NARRATOR: A massive object of unknown origin
soars by the Earth.
ARI LOEB: It was moving faster
than all chemical rockets
produced in human history.
NARRATOR: A shooting star explodes over Mexico,
mysteriously altering the environment of an entire region.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: This area is completely devoid
of electromagnetic signals.
Your cell phone won’t work.
You won’t pick up satellite signals like GPS.
It’s a really odd place.
NARRATOR: And a meteorite that is believed
to be carrying unexpected cargo.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: This object may contain
some type of extraterrestrial technology
that points towards intelligence.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that certain objects in outer space
are not simply wonders of nature
but could contain alien technology
that is being deliberately sent to Earth?
WILLIAM HENRY: If you’re trying to think of a way
for an extraterrestrial civilization
to stimulate the evolution of a species,
you couldn’t think of a better way to do it
than through a meteorite.
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.
In the high-country desert,
just 35 miles southeast of the city of Flagstaff,
lies the Barringer Crater,
one of the largest and best-preserved impact craters
in North America.
DAVID CHILDRESS: The Barringer Crater is out in the desert.
You’re driving south on this small road
and then, suddenly, you see the crater rim.
And there’s a building there.
You take an elevator up to the top of the rim
and you’re looking down at this amazing crater.
It’s like you’re looking at something
that’s on another planet.
NARRATOR: According to scientists,
the Barringer Crater was formed roughly 50,000 years ago
when a massive asteroid measuring 150 feet in diameter
and weighing an incredible 300,000 tons
slammed into the Earth’s surface.
The resulting explosion was 150 times more powerful
than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
However, it is only one of many examples
of how asteroid impacts
have caused massive devastation on Earth
and also shaped the world that we live in today.
MICHIO KAKU: Asteroids hitting the planet Earth
affect everything.
They’ve changed the climate.
They’ve created tremendous disasters on the planet.
The most famous taking place 66 million years ago,
when an object about six miles across
plowed into the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico...
...wiping out the dinosaurs.
(groaning)
LOEB: It created a whole new landscape on Earth,
and it allowed, perhaps, for...
creatures like ourselves to exist.
So, definitely,
rocks colliding with Earth had a huge impact
on the evolution of life on Earth.
NARRATOR: While a major life-altering asteroid impact
isn’t known to have occurred on Earth for thousands of years,
smaller fragments known as meteors
penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere on a regular basis.
TAYLOR: Statistically, we get hit by meteors all the time.
You can go out any night
and you can see shooting stars or falling stars,
which are objects outside of the Earth
entering the atmosphere and burning up.
Some of ’em actually make it to the ground.
KAKU: We sometimes forget that the world we see around us
originally came from outer space.
When you look at the history of the Earth,
4.6 billion years ago,
back then there was basically rubble.
Rubble, gas, particles circulating around the Sun,
and gravity began to coalesce much of this material,
which eventually became the planet Earth.
The Earth was molten for many billion years.
The elements like the platinum-based materials
and uranium tend to be heavy.
Much of the heavy metals drifted toward the center of the Earth
when the Earth was formed.
NARRATOR: But as the Earth’s surface cooled and solidified,
an extended period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment ensued,
wherein billions of comets,
asteroids and meteors made impact,
seeding our young planet with numerous resources,
including water and precious metals.
JOEL SERCEL: During that bombardment phase,
smaller impacts would hit the crust and be trapped.
So, many of the precious metals
that we really value on the Earth
actually came from the asteroids.
NARRATOR: Were it not for the metals that arrived on Earth from space
during its formation,
the development
of a technologically advanced human civilization
would not have been possible.
These asteroids and meteors,
they also contain not just ordinary chemicals
like carbon and iron
but also materials that are strong,
conduct electricity--
things like platinum.
Platinum that is used in the electronics industry.
HENRY: Meteorites are providing materials like iridium,
quasi-nanocrystals that are ultimately used
in our technology,
and also gold.
