Original subtitles

For more than 3,000 years

Ireland has maintained

a connection to ancient magic

and a mystical realm.

DIARMUID JOHNSON: We have two parallel worlds,

the human world and the otherworld.

NARRATOR: The rolling landscape

is believed to possess hidden power.

ANDREW COLLINS: It is said that

the mounds acted as these

doorways into other realities.

NARRATOR: And within these earthen mounds

are said to be powerful beings

known as the Shining Ones.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: They are somehow able

to manipulate their surroundings,

and have the knowledge of the universe.

NARRATOR: Are these Irish legends more than fanciful mythology?

And if so, could there be

an extraterrestrial connection?

WILLIAM HENRY: The ancient Irish were saying that these beings

came from the sky.

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: Ireland.

This lush, green island in the North Atlantic

has a history of human activity dating back

more than 33,000 years.

Numerous cultures have called Ireland home,

from the early Beaker people

to the Celts and the Gaels,

and the island has a rich tradition

of folklore that has spread throughout the world.

But perhaps most notable is that Ireland boasts

some of the oldest structures on the planet.

Massive earthen mounds,

many of which date back

more than 5,000 years.

TOK THOMPSON: These mounds are constructed. They're not natural hills.

These are megalithic constructions,

um, involving, in the larger sites, an enormous

amount of man hours and labor.

These would've been, when they were made, just very,

very impressive sites.

DAVID CHILDRESS: These mounds were an ancient earthwork

that had a tunnel going through it

with stones on either side and stones on top

and then covered with earth.

THOMPSON: Ireland has a tremendous amount of these mounds,

and these are some of mankind's oldest

large structures in the world.

And they anchor all of the land together.

Usually, if you visit one on top

of a hill, you go up, you find one,

and you can do a line of sight to the next one.

There was almost a network, almost across

the entire island of these sites.

NARRATOR: The oldest known writing in Ireland

dates to the 6th century A.D.,

more than 3,000 years after the ancient mounds

are believed to have been built.

With no written record about the mounds' construction,

archaeologists and historians can only speculate

as to who made them and for what purpose.

THOMPSON: These things were built to go inside, where, presumably,

very, very important rituals took place.

We don't know, but much later on,

these sites would've been used for gatherings,

for rituals, and sort of keeping the society together.

These were enormously long-lived sites

of cultural importance.

It was enormously long-lived societies

that used these as focal points.

NARRATOR: 30 miles north of Dublin

in County Meath is Ireland's

largest and oldest mound, called Newgrange.

The ancient structure

consists of over 200,000 tons of stone

and has a passageway leading to a central chamber

in which human bone fragments have been found.

But archaeologists say Newgrange also has

an undeniable connection to the cosmos.

Spiral petroglyphs, thought to symbolize the universe,

are found all around it,

and the passageway and chamber

form a cruciform shape that researchers believe

is based on the constellation Cygnus.

THOMPSON: At the time Newgrange was built,

it was presumed to be the largest structure that

mankind had ever built in the world.

Now, one of the most interesting things about Newgrange

is it's a celestial alignment.

This is still very, very popular.

If you go at the winter solstice,

you have the sun dagger that it cuts tremendous distance

all the way in to brighten up the inner chamber.

NARRATOR: Newgrange is unique among Ireland's mounds

in its sophistication, and was clearly designed

for ritualistic activity.

But according to ancient Irish texts,

the mounds serve a more profound and mysterious purpose,

as the dwelling places of otherworldly beings

traditionally called the sidhe.

DR. JENNY BUTLER: The word "sidhe," it can mean "the mounds"

and also

can mean "the otherworld people,

the people of the mounds."

In Irish tradition,

it's bad luck to use the word "sidhe"

to directly refer to these otherworld people.

So, there are many different names.

We have the English word fairy folk, also elves.

NARRATOR: Stories of fairies, elves,

and even leprechauns are rooted

in the ancient folklore of what the Irish called the sidhe.

But for many Irish people,

the sidhe are not merely mythological figures.

MARTY MULLIGAN: Fairies and leprechauns and all that sort of stuff,

like, too many people kind of

laugh and joke about it at times,

but it's knowledge that'd been passed down for

thousands and thousands of years.

