NARRATOR: Space ships over Los Angeles...
Body snatchers controlling our minds...
E.T.'s making contact.
These and other alien-based scenarios
have been the plotlines of countless
science-fiction movies and television shows.
But what if extraterrestrial beings
came to Earth tomorrow?
Would they signal the birth
of a new age of peace and prosperity,
or trigger a war ofthe worlds?
NICK POPE: The day that it's announced we're not alone
is the day that this planet changes forever.
BILL BIRNES: The very structures of government
and the very structures of religion will crumble.
SARA SEAGER: Everybody wants to meet an alien.
But we have to start small.
We have to learn how to walk before we can run.
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 might happen when they return?
NARRATOR: Throughout human history,
man has gazed up at the stars in awe and with wonder.
Our ancient ancestors charted their movements,
identified constellations
and marked time by creating celestial-based calendars.
The stars also became the source of countless myths and legends.
Many ofthese describe visitors
coming down to Earth from somewhere out there.
Others speak of entire civilizations
existing out in the cosmos.
MICHAEL CREMO: The ancient Sanskrit writings of India
tell us, for example,
there are 400,000 humanlike species
scattered throughout the cosmos
in different planets, different solar systems,
even different dimensions.
NARRATOR: But where are these alien beings?
Did they come to Earth in the past,
as the ancient astronaut theory suggests, and then leave?
If so, will they ever come back?
Today, scientists around the world
have stopped waiting around and are taking steps
to find intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Will technology finally be able to prove
what our ancient ancestors believed thousands ofyears ago?
In 1960, astronomer and physicist Frank Drake
set up an unusual telescope in the hills ofWest Virginia.
The strange device was made
from surplus World War II radar equipment.
But rather than containing a traditional optical lens,
it housed a directional radio antenna.
PAUL DAVIES: A few simple calculations showed
that radio telescopes have the power to transmit
and receive across literally interstellar distances.
We're talking many light-years.
So Frank Drake turned a radio telescope
on a couple of nearby stars and tuned in
to see if he could pick up a message from the aliens.
So this was a sort of crazy thing to do.
NARRATOR: Drake failed to pick up any sounds that day,
but the science of radio astronomy was born.
Ifwe couldn't see aliens in space,
maybe we could hear them.
MICHAEL DENNIN: The things we've focused on in the past
for searching for extraterrestrial life
is really passively trying to discover signals
on the basis that ifthey were technologically advanced,
they would have some form of electricity like we do,
and all electricity generates radiation.
And it sends out the signals, and hopefully we detect it.
NARRATOR: In 1961, Frank Drake and a group of astronomers,
physicists and biologists
formed a privately funded organization called SETI:
the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
Their goal was to focus massive radio telescopes
towards space and listen.
Drake estimated the probability
that intelligent life existed out in the universe
in a formula that became known as the Drake equation.
SEAGER: The Drake equation is like a bridge
between scientists and non-scientists,
because it explains what you would want to know
to give a number about how common alien life could be.
JENNIFER HELDMANN: There are multiple factors
within the Drake equation.
Like the fraction of stars that could have planets;
and the fraction ofthose planets that could be habitable;
and the fraction ofthose that might have liquid water;
and how many could have evolved intelligent life?
And then one important factor
is the lifetime ofthose civilizations,
and that is a big unknown.
We only know of one-- that's ourselves.
And how long are we going to be around?
That's to be determined.
NARRATOR: Using his equation, Drake estimated
that over 100 million advanced civilizations
could exist in just the Milky Way galaxy.
BIRNES: SETI presupposes
that ifyou've got an alien civilization
capable oftraveling that's developed electronics,
they have a fingerprint.
That fingerprint is a repetitive signal.
A repetitive signal will tell them
that it's notjust noise, junk frequencies out there,
but a real attempt at communicating,
maybe not with us, but with each other.
NARRATOR: On August 15, 1977,
astronomer Dr. Jerry Ehman
was working on a SETI project at Ohio State University
when he recorded an intermittent signal
coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
The signal lasted 72 seconds before being lost.
Ehman believed that it was of extraterrestrial origin.
But despite repeated searches
and increasingly larger telescopes,
the signal has never again been detected.
But what if SETI intercepts a transmission from another world?
What would happen next?
According to SETI's Post-Detection Protocols,
once an extraterrestrial radio signal is confirmed,
news ofthe event should be kept secret
until the authorities have been notified.
The government will then decide
whether or not to try and make contact.
DAVIES: I think all bets are off.
Because here's this message.
It could contain enormously important information
that would transform our society and maybe destabilize it.
What is it going to mean for the future of our civilization?
These are momentous questions.
NARRATOR: Today, SETI continues to scan
the vicinities of nearby stars
for artificially produced signals
using several ofthe world's largest telescopes.
In the next several years,
when it becomes fully operational,
SETI's new Allen Telescope Array
will allow for the reconnaissance
of up to a million stars.
SEAGER: SETI has to search a huge, huge area.
They'll tell you that now,
they have searched the equivalent of, like,
a glass ofwater compared to the entire ocean on Earth.
They have a long way to go.
NARRATOR: While SETI listens passively
to signals from outer space,
NASA has attempted to contact alien life directly,
through messages sent aboard its space probes.
DENNIN: It's a long shot,
but there's no reason, in my mind,
not to expect that life evolved elsewhere.
What's harder to predict, or try and understand,
is how likely is it that it happened close enough
that there'd be someone we could actually communicate with.
NARRATOR: In 1972, NASA agreed to attach small plaques
onto the outside of its twin Pioneer space probes,
the first human-built objects
destined to leave our solar system.
NASA contacted Cornell University professor,
Dr. Carl Sagan, to craft the message.
DENNIN: Carl Sagan was one ofthe most active astronomers
in the search for life outside our planet.
He was a very prominent scientist,
he was an excellent astronomer, and he really did a lot
to help us understand how we might contact other life
or detect life elsewhere in the universe.
NARRATOR: Sagan, along with SETI founder Frank Drake,
designed a gold-anodized aluminum plaque,
measuring roughly six by nine inches,
that contained a collection of symbolic images
representing humans and Earth.
ALBERT HARRISON: The man and the woman were nude,
and the gentleman was holding one arm up like this
in what was intended to be
a sign of, uh... a sign of greeting.
NARRATOR: A schematic design ofthe solar system
was also shown, with the planned trajectory
ofthe Pioneer spacecraft marked on it,
and a diagram of 14 pulsar stars around the sun
made a chart that might help someone work out
where the craft originated.
DENNIN: We tried to give them an idea ofwhere we're located--
and that's an interesting problem, is to figure out
how you would tell someone where you're located in space,
'cause you don't know where they're going to find it.
And it was all in a very stylistic design,
but in an attempt to hopefully communicate
at least some ofthese ideas.
NARRATOR: Five years later, in 1977,
Dr. Sagan got a second chance
at designing an interstellar message
when NASA agreed to attach another one
to the Voyager space probes.
This time, Sagan created a record album
made of gold-plated copper,
along with a series of basic instructions
in how to make it work.
Sagan estimated that the metallic disc
could survive in space for at least a billion years.
DENNIN: One ofthe challenges with technology
is trying to figure out one that can do what you want--
so here you want to encode audio,
and even some video images,
but do it in a way that almost any other
technologically advanced society could figure out.
