Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Deep beneath the sands of Egypt

lie 24 enormous stone coffins,

and every one of them is empty.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: They're some of the biggest stone sarcophagi

ever discovered in Egypt.

And we still have not answered

what was inside the boxes.

NARRATOR: What purpose they served remains a mystery.

ROBERT SCHOCH: The precision in which they were carved

and polished is beyond words.

KATHLEEN McGOWAN: There has been some theorizing

that the boxes themselves are a type of technology.

NARRATOR: And there are many

who believe these giant stone boxes

were designed not by humans

but by otherworldly visitors.

ERICH VON DÄNIKEN: One thing is clear.

The Egyptians definitely had contact with extraterrestrials.

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.

French archaeologist Auguste Mariette

embarks on an expedition to purchase ancient manuscripts

for the Louvre Museum in Paris.

A self-taught expert in hieroglyphics,

Mariette is at the forefront

of the budding field of Egyptology.

SALIMA IKRAM: When Mariette started to work in Egypt, people were

increasingly interested in the culture

of the ancient Egyptians.

So this was a time when Egyptology

really started to come into being.

Mariette, being a Frenchman, was well-versed

in French history concerning Egypt.

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte,

along with his army of savants,

came into Egypt and massively documented

the wonders of ancient Egypt.

Champollion had just translated the hieroglyphics

from the Rosetta Stone just 30 years before.

And so, as he's coming into Egypt,

he's thinking he's gonna make his mark on history.

According to mainstream historians,

ancient Egyptian civilization

began over 5,000 years ago

and flourished until it was conquered

by Alexander the Great in 332 BC.

At its fall, this empire left behind

30 centuries of rich history

and wondrous monuments

that continue to reveal hidden secrets.

IKRAM: Egypt is the one place in the world

that is filled with sites,

with monuments and stories

that really capture everyone's imagination.

You have the pyramids,

massive temples,

and of course mummies.

Egypt has been fascinating people for millennia.

McGOWAN: When Auguste Mariette is, uh, in Egypt,

the world is going through

a huge explosion

of obsession with Egypt that happens

post-the Napoleonic Wars.

French artists had come and drawn the monuments.

Engravings of Egypt were being sold all across Europe.

NARRATOR: As researchers descended on Egypt,

Auguste Mariette found himself on the verge

of failing his assignment.

He was on commission by the Louvre

to look for Egyptian manuscripts.

But he's in competition with private collectors

and other museums, and he's kind of desperate.

He's really not finding anything.

NARRATOR: Mariette was determined not to leave Egypt

empty-handed and had heard from a tribe of Bedouins

that there were treasures to be found

beneath the sands of Saqqâra.

Located 20 miles south of the Giza Pyramids,

Saqqâra served as a burial ground

for the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

It was the destination

of all ancient Egyptians

across the thousands and thousands of years.

The destination for religious beliefs,

for a burial, funeral.

And then, after the ancient Egyptian empire

had completely fallen and the Greek

and Roman Empire took over,

they still went and prayed in Saqqâra.

HENRY: One of the greatest monuments in Egypt is

the step pyramid at Saqqâra.

It's referred to as "the stairway to heaven."

It's considered to be the oldest stone structure

on Earth, built for King Djoser

by the great Imhotep.

It's a place of immense mystery.

ANDREW COLLINS: The ancient accounts said

that there was an avenue that ran all the way

from Memphis all the way out into the desert

that was lined by sphinxes.

And Auguste Mariette

realized that there was something still

to be discovered in the area of Saqqâra.

NARRATOR: Mariette decided that the best place

to start exploring Saqqâra

was near its towering step pyramid.

While surveying the area, he was astonished

to find a stone object protruding from the ground

that appeared to be the head of a sphinx.

IKRAM: He started to clear the area, and his team

dug down and revealed sphinx after sphinx after sphinx.

HENRY: He soon lines up over 100 sphinxes,

follows the pathway,

and is led to an underground tunnel.

An entrance that's blocked.

He dynamites the entrance.

He's now in a 700-foot-long tunnel

that's been carved out of the limestone.

The walls are rough, and he must have imagined

that these walls must have been painted and covered,

but that's no longer there.

Instead there's these rough and sort of primitive looking walls

and there are alcoves that are also cut out of the limestone.

And he's not quite sure what this place is

or even what he's looking at,

but he knows he's made the discovery of a lifetime.

NARRATOR: Inside the ancient structure,

Mariette discovered inscriptions

that identify the underground complex

as the Serapeum.

