NARRATOR: Prehistoric rock art depicting astronauts.
Oh, look at that.
-LUCA GIARELLI: The spaceman? -The spaceman!
Exactly! Look at the helmet.
NARRATOR: An ancient temple
covered in otherworldly writings.
It’s all here, in this sanctuary,
the whole story of humanity’s place in the stars.
NARRATOR: Incredible petroglyphs of mysterious flying objects.
So this one here looks like a UFO.
NARRATOR: For more than a decade,
Ancient Aliens has examined
the oldest and most mysterious carvings on Earth
up close and in person.
Now we take a look back
at some of the most extraordinary glyphs.
Glyphs, that according to ancient astronaut theorists,
tell a worldwide story of alien visitation.
♪ ♪
On Ancient Aliens, we have traveled across the world
examining some of the most mysterious stone carvings,
often referred to as glyphs.
Our ancestors spent countless hours carving images and symbols
as a record of what they thought were
the most important pieces of their history.
Many glyphs depict strange, humanoid figures,
and tell stories of visitors coming down from the sky.
William Henry got to see some of these incredible glyphs
up close in the mountains of northern Italy.
NARRATOR: Val Camonica, Italy.
June 13, 2019.
Ancient astronaut theorist William Henry
has traveled to this UNESCO world heritage site
to investigate what he believes
could be forensic evidence that the early civilizations
of this region came into contact with extraterrestrials.
Hi, I’m William. Nice to meet you.
NARRATOR: Joining him is Luca Giarelli,
the head of the Val Camonica Historical
and Anthropological Society.
Luca has spent years studying this mysterious region
of northern Italy and wants to show William the rock carvings
for which this alpine valley is famous.
This place is massive.
I’m ready, let’s go.
HENRY: I’m here at Val Camonica because it is
a treasure trove of images from the ancient world that have
been well-documented and studied by scholars.
They don’t agree on the meaning of the images but some of them
are very openminded to the ancient astronaut theory.
Footprints. Wow!
Look like deer.
Look at this, incredible.
Wow.
HENRY: Oh, look at that.
The spaceman, exactly. Look at the helmet!
Right. It’s like he’s glowing.
The Camunian Rose.
Wow.
19 Camunian Roses?
NARRATOR: Archaeologists call this
mysterious symbol the Camunian Rose
because of its flower-like shape.
While its exact meaning is lost to history,
some believe it to be a religious symbol
or a representation of the movement of the stars.
But ancient astronaut theorists suggest it might
also depict something else...
the vessel that brought these helmeted
figures to Val Camonica.
Look at that. That looks like a spaceship.
It’s like you’d look up in the sky,
and you would see this kind of
twirling, spinning ship in the sky.
It seems to me, just looking at it, they are trying to talk
about beings coming from other worlds, maybe to this place.
Tell me about that five-pointed star.
HENRY: Mm-hmm.
Sometimes the-the stars mean energy,
like energy from the stars would come to this place
or star beings would come to this place.
-Yeah. -Mm-hmm.
Okay, so this is like a newspaper then.
It says, this was in the sky above us
at some point, and this spaceman came down
and maybe met the Camunian people.
NARRATOR: According to the ancient stories,
the city of Turin, just 155 miles from Val Camonica,
was founded by a character from Greek mythology called
Phaeton who came to Earth from the stars.
Legend states that Turin was founded by the god Phaeton,
who is a son of the sun god Helios and in the myth
of Phaeton, we learn the story of how
he descended to Earth in a fiery chariot.
Perhaps crashing into Mount Musinè.
This also led to something fortuitous
because he brought gifts to this place.
He had great skills, was a metallurgist.
And taught this to the local people.
DAVID CHILDRESS: When we look at myths such as the myth of Phaeton,
here is really the story of a UFO
landing on a mountain and interacting with the locals.
HENRY: Given the-the connection with the spacemen
that are etched into the rock, that we have to be open
to the possibility that what the ancient artist is trying
to portray is something that he actually saw in the sky,
something coming out of the heavens.