And the advantage of a record player is,
it's both mechanical and electrical.
The grooves are obvious.
And so, they actually put on the cover
instructions on how to play it.
NARRATOR: The recording included a wide variety of sounds--
a babys cry...
wind...
surf and rain, animal noises,
as well as classical and cultural music
from around the world.
One interesting song selection
was Chuck Berry's rock and roll hit, "Johnny B. Goode."
DENNIN: Music is a good choice
'cause almost anything vibrates and makes sound.
So I would have bet that almost any culture would develop music.
I believe it's Bach who gets the most time on the record.
I don't know why they picked that, to be honest,
but he is one ofthe more mathematical composers,
and that might have been one ofthe reasons,
because math is a more universal language.
NARRATOR: Sagan also included a wide array of photographs
ofwell-known man-made structures
and greetings in 55 different languages.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: I think the most important one
is the Sumerian language.
Now, why would they include Sumerian on that record?
Well, according to the ancient alien theory,
ancient Sumeria is the first place
where we made contact with an extraterrestrial entity.
DENNIN: At this point,
we obviously haven't learned anything yet
about extraterrestrial life,
because we haven't been contacted back.
But I think, for our own purposes,
any time you try and go and figure out
how you want to communicate something,
it pushes your boundaries and understanding
of communication itself.
SEAGER: We all want to find aliens.
Whether it's the planetary scientists
looking for signs of life on another distant planet.
Whether it's the ancient alien proponents
who want to find signs of life
of aliens who visited in the past.
And whether it's people today who want to have experiences
with UFOs and aliens that have visited them recently.
All of us are trying to do the same thing.
NARRATOR: While the search
for extraterrestrial beings continues,
a new space-based telescope
is hunting for planets that may contain life.
Are there other Earths out there?
And if so, how will we find them?
MAN: Ignition.
Lift off. Lift off...
NARRATOR: On March 6, 2009,
NASA launched a Delta II rocket into space.
On board was a new telescope named in honor
of German astronomer, Johannes Kepler.
The space-based telescope was designed specifically
to discover the existence of earthlike planets
located outside our own solar system.
The Kepler search is focused on a specific section
ofthe Milky Way known as Orion's Spur.
Kepler's job is to answer the question,
how common are other Earths?
And to do this, Kepler is looking at one part ofthe sky
for three and a halfyears.
Imagine, like, keeping your eyes open
and staring atjust one part ofthe sky.
HELDMANN: And what they're doing is they're looking at stars.
And then, as a planet goes around that star,
when the planet gets in front ofthe star, the starlight dims,
just a little bit, from our vantage point,
because it's being blocked by the planet.
And so, you look for that dimming ofthose stars.
And then that's how you're able to detect these planets.
NARRATOR: So far, the Kepler telescope
has confirmed the existence offive planets
outside our own solar system.
NASA officials expect to find
several hundred more exoplanets like these
before their mission is completed.
Once a planet has been located,
scientists must then determine if it might contain water.
HELDMANN: We know from Earth
that all life on Earth requires liquid water.
(croaking)
So that is the approach that we've been taking
for looking for life elsewhere in the universe--
follow the water.
And so, that is the step one.
(crackling)
(bubbling)
DAVIES: On Earth, wherever we find liquid water, we find life.
And it's true.
Life on Earth can exist
under an extraordinary range of conditions.
There are extreme organisms
that live in the scalding effluent
coming out ofthe Earth's crust deep beneath the ocean.
There are other remarkable organisms
living in the waste pools of nuclear reactors
of extreme radiation environments and so on.
But the one thing that seems to be absolutely necessary
for life as we know it is liquid water.
NARRATOR: To determine if a planet
contains water and possibly life,
scientists use special telescopes
to analyze its atmosphere.
SEAGER: We look at the light coming from the planet.
And we split that light up, like a rainbow.
Now, ifyou look at a rainbow in the sky,
and you look really, really carefully,
you will see some dark lines.
You'll see some colors missing from the rainbow.
And those colors are missing
because of absorption by gases in Earth's atmosphere.
So effectively, we're getting a rainbow from another planet,
and we're looking for dark lines
that tell us what kind of gases are in the atmosphere.
NARRATOR: To better understand how life affects its atmosphere,
NASA scientists study microbial mats
at California's Moss Landing Wildlife Area.
BRAD BEBOUT: Microbial mats are important to NASA
for a whole bunch of reasons.
The organisms that are in microbial mats
have been on Earth just about longer
than any other kind of organism.
They make a number ofthings
which we call biomarkers, which are important
in our search for life on other planets.
So, there are textural biomarkers,
so when you pull up a piece of microbial mat
and look at the surface-- what does that look like?
One ofthe things that we're doing with these microbial mats
is we're measuring the fluxes of methane.
Methane is a gas that's produced by certain kinds of organisms
that use the organic matter that's in these mats.
And when that methane goes into our atmosphere,
it can be detected by other missions,
such as Terrestrial Planet Finder,
is one of NASA's concept missions for looking for gases
that are produced by life on exoplanets.
DENNIN: We can look for the signature
of oxygen or water on a planet, and at least that
would give us an idea of life-forms like ourselves--
ones that are carbon-based,
and use oxygen and carbon dioxide cycles.
Our atmosphere is not stable without living organisms.
It would have evaporated away by now.
And so, ifyou're looking out in space,
and you detect around a star
a signature ofthe chemicals that we know exist for life,
that's very strong evidence that life is there.
Now, it doesn't help you know if it's intelligent life,
but it does give you an evidence for life.
NARRATOR: With a universe literally full of possibilities,
planet hunters focus their search
on an area they call a Goldilocks Zone.
SEAGER: The Goldilocks Zone for planets
is the place where a planet is not too hot, not too cold,
butjust the right temperature for life.
Right now, we know of no planets like Earth in a Goldilocks Zone.
One planet comes close.
It's called Gliese 581 d.
But we're not entirely sure ifthat planet
is really in the Goldilocks Zone or not.
DAVIES: In recent years, it's been recognized
that there's more than one Goldilocks Zone.
For example, there could be life inside icy planetesimals--
these, like, small planets or large moons.
The moon of Jupiter, Europa, is a very good example.
Europa is liquid beneath an ice cap.
It's liquid underneath because oftidal heating
and friction going on inside the planet.
So it could be that there is life--
microbial, probably, only--
deep down under the ice on Europa.
HELDMANN: It's a very challenging question--
ifthere is life elsewhere in our solar system.
You have so many components that have to come together.
We have to have an understanding ofthe science.
We have to ask the right questions.
I wish I had a tricorder that I could just go
and, like, point, and it would say "life"
or "no life," right? But we don't have that.
So, we have to be smart, and we have to be clever,
and we have to develop instruments
that can actually address the questions
we're trying to answer.
SEAGER: It's inevitable.
There are so many planets out there, it's inevitable
that we'll find one in the Goldilocks Zone any day.
NARRATOR: But while the Kepler telescope
has onlyjust begun scanning the horizon,
NASA is already planning the next step
in its search for extraterrestrial life:
the 2014 launch ofthe James Webb Space Telescope.
People always ask me,
"Do you expect to find an Earth in your lifetime?"
And I say, "Yes, absolutely."
DAVIES: When I was a student,
there was almost nobody prepared to argue that way.