JOHNSON: We have the terrestrial world

and the subterrestrial world,

the human world, and the superhuman or otherworld.

These worlds exist in parallel.

Occasionally, however, there is communication

between the two worlds.

NARRATOR: The mounds are often referred to

as "fairy forts,"

as are stone circles and tree clusters

that are considered the property of the sidhe.

This strong cultural belief that these features

are the domain of otherworldly beings

has kept them intact for thousands of years.

And the Irish say that, when they are disturbed,

bad luck always follows.

MULLIGAN: Seán Quinn was the wealthiest man in Ireland.

He lost everything because he moved a fairy fort.

He damaged a fairy fort, and he moved it to another place.

DeLorean car manufacturers, they came to Belfast, and were

making the DeLorean car up in Northern Ireland,

and they built the factory on the site of a fairy fort.

And it all came crashing down,

and the local people would say,

"Well, you know, what do you expect?"

Ask any Irish person, "Would you damage a fairy fort?

What would happen if you damaged a fairy tree?"

If you gave me ten million bucks

and a Cadillac and a helicopter

and a beautiful house on Sunset Boulevard and said

all I had to do was chop down a fairy tree,

I'd be handing that money straight back to you.

I wouldn't do it. No one I know would do it either.

So, do we believe in the fairies in Ireland? We do.

NARRATOR: While modern-day representations of fairies

often depict benevolent, spritely creatures,

traditional Irish notions of fairies are much different.

They are considered powerful

and sometimes dangerous beings.

You don't want to mess with the aos sí.

They're not cute, cuddly little fairies like

we-we typically think of today.

But these are very extraordinarily powerful people.

Wielders of supernatural powers.

NARRATOR: The sidhe, or fairy folk,

are often referred to as the Shining Ones,

but do accounts of their luminous

appearance suggest that they are divine beings?

According to the ancient Irish stories,

while the fairies have supernatural abilities,

they are not immortal gods.

The inhabitant of the sidhe is not necessarily

immortal in the narrative.

Sometimes they're-they're killed or-or meet with death,

but they never grow old.

And so, if they are killed or die,

they do so while young.

They're other, uh, but somewhat humanoid.

Sometimes they're small and green, they abduct people,

they have, uh, either advanced technology or ancient magic.

And in many ways this fairy tradition, uh,

reminds me very much of the UFO tradition

that we have in the United States.

HUGH NEWMAN: When it comes to these dwellings

of the fairy folk, there's lots of talk about

otherworldly beings emerging from the mounds.

And also people getting taken into the mounds

and, like, disappearing.

TSOUKALOS: You hear stories of lights in the sky

or even lights in the forest and the woods that you see.

So, could it be possible

that the fairy folk

is a description of

extraterrestrials back in the day?

There is absolutely an argument

that can make that case.

MULLIGAN: In our stories relating to the sidhe,

the fairies, call them what you will,

all of our stories say that they came from the sky world.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that modern beliefs of fairies

and elves are based on real otherworldly beings

that the Irish people encountered centuries ago

and that may still inhabit the island today?

And if so, why are they thought to

dwell within the ancient mounds?

According to legend, the sidhe did not always

live within the Earth,

and their story begins with a group of shining beings

who arrived in flying craft.

NARRATOR: In Ireland, tales of the sidhe, or fairy folk,

have been passed down orally for more than 3,000 years,

and in the 11th century, many of these stories were

documented in a text called The Book of Invasions.

According to this medieval account of Irish history

and lore, thousands of years ago,

a godlike race of beings called

the Tuatha Dé Danann landed on a mountaintop in Ireland.

Often referred to as the Shining Ones,

they are the ancestors of the sidhe.

MULLIGAN: All of our stories relate back to the Tuatha Dé Danann.

For 3000 years, at least, if not more before that, all of

the stories from mythology are all related to Tuatha Dé Danann.

They were the Shining Ones.

BUTLER: There is a description in the mythological material

in the early Irish literature

of the Tuatha Dé Danann

arriving in, uh, cloud ships,

arriving in dark clouds

and landing on a mountain.