And within its chambers

Mariette found more than 7,000 precious artifacts,

including ancient figurines...

ornate amulets...

and a gold mask.

After shipping much of his discovery to the Louvre,

Mariette opened the Serapeum to the public.

People came in carriages from Cairo.

Took a couple of hours.

But when they descended into this place,

it was all dark.

But he had people from the villages around

holding flaming torches,

and so people could come and visit the Serapeum,

and it must have been extraordinary

to see this place in the flickering light

just like the ancient Egyptians would have.

NARRATOR: Word of Mariette's discovery of the Serapeum

and its treasures spread throughout Europe.

But the most extraordinary objects found

within the underground labyrinth

were not made of silver or gold.

They were made of stone.

TSOUKALOS: The Serapeum has been cut out of the granite bedrock,

and inside that Serapeum are

24 niches

that contain boxes made of basalt

and rose granite.

Now, when I say boxes,

they're not little sarcophagi, but they're humongous.

They're some of the biggest stone sarcophagi

ever discovered in Egypt.

The boxes themselves range in weight

from 70 to 75 tons,

and the lids alone

weigh between 20 and 25 tons.

Most of these sarcophagi were discovered empty.

At the time, it was thought

that most of the sarcophagi

were broken into

and completely looted.

NARRATOR: Mariette assumed the giant boxes

were enormous stone coffins.

Who or what they contained

remains a mystery.

But Mariette believed he would find the answer

when he came upon one box that was completely sealed.

COLLINS: We know that of the 24 sarcophagi

that were found by Auguste Mariette,

23 of them were empty,

their lids just slightly ajar.

But it's that one unopened sarcophagi

that is the greatest mystery because

what Mariette decided was, he would dynamite it

to try and blow it open,

and when he looked inside,

he was absolutely staggered to find

that it was completely empty.

NARRATOR: What are the giant stone boxes within the Serapeum?

Are they simply giant sarcophagi?

Or might they have a more profound purpose?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest clues can be found

by further examining the Serapeum

and its connection

to otherworldly beings.

The mysterious subterranean structure in Saqqâra, EgyptAT:

known as the Serapeum

is an extraordinary feat of engineering

built 100 feet beneath the earth

and spanning the length of more than two football fields.

But even more impressive

are 24 massive stone boxes

found within the complex

that are carved from exceptionally hard stone

like granite, basalt and diorite.

ROMANY: Each sarcophagus was over 70 tons.

70 tons is not a weight

that 200 people can carry.

It is an impossible weight

to move anywhere,

let alone a hundred feet under the ground

and then 700 feet into a tiny corridor

and then inside a little chamber.

COLIN READER: If you think of a pyramid

or a temple, it's in the open air.

If you're hauling a big block of stone

or an obelisk,

you've got space to get teams of people.

You can get draft animals on it.

But the thing that really startles me,

they didn't have the space to get

huge teams of men to start moving them.

And they couldn't get animals down there

for any practical intent.

NARRATOR: Just as baffling as how the ancient Egyptians

managed to move these giant boxes is

how they were able to carve them with such incredible precision.

Machinists have gone in there with tools to measure

just how precisely carved they were.

We're talking, in some cases, to the thousandths of an inch,

right angles, which are incredibly perfect.

TSOUKALOS: Now, you need sophisticated technology for this

because, in some cases,

we're talking about basalt.

Basalt is harder than granite.

And according to what we know,

the ancient Egyptians only had bronze

and copper tools.

It is wishful thinking to suggest that you can

cut basalt with copper.

You just can't do it.

But the surface is as if

you're touching glass.

So, to me, it's possible that

the ancient Egyptians figured out a way

to vitrify stone.

NARRATOR: What compelled the ancient Egyptians to

place 24 enormous and precisely crafted stone boxes

deep beneath the earth?

Based on inscriptions found within the underground chamber,

Egyptologists determined that the Serapeum

was built to be the burial place of the sacred Apis bull.

IKRAM: The ancient Egyptians believed that

animals and the gods had special relationships,

and each deity was associated with one particular animal.

The Apis bull is related to the Egyptian god Ptah,

who was a major creator god.

He was the god of Memphis, the capital city.

He was the god of all craftsmen.

The Egyptians believed that the spirit of the god

would enter into the body of that animal.

During its lifetime, it would be treated as a god on Earth.

When it died, it would be buried with

great pomp and circumstance.

The Apis bull was one of

the most sacred animals in all of ancient Egypt.

But here is the thing.