The meteorites bring the surface gold.
A lot of, particularly, the rare metals
that are critical in things like cell phone technologies
and other electronic devices
are often as likely to be here only because of meteor impacts
and that material coming from elsewhere in space
rather than having formed naturally
in just the Earth’s crust as part of its evolution.
NARRATOR: Although the evidence that cosmic impacts
have been critical to sustaining life on Earth is profound,
incredibly, scientists have recently discovered new evidence
that meteors may have seeded the Earth...
with DNA.
Researchers at Hokkaido University
make an extraordinary announcement.
After analyzing three meteorites
that were formed 4.6 billion years ago
at the very dawn of the solar system,
they discover that each object
contains all four components of DNA,
the central building block of life.
Could some of the origins of life come from space?
One idea you could imagine is,
an asteroid broke off from a planet
that had the right chemicals for life.
It traveled through space,
entered the Earth’s atmosphere as a meteorite,
and then those chemicals interact
with the chemistry of the Earth.
And perhaps that was the starting point
for life as we know it here.
NARRATOR: For decades,
mainstream scientists have studied the hypothesis
that life on Earth may have evolved
from a so-called primordial soup...
...meaning that organic compounds
formed into living cells in the planet’s primitive oceans.
TSOUKALOS: It’s still a question how life
originated on Earth.
And oftentimes you’re told
that this all happened due to a primordial soup.
But there needed to be certain ingredients,
and astronomers are now saying that the secret ingredients
were brought here through meteor impacts.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists,
the possibility that meteors carried
the building blocks for human life on Earth
raises an intriguing question.
Could it be that these ancient meteor impacts
did not happen by chance
but by design?
TSOUKALOS: Bioastronomers have coined a concept called panspermia.
Panspermia essentially means seeding...
"Pan" means "everything," "sperm" is "seeding."
So, "the-the seeding of everything."
Now, often meteor impacts are considered to be random.
But if you say "directed panspermia,"
that means that extraterrestrial intelligences
deliberately sent the building blocks of life
somewhere that they knew was going to be habitable.
Is it possible that meteors were sent to Earth deliberately
because extraterrestrials knew
that Earth can host life?
NARRATOR: Could it be that certain meteor strikes in Earth’s history
did not happen by chance
but were, in fact, directed here
by an extraterrestrial intelligence?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining ancient cultures
that believe meteorites possess an otherworldly connection.
AMIR HUSSAIN: Muslims believe that this stone
was sent down by God to Earth.
HENRY: They believe that, through meteorites, they can talk
with the gods.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
At the center of Islam’s holiest city stands the Grand Mosque,
the largest house of Islamic worship on Earth.
It is also the final destination of the hajj pilgrimage,
which every Muslim is required to complete once in their life
if they are physically able.
In the mosque’s central courtyard
stands an ancient structure called the Kaaba, or Cube.
And embedded in one corner of the Kaaba
is the most sacred object in Islam,
the Black Stone,
a mysterious rock that is believed
to have come from the heavens.
For the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims,
this stone is crucial.
When Muslims face, they face in the direction of Mecca.
They face in the direction of that stone.
The Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca
is some kind of fragment
that is held together by a silver band,
and the object is actually said to have fallen from heaven
and that is said to have landed in paradise,
where it was picked up by Adam and Eve.
HUSSAIN: The first human being, Adam,
in Islamic tradition, builds the first temple
out of this stone,
the first place to worship God.
(thunder rumbling)
Then the story is that that stone gets lost during the flood
and is then rediscovered by Abraham.
So Abraham, with his son Ishmael,
build in Mecca the first place of prayer.
That’s why Mecca is important to Muslims.
What survives of that original building
going back thousands of years earlier
is this black stone in the eastern corner of the Kaaba.
If we’re scientific, we may call that a meteorite.
