NARRATOR: Otherworldly visitors
who imparted knowledge.
AMIR HUSSAIN: In many ancient cultures,
it's the gods who show human beings
how to use technology.
NARRATOR: Teachers who introduced mankind
to Earth-changing innovations.
HUGH NEWMAN: They were master metalworkers
and they were born of the gods.
NARRATOR: And their presence
altered the development of human civilization.
PHILIP IMBROGNO: They were sent here to observe the human race
and guide them when it's needed.
NARRATOR: Could it be that, throughout history,
our planet has been visited by teachers from the stars?
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Ancient cultures were very clear in saying
someone came from the sky and taught them this stuff.
NARRATOR: There is a doorway
in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything
we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
♪ ♪
Athens, Greece.
In the shadow of the Acropolis
lie the ruins of an ancient temple called the Lyceum.
More than 2,000 years ago,
it served as a school of science and philosophy
founded by Aristotle.
Often referred to as the world's first teacher,
Aristotle shared his wisdom
on nearly every aspect of human knowledge,
from biology to ethics
and rhetoric to mathematics.
But according to Aristotle,
much of his knowledge came from an even greater teacher,
one who was known only to him.
There was one idea from Aristotle that was fascinating,
that was new, that was different.
It was the idea of a personal guiding spirit.
He called it the daemonium.
These ideas that would come from unseen sources.
Some later theologies called them guardian angels.
These weren't exactly gods.
They were like personal advisors.
NARRATOR: Across the planet,
ancient people wrote about mysterious entities
or godlike beings who taught them the skills they needed
to establish their civilizations.
Most of us, uh, when we grow up,
have our parents as teachers, our family members as teachers.
We go to school. We have human teachers.
But there's this idea that, in the ancient world,
the ultimate teachers aren't just human beings
but the divine.
Many cultures and civilizations have attribution myths.
How did we get what we have?
Many of them attribute it to gods,
to teacher gods
who come and gift humanity
with the various things that we need
in order to build civilizations.
(fire crackling)
NARRATOR: While the passing down of knowledge
by otherworldly teachers
is often interpreted as merely mythological,
ancient astronaut theorists suggest
the ubiquity of these stories
points to a more profound explanation.
Are all these ancient stories
just a figment of our ancestors' imagination?
Or is there a kernel of truth?
The ancient astronaut theory teaches that, at some point,
our ancestors received knowledge under the instruction
of visiting flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials,
whom our ancestors misinterpreted
as divine spiritual gods.
NARRATOR: Accounts of otherworldly beings teaching humans
date back to the beginning of recorded history,
starting with the world's first civilization,
the Sumerians.
Emerging in Mesopotamia over 6,000 years ago,
the Sumerians were the first people to develop agriculture,
the wheel
and a written language.
And according to their texts,
they attributed all of this knowledge
to divine teachers who came down from the heavens
known as the Anunnaki.
HUSSAIN: In the Sumerian tradition,
Enlil, you know, one of the gods,
teaches human beings about agriculture,
teaches human beings how to plow into the ground
and plant seeds.
It's the gods who show human beings how to use technology,
how to create this technology.
WILLIAM HENRY: The Anunnaki instruct humanity in the various arts and sciences
and rudimentary knowledge about civilization
and how to conduct themselves.
And this is the origin of the Sumerians.
This is where they got their knowledge.
This is why they're the first
with all of their discoveries and inventions.
And it comes from the Anunnaki.
NARRATOR: The Sumerian pantheon of gods
also includes a mysterious figure known as Oannes.
Oannes was the first bringer of knowledge,
especially mathematics.
And what's so interesting about Oannes is that,
during the day, he would be among the people
and teach various disciplines of science.
And then, at night, he would disappear into the water.
Is it possible that our ancestors really were taught
by some sort of an amphibious being
that initially descended from the sky?
NARRATOR: Could it be that the stories of the Anunnaki
are not mythological
but eyewitness accounts of extraterrestrial visitors
who shared their knowledge in the distant past?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining ancient traditions
that have carried through to the present day.