The feeling back in the '60s and '70s
was that even ifthere were other earthlike planets,
life is such an improbable freak event
that it would never ever happen anywhere else.
Now the prevailing view is,
yes, the universe is teeming with life.
Everybody wants to meet an alien.
But we have to start small.
We have to learn how to walk before we can run.
GEORGE NOORY: The fascinating thing for me
is that we're only four and a half billion years old
in a universe that's close to 14 billion years old.
What would happen with some ofthese earthlike planets
that had a five or ten billion-year head start on us?
Gosh, you can only imagine.
NARRATOR: But what if humans
are not the only intelligent creatures
searching for life in the universe?
What ifthere are beings on other planets
conducting a search oftheir own?
And what if, in their search,
they find us before we find them?
Some believe they already have.
On October 30, 1938,
radio listeners across the United States
sat stunned as a series of news bulletins
described Martians invading Earth.
MAN (over radio): Martian cylinders are falling
all over the country.
This is the end now.
NARRATOR: While the broadcast sounded real,
it was a fictional production,
directed and narrated by Orson Welles.
Incredibly, many ofthose listening
believed it to be true, and panicked.
Newspaper reports described families
fleeing their homes for the mountains,
while others armed themselves with weapons
and prepared to fight off the alien invaders.
It was just presented, maybe, with a brief introduction
saying it was not really happening.
But from then on, it was played as if it was really happening.
Well, most people who heard that
thought that it was really happening.
HARRISON: People became upset.
Some ofthose literally headed for the hills.
They drove places to try to, uh,
pick up other people, family and friends.
They reported to the army for duty.
NARRATOR: The response to this fictional alien attack
resulted in many people preparing for the worst.
But ifthe public's reaction to a radio dramatization
resulted in a nationwide wave ofterror,
what would happen ifthey really came?
Los Angeles, California.
In the early months of 1942, the city was on edge.
The recent surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
had propelled America into World War II,
and the threat of a Japanese invasion,
by sea or by air, kept the military on full alert.
CHRIS PITTMAN: Pearl Harbor was a very recent memory for people.
People were in high alert.
There was a great deal of suspicion.
Japanese-Americans were being put in internment camps.
There were German U-boats in the Atlantic,
Japanese submarines in the Pacific,
and people were very fearful.
NARRATOR: In a well-organized defense operation,
air-raid wardens and the coast guard
were monitoring the Pacific shoreline as never before.
ALBERT METZ: The war had started.
I was a 13-year-old kid, and...
this one night, which was February 1942,
the sirens started wailing in the middle ofthe night.
Blackout.
(sirens wailing)
And we'd had several blackouts before this.
NARRATOR: On February 25,
between the hours of 3:12 and 4:15 a.m.,
the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade in Los Angeles
fired off a barrage of antiaircraft shells
at an unidentified flying object.
NEWSMAN: Watchers on the rooftop
ofthe Columbia Broadcasting Building
in the heart of Hollywood
could plainly see the flashes of guns and searchlights
sweeping the skies in a wide arc
along the coastal area.
C. SCOTT LITTLETON: I think what woke me up initially
was the sound of antiaircraft guns.
I jumped out of bed, and my parents were up.
My father was an air-raid warden.
He figured, this has to be the real thing.
DOROTHY MATICH: My mother was telling my brother and I,
"Get under the bed! Get under the bed!
Stay there!"
And, of course, we got out and we peeked.
There was all this firing.
It was almost like a Fourth of July.
METZ: I started hearing a lot of loud explosions.
My brother and I looked out the bedroom window,
saw searchlights twisting and turning in the sky.
NARRATOR: But what was the strange UFO
that the searchlights were focused on?
Where had it come from?
Japan?
Or somewhere from out ofthis world?
Could this incredible photograph,
published the next morning in the Los Angeles Times,
provide the proof?
Could ancient astronaut theorists
have been right all along?
It was practically overhead-- and I mean overhead.
NARRATOR: Retired anthropology professor,
C. Scott Littleton, was nine years old
and growing up in Hermosa Beach
when he spotted the strange object
hovering right over his house.
LITTLETON: We saw what my mother always called a "silver bug."
I'd characterize it today as a lozenge, a long oval.
It was something I'll never ever forget.
It was caught in searchlight beams,
and antiaircraft shells were exploding all around it.
It gradually went like this,
and then began to lose altitude a little bit
as it moved over what had to have been Redondo Beach.
We lost track of it, but the banging continued.
And very quickly afterward, I saw-- we all saw--
a flight of planes
following the track ofthe object going overhead,
anywhere from three to five interceptors,
clearly piston-driven U.S. planes.
No one has ever admitted that those planes were in the sky.
Our first thought immediately
was a Japanese observation plane.
Later, the Japanese records definitively prove
there were no Japanese planes over Southern California
that night, or indeed ever.
NARRATOR: After ruling out the possibility
that a Japanese plane had invaded American airspace,
Secretary ofthe Navy Frank Knox
attributed the incident to "war nerves."
But Secretary ofWar Henry Stimson
quickly refuted this explanation,
defensively declaring that an actual aircraft
had been the target ofthe assault.
To this day, no one seems to knowjust what-- or who--
was hovering over Los Angeles that night.
Some claimed that the Los Angeles air raid
was nothing more than an elaborate training exercise,
a show put on by the military
to keep citizens on the ready in case of a real attack.
Others alleged that the unidentified flying object
was, in fact, a barrage balloon
that had broken loose from its tether.
But even that explanation doesn't seem credible
to those who witnessed the actual event.
One place where there were barrage balloons
that were anchored above the aircraft plants
in El Segundo, Douglas North American.
It would have to have slipped its tether,
floated north up to the Santa Monica Mountains,
and then back down this way.
Barrage balloons don't maneuver like that.
NARRATOR: Regardless ofthe controversy,
one fact is undisputed:
an estimated 14,000 shells
were fired at the strange object,
and shrapnel rained from the sky for over an hour.
But what were the guns aimed at?
Would the army really have put
civilian lives in danger for a drill?
TOM HORSFALL: Major panic.
Six people got killed, uh, due to car accidents
and hit by falling shrapnel.
LITTLETON: A friend of mine said he witnessed a piece of shrapnel
go through his neighbor's garage roof.
So, oh, yeah, there was some damage from falling shrapnel.
MATICH: The next morning,
there was something in our backyard
my mother told me to go roll up--
it was, like, a tarp or something.
And when I bent down-- or kneeled down-- in the grass,
I cut my knee, and I have my piece of shrapnel.
I've kept it all these years.
There's my shrapnel, and it's very sharp.
LITTLETON: By a process of elimination,
the most efficient-- and I say this as a scholar--
the most efficient explanation
is that it was what we would call today a UFO--
something not ofthis world,
something that belonged to another technology.
Ifthat's true, then this event
was one ofthe largest mass UFO sightings in history.
Over a million people saw it.
NARRATOR: But whether it was a UFO or not,
the memories remain vivid for those
who saw something in the sky that night.
So vivid, in fact, that many ofthem gather each year
at Fort MacArthur, in San Pedro, California,
to reenact this mysterious event.
HORSFALL: The city went crazy.
They thought it was
we were being attacked by Japanese planes.
Some theories said weather balloon.
Others said, you know,
"Oh, I saw a plane, I know I saw a plane,"
and others say, "Nope, no such plane."
