NARRATOR: Mega-machines cutting through solid rock...
the transportation of multi-ton stone blocks...
modern aircraft carrying millions of people each day
around the world...
and space shuttles sending humans to the stars.
(over radio): And liftoff of Endeavor...
NARRATOR: But are these examples of modern technology,
or is there evidence that these incredible achievements existed
on Earth thousands ofyears ago?
GRAHAM HANCOCK: You begin to have to ask yourself,
are we missing part of the story?
NARRATOR: Could ancient man
have possessed knowledge far beyond that of our own century?
And if so, where did it come from?
DR. ALGUND EENBOOM: I think that people in ancient times were
visited by beings coming not from this Earth,
and they gave us scientific technologies.
PHILIP COPPENS: It becomes ever more apparent
that the possible answer of
"Have aliens visited in the past?"
could be a potential yes.
NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world believe we have
been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true?
Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history?
And if so, what ifthere were clues left behind,
sometimes hiding in plain sight?
What ifwe could find the evidence?
NARRATOR: Saqqara, Egypt.
Located roughly 20 miles south of Cairo,
it is home to the world-famous step pyramid
of King Djoser.
Dating back more than 4,000 years,
it is the oldest of Egypt's 97 pyramids.
Saqqara is also famous for being
one of Egypt's oldest burial grounds,
earning it the nickname "City ofthe Dead."
It was here, in 1891, that French archeologists unearthed
an ancient tomb containing the burial remains of Pa-di-Imen,
an official from the third century BC.
Among the various items discovered
was a small wooden model ofwhat appeared to be
a bird, lying beside a papyrus bearing the inscription:
"I want to fly."
The artifact was later sent to the Cairo Museum,
where authorities placed it alongside
several other bird figurines.
The model sat largely unnoticed, until 1969,
when Egyptologist Dr. Kahlil Messiha was examining
the bird collection and noticed that there was something
very different about the Saqqara bird.
DR. UWE APEL: It's interesting because on one hand,
clearly, it should look like a bird because it has eyes and has
a typical nose of a bird.
On the other hand, the wings are clearly not bird wings.
DR. ALGUND EENBOOM: To the middle ofthe rim,
you see this wing a bit thicker.
In this region, the lift-up is the highest.
The whole thing becomes thinner to the, um, end ofthe wings.
And those wings, uh, model down.
And this is a very modern aerodynamic design.
APEL: Then the other point is, birds have no rudders.
Because a bird does not need a rudder
because of its aerodynamic architecture.
And so, there is the idea they are not representing birds,
but flying machines, or aircraft.
NARRATOR: Could the ancient Egyptians have possessed
the power offlight?
In 2006, aviation and aerodynamics expert
Simon Sanderson built a scale model ofthe Saqqara bird
five times larger than the original
to test that possibility.
We're running at a constant speed,
slowly increasing the angle of attack,
and then measuring the forces which it's producing.
That way, we can learn about its flight characteristics.
At ten degrees, we're producing four times weight and lift.
So, it actually would be flying now. That's good.
EENBOOM: Tests shows
the Saqqara bird is a highly-developed glider.
And this is a design we use today.
NARRATOR: During the Sanderson tests,
it was discovered that the only thing preventing
the Saqqara bird from achieving flight
was the lack of a rear stabilizing rudder,
or elevator, needed to maintain balance.
Is it possible that the Saqqara bird
ever possessed this critical component?
APEL: What is, uh...
missing is something like an elevator,
but ifyou look at this feature here, then we may interpret
that something like an elevator was connected here,
but was lost during history.
NARRATOR: Computer models
seem to confirm that the Saqqara bird is certainly airworthy.
But there is another problem to consider: launching a glider.
Modern methods require the use of a towplane
that pulls the glider into the air,
then releases it when a proper altitude is reached.
So, how might the ancient Egyptians
have launched the Saqqara bird?
The scientifics of Egyptology told us
that such a bird could be powered off by catapults to fly.
And, uh, we had high acceptance by Egyptian scientists.
NARRATOR: The idea of using a catapult does have
a contemporary parallel.
Many oftoday's glider enthusiasts
employ a bungee cord system
to launch their sail craft into the air.
But ifthe Saqqara bird is capable offlight,
where would ancient Egyptians have acquired such technology?
EENBOOM: I think that people in ancient times
were visited by beings coming not from this Earth,
and they gave us culture and scientific technologies
to improve our life on Earth
coming from the primitive to a higher developed culture.
ABEL: If ancient cultures would be able to produce
any really flyable machine,
they would be far more advanced than we believe today.
It changes our... our viewpoint of ancient societies.
COPPENS: It's a fact that our ancestors
were more intelligent and had more technological superiority
capabilities than our history books give them credit for.
HANCOCK: You begin to have to ask yourself,
"Are we missing part ofthe story?"
And honestly, I think we are.
I think there has been
a forgotten episode in human history.
And, uh, we're a species with amnesia.
We don't really remember who orwhat we are.
ROBERT BAUVAL: I haven't been convinced that there is
evidence that supports an ancient visitation.
But there is no reason why not, and I think to shut oneself
to that possibility is a mistake,
mainly because there are so many anomalies that we can't explain.
NARRATOR: 7,000 miles from Egypt,
the dense jungles and rugged mountains of Colombia
contain a vast number of archaeological sites.
Many treasure hunters believed the legendary City of Gold,
El Dorado, lies hidden here
somewhere under a thick canopy oftrees.
While the mythical metropolis has never been found,
early in the 20th century, tomb-robbers searching along
the Magdalena River stumbled upon a gravesite dating back
1,500 years to a pre-Colombian civilization
known as the Tolima.
Among the funerary objects found there
were hundreds of small two- to three-inch gold figurines.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Many ofthose
looked like insects and fish.
However, out ofthose hundreds that they found,
they also found about a dozen
that are eerily reminiscent of modern-day fighterjets.
They have a triangular shape.
They have an upright tailfin,
stabilizers...
and a fuselage.
And they have nothing in common
with anything similar in nature.
NARRATOR: Could these gold objects really be proof
that Earth has been visited by ancient aliens?
APEL: One ofthe objects
shows a typical swept wings, like with a modern aircraft.
And ifyou compare it to something like a space shuttle,
you see that the basic wing shape is very similar
to wing shapes for high-speed aerodynamic bodies
like a space shuttle is.
COPPENS: There is not a single insect in the world
which has got its wings at the bottom.
Now, when you exclude the possibility that it's an insect,
one ofthe things which remain is the fact that this is
actually, yes, what it looks like: a plane.
NARRATOR: In 1997, German aviation experts
including Algund Eenboom and Peter Belting,
set out to prove the speculation by building
a scale-model replica ofthe gold flyer,
fully equipped with landing gear and a working engine.
EENBOOM: It was rather simple, because we don't need to put
much parts to this shape because this shape is perfect.