Shaanxi Province, China.
April 5, 2019.
(drumming)
At the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor,
thousands of people gather to watch
a traditional dragon dance.
KATHLEEN McGOWAN: The dragon dance is an ancient ceremony,
which for thousands of years has been a representation
of the dragons coming from the sky and returning to the sky.
NARRATOR: The ceremony in Shaanxi celebrates
the deity considered to be the father of all Chinese people,
the Yellow Emperor,
who lived nearly 5,000 years ago.
The Yellow Emperor is, uh,
one of the earliest, uh,
mythical or semi-mythical rulers of China.
He is held in extremely high regard even today
by the Chinese people.
The Yellow Emperor gave his subjects the lunar calendar,
mathematics,
advanced houses,
writing systems,
astronomy and a variety of other elements
that really form the basis for Chinese culture.
NARRATOR: According to legend,
after the Yellow Emperor shared his knowledge,
he left the planet to return to his celestial home.
ANDREW COLLINS: We find that, at the end of his life,
he sees this dragon come down
and he literally climbs aboard it
and is taken bodily into heaven.
So what's going on here?
Is it possible that that dragon
could be what we refer to today as a UFO?
Some kind of craft that we can see
in terms of an extraterrestrial vehicle.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Chinese civilization
was established with the help of an extraterrestrial visitor
who came to Earth in the distant past?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and suggest that figures like the Yellow Emperor and Oannes
were only the first teachers to influence mankind.
As evidence, they point to stories
associated with a technological innovation
that changed the course of human history--
the mastery of metal.
NARRATOR: According to archaeologists,
roughly 6,000 years ago,
there was a sudden advancement in our technological ability
as civilizations began to manipulate metal.
PAUL BAHN: Metallurgy was a tremendous step forward for humankind.
Although stone had been extraordinarily useful
for hundreds of thousands of years,
once metal becomes very widespread,
then you have mass production of all different kinds of tools
and weapons and plowshares and so on.
So a very, very profound impact on human development.
NARRATOR: A key breakthrough was the creation of bronze,
a metal alloy that consists of copper and tin.
BAHN: The development of bronze is a whole new ballgame.
It's harder, it's less brittle
and you can make all kinds of wonderful things,
particularly weapons,
slashing swords and things like that.
NARRATOR: Curiously, archaeological evidence suggests
that civilizations across the globe
started making bronze around the same time.
BILL BIRNES: The development of metallurgy was intriguing,
because, right about the same period,
that technology sprang up all over the world
in different cultures.
What does that tell us?
It tells us that this has to be taught.
Who taught them?
NARRATOR: According to mainstream historians,
this technological breakthrough
was simply the result of human ingenuity.
But ancient astronaut theorists believe
there may be a more profound explanation.
And they point to mythologies around the world
that claim the knowledge of how to work with metals
was taught by otherworldly beings,
like a mysterious group in ancient Greece
known as the Telchines.
TSOUKALOS: In the ancient Greek mythologies,
there is the so-called Telchines,
who were some of the earliest metalsmith workers
of celestial origin
that taught the ancient Greeks how to make swords,
and, essentially, how to work metal.
HENRY: The Telchines were chimeric beings.
They're part human, part fish,
and they made all the magical implements and technologies
of the Greek stories.
NEWMAN: The Telchines were born of the gods,
and they were even said to have created
the trident of Poseidon
and the sickle of Cronus.
And they were kind of master technologists
as well as working with metal.
TSOUKALOS: The ancient Greeks were very clear in saying
someone came from the sky--
in this case, it was the Telchines--
that actually then spent time
with the ancient Greeks and taught them this stuff.
NARRATOR: Accounts of divine beings who shared the secrets
of the forge can be found across the globe.
In Egypt, the god Ptah spread knowledge about metalworking.
Kanayago instructed the ancient people of Japan.