MATICH: Back then, it was a scary thing. I think to this day
they don't know what they were firing at--
if it was a weather balloon or flying saucers.
NARRATOR: But for those who believe
they saw an alien craft that night,
one important question remains:
What happened to it?
LITTLETON: The rumor is that it finally crashed in the water
and was recovered by navy divers.
So maybe it was wounded, and it crashed,
and this might explain why the military
was so quick to react to Roswell five years later.
Because they may already have had at least some inkling
ofwhat they would find there.
NARRATOR: Was Earth really visited by an alien spacecraft
on the morning of February 25, 1942?
And could the global threats
posed by World War II have provided a trigger?
Perhaps the idea is not as far-fetched as some would think.
Is it possible that alien spacecraft
could have been mistaken for enemy fighter planes
in Adolf Hitler's Germany?
NARRATOR: In his 1993 book,
The Gods of Eden, author William Bramley
theorized that extraterrestrials played a part
in nearly every catastrophe in human history,
and have even used war as a means to control the growth
ofthe human population.
But while many are skeptical about Bramley's claims,
there is one thing on which they agree.
That the number of reported UFO sightings
always increases during wartime.
BIRNES: In times ofwar,
when vast civilizations are in conflict,
and in conflict so terrible
that it seems as though the civilizations
will wipe themselves out,
suddenly, out of nowhere, UFOs appear.
NARRATOR: While skeptics and military historians
attribute these alleged sightings
to war nerves or stress, those who believe in UFOs
find the number of instances hard to dismiss.
When World War II broke out in September of 1939,
there were numerous reports of unidentified flying objects
spotted over Hitler's Germany.
Although the term, UFO, had not yet been coined,
the Allies believed the bogeys, as they were then known,
were new fighter planes being developed by the Nazis.
But the first combat bomberjets,
the German Messerschmitt ME-262,
weren't deployed by the German Air Force until 1943.
PITTMAN: It certainly doesn't escape notice
just how advanced the Nazi propulsion systems
and their aeronautics technology reallywas.
They had the first operational jet fighter to see combat.
They were building and test-flying aircraft
that look incredibly similar
to UFOs that are reported even today.
They had greatly advanced rocket technology.
There have long been rumors about Nazi projects
to build aircraft using UFO technology.
BIRNES: At the end ofthe 19th century,
there was Aleister Crowley,
H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula,
and Jules Verne, who wrote From Earth to the Moon.
Theywere in a society called the Golden Dawn.
In that society, they actually believed in the existence,
not only of UFOs, but extraterrestrials.
That culture influenced Hitler
in the late 1920s, early into the 1930s.
In looking for the origins ofthe Aryan race,
they went all the way to India and the Vedic texts,
which talk about UFOs.
So Hitler, in his own way, was a UFO believer,
and sought to develop his own version of a UFO,
based on the Vedic texts,
to have a dramatic wunderwaffen--
a wonderweapon-- that would end the war.
NARRATOR: Although the Nazis never developed
this so-called wonder weapon,
reports of strange flying machines
in German airspace continued throughout the war.
Butjust what was it that the Allied pilots were reporting?
BIRNES: In the 1940s,
as waves ofAmerican bombers
were literally obliterating German cities--
Dresden,
Hamburg,
Berlin--
in these raids, American fighter pilots
saw these balls of light coming at their planes.
They didn't know what they were.
They thought they were German secret weapons at first.
So they called them Foo Fighters.
The word, feu, in French is fire,
and these were balls offire coming out.
So, instead of Feu Fighters, they were Foo Fighters.
PITTMAN: They were seen in large numbers
over Germany and over Western Europe,
where theywere described variously as structured craft,
or simply balls of light.
NOORY: It was so important at the time
that the military began to notice it,
and they began to investigate these things.
There were hundreds of cases.
None seemed to be very harmful to planes.
But they were all over the place.
NARRATOR: Curiously, when the Foo Fighters appeared,
Allied aircraft would sometimes experience mechanical failure.
And perhaps most mystifying of all
was that some pilots reported flying right through the UFOs,
as ifthey had no mass.
It was never discovered what the Foo Fighters were
or where they came from, but the theory
that theywere some sort of German secret weapon
was widely accepted among Allied pilots at the time.
But could the Third Reich have possessed technology
more advanced than even our most modern aircraft?
Some believe what the Nazis had developed
was an advanced mechanism that scientists
are still working on today-- mercury-powered
antigravity technology.
This involves mercury being in a closed system.
Like a glass bulb.
Once that mercury becomes spinning in a gyroscopic manner
within a closed system, that creates a lift.
It's electrified lift.
It's also a very bright light.
And, in fact, many UFOs are described as exactly that.
Towards the end ofWorld War II,
the Germans started producing massive amounts of mercury.
And, in fact, a number ofthe U-boats
that were later sunk--
one was sunk near Singapore, another in Norway--
only a few years ago, they actually found it,
and its entire cargo was mercury.
What the few historians
have actually written about Foo Fighters,
which is still apparently a secret today,
is that theywere a kind of mercury plasma ball.
And the purpose ofthe Foo Fighters
was to make a highly pulsed magnetic charge
and field around the bombers,
which would then cut out the engines and interfere
with the electrical systems in the planes.
NARRATOR: Could Foo Fighters
really have been based on extraterrestrial technology?
If so, where did the Germans get it?
UFO theorists point to the discovery of a flying saucer
that allegedly crashed in the Black Forest,
near Freiburg, Germany, in 1936.
Some believe German scientists repaired the craft
to test its energy and propulsion systems,
and through reverse engineering, were able to replicate
some ofthese so-called alien technologies.
L.A. MARZULLI: Did the Nazis take this craft,
and was there some sort of a pact that happened there?
Did the Nazis... did they retrieve bodies?
It's hard to pin down how much they had.
Was there contact?
NOORY: There's always been that theory--
that they had a captured craft,
and that they were reverse engineering it.
It's very possible.
Theywere truly way more advanced
than any culture at the time.
Thank God for the American know-how,
because we were combating them
with our own kind of knowledge and technology, as well.
BOB FRISBEE: After World War II,
there was an exercise mounted by the Americans
called Operation Paperclip.
The Allies had been confronted
with all this amazing technology from Germany.
The jet engines, airplanes,
the rocket engine airplanes, all these amazing devices.
To give you an example of some ofthe material
that was collected by Operation Paperclip,
right at the end ofthe war, Von Braun and his team
had begun designing multistage rockets
capable of reaching the United States.
They also had plans for a space station,
the classic circular sci-fi space station,
and on this, they had a huge sunlight collector,
a mirror that was designed to focus sunlight
down on the Earth as a kind of death ray.
There were all these wild ideas coming out ofthat team
that turned it into a very valuable coup
for the United States.
Ultimately, it was Von Braun
who built the Saturn Five rocket
that took people to the moon.
NARRATOR: The story of the World War II Foo Fighters,
much like that ofthe Battle of Los Angeles,
has been largely forgotten
or dismissed by traditional historians.
But an event that happened just two years after the war
had even the skeptics wondering.
What if aliens really did exist?
And could one oftheir craft have crashed to Earth?
Mainstream archeologists have long rejected the notion
that extraterrestrial beings had a hand in creating
the pyramids of Egypt.
Theologians and religious scholars refute the idea
that stories ofthe Bible or the Mahabharata
could be describing alien encounters.
