeah.

They had batteries?

NARRATOR:
In 1938,

the director
of the National Museum of Iraq

discovered in the archives
terra-cotta pots

and copper cylinders
that may have been used

as galvanic cells.

The nearly 2,000-year-old
devices,

called "Baghdad Batteries,"

are believed to predate the
invention of the cell battery

by more than 1,000 years.

JASON MARTELL:
Usually a Baghdad Battery
would consist of a clay pot,

and it would have an iron rod

surrounded
by an asphalt stopper.

And you'd pour any type of
weak acidic liquid in there--

wine, grape juice, vinegar--

and with a voltmeter,
you can consistently get

about four volts
with something about that large.

Now, all over Egypt,
we see large vials,

which could be a representation
of a much larger Baghdad Battery

being able to generate
a much larger current.

NARRATOR:
Mainstream scientists agree

that the Baghdad Battery
is evidence

that ancient people had
the means to create power

and the understanding
of how to apply it.

Might our ancestors
have possessed

other advanced technology?

So, today there is a carving

in Egypt, uh,
at the Dendera Temple,

and it's in a underground crypt.

And it is this depiction

of what looks like--

Archaeologists refer to it
as a snake and a lotus flower.

But what's so interesting is
the hieroglyphics

that have been translated
not only say

that what is depicted here
is dangerous

but also it is
the bringer of light.

-And so you...
-Wait a minute.
So the hieroglyphics warn you

but also say
it's the bringer of light.

-Yes.
-So that wants you--

It's both "stay away"
and "come."

-(overlapping chatter)
-Well, and the hieroglyphics
show a...

a detailed drawing
of the equipment.

NARRATOR:
The reliefs that have become
known as the Dendera bulbs

are carved into the walls
of a 4,000-year-old temple

dedicated to the Egyptian
sky goddess Hathor.

Within the temple,

Hathor is depicted sailing
in a ship of eternity

along the Milky Way.

Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest

that this is, in fact,

a representation
of an extraterrestrial arriving

in a flying craft

and the Dendera bulbs
are a technology

they gave to the Egyptians.

The reason why we have proposed

that in Dendera we have
depictions of light bulbs

is because you have that cable
coming out of that lotus flower

or the bulb's socket that goes
underneath it to a box.

And the actual bulb rests

on what's called a djed pillar.

And a djed pillar
is always referred to

as something to do
with significant power.

And so the suggestion is

that the extraterrestrials
provided lighting sources

and then that was also put
in stone.

There is a-a theory that sound

could levitate something

and-and that may be the answer
to-to these giant megaliths

that seemed to be too heavy
for even us to-to lift.

-Address that.
-Well, there are so many
of the ancient astronaut legends

-where the big blocks
were levitated in.
-Yeah, there are ancient...

NARRATOR:
One of the most well-known
ancient stories of levitation

can be found
on Chile's Easter Island,

where standing
along the shoreline

are nearly 900 megalithic
stone statues called moai

that weigh up to 90 tons each.

According to the oral traditions
of the native Rapa Nui people,

a type of energy known as mana

was used to levitate
the giant sculptures into place.

Curiously, similar stories
can be found in association

with other ancient megalithic
sites all over the world,

like Stonehenge in England,

the Great Pyramid in Egypt,

the Uxmal pyramid in Mexico,

Nan Madol in Micronesia

and Puma Punku in Bolivia.

It would be one thing to me

if this levitation of stones
across an island

would be the only story
or legend worldwide.

But the fact of the matter is

that we have multiple stories

that these stones
somehow were levitated

or flown through the air.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible

that acoustic technology

could levitate stones weighing
tens and even hundreds of tons?

Uh, my father said when he--
they were testing sh--

uh, shake testing
the Saturn V first stage

that they used a thing that
the German scientists created

using wind tunnels
and made a big flute horn.

And it-- they shot it
with acoustic,

uh, energy and they called it
the Jericho device--

because it was like
a big Jericho horn--

and it would shake the-the stage
and-and mimic launch,

the vibration of a launch.

And he said one day they tuned
it to a particular frequency

and, when it did, that it broke
the bolts that were--

that had this first stage
bored into the concrete,

picked the rocket first stage
up-- it had to weigh tons--

and moved it several meters.

And they were afraid
it was gonna fall over

-and destroy the first stage.
-Wow.

TAYLOR:
And so that's...

-Yeah, wow.
-And that's part of--

part of the mystique of...
the-the subject,

that sound is mathematical.

Uh, you can draw mathematics

to sound
and maybe find the formula

for the kind of sound you need.

That's so totally fascinating.

And the idea that the stones
were cut like a--

with a machine. Was it your dad
that saw machine cuts on...

-on-on the...
-And several others have.
Several others have seen 'em.

So-so talk to me about that,

because that,
that's less dreaming.

There's a place
in the high Andes on a plateau

called Puma Punku.

It's one of the most magnificent
sites on planet Earth.

And there, strewn about,

are these big platforms
made out of red sandstone.

And they're massive,

and some of 'em
are up to 60 tons. 6-0.

But amongst these stones
are also andesite blocks.

There is one rectangular block.

It's about this high.

And on one side,
there is a perfect groove

that is so--

(stammers)
the edges are so perfect,

that if you were to go down
like this with your thumb,

you could cut yourself.