NARRATOR: Is there a connection between the stone carvings found
at Val Camonica and the story of Phaeton’s descent from the sky?
And do other clues exist here
that point to ancient alien contact?
Were there any other cultures
that were connected with the valley?
-What sort of engravings? -Uh...
Mm-hmm. Oh, the horned god, yeah. Right.
HENRY: That means the Celts were here.
So is the only location where we see the spaceman?
-Even deeper into the woods? -Yeah.
I’d love to go. All right.
NARRATOR: Luca guides William up a steep portion of the valley
for a rare look at another carving
hidden from public view.
HENRY: I’m all right, thanks.
Wow.
We’re-we’re like on the edge of a cliff here.
Wait a minute, that-that’s one of them, isn’t it right there?
Yeah. How cool!
Wow!
-Like the other one. -HENRY: Yeah, these are just like the other guys.
Exactly.
-HENRY: The detail is amazing. -Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
There’s clearly some kind of an exchange
that’s happening here.
It’s like they’re making a photograph
of what happened at this place.
They’re trying to say, "At this spot,
this is what we saw here."
HENRY: Of-of all places to find a rock like this.
This is a very secretive, almost initiatory place
where select people would be brought here to be told
-this story about these extraterrestrials. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Do the so-called "spacemen"
of Val Camonica commemorate an extraterrestrial visitation,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining an Egyptian temple covered in hieroglyphs...
that tell the story of the creation of humankind.
Of all the mysterious glyphs we’ve examined
on Ancient Aliens, some of the most astounding
can be found in Egypt, where they’re known as hieroglyphs.
One the most extensive collections of hieroglyphs
is at the Temple of Edfu, and in 2018,
Ramy Romany gave us a rare opportunity
to see them for ourselves.
NARRATOR: Edfu, Egypt. April 2018.
Egyptologist Ramy Romany has invited author and researcher
Andrew Collins to join him on a visit
to one of the most impressive and best-preserved shrines
in Egypt, the Temple of Edfu, located on the west bank
of the Nile, 465 miles south of Cairo.
Look at this temple.
This is, like, my most favorite façade
in all of the temples of ancient Egypt.
NARRATOR: According to mainstream archaeologists, Edfu is believed
to have been built sometime between 237 and 57 BC.
It is dedicated to the falcon-headed god, Horus--
the son of Osiris and Isis.
This temple was one of the last temples that was ever
built in ancient Egypt, during the Roman times.
When they built that temple, they were like,
"We want to preserve the stories.
"So let’s gather all the mythology
of ancient Egypt and try to put it in one temple."
It took 150 years to make this happen.
And then finally, we have the book
of ancient Egyptian mythology.
It’s right in front of us on all these walls.
Every wall is absolutely covered,
uh, in hieroglyphs and images, not only of the foundation
of ancient Egypt and the first temple,
but also how the world came into being.
How Egypt came into being, how the universe
was essentially founded in the first place.
I mean, there’s just so much here.
NARRATOR: The most sacred part of Edfu is its inner sanctum,
featuring a 12-foot-tall granite stone.
This is it, right here.
This is how it all began.
Every symbol, every text, every little drawing in here
represents the most sacred thing for ancient Egyptians.
The question that humans now
still ask themselves, "How did it all began?
What created us?" Every religion talks about it.
Scientist tries to figure out.
Ancient Egyptians had an answer, and it was right there.
Right on top of this is the pyramidion.
That pyramidion is the primeval mound
that appeared in the middle of marshes where all the gods came
and landed on for the first time to start creating humanity.
This is the beginning of humanity.
And the pyramidion is almost like a miniature
of what we see at Giza, with the Great Pyramid,
uh, which is so fascinating, because what we have here is
a focus of all of these chapels finishing
with this incredible structure pointing towards the stars.
It’s actually pointing towards
the origins of the gods themselves.
There’s another piece of evidence here
that you might like.
This is the boat
or a symbol of the boat
that they believed the gods came on to the first
primeval stone.
-Oh, that’s quite extraordinary. -The first primeval mound.
The gods would have arrived on this ship.