And governments throughout history
have officially denied reports that the Earth
has been visited by flying saucers.
But on July 8, 1947, a UFO sighting
was reported that even the United States Government
had trouble denying.
Why? Because this time,
the report was issued by the U.S. Army.
I'm walking on the Foster Ranch
between Corona and Roswell, New Mexico,
not far from what is called
the debris field right over that hill.
And that debris field
refers to headlines back in July of 1947
about a disc-- one ofthose mysterious UFOs--
actually crashing right out here.
(thunder crashing)
NARRATOR: One night in early July, 1947,
a major thunderstorm rolled across New Mexico.
The next morning,
rancher Mac Brazel went out to check on the damage.
JULIE SHUSTER: Mac Brazel went out to make sure
everything was where it was supposed to be.
And he came across this really extensive area of debris,
stuff he had never seen before.
He brought it to the local sheriff's office.
In 1947, Roswell was home to Roswell ArmyAir Field.
The sheriff called the base,
the base sent Major Jesse Marcel,
and at that point, it basically became a military site,
as they gathered up every bit of debris they could find.
NARRATOR: In their initial report,
Army officials made a vague claim of having started
the recovery ofthe debris "sometime last week."
But why didn't the Army report their findings right away?
And why were they so ambiguous about the timeline?
One ofthe biggest things we have is the newspaper
of July 8, 1947, where Colonel Blanchard issued a order
to Lieutenant Walter Haught,
who was a public information officer, saying basically,
"We have in our possession a flying saucer;
it's being taken to Fort Worth, to higher headquarters."
Roswell was a real turning point for UFOlogy.
I think that was because the military,
for the first time, admitted
that they had a crashed disc.
And because it was admitted at the time,
of course, it caused a sensation.
SHUSTER: But then, July 9, General Ramey issued
a press release saying, no, it was a weather balloon.
And that started the best-documented
UFO cover-up ever.
NARRATOR: Army officials referred to the debris
as being part of a flying disc.
Internal memos even referenced the crash site
as having victims.
So, why, less than 24 hours later,
did they suddenly decide that what they had retrieved
was nothing more than a weather balloon?
Although Blanchard and Ramey stuck by the revised story,
Lieutenant Haught stood by the contents
of his initial report his entire life.
And those who believe him think modern technology
may have recently provided the irrefutable evidence
they have been looking for.
SHUSTER: When Major Marcel took the debris to Fort Worth,
and General Ramey spread it out to give this press conference
that it was a weather balloon, there was a picture taken,
and in his hand is a piece of paper.
It's a very little piece of paper.
I mean, and this has been blown up.
And it is a memo.
There is a leading researcher in the field
who is pulling the words out ofthis.
And they include things like "team at Fort Worth,"
"forwarded victims ofthe wreck," "pod or pan."
And so, every year that the technology improves,
General Ramey may be the one to solve it.
MOULTON HOWE: Bob Wood, a researcher in UFOs,
had received leaked documents in 1996,
and shared them with me and a few others.
This document called the Interplanetary Phenomena Unit,
with a War Department stamp dated July 22, 1947.
The most disturbing aspect ofthis investigation
was that there were other bodies found
not far from landing zone one, the Mac Brazel site
between Corona and Roswell that looked as ifthey had been
dissected as you would a frog.
It does not define, were those bodies human?
Were those bodies nonhuman?
But suddenly, for me, this electricjolt
that came into holding that document
and reading at the end ofthe '90s what would explain finally
that our government knew
that extraterrestrial biological entities
from somewhere else in the cosmos
was interacting with our planet for a very long time.
NARRATOR: Five years after Roswell,
the United States Air Force coined the term
Unidentified Flying Object or UFO.
In the decades since, thousands of UFOs have been reported...
-MAN: Whoa. -...photographed and videotaped
all over the world.
MAN: Oh, my God.
Perhaps one ofthe biggest, most revolutionary
pieces oftechnology to change
our view of UFOs and flying saucers
is the video cam.
MAN: Whoa, I'm getting a series of lights right there.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
BIRNES: You only have to look at what happened
in Phoenix, Arizona, in March of 1997,
when these huge flying boomerangs went
right across Phoenix, right through the whole valley,
heading south to the Mexico border.
These were all caught on cameras.
Network news caught these; local news caught these.
You saw these on CNN; you saw these on Larry King.
MAN: Oh, there it is, over to the left. -MAN 2: Wow.
BIRNES: And yes, people called them flares--
of course they did.
But, the fact is, when you see something
with your own eyes...
MAN: Look, dude. Pat, you got it?
MAN 2: I see it.
BIRNES: ...even if it's on a video camera,
suddenly your perspective changes.
MAN: And that middle one is moving quick.
It's only the beginning, you guys.
So, now, according to recent polls--
Gallup polls and Roper polls--
well over 50% ofAmericans believe
that flying saucers exist,
and close to 50% believe that the government knows
that flying saucers exist,
and that the government is hiding that fact.
NARRATOR: But why so many UFO sightings after Roswell?
Is it a coincidence?
Or is the world's growing belief in aliens providing cover
for those who might previously have been too afraid of ridicule
to come forward?
Perhaps there is another reason.
Perhaps there are more sightings
because there is a genuine increase in alien visitations...
...ever since the dawn ofthe Space Age.
BRAMLEY: There had been plenty of stories
of UFOs and aliens
prior to that-- a lot of sightings.
They weren't as widely reported somewhat also because
World War II had been going on, prior to that.
But because now we had a crash
and there was more room in the newspaper, so to speak,
I think that really helped the subject take off.
NARRATOR: If, as some suggest,
aliens from other worlds truly are among us
and have done their best to keep themselves hidden
for thousands ofyears,
will they ever reveal their presence?
More importantly, what happens ifthey do?
And what if it is already happening?
NARRATOR: In March, 2010, a mysterious pulsating light
floated over Cleveland, Ohio, for 1 1 consecutive nights.
MAN: We're having a sighting right now over the lake.
I'm going to say 270 degrees south.
There are, uh, two objects.
One is coming up from the left.
These are extremely close to each other.
There's absolutely no way these are planes.
Right now, uh, what's happening is the initial object
that came out-- it's sitting there, it's hovering,
it's getting extremely bright.
It's illuminating different colors.
And the second object appeared from, I'm going to say,
the top left of it.
And now it looks like it's moving around it.
Wow!
They completely just switched spots.
Oh, my God, this is beautiful.
It knows we're watching. It knows we're watching.
NARRATOR: The Cleveland sighting is
one ofthousands reported each year.
And while many are proved to be false alarms,
others are not so easily discredited.
-MAN: Right below it. -MAN 2: Right below it.
A big bright white flash just occurred.
NARRATOR: In 1991, Britain's Ministry of Defence
assigned author and journalist Nick Pope to track
the hundreds of sightings reported
over England, Scotland and Wales every year.
NICK POPE: The Ministry of Defence has been
looking at the UFO issue since the 1950s.
And the whole reason for looking at these UFO sightings
is not necessarily because the department corporately believes
in extraterrestrial visitation.
It's more to do with keeping a watchful eye
on any unusual activity in British airspace.
Clearly ifthere's something there that's a little bit
out ofthe ordinary, we want to know about it.
My beliefs when I was given this job were, I think,
what on earth have I let myself in for here?