*

NARRATOR:
Giorgio Tsoukalos
has been studying Puma Punku

for more than two decades

and has made over a dozen visits
to the ancient site.

This is... It's beautiful.

NARRATOR:
During one such visit in 2014,

he documented his investigation

of the incredible stonework

found among
the mysterious megalithic ruins.

So, this is--
this is pretty amazing.

I mean, check this out. If you
look at this groove right here,

you simply cannot do this
with primitive tools.

And you've got these holes
drilled at an equidistant,

as if it's some type of
a female piece to a male piece.

I mean, these look
like technical components,

part of a larger, almost
industrial-type construction.

I've got a little paper clip,

ordinary paper clip,
that I've just unfurled

to see how deep they go.

And they actually go equidistant
all the way down.

I mean, that is something

that cannot be achieved
with-with chicken bones.

So, is there any explanation as
to how they carved it? Anything?

So, according
to the local legends

that go back a long, long time,

they say that this was built
by the so-called gods.

Now, whenever I hear stories
about the gods, my ears perk up.

Nobody discusses the question
or asks the question

"who were these gods?"

What are we talking about?

Everything that we call
"advanced" in the ancient days

from which we would ask,
where did this come from?

-SHATNER: But...
-Now, you could say
it came from the angels.

-You could say
it came from aliens.
-(overlapping chatter)

Here-Here's the crazy part.

We could not build the pyramids
today.

We cannot build
the pyramids today.

Why not?

What we're talking about here
at this table

is physical evidence

that ancient aliens, uh,

came here, are here, were here.

Talk to me about-- the first one
that comes to mind,

of course, is the, uh, pyramid.

Remember where Moses brought
the children of Israel out from.

-Egypt.
-HENRY: Egypt.

TZADOK:
The Torah

and the Jewish tradition,

which is the foundation
of Western tradition,

originally came out of Egypt.

-Right.
-All right? In the tradition
that later became the Bible,

ideas, beliefs like
the Ark of the Covenant, they--

these things
were clearly based upon

knowledge that was brought out
of Egypt.

CHILDRESS:
Erich von Daniken

said an interesting thing there,
too,

that the Great Pyramid of Egypt
is not a tomb for the pharaohs,

-uh, but rather a-a repository
-SHATNER: A-a library.

of ancient knowledge.

-It's a library.
-Yeah.

NARRATOR:
Egypt's Great Pyramid

is perhaps the most familiar

and most mysterious megalithic
structure in all the world.

It is the oldest and largest
of the three pyramids

that stand on the Giza Plateau.

But exactly how and why

the Great Pyramid was
constructed remains a mystery.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

isn't just one of the Seven
Ancient Wonders of the World.

It's the most ancient
of them all.

And it's the only one
still standing.

And it's what's inside
the Great Pyramid of Giza

that is
absolutely mind-boggling.

You look at a beautiful,
perfect tunnel

with perfectly smooth walls

and a vaulted ceiling
that rises all the way up.

And there are shafts, tunnels,

and the architecture
and the way it was built

is a mystery till today.

NARRATOR:
The Great Pyramid

consists of nearly
two and a half million

limestone and granite blocks,

many of which were quarried
from 500 miles away.

It stands 480 feet high,

covers 13 acres

and has an estimated mass
of six million tons.

According to most Egyptologists,

this miracle of engineering

was constructed
during a 20-year period

by order of the pharaoh Khufu

sometime around 2500 BC.

But many experts
dispute this notion,

and ancient astronaut
theorists suggest

the origins of the Great Pyramid
are far more profound.

This is... applies to this
discussion right now, you know,

to move these blocks
in the sand,

because anybody who's ever
played in the sandbox

or anybody who's been
to the beach,

it's very difficult to do.

And if you have
a 75-ton block...

-60.
-Or 60, and...

-No, 15 tons is a lot more.
-No, no.

They all vary, by the way. There
are, inside the Grand Gallery,

-there are some
75-ton blocks in there.
-Really?

So, they floated them
on barges, and then...

-But the bottom line is...
-And then they picked them up,

and they took them up on the...

SHATNER:
But-but okay,

-so I-I can get beyond...
-(overlapping chatter)

H-Hold on. I-I need you
to explain to me the timeline.

What was the... what's the
pyramids supposed to be?

-4,500 years.
-4,500.
-4,500...

So-so the Sphinx predated
the-the pyramids.

Yes, and so, today, according
to some archaeologists,

it is 12 thou... a minimum
of 12,000 years old.

-Which is the same age
as the... as the Sphinx.
-Yes.

NARRATOR:
The dating of the Great Pyramid
has been the subject

of much controversy,
and over the years,

many experts have suggested
that it was built far earlier

than the reign
of the pharaoh Khufu,

who ruled around 2500 BC.

In 1837, a British colonel
who became an archaeologist,

named Richard Howard Vyse,
used dynamite...

(hissing, explosion)

...to get up into the King's
Chamber of the Great Pyramid.

This was something
that had not been entered

by other archaeologists before.

When he got
into these upper chambers,

he then apparently claimed
that he found

some hieroglyphic cartouches

that mentioned
the pharaoh Khufu.