Everything was already done by the native people
2,000 years ago.
TSOUKALOS: They did not add an inch or remove an inch.
Theyjust essentially blew the little thing into a larger size.
I mean, this is sensational
that pre-Colombian culture knew about aerodynamics.
NARRATOR: Once completed, the remote-controlled flyer took off
down a makeshift runway and flew.
COPPENS: When you see this thing taking off,
you really feel that this is the real deal.
It was a very successful test and showed us how perfect
ancient people were working out aerodynamic design.
What it shows you that there must
be something happened.
We are not quite sure how it did, but that it did.
This is applied science.
This isn'tjust thinking somewhere.
This is people going out there and making sure and proving,
what I still see, anybody can see this, that this is real.
This is genuine.
This little thing, which sits in a museum, could fly.
TSOUKALOS: So we have two examples
from opposite side ofthe planet, and both examples
are aerodynamically sound and they fly.
So, to suggest that all ofthis is coincidence...
I mean, after a while,
even coincidence no longer makes sense.
BILL BIRNES: Could the ancients have seen
actual entities, like ancient gods, ancient astronauts,
actually flying around in what amounted to modern aircraft?
NARRATOR: The answer to these questions may be found
in ancient documents that describe
flight patterns, aircraft specs, and even aerial battles
in remarkable detail.
NARRATOR: Over the past 50 years,
NASA has sent astronauts into space inside large rockets.
This method has been described by some as simply
"putting a man on a large firecracker
and lighting the fuse."
Man's ability to travel farther into space
will require more advanced propulsion systems.
Several are being researched by NASA.
ROBERT FRISBEE: There are a wide variety of advanced
propulsion technologies that are being actively developed
and studied by NASA and other researchers.
A really exotic version ofthat
is to use a launch-assist catapult,
use technology derived from the magnetic levitation trains
to build a maglev sled
that carries your rocket, gets it up to about Mach 1,
and then launches the rocket from it.
NARRATOR: While these futuristic propulsion systems
seem like something out of science fiction,
ancient alien theorists believe past civilizations
possessed these same advanced technologies.
They point to a number of cultural myths that describe
sky people coming to Earth in fire-breathing dragons,
or metallic-looking machines
as proof of extraterrestrial visitation.
DAVID CHILDRESS: In my mind, legends and myths
are based on something real.
And while they've been "mythified" and exaggerated
in many cases, in my mind, some core oftruth here in that
people really were flying in airships in ancient times
just like we do today.
NARRATOR: But might these airships have reached
Earth using the same type of propulsion systems we use today?
The answer may be found deep in the Indian subcontinent.
India-- over 1.1 billion people crowd its modern cities
and rural townships, speaking hundreds of languages,
and practicing a number of different religions.
India is considered one ofthe oldest civilizations
with settlements dating back over 1 1,000 years.
It is also home to several of the oldest records
of ancient technologies.
Ancient Sanskrit texts, dating back as far as 6000 BC,
describe in varied but vivid detail flying machines
called "vimanas."
EENBOOM: Vimanas are airplanes, and they are powered
by some jet engines.
This seems to be true because all the description
ofthe flight behavior: "elephants ran away in panic."
Grass was thrown out because there was
a lot of pressure from behind those vimanas.
So that we can say this is a description ofthe spaceship.
NARRATOR: Although mainstream historians believe
the vimana texts are myths, many ofthe documents contain
passages that seem to describe modern machinery and technology.
CHILDRESS: The Vymaanika-Shaastra goes into
metals that are used in these craft.
It talks about electricity and power sources.
It talks about the pilots and the clothing they have to wear.
It talks about the food that they eat.
It talks even about the weapons that are kept on these airships.
EENBOOM: The flight menus of the vimanas are quite similar
to the flight menus you find
in the modern passenger flight business.
Or when you go to the military jet engines,
of course, they have also flight menus
because it's necessary for a pilot
to get knowledge about his plane he wanted to flywith.
MICHAEL CREMO: We also learned that these vimanas
could be controlled mentally.
And this is a technology
that modern militaries are beginning to develop.
Even today, with as advanced as we think we are
almost every manifestation
of an actual extraterrestrial civilization today
would look almost like magic to us, where it has to do
with technological electromagnetic systems
that interface with coherent thought and organized thought.
And this gets into... people go, "Now, you're losing me here."
But I tell people, I say, "Yeah, well, you gotta push
"your boundaries a little bit
ifyou're talking about a true interstellar civilization."
NARRATOR: The Vymaanika-Shaastra,
or Science ofAeronautics, indicates vimanas used
a propulsion system based on a combination
of gyroscopes, electricity, and mercury.
Is this possible?
CHILDRESS: Mercury is an unusual element.
Mercury is metal.
It's also a liquid, and, uh, is a conductor of electricity.
You know, there's unusual things you can do with mercury.
You can put it into a closed gyroscopic device
with mercury spinning around, and then you can electrify it.
And studies have been done on this
by NASA and by other scientists.
And they find that you have levitation effects,
antigravity kind of effects,
and a spinning, bright light is part of it, too.
NARRATOR: The Vymaanika-Shaastra suggests
vimanas were powered by several gyroscopes
placed inside a sealed liquid mercury vortex.
FRISBEE: Here's an example of
a little kid's gyroscope.
You spin it with a heavy wheel around a central axis.
Well, a gyroscope seems to do
a lot of strange things, even defy gravity.
And it does this because it uses what's called rotational,
or angular, momentum.
And it wants to keep a particular orientation
on its spin axis, the center rod.
Ifyou push on that rod, it will want to
"righten" itself up to its original orientation.
It wants to keep that same angular momentum.
Gyroscopes are used all over the place:
in airplanes, in spacecraft, in submarines.
This allows them to determine their position
based on where they started.
They can also use it for finding their velocity or even just
the orientation ofthe vehicle in space.
One ofthe texts talks about mercury rotating and driving
some sort of a powerful wind, or a windmill effect.
That might be some sort ofwhat we call
a "flywheel energy storage" where you have
a spinning disc, and then you extract energy from it slowly.
That would be the mercury.
And then that could be used to drive some sort of a propeller,
or what we'd call a ducted fan sort of system,
like you have in a hovercraft.
Mercury would be quite good for that,
because it's a high density,
so you'd have a small package for your power plant,
and that's always good when you're building an aircraft.
NARRATOR: Flywheel energy storage systems, however,
tend to lose power quickly.
To navigate across space, its size would have to be enormous.
FRISBEE: They're fine for use
by power companies for load-leveling.
You put energy in when you don't need it.
You get energy out when you need it.
But they're setting on the ground.
To have something light enough to actually fly,
it's not at all clear that this would be a practical device.
Now, maybe the people were trying to describe something
that kind of looked like this to them.
It might not have actually been mercury.
It might have been some other liquid metal.