I had no particular knowledge or interest in the UFO phenomenon.
Certainly no belief in anything unusual.
But the more I looked back through the archive
of old files, and the more I began to investigate the ones
that were being reported to me on a daily basis,
I began to change my mind, and realized that some ofthese
UFO sightings couldn't be explained in conventional terms.
MAN: It's definitely moving.
NARRATOR: Many ofthe most intriguing cases Pope researched
involved eyewitness reports from pilots, police
and military officers, while others featured
classified radar, video or photographic evidence.
NICK POPE: One case that was a particular turning point for me
was the so-called Cosford Incident.
Now, Cosford is a military base in the United Kingdom.
And on the particular night in question,
which was 30th of March, 1993, there was a wave of sightings
over a period of about six hours.
And there were many police and military witnesses.
And two Air Force bases, Cosford and Shawbury,
were directly overflown by a vast triangular shaped craft.
Now, the meteorological officer at one ofthese bases
described this to me as the size of a jumbo jet
hovering, or moving very, very slowly,
and then accelerating away to the horizon at incredible speed.
He said many times faster than a militaryjet.
And this was a man with eight years experience
in the air force.
This sighting was thoroughly investigated not only by
private UFO investigators, but also by the British Government,
who were unable to explain all ofthe sightings
reported during this incident.
NARRATOR: Another intriguing British UFO sighting
took place in December 1980.
U.S. Air Force personnel stationed in Suffolk, England,
reported seeing a brilliantly illuminated spaceship
that landed in Rendlesham Forest on two consecutive nights.
POPE: What made this case particularly unusual
is that this was not vague lights in the sky.
This was a landed metallic craft that some ofthe witnesses
claimed they got, uh, so close to,
they could actually touch the side of it.
One witness saw strange symbols on the hull,
which he likened to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
He made a sketch ofthis in his police notebook
and took some photos, though he was subsequently told
they didn't come out.
The Ministry of Defence looked at this,
and the Defence intelligence staff
assessed radiation readings that had been taken
at the landing site as being
"significantly higher than background."
And that's a direct quote from the government's own assessment.
PITTMAN: The British Government
generated a massive file of information
about this sighting report.
But at this date, it's very unlikely that the actual truth
about the sighting will ever be known.
NARRATOR: But in spite ofthe compelling eyewitness testimony,
the Ministry of Defence soon declared the case closed.
22 years later, when the government declassified files
on the Rendlesham incident, the evidence was inconclusive.
But what stood out was the credibility of
the main witnesses, who were trained military personnel.
BIRNES: Obviously, as a UFO hunter,
I've met a lot of people who've encountered UFOs.
Just flying on a plane, for example.
You're on a plane,
and suddenly the pilot comes out ofthe cockpit--
and this has happened on five separate occasions.
And he'll say to me,
"I saw a UFO over Phoenix; I saw a UFO over Texas;
half my crew saw a UFO."
And you'll say to the pilot, "Well, well, do you report it?"
And they say, "When the flight controller says at the airport,
"'Do you want to report a UFO sighting,'
and then bursts out laughing, what you say is, 'No."'
There are UFO sightings every single day.
Real people with real sightings of real UFOs.
It is very prevalent as more and more people talk about it.
Something is going on.
In terms ofthe government response to all this,
certainly in Britain,
the Ministry of Defence policy for many years has been
to try and downplay this subject.
Not really in any great sinister attempt
to cover up the truth about UFOs, whatever that might be,
but more out of embarrassment.
There are things in our airspace,
we don't know what they are, and that's not a good place
for the government and the military to be.
NARRATOR: On December 1, 2009, the British Ministry of Defence
quietly terminated its UFO project,
citing that there had been no credible evidence that UFOs
posed a potential threat to the United Kingdom.
(bell tolling)
There are a number of aspects ofthis decision
that were particularly controversial.
Firstly, UFO sightings are at a ten-year high
in the United Kingdom.
So it seemed the most inopportune moment
to pull the plug on 50 years of research and investigation
into the UFO mystery.
The other point that made this particularly controversial
was the way in which the decision was announced.
There was no proactive statement issued on this.
It simply said: The department will not respond
to any inquiries on this subject
and will no longer investigate sightings.
NARRATOR: One hurdle confronting those in favor of
fully disclosing classified information related to UFOs
is the fact that most mainstream scientists believe
that the study of alien phenomena
is little more than just fringe science.
It is this fear of dismissal or ridicule
that keeps many scientists hidden in the shadows.
TED PETERS: Our best scientists,
who communicate with one another around the world,
have rules of protocol, which include--
they cannot appear to be religious... (laughs)
...they cannot believe in flying saucers,
and they certainly shouldn't hang around with
anybody who believes in flying saucers.
HARRISON: But it's all done, you might say, behind closed doors,
because nobody really wants to, uh, draw attention to it.
You know that, uh, they understand, you know,
that there's a penalty associated
with this kind of research.
And so consequently, it's done, it's done "invisibly."
ROBERT BAUVAL: To be blockaded and stopped byworries
about peer reviews and so forth, to me, is wrong.
We can speculate whether there is life outside this planet.
We can speculate whether there has been a contact
with, with other civilizations. Why not?
NARRATOR: But as more scientists openly embrace the probability
that there is intelligent life existing
elsewhere in the universe,
will the beliefthat alien beings are visiting us
also become more accepted?
What might be the reaction today if extraterrestrials were to
actually arrive on Earth and make themselves known to us?
Countless science fiction books and films tend to portray aliens
coming either to warn us or destroy us.
BIRNES: Since the 1960s, people have been thinking about:
Well, what do we do?
Do we have a Day The Earth Stood Still scenario if aliens come?
Do they warn us that our planet's facing disaster?
Do they attack us,
the way the Martians did in War ofthe Worlds?
Well, the answer is more complicated than it seems.
It's notjust somebody landing and saying,
"Take me to your leader."
TSOUKALOS: The general consensus today
is that if extraterrestrials were to show up tomorrow,
they'd be hostile, and they would want to enslave us
and-and battle us and-and destroy us
and all this crazy stuff.
In my opinion, that won't be the case,
because any civilization that's mastered to travel
interstellar space would be benevolent
to a lesser advanced society, technologically speaking.
DAVIES: A simple statistic shows that ifwe make contact
with extraterrestrial civilization,
we are the new kids on the block.
We're the ones who are at the back ofthe queue
when it comes to intelligence.
So, uh, they'll be teaching us stuff.
We won't have a great deal to teach them.
JEFF PECKMAN: There are a wide range of benefits
that can be derived from accepting that we have neighbors
in the galaxy that are visiting us.
There are reports of medical treatments
that have been performed for the benefit
of several people who have had contact.
There are advanced energy technologies.
Reports are that some ofthese have been
reverse-engineered already and are used in military craft.
There are communications technologies.
So, really, any area of life that we have could be
beneficially impacted by acknowledging that there are
these other people out there, that they have information,
knowledge that they can share with us that would benefit us.
HARRISON: It's going to depend how the discovery comes about.
If, in fact, it's a distant radio broadcast,
we might expect one thing.
If, in fact, there's, uh, some type ofvisitation that fits in
with beliefs about UFOs, that might be something else.
But, on the whole, I think people are much more prepared
for, uh, shall we say "contact"?