NARRATOR:
The cartouche, or signature,

of Khufu in the King's Chamber
is what Colonel Vyse used

to date the Great Pyramid
to 2500 BC.

But he was under
tremendous pressure

to make a major discovery

due to the enormous cost
of his expedition,

and some researchers
have suggested

that he may have actually
fabricated this evidence.

CHILDRESS:
Recently it has been discovered,

by going through
Vyse's journals,

that he, in his journals,
actually says

that there were no hieroglyphs
within this chamber.

And so, it is suspected

that Vyse did, in fact,
forge this cartouche

of the pharaoh Khufu.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible

that the Great Pyramid of Giza

was constructed long
before the reign of Khufu,

and with the help
of extraterrestrials?

Ancient astronaut theorists say
yes, and as further evidence,

point to a very curious detail

regarding the placement
of the pyramid.

TAYLOR:
Here's something else, Bill.

The central peak of the pyramid,
its location on the planet,

coincides with the location

that is the same number, out
to about ten digits at least,

-as the speed of light.
-What do you mean,
the same number?

What does that...
what does that mean?

So the speed of light
is like 2.99879...

Okay, so if you project a photon
out of the tip of the...

No. No. No, no, no, no. If you
look at the position on Earth

that it is, its location
on the map...

-SHATNER:
The geographic location?
-Geographic location.

-Is what?
-Geographic location,
and then the-the...

The number
that describes its position,

uh, an inclination is the same
number as the speed of light.

NARRATOR:
The latitudinal coordinate
for the Great Pyramid

is 29.9792458 degrees north,

a number that exactly matches
the speed of light

when measured
in meters per second.

Now that's interesting because
the Great Pyramid is known,

um, as the "Mountain of Light."

So here we have the value
of the speed of light

encoded into the Great Pyramid.

Another thing we find, as well,

is that the location of the
Great Pyramid is really unique,

because at that
specific location,

if you pass a great circle

from the Great Pyramid
through its cardinal

and its ordinal directions,

what you find is that
these circles will pass

through more land mass
of the Earth

than any other location
on the Earth.

You find that the Great Pyramid
is essentially located

at the center
of the world's landmass.

TSOUKALOS:
This is amazing stuff.

When you consider
the vast amount of information

about the Earth encoded
into the Great Pyramid,

you cannot consider it all
to be coincidence.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible,

as ancient astronaut
theorists suggest,

that the information encoded
in the Great Pyramid of Giza

is a signature
of its alien architects?

Sophisticated mathematical

and-and scientific concepts
are being embedded,

were embedded into the pyramids.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but
there are still hidden chambers

that many believe are still
to be discovered in the pyramids

and that might give us
the answers.

The King's Chamber of the
Great Pyramid is about the size

of this room right here,
and there are room

for 47 more of these rooms
inside the pyramid.

And just three years ago,
we discovered

that when you go
into the pyramid...

And I've been in there 40 times.

-Have you?
-Yes, and you ascend
the Grand Gallery.

And now we know that riding
upon the Grand Gallery

is another chamber
that we knew nothing about

-until a few years ago.
-Massive.

-And so now, we have...
-Did we open it?

-We haven't opened it yet.
-Why not?

Well, talk
to the Egyptian authorities.

SHATNER:
You're-you're giving me facts,

but you haven't convinced me.

To me, it's improbable

that a spaceship, given
the unimaginable distances,

could traverse those distances.

Does anybody have an answer
to that here?

In a universe nearly
14 billion years old,

civilizations might be out there

-with millions
of years head start.
-Right.

Yeah, just because
we can't do it

-doesn't mean
somebody else can't.
-Right.

I've actually had
conversations with, uh,

Michio Kaku several times

about the idea
of what we would have to do

in modern day
to build a warp drive

to travel between the stars.

NARRATOR:
The ancient astronaut theory
suggests

that aliens from another world
and most likely,

another star system, came
to Earth in the distant past.

Mainstream scientists,
however, argue

that the distances between stars
are simply too vast

for this to be possible.

But Dr. Michio Kaku,

one of the world's
leading theoretical physicists,

has proposed
that there are likely

to be other intelligent
beings in the universe

who are even more advanced
than humans,

and that they could, in fact,
possess the technology

to travel between stars.

Michio Kaku is, uh,

waiting to talk to us
on the television set. Michio?

-Yes?
-It's Bill Shatner, and
I'm pleased to see you again.

Last time we met,
we were talking string theory.

-That's right.
-Michio, what's your opinion

of the ancient alien
philosophy, theory, if you will?

-What do you think about it?
-Well, I think

we have to keep our minds open,
because first of all,

we've discovered 4,000 planets

in our sector
of the Milky Way galaxy.

We now realize that there could
be literally billions

of earthlike planets,
some of them twins of the Earth

in outer space.
And to believe

that we're the only game
in town,

I think, is rather presumptuous.

-Yeah.
-Since the universe is
13.8 billion years old,

there's plenty of time for
civilization to rise and fall.

We're discussing here
time travel, warp drive,

all those things,
and most people think

that's theoretically possible,
but practically impossible.

What have you got
to say about that?

Well, you know, the skeptics
make a big mistake thinking

that-that aliens
can never visit the Earth

'cause distances are too large.