So it’s all here, in this sanctuary, the whole story
of humanity’s beginning, you know, its place
in the stars, and how it arrived here
in the first place. This to me
strongly suggests that they were aware
that our origins are found amongst the stars.
Or could it just simply be
humans trying to make religions
explain what science can’t explain?
But I don’t think it’s about religion.
This is about cosmology.
An ancient cosmology that we’re now beginning
to understand for the first time, within science.
We can now essentially say that the idea that
life came from the stars is almost certainly a reality.
Whether it came here on a meteorite, or whatever,
somehow the ancient Egyptians knew this.
NARRATOR: Are the ancient hieroglyphs carefully inscribed
on the granite stone at the Temple of Edfu
merely the fanciful notions of ancient Egyptian priests,
or could they be based on actual historical events?
Perhaps the answers can be found
by examining an ancient glyph that can only be seen
from the sky.
On Ancient Aliens, we have traveled
around the world investigating incredible glyphs that,
for me, prove we are not alone in the universe.
Some of the most dramatic examples of this are geoglyphs--
enormous symbols that have been carved
into the Earth and can only be seen from the sky.
In 2018, David Childress got a bird’s-eye view of one
of the most amazing geoglyphs we’ve ever examined.
NARRATOR: Located in the desert just west of the Arizona border,
an estimated 300 gigantic figures
can be seen etched in the arid ground.
Known as the Blythe Intaglios,
these ancient carvings depict animals, spirals,
and perhaps most significantly, gigantic humanoid figures.
These intaglios are unique
in that they’re always found on the shorelines of ancient lakes
that existed 12,500 years ago and prior.
NARRATOR: In April 2018, ancient astronaut theorist
David Childress traveled to Blythe to meet
with historian Patricia Robles and Alfredo Figueroa,
an elder of the local Chemehuevi tribe.
He is also known to many in the region as
"The Guardian of the Glyphs."
David was eager to see
firsthand whether the legends surrounding
these unique geoglyphs could be true.
They can only be seen from the air, really, right?
Well, they can be seen from the ground
but you can see it all intact.
If you’re walking on it, you really don’t know what
-you’re walking on. -Exactly. Yeah, right.
We’ll be able to see it with the drone, I think.
Oh, that’s excellent, you got a drone?
-Excellent, excellent. -Yes, we got-- Let me get...
-Oh, that’s wonderful. -It’s the best way.
-Okay, let me get it. -Thank you.
Who builds this and-and why?
The original tribes here were the Aztecas.
-The Aztecs. -Right.
-Okay. -How about...
There he goes.
Wow, that’s pretty interesting.
NARRATOR: With the drone camera, David, Patricia and Alfredo
are able to see the Blythe Intaglios from a vantage point
that their creators never could have--
at least, not without the aid of some form of aircraft.
But if this is true, then why were they created?
And for whom?
-CHILDRESS: All right, this is... -FIGUEROA: Is Omecihuatl.
"Cihuatl" means "woman."
And she is pregnant, right here, see.
CHILDRESS: She’s like having a baby then.
-Aw, okay. -And right next to her,
is the Ocelot.
Ocelot is the jaguar.
Okay, so you can see it’s a cat because it has a very long tail.
-Uh, is that...? -Well, the tail is supposed to be
-like a "U." -A loop.
And in the cosmos, it represents the-the Big Dipper.
ROBLES: Here in this place, they came down.
And because they descended from the cosmos,
our ancestors created these images
and aligned them with the constellations.
So that we would understand that story.
NARRATOR: But of all the Blythe Intaglios,
the ones Alfredo is most eager to show David are
those that are the largest and arguably the most dramatic.
CHILDRESS: This is big. This thing is huge.
FIGUEROA: That’s right.
NARRATOR: They are the ones representing the Aztec gods Kokopelli--
better known as Quetzalcoatl--
and Cicimitl, the Aztec star god.
Which glyph is this one?
What we’re seeing here is Kokopelli.
And he represents Quetzalcoatl.
CHILDRESS: The Aztec, uh, god of Quetzalcoatl.