JONATHAN YOUNG: If we take the scripture seriously,
this story tells us this stone
was the communication between the two dimensions
from the heaven to the Earth for Adam and Eve.
This was the first altar to communicate
with the celestial realm.
NARRATOR: The Black Stone of Mecca
is arguably the world’s most venerated meteorite,
but it is hardly alone.
Many other ancient cultures believe meteorites
and impact sites have a connection to a higher realm.
In Roman times, a very, uh, prominent meteorite
was found in Syria and was worshipped.
It was referred to as Helio Elagabalus,
which literally means "the Sun touching down to the Earth."
In Delphi, a meteorite was associated with Apollo
at his temple in Delphi.
So this is a constant theme that we have in the ancient world,
tying physical objects to the gods,
to the skies, to the heavens.
NARRATOR: Historians of religion agree
that people have venerated meteorites
and impact sites throughout history.
The question is why.
HENRY: Something that we find repeated over and over again
in these crater impact sites is that
they believe that, through these meteorites,
they can talk with the gods
and the gods can actually see them as well.
So the meteorite then becomes a way of connecting
with the divine beings.
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that numerous ancient cultures around the world
simply passed down similar mythological stories
that meteorites and earthly impact sites could allow them
to communicate with higher beings?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest
that these otherworldly encounters
may have actually happened.
And for further evidence,
they point to one of the most mysterious
and sacred sites in North America.
Sprawling across a large clearing
that divides a wooded landscape
sets a 1,370-foot-long monument in the shape of a coiling snake.
It is known as the Great Serpent Mound.
According to historians,
an Indigenous Native American culture called the Adena
built the mound in 320 BC.
And, curiously, it is positioned right on the edge
of an enormous crater.
HUGH NEWMAN: It actually sits
right on a 300 million-year-old meteor impact crater
which was so powerful that it even went down
to the mantle inside the Earth.
And this has created all sorts of gravitational
and magnetic anomalies in the area.
And it’s thought that the reason
the Adena people who built this site chose it
is because it has these kind of energetic,
almost spiritual qualities associated with it.
One of the great mysteries of Serpent Mound
is that this meteorite creates this impact site,
this impact crater, 250 million years ago.
Then, suddenly, 3,000 years ago,
the Adena people come along
and they’re somehow able to identify its significance
and they build an effigy,
and it becomes this very powerful place of reverence
for the Adena people for the next 2,000 years or so.
When you look at the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio,
you have to wonder if there was some energy there
that they were feeling.
And so they built the Serpent Mound there
as a testament to the extraterrestrial connection,
perhaps, that’s with this crater.
NEWMAN: Serpent Mound has long been talked about
as being, like, an otherworldly connection point.
And in traditions that go way, way back,
there’s talk of the star people.
They’re described in certain ways in myths,
which, in modern terms, we would see
as, like, UFOs landing
and interacting with these extraterrestrial beings.
So, is Serpent Mound part of this ancient tradition?
NARRATOR: As unique as the Great Serpent Mound is
against its forested landscape,
it is not the only asteroid impact site on Earth
where ancient cultures believed
there was an extraterrestrial connection.
HENRY: In Australia, we find an extraordinarily mysterious site,
the Wolfe Creek Crater.
The Indigenous people call it Kandimalal,
"the star that fell from the sky."
It’s a impact crater site that’s 3,000 feet in diameter.
But even more interesting than that
is the Indigenous legend that is attached to it.
They talk about two serpents that emerged from the dreamtime
and created this crater.
It suggests once again that these Indigenous cultures
were in contact with otherworldly beings
that either are connected with the crater, the impact site,
or somehow emerged from it.
NARRATOR: Did our ancestors bear witness to the proof
that asteroids and meteors could connect man
with otherworldly beings?
Perhaps further clues can be found by examining
two mysterious objects that have recently been detected
in outer space,
which some scientists believe
may be controlled by extraterrestrials.
KAREN MEECH: We have never seen an object like this ever.
