Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Otherworldly visitors

who imparted knowledge.

AMIR HUSSAIN: In many ancient cultures,

it's the gods who show human beings

how to use technology.

NARRATOR: Teachers who introduced mankind

to Earth-changing innovations.

HUGH NEWMAN: They were master metalworkers

and they were born of the gods.

NARRATOR: And their presence

altered the development of human civilization.

PHILIP IMBROGNO: They were sent here to observe the human race

and guide them when it's needed.

NARRATOR: Could it be that, throughout history,

our planet has been visited by teachers from the stars?

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Ancient cultures were very clear in saying

someone came from the sky and taught them this stuff.

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.

♪ ♪

Athens, Greece.

In the shadow of the Acropolis

lie the ruins of an ancient temple called the Lyceum.

More than 2,000 years ago,

it served as a school of science and philosophy

founded by Aristotle.

Often referred to as the world's first teacher,

Aristotle shared his wisdom

on nearly every aspect of human knowledge,

from biology to ethics

and rhetoric to mathematics.

But according to Aristotle,

much of his knowledge came from an even greater teacher,

one who was known only to him.

There was one idea from Aristotle that was fascinating,

that was new, that was different.

It was the idea of a personal guiding spirit.

He called it the daemonium.

These ideas that would come from unseen sources.

Some later theologies called them guardian angels.

These weren't exactly gods.

They were like personal advisors.

NARRATOR: Across the planet,

ancient people wrote about mysterious entities

or godlike beings who taught them the skills they needed

to establish their civilizations.

Most of us, uh, when we grow up,

have our parents as teachers, our family members as teachers.

We go to school. We have human teachers.

But there's this idea that, in the ancient world,

the ultimate teachers aren't just human beings

but the divine.

Many cultures and civilizations have attribution myths.

How did we get what we have?

Many of them attribute it to gods,

to teacher gods

who come and gift humanity

with the various things that we need

in order to build civilizations.

(fire crackling)

NARRATOR: While the passing down of knowledge

by otherworldly teachers

is often interpreted as merely mythological,

ancient astronaut theorists suggest

the ubiquity of these stories

points to a more profound explanation.

Are all these ancient stories

just a figment of our ancestors' imagination?

Or is there a kernel of truth?

The ancient astronaut theory teaches that, at some point,

our ancestors received knowledge under the instruction

of visiting flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials,

whom our ancestors misinterpreted

as divine spiritual gods.

NARRATOR: Accounts of otherworldly beings teaching humans

date back to the beginning of recorded history,

starting with the world's first civilization,

the Sumerians.

Emerging in Mesopotamia over 6,000 years ago,

the Sumerians were the first people to develop agriculture,

the wheel

and a written language.

And according to their texts,

they attributed all of this knowledge

to divine teachers who came down from the heavens

known as the Anunnaki.

HUSSAIN: In the Sumerian tradition,

Enlil, you know, one of the gods,

teaches human beings about agriculture,

teaches human beings how to plow into the ground

and plant seeds.

It's the gods who show human beings how to use technology,

how to create this technology.

WILLIAM HENRY: The Anunnaki instruct humanity in the various arts and sciences

and rudimentary knowledge about civilization

and how to conduct themselves.

And this is the origin of the Sumerians.

This is where they got their knowledge.

This is why they're the first

with all of their discoveries and inventions.

And it comes from the Anunnaki.

NARRATOR: The Sumerian pantheon of gods

also includes a mysterious figure known as Oannes.

Oannes was the first bringer of knowledge,

especially mathematics.

And what's so interesting about Oannes is that,

during the day, he would be among the people

and teach various disciplines of science.

And then, at night, he would disappear into the water.

Is it possible that our ancestors really were taught

by some sort of an amphibious being

that initially descended from the sky?

NARRATOR: Could it be that the stories of the Anunnaki

are not mythological

but eyewitness accounts of extraterrestrial visitors

who shared their knowledge in the distant past?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining ancient traditions

that have carried through to the present day.