EENBOOM: The mercury vortex engine is perhaps a failure
in the translation, because the vortex is not a material
quite suitable to a jet engine.
GREER: The issue of how are these civilizations traveling
faster than the speed of light is a fundamental question.
It's a scientific application of things that have been studied
for thousands ofyears and they're within the Vadas--
the ancient Vedic teachings or other ancient teachings--
and it is there.
NARRATOR: But ifvimanas existed, could this prove
there was a worldwide transportation network
thousands ofyears before Columbus?
The answer might be found on a mountaintop outside Mexico City.
In the 21st century,
modern transportation and communication methods
have connected the world like never before.
Products or ideas, no matter where in the world they may have
originated, can spread to even the most remote countries.
A hip-hop hit in Brooklyn might make it big in Tokyo
before it's even heard in Manhattan.
This cultural interconnection has transformed the globe,
but is it new?
Mainstream archaeologists believe ancient civilizations
such as those found in the remote Pacific Islands, Asia,
and South America developed independently from each other.
But ancient astronaut theorists contend that similarities
in building styles and beliefs found in these cultures suggest
that a worldwide trade route
may have connected them to each other.
CHILDRESS: Butjust like we have airports today
around the world, in ancient times with the vimanas,
there would have been hangars for the craft,
airports for them to land.
And those airports would have been situated
in strategic places around the world.
And that's exactly what we see in remote places.
NARRATOR: Could the complex set of lines
covering Peru's Nazca plain or the mysterious plateau
above Mexico's Oaxaca valley be evidence
of runways for a worldwide air transportation system?
One ofthe unusual archaeological sites in Mexico
is a place called Monte Albán.
That is also a mountain where the top ofthe mountain was
completely cut off and leveled
to make a very flat tabletop mountain.
And there's a megalithic city there, too,
that's extremely old.
This was probably some kind of vimana airport.
EENBOOM: The vimanas could be a kind of missing link
between the single cultures in the world,
because they had just a very short time to flow from one part
ofthe world to the other.
NARRATOR: Legends of air travel are also found
in ancient Africa and the Middle East.
According to The Kebra Nagast, a holy book ofthe Ethiopians
written sometime before the second centuryAD,
the queen of Sheba was once given a gift of a flying carpet
by King Solomon of Israel.
TSOUKALOS: The Kebra Nagast
is one ofthe most important texts you've never heard of.
The Kebra Nagast means The Book of Kings,
and it is the most sacred book ofthe Ethiopians.
In it, King Solomon is described--
he had access to some type of a flying machine.
And in that part ofthe world,
the term "flying carpet" was always used very liberally.
My question is, did they really mean actual flying carpets
or was it another term with which to describe
some type of a flying machine?
CHILDRESS: This was the original Chariots ofthe Gods
that Erich von Daniken talked about--
the flying magic carpets of the Arabian Nights stories.
There are traditions in the Middle East of King Solomon
having this airship and flying to different places
in the Middle East, certain mountains
which are known as the Mountains of Solomon.
These may have been certain airports
or landing areas for these vimanas.
Nicholas Rourke, famous Russian-American explorer
who traveled all through central Asia and Tibet in the 1920s,
he, too, claimed that Tibetans had traditions of King Solomon
flying to Tibet in this aircraft.
NARRATOR: The Kebra Nagast also describes how King Solomon
used his flying airship to make maps ofthe world.
But could these have any relation to other ancient maps
some believe may have been made by extraterrestrials?
HANCOCK: Some ofthese maps show the world
not as it looks today, but as it looked during the last ice age.
And this is really hard to explain.
Everybody's heard ofthe Piri Reis map,
but they've perhaps not heard of the Orontius Finnaeus map
or-or the Mercator maps that showAntarctica in great detail
hundreds ofyears before Antarctica was even discovered.
NARRATOR: One ofthe most referenced stories
of ancient aircraft is found in a surprising place: the Bible.
In the Book of Ezekiel, the prophet describes
a flying chariot containing wheels within wheels
and powered by angels.
Although Bible historians suggest
Ezekiel was speaking symbolically
about the terrifying enemies facing Israel,
could this be another example of an alien visitation
and proofthat prehistoric aircraft existed?
In the story of Ezekiel's throne chariot-- this flying vehicle
that doesn't seem to have any means of propulsion--
ifwe thought ofthe word "angel" as representing
something like celestial energy, it sounds much more like
a spacecraft then, because some ofthe angels
are going back and forth.
Well, that sounds like flames.
That sounds like propulsion.
Some ofthem are wheel-like.
Well, those sound like flying saucers.
Our ancestors weren't idiots.
Ezekiel saw something that was so frightening to him
that he fell to his knees.
Then, out ofthe glory of God, came this being
in these bright clothes that looked like metal,
and told Ezekiel, "All right, man, we brought you here.
We want you to measure this monument, this building."
And Ezekiel asks, "Well, why should I do this?"
And the being says, "That's why we brought you here."
And then you have 40 pages,
in the second part ofthe Book of Ezekiel,
with measurement after measurement
after measurement ofthis gigantic building,
in which, by the way, the glory ofthe Lord landed.
NARRATOR: In the early 1970s,
NASA scientist Josef Blumrich set out to disprove
the theory that what Ezekiel witnessed was a spaceship.
Josef Blumrich is your proverbial rocket scientist.
He worked on the moon project for NASA
and, from the mind of a rocket engineer,
started to look at what was written
in the first part ofthe Book of Ezekiel.
And after many months of research, Josef Blumrich
came to the conclusion that what Ezekiel described
in his eyewitness report, it was indeed a type of spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Josef Blumrich
would go on to write The Spaceships of Ezekiel.
Several years later,
a German structural engineer named Hans Herbert Beier
sketched out a blueprint ofthe second section
ofthe Book of Ezekiel, where Ezekiel is told to construct
an open-topped building to house the flying chariot.
Ezekiel's spaceship fit exactly into the temple
that Hans Herbert Beier recreated.
So what we have here is a proof by indication.
Here we have a NASA engineer and a structural engineer--
they didn't know of each other's work--
and both pieces fit together like a puzzle.
In any court of law, that's evidence that would hold up.
HANCOCK: I think that scientists feel uncomfortable
with the notion ofthe lost civilization,
precisely because the evidence for it is so ambiguous.
It's not so in your face that it's immediately obvious.
Uh, and, you know, the result is
that science has not welcomed this idea.
It'll take much more evidence before it's widely accepted.
TSOUKALOS: The god that I believe in doesn't need
a vehicle in which to move around from point A to point B.
Whatever was described in the Old Testament wasn't God,
it was a misunderstood flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial
whom our ancestors misinterpreted
as being divine and supernatural.
And why?
Because of misunderstood technology.
And that is the underlying thread that applies
to all of the ancient astronaut theory.
NARRATOR: But while ancient texts provide tantalizing clues
to our past, physical evidence
paints an even clearer picture.