When Auguste Mariette opened the sarcophagus,

they were empty. There was nothing in there.

DAVID CHILDRESS: What Egyptologists will speculate is that

somehow the Serapeum was looted in antiquity

and the mummified bulls were removed from the sarcophagi.

But who would want a mummified bull?

NARRATOR: Were the giant stone containers in the Serapeum

simply designed to hold the remains of an Apis bull?

Some researchers believe that these massive objects

served an entirely different purpose.

SCHOCH: Most of these boxes have no inscriptions on them,

but there's one in particular that has

a lot of hieroglyphics all over it.

Those inscriptions are incredibly crude

compared to the finesse, the precision of

the actual stone boxes.

So this leads me, and I'm not alone in this,

to suggest that these boxes

go back to a much earlier period,

and they were being reused and reappropriated

at a much later time.

It's thought by some researchers that

the Serapeum was used at a later date

for the mummified Apis bulls.

But the Serapeum itself predates this,

and its original purpose was for something else.

So what was the Serapeum for?

NARRATOR: While the purpose of the stone boxes

continues to perplex researchers,

some believe clues can be found

by examining the contents of another box

found in the Serapeum,

one not made of stone

but wood.

After discovering 24 massive stone sarcophagi

within the Serapeum, Auguste Mariette

comes upon a much smaller coffin

made of wood.

There is a body inside it,

and at first glance

it appears human.

He came across a very unique burial.

It looked human.

And yet, when the bones were examined,

they were actually found to be those of a bull.

IKRAM: Mariette found no head of a bull

but just bits of bone

of a bull wrapped up and then

sort of a mask of a human being on it.

Egyptologists assumed that the mask

must belong to the builder of the Serapeum

and determined the face it depicts

is that of a prince who lived

in the 13th century BC

named Khaemweset.

IKRAM: People think that the person who built

the Serapeum was Prince Khaemweset.

Khaemweset was the fourth son of King Ramses II.

He was in charge of the Temple of Ptah

and also, therefore, the temple of the Apis bull

in the capital city of Memphis.

NARRATOR: There are many researchers, however,

who believe that Khaemweset

did not build the Serapeum

but only restored it.

HENRY: He's considered the first Egyptologist.

He starts documenting who are the builders of

all of these massive temples.

He goes up to the Giza plateau,

he restores the pyramids.

All his life, he is not a builder

but a restorer and a documenter

of these ancient structures.

NARRATOR: Archaeologists also discovered evidence

that the only two bulls found in the Serapeum

were put there by Prince Khaemweset

around 1200 BC.

ROMANY: He has a couple of sarcophagi down there

that he had put Apis bull mummies in them.

And he wrote that on a little tablet

next to that specific chamber

that he added to the place and he added to the Serapeum.

CHILDRESS: This was a typical thing in ancient Egypt

because many of the monuments in Egypt were

thousands of years old, even for them.

So the idea that the Serapeum

is actually much older than

even we think it is

is a pretty valid theory.

NARRATOR: If the Serapeum predates Prince Khaemweset,

just how old is this underground structure?

Some researchers suggest

the Serapeum is associated with the Apis bull

not because it was a tomb for burying them

but because it was built at a time

when worship of the Apis bull cult

first appeared in Egypt

around 3200 BC.

NARRATOR: While excavating the underground structure at Saqqâra,

Egyptologist Auguste Mariette

discovers a stela that identifies the complex

as the Serapeum.

The Serapeum gets its name from, uh, Serapis...

...which was a Greek god

that was a combination between

an ancient Egyptian bull Apis

and a Greek god at the time.

The combination between both was Serapis,

and the Serapeum was the place

where you go pray for that specific god.

McGOWAN: The cult of the Apis bull,

uh, which later becomes known as Serapis,

dates back to the very first dynasty.

The very early kings of Egypt

worshipped these particular bulls.

ROMANY: The Apis bull cult was

extremely popular in Egypt all the way back

5,000 years ago.

One of the first kings of ancient Egypt,

the First Dynasty, King Menes,

who unified North Egypt and South Egypt together,

would represent himself as a bull.

NARRATOR: King Menes is documented as the first human pharaoh

and is believed to have ruled around 3200 BC.

According to their written history,

before the reign of Menes,

Egypt was ruled by the gods,

who lived among humans on Earth.

When the gods left, Menes inherited the throne

from the god-king Horus.

HENRY: The ancient Egyptians believed that Horus

was actually a god-man.

He was a being of flesh and blood.