Shaanxi Province, China.

April 5, 2019.

(drumming)

At the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor,

thousands of people gather to watch

a traditional dragon dance.

KATHLEEN McGOWAN: The dragon dance is an ancient ceremony,

which for thousands of years has been a representation

of the dragons coming from the sky and returning to the sky.

NARRATOR: The ceremony in Shaanxi celebrates

the deity considered to be the father of all Chinese people,

the Yellow Emperor,

who lived nearly 5,000 years ago.

The Yellow Emperor is, uh,

one of the earliest, uh,

mythical or semi-mythical rulers of China.

He is held in extremely high regard even today

by the Chinese people.

The Yellow Emperor gave his subjects the lunar calendar,

mathematics,

advanced houses,

writing systems,

astronomy and a variety of other elements

that really form the basis for Chinese culture.

NARRATOR: According to legend,

after the Yellow Emperor shared his knowledge,

he left the planet to return to his celestial home.

ANDREW COLLINS: We find that, at the end of his life,

he sees this dragon come down

and he literally climbs aboard it

and is taken bodily into heaven.

So what's going on here?

Is it possible that that dragon

could be what we refer to today as a UFO?

Some kind of craft that we can see

in terms of an extraterrestrial vehicle.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that Chinese civilization

was established with the help of an extraterrestrial visitor

who came to Earth in the distant past?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest that figures like the Yellow Emperor and Oannes

were only the first teachers to influence mankind.

As evidence, they point to stories

associated with a technological innovation

that changed the course of human history--

the mastery of metal.

NARRATOR: According to archaeologists,

roughly 6,000 years ago,

there was a sudden advancement in our technological ability

as civilizations began to manipulate metal.

PAUL BAHN: Metallurgy was a tremendous step forward for humankind.

Although stone had been extraordinarily useful

for hundreds of thousands of years,

once metal becomes very widespread,

then you have mass production of all different kinds of tools

and weapons and plowshares and so on.

So a very, very profound impact on human development.

NARRATOR: A key breakthrough was the creation of bronze,

a metal alloy that consists of copper and tin.

BAHN: The development of bronze is a whole new ballgame.

It's harder, it's less brittle

and you can make all kinds of wonderful things,

particularly weapons,

slashing swords and things like that.

NARRATOR: Curiously, archaeological evidence suggests

that civilizations across the globe

started making bronze around the same time.

BILL BIRNES: The development of metallurgy was intriguing,

because, right about the same period,

that technology sprang up all over the world

in different cultures.

What does that tell us?

It tells us that this has to be taught.

Who taught them?

NARRATOR: According to mainstream historians,

this technological breakthrough

was simply the result of human ingenuity.

But ancient astronaut theorists believe

there may be a more profound explanation.

And they point to mythologies around the world

that claim the knowledge of how to work with metals

was taught by otherworldly beings,

like a mysterious group in ancient Greece

known as the Telchines.

TSOUKALOS: In the ancient Greek mythologies,

there is the so-called Telchines,

who were some of the earliest metalsmith workers

of celestial origin

that taught the ancient Greeks how to make swords,

and, essentially, how to work metal.

HENRY: The Telchines were chimeric beings.

They're part human, part fish,

and they made all the magical implements and technologies

of the Greek stories.

NEWMAN: The Telchines were born of the gods,

and they were even said to have created

the trident of Poseidon

and the sickle of Cronus.

And they were kind of master technologists

as well as working with metal.

TSOUKALOS: The ancient Greeks were very clear in saying

someone came from the sky--

in this case, it was the Telchines--

that actually then spent time

with the ancient Greeks and taught them this stuff.

NARRATOR: Accounts of divine beings who shared the secrets

of the forge can be found across the globe.

In Egypt, the god Ptah spread knowledge about metalworking.

Kanayago instructed the ancient people of Japan.