That assumes that the aliens
are maybe only

100 years more advanced than us.

But they could be a million
years more advanced than us,

in which case they might,

just might, have the capability
of rocketing across space-time

faster than the speed of light.

This is not out
of the question at all.

There are two ways in which
you can use Einstein's equations

to break the light barrier.

The first is wormholes.

NARRATOR:
The concept of traveling
through a wormhole, or stargate,

as it is sometimes called,

has become a popular device
in science fiction.

But the theory was
actually proposed

by the most famous
astrophysicist who ever lived--

Albert Einstein.

In 1935, Einstein

and fellow physicist
Nathan Rosen theorized

that two separate points
in space could be connected

through an Einstein-Rosen
bridge,

or what we now call a wormhole.

This would make travel
to the most remote stars

in the universe
a real possibility.

What you're talking about is
a structure in space

that involves very,
very strong bending of space

and the connecting of two
different parts of space.

So if you think of a piece of
paper curved around

and then punched out
and connected

from one place to the other,

that's your basic wormhole.

Alice's looking glass
would be the wormhole.

That is punching a hole
in space and time.

The second possibility is
what's explored in Star Trek.

And that is compressing space
or the Alcubierre drive.

You know,
Alcubierre once told me

that he was watching
an episode of Star Trek,

and said, "Well, if they
do it on Star Trek,

why can't I as a physicist
do it with Einstein's equations?

I love it.

NARRATOR:
In the Star Trek
television series,

the starship Enterprise is
equipped with a warp drive,

which enables it
to rocket through space

faster than the speed of light.

While some scientists have
suggested that

faster-than-light travel
is an impossibility,

in 1994, Mexican theoretical
physicist Miguel Alcubierre

proposed a warp drive
that would do just that.

RICHARD DOLAN: Miguel Alcubierre
developed an equation

of warp drive in which
he developed mathematics

that said, look, with enough
energy, you could actually

warp space and time

around your craft to create
a kind of space-time bubble,

and in a sense shrink space
in front of you

and extend that
space behind you.

So you're not exceeding
the speed of light

within that bubble.

You're obeying all of the laws
of physics there.

But you're warping
space and time.

You compress the space
in front of you,

expand the space behind you

and, whomp, you break
the light barrier.

There's always a catch there.

You need
fantastic amounts of energy

in order to do this.
Now, of course, on Star Trek,

we have the dilithium crystals,

so your spaceship may go zapping

through at warp speed.

HENRY: Let's say you're visiting
Earth and you want to leave

the most important piece
of scientific information

for these rudimentary...
humans to discover.

What would you think
that could be?

Well, I think they would
probably leave a piece

of their DNA because
mechanical things can rust,

fall apart,
but DNA self-replicates.

It constantly mutates
to survive and the one thing

that will survive
over millions of years

after the aliens have left,
for example,

would be DNA

because it's self-replicating,
mutating, adaptive,

while steel will rust,
computers fall apart

and machines break down, but DNA

simply keeps on going forever.

HENRY:
And they could conceivably also

program that DNA
or implant scientific knowledge

into it that could be rolled
out over a millennia, perhaps.

In fact, yeah, in fact,
scientists have actually

looked for messages in the DNA.

And so far, they find none.

But it's conceivable
that one day if we do find

a message in DNA,

that'll be an existential shock.

An existential shock,

realizing that somebody
is communicating

with us after millions of years.

Long since machines have
turned to dust

that these self-replicating
molecules are mutating

and surviving
and are leaving a message.

We haven't found it yet,
but we cannot rule it out.

SHATNER:
Thank you so much

for that beautiful way
of expressing your thoughts.

It was a delight to have
talked to you, a pleasure.

And I hope we do it again soon.

My pleasure. And a great honor
to be with you.

Thank you. Take care.

Well, what a gift.

TSOUKALOS:
But with his last answer,

the circle has closed
because he mentioned DNA.

What Dr. Michio Kaku said
was so important,

because almost
the single biggest

objection from the skeptics
to the whole--

whether it's the UFO phenomenon,

the ancient astronaut theory--

is you can't get here
from there.

And there was Dr. Michio Kaku
saying, "Oh, yes, you can."

-If you had a certain level
of technology.
-TSOUKALOS: Yes.

-We're unlikely to be first...
-SHATNER: No, of course
we want to be able to--

The salient question,
of course, even that is

our imperative,
is to stay alive.

Have the-- our civilization
stay with us long enough

to be able to invent
that kind of thing.

You wouldn't build big massive
starships to travel around

and populate
the universe at first.

That's, that would take too much
time, energy and resources.

What you would do

is create a teeny,
tiny little probe.

And our DNA replicates itself
over and over and over.

And you can send it
as a particle

across the universe

and when it lands there
a billion years later,

it might stimulate
the growth of life

and DNA propagating
in other species.

HENRY:
That's the term "panspermia."

NARRATOR:
Panspermia is a hypothesis
that suggests alien organisms

have reached our planet
traveling on meteorites.

Some proponents believe
that panspermia was

responsible for seeding
all life on Earth,

while others propose
that it may have introduced

just one highly unique species--

humans.

TSOUKALOS: In the concept
of panspermia, there's

two ways to look at this.
One is...

panspermia that happens
just like that.