The ancient Egyptians were in contact with the gods,

physical manifestations, extraterrestrial beings

who came and lived with them.

NARRATOR: At the end of Horus's reign,

the Egyptians wrote that the gods

no longer lived among humans

but still held influence over earthly events.

One point of connection between the gods

and the mortal world was the Apis bull.

COLLINS: In many ways, the Apis bull was seen to be

a personification of that contact

between this world and the star world.

So, is it possible that

the Serapeum is associated with the Apis bulls

because there is some kind of connection

with a celestial intelligence

and what these underground structures really represent?

NARRATOR: Could it be that the Serapeum of Saqqâra

was built more than 5,000 years ago

and has a connection to otherworldly visitors?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

clues can be found by examining the size of these boxes.

CHILDRESS: When you think of a sarcophagus,

you don't think of something so large

as what's in the Serapeum.

They're about ten feet high

and almost 20 feet long.

And it's way too large for these Apis bulls.

HENRY: In traditional Egyptian sarcophagi building,

they would create the sarcophagus so that

it very closely matched the dimensions

of the body inside it in order to preserve it.

These boxes are many times too large

for even an Apis bull,

so this is pointing to the idea

that something else was concealed within these boxes.

NARRATOR: Some ancient astronaut theorists believe an important clue

as to what the giant stone boxes may have held

can be found at a site 400 miles to the south.

Armant, Egypt. 1929.

British archaeologist Sir Robert Mond

begins an excavation of an ancient catacomb

called the Bucheum and makes an extraordinary discovery.

TSOUKALOS: There is a place called the Bucheum

where they found similar type sarcophagi

to the Serapeum,

and it was at the Bucheum

where they found remains mummified

in the shape of a bull.

And they thought, "Finally, we found the remains

of a mummified Apis bull."

And they opened up the mummified remains

and they were confronted with this stinking mass of bitumen,

which is asphalt, in which they found

tiny, tiny fragments of bones.

Now, it was anathema in ancient Egypt

to destroy any dead bodies.

You had to mummify them

and you had to mummify them intact.

VON DÄNIKEN: All Egyptians, they mummified everything.

They mummified not only humans.

They mummified birds.

They mummified apes. They mummified dogs.

Why do they mummify every animal?

Because you can only be reincarnated

when your body is conserved.

NARRATOR: What could explain the mixture

of broken animal bones found in this one sarcophagus?

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

they could be the remains of a monster.

I have speculated and I have suggested

that these broken bones

come from mixed creatures in mythology.

TSOUKALOS: All throughout ancient Egypt,

you have not just ancient stories

of these hybrid mixture beings

between half-man, half-animal,

but you have thousands of depictions

in figurines,

in statues, in carvings,

in all the ancient Egyptian texts,

you have reference to these hybrid creatures.

COLLINS: The classical writer Alexander Polyhistor

talked about the ancient world

being filled with hybrid creatures.

And he said that these actually existed

as living creatures.

TSOUKALOS: The Egyptians were very clear

in making the distinction between

regular animals and then these celestial creatures

that they themselves say these beings existed.

And in the opinion of the classic

ancient astronaut theory,

they were genetic experiments by extraterrestrials.

I think it's quite possible that the reason

why these boxes were built

is that these hybrid monsters,

these genetic mutations by extraterrestrials

were placed in there

so they would be ensured never to come back.

Because the ancient Egyptians were very, very adamant that,

if you bury your dead intact, they will one day come back.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the Serapeum and the giant stone boxes

found within it were built to entomb

dangerous hybrid creatures?

Is this why it is buried so deep beneath the earth

and also why the sarcophagi are so massive?

Some ancient astronaut theorists

suggest the Serapeum wasn't built

to hold dangerous creatures

but rather dangerous technology.

NARRATOR: In the 1970s,

archaeologists begin a massive excavation

and restoration effort

in the ancient burial complex,

which includes a deeper examination of the Serapeum.

The undertaking sparks interest among engineers,

who hope that modern technology

can shed new light on the structure's mysterious past.

And in 1978,

American construction expert James Ernest Brown

makes a curious discovery.

He goes into this crypt, into the catacombs,

and he notices that the walls are covered with salt

and sodium chloride that's actually visible.

This is curious to Brown because in Europe

proposals had been made to house nuclear waste

in granite boxes that were filled with salt water.

And in his mind, he's thinking

this is some kind of a toxic waste dump.

NARRATOR: After noticing salt on the stone boxes,

Brown decided to measure radiation levels

within the Serapeum.