But will modern science
finally prove the ancient astronaut theory?
FRISBEE: Did the ancient
civilizations of Earth have access to advanced technology?
Well, it seems like they had something going on.
NARRATOR: In today's largest construction sites
and quarries, huge mega-machines
are used to dig, cut, and lift stone.
These man-made creatures dwarf their creators
and perform the work of thousands of men
using modern hydraulic technologies.
Without such equipment,
builders could never construct modern skyscrapers.
Yet, thousands ofyears ago, ancient civilizations were
accomplishing the same work while constructing
their monuments and temples using massive stones.
These enormous blocks-- many weighing in excess of
100 tons-- would be a challenge even for today's engineers.
Yet thousands ofyears ago, people cut them
out of solid rock, transported them for miles
and then lifted them precisely into place.
But how?
Did they cut these massive stone blocks with hammers,
chisels, and copper wire,
as mainstream archeologists suggest?
Could they have lifted and transported them
without a pulley system or the wheel?
Or did ancient civilizations possess advanced technologies
that have since been lost to science?
BAUVAL: At Giza, you just don't have the pyramids.
Linked to the pyramids are what
Egyptologists call valley temples.
It doesn't take a rocket engineer that when
you go there, there's something not quite right here.
Whereas the pyramids are built
with blocks of two to three tons,
these temples, which are minute compared to the pyramids,
are built with blocks of 100 tons and some ofthem 200 tons.
Let me tell you what a 100-ton block is.
Ifyou take 100 family cars
and you squeeze them together you get one ofthese blocks.
First of all, let alone how they moved these blocks
is why would they want to use 100-ton blocks?
It simply doesn't make sense.
There's no reason for them to want to
build out of granite blocks the size of a semi truck.
It's like, "Okay, let's do something,
but let's do it as difficult as we could possibly do it."
The reason why I am convinced that sophisticated technology
was utilized in these ancient rocks is because,
ifwe go to a stone quarry today and look at the scope
of machinery required to accomplish similar things,
those machines are huge.
NARRATOR: Subscribers to ancient alien theory
do not believe extraterrestrials built these amazing monuments,
but instead provided some type oftechnological know-how
or tools to our ancestors.
Engineering expert Chris Dunn has spent several decades
researching the construction tools
used by the ancient Egyptians.
DUNN: We're normally taught
by Egyptologists,
that the ancient Egyptians had simple tools.
They went to work every day using stone balls,
copper chisels or copper tube and sand
to grind holes in diorite and granite, extremely hard rock.
And what I have actually gathered over the years
is information that seems to actually argue
against that notion that they had simple tools.
NARRATOR: In Egypt, Dunn was able
to examine ancient sites firsthand.
What he found has proved to be
both revolutionary and controversial.
DUNN: Ifyou look at the Giza Plateau and all the stones
that they actually placed in the Great Pyramid
and the Khafre Pyramid and Menkaura's Pyramid,
two and a half million blocks of stone
in the Great Pyramid alone.
They had to have had some efficient means of cutting them
to size and putting them into place.
They had to have had somebody on site who is saying,
"Okay, I need a block this size," and then
getting a block to them that size stat, like immediately.
NARRATOR: While searching several miles north of Giza,
at Abu Rawash, Dunn stumbled upon a clue
when he spotted a granite block containing a deep cut.
DUNN: When I first saw it,
I just didn't know what to make of it.
And it was only after puzzling over it for days, and sometimes
waking up at 3:00 in the morning scratching my head
and thinking, well, how did they make this cut?
And finally, to realize that the only way that they could have
actually cut that thing was with
a saw that was 35 feet in diameter.
NARRATOR: The idea that ancient Egyptians used
giant saws provoked much resistance
from mainstream archeologists.
Dunn however, was convinced.
DUNN: As an ex-machinist I look for tool marks.
I look for them everywhere I go.
And I could be accused of, well, you know, ifyou're going to
look for something, you're probably going to find it
because you're looking at it through a certain filter.
Accepted, I agree.
But the question is, why is it there?
Clearly, to me, that is a machine mark.
But there were no machines back then.
So what do I do?
I just go looking for more machine marks.
And they're all over the place.
You find them on statues.
You'll find them particularly in the Luxor Museum.
There seems to be an impression on the side ofAmon's buttock
where it meets the bench, where there is an undercut.
It was the slip of a tool.
And therefore, it must have been a tool that was quite efficient.
NARRATOR: Dunn also believes that the large depressions
in the ground at Giza are not boat pits as is claimed
by mainstream archeologists,
but were actually used to hold the 35-foot saws.
I speculate that they were actually saw pits,
the saws were mounted in these pits,
and that they ran the blocks through the saws
before they put them in the Great Pyramid.
NARRATOR: Another mystery involves how mega-stones were
lifted up and placed into a precise position.
What you find in modern construction
is that to build big buildings,
you need to build big instruments which help
build these big buildings.
And that is something which archeology has never addressed.
NARRATOR: The three largest man-made stones in the world are
found at the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek in Lebanon.
Each weighs an estimated 1,000 tons-- or two million pounds.
A nearby quarry contains an even bigger stone,
known as the Stone ofthe Pregnant Woman.
This giant rectangular block weighs an incredible 1,200 tons.
To move it today would take
the strength of 21 heavy-lift cranes.
PETER PALUTIKOF: Being in the construction industry,
if a certain project is being constructed somewhere,
particularly in mountainous areas, how would we carry
this machinery, these cranes, and all that?
They are so heavy that it's
virtually impossible to take them to the site.
ROGER HOPKINS: This stone came off of a...
a project in Palm Springs, where they had one of
the largest excavators they could rent.
They had trouble loading it into the truck.
It's well in excess offive tons-- 10,000 pounds--
small in megalithic terms, but basically what we can handle
with modern machinery.
We're supposed to accept that the people who built
the pyramids did not have the wheel, did not have the pulley,
did not have iron.
In fact, they had nothing but brutal manpower
and pieces of strings.
The context does not fit the evidence.
HOPKINS: I've done pulling operations in upper Egypt.
Thousands of people involved in the various stages of
the project, moving very fragile pieces of stone that weigh
hundreds, if not thousands, oftons.
Yes, you can use ropes, but you're going to have to use
other mechanical advantages.
NARRATOR: But if ancient civilizations did not possess
modern mechanical equipment,
how did they move and lift mega-ton stones?
Some believe they were given a technical advantage from
extraterrestrial visitors.
You've got to ask yourself, why would they try
and do something that seems so incredibly difficult?
The answer to why they would do that has to be that it somehow
wasn't so difficult for them.
It was easy.
TSOUKALOS: There exists
one very concise description of how these massive stones were
transported from the quarry to the building site.
The master builders had the capability of putting some type
of a white substance-- paper-like substance--
onto the stones and they rode on it,
and then they basically gave the stone block a push,
and it moved by six feet as if by magic.