And then there's another
version that is called

direct panspermia, and direct
panspermia would suggest

that it was done deliberately by

a faraway extraterrestrial
advanced civilization.

And why wouldn't a-a rock
which has the cells

of life that land on Earth,

why don't we think
of that sending its seed?

Francis Crick himself
said life is a miracle

and the most practical way
to explain

how life arose on Earth is that

some advanced civilization sent
out rockets packed with DNA.

NARRATOR:
Francis Crick was
a British geneticist,

who, in 1953,

along with American biologist
James Watson,

discovered the three-dimensional
double-helix shape of DNA.

This scientific breakthrough
was a giant leap forward

in unraveling the mystery
of humankind's origins.

But Francis Crick found our
genetic code to be so complex

that he proposed
it could not have developed

by mere evolutionary chance,

and most likely did not
originate on Earth.

The information content of life

at the level of DNA
is so incredibly vast,

super astronomical, that one
could entertain a possibility

that there has been
an artificial creation of this.

So what Francis Crick
suggested is that

perhaps there was
a super intelligent life-form

somewhere nearby to the Earth

that essentially designed the
life that exists on the Earth.

The origin of life
is extremely improbable

is something
that I would agree with.

I'm skeptical on that.

I sit at this table, obviously,

as-as somebody who investigated
UFOs for the British government.

I bow to the greater expertise
of my colleagues

on the ancient astronaut
theory, of course.

That's not my specialist area.

But I am a little skeptical
of some of this,

"Well, aliens tinkered with us."

I think that normal random
mutations and natural selection

-could explain this.
-Fred Hoyle, Fred Hoyle
commenting...

-TAYLOR: But actually, it can't.
-Fred Hoyle, commenting on...

Statistically,
mathematically, it can't.

-Fred Hoyle, yes.
-Fred Hoyle, astronomer,
scientist,

commenting
on this genetic alteration

of chromosome 2 said, "The odds

"of this happening are
like a tornado sweeping

"through a junkyard
of 747 parts and manifesting

-a fully functional 747."
-TAYLOR: Yes.

TSOUKALOS:
A lot of stuff happens
by coincidence.

But there are certain things
where you have to say,

"Coincidence
doesn't quite apply."

So, some people say,
"Oh, well, that was God,"

and some people say, "Well, no,

maybe it wasn't God,
but it was an extraterrestrial."

-(overlapping chatter)
-Or it happened so many times,

-it was bound
to happen in that way.
-TAYLOR: You have to think,

"Well, could this have been
a random cosmic ray

"bounced and caused this thing?
What are the odds

of that actually happening,
and could it...?"

Now, that did happen in probably
billions of instances.

But certain things, like lining
up the human chromosome chain

and getting that right
and causing that to happen is

beyond statistical probability
within the life of the universe.

-I high-- You don't know that.
-Yes, you do! Yes, you do.

-You can mathematically...
-No, you don't, because, I can

tell you why you don't know it.

Because the numbers
involved in the universe,

the numbers of what
could happen, you-you...

Our mind can't encompass it.

Well, but in order for
the human genome to be created,

this thing has to happen,
and then this thing,

and then this thing, and then
this thing, and then this thing.

It's not these things
in parallel, and so,

the probabilities multiply
times each other, and in...

And when you get to the point
where all of these things had

to happen in sequence
to get to the end point,

you can actually do
the statistical math

for this and show that you could
not create that randomly

within the age of the universe.

POPE:
Well, look, I was the one
who disagreed on the point

-about tinkering with evolution.
-Please, Nick.

I want you to hold forth, Nick.

Yeah, I think
that it can all be explained

with random mutation
and natural selection, so...

But the point is,

we don't necessarily agree
all around this table.

You've got a diverse group here.

I think it would be
very unproductive

if we all just
nodded along and agreed.

We have different backgrounds,

-different areas of specialism.
-SHATNER: Yes. Yes.

-But that's where we get
to the good stuff.
-Yes.

-Where we do disagree
and debate.
-I absolutely agree,

and-and I want you to disagree.

And I can't tell you
how I love this.

We've covered ancient aliens,

but what about today?
Does anybody know

anything about them today?

I'd love to hear
from you guys about, uh,

about UFOs and Roswell.

You keep hearing it was
a weather balloon, it wasn't.

TSOUKALOS:
Before Ancient Aliens,

I never paid any attention,
really,

to the modern-day
UFO phenomenon.

But over the past few years,
because of Ancient Aliens

and some of the people
sitting at this table,

I've gotten very much interested

in the modern-day
UFO phenomenon.

And one person
from whom I've learned a lot

is Linda Moulton Howe,
who is one of the experts

-in modern-day UFO...
-SHATNER: She's the journalist?

The award-winning
journalist filmmaker?

NARRATOR:
Investigative journalist
Linda Moulton Howe

has been documenting
strange phenomena,

UFO sightings
and alien encounters

for more than four decades.

She has received numerous awards

for her journalistic excellence

in a wide range of fields

and today is reporter and editor

of the website Earthfiles.com,

which contains an archive

of nearly 3,000
in-depth UFO reports.

We've got her ready on a call.

