NARRATOR: Cultural artifacts...
obliterated.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: It is absolutely barbaric!
They're destroying our cultural heritage.
NARRATOR: Irreplaceable texts reduced to smoldering ash.
NICK POPE: It's as if the roots of human civilization itself
are being hidden from us.
NARRATOR: And sacred lands
looted under the cover of darkness.
WILLIAM HENRY: Armed men spent three days digging
and left with something in tow.
What exactly it was, nobody knows.
NARRATOR: Throughout history, mankind's most ancient
and sacred sites have been
plagued by conflict and warfare.
But could this constant turmoil
really be part of an otherworldly agenda?
DAVID WILCOCK: Could an extraterrestrial intelligence
be deliberately thwarting
any effort for itself to be discovered
from the ancient records?
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization,
mankind has credited its origins to gods
and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true?
Did extraterrestrial beings
really help to shape our history?
And if so,
might the most compelling evidence
lie hidden in forbidden zones?
NARRATOR: Northern Iraq.
20 miles south of Mosul lies
the ancient Assyrian capital city of Nimrud.
Built over 3,000 years ago
in the 13th century B.C.,
the site is an archaeological treasure trove.
Among the antiquities found here
are monumental statues
of winged lions with human-heads,
and massive relief carvings
depicting the ancient gods of Mesopotamia.
(indistinct shouting)
But on March 6, 2015,
militants from the Islamic State
stormed the ancient site,
violently destroying
everything in their path.
After obliterating irreplaceable relics,
they wired the entire site with explosives
and leveled it completely...
forever wiping it from the face of the Earth.
This group seems to be more destructive
than just about anything people can recall in history.
It's almost as if we're being orphaned from our past.
We are having our parentage,
our ancestors, cut off from us;
The record of them.
It is absolutely barbaric what is going on currently
in the Middle East
with some factions going deliberately
to ancient sites
and just eradicating
our cultural heritage.
NARRATOR: This volatile region
is widely considered
to have been the cradle of civilization.
And its archaeological destruction
could mean the loss of information about mankind's
historical past.
Iraq, Syria... What we call the Middle East,
uh, or the Near East, uh,
is called the cradle of civilization for a reason.
Anthropologically,
this appears to be the place
where the first humans arose.
This is where people came from.
And all of the earliest civilizations,
cities, governments,
come from this region.
NARRATOR: In the 21st Century,
the violence and destruction
have reached an unprecedented level,
but the Middle East has been embroiled
in conflict for thousands of years.
The Islamic state today is doing what the Taliban did before,
which is doing what Byzantine Christians and Jews
before them have all done.
They don't want any graven images.
So because of their religious beliefs,
they are basically destroying
our own cultural heritage for religious purposes.
And like human lives,
many of these you can't get back.
NARRATOR: Since 1990,
the Middle East has seen the destruction
of cultural heritage on an unprecedented scale.
A scale not seen since the Christian vandalism
that began during the Roman Empire.
Over 700,000 archaeological,
cultural and religious artifacts
have been stolen or destroyed.
And over 200 significant historical sites
have been completely left in ruins.
The Middle East seems to be
in an almost permanent state of instability.
Is this deliberate?
Is someone keeping it that way?
Maybe to prevent us from discovering something?
Is there something
that would fundamentally change our understanding
of who we are and where we come from?
TSOUKALOS: It is absolutely horrifying
to see the erasing of our history.
And what's worse all of these ancient sites
are one giant piece of the puzzle
that we might have been visited
in the past by extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: For thousands of years,
northern Africa,
the Middle East and India
have been in an almost constant state of unrest.
But also in Southeast Asia,
the regions of Kashmir and Tibet
are considered among the most disputed territories
in the world.
And halfway across the globe,
the northern triangle of Central America...
Which includes Guatemala,
El Salvador and Honduras...
Has been declared the deadliest region
on Earth
outside of active war zones.
Could there be a reason that these specific areas
experience so much chaos?
ERICH VON DANIKEN: It might be that on such places,
the extraterrestrials descended some thousands of years ago,
on such places, they have, uh, hidden something.