-So this one is... -ROBLES: Cicimitl.
CHILDRESS: Cicimitl.
His face there. You see his nose.
He’s not like a normal person, is he?
No, he looks just like a... an E.T.
He looks like an extraterrestrial, uh-huh, yeah.
NARRATOR: An extraterrestrial?
Is it possible that these incredible geoglyphs represent
not just mythological gods, but actual alien beings
whose arrival on Earth was witnessed by the Azteca people?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and Alfredo Figueroa is convinced that it was here,
the location of the Aztecs’ legendary home
of Aztlan where extraterrestrial visitors came down from the sky.
CHILDRESS: Aztlan is very important in Aztec mythology.
It was a place where the gods came down
to give them the information and prophecies
that the Aztecs had.
I mean, you’re maintaining that this whole area here,
around Blythe and the Colorado River
is an ancient homeland of-of the Aztecs
-and-and the gods, too? -Yes.
The geoglyphs were made by...
the Nahuatl people.
The Nahuatl are the origin
of the Aztecas and the Mexicas.
So, they’re the ones that made ’em at-at first.
And then the Nahuatl people made these geoglyphs
to-to honor... the-the creator gods.
Right, and to not forget where we came from.
Where we came from, that’s right.
NARRATOR: Could it be that Blythe, California
really was the ancestral home of the Aztec people,
and that more than 1,000 years ago
the area was visited by extraterrestrial beings?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that the answers may be
found by examining the most mysterious glyphs of all.
Incredible images of visitors
from the sky.
Any discussion ofd mysterious glyphs has to include
the incredible ancient rock art of the Native Americans.
In 2013, I got the rare opportunity
to examine a remarkable collection
of petroglyphs in the Zuni territory of New Mexico
with tribal elder, Clifford Mahooty.
NARRATOR: Located at an elevation of over 6,000 feet,
this barren desert land has been home to the Zuni
for at least 1,300 years.
Stretching roughly 700 square miles,
it contains literally thousands of ancient carvings
that most outsiders have never laid eyes on.
And the Zuni claim that some of these
petroglyphs depict visitations from star beings.
CLIFFORD MAHOOTY: To the Zuni people and other tribes,
there’s a spiritual connection with the star beings.
They’re the ones that actually rule the-the universe
or the world that we’re on.
If you look at the petroglyphs, there’s a lot of references
to those type of, uh, entities.
There’s definitely evidence that aliens visited
North America in the distant past.
And there are petroglyphs throughout this part
of the country carved by ancient Americans
that depict just that.
In 2013, ancient astronaut theorist
Giorgio Tsoukalos, traveled to New Mexico
to meet with Zuni elder Clifford Mahooty,
and get an exclusive look at this mysterious rock art.
What can you tell me about this petroglyph right here?
Well, you know, if you can see on top of that
where maybe a head would be, it’s kind of eroded off.
But on the next part of it there’s four compartments
look like extension of something sticking out.
TSOUKALOS: Yeah, almost like legs.
It could be something that they saw in the air.
Isn’t there a legend that beings visited on top of this mountain?
Oh, yes. Uh, on all of the mesas.
Look at that triangle up there.
TSOUKALOS: And you’ve got the dots around it that have been carved
into the rock that remind me of, like, stars.
In conjunction with all the stories of star people
descending from the sky in fiery shields and things like this,
when I see a pattern like that,
I always think, what if this is something that they saw,
and then they carved onto a rock?
For something like this that they saw maybe in the sky
or had an encounter, they would come over here
and say, "Well, it, um, it looked like this."
So they were put on there and say, "Well, the best
of my-my recollection, here’s what it looked like."
So they would put it on there. So this is a permanent record.
-Right. Oh, no. That is why stone was used. -Yeah. Yeah.
-It is the only permanent record that we have. -Mm-hmm.
MAHOOTY: Yes. And-and the thing about it is that...
how does it connect to present day?
I mean, there are certain things out here
where you can look at it.
Okay, for example, the UFO.
We didn’t know anything about UFOs until the last century.
But all those years, they knew about them.