And in Celtic lore, smithcraft was taught
by the Tuatha Dé Danann,
advanced beings who arrived in Ireland on cloud ships.
TSOUKALOS: According to the ancient astronaut theory,
all of these ancient cultures
from all continents around the world
were, in fact, visited by the same extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that early civilizations across the globe
were taught how to work metal by otherworldly visitors?
According to ancient astronaut theorists,
support for this notion can be found
not only in myths and legends
but also in physical evidence that was recently retrieved
from the bottom of the ocean.
January 2015.
One mile off the coast of Sicily,
archeologists excavate a 2,600-year-old shipwreck.
They uncover an ancient treasure trove of 39 metal ingots.
Spectrographic analysis reveals the metal
is a mysterious alloy unlike anything ever seen before.
CAROLINE WHITEHILL: It's not gold, although it looks a lot like gold.
It's not your typical bronze alloy,
although it behaves a lot like bronze.
It has a very beautiful shine, and it's an uncommon metal.
These ingots are made of five different metals.
We have copper, we have iron,
nickel, lead and zinc.
JEFF WILLIAMS: What's interesting about this is
zinc only occurs in nature as sphalerite.
It's a zinc sulfur complex.
In order to create zinc,
you have to actually process the zinc out of this sulfide.
They didn't have that technology back then.
We didn't have zinc until about a thousand years ago,
and this is 2,600 years old.
NARRATOR: Scientists were astounded to discover
that this advanced alloy had been produced
centuries before humans are thought to have had the ability
to manipulate elements like zinc into metals.
And they were even more surprised
when they found that the ingots closely matched
a legendary metal described by the Greek philosopher Plato
in the fourth century BC called orichalcum.
Orichalcum is a very precious metal
that is talked about in the accounts of Atlantis,
written by Plato as early as 350 BC.
It was second up in value to gold itself,
and that a large part of the city of Atlantis
was actually covered in orichalcum.
HENRY: According to Plato, the Temple of Poseidon in Atlantis
was covered with orichalcum,
that the interior walls and floors were lined with it,
and that it gleamed red and white light.
NARRATOR: According to Plato's story,
the Greek god Cadmus, grandson of Poseidon,
came down from Mount Olympus and gave orichalcum
to the people of Atlantis.
COLLINS: Cadmus is
one of the legendary founders of Greek civilization.
And quite clearly,
he was a very inspired alchemist or smithy
who had this knowledge
of how to create this divine metal.
It's quite interesting, really, that here is this,
what people thought was a mythological metal,
that Plato, you know, had just kind of made up
as part of his Atlantis story.
And yet, we are finding ingots of this metal in shipwrecks.
How amazing is that?
NEWMAN: People have kind of gone crazy about this over the years.
They suggest this could be evidence of Atlantis itself.
NARRATOR: Could this mysterious alloy,
found off the coast of Sicily,
be proof that humans were shown how to manipulate metal
by otherworldly beings thousands of years ago?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest that further evidence can be found
in accounts of people who communicated
with extraterrestrial teachers face-to-face.
NARRATOR: A Bedouin shepherd exploring a cave
13 miles east of Jerusalem
comes across hundreds of ancient parchments.
Known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the documents contain
the oldest versions of the Bible ever discovered.
Among them is a controversial text
that describes an encounter between a man named Enoch
and a mysterious group of otherworldly teachers
called the watchers.
COLLINS: Enoch was the great prophet
of the Book of Genesis.
It was he that encountered the watchers.
And it was said
that they gave the sciences of heaven,
the rudiments of civilization.
IMBROGNO: Enoch referred to these people,
whoever they are, as the watchers.
Now, the watchers were actually a group of beings
that we refer to as angels,
that were specially sent here to observe the evolution
of the human race and guide them when it's needed.
NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch is a first-hand account
of the biblical patriarch's encounter with the watchers.
According to the text,
the watchers brought Enoch to heaven in a fiery chariot.