COLLINS: What he found

was that the levels of, um,

radiation inside the sarcophagi

was as much as three times that of the corridors

that linked to the side chambers that contained the sarcophagi.

So why is it that there are such high levels of radiation?

These are not dangerous levels, by the way,

so don't worry about going there.

But it's certainly very, very interesting that you have

this radiation present inside the Serapeum.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Serapeum was used

to house radioactive material?

While it may sound far-fetched,

aerospace engineer and machinist Chris Dunn

has measured the boxes and believes their precision

supports the idea that they were designed to be airtight.

To say it was a mind-blowing experience

would be an understatement

because when I measured

the precision of the box on just the outside,

I found that they were quite precise, quite flat.

And the question in my mind was,

why do they need to be so precise?

Because in manufacturing and engineering,

we don't manufacture that kind of precision

unless there is a need for it.

The extraordinary precision with which they were crafted

speaks to a much higher purpose than a-a simple coffin.

COLLINS: So what exactly is going on down there?

Is it possible that the granite sarcophagi

give off an energy

that somehow increases the radiation levels down there?

Or is that radiation seeping up

into the corridors and chambers

that is mixing with the natural electromagnetic properties

of the sarcophagi to make them into some kind of

functional chamber?

CHILDRESS: I mean, one of the ideas, too, of the sarcophagi is that

they're super high-tech storage devices.

They're hermetically sealed. They're, you know,

in spaces that would be difficult to get to.

Uh, the lids are very heavy. It would be hard to remove them.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the giant stone boxes

of the Serapeum had a technological function?

Some scientists suggest

that the type of rock the giant boxes were made from--

which is rich in quartz crystal--

can produce electromagnetic energy

through what's known as the piezoelectric effect.

It's a known effect that pressure

on some natural crystals can generate light.

For quartz, you can get it to glow.

If you strike two crystals together,

you will get them to glow.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: Quartz crystal

have a distribution

of negative charges on one side

and more positive charges on the other.

And if you squeeze that,

you can actually get an electrical current through that.

This is called the piezoelectric effect.

It's really interesting that this box

is made out of this material.

It's really intriguing to me

what the electromagnetic conditions

might be inside this box.

Is this some sort of shielded box

for, uh, of electromagnetic energy?

Is it an amplifier of electromagnetic energy?

Is it doing something else?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the giant granite boxes

in the Serapeum were able to generate energy?

Is this the answer as to why the boxes

of the Serapeum are so large?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and believe further evidence can be found in historic accounts

that claimed the giant boxes could transport people

through space and time.

NARRATOR: The 24 mysterious stone boxes

inside the Serapeum have fascinated Egyptologists

for more than 170 years.

But even with modern technology,

archaeologists are no closer to unraveling their secrets.

While there are many theories

as to what they might have held,

some researchers suggest

that the boxes themselves were a technological instrument.

HENRY: One interesting line of thought

concerning these boxes involves sound.

The boxes are granite.

Granite is mostly quartz crystal,

which responds to sound when activated.

I've literally been in the presence

of one of the obelisks, which is also composed of granite,

that when struck with a fist,

that obelisk will start humming,

-massively humming. -(humming)

It's profound.

So what if there was something like that

that was involved with the granite boxes as well?

That they're activated by sound and they're doing something

to whatever is held within that box?

CHILDRESS: One idea about the sarcophagi at the Serapeum is

that the measurements and dimensions

of the box itself can have like

a harmonic vibration.

And it's been suggested that it's a vibration tool.

COLLINS: It almost seemed important

that there was some kind of vibration

associated with these sarcophagi that will

affect human consciousness,

send us into altered states of consciousness.

SCHOCH: Some researchers and others have gone

to the Serapeum

and they've experienced psychic-type experiences.

And I don't dismiss that out of hand.

Some people have suggested that maybe they were used

for some kind of initiation rites,

out-of-body experiences,

some kind of increased consciousness,

or going into altered states of consciousness.

Many of these ancient sites could be multipurpose

even if they were being used for "practical purposes."

In some cases they may have been used also

to induce psychic phenomena.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the sarcophagi in the Serapeum

were crafted so precisely

in order to produce some sort of vibrational effect?

One that can alter the mind,

perhaps to communicate with beings existing

in higher dimensional realms?

While some researchers believe

that energy produced by the sarcophagi was intended

to induce altered states of consciousness,

others have proposed an even more profound possibility.

That the stone boxes were used for teleportation.