And in Celtic lore, smithcraft was taught

by the Tuatha Dé Danann,

advanced beings who arrived in Ireland on cloud ships.

TSOUKALOS: According to the ancient astronaut theory,

all of these ancient cultures

from all continents around the world

were, in fact, visited by the same extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that early civilizations across the globe

were taught how to work metal by otherworldly visitors?

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

support for this notion can be found

not only in myths and legends

but also in physical evidence that was recently retrieved

from the bottom of the ocean.

January 2015.

One mile off the coast of Sicily,

archeologists excavate a 2,600-year-old shipwreck.

They uncover an ancient treasure trove of 39 metal ingots.

Spectrographic analysis reveals the metal

is a mysterious alloy unlike anything ever seen before.

CAROLINE WHITEHILL: It's not gold, although it looks a lot like gold.

It's not your typical bronze alloy,

although it behaves a lot like bronze.

It has a very beautiful shine, and it's an uncommon metal.

These ingots are made of five different metals.

We have copper, we have iron,

nickel, lead and zinc.

JEFF WILLIAMS: What's interesting about this is

zinc only occurs in nature as sphalerite.

It's a zinc sulfur complex.

In order to create zinc,

you have to actually process the zinc out of this sulfide.

They didn't have that technology back then.

We didn't have zinc until about a thousand years ago,

and this is 2,600 years old.

NARRATOR: Scientists were astounded to discover

that this advanced alloy had been produced

centuries before humans are thought to have had the ability

to manipulate elements like zinc into metals.

And they were even more surprised

when they found that the ingots closely matched

a legendary metal described by the Greek philosopher Plato

in the fourth century BC called orichalcum.

Orichalcum is a very precious metal

that is talked about in the accounts of Atlantis,

written by Plato as early as 350 BC.

It was second up in value to gold itself,

and that a large part of the city of Atlantis

was actually covered in orichalcum.

HENRY: According to Plato, the Temple of Poseidon in Atlantis

was covered with orichalcum,

that the interior walls and floors were lined with it,

and that it gleamed red and white light.

NARRATOR: According to Plato's story,

the Greek god Cadmus, grandson of Poseidon,

came down from Mount Olympus and gave orichalcum

to the people of Atlantis.

COLLINS: Cadmus is

one of the legendary founders of Greek civilization.

And quite clearly,

he was a very inspired alchemist or smithy

who had this knowledge

of how to create this divine metal.

It's quite interesting, really, that here is this,

what people thought was a mythological metal,

that Plato, you know, had just kind of made up

as part of his Atlantis story.

And yet, we are finding ingots of this metal in shipwrecks.

How amazing is that?

NEWMAN: People have kind of gone crazy about this over the years.

They suggest this could be evidence of Atlantis itself.

NARRATOR: Could this mysterious alloy,

found off the coast of Sicily,

be proof that humans were shown how to manipulate metal

by otherworldly beings thousands of years ago?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and suggest that further evidence can be found

in accounts of people who communicated

with extraterrestrial teachers face-to-face.

NARRATOR: A Bedouin shepherd exploring a cave

13 miles east of Jerusalem

comes across hundreds of ancient parchments.

Known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the documents contain

the oldest versions of the Bible ever discovered.

Among them is a controversial text

that describes an encounter between a man named Enoch

and a mysterious group of otherworldly teachers

called the watchers.

COLLINS: Enoch was the great prophet

of the Book of Genesis.

It was he that encountered the watchers.

And it was said

that they gave the sciences of heaven,

the rudiments of civilization.

IMBROGNO: Enoch referred to these people,

whoever they are, as the watchers.

Now, the watchers were actually a group of beings

that we refer to as angels,

that were specially sent here to observe the evolution

of the human race and guide them when it's needed.

NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch is a first-hand account

of the biblical patriarch's encounter with the watchers.

According to the text,

the watchers brought Enoch to heaven in a fiery chariot.

TSOUKALOS: The Book of Enoch

was clearly an eyewitness account

because he describes everything.