KATHLEEN McGOWAN: There was a long poem about the arrival of

the Tuatha Dé Danann. One of the lines says,

"The truth was not known beneath the sky of stars,

whether they were of heaven or of earth."

JOHNSON: The Tuatha Dé Danann are not human.

They're demigods. And not immortal,

not infallible, um, not like the gods of

monotheistic tradition of any of the Abrahamic religions.

NARRATOR: The Tuatha Dé Danann were said to be luminous

beings of large stature who wielded magical powers.

The Tuatha Dé Danann had an arsenal of very

technological sounding weaponry.

Lugh of the Long Arm, for example, possessed a spear

that, when he threw it, he could give a voice command,

and it would automatically hit whatever target.

Then he'd give another voice command,

and the spear would mysteriously return to him.

We have circles of light that they used to

travel around Ireland upon.

We have another chieftain named Nuada

who lost an arm in a battle against the giants,

and they were able to replace his arm.

CHILDRESS: The Tuatha Dé Danann were said to have

a magical cauldron.

They had a cloak of invisibility.

They had spears

that shot flames out.

TSOUKALOS: The ancient astronaut theory

tries to look at ancient stories

in which magic happens

from a modern perspective and determine

if that so-called magic

really was some type of technology.

Then one has to wonder, where did that technology come from?

Well, uh, there's only one answer to this,

and that is extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists,

another intriguing aspect

of these stories is how similar they are

to accounts of sky gods found in other ancient cultures.

The stories of--

let's call them aliens--

descending from clouds on tops of mountains

are straight across the cultural history of, uh, human beings.

Let's start with one of the earliest ones.

The descent on Mount Hermon

in the Golan Heights.

That's where the Nephilim came down.

Another, in the descent of the Anunnaki,

they came from clouds.

CHILDRESS: We have other stories in Tibet and other places

where these gods are coming down,

and they land on top of a mountain.

The gods of Olympus in Greece is another example.

COLLINS: The stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann

in these whirlwinds or clouds

is something that we find in connection

with deities in other parts of the world.

For instance, across the Middle East,

there is the concept of djinn.

These are supernatural beings,

very often associated with fire and light,

that can appear in whirlwinds

and manifest into physical form.

TSOUKALOS: The fact that we have countless stories

that are not just similar, but identical,

leads me to think that

perhaps all these ancient cultures were visited

by the same extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,

the tradition that is most similar to the Tuatha Dé Danann

is that of the Anunnaki,

the sky gods described by the Sumerians,

humankind's earliest known civilization.

AMIR HUSSAIN: What you've got with the Sumerians is

the beginnings of-of civilization,

people living together, but also the beginnings of writing.

You know, it's some of the earliest written

texts that we have are texts by these people.

JONATHAN YOUNG: These clay tablets are

5,000 years old and more, and they

tell of the arrival of the gods, the Anunnaki,

the pantheon of gods. The chief was Anu.

This is the sky god who came along

and created everything.

TSOUKALOS: The term Anunnaki means

"those who from the heavens came,"

and it refers to beings descending from the sky,

imparting knowledge.

NARRATOR: In the Irish stories,

the Tuatha Dé Danann were also responsible

for imparting knowledge to the ancient people.

MULLIGAN: Tuatha Dé Danann

were the masters of all of the crafts,

masters of all of the arts,

and they introduced the knowledge

in the ways of agriculture.

Tuatha Dé Danann would always interact with the people.

It's the same as the Anunnaki.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

the iconography of the Sumerians and Irish

provides additional evidence

that they encountered the same otherworldly beings.

Both depicted the gods as being of giant stature

compared to humans,

both portrayed them in scenes with hybrid or flying animals,

and both have images of the gods

with horns or antlers emerging from their heads.

But perhaps most intriguing of all

is that there appears to be a linguistic connection

between the Anunnaki and the Tuatha Dé Danann.

According to some accounts,

the Tuatha Dé Danann's original name

was the Tuatha Danu.

"The Tribe of Anu," or Danu.

Linguists are very intrigued by this

because this encodes the name of Anu,

the high god of the Anunnaki, for whom they are formed,

and it suggests that perhaps the Tuatha Dé Danann

are the descendants of the Anunnaki.