They saw them, and somebody says, "Okay,
I’m going to put this down here for longevity."
And they say, "Grandson, I want to show you
what I saw when I was a young man."
And they’ll come over and show you,
that’s exactly what I saw and here’s what it looked like.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that these ancient rock carvings
in remote areas of the Zuni territory
provide a historical record of extraterrestrial contact?
You can find petroglyphs that are similar to those
in the Zuni territory all throughout North America.
And surprisingly, nearly identical drawings
can be found on the other side of the planet.
New South Wales, Australia.
The Bulgandry preservation site
is one of numerous sacred Indigenous locations
where ancient rock art and engravings can be found.
Many are believed to date back thousands of years.
Wow.
NARRATOR: In February 2016, researcher
and publisher Giorgio Tsoukalos
traveled to Australia to meet
with Aboriginal Elder Kevin Gavi Duncan
to learn about one of the oldest carvings that can be found here.
So what are we looking at here?
So this image is an actual image of what we say
is our Godfather creator being, Baiame.
-That’s what our people believe. -Okay.
Baiame came from a place that we call the Morning Star
-within the Mirrabooka. -Mm-hmm.
"Mirra" means "stars" and "booka" means "river."
That is the Milky Way that flows across the night sky.
-No kidding? Okay. -Yes.
And so he is one of those Sky-Heroes
that has descended from the Milky Way?
Yes.
He’s a Sky-Hero.
And Baiame is carved
in the manner that you see, he has his arms out.
And he holds the Moon in one hand...
...and the Morning Star in the other...
which is a bit like what we call planet Earth.
And these are the two moons
which exist around the Morning Star
and the Mirrabooka that Baiame came from.
TSOUKALOS: Mm-hmm.
And this is the canoe.
He sailed through the river of life,
um, in the Mirrabooka across the sky world.
TSOUKALOS: So he sailed through the Milky Way?
DUNCAN: Yes, he sailed through the Milky Way.
And this was his vessel
that he sailed, and he landed, to the Earth.
And he crushed the top of the mountain which is
the sacred mountain of Mount Yengo not far from here.
And when he landed, they said the fire
came from his feet and it burnt the mount-- the top
of the mountain and all around it every time he landed.
So the landings were always associated
-with a lot of noise, smoke and fire? -Yes!
The fire trail that was
left when Baiame was leaving the top of the mountain
into the sky world, when Baiame had left was so bright...
people interpret that as a spaceship
-of some kind as coming and going. -Yeah.
But this is the way we simply interpret Baiame’s spaceship.
Right. But it’s because the vocabulary
didn’t exist at the time.
-Yes. -So, to me, those are all
wonderfully poetic ways to describe eyewitness accounts
of things that were incredible.
Yes. This site is considered
around 8,000 to 10,000 years old.
Wow!
These carvings. These rock paintings, these are our books.
They are considered to be
basically our truth.
NARRATOR: Do the petroglyphs found in Australia and North America
tell the same story of alien visitation?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest that another series of rock carvings
found in Australia
may reveal the truth about how these otherworldly visitors
arrived on planet Earth.
On Ancient Aliens, we’ve examined glyphs all over
the world and we find strikingly similar imagery again and again.
But what was completely unexpected
was the discovery of what are clearly Egyptian
hieroglyphs not in Egypt, but in Australia.
NARRATOR: Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia.
Deep in the Brisbane Water National Park
is a mysterious site known as the Gosford Glyphs.
The site consists of two massive, eight-foot-high walls
engraved with over 300 ancient carvings.
Carvings that experts say do not resemble Indigenous artwork,
but Egyptian hieroglyphs.
After deciphering the texts,
21st century Egyptologist Ray Johnson
believed them to reveal the burial site
of Lord Nefer-Ti-Ru,
a member of the Egyptian royal family
who died while visiting the area with his brother
sometime between 2637 and 2614 BC.
Absolutely beautiful out here.
Oh, I know.
NARRATOR: While visiting the area in 2016,
Giorgio Tsoukalos
met with local ancient astronaut theorist
Evan Strong to get a firsthand look
at these enigmatic carvings.