"I, Enoch, did this."

"I, Enoch, went there, and then, I saw this."

Enoch was taken into that celestial realm

and the watchers imparted certain knowledge to him.

For example, the "angels" said to him,

"Look out the window,

"and see that you're looking at the Moon.

The Moon has light, but it comes from the Sun."

Well, this is deep astronomical knowledge

which, at the time, really was not known.

Now, you exchange the word "angels"

with "extraterrestrials," and there you have your story.

NARRATOR: According to ancient Islamic texts,

Enoch used his newfound knowledge to create

a breathtaking monument that can still be seen to this day,

the Great Pyramid of Giza.

COLLINS: Conventional thinking

says that the Great Pyramid was built by the pharaoh Cheops

in around 2500 BC as his tomb.

However, ancient accounts that we have

from Arab writers and historians,

like al-Maqrizi, tells us

that the designer of the Great Pyramid was Idris.

"Idris" is the Arabic form of the name "Enoch."

HENRY: Al-Maqrizi says that the pyramids

were built by Enoch,

who was tutored by the watcher angels

who told him to come back down to Earth

and build the pyramids as a repository

for ancient knowledge.

VON DÄNIKEN: Enoch was educated by the extraterrestrials.

He learned their language, they teached him

in astronomy and in engineering.

They dictated him technological stuff.

How can you construct this, how can you measure this,

how can you transport the stone blocks

but with the knowledge and the teaching

of extraterrestrials?

The reality is, extraterrestrials were here

thousands of years ago.

NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,

the Book of Enoch reveals that extraterrestrial teachers

chose certain individuals

to help disseminate knowledge to humankind.

And they say further evidence of this

can be found in the ancient Sanskrit texts of India.

At the center of this sprawling metropolis

is the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

Its collection maintains the oldest known manuscripts

of the Vedas,

the religious texts that form the basis of Hinduism.

These sacred teachings are more than 8,000 years old,

and Hindus believe they come directly from the gods.

STEAVU: The word "Veda" means "knowledge" in Sanskrit.

And so there is this close association

with a special type of,

uh, wisdom or knowledge that is transmitted through the Vedas.

Originally the Vedas were revealed by the gods

to a certain class of spiritual elect.

And the Vedas were transmitted orally

from generation to generation for a very long time.

YOUNG: The Vedas was part of the secret lore

of Hinduism that would only be entrusted to the wisdom keepers,

a very select body of scholars who would hold

the powerful knowledge, sometimes called "Sitis,"

or spiritual powers,

that the public might not be quite ready for.

NARRATOR: The Vedas and other ancient Sanskrit texts of India

contain detailed passages that describe

divine beings who descended from the sky

and shared knowledge with a select group of people.

HENRY: The Vedas tell us that the gods taught humans how to chant,

how to pray and to sing

in order to communicate with the gods.

TSOUKALOS: The Vedas are filled with flying chariots,

the so-called vimanas.

There's a very interesting part in the Mahabharata

where a King Revita actually

visits the celestial palace of Brahma.

Brahma was the Hindu creator god.

Everything came from Brahma.

And King Revita was actually taken into the heavens

in a chariot to visit this gigantic palace.

NARRATOR: Similar encounters with mysterious teachers

can be found in the traditions of

many other ancient cultures across the world.

YOUNG: In Buddhism, Emperor Ashoka consulted

with a secret society called "the nine unknown men,"

who possess the knowledge of the universe.

Similar societies existed in ancient Egypt,

and the ideas were only taught

on a very selective basis.

TSOUKALOS: That is the connection of the ancient astronaut theory.

It's not that they all, out of nowhere,

came up with the same ideas.

But according to the ancient legends

and mythologies that our ancestors impart to us,

they say that this knowledge was given to them

by the so-called gods that descended from the sky.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that certain people were in direct contact

with extraterrestrial teachers in the distant past?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest

that this communication continues to this very day.