This was really exciting.
TAYLOR: It came into our solar system,
went around the Sun and flew by Earth as if
it was a probe looking at us.
NARRATOR: The island of Maui.
Here, atop a dramatic 10,000-foot summit,
stands the Haleakala Observatory.
On October 19, 2017,
astronomers detect a mysterious object
traveling through our solar system.
It is unlike anything that has been seen before.
I was in charge of coordinating the observing
to characterize the object.
There were four images taken that showed
an object moving rapidly with respect to the stars.
The stars are individual dots of light,
and this object was a streak.
So they knew it was moving fast.
At that point, they started to compute an orbit
to try and understand what this object was.
Everything in the solar system’s either on a circular
or an elliptical orbit.
But once more data came in,
it was very clear that the orbit was hyperbolic,
meaning something coming from outside the solar system.
We have never seen an object on an orbit like this ever before.
And it’s an irregularly shaped object that’s about 800 meters,
or half a kilometer, in length.
This was really exciting.
NARRATOR: The landmark discovery is the first time an object
is officially recognized as interstellar.
To signify the importance of the finding,
the astronomers give it a fitting name.
MEECH: In honor of this object being discovered
by a telescope in Hawaii,
the team came up with the name Oumuamua,
which means "voyager from the distant past
reaching out to us."
NARRATOR: Astronomers were not only mystified
by where Oumuamua came from
but also by its strange oblong shape,
which was like no asteroid ever detected.
The interstellar object
moved steadily through the solar system,
and astronomers were taken by surprise once again
when, after passing by the Sun,
it appeared to accelerate.
MEECH: Oumuamua was moving rapidly away from the Sun.
When it made its closest pass to the Sun,
uh, inside the orbit of Mercury,
it was moving very fast--
a little more than 195,000 miles per hour.
So this is moving rapidly out of the solar system.
NARRATOR: To Harvard astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb,
the unusual behavior
indicated that the object wasn’t an asteroid or a comet.
Instead, he proposed an extraordinary hypothesis--
Oumuamua was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Oumuamua was definitely an outlier.
And the question is, why would the first interstellar meteor
be so unusual?
There was a question as to what pushed Oumuamua away
from the Sun,
and my thought was,
that raises the possibility that it may have been
a spacecraft propelled artificially.
TAYLOR: Oumuamua could possibly have been a probe coming into
our solar system, the same way we send probes to Jupiter.
It came into our solar system, went around the Sun,
and flew by Earth as if, uh, it was a probe looking at us.
NARRATOR: Intrigued by the possibility that Oumuamua
might actually be a probe sent to our solar system
by an extraterrestrial civilization,
Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb began searching for evidence
of other celestial objects moving in a similar fashion.
I came across a meteor catalog that the government
compiled using its missile warning system.
It’s called CNEOS,
and I asked my student to check if any
of those meteors came from outside the solar system.
He found that one of them was actually moving at
60 kilometers per second, clearly unbound to the Sun.
NARRATOR: Astronomers determined that this object, like Oumuamua,
did, in fact, originate outside the solar system.
This new discovery was first observed
by military satellites in January 2014,
three years before Oumuamua was identified.
But, unlike Oumuamua, this object did not pass
by the planet but actually entered
Earth’s atmosphere and exploded over the Pacific Ocean.
LOEB: The meteor burned up
about 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea,
and it released a few percent of the energy
of the Hiroshima bomb when it exploded.
From that, we inferred it was about half a meter
in size when it exploded.
NARRATOR: Excited by the discovery, Dr. Loeb closely examined
the data captured by the military satellites,
and he noticed something extraordinary.
LOEB: The government released data
of the explosion, and from that we inferred
that the object must have been tougher than iron.
So, not only was this object
the first interstellar meteor but it was also tougher
than all other meteors detected
by the government in that catalog.
And that raises the possibility that it may
have been a spacecraft propelled artificially
and made of some alloy that is much tougher
than iron meteorites.