-And here we are. -Wow!
TSOUKALOS: That’s incredible.
I had no idea. I mean, this looks totally
different than on pictures.
So what do these hieroglyphs say?
Well, at least one panel talks about two brothers,
two princes, coming here from Egypt.
They were shipwrecked.
One of ’em ended up getting bitten by a snake. He then died.
The theory is then he was interred here
and that’s why you’ve got hieroglyphs here.
-Mm-hmm. -Because he died here.
But there’s these other walls with a mixture of symbols.
This one over here, it’s more of a philosophical
astrophysics style thing with symbols meaning
all sorts of esoteric stuff so...
Now, have-have these symbols at all been
interpreted by Egyptologists?
-There’ve been a few actually. -Mm-hmm.
A few different people have done that.
-And what was their reaction? -Well, Raymond Johnson was one
of the first people to come here and-and translate.
He actually sent some of his translations off
to the Cairo library and Dr. Abu Dhia Ghazi,
ended up saying, "Yep, you’re on the right track."
It’s something called proto-Egyptian.
And how old do you reckon these are?
We’re thinking because of the prevalence,
at least in one panel of proto-Egyptian,
that it’s about 4,600 years old.
Wow. Are there any hieroglyphs
that stand out to you?
Yeah, definitely. Follow me down here,
and I’ll show you this other one.
So this one here, um, we call
the UFO glyph and people have called it that since they’ve
been coming here because it kind of looks like a UFO.
TSOUKALOS: Yeah, it definitely has the classic UFO shape.
It’s got the-the rays
or whatever you want to call it.
What would you suggest if anyone says, "Well,
"this is not a UFO. It’s some other symbol,
but certainly not that"?
I think someone suggested that it’s jewelry
but it’s a completely different symbol that’s
upside down and it really doesn’t quite fit in.
It’s one of those symbols here that,
that doesn’t fit into the canon.
In your opinion, why do you think the Egyptians
made it all the way to Australia?
I think they were looking for esoteric wisdom, definitely.
-From the Aboriginals? -Yes.
DUNCAN: The ancient Egyptians, we have stories, and Aboriginal stories,
about their arrival, and about their visits
long before Europeans had arrived here.
Naturally we would have shared ceremony
with these people, because they have the same similar beliefs
as our people.
Egyptians have that same
spiritual connection to the sky world.
NARRATOR: Hieroglyphs found in Australia?
Might the continent have actually served
as a pilgrimage site for visitors seeking
a direct connection to the so-called gods?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest further evidence of this otherworldly link can be
found in one of the most remote places in the world.
What’s fascinating about many of the glyphs
we’ve examined on Ancient Aliens is that they depict
the natural world of our ancestors with extreme accuracy.
But every now and then we find a bird that looks
more like an airplane or a serpent with wings...
or even a turtle descending from the sky.
And this is exactly what I found at one
of the most remote locations in the world,
the Marquesas Islands.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists
Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress
set out to explore the remote Marquesas Islands,
in search of evidence that extraterrestrial contact
took place here in the remote past.
-Hello. I’m Giorgio. -ANIATA KIMITETE: Hello.
-Pleasure to meet you. -I’m Aniata.
Hi, I’m David.
NARRATOR: Arriving on the island of Nuku Hiva,
they are met by local guide, Aniata Kimitete.
-Let’s go explore. -Great.
All right.
NARRATOR: She has brought them to an area known
as Kamuihei,
a sacred place believed to be rich
in what the natives call "mana" or "spiritual power."
So we are arriving at this spot where I really
-wanted to show you about this site. -Oh, look at this.
KIMITETE: What we see here, it’s what we call petroglyphs.
TSOUKALOS: Yeah.
So you have three turtles. So one,
two, three.
Here.
And also on the rock you can see a canoe.
-Okay. -So you have the head of the canoe here
that looks a little bit like a bird.
Their canoes had a bird head at the front.
TSOUKALOS: You see the beak.
-CHILDRESS: Yeah, that looks like a bird head. -KIMITETE: Yeah.