NARRATOR: Could the striking similarities that exist between the stories

of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Anunnaki

reveal that Ireland was visited by the same otherworldly beings

that are described by humanity's first known civilization

roughly 3,000 miles away?

But if so,

how are they connected to Ireland's mound dwellers,

known as the sidhe, or fairy folk?

Perhaps further clues can be found by examining

mysterious ancient priests called the druids.

NARRATOR: Kent, England

1988.

During an excavation of an Iron Age burial site,

archaeologists uncover the skeleton of a man

who lived around the third century BC

and who was wearing a unique headdress.

Based on the design of this bronze crown,

many researchers believe these are the first remains

ever discovered of a druid.

According to Irish legend,

the druids were a class of ancient Celtic priests

who were in close contact with the Shining Ones,

the Tuatha Dé Danann.

BUTLER: The word for "druid" in Irish

is draíocht, which literally means "magic."

So there is, uh, an interconnection

between the Tuatha Dé Danann and their magic

and the practice of druidry.

CHILDRESS: The Tuatha Dé Danann

were said to have been the founders of druidism.

And the druids were said to have all kinds

of special powers themselves.

And so, it would seem that the Tuatha Dé Danann

had shown some of their extraterrestrial technology

to the druids who then were able to use it themselves.

TSOUKALOS: The druidic religion originated

with the Tuatha Dé Danann, but they were never allowed

to write down any of the druidic knowledge.

It was taboo,

because it was so-called sacred knowledge.

HENRY: The druids spent decades in training

to perform their priestly functions.

These are members

of the inner circle, as we're told.

The inner circle refers, ultimately,

to the innermost knowledge of the Tuatha Dé Danann,

the Shining Ones.

They know their secrets and they can wield their technology.

NARRATOR: Portrayals of druids as mysterious,

shaman-like figures with mystical powers

has led some scholars to question

if they truly existed or were purely mythological figures.

But according to the earliest accounts of them,

the druids were an integral part of Celtic society

throughout the British Isles.

JOHNSON: There are certain things we know about the druids,

but of course there's a lot we don't know,

and this vacuum incited

a lot of romantic speculation in the 19th century.

And so, we're still carrying that baggage a little bit.

The swirling robes and so on.

But in Celtic society, in Gaelic society,

the druids exercised authority and played

an important role, uh,

in the life of the tribe and the society.

The druids were the holders of knowledge.

They held and perpetuated the knowledge

which was important to the survival of the tribe.

They held and perpetuated judiciary knowledge

and things sacred and spiritual.

THOMPSON: The druid was a very special figure,

a priest, perhaps, a historian, perhaps,

uh, a magician, uh, perhaps,

uh, and many, many things.

These were the learned people of Celtic society.

They-they formed a special class.

According to Caesar, the druids in Gall

had to study 20 years to become a druid.

And they had many, many roles to play,

including acting as, uh, jurist and judges, advisers to kings.

And so, druidism, and the magic that they were able to employ,

um, is really a-a foundational part of early Celtic society.

And druids are not necessarily men.

Uh, we also have a lot of accounts of female druidry.

And it does seem to be associated heavily

with the Tuatha Dé Danann.

NEWMAN: They didn't just teach things like astronomy

and, you know, harmony in nature,

they were working with geomancy,

the placement of ancient sites across the landscape

called geodesy.

And also working with Earth energies

and even plant medicines.

So they had a high understanding

of these different arts and sciences.

NARRATOR: The druids were known to travel far and wide,

seeking out the knowledge of other cultures.

But they were also said to interact directly

with the Tuatha Dé Danann,

who shared the secrets of their so-called magical abilities.

Pliny the Elder, who was one of the most famous

of the Roman writers and historians,

he claimed that at a full moon,

druids would meet at a mound,

and they would trace a design

that looked something like a dragon

on top of the mound,

and this would summon some sort of lightning

or some phenomenon that happened in the sky.

I don't think he saw it himself.

He was taking what he knew

from Roman soldiers that witnessed it.

But apparently, it frightened a lot of them.

They saw lights in the sky once the druids

did this dragon ritual, as it became known.

CHILDRESS: So it would seem that the druids knew

of the power of certain special places.