NARRATOR: Many who believe contact with extraterrestrials
is inevitable suggest governments
need to prepare themselves.
It's a field of study known as exopolitics.
Exopolitics poses the question: What should our response be
to that situation at a societal level?
Not necessarily at a governmental level,
but actually individuals-- how can we reach out
with a hand offriendship?
STEVEN GREER: Exopolitics has really been
a grassroots movement of people concerned about this issue
and want disclosure on the UFO subject,
and also want to help organize people locally
to get the information out to their governments
and make this big change happen.
NARRATOR: But if we reach out in friendship,
what guarantee do we have that it will be returned in kind?
Many scientists, including famed theoretical physicist
Stephen Hawking, believe alien beings could pose a threat
and suggest we do everything possible to prevent contact.
BIRNES: If extraterrestrials, or aliens, were aggressive,
were warlike, and they came here,
is it a case where resistance is futile?
How do you wipe out life on planet Earth?
That's easy-- a plague.
Simple-- no UFOs,
no zorching beams from the sky, no explosions,
no Empire State Building collapsing, none ofthat.
We can do that.
Why can't aliens do that?
TSOUKALOS: To think that we would be able to come up with
some type of a defense mechanism or have defenses
against interstellar traveling society is ludicrous.
NARRATOR: Whether they came as friend or foe,
if extraterrestrials did land somewhere in the United States,
it's possible the aliens would be greeted by government
or military personnel wearing Hazmat suits
and testing for harmful pathogens and radiation.
Many conspiracy theorists suspect
the government's next step would be to cover up the visitation.
They cite as evidence a reputed sighting that took place
over Washington, D.C. in 1952.
BIRNES: In full view ofthe entire world,
a squadron, a formation of UFOs buzzed Washington
and fought our own F-93 jet fighters.
General Samford willingly and deliberately--
maybe on instructions from Harry Truman,
who was president-- lied to the American people.
We have received and analyzed
between one and two thousand reports.
Ofthis great mass of reports, we have been able, adequately,
to explain the great bulk ofthem.
BIRNES: His own Captain Ruppelt,
in his own book on flying saucers, says Samford was lying.
We have the letter from the Air Force to Dean Condon
saying "Deep-six UFOs."
So, have UFOs come to planet Earth in full view,
have manifested themselves, have shown themselves?
Yes.
Did we see it? Yes.
Was there a protocol for handling it?
Yes. That protocol was called "deny."
NARRATOR: But if an alien visitation proved undeniable,
who might be chosen
to then speak to those inside the spacecraft?
Who could best represent all the nations and interests of Earth?
SEAGER: If aliens do land on Earth,
I think we should send our best world leaders
who are the most open-minded and reasonable,
but who also have the ability
to defend themselves against those aliens.
BIRNES: In my opinion,
that's one ofthe reasons we have a United Nations.
Yes, it prevents wars and delivers food.
But on the other hand, just imagine
the Security Council itself convening to deal with aliens--
an image on a big screen at the United Nations.
The answer is: I think it all happened back in the 1940s,
and that was one ofthe reasons that Roosevelt
and Eleanor Roosevelt pushed so hard
for the formation of a United Nations
to replace the League of Nations.
Somebody had to confront the aliens.
LEVINSON: The notion that our leaders-- elected or otherwise--
should speak on our behalf,
I don't necessarily think that makes sense.
There are a lot of people who might have better ideas
than the people who are in government.
I'd like to see a profoundly democratic-- with a small D--
unauthoritarian interaction with aliens.
NARRATOR: Currently, there are no known official protocols
in place for an alien visitation.
But there are those who think that contact
with extraterrestrials is imminent,
and that our world leaders must plan for the event now.
PECKMAN: We're not alone in the universe.
We have friends and relatives out there in the galaxies.
And we need to take on this task, one way or the other,
ofjust getting the job done and getting to the point
where we're considering the practical details of
interacting with these friends and neighbors out there.
GREER: Who is responsible for that relationship?
Well, the State Department isn't.
The United Nations isn't.
And I think this is a very big problem.
So, well, there needs to be a diplomatic effort
to make contact with these interstellar civilizations
in such a way
that it puts wiser people in charge ofthat.
POPE: Even ifyou don't
corporately believe in extraterrestrials,
ifyou think the possibility of alien visitation
is vanishingly small,
the consequences if it does happen are immense.
And, therefore, it's prudent to have
something in place to deal with it.
DENNIN: Personally, I think it would be very, very exciting.
I mean, it would be just like the first time, you know,
the explorers came, um,
from Europe to the Americas and discovered
a whole new culture, and they had to interact.
Hopefully, it won't work out as some of
the bad things that occurred then;
it would be a more positive experience.
And maybe we've learned from that and we can go forward.
NARRATOR: What would happen after
any potential extraterrestrial contact
is open to much speculation.
But most people concede one thing:
The world as we know it would change dramatically.
GREER: The result would be
that the fundamentalist orthodox belief systems
of every organized religion on Earth would collapse.
Meaning that it would really bring into question
the origins ofthe human race, uh, the Genesis stories
and a whole lot of other issues.
BIRNES: The very structures of government
and the very structures of religion will crumble.
NARRATOR: But in 2008,
a stunning announcement was made from a very surprising source.
Proofto some that miracles, like aliens,
do indeed exist.
NARRATOR: The Vatican, Rome.
This walled enclave has been the center of power
for the Catholic Church since the fifth century.
It's not only the Pope's residence,
but a place of homage for one billion Catholics,
and represents nearly 2,000 years
of Christian teaching and tradition.
But, in 2008, the Vatican made an announcement
that some say might threaten its own existence.
The chief astronomer ofthe Vatican Observatory,
Father Gabriel Funes, acknowledged the possibility
alien life exists on other planets.
They basically said that belief in planetary life
outside of Earth does not negate one's belief in God.
Now, 500 years ago, ifthe Vatican would have said that,
they would've burned everybody on the stake.
WILLIAM FULCO: The present Pope, Benedict, of course,
has a very scientific bent.
And he respects intellectual life
in-in a way that is-is quite extraordinary.
He seemed quite open to entertain the idea:
What ifthere is life on other planets?
It's certainly an interesting question for a Christian.
To approach it scientifically, it challenges your belief
of how much ofthis you attribute to God.
NARRATOR: Many wondered about the Church's motives and timing.
Why, after centuries of belief
in man as God's supreme creation and the only intelligent life
in the universe, did the Vatican make an announcement
that could turn Christianity on its head?
Did they know something the rest of us did not?
TSOUKALOS: This is something
that is completely new in the history ofthe Church
that the extraterrestrial question
is not only addressed, but at the same time, it's okay.
I mean, that is a major change in opinion.
A major change in the status quo.
And I ask: Why?
Would it have huge ramifications?
Of course.
Does it change anything?
Of course.
But at the same time, would that change religion
or belief in God?
Not really.
Some people say, well,
the Catholic Church must know something.
Uh, maybe they're trying to get ahead ofthe game here.
On the other hand, it may just be that they're being
very clever and simply trying to cover all the bases,
in case there is some great announcement
or discovery about alien life.
Because, make no mistake about it,
if it is announced that alien life has been discovered,
people are going to look to their religious leaders for
some sort of guidance about this, whether it's Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus.
CHRIS CORBALLY: If extraterrestrial life was found,
then the Church would react presumably as it does
with any data-- see what there is.