TSOUKALOS: The Book of Enoch
was clearly an eyewitness account
because he describes everything.
"I, Enoch, did this."
"I, Enoch, went there, and then, I saw this."
Enoch was taken into that celestial realm
and the watchers imparted certain knowledge to him.
For example, the "angels" said to him,
"Look out the window,
"and see that you're looking at the Moon.
The Moon has light, but it comes from the Sun."
Well, this is deep astronomical knowledge
which, at the time, really was not known.
Now, you exchange the word "angels"
with "extraterrestrials," and there you have your story.
NARRATOR: According to ancient Islamic texts,
Enoch used his newfound knowledge to create
a breathtaking monument that can still be seen to this day,
the Great Pyramid of Giza.
COLLINS: Conventional thinking
says that the Great Pyramid was built by the pharaoh Cheops
in around 2500 BC as his tomb.
However, ancient accounts that we have
from Arab writers and historians,
like al-Maqrizi, tells us
that the designer of the Great Pyramid was Idris.
"Idris" is the Arabic form of the name "Enoch."
HENRY: Al-Maqrizi says that the pyramids
were built by Enoch,
who was tutored by the watcher angels
who told him to come back down to Earth
and build the pyramids as a repository
for ancient knowledge.
VON DÄNIKEN: Enoch was educated by the extraterrestrials.
He learned their language, they teached him
in astronomy and in engineering.
They dictated him technological stuff.
How can you construct this, how can you measure this,
how can you transport the stone blocks
but with the knowledge and the teaching
of extraterrestrials?
The reality is, extraterrestrials were here
thousands of years ago.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,
the Book of Enoch reveals that extraterrestrial teachers
chose certain individuals
to help disseminate knowledge to humankind.
And they say further evidence of this
can be found in the ancient Sanskrit texts of India.
At the center of this sprawling metropolis
is the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Its collection maintains the oldest known manuscripts
of the Vedas,
the religious texts that form the basis of Hinduism.
These sacred teachings are more than 8,000 years old,
and Hindus believe they come directly from the gods.
STEAVU: The word "Veda" means "knowledge" in Sanskrit.
And so there is this close association
with a special type of,
uh, wisdom or knowledge that is transmitted through the Vedas.
Originally the Vedas were revealed by the gods
to a certain class of spiritual elect.
And the Vedas were transmitted orally
from generation to generation for a very long time.
YOUNG: The Vedas was part of the secret lore
of Hinduism that would only be entrusted to the wisdom keepers,
a very select body of scholars who would hold
the powerful knowledge, sometimes called "Sitis,"
or spiritual powers,
that the public might not be quite ready for.
NARRATOR: The Vedas and other ancient Sanskrit texts of India
contain detailed passages that describe
divine beings who descended from the sky
and shared knowledge with a select group of people.
HENRY: The Vedas tell us that the gods taught humans how to chant,
how to pray and to sing
in order to communicate with the gods.
TSOUKALOS: The Vedas are filled with flying chariots,
the so-called vimanas.
There's a very interesting part in the Mahabharata
where a King Revita actually
visits the celestial palace of Brahma.
Brahma was the Hindu creator god.
Everything came from Brahma.
And King Revita was actually taken into the heavens
in a chariot to visit this gigantic palace.
NARRATOR: Similar encounters with mysterious teachers
can be found in the traditions of
many other ancient cultures across the world.
YOUNG: In Buddhism, Emperor Ashoka consulted
with a secret society called "the nine unknown men,"
who possess the knowledge of the universe.
Similar societies existed in ancient Egypt,
and the ideas were only taught
on a very selective basis.
TSOUKALOS: That is the connection of the ancient astronaut theory.
It's not that they all, out of nowhere,
came up with the same ideas.
But according to the ancient legends
and mythologies that our ancestors impart to us,
they say that this knowledge was given to them
by the so-called gods that descended from the sky.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that certain people were in direct contact
with extraterrestrial teachers in the distant past?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest
that this communication continues to this very day.