To find out, we need to find the material.
If we do end up concluding that it was artificial
in origin, perhaps a spacecraft,
that would have huge implications
for the future of humanity.
KAKU: Some people are saying this object
came from outside the solar system.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s a techno-signature
of intelligent life.
And that has created a sensation
because this is a new branch of science.
We’re not just looking at asteroids anymore.
We’re looking for remnants of intelligence.
HENRY: When you consider the vastness of space and just how tiny
our planet is-- it’s literally a tiny speck
within the Milky Way galaxy-- and then you factor in
direct hits by meteorites
that came from beyond our solar system,
you have to wonder, are these meteorites
somehow intelligently directed?
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the meteor
that exploded near Papua New Guinea in 2014
was carrying extraterrestrial technology?
If so, could an advanced civilization
be sending such objects to Earth deliberately?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest,
further clues can be found
at an impact crater in northern Mexico
that some believe functions as a beacon for UFOs.
This area is completely devoid of electromagnetic signals.
Your cell phone won’t work, you won’t pick up GPS.
People see UFOs and mysterious lights.
NARRATOR: The U.S. Air Force launches
an Athena V-123-D missile
from the Green River Test Site.
The rocket is programmed to land 700 miles away
at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
But the missile veers hundreds of miles off course...
...and crashes in the remote Mapimí desert
in northern Mexico.
When workers arrive to clean up the crash site,
they notice something very unusual.
During the cleanup process it was noted that
radio communications didn’t work well,
compasses didn’t work right.
This area is completely devoid of electromagnetic signals.
Meaning your cell phone won’t work,
you won’t pick up satellite signals like GPS.
It’s a really odd place.
NARRATOR: The area quickly earned the nickname
La Zona del Silencio,
or the "Zone of Silence."
COLLINS: The Zone of Silence has become notorious,
um, in the last 50-odd years
through the fact that many mysterious events have occurred.
And the origins of this location
seem to be of a cosmic nature.
NARRATOR: The Athena rocket was just the latest object to fall
from the heavens and land in the Mapimí desert.
Prior to the crash, the Zone of Silence
had been bombarded by more meteor strikes
than any other spot on Earth.
The Zona del Silencio
was well-known for the numerous meteorite impacts,
over and over, over thousands of years hitting that one spot.
NARRATOR: Perhaps the most intriguing impact
occurred in February 1969.
BIRNES: The year before the Athena rocket,
there was a meteor crash in that Zone of Silence.
It was the Allende meteor.
And what that meteor brought to this planet
was the element curium.
We know what curium is,
and it doesn’t occur naturally on this planet.
TAYLOR: Now, curium is a material that we create
in nuclear reactors or in nuclear explosions or
it’s created inside the nuclear fire of the Sun.
So it doesn’t just occur randomly anywhere
and it’s not a decay product.
It has to be created.
So the question arose then,
was this meteor that impacted in Mexico
created in a reactor by some advanced civilization?
NARRATOR: Created in a reactor by an advanced civilization?
Is it possible that the Allende meteorite,
and perhaps others that struck the area before it,
contained extraterrestrial technology?
And if so, how did it get here?
Some researchers believe it was sent deliberately.
And as evidence they point to numerous UFOs
that have been reported in the area.
There’s no question that the Zone of Silence
is a very mysterious area.
In the last 50-odd years,
many mysterious events have occurred.
People see UFOs,
mysterious lights,
and experience other types of paranormal activity.
In 2008, I was filming in the Zone of Silence,
and the locals in the town of Coyame
talked about how strange beings came up out of the ground.
Whether these beings were extraterrestrials,
whether these things were something else, we don’t know.
NARRATOR: Is it more than mere coincidence that in the Zone of Silence,
where a high number of meteor impacts have occurred
and strange electromagnetic anomalies have been recorded,
there have also been reports of UFOs and otherworldly entities?