And as evidence,

they point to a 19th-century Russian noblewoman,

whose claims of otherworldly teachers

laid the foundation for what would become known as...

the "ancient astronaut theory."

NARRATOR: Madame Helena Blavatsky

founds a new group called the Theosophical Society,

dedicated to researching and revealing the lost civilizations

and forgotten wisdom of the ancient world.

Madame Blavatsky was a very well-educated

Russian aristocrat

who had the goal of finding

the unified field theory of religion.

And she started gathering up

all of these different traditions,

and finding where they overlapped,

finding where they repeated each other,

and coming up with a wisdom teaching, if you will.

In the mid to late 1800s,

this was a very popular movement.

GARY LACHMAN: Theosophy means the wisdom of the gods.

And the idea of the society is that they would study

ancient wisdom.

And one of the key aims of the Theosophical Society

was the creation of a universal brotherhood,

you know, regardless of race, creed, color.

NARRATOR: Before arriving in New York, Blavatsky traveled widely

in Egypt and India, absorbing ancient esoteric knowledge.

Madame Blavatsky becomes interested

in the esoteric world as a teenager.

And then in her early adulthood goes off on these

sort of grand adventures.

Eventually, these adventures take her

to India, and take her to Tibet.

And throughout this process,

she begins to communicate with

intelligences that are referred to as

mahatmas or Ascended Masters.

She claimed that these Ascended Masters were actually

the masters of civilizations that appeared

on planet Earth before the human race.

And that they would give her knowledge, and she would use

that knowledge to pass it on to individuals to guide them.

LACHMAN: They had developed to a higher state of consciousness

so they could communicate telepathically

and cause things to materialize and things of that sort.

NARRATOR: In 1877, Madam Blavatsky published her ideas

in the book Isis Unveiled.

But rather than take credit, she claimed her knowledge

came from an unseen source.

BIRNES: One of the things that Helena Blavatsky taught

was the idea of automatic writing.

That meant that, in a meditative state,

your hand was guided by the Ascended Masters.

And you could write-- not knowing what

you wrote, but you could write,

and what you wrote was

the instruction from the ancient masters.

McGOWAN: It is said that she wrote her entire first book,

Isis Unveiled, with her eyes closed as automatic writing.

She was the channel that brought forth this information.

NARRATOR: According to Madame Blavatsky,

the Ascended Masters taught her about ancient civilizations

and profound wisdom that had been lost to time.

She wrote this notion that there were previous

civilizations: Atlantis, Lemuria, uh,

there's something called the Imperishable Land.

She pushes back appearance of civilization

much, much further back in time.

According to Madame Blavatsky, Atlantis and Lemuria

were destroyed in the flood of the Bible.

And in many ways, her scenario

of Earth and the past is very much

a precursor to ancient astronaut theory,

where she's also got gods from outer space.

NARRATOR: Many important figures joined the Theosophical Society,

like Thomas Edison, Nobel Prize-winning poet W.B. Yeats,

and civil war hero Abner Doubleday,

who invented baseball.

But Madame Blavatsky had a particularly profound influence

on a young Indian law student named Mohandas Gandhi.

Gandhi finds himself in Madam Blavatsky's salon

in 1889, when he is a law student in London.

And he is completely-- not only captivated by her,

but changed by his encounter with her.

LACHMAN: He was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita, one of

the great works of his own nation,

his own religion, by Madame Blavatsky.

And it was actually through his introduction

to the Bhagavad Gita that Gandhi developed "ahimsa,"

which is his philosophy of non-violence.

NARRATOR: Inspired in part by Blavatsky's teachings,

the young lawyer would go on to become a civil rights activist.

And in 1947, Mohandas Gandhi would lead India to independence

from British rule.

LACHMAN: Gandhi, until the last day of his life,

had nothing but good words to say about theosophy.

NARRATOR: Were the teachings of Madame Blavatsky a result of

influence from mysterious Ascended Masters?

And if so, who-- or what-- were they?