And as evidence,
they point to a 19th-century Russian noblewoman,
whose claims of otherworldly teachers
laid the foundation for what would become known as...
the "ancient astronaut theory."
NARRATOR: Madame Helena Blavatsky
founds a new group called the Theosophical Society,
dedicated to researching and revealing the lost civilizations
and forgotten wisdom of the ancient world.
Madame Blavatsky was a very well-educated
Russian aristocrat
who had the goal of finding
the unified field theory of religion.
And she started gathering up
all of these different traditions,
and finding where they overlapped,
finding where they repeated each other,
and coming up with a wisdom teaching, if you will.
In the mid to late 1800s,
this was a very popular movement.
GARY LACHMAN: Theosophy means the wisdom of the gods.
And the idea of the society is that they would study
ancient wisdom.
And one of the key aims of the Theosophical Society
was the creation of a universal brotherhood,
you know, regardless of race, creed, color.
NARRATOR: Before arriving in New York, Blavatsky traveled widely
in Egypt and India, absorbing ancient esoteric knowledge.
Madame Blavatsky becomes interested
in the esoteric world as a teenager.
And then in her early adulthood goes off on these
sort of grand adventures.
Eventually, these adventures take her
to India, and take her to Tibet.
And throughout this process,
she begins to communicate with
intelligences that are referred to as
mahatmas or Ascended Masters.
She claimed that these Ascended Masters were actually
the masters of civilizations that appeared
on planet Earth before the human race.
And that they would give her knowledge, and she would use
that knowledge to pass it on to individuals to guide them.
LACHMAN: They had developed to a higher state of consciousness
so they could communicate telepathically
and cause things to materialize and things of that sort.
NARRATOR: In 1877, Madam Blavatsky published her ideas
in the book Isis Unveiled.
But rather than take credit, she claimed her knowledge
came from an unseen source.
BIRNES: One of the things that Helena Blavatsky taught
was the idea of automatic writing.
That meant that, in a meditative state,
your hand was guided by the Ascended Masters.
And you could write-- not knowing what
you wrote, but you could write,
and what you wrote was
the instruction from the ancient masters.
McGOWAN: It is said that she wrote her entire first book,
Isis Unveiled, with her eyes closed as automatic writing.
She was the channel that brought forth this information.
NARRATOR: According to Madame Blavatsky,
the Ascended Masters taught her about ancient civilizations
and profound wisdom that had been lost to time.
She wrote this notion that there were previous
civilizations: Atlantis, Lemuria, uh,
there's something called the Imperishable Land.
She pushes back appearance of civilization
much, much further back in time.
According to Madame Blavatsky, Atlantis and Lemuria
were destroyed in the flood of the Bible.
And in many ways, her scenario
of Earth and the past is very much
a precursor to ancient astronaut theory,
where she's also got gods from outer space.
NARRATOR: Many important figures joined the Theosophical Society,
like Thomas Edison, Nobel Prize-winning poet W.B. Yeats,
and civil war hero Abner Doubleday,
who invented baseball.
But Madame Blavatsky had a particularly profound influence
on a young Indian law student named Mohandas Gandhi.
Gandhi finds himself in Madam Blavatsky's salon
in 1889, when he is a law student in London.
And he is completely-- not only captivated by her,
but changed by his encounter with her.
LACHMAN: He was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita, one of
the great works of his own nation,
his own religion, by Madame Blavatsky.
And it was actually through his introduction
to the Bhagavad Gita that Gandhi developed "ahimsa,"
which is his philosophy of non-violence.
NARRATOR: Inspired in part by Blavatsky's teachings,
the young lawyer would go on to become a civil rights activist.
And in 1947, Mohandas Gandhi would lead India to independence
from British rule.
LACHMAN: Gandhi, until the last day of his life,
had nothing but good words to say about theosophy.
NARRATOR: Were the teachings of Madame Blavatsky a result of
influence from mysterious Ascended Masters?
And if so, who-- or what-- were they?