Could it be, as researchers have argued,
that the impacts over and over in that area
have created a whole anomalous area?
And that the Zone of Silence is so magnetically
and electronically potent, that it’s somehow attracted the ETs?
And you might ask yourself, why?
Do they need the magnetic energy from that spot?
Maybe they are terraforming our planet
for their own purposes, and we don’t know why.
TSOUKALOS: The idea that, through meteor impacts,
one could influence the development
and the evolution of a planet
is feasible to me, and many astronomers
and bioastronomers are looking at these ideas
as actual concepts in reality.
And so, has this potentially happened on Earth?
And the answer to that is a resounding yes.
NARRATOR: Are meteorite impacts responsible
for the mysterious phenomena in the Zone of Silence?
And if so, might they be connected
to UFO activity in the area?
Some researchers believe that further clues can be found
in similar anomalies that occur 1,500 miles away
in a mysterious area known...
...as Skinwalker Ranch.
BIRNES: Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most
anomalous areas on this planet.
TAYLOR: There are strange magnetic field anomalies.
Is it possible that this is from some extraterrestrial origin?
NARRATOR: Uintah County, Utah.
Located in the northeastern part of the state
is a 512-acre property known as Skinwalker Ranch,
one of the most intensely studied paranormal hot spots
in the world.
Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most
anomalous areas on this planet.
Here’s what people have seen in that ranch:
strange creatures suddenly appearing out of nowhere,
UFOs, instruments don’t work.
The people around the ranch
set up observation posts to see what’s going on.
And they’re the ones that are recording
all kinds of strange creatures.
NARRATOR: Astrophysicist and aerospace engineer
Dr. Travis Taylor has spent nearly 20 years
working on high-tech programs
for the Department of Defense and NASA.
It is going nuts.
NARRATOR: In 2019, he joined
a research team investigating
the strange phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch.
It just jumped to 18.
We need to get out of here, guys.
Let’s get out of here.
NARRATOR: Since that time, Dr. Taylor has come to believe
that the mysterious events are connected
to the unique geology of the Uintah Basin
where Skinwalker Ranch is located.
The Uintah Basin appears to be the epicenter
of some really unusual phenomena, including
UAP sightings,
strange energy measurements,
strange electric and magnetic field anomalies,
and even other anomalies that look like
something out of a science-fiction movie.
What is that solid light?
It’s got a black dot in the center of it.
What?
NARRATOR: As part of the investigation,
Dr. Taylor and the research team
drilled core samples of the soil in the area
around Skinwalker Ranch.
And what they found was unexpected.
TAYLOR: We made an immense amount
of measurements and taken an immense amount of data,
and from all those measurements, what we’ve discovered is,
there seems to be an interesting mix of things
underneath the ground here at Skinwalker Ranch
that are the makeup elements that you would need to create
computers, spacecraft, and so on.
The geology looks like
an ancient impact crater.
And there was an impact here maybe 50 million years ago.
Is it possible that this different phenomena
that happen at Skinwalker Ranch is from
some extraterrestrial origin, uh, an ancient impact site,
an ancient crash site?
Skinwalker Ranch, it appears to be similar to Mexico
where there is a Zone of Silence
right where there’s odd phenomena being seen that
could be potentially a side effect of a meteor impact.
NARRATOR: Could it be that meteorites
are responsible for the phenomena
at Skinwalker Ranch and the Zone of Silence?
Dr. Taylor believes not only that this is possible
but that the same might be true for other areas
across the globe where electromagnetic anomalies
are present.
TAYLOR: There are other similar places around the world,
like near Roosevelt in Utah.
There’s places in Iraq where this, uh, occurs.
There’s places in Australia where compasses
and other electromagnetic phenomena occur.
Where we have, uh, communications
that don’t function properly,
sort of like radio silent regions.
And all these seem to be near meteor impact sites.
And people that are near those, they see UFOs,
they-they think they see entities and things like that--
maybe they do.