HENRY: The granite boxes at the Serapeum have connections

with the sacred Apis bulls.

And what's fascinating is that the later Greeks claimed

that Apis bulls were created by flashes of light.

-[thunder cracking] -They connected them with lightning.

They also connected their creation

with flashes of light that came from the Moon.

What are we talking about here?

We're talking about a bull

-produced by a flash of lightning? -[thunder cracks]

Or are we talking about a god

who suddenly appears in a flash of lightning?

This flash of lightning business is really integral

to what we're talking about because

we also have the pyramid texts.

They have utterances within them that say

the pharaohs became like lightning.

The pharaoh went through the portal.

The pharaoh is now a god.

When we put all these pieces together,

it sounds as if that the Serapeum could be a place

where a god could enter the box

and somehow, in a flash of lightning,

could return to its place of origin.

CHILDRESS: The idea that these sarcophagi

or boxes are some kind of teleportation device

may seem, you know, pretty amazing,

but the ancient Egyptians did believe in this kind of a thing.

And the idea of pharaohs going to stars and other places--

that's part of the Egyptian religion.

HENRY: This is not far-fetched in light of what we know

about the ancient Egyptian belief

in the transfiguration of the human body

into light or lightning.

It seems that that idea is pointing us

to the actual purpose of the Serapeum

and a true understanding of what the bull represents.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the giant stone boxes

at the Serapeum are ancient teleportation devices?

Were they designed to hold the mummified remains

of an Apis bull?

Or could they even have been used to contain hybrid monsters?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

new discoveries being made beneath the sands of Saqqâra

may soon provide the key to solving the mystery.

NARRATOR: Archaeologists digging near the Step Pyramid of Djoser

make a remarkable find 33 feet beneath the earth--

a mummy that may be the oldest ever found in Egypt.

The mummy-- believed to date to 2300 BC--

is sealed tightly within a limestone sarcophagus.

And this sarcophagus,

like the more than 450 others

that have been unearthed in Saqqâra,

is nowhere near as large or precisely crafted

as the stone boxes that reside in the Serapeum.

As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,

this serves as further evidence

that the Serapeum belongs to a far older

and more sophisticated civilization

than most Egyptologists propose.

CHILDRESS: What we're learning is

that whoever was making these sarcophagi

had technology that's at least equal to us today.

So it really shows us

that things were going on in ancient Egypt

that are just inexplicable

and cannot be explained by normal science.

TSOUKALOS: One of the things that is crystal clear to me

is that a technology was used, especially in the Serapeum,

that has since been lost.

We today would have great difficulties

recreating the Serapeum.

And today we would use

the most sophisticated technology available to us.

Nobody in their right mind would take on a construction project

like that unless there was a pressing reason.

NARRATOR: While nothing like the Serapeum of Saqqâra

has ever been found anywhere else on Earth,

experts believe that many lost marvels

of the ancient world still lie hidden

beneath the sands of Egypt.

McGOWAN: They are finding new things

in Saqqâra literally every day.

It is one of the most active

and exciting archaeological sites in the world.

There could be more Serapeums,

there could be more temples.

The possibilities are literally endless.

And the more technology we have moving into the future,

the more we can survey the land in Egypt

and understand how much there is still to be excavated.

ROMANY: Two-thirds of ancient Egypt is still under the sands.

There will be discoveries in Saqqâra,

maybe right next to the Serapeum,

maybe inside the Serapeum,

that will uncover more and more of the secrets

and mysteries about the Serapeum.

The question is not if, the question is when.

And it might be right there, right under our noses.

TSOUKALOS: The Serapeum is a treasure trove

for the ancient astronaut theory

because the stories which are combined

with the gigantic boxes is always

in reference to the so-called guardians of the sky.

Now, who were these guys?

Well, according to the ancient Egyptians,

they were their gods,

gods that lived in a celestial realm.

But at some point

those celestial gods mingled with people on Earth.

And that, in my opinion,

cannot be a figment of somebody's imagination.

And so,

is the smoking gun still waiting somewhere underneath the sand?

I think the answer to that is a resounding yes.

NARRATOR: 170 years since its discovery,

the Serapeum of Saqqâra remains one

of the world's greatest mysteries.

Could it have been built

to entomb monstrous hybrid creatures?

Was it connected to an advanced alien technology?

Or might it have served a more profound purpose

than we can even imagine?

Perhaps the answer lies buried beneath the sands of Egypt,

and when it is finally uncovered,

it will reveal the truth

about our extraterrestrial origins.

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