-HENRY: Hey, Linda.
-TAYLOR: Hi, Linda.
-Hi, everyone.

Hi, Linda. I-I'm
William Shatner, Bill Shatner.

-It's a pleasure to-to meet you.
-HOWE: Yeah.

I've heard so much about you.

-Well...
-Everybody around here
has come up

to tell me
how wonderful you are.

-(chuckles)
-It's true. And...

Well, I-I feel like I know you
as a longtime Star Trek fan.

-Oh, I appreciate that.
-Wonderful

-to be here with you.
-SHATNER: Well, thank you.

And I'm consumed
by the subject matter,

and we've arrived at, uh,

spaceships and-and-and...

and ancient aliens.
Where are they now?

I think a lot of them are hiding
right here on this planet

and have been here
for millions of years.

I think this is
a revolutionary time.

No matter whatever else happens,

we have to learn
we're not alone in the universe.

Are we seeing
space vehicles, then?

Was Roswell an example of that?

I'll tell you
from firsthand knowledge

that there was
the retrieval of a craft

in July of 1947

when that big headline,

a real, honest headline came out

that the Roswell Army Airfield

was reporting the downing
of a flying disk.

NARRATOR:
The Roswell incident has become

the most famous UFO event
on record,

the crash landing
of an unidentified object

in the New Mexico desert
in July 1947.

And it was
the United States Army

that reported the craft
as a flying disk.

On July 8th of that year,
the Roswell Daily Record

had an incredible headline,

which was
that the United States Army

had captured
one of these flying disks

that everyone
had been talking about.

It was absolutely a big,
big news story at the time.

NARRATOR:
Within days, the military
walked back its story,

suddenly claiming
that the crashed object

was nothing more
than a weather balloon.

But curiously, they said
that the balloon was taken

to Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base

in Ohio.

DOLAN:
When you really think
about this,

why on earth would anyone send
any kind of weather balloon

or the alleged Mogul balloon

that the Air Force came up with
many years later?

And you're gonna send this off
to Wright Field

for technical analysis?

None of it
makes any sense whatsoever.

Unless that material
was much more exotic

and much more
scientifically interesting

than just a mere balloon.

NARRATOR:
In April 2011,

the FBI released

thousands of files
as part of its online FBI Vault,

and one of those files
included a 1950 briefing

to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

regarding informant information
about three flying saucers

that were recovered
in New Mexico.

Many researchers believe
this corroborates

long-standing rumors that
the Roswell incident involved

not one but three crashed UFOs.

SHATNER:
Have there been more things

that are noted in the news?

Sightings, uh,
saucers and things?

The one that most people
are not aware of today,

the date was February 25, 1942,

and it's called
the Battle of Los Angeles.

It made the L.A. Times
and a big front-page story.

NARRATOR: Five years before
the now famous Roswell incident,

an extraordinary UFO event
was witnessed in the sky

over Los Angeles.

(air-raid siren wailing)

What's called the Battle of L.A.
is actually

one of the earliest
unexplained UFO mysteries

in our modern era.

It took place on the early
morning of February 25, 1942.

1,430 artillery shells
were fired

at several unknown objects.

Many eyewitnesses
on the ground saw this.

So, the question is
what were these things?

Uh, in terms of covering it up,

uh, the military
consistently downplayed this.

The secretary of the Navy,

uh, said to the public
it was just war nerves.

There was nothing out there
whatsoever.

In the 1970s,

an FOI request
obtained a memorandum

by Army Chief of Staff
General George Marshall

in which he wrote a memo
about this incident

to President Franklin Roosevelt.

So, it's clear that the military
was interested in it.

NARRATOR:
The secret memo
that General Marshall

sent to President Roosevelt

directly contradicted
the Navy's public statement

that there was nothing
in the sky

over Los Angeles that night,

claiming instead that as many
as 15 unidentified airplanes

may have been involved.

We've had a policy of denial
since World War II,

thinking that humans
could not handle

whatever it is that is
the perceived bottom-line truth.

SHATNER:
But assuming all that is true,

does American technology

have those super ships?

Do we know anything more?

Uh, did anything result

as a result
of that advanced technology?

(chuckles):
Well, I think

that there is a huge, um,

if you want
to call it underground

or a black world

of all kinds of back engineering

and laboratory
and all things related to,

uh, whether they were
crashed disks

or technology deliberately
placed in our hands.

Given the way
the government, uh,

sends out whistleblowers,
all kinds of,

uh, hidden information
we're getting all the time,

this mind-blowing idea
that you've just espoused,

it seems
it would be impossible to hide

for any length of time.

We honestly do not
fully understand agendas,

and the biggest problem we have

is how do we trust?

It's our own governments
and power brokers

that keep the human family
in the dark.

SHATNER:
Fascinating.

Linda, thank you so much
for that, uh,

interesting information.

We'll have an occasion
to discuss it here.

Uh, and it was very informative,

and I thank you so much
for spending your time

-with us.
-TSOUKALOS: Thank you, Linda.

Oh, thank you.

-TAYLOR: Bye, Linda.
-Bye, Linda.

Take care.

When you get into
the UFO phenomenon,

it-it doesn't take long
as you scratch the surface

that a conspiracy is there

because there's,
at-at the very least,

if there are UFOs,
there is a conspiracy

-to cover it up.
-But it's not a conspiracy.
-Why?