And perhaps, this is something

that would summon the Tuatha Dé Danann.

These shining people who came from the sky.

NARRATOR: One of the many magical powers

the druids were said to possess was the ability

to levitate massive stones, which they used

to construct some of the megalithic structures

found throughout the British Isles.

COLLINS: The most famous of the druids,

of course, was Merlin.

Merlin was said to have...

...created Stonehenge by taking

an existing stone circle from Ireland

and bringing it to Salisbury Plain in Southern England.

And there, using magic powers,

he was able to raise the stones into position

in the manner that we see them today.

What is interesting is that the stones

that built Stonehenge did come from a long way away.

About 135 miles away in South Wales.

Somehow, they were moved to central England,

and the ancients believed it was Merlin

who was responsible for that.

TSOUKALOS: There are stories that say

that some of those big, gigantic blocks at Stonehenge

were levitated into place

through magical incantations.

Well, what magical incantations?

Because I don't think that levitation

can happen just by words.

There has to be some type of technology behind it.

The idea is that, basically,

this was extraterrestrial knowledge imparted

by the Tuatha Dé Danann.

PHILLIPS: When the Romans were here, they say that the druids

had this power to build stone circles

of which there were thousands throughout the British Isles.

HENRY: Stonehenge, Avebury, Newgrange.

These places, we find legends attached to the druids

that they were able to float the stones through the air.

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that a secret society of Celtic priests

who lived more than 2,000 years ago

had access to otherworldly technology?

According to the ancient accounts,

while the druids were the disciples

of the Tuatha Dé Danann,

it would ultimately be a druid

who brought their reign in Ireland to an end

and drove them underground.

NARRATOR: County Kerry, 1700 B.C.

A fleet of ships arrives on the southern shores of Ireland,

carrying invaders from the south.

According to early Irish accounts,

they are aided by a druid named Amergin

in their conquest of Ireland.

Amergin was seeking revenge for his great uncle,

who had been killed by the three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

COLLINS: These were the sons of Míl,

better known as the Milesians.

The Milesians came out of the Mediterranean,

probably from Greece or Crete

or Anatolia, modern day Turkey.

And they arrived in Ireland,

and huge battles took place

between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians.

NARRATOR: Many stories have been written about these battles,

but according to the most trusted sources,

the Tuatha Dé Danann agreed to a truce

to save their beloved Ireland.

MULLIGAN: They did not come to the Earth to do warfare.

They came to heal the Earth and to work with the Earth

and work with Mother Earth and all of the good energies.

What was agreed upon that, um, this country will be shared,

there was room enough for everyone in this country.

COLLINS: And it was agreed that the Milesians

would live on the ground, on the earth itself,

but that the Tuatha Dé Danann would go beneath the earth,

inside mounds of earth that were known as sidhe.

These acted as these doorways

into a realm where, forever after,

the Tuatha Dé Danann would live.

MULLIGAN: It's said that they all turned sideways into the light

and just disappeared underground.

HENRY: The Milesians then took control

of the surface of Ireland.

Modern-day Irish people are thought to be descendants

of the Milesians.

NARRATOR: Legend states that after

the Tuatha Dé Danann descended below ground,

a mysterious evolution took place.

Once the Tuatha went underground,

they evolved over many years

into something known as the aos sí.

That's better known in later mythology as the elfen folk.

Elves.

COLLINS: After the Tuatha Dé Danann

entered into the earthen mounds, or sidhe,

they became beings

that could appear in physical form

but could equally vanish.

Humans were able to interact with them,

often when they would see some kind of light

that would be emanating from these earthen mounds.

They would go towards them.

And when they were able to look into these lights,

they could see the Tuatha Dé Danann, the sidhe, the fairies.

People would be able to join them in this realm.

MARTIN ETTINGTON: Reports of elves and fairies

and little people have been around in Ireland

as long as people have lived there.

People saw something. They saw some types of beings.

People still see these beings even today.

NARRATOR: One location in Ireland

where sightings of fairies are often reported

is at the Hill of Tara,

which is home to numerous ancient mounds

as well as a monolith called Lia Fáil.

Legend states that this monolith

was a gift from the Shining Ones.