Perhaps clues can be found by examining

influential figures throughout history

who received instructions from otherworldly beings.

BIRNES: Across the planet, there were these specific areas

where someone with... call it clairvoyant vision

was able to communicate with an entity,

a supernatural entity.

In Greece, it was the Oracle of Delphi.

IMBROGNO: The Oracle of Delphi would go into a trance

and channel messages from the god Apollo.

People would go there-- kings-- if they wanted to go to war,

if they wanted to change something.

NARRATOR: Otherworldly guidance also had a profound impact

on the foundation of Buddhism.

In Buddha's story, it's very clear

that his meditation under the bo tree is what put him

in communication with these otherworldly beings,

and through which he received his inspiration.

CHILDRESS: Buddhism itself completely changed India and Tibet,

China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia.

And we have to wonder, you know, is meditation

a way to connect to the gods?

NARRATOR: Could it be that the Ascended Masters

Madam Blavatsky claimed to channel were part of

a long line of extraterrestrial teachers?

And if so, what was their goal?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest these efforts

are part of an extraterrestrial agenda

to usher in a new era of humanity

among the stars.

NARRATOR: Throughout history, there are stories

of otherworldly teachers who have shared wisdom

and altered the course of human civilization.

Could this still be happening today?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes...

and as evidence, they point to a mysterious event

that occurred in Kingman, Arizona.

On May 21, 1953,

eyewitnesses reported that a disc-shaped object

crashed in the desert outside the city.

Two days later,

government scientists were bussed into the area

to investigate the crashed UFO.

MIKE SCHRATT: When they got there, it was nighttime.

There were MPs on all corners of the craft.

It's about a 40-foot-diameter disc-shaped craft.

It was perfectly intact, there wasn't a scratch on it.

NARRATOR: According to reports, the wreckage was sent

to the top secret military installation

known as Area 51.

And with the craft was a survivor from the crash:

an alien entity known as J-Rod.

DENNETT: J-Rod is an alien

who allegedly worked at Area 51 over a period of years.

It was J-Rod's mission or duty

to help reverse engineer

technology that was, apparently,

from the 1953 Kingman UFO crash.

J-Rod was one of the crash survivors

and worked directly with our own government.

NARRATOR: According to former Air Force test pilot Bill Uhouse,

J-Rod taught the U.S. military

how to reverse engineer alien technology.

BILL UHOUSE: I called him J-Rod.

That's the name that the, the linguists gave him.

And he talked, he would talk, but he'd sound just like,

if you spoke, he'd sound like you.

But he'd try and answer your question, you know.

Basically, it was only

engineering advice or science advice.

NARRATOR: In the years following

the Kingman UFO crash, scientists at Area 51

developed some of the military's greatest innovations,

including stealth technology.

Is it possible that these breakthroughs

were guided by an extraterrestrial being?

The idea of UFO crashes

and subsequent retrievals by the government

is central to the whole UFO phenomenon.

There are many such cases.

Roswell, of course, 1947.

The Kecksburg incident from 1965.

It's interesting to look

at the sudden explosion of technology

just about at the time

that these UFO crashes were first reported.

You see us go

from propeller aircraft

to space rockets

in just a few short years.

HENRY: Are these crashes possibly intentional?

Could these be a gift from the teachers,

assisting us in recreating

or disassembling this technology

and recreating it in a human fashion?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that extraterrestrials

not only taught humanity in the distant past

but continue to share knowledge with us today?

And if so, why?

CHILDRESS: There's many stories

of people who've had contact

with extraterrestrials who tell us

that they want to lift us up.

They want us to know science and technology like them.

TSOUKALOS: What's interesting in all of these ancient

but also modern encounters with extraterrestrials,

it seems that there is an agenda.

To me, one of the most important things

that the universe has to offer

is the spreading of life and information.

And this doesn't happen by happenstance.

It needs intelligence behind it.

