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[Graham] At sites all around the globe,
we've seen what I believe

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are the fingerprints
of a lost civilization

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dating back to the last Ice Age.

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The last great mystery is

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what happened
to this advanced civilization?

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There may be clues
in the origin myths of ancient cultures,

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because many of them
tell the same basic story.

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According to these legends,

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once upon a time,

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humanity shared the Earth
with a more advanced society,

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whether Atlanteans,
or giants, or gods on Earth.

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Until a horrific
global cataclysm occurred,

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a great flood,

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only a chosen few were spared
to repopulate the Earth.

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Who were later visited by other survivors,

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mysterious great teachers,
usually arriving by sea,

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to help them lay the foundations
for the rebirth of humanity

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and civilization as we know it today.

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[thunderclap]

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Science now confirms

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that just such a series
of apocalyptic events

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did occur at the end of the last Ice Age,
around 12,800 years ago…

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an epoch known to geologists
as the Younger Dryas.

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Only in its aftermath,

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did our ancestors suddenly
begin farming and raising livestock,

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creating societies

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and building
massive megalithic structures,

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often aligned to the stars.

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Why then?

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It's a mystery mainstream archeologists
have no real explanation for,

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other than "that's just what happened."

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But I have a radically different proposal.

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We need to ask ourselves
was that really the dawn of history?

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Or was it long before that?

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It's possible

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that all traces of the lost
advanced civilization I'm looking for

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were swept away in the cataclysms
of the Younger Dryas.

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But surely the geological evidence
of that apocalyptic moment

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should still exist.

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And I believe it does.

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Here, in the northwest corner of America,

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in a part of eastern Washington state
known as the Channeled Scablands.

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It's a unique apocalyptic landscape,

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a spectacular area
covering 2,000 square miles.

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These landscapes speak to an enormous,

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almost unspeakable, cataclysm.

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It's an area that's
long fascinated geologists,

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with giant scars in the rock,

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massive potholes, and epic waterfalls.

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All of it conspires to look,
well, unearthly.

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Not of this world.

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This immense fossilized waterfall,

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appropriately named Dry Falls,

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ranks high amongst the natural wonders
of the Channeled Scablands,

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and indeed of the world.

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It's so enormous that it's almost
impossible to comprehend its scale.

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The Falls are just one section
of a monstrous ravine

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gouged out of the earth,
hundreds of feet deep,

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50 miles long,
and almost three miles wide,

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called Grand Coulee.

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Geologists believe that
all these dramatic formations

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were created by flooding

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that took place sometime
during the last Ice Age.

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Precisely when and how this deluge
occurred, however, remains a mystery,

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one that has sparked controversy
amongst geologists for decades.

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What really happened here?

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And could it be related to what happened
to that lost advanced civilization

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of the Ice Age?

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To help wrap my head around it all,

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amateur geologist and author
Randall Carlson,

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who's been exploring
the Scablands for decades,

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joins me in an area of the Grand Coulee
known as Lenore Lake.

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Whatever the cause,
there's no question in anyone's mind

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that this is the result
of catastrophic flooding

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on a scale that's almost inconceivable.

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[Graham] My first impression,
looking even at the map,

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is that this is an area that's been
ripped and torn and scarred.

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What's the story
of this incredible landscape?

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Right now,
most of the conventional models go

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-the source of this water here…
-Yeah.

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…that created the Scablands,
was Lake Missoula.

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[Graham] During the last Ice Age,

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massive ice sheets covered
the northern half of North America,

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from coast to coast.

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Millions of square miles of ice,
locking in enough water to fill an ocean.

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And at the southern edge
of the ice sheets,

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huge fresh water lakes formed.

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One glacial lake, Missoula,

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contained as much water
as modern lakes Erie and Ontario combined,

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covering much of what is today
northwestern Montana.

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The current theory
is that Lake Missoula was blocked up

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by some sort of
natural ice dam that burst.

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[Randall] You remove the ice dam,

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all the water's going to be flowing
out here to the west like this.

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[Graham] And to account for
all this damage to the landscape,

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geologists theorized that the ice dam
re-formed and burst again and again,

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causing dozens of floods
over a period of several thousand years,

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gradually shaping the Scablands
into what we see today.

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So it all came out of Lake Missoula,

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and because one emptying
of Lake Missoula wouldn't be enough,

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they postulate
up to 80 or 90 emptyings of it.