-Why?
-CHILDRESS: Well...

POPE:
This is where I part company

from some of the-the people

more deeply into
the conspiracy theories,

because my view--
and I've-I've actually done this

for the British government--
my view is that government

doesn't necessarily have
all the answers to this.

TAYLOR: That's exactly right.
I agree with that 100%.

And Nick and I have talked
about this. This is what

your conspiracy is.
Your conspiracy is time.

If something happened
in 1947 in Roswell,

three or four guys,

because that's all
there was budget for

to go investigate whatever
this was, went out there.

They took stuff,
packed it up in carts,

and they may have taken it
and had

some scientists look at it.
They may not.

They may not have had budget to
hire a scientist to look at it.

Scientists are expensive.

Then,
when they were done with it,

they shoved it in a safe

or a drawer
or a vault somewhere,

and they retired.

And when they retired,

so, the next guy
comes into the building,

and he says, "Hey,
I need room in the vault.

What's this stuff over here?"

And nobody owned up
to whose it...

This is...
This is 100% it happened,

'cause it happened
to the Saturn V blueprints.

Yeah, yeah, you can imagine.

We find
the Saturn V blueprints in barns

-in North Alabama all the time.
-SHATNER: So, what you ascribe

as a... as a plot is stupidity
and ignorance and-and...

-and lethargy.
-No, it's a lack of...
lack of resources and time.

POPE:
It's also... it's also
the inherently secretive nature

of the organizations that tend
to be running these programs.

Well, I will... I'll go
with that. I mean, look, the...

NASA supposedly erased
all the master tapes

of the Apollo 11 program.

-I mean, supposedly.
-Why?

-And they said, oh-- Yeah, why?
-TAYLOR: They needed them.

-They didn't need them.
-TAYLOR: No,

-they needed them.
-CHILDRESS: Yeah, they...

The tapes were still intact.

They needed to reuse them,

-so they rerecorded over them.
-TAYLOR: You guys...

-Be careful.
-Did they erase the tapes?

They erased the tapes
because they needed them

on another mission,
and these tapes didn't exist

in-in multitudes at the time.

-It's just like
the whole fallacy...
-SHATNER: So, what...

How... What's the loss in, uh,

-erasing the tapes?
-All the original footage

of going to the Moon
has been lost.

TZADOK: Do not ever
underestimate the power

and abilities of our governments
to keep secrets.

POPE:
I would certainly agree
with that.

There's something
in our airspace.

There are factions
within government

that probably think it's Russia

or it's China
or it's our own tech,

and then there's a faction
that probably thinks, "What if

this is extraterrestrial?"

CARTER:
Is it possible

that the reason that now
we're hearing all this stuff

from the government,

because, you know,
we got our cell phones,

I mean, everybody's under
surveillance one way or another,

is it possible that one day
there's gonna be a sighting

that cannot be explained away?

TSOUKALOS: What's interesting
is that since UFO groups

have come into existence
in the 1970s, 1980s,

they've always been laughed at,
belittled,

and the U.S. government
for decades has denied

that they're investigating UFOs.

But in December 2017,

there was a New York Times
headline story,

front page, that said:

yes, the U.S. government
had been investigating UFOs,

and there was
a special program for it,

and this was not the first time
nor is it the last time.

NARRATOR:
On December 16, 2017,

The New York Times ran
a front-page story entitled:

"Glowing Auras and Black Money:

The Pentagon's Mysterious
UFO Program."

It brought to light a top secret
U.S. government project,

the Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program,

otherwise known as AATIP.

This took the subject of UFOs
out of the fringe

and into the mainstream.

For the first time, these
top-level political outlets

were talking about this
in a serious,

investigative journalist mode,
not as a joke.

So that was really what opened
the floodgates,

and revelation followed
revelation.

This is a completely new
ball game here.

We are in new
and uncharted territory.

NARRATOR:
The article reported
that in 2007,

without any public debate,

$22 million was allocated

from a "black money" budget
to investigate UFOs.

But wait a minute,
wait a minute.

They've been investigating.

-Yes.
-They didn't say, "We now,

"as a result
of our investigation,

we definitively say
there are..."

Well, that was...
that was December 2017.

On April 27, 2020,

the U.S. government itself
admitted that, "Yes,

"we are investigating craft,
and we do not know

where they are from."

They did not say
it is extraterrestrial,

-Right.
-but, you know,
in a press release,

you have to read
between the lines.

I would be careful about reading
between those lines.

May I please finish?

-Oh, I love that. Argue.
-So, in order...

Either the U.S. government
just admitted

that somebody else
on this planet

has better technology
than the U.S. Air Force,

which I doubt that
they would admit this,

or they're pointing
to the direction

of a non-earthly source.

NARRATOR:
Within months of
the New York Times headline,

extraordinary videos
associated with AATIP

featuring
three separate UFO encounters

captured by infrared cameras
mounted on Navy jets

were leaked to the public.

(laughs)

NARRATOR:
While skeptics
initially suggested

the footage was not genuine,

in 2020, the Navy officially
released the same videos,

confirming not only
that the footage is real

but also that the objects
recorded were, in fact,

unidentified craft.