GEORGE NOORY: There could be
something special about the sites.
These are areas that are so important
to the things that have happened on this planet.
And, I still think that the knowledge,
and the success of where we go as people
on planet Earth
is directly related to those areas.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that there is
an otherworldly connection
between certain areas of global conflict
and places of significant archaeological importance?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest
there could very well be so-called
forbidden zones on planet Earth...
Areas that extraterrestrial entities
want to keep humans from exploring?
But if so, why?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining a conflict
in another volatile region,
where some of mankind's greatest treasures are being looted
from beneath the desert sands.
NARRATOR: Cairo, Egypt.
2011.
(shouting)
In what has come to be known as the Arab Spring,
riots break out throughout Egypt.
Protesters demand the resignation
of President Hosni Mubarak.
(shouting, chanting)
With the media and law enforcement
focused on the demonstrations,
looters gain greater freedom
to pillage Egypt's ancient sites
and artifacts.
MARTIN: For many people,
getting rid of Mubarak was just a license
to profit from the new situation.
They would loot archaeological sites.
They were suddenly free of the dictator
and a lot of them went crazy.
HENRY: During the Arab Spring, insiders told me
that trucks loaded with deep digging equipment
accompanied by armored vehicles and armed men,
spent three days digging in the sands outside Cairo
and left with something in tow.
What exactly it was, nobody knows.
ERIN NELL: Guards were powerless to do anything to stop it.
This created a huge amount of havoc,
just because of the lack of security
and the intentions of certain people
to steal Egyptian antiquities.
You can tell from the satellite imagery
the increase in different holes in the ground,
you know, looters' pits that they've dug.
This is the site of Dahshur.
This picture was taken in 2010.
But when you look at this one over here,
I think this was taken in 2013,
the difference between the two is pretty amazing.
Look at all these pits that were dug by looters.
When it comes to Egypt,
everyone's familiar with the pyramids,
but really that's only a tiny part
of what survives of that ancient
and sophisticated civilization.
NARRATOR: According to modern archaeologists,
less than one percent of ancient Egypt
has been discovered and excavated.
But how is it that such a pivotal ancient culture
disappeared unnoticed into the desert sands?
NELL: There were several different cultures
that came in with armies... The Nubians,
the Assyrians were in there once,
the Persians twice
and then the Greeks.
When the Romans took over,
they just drained it of Egyptian religion and culture.
So when the Arabs came in, in 641,
most of these temples were at least halfway covered in sand,
so all you have are these huge magnificent columns
kind of coming out of the ground.
The Sphinx, you know, was buried right up to his head.
POPE: By the time Napoleon got to Egypt,
the hieroglyphs were indecipherable.
No one knew what these things were, what they meant.
We had to re-learn it.
It was only with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone
that we got our first insight
into what these hieroglyphs might actually be saying.
NARRATOR: But is Egypt's long history
of political unrest merely man-made,
or is there something extraterrestrial at work?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that further answers
can be found still buried in the desert sands.
I think if you could blow all the sand away
from the Middle East and Egypt,
you would find incredible relics.
I also think that information about extraterrestrials
is probably deeply hidden away
under the sands of that region.
NARRATOR: Abydos, Egypt.
February 2011.
300 miles south of Cairo,
looters target what was once
the most sacred site to the ancient Egyptians
during the time of the Pharaohs.
It was here that Egypt's first rulers were buried
and the earliest forms of hieroglyphs were found,
as well as an inscription bearing the names and chronology
of the first kings of Ancient Egypt.
Abydos was considered sacred to the god Osiris,
Lord of the Dead
and Egypt's first otherworldly ruler.
According to ancient legends,
his dismembered head was buried at the site.
ANDREW COLLINS: So who was Osiris?
Was he simply an ancestor
of the ancient Egyptians?
Or was he a god
that descended to Earth,
you know, from the sky world?
Obviously, we cannot say today.
But we know he was said to have existed in an age
that was known as Zep Tepi, the First Time.
NARRATOR: In the 13th century B.C.,
the Pharaoh Seti I
was building his temple here in Abydos,
when... according to some accounts...