Now, did that thing really move by magic?
No, some technology was used.
CHILDRESS: That is part of the solution.
In order to really move massive amounts of stone like that,
they would have had to have been levitated--
somehow made weightless-- and then just moved
through the air by some kind of device, perhaps even
a handheld kind of device, like some beam weapon.
NARRATOR: Ancient man's method of moving large blocks
is only one mystery.
Another surrounds the techniques oftheir stonemasons.
How did prehistoric civilizations cut
such intricately-designed patterns in solid granite?
NARRATOR: Palm Springs, California.
Master stonemason and sculptor Roger Hopkins uses a variety
of advanced tools to cut and shape hard stones.
Powered implements such as diamond-tipped wires
and polishers enable him to fashion works of art
out of huge granite blocks obtained from nearby quarries.
Yet even with these high-tech tools,
Hopkins cannot replicate what ancient civilizations
accomplished thousands ofyears ago.
Could these advanced engineering methods be the smoking gun
that proves humans had help from alien beings?
HOPKINS: The precision on some ofthe work that I've seen
is just incredible.
It's possible to do by hand,
but it would take an incredible amount oftime.
Plus, you have to have years of experience
to be able to pull it off.
TSOUKALOS: In my opinion, the most tangible
pieces of evidence that we have
regarding possible extraterrestrial technology
is when we look at the ancient stone-cutting techniques.
Because in some instances,
we ourselves today could not replicate what our ancestors
allegedly accomplished with stonemasonry.
NARRATOR: Puma Punku is a large temple complex
located on a high plateau in Bolivia.
Mainstream archeologists
date the site from approximately 200 BC.
The people who lived here had neither a written language
nor the wheel, yet somehow they built
one ofthe world's most complex structures.
Ancient alien theorists view Puma Punku
as clear proof of extraterrestrial influence.
TSOUKALOS: The ruins we find at Puma Punku
are simply extraordinary.
Puma Punku defies logic.
COPPENS: The interest of Puma Punku is not so much
that the individual stones sorted together perfectly,
but the fact that the stones, as such, are of
such tremendous design that it requires concepts of mathematics
which are far beyond anything we are actually using right now.
Yet somehow in the past, somebody has made that
for a specific purpose, and in a way which even computer programs
today would kind of go, "How is this possible?"
TSOUKALOS: In the highlands of Bolivia, Puma Punku--
some ofthese blocks are over 40 to 50 tons each.
What can you tell us about this?
HOPKINS: Boy, they... they had their stone-cutting abilities
you know, pretty well fine-tuned for 5,000 years old.
I mean, it's almost unbelievable.
But these cutting planes that they
have on here are very impressive.
And some ofthe incise cuts--
see, like in here, all these interior cuts--
very hard to do.
I mean, it would be difficult for us with our equipment
to get that kind of precision.
TSOUKALOS: Let's talk a little bit about inside boxes.
Ew, I was afraid you were gonna pull something like this on me.
That is a hell of a piece ofwork.
I mean, ifwe were to do something like that today,
we'd use-- what they have, these computer-driven CNC machines
which are... have diamond tips.
And you have a template that, you know, the computer follows.
And even then, it may not come out as perfect.
TSOUKALOS: Because even though you can tell
-that obviously this piece broke off... -Mm-hmm.
Nowhere in here can you see any imperfection.
It's like... And by the way, when you're there, ifyou go
with your finger over these edges, and you put a little
pressure on your fingertip, you can cut yourself.
This is how sharp the edges are.
NARRATOR: But where could the ancient peoples have developed
such technology?
Is it really possible that extraterrestrial visitors
provided different construction methods and tools?
When I saw these blocks,
I didn't really think that they were cut.
The first thing really that I thought ofwas this appears very
similar to Frank Lloyd Wright's textile block system
of construction, which he used in his California houses
in the early 1920s.
Now what he did was-- he took concrete, poured it into molds.
TSOUKALOS: There actually are
ancient Incan legends that suggest that they had
the capability of softening the stone.
At Sacsayhuaman, for example,
we find these gigantic stone blocks, gigantic stone walls,
where it looks as ifthose stones were molten,
put into place, and then the stone hardened again.
NARRATOR: Several hundred miles north of Puma Punku,
Machu Picchu sits high atop the Peruvian Andes.
Built by the Incas in the 15th century, this stone citadel was
suddenly abandoned about 100 years later.
Like Puma Punku, Machu Picchu also has signs
of advanced engineering and possibly, molded stones.
DUNN: I can't help but think that whoever was behind this
thought the process through from beginning to end.
They didn't quarry the rock, and then decide,
"How the heck are we gonna transport this?"
They knew from beginning to end what needed to be done
with whatever techniques and technology
they were going to use, so that this was no big deal.
In industry today, there's a kind of an adage:
"Keep it simple, stupid."
NARRATOR: Based on his experience, Mike Dunn believes
the simplest way to build the great walls of Machu Picchu
would have been to transport small rocks to the site,
then melt them, and use molds
to fashion the exact size and shape needed.
DUNN: That would solve a lot
of difficulties of constructing this wall.
First, you have your shapes, all the same size, each shape.
So you're guaranteed that they would fit together,
as opposed to being cut by different artisans.
HOPKINS: Melting the rocks,
and then pouring them into place would take an incredible amount
of heatjust to spoil off pieces of stone.
I have a stone torch which I use for sometimes shaping granite.
And, I mean, it generates a temperature
of in excess of 3,000 degrees.
3,000 degrees... that's a lot.
DUNN: When we look back at the ancients, and we see
a technology that they couldn't possibly know,
there's only two possibilities then: either God did it--
which we really don't think happened--
or some high-tech civilization from another planet came
and showed them how to do it, then took their materials
and tools and went back home.
The idea behind that is that none ofthese ancient monuments
were constructed or manufactured by extraterrestrials.
It was us humans who built it
with extraterrestrial technology.
HOPKINS: It's entirely possible that there were visitations,
that they pointed out ways to do things,
and that they wanted to leave some kind of a record.
I mean, ifyou're gonna leave a permanent record, the only way
you can do that is in stone.
NARRATOR: But if advanced beings from another planet
really did bring their technology to Earth,
might the ancient astronauts
have left one oftheir tools behind?
NARRATOR: The methods used
to build huge megalithic structures such as Puma Punku
and the pyramids of Egypt remain a mystery.
But what about the tools used to build them?
Where are they?
And might they provide a clue
as to how these enormous stone structures were created?
HOPKINS: A lot ofthe real ancient mysterious work
was done at a time when there was no steel,
and the copper they had was, yeah, they could harden it
by cold-hammering it, but still,
it wouldn't make a dent in rocks like basalt and granite.
So theywould have had to use, you know, much more laborious
techniques, or they had some sort of advanced technology
which escapes me, and I've been in the business 40 years.