I've analyzed those videos,
uh, in detail,

and I-I will tell you that there
is no evidence in them

that says that it's not
our near peer adversaries,

like Russia or China.

However, if Russia or China
invented these devices,

whatever they are
in these videos,

then they are way ahead of us
in physics and engineering.

And that's something
that's-- doesn't add up,

because you don't see the large
multibillion-dollar efforts

to put all of the right brains
in one location.

-There isn't the industry
going on there...
-Yeah.

-...that would make them
that superior.
-So-so that raises your eyebrow.

Whatever the craft is itself
is extremely cold,

and it looks like there's
a vacuum around this vehicle.

And then the vehicle makes
maneuvers that are so rapid,

-you would pull so many g-forces
-Yeah.

-that it would kill any
occupants almost instantly.
-Yeah.

I wouldn't call that
a smoking gun, but I would say

that the technology
is so far advanced

in these videos

that we can't explain
how it's doing what it's doing.

*

SHATNER:
This is now--

This is the meat.
This is the-- this is the...

The nut has opened up
and the kernel is here.

And I'm the captain.

-(chuckling)
-The, uh...

That information

is like...

opening the can up.

(overlapping chatter)

POPE:
The U.S. Navy videos,

-the Senate
Intelligence Committee,
-Right.

that's tangible.

Three or four things else
have happened

which are worthy of note here.

Firstly, the U.S. Navy
issued instructions

to its own pilots
telling them what to do

-if they encounter these things.
-Which are what?

-That-- Uh,
that-that's classified.
-Right.

-They confirmed that
they've issued the... Sure.
-Well, it's either run

-or fight, right?
-(overlapping chatter)
-Well, no. H-Hold on.

Let me-- let me finish.
This is important.

So, they've confirmed that those
instructions have been issued,

but they have not confirmed
what they will say.

In parallel with that,

the Senate
Intelligence Committee

just put into the Intelligence
Appropriation Act

for Fiscal Year 2021

this demand for a report

from Director
of National Intelligence.

And in response to that,

a body called
the UAP Task Force,

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

And they released a list of 38
technical studies that they did

as part of this program:

antigravity, wormholes,

warp drive.

But here's the smoking gun.

There was a paper
on the Drake equation.

Now, the only purpose
of the Drake equation

is to estimate the number
of communicable civilizations

in our galaxy.

NARRATOR:
In 1961,

radio astronomer Frank Drake
proposed a mathematical argument

for the likelihood
of the existence

of intelligent extraterrestrial
life in the galaxy.

DENNIN: Frank Drake
developed an equation

that took the probability
of different things happening--

having the right type of sun,

having the right type of planet,

how many planets and stars
there were--

and made an estimate
of how likely life would be.

JOHN BRANDENBURG:
The Drake equation would seem

to logically predict

tens of thousands
of civilizations out there

that we ought to be able
to hear on radio traffic.

The thing with the videos--

there are factions

that probably think
it's Russia or it's China

or it's our own tech.

And so it's not Russia
and China.

Otherwise, the Drake equation
wouldn't be part of that.

I don't know whether I've heaved
a sigh of relief or, uh,

-or-or holding my breath in...
-So, let-let-let...
-But it's all...

-None of this is disputed.
-TAYLOR: Let me add to this.

Up until recently, if a pilot

saw and reported a UFO,
it was the end of his career.

-Right.
-They decided he was nuts or
whatever and wasn't trustworthy

-or it was something
you didn't talk about.
-Mm.

The new protocols are,

while there may be pieces
that are classified to it,

the deal is
if you see something,

you have to say something to us.

Because if these things are
flying around in our airspace,

-we need to know about it.
-They destigmatized it.

-Yeah. That-that was the point.
-But it's okay for the pilots
to talk about.

I think that Ancient Aliens
has enabled the world

to talk about these topics
in a more open fashion.

I think that a discussion of
the extraterrestrial question,

the way it is conducted today,

-was not possible 15 years ago.
-Mm.

I mean, there are some on--
at-at this table

who have been following this,

including myself,
for 25-plus years.

-SHATNER: Wow.
-And I think that Ancient Aliens

was the reason
for this paradigm shift,

that we blazed the trail

for these discussions
to go on right now

and for more people to come
on board with these ideas.

So I think that Ancient Aliens
has been part of disclosure.

SHATNER:
I think it's utterly,

utterly fascinating.

And, you know,
we've been at this, uh,

discussion... so beautifully

and so connectively,

I feel like I-I've known you
all my life.

So, the through line
that I started

our discussion was
"convince me."

What I'd like to tell you is--

and I got a chill
just thinking about it--

is that I feel...
(stammers)

I-I believe much more now

about what you purportedly
think of as ancient aliens.

I'm beginning to understand more

why people of your intelligence
and education

believe this-this-this
to be true.

I understand that
more completely now.

I am so grateful
that you imparted to me

and hopefully to the audience
watching the show

this passionate information,

in all its various forms that
you all individually believe.

It smacks of passion.
It smacks of truth.

It smacks of intrigue.

It smacks of complexity

and a mystery that is,
uh, unexplained.

Thank you.

-Thank you.
-Thank you, Bill.
-Yeah.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY
A+E NETWORKS