He had an encounter with the god Osiris.
HENRY: When King Seti was building his temple,
he had a dream in which
the Egyptian god Osiris appeared to him.
And he told Seti
that if he was to dig behind his temple location,
that he would find something of enormous significance.
Seti digs 40 feet beneath the temple
and finds the tomb of Osiris.
NARRATOR: For hundreds of years,
no such tomb was known to exist in Abydos.
But at the turn of the 20th century,
archaeologists digging
behind the temple of Seti I
unearthed a massive underground structure
consisting of granite and sandstone blocks,
some weighing nearly 60 tons.
The Osirion, as it is now known,
was found buried under 40 feet of silt.
And ancient astronaut theorists are convinced
that further excavations would reveal
something much more profound hidden within it.
HENRY: The interesting thing about it
is that on the exterior wall of the Temple of Seti
is inscribed what is called
the head or tower of Osiris,
what looks like some kind of
an ancient antennae-type of a device.
It's clearly technological or mechanical-looking.
According to legend,
it has been buried and is awaiting rediscovery.
WILCOCK: Abydos is a veritable treasure trove
of artifacts, ancient records,
inscriptions on temple walls
of people who look very different than us.
There are repositories of ancient technologies
that are still hiding under the desert sands.
There's a lot of vested interest
these extraterrestrials... The gods... might have
in keeping these things hidden from us.
NARRATOR: Could it be that Abydos holds alien technology
that was deliberately hidden from mankind?
Is the instability in this region...
Like that in other forbidden zones...
Somehow being generated by extraterrestrials
that want to keep humanity from rediscovering it?
And if so, just how are they accomplishing this?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining the latest scientific breakthroughs
in using technology to incite violence.
NARRATOR: Lhasa, Tibet.
Situated nearly 12,000 feet above sea level,
the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, or "Place of the Gods,"
has long been considered
one of the least accessible areas of the world.
For over three decades,
Tibet was entirely closed off to outsiders
after the forcible takeover of the region
and exile of its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama
in 1959 by the Chinese Army.
During their siege of the city,
Chinese Red Guards systematically destroyed
temples, frescoes,
and ancient religious texts.
It's a terrible legacy... from the Great Library at Alexandria,
the library at Sarajevo, more recently in Phnom Penh.
Other stories like the Nazi book burning... there seems
to be this thing that happens where some revolutionary energy
wants to destroy the cultural treasures of the past.
CARGILL: When one culture conquers another culture,
you want to kill their ideology,
and the way that you do that is you burn their books.
You banish their ideas.
You banish their language.
You banish their religious practices.
You burn the ancient records.
(shouting)
NARRATOR: Throughout history, military conflict has resulted
not only in loss of life
but also the destruction of cultural heritage.
And even when setting out to colonize the New World,
early explorers and missionaries systematically eradicated
what they considered to be pagan texts
and mythologies of Native American,
Mesoamerican, and Polynesian tribes they encountered.
They destroy artifacts. They bury sites.
It's almost as if
this is a deliberate blotting out of the past.
It's as if the roots
of human civilization itself are being hidden from us.
CHILDRESS: With the destruction of knowledge,
we may well be losing our connection to the gods,
extraterrestrials of the past, how they interacted
with us, what they wanted us to do.
WILCOCK: Why is it that these records
continually seem to get misplaced
or they get burned or they get destroyed
or they're deliberately ruined?
Is it possible that there is, in fact,
an ongoing extraterrestrial presence
that has somehow infiltrated into our society?
Could this extraterrestrial intelligence
be deliberately thwarting any effort for itself
to be discovered from the ancient records?
(horse neighs)
NARRATOR: Could there really be aliens among us
inciting conflict, as some
ancient astronaut theorists suggest?
And, if so,
might we find this conflict
concentrated in so-called forbidden zones?
But why?
And perhaps even more importantly,
how has this violent behavior been accomplished?
Pasadena, California.
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology
identify a set of neurons
in the hypothalamus of mouse brains
that correspond to aggression.