COLLINS: The Lia Fáil

means the "Stone of Destiny,"

and it refers to a standing stone,

about five feet tall in County Meath, Ireland.

McGOWAN: In the legends of Lia Fáil,

we have the Tuatha Dé Danann

bringing the energy of this stone

down with them to this powerful place.

This place of extraordinary energy and current

because it can interact with the energy in the land.

The power of the land itself is the reason

that the Danann come to this location, the Hill of Tara.

It was said that when the rightful king of Ireland

came in contact with Lia Fáil,

it would scream out to announce

that this was the rightful king of all Ireland.

It would then imbue the king

with qualities of strength and longevity and health,

in order that he might reign over Ireland

for a very long time.

To this day, ceremonies take place on the Hill of Tara.

CHILDRESS: The ancient Irish associated this stone

with the elven folk and the fairies,

and people continue to see them today,

and probably, we will continue to see them

in the future as well.

NARRATOR: If otherworldly beings called the Tuatha Dé Danann

truly existed in ancient Ireland,

is it possible that they are still present today,

now known as the sidhe, or fairy folk,

who inhabit the thousands of earthen mounds

found throughout the country?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest that they may occupy

a parallel dimension.

NARRATOR: Today, organizations exist

throughout the world

that investigate potential encounters

with extraterrestrials visiting Earth.

But long before these groups existed,

the people of the British Isles

were examining another type of otherworldly phenomenon.

In the 1920s, something very strange happened in Ireland.

There were suddenly mass sightings of fairies.

So much so that a captain, Quintin Craufurd,

formed what he called

the Society for the Investigation of Fairies,

which was a very scientific and serious approach

at collecting data about these fairy sightings.

CHILDRESS: Like a modern UFO group today,

their mission was

to study elves, figure elves out,

what they were doing there, try to communicate with elves.

And they absolutely believed that fairies and elves

were real and existed throughout the British Isles.

NARRATOR: People from all walks of life contacted the organization

reporting encounters with beings they believed were fairies.

Witnesses described fairies leading them to buried relics,

walking through solid walls,

and even transforming into orbs of light.

HENRY: This society did important research

up until World War II, when their records were destroyed.

And then in 1949, they began doing research again.

Hundreds of members joined the society in the 1950s,

including Walt Disney.

Now, what's amazing about this is that in order to become

a member of the society, you had to declare

an absolute belief in the existence of fairies.

And who other than Walt Disney in the modern world

is more closely connected to fairies?

CHILDRESS: The idea that you would actually have

a very serious society that was looking into fairies,

shows that in the British Isles and in Ireland,

the whole concept of elven folk

and fairies and leprechauns

is very real and continues to this day.

NARRATOR: In 1969,

French astronomer Jacques Vallée

published a groundbreaking book on unexplained phenomena

called Passport to Magonia:

From Folklore to Flying Saucers.

In it, he proposed that historical accounts of fairies

and other strange beings could be the same phenomenon

that today is interpreted as extraterrestrial.

Jacques did what I think is one of the most important books

about the UFO phenomena, trying to understand,

of all the things in the sky and on the ground

through history that have either been painted, photographed,

caught on radar, what are they and why are they?

TZADOK: Every culture speaks of the "others,"

whether it be the wee people, the leprechauns,

or the fairies or the angels or the demons.

Our brothers in Islam know them very well,

and they're called the djinn.

And the one thing that is taught about the djinn

is essentially, they are energetic beings,

and their place of residence is in the domains of inner earth.

And this leads us to ask the question,

if the domains of inner earth

are actually physical within this dimension

or possibly in a parallel dimension.

NARRATOR: According to Vallée,

the strange beings that humans have reported encountering

for thousands of years may, in fact, be interdimensional.

BIRNES: Vallée believes that

from the time of the Big Bang,

if it created one universe,

why couldn't it create a multitude of universes?

Might there be connections

between the different universes where elements

from the other universe cross into our universe,

and where elements of our universe cross into theirs?

That would explain how people coming upon the sidhe

might not just see an underground civilization,

but they might see an interdimensional civilization.

NARRATOR: Could it be that sightings of fairies

and similar figures described in other ancient traditions

are encounters with beings that occupy parallel dimensions?