Perhaps clues can be found by examining
influential figures throughout history
who received instructions from otherworldly beings.
BIRNES: Across the planet, there were these specific areas
where someone with... call it clairvoyant vision
was able to communicate with an entity,
a supernatural entity.
In Greece, it was the Oracle of Delphi.
IMBROGNO: The Oracle of Delphi would go into a trance
and channel messages from the god Apollo.
People would go there-- kings-- if they wanted to go to war,
if they wanted to change something.
NARRATOR: Otherworldly guidance also had a profound impact
on the foundation of Buddhism.
In Buddha's story, it's very clear
that his meditation under the bo tree is what put him
in communication with these otherworldly beings,
and through which he received his inspiration.
CHILDRESS: Buddhism itself completely changed India and Tibet,
China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia.
And we have to wonder, you know, is meditation
a way to connect to the gods?
NARRATOR: Could it be that the Ascended Masters
Madam Blavatsky claimed to channel were part of
a long line of extraterrestrial teachers?
And if so, what was their goal?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest these efforts
are part of an extraterrestrial agenda
to usher in a new era of humanity
among the stars.
NARRATOR: Throughout history, there are stories
of otherworldly teachers who have shared wisdom
and altered the course of human civilization.
Could this still be happening today?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes...
and as evidence, they point to a mysterious event
that occurred in Kingman, Arizona.
On May 21, 1953,
eyewitnesses reported that a disc-shaped object
crashed in the desert outside the city.
Two days later,
government scientists were bussed into the area
to investigate the crashed UFO.
MIKE SCHRATT: When they got there, it was nighttime.
There were MPs on all corners of the craft.
It's about a 40-foot-diameter disc-shaped craft.
It was perfectly intact, there wasn't a scratch on it.
NARRATOR: According to reports, the wreckage was sent
to the top secret military installation
known as Area 51.
And with the craft was a survivor from the crash:
an alien entity known as J-Rod.
DENNETT: J-Rod is an alien
who allegedly worked at Area 51 over a period of years.
It was J-Rod's mission or duty
to help reverse engineer
technology that was, apparently,
from the 1953 Kingman UFO crash.
J-Rod was one of the crash survivors
and worked directly with our own government.
NARRATOR: According to former Air Force test pilot Bill Uhouse,
J-Rod taught the U.S. military
how to reverse engineer alien technology.
BILL UHOUSE: I called him J-Rod.
That's the name that the, the linguists gave him.
And he talked, he would talk, but he'd sound just like,
if you spoke, he'd sound like you.
But he'd try and answer your question, you know.
Basically, it was only
engineering advice or science advice.
NARRATOR: In the years following
the Kingman UFO crash, scientists at Area 51
developed some of the military's greatest innovations,
including stealth technology.
Is it possible that these breakthroughs
were guided by an extraterrestrial being?
The idea of UFO crashes
and subsequent retrievals by the government
is central to the whole UFO phenomenon.
There are many such cases.
Roswell, of course, 1947.
The Kecksburg incident from 1965.
It's interesting to look
at the sudden explosion of technology
just about at the time
that these UFO crashes were first reported.
You see us go
from propeller aircraft
to space rockets
in just a few short years.
HENRY: Are these crashes possibly intentional?
Could these be a gift from the teachers,
assisting us in recreating
or disassembling this technology
and recreating it in a human fashion?
NARRATOR: Is it possible that extraterrestrials
not only taught humanity in the distant past
but continue to share knowledge with us today?
And if so, why?
CHILDRESS: There's many stories
of people who've had contact
with extraterrestrials who tell us
that they want to lift us up.
They want us to know science and technology like them.
TSOUKALOS: What's interesting in all of these ancient
but also modern encounters with extraterrestrials,
it seems that there is an agenda.
To me, one of the most important things
that the universe has to offer
is the spreading of life and information.
And this doesn't happen by happenstance.
It needs intelligence behind it.