Through a technique called optogenetics,
the group uses pulses of light to activate the neurons
and instantaneously incite violence in the mice.
There are many ways in which we can affect or manipulate
the brain or brain function.
And there's a really exciting new technique
called optogenetics.
And although it's not being used in humans yet,
it's being used in animal trials.
And what that is is they actually manipulate a virus
so that it becomes a delivery system for a gene
that's taken from a photosensitive algae.
And that gene is then delivered to specific neurons,
and then those neurons are triggered to fire via light.
You can control the behavior of the animal via remote control
in the sense all you have to do
is trigger the different types of receptors to fire.
If you actually go in and stimulate
the prefrontal cortex,
you can cause animals to act out.
NARRATOR: In 2010,
scientists at Osaka University and at the University of Texas
publish separate findings both indicating
that up to eight percent of the human genome comes from viruses
and not from our ancestral DNA.
Could this help explain
how extraterrestrials might be able
to incite humans to violence,
just as researchers have used viruses
to trigger aggression in mice?
NOORY: Somebody genetically altered us
a long, long time ago,
and they intentionally put in this ability to become violent.
There's no question that people could be manipulated,
could be used to do all kinds of things
and they wouldn't even know it.
We are simply a pawn
on an extraterrestrial chess game that they can move
and manipulate any time they want,
that they serve up, at their whim, whenever they want.
There's no question about that.
NARRATOR: Could humans be artificially stimulated
to create acts of violence,
as some ancient astronaut theorists propose?
And might this stimulation be targeted to people
living in certain regions of the world?
Perhaps the answers can be found
buried deep in the jungles of Guatemala.
(birds chirping)
NARRATOR: Deep in the jungles of Guatemala lie the ruins
of the ancient Mayan city of El Mirador.
Dating back to at least the fifth century BC,
the site is believed to predate the classic Mayan civilization.
But, curiously, it was abruptly abandoned around 150 BC.
Western archaeologists rediscovered the site in 1979
in an area currently controlled
by one of the most feared drug cartels in the region.
Today, armed soldiers stand guard
just outside the archaeological site
that is larger than Manhattan
and contains one of the tallest pyramids in the world.
ED BARNHART: El Mirador, in fact, has dozens of pyramids.
Many of them are as big
as anything that the classic Maya made.
But it's also one of their very oldest cities.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most intriguing discovery
at El Mirador is a carving believed to be a depiction
of the Mayan creation story known as the Popol Vuh.
It dates back more than 2,000 years
and is the oldest known version to survive
after Central America was overtaken
by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century.
TSOUKALOS: The conquistadors requested
for all these different Mayan codices to be destroyed.
And so after this pillaging and destruction happened,
the Popol Vuh was re-created by the ruling elite at the time.
And, to the best of their abilities,
they tried to put on paper
their histories and their mythologies of their ancestors.
But these stories go back much further back in time.
The Popol Vuh is foundational to Maya civilization.
As foundational as the Bible is to Christianity.
But now, things like what we found
at El Mirador are telling us
that that story goes back at least to 200 BC.
And that's exciting.
Now we have a continuity of the Popol Vuh
being pivotal to Maya people
all the way back to their origins.
NARRATOR: Curiously, the Popol Vuh narrative
and the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis
contain many similarities,
including the stories concerning the creation of the world,
animals, and then, finally mankind.
- (thunderclaps) - They both include stories
of a great flood.
And in both texts, it is suggested
that there is information
purposely kept from mankind by his creator.
But what is unique to the Popol Vuh is an account
of an earlier time
when humans had access to greater knowledge.
YOUNG: In the great Mayan creation narrative,
the Popol Vuh, the gods created humans,
and they had terrific knowledge.
So much so that it worried the gods.
And so they put a veil over the consciousness of the people
so that they could only see
what was right there in front of them.
They limited their ability to know.
WILLIAM BRAMLEY: The earliest human beings in the Popol Vuh...
They were very smart.
They basically understood things.
They could see things.
And so, the gods of creation said, "Oh, we can't have this."
"So what we have to do is,
we have to put a screen over that vision."
Knowledge became less and less available
to the overall population.
What happened to the humans who were smarter than us?
Were they, in fact, the ancient Egyptians,
the Sumerians and many other ancient cultures?
These areas, apparently, would have
all of the records that we would need to completely
rebuild our history.
These are the most unstable areas on Earth.
Could this be why?
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that ancient humans possessed greater knowledge
than we currently do today,
as the Mayan mythology seems to suggest?
If so, who were these gods
that the Mayans believed to be their creators?
According to ancient astronaut theorists,
their true identity might be revealed
by examining one of the carvings contained
within the Popol Vuh...
The so-called "Hero Twins."
If you look at that carving, the guy is clearly wearing a helmet,
and he has this backpack.
And he's actually floating in space,
or he is descending from the sky.
You have, uh, what seem to be like some kind of helmet.
And even one of the figures looks like a flying saucer.
Could these stone carvings be
depictions of ancient astronauts?
And if that is the case, then it would indicate
that these extraterrestrials have actually created us.
And in fact, they're still here today,
manipulating us and guiding us into the future.
NARRATOR: Do the carvings at El Mirador contain information
about mankind's past that we were not meant to discover?
If so, could it be
that extraterrestrials have been creating barriers and warfare
to prevent us from learning about our true origins?
Or is there an even more profound explanation?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest the ultimate proof
of just what they are trying to hide can be found
by examining one of the most fought-over sites on Earth...
Temple Mount.
(gunfire, shouting and chatter)
(loud shouting)
NARRATOR: Jerusalem, October, 2014.
(gunfire)
Amidst tension and violence after the assassination attempt
on a Jewish activist,
Israeli authorities shut down
the sacred site of Temple Mount.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas
pronounces the closure "a declaration of war."
And although access to the temple is quickly restored,
many fear that a third intifada, or holy war, is now inevitable.
That was the uprising that the Palestinians engaged in.
This was their revolution.
It began first in 1987, and was waged for five years.
Then, in 2000, it lasted for another five years.
There was tremendous violence
between Palestinians and Israelis.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that
the Temple Mount would be a flashpoint
for all these conflicts.
NARRATOR: The Temple Mount is a 35-acre platform
that has long had great significance to Jews,
Christians and Muslims.
It is revered in the Jewish tradition
as the place where God gathered the dust to create Adam,
where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac
to prove his faith to God,
and where King Solomon built the First Temple
to house the Ark of the Covenant.
Christians honor the site
as the location of some of Jesus's most sacred teachings.
And for Muslims, Temple Mount...
Which they refer to as "the Noble Sanctuary,"
or "Haram al-Sharif"...
Is believed to be the location
where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven
on the back of a winged horse.
The three monotheistic faiths...
Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
All believe that God has a special connection to this area.
They all believe that this is where people will ascend
to Heaven when the day of judgment comes.
They all want it, but they don't want to share it.
(shouting)
FANTHORPE: Temple Mount has been a holy place
for many, many generations.
And there are strange religious traditions,
rumors, legends of what lies underneath it.
And the idea is, there is something so precious
underneath it that God himself intervenes to protect it.
NARRATOR: Could there really be some powerful force
contained within Temple Mount?
Is that why three religions are at such odds
over this sacred site?
Some researchers and religious scholars suggest
that Temple Mount may not only serve
as a place of spiritual connection,
but also as a gateway to other points in the universe.
The Temple Mount has long been considered
to be a portal to Heaven.
It is said that when the patriarch Jacob rested
one night, he placed stones on the ground.
And there, he saw a ladder ascending to Heaven,
where the angels were going up and coming down.
This was always known to have been a vortex, a portal.
NARRATOR: A ladder descending from Heaven?
A visitation site for otherworldly beings?
Could it really be that the significance of Temple Mount
is not what's under it but the location itself?
WILCOCK: It could very well be
that there was a natural area on the Earth
that the Temple Mount was deliberately built around
and that natural physics that we don't yet understand
in conventional science allow for there to be a slipstream
between realities, a gateway, a parting of the veil
between this world and other parallel universes.
POPE: There have been a number of UFO sightings
around the Temple Mount.
MAN: Whoa!
Is the site important not just to human religions
but does it have some special significance
for extraterrestrials?
Is that why this site is so untouchable?
(bystanders gasping)
NARRATOR: Do sacred sites like Temple Mount in Jerusalem
not only hold secrets about mankind's origins
but possibly even serve as portals
to other parts of the universe?
And, if so, might the turmoil in various forbidden zones
be due in part to extraterrestrials
that want to keep humanity from discovering the truth?
Perhaps the answers can be found
by reexamining what some claim
is the motivation behind the Western invasion of Iraq.
NARRATOR: Iraq.
March 19, 2003.
The United States military
begins its Shock and Awe air campaign
over the city of Baghdad.
It is a preemptive strike aimed
to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein,
who the government believes
is in possession of weapons of mass destruction.
POPE: Saddam Hussein wanted to make Iraq
a regional and perhaps a global superpower.
He spoke about himself as the new Nebuchadnezzar.
NARRATOR: Nebuchadnezzar II
was the great Babylonian warrior king,
most famously known for rebuilding and expanding
the Babylonian Empire in the sixth century BC.
His armies conquered Egypt
as well as ransacking and destroying.
Solomon's Temple in 597 BC.
MARTIN: Saddam Hussein went nuts.
He believed he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar,
so he ordered massive reconstruction of Babylon,
which was done with bricks bearing his name on them.
Everyone would come to respect the ancient Nebuchadnezzar
and the new Nebuchadnezzar.
HENRY: The missing piece to the puzzle of why we went to war
with Iraq is the understanding
that Saddam Hussein sought to outdo
what Nebuchadnezzar had accomplished
in his earlier life.
The ultimate accomplishment of Nebuchadnezzar
was the opening of the fiery furnace.
Nebuchadnezzar had gone to Jerusalem,
looted and leveled the Temple of Solomon,
and he brought the wise men of the temple
back to Babylon with him.
What happened in the story is absolutely amazing.
These three wise men enter this fiery furnace.
Not only did they come back out in perfect condition...
They weren't alone.
They came back with an extraterrestrial visitor in tow.
In today's terms, we would obviously call this
a stargate or a portal.
Saddam knew this.
Saddam Hussein's esoteric interests
were probably like those of the Nazis,
aimed at uncovering some power,
some technology, some relic that would enable him
to become this world leader that he dreamed of being.
There's one theory that the Iraq War
was actually a war about a stargate.
Saddam Hussein, so the theory goes,
got access to this stargate,
maybe threatened to use it.
Was that why the allied powers went in?
It sounds farfetched, but this theory is widely believed.
NARRATOR: Is it possible the United States military
was pursuing more than weapons of mass destruction
when they invaded Iraq?
Could something of great significance,
perhaps a portal to another world,
have been found amongst the chaos?
And if there are truths
about extraterrestrial involvement with our planet
hidden in forbidden zones,
just what would happen when the truth is finally revealed?
WILCOCK: With the knowledge that's coming into view now
as we're reconstructing bit by bit, piece by piece
this tile mosaic of ancient history,
we're gaining the ability to reconstruct the view
of what really happened to us and what it means to be human
and our relationship to the greater cosmos that's around us.
NOORY: If you believe in the extraterrestrial presence,
it was always to kind of keep us down
so that we wouldn't get that much knowledge.
They want to keep us ignorant and fighting and greedy.
It's very possible that we will never know
what happened on this planet a long time ago.
TSOUKALOS: It's our own test,
and the reason why no official contact has taken place yet
is because we ourselves are on the verge
of destroying this planet.
So my suggestion is
we first have to learn how to interact with each other
before being allowed to receive this knowledge.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the perpetual violence
experienced in certain parts of the world
is more than just a consequence of political
and religious conflict?
Could it be that it is actually spurred on
by extraterrestrial forces,
forces that are trying to hide the truth
about mankind's origins?
Perhaps once we have proven
that we can conquer our aggression and anger,
we will be able to access this knowledge
and join our creators in the stars.