Is it the impactor that created some kind of strange phenomena?
Or it might be some other technology
that we don’t understand at play here.
Could these impact sites be directed crashes
from an ancient or an advanced extraterrestrial civilization,
and that’s why we see these strange phenomena?
HENRY: Another facet of these impact crater sites is the materials
and the energy that is left behind,
and you have to wonder, well,
what is the role of those materials,
and is it possible that they are responsible
for altering the planet for an unknown purpose?
NARRATOR: Could it be that extraterrestrials
are intentionally depositing exotic materials on Earth
through meteor impacts
as part of an ongoing mission to transform the planet
and direct the future of humanity?
Perhaps further clues will be revealed
by an audacious new mission
designed to retrieve a piece of a meteor
that might contain extraterrestrial technology.
NARRATOR: Theoretical physicist Dr. Avi Loeb
announces an ambitious new expedition.
Its goal is to recover fragments
of the interstellar meteor that exploded
over the Pacific Ocean in February 2014.
LOEB: This meteor was roughly half a meter in size,
bigger than a basketball, and it burned up
about 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
The ocean is very deep.
It’s about a mile deep there,
but we plan to use a sled
equipped with a magnet that will attract the small fragments
and collect them, and we will go back and forth
across the region of interest, just like mowing the lawn,
for a couple of weeks, and we hope to find those fragments.
We hope, just like detectives,
to collect enough evidence that will tell
us the origins of this object.
NARRATOR: If the project is successful,
it will mark the first time
humanity has recovered material from another solar system.
LOEB: Whatever we find will have a big impact
on our understanding of interstellar objects.
NARRATOR: But what excited Dr. Loeb the most
about the meteor isn’t where it came from
but what it might contain.
LOEB: The reason that the meteor is interesting
is because the possibility that it may have been
a spacecraft propelled artificially
and made of some alloy that is much tougher
than iron meteorites.
If we do end up concluding that it was
artificial in origin, perhaps a spacecraft,
that would be the first time that we found evidence
for an object that originated
from another civilization.
NARRATOR: Could the remnants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft
really be lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?
While it may be a sensational notion,
the possibility has excited researchers around the world.
KAKU: So, there’s talk that maybe we should try to capture
this material that plunged into the Pacific.
Because who knows?
Maybe it was sent here
by an alien civilization in outer space.
Now, the probability of that happening
is very small, let’s face it.
It’s a long shot.
But, hey, science is based on long shots.
You never know where the next discovery is being made.
And so I think it’s worthwhile to try to see
whether we can retrieve this object.
TSOUKALOS: This object may contain
some type of extraterrestrial technology
or some type of an extraterrestrial signature
that points towards intelligence.
If they can find this object and study it,
it could potentially be one of the greatest discoveries
in human history.
NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,
the findings may help answer an essential question.
Have alien civilizations from across the galaxy
been sending materials to Earth for eons,
with the deliberate intention of developing our planet,
altering evolution, and setting us
on a path to our future?
TAYLOR: Perhaps, out of all these things that crash
into the Earth’s atmosphere, some percentage of them
could be of extraterrestrial origin.
And if we go and look at all these,
as many as we can find, perhaps we’ll find
that one needle in the haystack
that tells us this is a device, or was a device
before it impacted the Earth, that came from outside
of our solar system and from some advanced civilization.
TSOUKALOS: Maybe we’ll find new DNA
or we’ll find new building blocks for life,
life that we didn’t even know could even exist.
And what implications
does that have for us?
NARRATOR: Were meteors deliberately sent to Earth
to terraform the planet,
enabling the development of intelligent life
and a technologically advanced civilization?
And if so, are extraterrestrials
continuing to direct the evolution of both the planet
and humanity through meteor impacts today?
Perhaps the proof lies not in the skies above
but in plain sight here on Earth.
And it is there we must look for the undeniable evidence
of our connection to the cosmos.
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