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That certainly helps.

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[Graham] It's a curiously
contrived explanation

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for such a wild landscape.

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There's a strong what is called
"uniformitarian trend" in geology.

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Modern geologists
don't like cataclysms very much.

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They prefer long, slow,
gradual explanations of things,

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and they prefer the view that,
as things are today,

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so they have always been in the past,

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even though it seems to me that
that view is completely absurd.

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Randall believes
the geological evidence here

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speaks not to centuries of gradual floods,

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but to a single massively violent deluge
that lasted just a few weeks.

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-It's not just water, is it?
-Oh, no.

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-Yeah.
-Pretty much as far as the eye could see,

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it's going to be
a roiling, boiling, turbulent scene.

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Moving water choked
with thousands of icebergs.

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All the stuff in between these cliffs
was ripped out.

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[Graham] Yeah.

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[Randall] A tremendously
unimaginably violent event.

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To give you an idea,

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if you took every single river
on Earth from every continent,

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add that together,

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you'd still have
to times that by at least ten

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to get the volume of water
flowing through here.

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Wow! That really puts it in perspective.

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It's a truly awe-inspiring
forbidding landscape,

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that speaks to me
of an ancient apocalypse.

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An apocalypse on a scale
that's almost impossible to imagine today.

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During the Ice Age, this would have been
an area of softly rolling grassland,

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speckled with roaming herds
of antelope and mastodons,

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until the violence arrived.

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The floodwaters gouged out
an immense waterfall

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that would've been the size
of ten Niagara Falls,

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two-and-a-half times taller,
seven times wider,

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and 3,000 times more powerful.

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How quickly do you think that occurred?

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I think it happened very, very quickly.

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-Could it have been created in weeks?
-Yes.

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[Graham] The clearest evidence
is right here,

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at a place called Wallula Gap,

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where the floodwaters carved out
a massive canyon 1,200 feet deep,

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leaving behind these
immense basalt outcroppings…

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known as the Twin Sisters.

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Proof of the speed and ferocity

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of what was likely the biggest
flash flood in human history.

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Randall's research
shows that the formation

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simply couldn't be the work of millennia
of gradual erosion, as geologists claim.

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And when this great deluge was over,

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the receding waters

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didn't just leave behind
isolated towers of harder rock.

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Nearby, in a spot
known as the Camas Prairie,

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are giant ripples in the landscape.

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They're so uniform
and so perfectly formed,

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anybody who goes to the beach
and sees the tide going out

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will see that that receding tide
leaves a series of ripples in the sand,

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and those ripples may be half an inch high

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and a few feet long.

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What we have on the Camas Prairie
is current ripples

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that are 30 to 50 feet high
and 300 feet long.

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They're the same phenomenon
caused by the recession of waters.

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But the ripples on the landscape
speak of a huge event,

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an enormous amount of water that ran over
that landscape and then withdrew.

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Truly apocalyptic.

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Apocalyptic, yes.

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If somebody did survive here or there
by luck of the draw,

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they could emerge in the aftermath

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thinking that the entire world
had been destroyed.

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[Graham] The Scablands show all the signs
of a massive, devastating flood

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of very short duration,

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much like the ones
described in myths around the world.

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And it's unlikely all that water came
from Lake Missoula, as geologists claim.

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You remove the ice dam,

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all the water is going to be flowing
out here to the west like this,

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yet we find along the south wall,
right in here,

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we find massive gravel deposits.

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This water's flowing south.

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And that's exactly where you diverge
from the mainstream.

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You see the source of the flooding
on the ice cap, not this lake.

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[Randall] Right.

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It's now being admitted and recognized

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that, oh, well, maybe there were
other lakes up here.

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And what we are going to
really have to do is look to the north.

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-To look to the ice cap itself.
-Yes.

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[Graham] To come back
to the mainstream theory,

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they put those floods
in a specific time frame,

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in the 18,000 to 15,500-year-old window.

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Yes. I think we need to
take a hard look at some of those dates.

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'Cause I can't think
of anything in that period

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which would have provided
the massive energy

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needed to release this amount of water.

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What needs to happen now
is putting the puzzle pieces together…

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-Yes.
-…to get the grand view,

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the coherent big picture.

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[Graham] That bigger picture that Randall
is looking for could be emerging.

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Instead of the Scablands
continuing to be framed

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as a puzzlingly isolated
regional phenomenon

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with no obvious external cause,

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Randall's argument
sets this devastated landscape

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in context of the much wider,
indeed global, devastation

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that occurred
near the end of the last Ice Age.

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Not 18,000, or 15,500 years ago…

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but around 12,800 years ago

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at the onset of the Younger Dryas.

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Could the destruction
so evident in the Scablands

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00:14:09,323 --> 00:14:12,403
have been part
of that larger ancient apocalypse

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00:14:12,483 --> 00:14:16,803
that I suspect erased
an entire advanced civilization?

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Another scarred landscape
of ancient America

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might hold the final clue.

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Twelve hundred miles south,

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00:14:31,603 --> 00:14:35,163
in the scrub-covered desert
along the US-Mexico border,

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00:14:36,723 --> 00:14:39,363
at a site called Murray Springs.

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00:14:44,883 --> 00:14:49,003
Allen West is a member of an
interdisciplinary research group

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00:14:49,083 --> 00:14:52,603
that stunned
the scientific community in 2007,

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00:14:52,683 --> 00:14:57,203
publishing a paper
about an extraordinary discovery here,

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in an area of exposed earth that contains
what's known as a "black mat."

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00:15:04,523 --> 00:15:07,323
This black mat layer
that you see through here…

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00:15:07,403 --> 00:15:09,603
-Yeah.
-…represents the extinction layer.

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Below that, there are mammoth bones,
there are American horse bones,

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American camel, the dire wolves,
and saber-toothed cats.

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And so far, not a single one of those
has been found in place above that layer.

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In addition to
the extinctions of the megafauna,

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there was also
an extinction of human beings.

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We think that
probably 50 to 60% of the people

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across the northern hemisphere
died at this time.

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Right. That's a very dramatic figure.

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So we knew something had happened,
we didn't know what.

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So in a sense,
you were confronted by a mystery…

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00:15:46,563 --> 00:15:48,883
-Yes, yeah, yep.
-…that you wanted to explore.

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When the black mat was first discovered
and analyzed in the 1960s,

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scientists carbon-dated it
to around 12,800 years ago,

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00:16:00,563 --> 00:16:03,843
the exact moment of the onset
of the Younger Dryas.

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Which is why I'm here.

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00:16:09,803 --> 00:16:12,123
The black mat might help solve

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00:16:12,203 --> 00:16:16,723
not only the mystery of what kicked off
that cataclysmic epoch in the first place,

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00:16:18,443 --> 00:16:23,443
but also specifically what might
have released the immense flood…

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00:16:27,323 --> 00:16:29,523
that created the Scablands.

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00:16:31,003 --> 00:16:32,563
As part of their research,

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00:16:32,643 --> 00:16:36,803
Allen's group conducted a thorough
chemical analysis of the black mat.

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00:16:38,723 --> 00:16:42,243
So you came here and you
began to investigate the mat.

241
00:16:42,883 --> 00:16:46,163
What we found is melted glass spherules.

242
00:16:46,763 --> 00:16:51,123
So this is our first clue that some
high-temperature event had happened.

243
00:16:52,483 --> 00:16:54,163
But we didn't know what it was.

244
00:16:55,523 --> 00:16:58,923
So a temperature sufficient
to melt earth basically,

245
00:16:59,003 --> 00:17:00,203
is that what you're saying?

246
00:17:00,283 --> 00:17:02,083
Hot enough to melt a car

247
00:17:02,163 --> 00:17:04,723
into a molten puddle of metal
in the parking lot.

248
00:17:04,803 --> 00:17:05,643
Wow. Right.

249
00:17:05,723 --> 00:17:07,123
What else do you find here?

250
00:17:07,203 --> 00:17:10,362
Well, there was a peak
in platinum and in iridium.

251
00:17:10,443 --> 00:17:13,043
Were you expecting to find
platinum and iridium here?

252
00:17:13,122 --> 00:17:14,803
No, no, we were not.

253
00:17:15,642 --> 00:17:18,443
That's something you just
don't see on this planet very often.

254
00:17:19,402 --> 00:17:22,563
Then we knew that there's
only one thing on Earth that can do that,

255
00:17:22,642 --> 00:17:25,083
and that's some kind of cosmic impact.

256
00:17:25,723 --> 00:17:28,362
[Graham] Something, an asteroid
or fragments of a comet

257
00:17:28,443 --> 00:17:31,243
coming in through the atmosphere
and either bursting in the air

258
00:17:31,323 --> 00:17:32,963
or smacking directly into the ground?

259
00:17:33,043 --> 00:17:33,883
That's right, yep.

260
00:17:35,963 --> 00:17:38,843
[Graham] A comet, a species killer.

261
00:17:40,643 --> 00:17:43,483
Would that explain
the apocalyptic cataclysms

262
00:17:43,563 --> 00:17:46,123
that took place
at the end of the Younger Dryas?

263
00:17:46,923 --> 00:17:50,363
It's happened before to the dinosaurs.

264
00:17:54,603 --> 00:17:57,803
Nobody disputes that it was
a cosmic impact, an asteroid or a comet,

265
00:17:57,883 --> 00:18:01,523
that caused the demise of the dinosaurs
66 million years ago.

266
00:18:03,243 --> 00:18:05,763
That event left
a distinct layer in the earth,

267
00:18:05,843 --> 00:18:08,203
which is still visible
in certain places today,

268
00:18:08,283 --> 00:18:11,603
and a very similar layer
is found at Murray Springs.

269
00:18:14,923 --> 00:18:16,403
Once Allen's research group

270
00:18:16,483 --> 00:18:20,323
realized the implications
of the black mat layer at Murray Springs,

271
00:18:21,123 --> 00:18:24,883
they launched a painstaking,
long-term investigation

272
00:18:25,763 --> 00:18:28,043
to see if it showed up anywhere else.

273
00:18:29,843 --> 00:18:32,963
And it did, all over the world.

274
00:18:37,163 --> 00:18:41,403
To date, black mat sites have been found
across North America,

275
00:18:41,483 --> 00:18:44,763
from California to Michigan to New Jersey,

276
00:18:44,843 --> 00:18:49,083
and from Belgium in northern Europe
to Syria in the Middle East.

277
00:18:50,563 --> 00:18:53,483
That's a lot of potential impact sites,

278
00:18:53,563 --> 00:18:58,483
all dated to around the same time,
roughly 12,800 years ago.

279
00:19:01,323 --> 00:19:04,683
We began to realize this had to have been
some kind of huge event.

280
00:19:04,763 --> 00:19:09,083
The total picture got clearer to us
that something catastrophic had happened.

281
00:19:11,483 --> 00:19:16,363
[Graham] But if there was a comet strike,
where's the impact crater?

282
00:19:18,043 --> 00:19:20,203
I think we saw the answer to that…

283
00:19:22,923 --> 00:19:24,603
up in the Scablands.

284
00:19:26,883 --> 00:19:29,963
If the primary impacts
at the beginning of the Younger Dryas

285
00:19:30,043 --> 00:19:31,803
were on ice caps,

286
00:19:31,883 --> 00:19:35,363
when the ice melts away,
there's no crater left to see.

287
00:19:37,083 --> 00:19:39,083
It would support Randall's theory

288
00:19:39,163 --> 00:19:43,803
that the sudden catastrophic flooding
responsible for the Scablands

289
00:19:43,883 --> 00:19:48,243
came not from that lake,
but from the ice cap itself.

290
00:19:50,283 --> 00:19:54,563
It's going to absolutely demand
a rewrite of history as we know it.

291
00:19:54,643 --> 00:19:55,483
Yeah.

292
00:19:57,443 --> 00:20:00,723
Still, one impact alone
couldn't have created

293
00:20:00,803 --> 00:20:04,563
all the black mat sites mapped out
by Allen's research team.

294
00:20:06,443 --> 00:20:09,003
Their discoveries led to a startling idea.

295
00:20:09,083 --> 00:20:13,523
Perhaps it wasn't one cosmic impact that
left all these traces around the world,

296
00:20:13,603 --> 00:20:14,843
but many.

297
00:20:14,923 --> 00:20:18,643
A brief intense storm of cosmic debris
that the Earth ran into.

298
00:20:18,723 --> 00:20:21,843
They called it
the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.

299
00:20:24,163 --> 00:20:26,923
[Allen] Don't think Earth was actually hit
by the comet itself,

300
00:20:27,003 --> 00:20:29,963
but rather hit by
tens of thousands of fragments.

301
00:20:30,043 --> 00:20:32,963
Think that 12,800 years ago,

302
00:20:33,043 --> 00:20:37,083
Earth wandered into
the debris trail of a giant comet.

303
00:20:43,563 --> 00:20:46,963
[Graham] It would have been like thousands
of atomic bombs going off.

304
00:20:48,243 --> 00:20:53,363
In just a few hours,
a truly Earth-shaking event,

305
00:20:55,283 --> 00:21:00,203
releasing water vapor and clouds of dust
that would have shrouded the skies,

306
00:21:00,963 --> 00:21:03,403
causing temperatures to plunge.

307
00:21:04,843 --> 00:21:07,963
Imagine living in Miami
and you're enjoying the beach,

308
00:21:09,003 --> 00:21:12,123
and suddenly the climate
changes to Anchorage, Alaska.

309
00:21:13,323 --> 00:21:17,003
-[Graham] Just, overnight, really. Yeah.
-Yeah, in a matter of probably months.

310
00:21:22,043 --> 00:21:23,643
[Graham] When Allen and his colleagues

311
00:21:23,723 --> 00:21:26,443
from what was now called
the Comet Research Group,

312
00:21:26,523 --> 00:21:27,883
first published their findings,

313
00:21:27,963 --> 00:21:32,483
predictably they were met
with scorn and derision.

314
00:21:33,283 --> 00:21:36,723
Scientists unfortunately
are taught to be cynical about things.

315
00:21:36,803 --> 00:21:39,323
Skepticism is healthy, cynicism is not.

316
00:21:41,043 --> 00:21:43,603
[Graham] What's even more unsettling
about their discovery

317
00:21:43,683 --> 00:21:47,003
is the likely origin
of that cometary debris.

318
00:21:48,163 --> 00:21:50,003
The Taurid meteor stream,

319
00:21:51,963 --> 00:21:55,763
a patch of sky which the Earth
passes through twice a year

320
00:21:55,843 --> 00:21:58,163
in late June and late October.

321
00:21:59,123 --> 00:22:02,243
It's estimated
there are probably 200 objects

322
00:22:02,323 --> 00:22:04,163
with diameters of at least a kilometer,

323
00:22:04,243 --> 00:22:06,603
whirling around
in the Taurid meteor stream.

324
00:22:11,963 --> 00:22:13,163
The evidence brought forward

325
00:22:13,243 --> 00:22:15,403
by the scientists
of the Comet Research Group

326
00:22:15,483 --> 00:22:22,243
amounts to nothing less than an immense
global cataclysm around 12,800 years ago,

327
00:22:22,323 --> 00:22:25,763
an apocalypse big enough
to have obliterated almost all traces

328
00:22:25,843 --> 00:22:28,443
of an advanced civilization
of the Ice Age,

329
00:22:28,523 --> 00:22:30,563
and to explain at a stroke

330
00:22:30,643 --> 00:22:33,843
all the mysteries I've spent
the last 30 years investigating.

331
00:22:36,283 --> 00:22:40,283
It might be why the ancient civilizations
that emerged afterward

332
00:22:40,363 --> 00:22:44,403
were so scientifically focused
on the skies.

333
00:22:45,403 --> 00:22:48,123
This is an area
we really need to pay attention to

334
00:22:48,203 --> 00:22:50,483
because there's
something dangerous up there

335
00:22:50,563 --> 00:22:52,363
and it can end civilization.

336
00:22:55,843 --> 00:22:58,843
At Göbekli Tepe in Turkey,
we've already seen

337
00:22:58,923 --> 00:23:03,883
how the ancients may have memorialized
this apocalypse in stone.

338
00:23:03,963 --> 00:23:08,563
By recording the constellations in the sky
at the time on Pillar 43.

339
00:23:09,763 --> 00:23:12,723
But the pillars may contain
another coded message

340
00:23:13,443 --> 00:23:16,123
that Dr. Martin Sweatman
was keen to show me,

341
00:23:16,203 --> 00:23:19,043
something that he believes is a record

342
00:23:19,123 --> 00:23:23,563
of precisely when and from where
the meteor shower came.

343
00:23:25,883 --> 00:23:29,323
What you've got here,
you've got snakes emanating

344
00:23:29,403 --> 00:23:32,523
from the body and the legs of the fox.

345
00:23:33,483 --> 00:23:35,923
And if we go on
to the other side of the pillar,

346
00:23:36,003 --> 00:23:39,763
and again we have the snakes
kind of emanating from these birds.