DUNN: The tools and machines must have been
equal to the task of actually building the pyramids...
Crafting those statues to such a high order of precision...
Crafting those boxes to a modern-day precision
that we find in our inspection lab.
And the big question: Where are the tools?
NARRATOR: In the late 19th century,
British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie
scoured Egypt, looking not for the biggest items,
but the smallest.
Petrie was absolutely fascinated
by the technical achievements of the Egyptians,
particularly the early Egyptians.
He constantly was looking for how they made things,
how they developed things, how they continued
to sort of basically perfect their tools.
DUNN: We're normally taught that the ancient Egyptians
had simple tools, and what Petrie brought out is
information that seems to actually argue
against that notion.
CHALLIS: This is an example of a drill hole.
You can see the very fine lines on it.
You can see the technology that's made to use it.
Um, you can see how it's a perfect hole
almost all the way through, but it tapers at one end.
This is a fragment of a diorite bowl.
It's one ofthe hardest substances, and you can see
on this, on this fragment that there's a, a lathe mark,
which is really interesting that they managed
to make such a mark in such a hard material.
NARRATOR: Among all the tools discovered by Petrie, however,
one stood out from all the rest.
While working inside the Great Pyramid, Petrie stumbled across
a tubular drill made of granite.
CHALLIS: Tubular drills amongst the ancient Egyptians were
actually fairly common.
I mean, Petrie found quite a few ofthem.
Um, the interesting thing about the one that he found in Giza is
that it's such hard stone that was so carefully carved,
precisely grooved.
As you can see, it's got very, very fine markings on it,
basically lines, literally a couple of millimeters apart.
You can see it goes all the way round very, very accurately,
hardly any waves at all.
He was absolutely amazed by this.
He kept returning to it throughout his life.
His theorywas that the Egyptians must have had access
to diamonds or some kind of jewel that would have cut it.
The interesting thing about Petrie's theory about how these
drill lines are made was that he never discovered any diamonds
in ancient Egypt.
So where were they? Where did they go?
We don't know.
NARRATOR: Ifthe ancient Egyptians didn't
possess diamonds, how were the precision grooves
cut onto the granite drill?
Did Petrie accidentally discover a tool
made by extraterrestrials?
Machinist expert Chris Dunn attempted
to answer this question by creating his own granite drill,
using the known tools and techniques
ofthe ancient Egyptians.
In order to test the Egyptologist theory about how
the ancient Egyptians drilled into granite, I took a tube
and I fixed a crank on it, and actually used sand
and silicon carbide, and after many hours ofturning
and drilling into this piece of granite,
finally got deep enough that I could actually pop a core out.
And the reason for that was to actually look at the surface,
notjust ofthe whole, but ofthe core.
NARRATOR: The next step was to use
a high-tech industrial microscope to compare
his drill core to a latex copy ofthe one at the Petrie Museum.
We have under the microscope a... the core
that we drilled with the copper tube and sand.
And as you can see, the surface ofthe core,
the striations are not very clear.
There's nothing really distinctive in terms of
the feed ofthe tool marks using sand and, and copper.
Now bringing the latex that they took ofthe core
in the Petrie Museum, and we see something totally different.
The striations are very clear, and they're quite deep.
The devil is actually in the details, and the details
ofthis particular artifact are what I consider to be
a smoking gun in terms ofwhat level oftechnology we give
the ancient Egyptians credit for.
NARRATOR: Intrigued by his discovery, Chris Dunn performed
other experiments using his precision instruments.
DUNN: As you can see,
this is a... an inspection surface plate, uh,
probably ground to within 2/10,000 of an inch.
That is one-tenth the thickness of a human hair.
Now, I was really amazed when I went inside the serapeum
and put these gauges up against the surface,
and found them to be within what I consider to be
the tolerance ofthese particular gauges.
Ifyou would put a piece of paper under one edge
ofthat blade-- just a piece of paper--
you begin to see that there was...
would be light leaking through.
And so, the precision on the inside ofthe granite boxes
in the serapeum are, I would say,
within 2/1,000 of an inch,
which is incredible, because those tolerances can'tjust
appear by accident.
It was very shocking.
It was astounding to me to go to Egypt and, uh, go into
a facility that was supposedly 3,000 years old
and find the same kind of precision.
I was amazed.
I've seen evidence ofthe carvings on granite done
in Egypt, and they did... they did it with little shards of,
uh... of quartz.
I believe they would have just
scratched away the stone with that.
That's... that's one possibility, but I mean,
that's... that... that's a heck of a lot ofwork to do that.
I mean, we're talking, somebody would devote years to doing
something like that.
TSOUKALOS: But here is my point.
Here we have a real-life stonecutter-- you.
Yeah.
You see this, and there's, like, smoke coming out ofyour head.
Let's put it this way-- I had a client come in and ask me
to do that, I wouldn't do it for any amount of money, because
I'm not going to waste my life trying to replicate that.
NARRATOR: But precision-cut stone monuments are not
the only enduring Middle Eastern mysteries.
Engineering experts have also examined the Bible story
ofthe Israelites' exodus from Egypt.
Just how did they survive for 40 years in the desert?
Could they have possessed intricate machines
with extraordinary abilities, used not for building,
but for man's own survival?
NARRATOR: In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Exodus describes
how the Jewish people suffered as slaves living in Egypt.
Then sometime in the 14th century BC, the ruling pharaoh
feared their growing numbers and ordered the killing of all
first-born Jews living in Egypt.
In an effort to save her son, one mother put her child
in a small basket and set him adrift on the Nile River.
That child was found by the pharaoh's family,
who named him Moses and raised him as their own.
As an adult, Moses discovered his true identity and demanded
that the pharaoh free the Jews.
When the pharaoh rejected him,
Moses helped the Jews escape from Egypt.
(thunder cracks)
Historians believe that Moses and his people
crossed the Red Sea and made their way into the Sinai Desert.
According to the ancient text, God grew angry at the Jews
for idol-worshipping and forced them
to wander the desert aimlessly
for 40 years before allowing them to enter Israel.
During this time, the Bible says the Israelites survived
by eating a single food source: manna.
But what is manna?
A naturally abundant food provided by God or,
as some believe, something very different?
TUDOR PARFITT: In the Bible, it explains how the Israelites
got from Egypt, where they'd been slaves,
to the Promised Land.
They had to cross the Sinai Desert.
And inevitably, given that there was a lot of Israelites
and very little growing, as it was a desert,
they ran short on supplies.
God stepped in at this point and sent manna from heaven.
This took the form of some kind of seeds that rained down
upon the desert, and then they were collected the next day.
And they provided food for the Israelites, except Friday,
when there was a double portion, because on Saturday,
being the Sabbath, it didn't fall.
NARRATOR: While the Hebrew Bible fails to give
a clear description of manna,
another ancient Jewish text provides an alternative clue.