And so, ultimately,
I think they, too, want us to travel out there
and impart knowledge or spread out this information.
CHILDRESS: Part of ancient astronaut theory is that
our mission and goal
and what our extraterrestrial ancestors have wanted us to do
is be like them.
They want us to achieve
the same things that they achieved.
They want us to be a spacefaring nation.
HENRY: It's up to us to take that message into our hearts
and recognize that humanity is on the precipice of actually
being able now to colonize our nearby star system.
And with that comes tremendous responsibility.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that humans are
fulfilling an extraterrestrial agenda?
One that for thousands of years
has been guided by otherworldly teachers?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and suggest evidence of this can be found by examining
a recent discovery in our own genetic code.
NARRATOR: According to anthropologists,
approximately 50,000 years ago,
humanity experienced a rapid development
in language, art and technology.
Curiously, many researchers believe
that this was not only the result of evolution
but that the genes of ancient humans
went through a sudden change.
WHITEHILL: There's a very important transition that happened
about 50,000 years ago
that appears to have been a genetic switch,
that set apart a huge gulf between us
and our predecessors.
Languages became more complex and more creative.
We see paintings that depict
not just what's happening around them but some sort
of philosophical or esoteric explanation of things.
TSOUKALOS: 50,000 years ago,
our brain volume increased by 60%.
That is something that,
according to Darwinian evolution,
couldn't happen that quickly, because evolution needs time.
So, what happened?
One of the basic tenets
of the ancient astronaut theory
is that, long ago,
extraterrestrials finagled our DNA
and essentially gave us a bigger brain.
VON DÄNIKEN: The humans on this planet
from the family of apes, we are part of that,
but we are also part of extraterrestrials,
because the extraterrestrials changed the humans
according their own image.
We are a mixture
of human evolution and extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that, tens of thousands of years ago,
human DNA was manipulated by extraterrestrial beings?
And if so, did they design us
to be like them so that they could teach us
and lead us towards becoming
a technologically advanced civilization?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that a distant memory
of the genetic transformation of the human race
is preserved in ancient writings.
HENRY: Beginning with the Sumerian accounts
of the Anunnaki, who transformed us
by making us a hybrid being and activating our intelligence,
we have stories all over the world
of a similar situation where
an otherworldly being is responsible
for a transformation of humanity.
NARRATOR: In Greek mythology, the god Prometheus is
responsible for creating humans and advancing our intelligence.
The ancient Egyptians credited the god Ptah
with the same achievements.
And in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis,
Adam and Eve have a mind-altering experience
in the Garden of Eden
when a serpent-like being tempts Eve with an apple.
McGOWAN: Eve comes along and shares the apple with Adam,
and all of a sudden,
they both have this sort of instantaneous awareness,
this understanding of who they are as humans
and an understanding of the world
that they didn't have before.
COLLINS: Is it possible that the serpent of Eden is
the memory of some kind of higher intelligence,
some kind of teacher
that was in touch with our ancestors
and that this story became the foundation point
of the Book of Genesis itself?
NARRATOR: Have otherworldly teachers been fostering human progress
for thousands of years,
continuing right up to the present day?
And if these beings were
responsible for activating our intelligence,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,
could this evolution be exactly what they intended
for humanity all along?
According to the ancient astronaut theory,
we are their offspring.
They made us homo sapiens sapiens
that we are today.
If you have such a creation,
I don't think you'd would just abandon that.
And in order for this whole experiment to work,
these extraterrestrials then also would show up
and be our teachers.
And today is not the end of this
because they want to see our progress.
It would not surprise me
that they're here and still enhancing us
to ensure our future survival.
NARRATOR: Could it be that humans
are part of an extraterrestrial experiment,
one that not only began with the manipulation of our DNA
but has been continued by otherworldly teachers
for thousands of years?
Perhaps as new technology allows us to venture deeper
and deeper into space,
we will fulfill an alien agenda
that was set in motion long ago...
...and become extraterrestrial teachers
ourselves.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS