Seven stone giants standing guard
over a Pacific island.
But what are they protecting, and from whom?
According to the people of the island,
they face the actual homeland of their ancestors.
Could the answer be found some 2,000 miles away?
We are baffled by what it's all about.
Ancient astronaut theorists,
Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress
embark on an incredible journey...
This is the famous Hiva.
...to a land of bizarre figures...
Look at all these heads with the big goggle-shaped eyes.
...and forbidden places...
If you step on the site,
something bad is going to happen to you.
...in search of what could be
the ultimate evidence of mankind's
extraterrestrial origins.
If we can crack the mysteries of Easter Island,
we're going to be able to open up once and for all
the true mysteries of the ancient world.
Easter Sunday,
April 5, 1722.
Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen
is 2,300 miles off the coast of Chile,
leading a fleet of three ships on an expedition to establish
a western trade route to the Spice Islands.
In the early afternoon, he is alerted by his crew
that they have spotted a small island,
and that there is smoke rising from it in several places,
suggesting that it is inhabited.
When they reach the shore, they are surprised
by the appearance of some of the natives.
When Roggeveen and his crew
discovered Easter Island in 1722,
accounts were written down
that not only did they stumble across
normal Polynesian-looking people, but as well,
people of giant proportions,
who were light skinned, had red hair,
and even blonde hair.
As recorded in the ship's log,
they also made another, even more unexpected discovery.
"We noticed certain
"remarkably tall stone figures.
"These stone figures caused us to be filled with wonder,
"for we could not understand how it was possible to erect them.
"Some of these statues were a good 30 feet in height
and broad in proportion."
Roggeveen named this remote land "Easter Island,"
after the day on which it was discovered.
But today, nearly 300 years later,
Roggeveen's questions concerning the strange appearance
of the natives, as well as the origins and purpose
of the gigantic stone statues, known as moai,
have yet to be answered.
One can imagine that the moai,
being set up all around the island with their backs
to the outside world looking inwards,
were a kind of protective barrier
that the ancestors would look after them,
and protect their little world.
The thing about these moai
is that they have these very strange faces, very elongated.
They don't look quite human.
They're humanoid,
but they're somehow different than ordinary humans.
They look almost alien in appearance.
And you have to wonder, what do they ultimately represent?
Carved from volcanic rock,
the nearly 900 moai each weigh up to 90 tons,
and the tallest of them tower above the landscape
at heights of more than 30 feet.
There have been many theories over the years
as to how they were moved.
The first theory is thought
that they must have been dragged horizontally
on sledges or rollers or something of that kind.
It was tried again recently for a TV film,
and again they moved it a few meters
but it really doesn't, uh, prove anything.
The idea
that the trees were cut down at some point,
and they were all used for rollers, wooden logs,
falls by the wayside, because wooden rollers
would not be able to support
the weight of some of these statues.
You're talking about several hundred statues,
and it would depend on the size and weight of the statue,
the number of people you had available to help,
the distance you were going to go, the kind of terrain.
So, basically, we don't really know.
For ancient astronaut theorists,
the answers to just how the moai were transported
and positioned in the island
can be found in the legends told by the native people,
legends that suggested a type of energy,
known as "mana," was used to literally levitate
the giant sculptures into place.
According with, uh, oral tradition and the legends...
The king was given the gift of mana
from the great creator god, Makemake.
Legend holds that the king commanded
that these great stone statues walk.
And one has to wonder,
well, either they all
were off their rockers describing these things,
or they witnessed something.
And I'm leaning more in the direction
that they witnessed something
because there had to have been a spark of inspiration.
And so, in my opinion,
mana was some type of extraterrestrial technology
that allowed these stones
to be levitated into place.
When the statues had pupils,
they came to life,
imbued with mana to have supernatural powers.
According to the Easter Island myth,
this power came out of the eyes of the statues,
and was this mystical power.
It's like it was creating some kind
of force field of energy
that surrounded the island and protected it.
So you have to wonder if there's something real here,
and was it some kind of extraterrestrial technology?
Of all the many mysteries of Easter Island,
perhaps the most puzzling involves
not only the construction of the moai,
but their positioning on the island.
880 of the 887 moai face inland,
but on the west edge of the island,
seven of the moai are positioned on a platform
known as Ahu Akivi,
and face outwardly, towards the sea.
Moais face in, it's believed,
because they're protecting the village that they oversee.
Ahu Akivi is the one exception.
The moais there look out to sea.
Not only that, they're identical.
But why would these seven identical moai face out
to sea, when all of the other moai on the island face inland?
Could it be that they were meant to point to a specific location
somewhere farther out?
Perhaps the answer can be found by drawing a straight line
from the line of sight of the seven moai.
Following it on a northwesterly route,
the first landmass in its path is the Marquesas Islands,
roughly 2,300 miles from Easter Island.
The Marquesas are an extremely remote island group,
which is part of French Polynesia.
It's a three-and-a-half-hour flight northeast of Tahiti.
And it's a part of what's known as the Polynesian triangle,
which is bound by Hawaii in the north,
Easter Island in the east,
and New Zealand in the west.
It was the last place on Earth that was discovered.
And there's probably more mystery shrouded in the Pacific
than any other place in the world.
To follow up on the incredible theory
that Easter Island's origins might be found
on one of the remote Marquesas Islands,
in June, 2018, ancient astronaut theorists
Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress
set out to explore the islands for themselves.
This is gonna be a great exploration
to see what connection there is
between Easter Island and right here.
Should be quite the adventure.
- Hello. - Hello.
I'm Giorgio. Pleasure to meet you.
- I'm Aniata. - Hi, I'm David.
Arriving on one of the Marquesas Islands,
ancient astronaut theorists Giorgio Tsoukalos
and David Childress meet
with local guide Aniata Kimitete.
Let's go explore.
- Great. - All right.
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.
Here, they hope to find the answer as to why seven
of the nearly 900 giant statues on Easter Island
are all facing in the direction of this remote island chain
in the South Pacific.
So we are arriving
at this spot where I really wanted
to show you about this site.
Oh, look at this.
What we see here is what we call petroglyphs.
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.
Do you see the beak?
- Yeah, that looks like a bird head. - Yeah.
And what is the significance of the turtles?
The turtle is actually the messenger from the gods.
He was a very sacred animal.
People were not allowed to eat them.
You know, I think
this is really interested what you said,
that the turtle is regarded here
as a 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.
Throughout the world,
numerous ancient cultures have origin stories
that involve some sort of a 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 sky,
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.
One of Easter Island's ancient traditions involves
Tangata manu, or the Birdman cult.
According to legend, the creator god, Makemake,
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 worshipped
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.
Is there more to see on the island?
We have a lot more to see on the island.
- Okay. - So let's go. - Okay.
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?
Yes. Because the site that we're on was rebuilt.
Even though it's modern,
it's really based on the original statue.
Oh, wow. Okay.
Is this considered a tiki?
Yes, these tikis represent the population.
So, to the Marquesan people,
wh-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're protected from your enemy.
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.
The lore has it that Tiki was the primary ancestor
and was created in the image of the sky god.
The local people made statues in honor of their creator god,
Tiki, and used them in worship.
And this is what Tiki looks like,
- as a god? - Yes, because th-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.
He looks very strange to me.
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.
From what you know,
do you think that the people of the Marquesas
went as far as Easter Island?
Are there any legends or stories
- behind that? - So, there is
one story where... when they said, um,
that one chief of the island sent his seven sons
to Easter Island,
because they were fighting a lot over here.
So he sent them away.
Told them, uh, if they wanted to come back,
they had to make peace with one another.
Seven brothers?
Princes who left the Marquesas Islands for Easter Island
hundreds of years ago?
I think it's really fascinating
that, in the Marquesas, there's a story of seven brothers
that were exiled by their father
in order to go to Easter Island.
You combine that with the fact that there is this platform
on Easter Island with seven moais standing on there,
that would indicate to me that the Marquesas
and Easter Island are, in fact, connected.
But if the stone carvings and ancient legends
prove that the origins of Easter Island
can be found some 2,000 miles away in the Marquesas,
could there have been another,
perhaps extraterrestrial, reason for the exile
of the seven royal brothers from their homeland?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and suggest the evidence points to everything
from the strange faces of the tiki gods
to bloody stories of human sacrifice.
Ancient astronaut theorists Giorgio Tsoukalos
and David Childress are in the remote Marquesas Islands.
They are searching for clues that may help them solve
some of the most compelling mysteries
concerning an island located some 2,000 miles to their east,
Easter Island.
I think it's really fascinating that,
of all the standing heads in Easter Island,
seven of them actually point
in the direction of the Marquesas.
And so now the question is, why?
I think it's quite possible that the Marquesas and Easter Island
are, in fact, connected.
But perhaps equally compelling,
if not slightly disturbing,
are numerous carvings found throughout the islands
which depict strange, big-eyed gods known as tikis.
So, right now, we are at the Tohua of Hikokua.
The tiki placed on site like this,
like, really, uh, sacred site...
...they were made to scare the people away,
because they-they were telling,
"Hey, this is a very sacred site,
so be careful."
"If you step on the site,
"if you do something wrong,
then something bad is going to happen to you."
I think if we are talking about extraterrestrials
in ancient times visiting
and you follow the ancient stories,
when they came down with fire, smoke and noise,
that that is the reason why they were afraid.
There are multiple other versions
of the exact same motif worldwide,
with people with elongated skulls and giant goggle eyes.
Like, uh, what comes to mind immediately is in-in Peru.
- Yeah, at Tiwanaku a-and Pumapunku... - Yes.
...you have the same
goggle-headed, eyed, uh,
- you know, people. - Exactly.
You have that in Mexico, too,
- with the Olmec statues. - Yes.
These may be depictions of actual extraterrestrials
who visited the Earth thousands of years ago.
Eerily similar to the tiki of the Marquesas,
figures with oversized skulls
and enormous eyes have surfaced at archaeological sites
throughout the world.
Among these are the Dogu figures of Japan,
the aboriginal Wandjina petroglyphs of Australia,
the terra-cotta figurines
recently unearthed in Northern Ghana,
the trickster god Eshu
of the Yoruba people of Nigeria,
and the stunning petroglyphs of Karahunj,
otherwise known as Armenia's Stonehenge.
So it does seem that Tiki, he's walking,
he's living and breathing.
He's not just a spirit, is he?
No. He's not a spirit.
So, um, they-they say that Tiki is not really a god,
but he's not really a man also.
Aniata, thank you so much for showing us everything here.
- It's truly tremendous. - You're welcome.
- Thank you so much. - Have a nice travel.
Thank you.
One day after their informative visit
to the island of Nuku Hiva,
Giorgio and David travel next to the nearby island of Hiva Oa
to see firsthand the most unusual
of all the island tikis.
Hello.
Good to see you.
- Yep. - Okay.
As their local guide,
they have enlisted Hiva Oa resident, Heimata Bonno.
This is...
- incredible. So, what are we looking at here? - Yeah.
What is this?
Oh, it totally looks like a llama.
No question.
I totally think this looks like a llama.
I mean, there's no question in my mind.
And I also don't think that this was altered.
This is original.
And I don't see any, uh, changes.
So either this is not authentic
or, if it is authentic, it's a llama
and it proves connection to-to South America.
South America?
Is it possible that the llama,
believed to be native to South America,
was known to people living on this remote island chain
some 3,500 miles away?
But how?
Some people say that it's a woman giving birth.
Do the women here
in the Marquesas Islands, do they do this?
They lie on their stomach and give birth? No.
This is crazy.
Huh.
To me,
it looks like something from the sky.
It's like, uh, maybe some flying vehicle.
- It's a great question. - Yeah.
Perhaps what we're looking at here
is some type of a craft,
because you have the windows in the front,
which are these giant goggles,
and then you have the mouth in the front,
which, to me, looks like some type of an air intake.
Underneath, you have a lifting body
that goes underneath the entire body.
And if you combine that
with the story of this object
or this woman giving birth,
if someone has never seen passengers disembarking
from an actual airplane,
if they have no idea what is happening,
well, all of a sudden,
a flying vehicle is giving birth to people.
Is it possible that this ancient statue
that has been interpreted in modern times
as a fertility goddess
is actually depicting an extraterrestrial spacecraft?
I think that tikis are nothing else
but misunderstood technology
that, over time, turned into divine objects
of magic and sorcery.
Can we go look at it? Great.
Oh, wow.
Clearly, this tiki, the head is missing.
But I see that it has six fingers.
It's very feasible to me that they actually tried
to imitate whoever visited
or whoever came here to impart this knowledge.
Why would they carve six fingers
if they did not see six fingers?
So we should not say, "Oh, this is just fantasy."
I think they saw someone with six fingers.
Is that possible?
Yeah.
- Yes. - Yeah.
So these are protectors.
And all the tikis here
and the moai on Easter Island are protectors as well.
So, on Easter Island, you-you have
seven moai, and they are looking
towards Marquesas.
Is-is this some ancestors?
Or a connection?
All of the ancient tikis in the Marquesas
are positioned to look in the direction of Easter Island.
But why?
And if both the moai and the tikis are depictions
of extraterrestrial visitors,
why do they appear so different, both in height
and appearance?
Is it possible that the seven brothers of legend
left the Marquesas for Easter Island
because they were fighting with each other?
Or could they have been fleeing for their lives?
For Giorgio and David,
these questions form the pieces of a confounding puzzle,
one they are both determined to solve
before they return home.
While visiting the ancient site known
as I'ipona, located in the Marquesas Islands,
local guide Heimata Bonno
has just shown ancient astronaut theorists
Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress
a number of sacred tiki statues
which have six fingers on each hand.
That is, uh, very interesting to me.
He has also just informed them that the tiki gods
were believed by the natives to possess
an extraordinary amount of what they called "mana,"
a spiritual power,
which, if consumed, would make the natives strong
and virtually invincible.
So, how-how does this tiki have mana?
How does it get the mana?
I see.
Eat the mana?
Is Heimata Bonno describing a form of ritual cannibalism
in which the natives of the Marquesas would eat the bodies
of those who they believed possessed spiritual power?
And where is the mana contained?
The mana's coming out of the eyes, right? Or...
So they would...
eat the eyes and the tongue,
the brain?
Is it possible that the natives
of the Marquesas Islands believed that the mana,
or spiritual power,
of their tiki gods could be literally consumed?
If so, was their eagerness
to eat the organs not only of the tiki,
but of their offspring, one of the chief reasons
why the so-called seven brothers
fled the Marquesas for Easter Island
thousands of years ago?
Here there are very large boulders
of basalt.
It's very heavy.
I know in some places in Polynesia
and Micronesia they have legends
that the stones are... are flying through the air.
So they are giants and very strong,
and they can lift these big stones?
- Oh. - Giant bones?
Found in caves on the Marquesas Islands?
Could this be the evidence
Giorgio and David have been searching for
that suggest the early inhabitants of Easter Island
were, in fact, giant alien hybrid beings?
Beings who forged a colony of giants
much like themselves,
and who commemorated their time on the island
by fashioning giant stone sentinels.
We have these stories of giants worldwide.
In Malta, we have some of the biggest megalithic sites
in all of Europe, that allegedly were built
by the giants.
The giants were offspring
of the gods after they mated with human women.
Then you have stories of the giants on Sardinia,
many of whom have been suggested were originated
by extraterrestrials.
The origin story of the giants in the Bible
is that angels mated with human women.
The offspring were the giants.
So we have to wonder,
are the seven sentinels actually giants?
Part alien and part human.
...Perhaps they were escaping
the Marquesas Islands because they were
the ruling elite,
and essentially, they were overthrown
because they had this power,
and they went to Easter Island.
Heimata, it's been so interesting here.
You have such good information. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
You're welcome.
Could it be that
the so-called seven princes of the Marquesas
were giant alien-human hybrids?
Hybrids who may have had access to extraterrestrial technologies
that caused them to be thought of by the natives
as kings or gods?
And if so, could it be that the real reason
these seven brothers left the Marquesas
was not because they were fighting,
but because they were fleeing for their lives,
in fear of being killed and eaten by the natives?
Ancient astronaut theorists say the answer
is a profound yes,
and believe that even more answers can be found
not only by examining the stone statues of Easter Island,
but by also taking a closer look
at what some of them are wearing
on their heads.
Isolated in the vast expanse
of the South Pacific, Easter Island remains
a land of mystery.
Since its discovery by Europeans in the 18th century,
very little is still known about the people who once lived there,
or their origins.
But of all the mysteries involving the island
otherwise known as Rapa Nui,
the most persistent involve
the nearly 900 megalithic statues known as moai,
and why they were put here in the first place.
The moai are considered to be
no more than perhaps a thousand years old.
However, it has been established
that some of them penetrate down into the ground
by a great amount of feet
to reveal the rest of the body,
not just the oversized head.
And the amount of catenation suggests
that they are infinitely older
than a thousand years.
They could go back many, many, many millennia.
When you visit Easter Island,
and you look at the sights there, the statues,
the megalithic walls, you realize they're much older
than what, you know, history tells us.
Further clouding the issue
is a discovery that was made in 2017.
With the help of photography and 3-D modeling programs,
archaeologists discovered that the 13-ton stone hats,
known as pukao, on the Easter Island moai
contain a wide diversity of petroglyphs,
made by what appear to be different groups of people.
The hats that are on top of the Easter Island moai
are a little bit of a mystery.
But recently, they've been analyzed, and carvings
have been found on them, which has, like, questioned,
you know, the idea of what they really represent.
Perhaps there is something else going on here.
It could well be
that a number of different cultures
lived on Easter Island.
One of the most fascinating monuments on Easter Island
is the stone platform, or ahu,
known as Vinapu.
And this is a huge megalithic construction
that is essentially a wall
made of cyclopean megalithic blocks
that all interlock with each other.
When you look at this, you cannot help but think
of Cuzco in Peru.
And there has to be a relationship
between the two cultures.
All of these
part of a much bigger transmission of knowledge,
where the belief,
the common belief was an origin amongst the stars.
If, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,
the seven moai that face out to sea
really do represent a race of giant alien hybrid beings
that fled the Marquesas Islands hundreds, and perhaps thousands,
of years ago,
do the hundreds of other moai
represent their offspring?
And if so,
could they have had contact with other parts of the world,
making Easter Island a virtual hub
of extraterrestrial activity?
Easter Island has also got
the strong legend that it is the center of the world,
or the "navel of the world."
And there are various places around our planet
that are said to be the "navel of the world."
They're in Cuzco,
at Delphi in Greece,
at Sardinia,
and in Egypt.
In many cases, there's a stone ball
that is marking this center-of-the-world spot.
And we have that at Easter Island.
These navels of the world
are apparently power places,
places of vortex, energy.
It would seem that they are all connected
to this worldwide energy grid.
Why did this huge megalithic culture emerge here?
Perhaps this tells us
that there is some special quality
with Easter Island,
one that was recognized by the ancestors
of the Rapa Nui culture.
Were the seven moai that face the sea
positioned so as to indicate a warning
to those natives on the Marquesas that wanted
to hunt them and eat them for their power?
Or were they meant to serve as a commemoration
not only of Easter Island's extraterrestrial origins
but of the history of alien activity on our planet?
As far as Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress are concerned,
there still needs to be further investigation
before those questions can be answered.
On the last day of their incredible journey
to the Marquesas Islands,
ancient astronaut theorists Giorgio Tsoukalos
and David Childress
meet at a café on the island of Nuku Hiva.
They are confident that their investigation
has led to not only evidence of a direct link
between the Marquesas and Easter Island
but also a greater understanding
as to the kinds of beings who lived on these islands
thousands of years ago.
Well, this was an in... incredible experience.
From all the people we've talked to, these ancient civilizations
are way older than what we were taught.
Yeah, you have these strong connections
from the Marquesas to Easter Island.
And the idea of the-the flying turtle
would be what you would think of as a disc...
- Yes. - ...flying.
They knew that turtles don't fly.
So why would they have stories of flying turtles?
If we had, uh, airships landing here,
and then the people are-are wondering,
how do these turtles fly?
- Yes. - And the extraterrestrials
tell them, "Well, they fly with this energy
- "called mana." - Mm-hmm.
And there, they transcribe this mana energy to-to everything.
And, you know, it... the-the tikis have the mana,
the stones have the mana.
Uh, mana's everywhere.
And, all of a sudden, something that was technological in origin
becomes magic.
It becomes sorcery.
It becomes something divine.
Everything that they're talking about
and depicting would seem to be extraterrestrial.
One of my favorite pieces that we saw
was that tiki of this woman laying on the stomach
and she's giving birth.
But that's not the position in which to deliver a baby.
To me, it looks like some sort of a flying object,
where passengers are disembarking, or pilots.
And if this is seen by someone who has never seen an airplane,
well, then, for all intents and purposes,
that thing is giving birth.
So, to me, it's a... it's a wonderful
and interesting misunderstanding.
It really shows, I think, this connection
between the Marquesas,
perhaps also that these places are-are space ports,
in a sense.
And isn't necessarily, uh,
the way that Western archaeologists tell the story.
Whether it is tikis here in the Marquesas
or moai in Easter Island,
we're looking at misunderstood technology.
Because I think that when you combine this
with the old stories of legends
of people descending from the sky
with a lot of noise, smoke and fire,
those depictions may represent
either extraterrestrials themselves
or craft that the extraterrestrials used.
Were the seven stone sentinels of Easter Island
placed there to commemorate what may once have been
a land of giant hybrids,
part human and part alien?
As far as Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress are concerned,
the answer is a profound yes.
They also believe the ancient moai on Easter Island
now serve a different,
if perhaps unintended, purpose.
Instead of silently standing guard,
as if to protect the island and its secrets,
the moai might actually be helping to reveal the truth
about mankind's extraterrestrial history,
a history that may very soon repeat itself when we,
in the not-so-distant future, could come face-to-face
with those same alien visitors
who were once immortalized in stone.