And if so, are these the same beings

described today as extraterrestrials?

BUTLER: There are possible parallels

between the sidhe or fairies that seem

to be similar to UFO, uh, accounts.

For example, seeing strange lights.

Like what's known as, in Irish and British tradition,

the will-o'-the-wisp.

Um, these fairy lights that move,

uh, and lead people astray.

HOWE: When you get to the 20th century,

and where people were trying to figure out human abductions,

you start hearing from people saying,

"Well, they shape-shifted in front of me.

"There were beams of light that took us up and down.

"They can disappear, they can go through windows, walls."

And those are the same verbs and nouns that were being used

in the centuries before in Ireland and other places

about fairies and so-called pretend creatures.

BUTLER: There are stories and personal experiences

similar to UFO accounts that have been recorded,

of missing time where somebody i-is taken

into the otherworld by the fairies,

and, uh, thinks they've been there for a few hours,

but it's been a few days when they return.

TSOUKALOS: Oftentimes, you hear stories

of missing time, of people disappearing for weeks,

or losing their memory

for significant events, and frankly,

that is similar to what you hear

from modern-day UFO abduction stories.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the folklore of cultures all around the globe

is based on an otherworldly presence

that people have been encountering

since humankind's earliest history?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and according to the Irish, at least once a year,

the veil is lifted between our realm and theirs.

NARRATOR: The Hill of Uisneach, Ireland.

Located 60 miles west of Dublin.

This site has been sacred to the Irish for centuries.

Each year in early May,

locals gather at this sacred site

to celebrate the ancient festival of Beltane.

Dating back more than 3,000 years,

Beltane and its famous bonfire

provide a link between modern Christian Ireland

and its pagan Celtic past.

This festival is the traditional start of summer.

The Celtic peoples divided the year

into a dark half and then a bright half,

marked at Beltane.

It was so important that people understood

precise times of year for agricultural reasons.

The people working the fields

didn't have the knowledge of astronomy.

So the fire was a signal, and they saw the fire.

From the highest point on Uisneach,

20 counties are visible.

So once the main fire is lit on Uisneach in a circle,

all of the hills around light their fires,

and then it spreads and spreads throughout the whole country.

And it happens instantly.

The fire is a signal to all of the country

that now is the summertime.

NARRATOR: But Beltane,

which is also celebrated at other ancient sites

throughout Ireland, serves another, more profound purpose.

Many Irish believe that during this festival,

it is possible for humans to peer inside the mounds

into an entirely different reality.

BUTLER: There's a threshold or boundary

between worlds that becomes thin.

And human beings can see into the otherworld

or encounter otherworldly beings, uh, more easily.

Beltane, or May Day,

is associated very strongly with the sidhe,

the fairy people, the Shining Ones.

NARRATOR: Through festivals like Beltane,

the people of Ireland maintain a strong connection

to the traditions of their past,

traditions of shining beings who came down from the sky

and continue to live on within the ancient mounds.

JOHNSON: When I was growing up in Ireland,

people, at least in the, in the rural areas--

and Ireland was very rural at the time--

nobody would admit to not believing in the fairies.

The existence of the fairy folk was not questioned.

TSOUKALOS: This idea that Ireland has had this love affair

with leprechauns and fairy folk,

I would ask the question, "Well,

what is the underlying meaning of this?"

Because stories of fairy folk go back

at least 3,000 years in Ireland.

In the case of the Tuatha Dé Danann,

it's even earlier.

It's possible that what we have here

is one of the earliest examples of ancient astronaut teachers.

MULLIGAN: I've reached a certain age in my life now

that it's not about believing,

it's just that this is the way it is now.

So, do we believe in fairies and leprechauns in Ireland?

Absolutely, 100%.

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that beneath the idyllic rolling countryside of Ireland,

there are entrances to a hidden realm

that has been inhabited by otherworldly beings

for more than 3,000 years?

Could they be the descendants of extraterrestrials

who were responsible for the creation of the human race?

Perhaps the whimsical legends of Ireland

are not so whimsical after all,

but contain profound truths

about an alien presence on Earth

that is still with us today.

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