And so, ultimately,

I think they, too, want us to travel out there

and impart knowledge or spread out this information.

CHILDRESS: Part of ancient astronaut theory is that

our mission and goal

and what our extraterrestrial ancestors have wanted us to do

is be like them.

They want us to achieve

the same things that they achieved.

They want us to be a spacefaring nation.

HENRY: It's up to us to take that message into our hearts

and recognize that humanity is on the precipice of actually

being able now to colonize our nearby star system.

And with that comes tremendous responsibility.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that humans are

fulfilling an extraterrestrial agenda?

One that for thousands of years

has been guided by otherworldly teachers?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest evidence of this can be found by examining

a recent discovery in our own genetic code.

NARRATOR: According to anthropologists,

approximately 50,000 years ago,

humanity experienced a rapid development

in language, art and technology.

Curiously, many researchers believe

that this was not only the result of evolution

but that the genes of ancient humans

went through a sudden change.

WHITEHILL: There's a very important transition that happened

about 50,000 years ago

that appears to have been a genetic switch,

that set apart a huge gulf between us

and our predecessors.

Languages became more complex and more creative.

We see paintings that depict

not just what's happening around them but some sort

of philosophical or esoteric explanation of things.

TSOUKALOS: 50,000 years ago,

our brain volume increased by 60%.

That is something that,

according to Darwinian evolution,

couldn't happen that quickly, because evolution needs time.

So, what happened?

One of the basic tenets

of the ancient astronaut theory

is that, long ago,

extraterrestrials finagled our DNA

and essentially gave us a bigger brain.

VON DÄNIKEN: The humans on this planet

from the family of apes, we are part of that,

but we are also part of extraterrestrials,

because the extraterrestrials changed the humans

according their own image.

We are a mixture

of human evolution and extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that, tens of thousands of years ago,

human DNA was manipulated by extraterrestrial beings?

And if so, did they design us

to be like them so that they could teach us

and lead us towards becoming

a technologically advanced civilization?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that a distant memory

of the genetic transformation of the human race

is preserved in ancient writings.

HENRY: Beginning with the Sumerian accounts

of the Anunnaki, who transformed us

by making us a hybrid being and activating our intelligence,

we have stories all over the world

of a similar situation where

an otherworldly being is responsible

for a transformation of humanity.

NARRATOR: In Greek mythology, the god Prometheus is

responsible for creating humans and advancing our intelligence.

The ancient Egyptians credited the god Ptah

with the same achievements.

And in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis,

Adam and Eve have a mind-altering experience

in the Garden of Eden

when a serpent-like being tempts Eve with an apple.

McGOWAN: Eve comes along and shares the apple with Adam,

and all of a sudden,

they both have this sort of instantaneous awareness,

this understanding of who they are as humans

and an understanding of the world

that they didn't have before.

COLLINS: Is it possible that the serpent of Eden is

the memory of some kind of higher intelligence,

some kind of teacher

that was in touch with our ancestors

and that this story became the foundation point

of the Book of Genesis itself?

NARRATOR: Have otherworldly teachers been fostering human progress

for thousands of years,

continuing right up to the present day?

And if these beings were

responsible for activating our intelligence,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,

could this evolution be exactly what they intended

for humanity all along?

According to the ancient astronaut theory,

we are their offspring.

They made us homo sapiens sapiens

that we are today.

If you have such a creation,

I don't think you'd would just abandon that.

And in order for this whole experiment to work,

these extraterrestrials then also would show up

and be our teachers.

And today is not the end of this

because they want to see our progress.

It would not surprise me

that they're here and still enhancing us

to ensure our future survival.

NARRATOR: Could it be that humans

are part of an extraterrestrial experiment,

one that not only began with the manipulation of our DNA

but has been continued by otherworldly teachers

for thousands of years?

Perhaps as new technology allows us to venture deeper

and deeper into space,

we will fulfill an alien agenda

that was set in motion long ago...

...and become extraterrestrial teachers

ourselves.

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