347
00:23:40,483 --> 00:23:45,483
Ancient cultures
did see comets as sky serpents.

348
00:23:45,563 --> 00:23:48,123
There's really
no serious dispute about that.

349
00:23:48,203 --> 00:23:52,203
We can interpret this as meteors
radiating from specific constellations…

350
00:23:52,283 --> 00:23:53,123
Yeah.

351
00:23:53,203 --> 00:23:55,883
…tall bending birds
probably representing Pisces.

352
00:23:55,963 --> 00:23:56,803
[Graham] Right.

353
00:23:56,883 --> 00:23:59,643
[Dr. Martin] And here we have
the constellation Aquarius,

354
00:23:59,723 --> 00:24:01,883
we think that's what the fox represents.

355
00:24:01,963 --> 00:24:04,323
At the time Göbekli Tepe was built,

356
00:24:04,403 --> 00:24:09,523
these were the constellations from which
the Taurid meteor stream radiated.

357
00:24:10,323 --> 00:24:11,443
They're essentially saying

358
00:24:11,523 --> 00:24:15,163
that the Taurid meteor stream
radiates from Aquarius

359
00:24:15,243 --> 00:24:17,483
and then from Pisces,

360
00:24:17,563 --> 00:24:20,443
and it makes that change
over the course of a few weeks.

361
00:24:21,363 --> 00:24:25,403
[Graham] A record of a storm
of comet fragments that lasted weeks.

362
00:24:27,643 --> 00:24:31,283
That's a timeframe that fits
all the evidence of the global cataclysm

363
00:24:31,363 --> 00:24:33,883
that hit Earth 12,800 years ago,

364
00:24:34,523 --> 00:24:39,043
including the violent flooding
that tore up the Washington Scablands.

365
00:24:40,923 --> 00:24:43,923
And there might be more
to that specific configuration

366
00:24:44,003 --> 00:24:47,683
of Sun and constellations
featured on Pillar 43.

367
00:24:49,003 --> 00:24:51,283
It occurs at a solstice,

368
00:24:51,363 --> 00:24:56,003
only twice in a cycle
of just under 26,000 years,

369
00:24:56,083 --> 00:24:58,643
each return lasting barely a century.

370
00:25:00,443 --> 00:25:01,723
I therefore find it eerie

371
00:25:01,803 --> 00:25:05,283
as archaeoastronomer
Paul Burley first noted,

372
00:25:05,363 --> 00:25:08,043
that the exact same configuration

373
00:25:08,123 --> 00:25:11,723
seen at the summer solstice
around 12,800 years ago

374
00:25:11,803 --> 00:25:18,003
has returned to our skies today,
at the winter solstice.

375
00:25:20,523 --> 00:25:23,483
Could the imagery of Pillar 43
be a message

376
00:25:23,563 --> 00:25:27,803
contrived by the master astronomers
of a lost civilization?

377
00:25:29,803 --> 00:25:33,723
A warning to the future, to us,

378
00:25:34,483 --> 00:25:36,963
that what goes around comes around?

379
00:25:38,723 --> 00:25:43,643
That when the Sun and stars next take up
this configuration at the solstice,

380
00:25:43,723 --> 00:25:47,283
an apocalypse
of sky serpents could return?

381
00:25:51,483 --> 00:25:52,803
So take heed.

382
00:25:54,523 --> 00:25:57,443
The notion should give us
pause for thought.

383
00:25:58,723 --> 00:26:01,283
I don't want to be
a prophet of gloom and doom,

384
00:26:01,363 --> 00:26:04,243
but are we in danger
from the Taurid meteor stream today?

385
00:26:04,323 --> 00:26:06,283
It was danger to our ancestors.

386
00:26:06,363 --> 00:26:09,043
It caused a cataclysm
on Earth 12,800 years ago.

387
00:26:09,123 --> 00:26:10,243
Can that happen again?

388
00:26:10,323 --> 00:26:11,923
We absolutely are in danger.

389
00:26:13,123 --> 00:26:16,363
In fact, the calculations
of the astronomers

390
00:26:16,443 --> 00:26:19,043
are that we're in
a danger window right now

391
00:26:19,123 --> 00:26:23,803
where the thicker part of the Taurids
could be impacting Earth.

392
00:26:26,443 --> 00:26:28,683
[Graham] More and more scientists
are now embracing

393
00:26:28,763 --> 00:26:31,003
the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis…

394
00:26:35,323 --> 00:26:40,163
and this accelerating interest
is no longer confined to scientists.