The Zohar is a collection of spiritual commentaries
and interpretations ofthe Torah, and is central
to the mystical Kabbalah belief written in the 13th century.
The Zohar describes what is called the Ancient of Days
as providing the manna, but what was this Ancient of Days?
A man, a god or something else?
The text speaks of different-sized brains,
different-sized faces that were connected with different tubes
and different light sources.
Theologians have suggested that this is a description of God.
However, when looked at from a modern perspective,
what is described in the Zohar isn't necessarily a god figure,
but rather a type of machine.
NARRATOR: Intrigued by this information,
two electrical engineers, George Sassoon and Rodney Dale,
used the anatomical descriptions ofthe Ancient of Days
to design what they called a manna machine.
This really is-is the key diagram ofthe manna machine,
as we built it up from the texts.
For instance, one here is the mouth, but it's actually
the air intake, which carries what is described
as the breath of life.
The air goes up this tube here, which is described as
the-the brain ofthe Ancient One,
but is actually a dew still.
So that although we're talking about the great sea
and the hairs ofthe beard and so on, at the same time,
we were able to work out their relative positions
and build out the specification ofthe machine,
and find that we had something that was biochemically viable.
(speaking German)
(translated): The machine took in moist morning air
and condensed it in the part ofthe machine
that looked like a Plexiglas dome.
From there, it mixed with an algae culture.
The culture was treated with energy,
such as a strong laser light, in order to speed the growth.
DALE: Of course, it needed energy
for cultivating the algae.
And this was produced, we postulate,
in a small nuclear reactor, which would produce
both heat and light as required.
(Fiebag speaking German)
(translated): The manna machine was a very dangerous device.
We suspect that the reactor that powered the machine
was transported in the Ark ofthe Covenant.
TSOUKALOS: We have multiple references in the Bible
that whoever came close to the Ark ofthe Covenant
and didn't know how to operate it was smitten to death.
(thunder cracks)
And sometimes people, after they encountered the Ark,
started to lose their nails and started to lose their hair.
So we have evidence of some type of radiation poisoning
which was in direct correlation with the Ark ofthe Covenant.
And so, the Ark ofthe Covenant housed
an extraterrestrial device which was given to the Israelites
during their 40-year wandering through the desert.
NARRATOR: The manna machine is believed to have supplied
a highly nutritious form of green algae,
or chlorella, as its food source.
It's yet another theory supported by modern science.
DALE: We found that work in the field of space travel
had already been done, where the green algae-- chlorella--
was bred in tanks and fed to people living
in a closed environment and kept them alive.
NARRATOR: Research studies done by NASA in the 1960s and 1970s
established that human life could be sustained
for extended periods oftime by consuming chlorella algae
and nothing else.
If it's possible for astronauts to survive on algae,
could the Israelites have done the same?
(translated): The manna machine was a sensitive device.
In order to function properly,
it had to be cleaned once a week.
On that day, the machine was taken apart and cleaned,
so it's possible that the Sabbath we have today
actually originated from cleaning this machine.
DALE: One theory that one could put forward, of course,
is that the machine, although they knew how to maintain it
and make it produce the manna,
that it did after a time pack up, not work anymore.
And that was why they came out ofthe desert.
NARRATOR: But ifthe Israelites' survival depended upon
the manna machine, where did they get it?
Some believe they had stolen it from the Egyptians
prior to their exodus.
Others suspect extraterrestrials gave it to them
as a humanitarian gesture,
to prevent their starvation in the desert.
Eitherway, the answer, like the Ark ofthe Covenant,
seems lost to history.
Today, scientists have successfully pioneered
a process that produces a substance high in protein
by means of solar energy, water vapor, and chlorella algae.
Could this be a duplication of alien technology
from thousands ofyears ago?
They actually built a machine, a machine based on
algae culture producing some type of super food.
And we can find a similar type oftechnology
described in the Zohar.
Is history repeating itself?
DALE: One ofthe big questions is:
Where could the machine come from?
And I suppose there are two answers to that.
Either it was built on Earth,
which is a theory I can't really subscribe to.
The other question of course is that it might have come
from outer space somewhere.
Now, that's quite a big leap of imagination, but of course
the interesting part is that it actually produces food
as is used by a spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Ifthe ancient world contained manna machines,
giant mega-saws, and sophisticated aircraft,
what was the energy source for all ofthis technology?
The answer may be hiding in plain sight.
Of all the ancient structures located around the world,
perhaps none is more mysterious or as enduring
as the Great Pyramid at Giza.
At a height of471 feet, the Great Pyramid stood
as the tallest structure in the world
until the completion ofthe Eiffel Tower in 1889.
But while other pyramids and temples contain walls
filled with hieroglyphics describing their purpose,
the Great Pyramid lacks even a single marking.
What was its function?
Why was it built?
And what secrets remain hidden inside?
BAUVAL: Nobody has been able
to explain the interior design ofthis pyramid.
It simply doesn't make sense, according to our logic.
You have narrow tunnels that you have to crouch.
You emerge in grand galleries that are nine meters high.
You have chambers that are made of granite,
where granite doesn't come from in the area.
You have to ship the granite by barges 600 miles away.
TSOUKALOS: It's an anonymous site.
Not a single inscription.
Not a single hieroglyph.
Not a single anything.
It's just there.
DUNN: Some people speculated that it was a temple
and an initiation chamber, where people would go
to the king's chamber and become enlightened.
There are anecdotal reports about people who have been
inside the pyramid and have come out absolutely shaken and...
because it was haunted.
Egyptologists believe that the pyramids were built
to bury the dead pharaoh.
The problem with the accepted view is the fact that
not a single dead pharaoh's body has been found inside a pyramid,
even when the pyramid was completely sealed, i.e.,
not a single grave robber could have entered it.
The Egyptologists say it's to conceal the body.
Well, why advertise it?
I mean, there's nothing more visible
than a pyramid for miles.
And to this day, you would have thought, in this modern age,
with all the knowledge we have,
we should be able to explain this pyramid.
We cannot explain this pyramid.
NARRATOR: Engineering expert Christopher Dunn has been on
a personal quest to unlock the secrets ofthe Great Pyramid
since the late 1970s.
According to him, there are specific clues in the design
and construction ofthis mega-monument that can help
answer exactly why it was built.
DUNN: When you look at the Great Pyramid,
and look at the culture that built it,
they're brilliant, brilliant engineers.
In fact, a lot of engineers say
we couldn't build the Great Pyramid today.
And it was built, supposedly, 4,500 years ago.
And it was built to the precision of a machine.
When I started to do the research and I examined
the Great Pyramid with the eye offunctionality,
um, it was built like a machine.
Perhaps it functioned like a machine.
NARRATOR: The interior design of the Great Pyramid
features four inclined air shafts emanating
from the king's chamber and the lower queen's chamber.