And what is the significance of the turtles?
KIMITETE: The turtle is actually
the messenger from the gods. He was a very sacred animal.
People were not allowed to eat them.
TSOUKALOS: You know, I think this is really interesting what you said
that the turtle is regarded here as messenger of the gods,
because this is not something new.
It’s not something native to this area.
There are other parts of the world where...
the turtle is described by having descended from the sky.
And the idea that this is here too considered
a messenger of the gods, that to me is a connection
to potential extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Throughout the planet,
numerous ancient cultures have origin stories
that involve some sort of divine or cosmic turtle.
Followers of Japanese Shinto venerate the Kame-ishi.
A stone turtle that portends the end of the world.
In Guatemala, there are legends of giant flying turtles
and even artifacts that feature the image of a man wearing what
appears to be a helmet lying inside a turtle shell.
In North America, the Iroquois Indians tell tales
of a "sky goddess" who falls to Earth from the heavens,
whereupon a giant turtle rises up from the ocean to catch her.
I think it’s interesting here this canoe which would
have been very large, has the bird head on it.
And you have the birdmen
of Easter Island that are so famous.
NARRATOR: One of Easter Island’s ancient traditions
involves Tangata manu, or the Birdman cult.
According to legend, the creator god Make-Make
was looking in a mirror and saw a bird land on his shoulder.
Seeing his image combined with the bird,
he decided to make a son who was half man, half bird.
In turn, the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island
worshiped the birdman as the predecessor of all humans.
One of the central focuses of the rituals,
the annual rituals at Easter Island...
...was that of Tangata manu, the birdman.
And the birdman is a universal symbol that we find
in many parts of the globe that relates to ancestry
associated with figures,
characters in feather coats who were seen
to be able to go between this world and the next.
And here we have the same ideas on Easter Island.
CHILDRESS: Is there more to see on the island?
-We have a lot more to see on the island. -Okay.
-So let’s go. -CHILDRESS: Okay.
NARRATOR: After showing Giorgio
and David the ancient petroglyphs,
Aniata takes them to a site that has
some of the most striking statuary in the Marquesas.
Right now we are at the Tohua of Temehea.
So the Tohua is the gathering place.
And so this sculpture here is a modern sculpture.
But, is this based on something old?
KIMITETE: Yes. Because the site that we are on was rebuilt.
Even though it’s modern, it’s really based
on the original statue.
TSOUKALOS: Oh, wow. Okay. Is this considered a Tiki?
Yes, this Tiki represents the population.
So to the Marquesan people, what is a Tiki?
A Tiki at first was the representation
of our god of magic and sorcery.
He was one of the only god in French Polynesia
that has the face of a man.
He became our protector, because when you have a Tiki
by your side, then you are protected from your enemy.
NARRATOR: In the Marquesas, the word "Tiki" can be used to refer
both to an ancestral figure
that came to the islands in ancient times,
as well as the statues that represent him.
They are variously carved in both wood and stone,
and often depict a being with large, goggle-like eyes.
And this is what Tiki looks like... as a god?
Yes, because they say in the legend that when Tiki
left the Earth, they made the sculpture
of how he looked like, just...
to have something to remember from Tiki.
So that’s how he looked like actually.
It looks very strange to me.
If this is a representation of what
your ancestors thought this figure looked like,
it doesn’t look like a man, it looks weird.
Yeah. I mean, he-he sort of looks like a man,
but with these big goggle eyes and the elongated head
and everything, he looks like an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that glyphs found on nearly
every continent reveal
that ancient people all over the world
encountered extraterrestrial visitors?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that some
rock art provides a record
not only of alien contact, but even
of how they got here.
Could these mysterious petroglyphs
provide the best evidence yet of ancient alien contact?
To me, the ultimate proof lies in the fact that
all over the world, cultures that were separated
by thousands of miles
carved the same strange figures and symbols again and again,
leaving us with a record of extraterrestrial
intervention on Earth.
Our alien origins are in plain sight for anyone to see.
You only need to read the writing on the wall.
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