I don't think there would be any conflict
in the way that we look on our humanity.
What we would find is that God creates
intelligent life in a variety ofways.
And I think what we would learn from that is,
we can't restrict God to any one mode
of making intelligent life.
NARRATOR: The idea that intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the universe has been debated by
religious leaders, historians and scientists.
But not everyone agrees how its proofwould affect
human spirituality or the many religious institutions.
PETERS: What would happen to our interpretation
ofthe Book of Genesis?
Well, the Book of Genesis looks at the universe
from the point ofview of Earth.
We look at the sun, we look at the moon, we look at the stars.
So, to realize that the Earth is just
one small, pale-blue dot in this immense universe,
I think it would only expand our interpretation of Genesis.
I don't think it would, uh, change it
in any fundamental way.
FULCO: It's an interesting question for Christianity
in general, since Christianity would teach that salvation
comes through Jesus, who was apparently an earthling.
Um, what do you do ifthere are people on Mars?
Are they saved?
According to our viewpoint, um, I don't know.
DAVIES: Christians have always had this problem
that ifthere are aliens out there, are they not to be saved?
It's not a problem for Jews.
Certainly not a problem for Buddhists or Hindus.
But Christians are in a particular fix.
For a very simple reason that Christianity alone
among the world's religions has an incarnation.
What they mean by that is that God became incarnate
in the form of Jesus Christ, in order to be the savior.
When you talk to Christians, they sort of say,
"Oh, well, there isn't a problem really because, you know,
"we've accommodated Galileo, we've accommodated Darwin.
Why can't we accommodate E.T.?"
Well, I think there's a big difference.
PAUL LEVINSON: I think science and religion have more in common
than perhaps the popular perception suggests.
On one hand, we have science,
which deals with reason and fact.
On the other hand, we have religion,
which deals with faith.
Science is an evolving proposition,
and what we know today will almost certainly be reformed
and maybe even replaced at some point in the future.
So, to think that science somehow provides the truth
in contrast to religion, I think is a mistake.
NARRATOR: While scientists and religious leaders
may still ponder the notion of aliens visiting Earth,
ancient astronaut theorists claim that the evidence exists
in plain sight around the world.
But ifthis theory was accepted, would we have to change
our beliefs about our knowledge, our history
and the very beginnings of human civilization?
For thousands ofyears,
humans have recorded events that seem to suggest
other-worldly beings came down from the skies to visit Earth.
These ancient visitations represent the foundations
ofthose who believe Earth was visited in the past
by advanced beings from other planets.
These sightings are also said to explain
many mysteries surrounding our past.
ERICH V. DANIKEN: The most important was religion.
The gods have descended to our ancestors' time.
Now it enters into the holy books, into mythology.
Now, later, people try-- reason the people try
to understand this, they make out religions of it.
But the core is
extraterrestrials have come here.
That was the beginning of all the big religions.
There are two main components why we are
who we are today as a species.
One, someone tampered with our genetic makeup,
and two, technology.
Because all of a sudden, we were doing and building things
that we would still have difficulties recreating today.
And the ancient texts are very clear
that many of our achievements in the past
happened due to a direct intervention
of extraterrestrials that arrived from the skies.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists also cite as evidence
the amazing similarities between
isolated cultures all over the planet.
Why did different civilizations build immense
megalithic structures to honor otherworldly beings?
Why do so many ancient texts
seem to reference men flying in the sky?
And why do the ancient Egyptians, Hopi Indians
and the Dogon tribe of North Africa
all believe their ancestors came from
what we know as the constellation Sirius?
TSOUKALOS: Ifthe extraterrestrials wanted
to leave behind a message ofwhere they came from,
then it would serve them very well
to build those structures with a reference
to their location of origin.
So, ifwe have connections to the Sirius star system,
well, it would lend us to believe that here we have
a reference of where they might come from.
NARRATOR: The question of extraterrestrial life
is as old as civilization itself.
Ancient astronaut theorists, as well as many noted scientists,
point to the immense size ofthe universe and concede
that other beings must exist somewhere else besides Earth.
But the question remains:
Did aliens visit us in the past?
And is it happening again?
The way we look at history is very fragile.
Any discovery, which is made somewhere,
can change the way we look upon history.
I think ifwe were to identify that an alien presence
has been here on Earth in the past,
I think there are two very important questions.
Did E.T. just come by and visit, and then disappear?
Or did actually E.T. come, stay and contribute to civilization?
I think the second one is far more important,
because it shows us far more.
It actually rewrites mankind's identity rather than
just whether or not, you know, some extraterrestrial being
came here on a holiday and then left
without really leaving something behind.
TSOUKALOS: In all of the ancient texts,
there is one thing that is very clear,
and that is that these gods one day will return.
NARRATOR: But short of an alien spacecraft
landing on the White House lawn,
ancient astronaut theorists know there will always be skeptics.
PECKMAN: People are always looking for
an ultimate proof ofthe existence of
extraterrestrial intelligent beings.
But I think a more useful and honest question is:
How much and what kind of evidence would be enough for you
to believe that they're out there,
that they have been visiting us?
GRAHAM HANCOCK: I believe, through the experiences
that shamans have been documenting and reporting
for tens ofthousands ofyears, that, uh, we are in contact
with entities and beings that are not ofthis Earth.
But precisely what those entities and beings are
remains to be established.
PITTMAN: There is evidence that indicates
that it's possible that humans were visited
by extraterrestrials in the distant past.
And ifwe are too quick to discard that possibility,
then we might be shutting ourselves out from something
that might be really fascinating and might take us
to a, to a next level that we can't even imagine.
DAVID CHILDRESS: It's very possible that
those extraterrestrials who've allegedly been coming here
for thousands ofyears, I mean, they are us.
They look like us.
And, in fact, that's part again ofthe Bible,
in that the God
or the gods created us in their image.
I mean, we are to be like them.
We are to look like them.
We are to have the technology they have.
We're to go into space, just like they did.
I think there is life, simple life, bacterial life,
microbial life on other planets.
I think we're going to find that.
And who knows?
Maybe one day we'll find some other planet
that's capable of sustaining life that has evolved people
over a long period oftime that are also looking up
at the stars, wondering: Is there anybody else out there?
Are we the only ones?
TSOUKALOS: We are a species of explorers.
So, ultimately, we will come across
some other type of intelligence.
And when that happens,
ifthat society, technologically speaking,
is primitive, we'll become ancient astronauts
with that culture.
HANCOCK: Human history has become too much a matter
of dogma, uh, taught by professionals
in ivory towers, as though it's all fact.
Actually, much of human history is up for grabs.
The further back you go,
the more that the history that's taught in the schools
and universities begins to look like some kind offairy story.
BAUVAL: We have logic, we have intuition, we have our senses.
And to limit ourselves
through the scientific route is a mistake.
We can send people on the moon,
we can plan journeys to Mars, we can make cell phones.
But we haven't explained the fundamental questions
that we should be dealing with.
Where do we come from?
What are we supposed to do here?
And where are we going?
We really have not come with the answers, and we know no better
than the ancients that we're trying to explain.
TSOUKALOS: Exploring the ancient astronaut theory is
the ultimate quest to find out: Where did we come from?
How did it all begin?
And most importantly, who are we?
And the ancient astronaut theory
has the capability of answering all those questions.