Like the Great Pyramid itself, their presence and purpose
cannot be easily explained.
The difficulty of building those shafts is incredible.
It's a bit like building a chimney
at an incline across a house.
I mean, as a construction engineer, it's a nightmare.
NARRATOR: In 2002, a team of engineers and Egyptologists
sent a small robot into one of the airshafts
connected to the queen's chamber.
After 65 meters, a stone door blocked its path.
A hole was then drilled through it.
On the other side was a small room with yet another door
leading further up the shaft.
BAUVAL: Since the discovery of the door,
we've had every university, archeologist, anthropologist,
every engineer you can think of--
nobody has been able to explain the purpose ofthe shafts.
NARRATOR: But were these shafts ever open?
And ifthey were, what might they have been used for?
CHRIS DUNN: The early explorers that went into
the queen's chamber found that the walls were coated
with a layer of salt.
That kind of gelled with a theory that I had developed.
You had a dilute hydrochloric acid solution coming down
one shaft and hydrated zinc coming down the other shaft.
And when they combined in the queen's chamber,
they created hydrogen.
NARRATOR: Hydrogen.
It is one ofthe most powerful energy sources in the universe.
In the mid-19th century, it was hydrogen gas that helped lift
some of mankind's first airships, called zeppelins,
into the sky.
Today, it is used as a fuel to launch rockets into space.
And if, thousands ofyears ago, the Great Pyramid was actually
producing hydrogen, that would make it one ofthe earliest
power plants known to man.
DUNN: The Giza power plant theory
is essentially the drawing of energy from the Earth
through the Great Pyramid,
and converting that energy into microwave energy.
So the chemicals actually come in through the shafts
into the queen's chamber, and then they combine and mix
and hydrogen boils off.
The hydrogen is then lighter than air and it will flow into
all the upper chambers.
The energy from the Earth is then vibrating
the whole pyramid.
The vibrations are picked up in the Grand Gallery.
So I proposed the Grand Gallery was a resonator hall
and there are 27 pair of slots that actually go up the length
ofthe gallery and then the resonators were
mounted in there vertically.
CHILDRESS: Christopher Dunn is theorizing
that with resonating galleries, the pyramid shot
a microwave out of one ofthe shafts.
And once you started up this power plant,
it would have gone on for years, decades, even hundreds ofyears
without stopping and creating the microwave.
And that was a usable energy that could be captured.
DUNN: Now we can speculate where it goes from there.
It could be collected in the immediate vicinity,
or it could keep traveling off into space.
We don't know.
That's the mystery.
NARRATOR: But ifthe Great Pyramid was actually
a power plant producing energy, was it doing it alone,
or was it part of a larger network?
And are there any clues that could tell us what all ofthat
energy was being used for?
NARRATOR: Perhaps the 20th century's
most influential inventor was a Serbian-American
named Nikola Tesla.
His patents on alternating electrical currents
and distribution helped establish
the commercial electricity industry.
He also made contributions to robotics,
radar, and computer science.
But while Tesla can be credited for many scientific advances,
one idea that fell short was his attempt to create
a wireless electrical grid.
CHILDRESS: Tesla's project
was to have these towers around the United States
and around the world.
And they would broadcast electricity
like a television station.
FRISBEE: Instead of having to string
power lines all over the place, you just transmit the energy
through the air or through the ground.
There were a number of demonstrations ofthis device
for wireless power transmission during Tesla's lifetime.
So, we know the device worked.
It appears that he was using the conductivity ofthe ground
or the air to carry the electric current.
Basically in the air, ifyou put enough voltage on it,
you'll get an arc across it.
I mean, you see that all the time in a fluorescent lightbulb.
In the ground you have water, minerals, salts
that can also carry the ions along,
and therefore carry the electric current.
NARRATOR: But while Tesla's power towers proved popular
in theory, the project ended in financial failure.
But could Tesla's idea of wireless electricity have been
a rediscovery of an ancient technology?
I believe that what Tesla was doing was trying
to recreate what was an ancient power system
that was used around the world,
and the way they did this was the use of obelisks.
Obelisks as monolithic, granite towers,
which are one solid piece of crystal,
and the obelisks themselves were cut
to special sizes and tuned like a tuning fork.
NARRATOR: Could these ancient broadcast towers really have
sent electricity up into the atmosphere?
And if so, how was the electricity generated?
Each ofthese obelisks would have required
some kind of generating power station
similar to what we have today.
Electricity is created by rotating magnetic fields.
So rotating magnetic fields generate AC power.
The very first power station was built by Nikola Tesla
at Niagara Falls.
You've got to have some sort of power that's spinning
the rotating fields, and in this case it would be water.
So every obelisk would have had to have had a power station
similar to like the one at Niagara Falls.
It's generating power, but the obelisk itself is putting
the power into the atmosphere, making it useable.
And this is similar to Christopher Dunn's theory
ofthe Giza power plant, because he believes
that the Great Pyramid was actually sending
a microwave beam to a satellite that was in orbit
around the planet.
That satellite then could have been taking microwave power
and then it could transmit it again, in theory,
to some other location on the Earth, such as,
say, a remote island like Easter Island or something like that.
From some ofthe descriptions
of ancient flying machines, it's possible that
some form of power beaming might have been used.
And in fact, for a lot ofthe schemes that you see,
it actually would make a lot of sense because you could put
the power beaming station on a mother ship in orbit.
You're just beaming energy to the vehicle, where it's
absorbed and turned into propulsion thrust.
It actually makes a lot of sense, because you're taking
the energy system, the power system, off ofthe vehicle
and locating it remotely.
NARRATOR: Electricity...
power tools...
mega-machinery...
and the ability to explore the heavens...
Have these technologies been available
forjust the past few centuries?
Or are they of ancient origin, only recently rediscovered?
Were our ancestors capable of these incredible achievements?
Or might they have come from another source,
one much more out ofthis world?
CHILDRESS: Civilizations were much more advanced
than we give them credit,
and literally, as advanced as we are today.
BAUVAL: In my view, we need to take this seriously,
simply because ofthe scale of the work.
We're looking at monuments that took, perhaps,
a century to build.
Even today, we have difficulty in considering such a project.
DUNN: Itjust boggles the mind.
And really, to look at those artifacts
and to go back in time and say, "How did they do it?"
we are kind of cracking the lid open a little bit and looking
inside to try and see just what happened in our history.
It's a question which is a scientific question.
And you constantly have to ask it.
And the possible answer of "Have aliens visited in the past?"
could be a potential yes.
TSOUKALOS: It's a very specific reason why all ofthis stuff
was built in stone: for posterity, so it would last.
So that a future generation
would have to stumble across these monuments.
We are that society who can look at these ancient monuments
and finally recognize that all ofthis stuffwas built
as a message for us to see that our past is way different
than what we're being taught in school.