395
00:26:44,123 --> 00:26:48,123
If something did hit Earth
somewhere around 12,000 years ago,

396
00:26:48,203 --> 00:26:51,083
and reset civilization,
it's an interesting theory.

397
00:26:51,163 --> 00:26:54,003
But I think it's a theory
that's worth discussing.

398
00:26:54,803 --> 00:27:00,083
I just feel like there's so much emotion
tied up into your theories,

399
00:27:00,163 --> 00:27:02,843
and so much emotion in the resistance.

400
00:27:02,923 --> 00:27:06,563
How does mainstream archaeology
dismiss these things?

401
00:27:06,643 --> 00:27:08,763
Like, what's the common arguments?

402
00:27:09,403 --> 00:27:12,603
The common argument is,
"We are archeologists and we know best."

403
00:27:12,683 --> 00:27:15,443
It's an argument from authority,
"You must accept our dating system."

404
00:27:15,523 --> 00:27:18,243
"We've done all the work
and this is how it is."

405
00:27:18,323 --> 00:27:24,083
It's so strange that people will only
accept and talk about one narrative.

406
00:27:24,163 --> 00:27:27,323
The narrative that
they established a long time ago…

407
00:27:27,403 --> 00:27:28,243
Yeah.

408
00:27:28,323 --> 00:27:29,803
…and they won't let it be debated.

409
00:27:30,603 --> 00:27:33,243
Maybe part of the reason
is it threatens the notion

410
00:27:33,323 --> 00:27:36,923
that we are the apex and pinnacle
of the whole human story.

411
00:27:37,003 --> 00:27:40,203
Maybe the notion
of a lost civilization in the past

412
00:27:40,283 --> 00:27:42,123
raises the uncomfortable question

413
00:27:42,203 --> 00:27:44,443
that we might be
a lost civilization of the future.

414
00:27:48,923 --> 00:27:53,443
If we were to confront
a massive global cataclysm

415
00:27:53,523 --> 00:27:55,243
of the kind that took place,

416
00:27:55,323 --> 00:27:58,083
that we now know took place
at the end of the last Ice Age,

417
00:27:58,163 --> 00:28:02,163
I think our civilization would
actually be very unlikely to survive it.

418
00:28:05,923 --> 00:28:11,083
So it's not hard to imagine
that an earlier advanced civilization

419
00:28:11,163 --> 00:28:12,563
might have been wiped out,

420
00:28:13,083 --> 00:28:15,003
erased from memory

421
00:28:15,083 --> 00:28:18,603
during this ancient apocalypse
12,800 years ago.

422
00:28:22,163 --> 00:28:25,603
After those cosmic impacts
on the ice caps,

423
00:28:25,683 --> 00:28:30,203
sea levels rose, swallowing up
all the low-lying coastal lands

424
00:28:30,283 --> 00:28:33,243
that would have likely been
settled by an advanced culture.

425
00:28:35,483 --> 00:28:37,363
Places like Sundaland…

426
00:28:38,723 --> 00:28:42,723
the Maltese peninsula,
or the Grand Bahama Banks.

427
00:28:45,003 --> 00:28:46,843
Perhaps in Indonesia

428
00:28:46,923 --> 00:28:49,683
the survivors retreated to the hills,

429
00:28:49,763 --> 00:28:53,803
leaving behind tantalizing clues
to their sophisticated architecture.

430
00:28:55,083 --> 00:28:57,243
Some survivors in Turkey

431
00:28:57,323 --> 00:29:00,803
may have decided
to carve out refuges underground

432
00:29:00,883 --> 00:29:02,723
in case more meteors struck.

433
00:29:03,883 --> 00:29:05,643
In the Mediterranean, on Malta,

434
00:29:05,723 --> 00:29:08,283
the survivors might have built temples

435
00:29:08,363 --> 00:29:11,923
aligned to the brightest new star
in their night sky,

436
00:29:12,003 --> 00:29:15,603
perhaps fearing that it might herald
the next comet to strike.

437
00:29:16,923 --> 00:29:19,043
They traversed the seas,

438
00:29:19,123 --> 00:29:21,803
passing down
their geographic knowledge to others.

439
00:29:23,483 --> 00:29:26,523
Their appearances
recorded in ancient traditions,

440
00:29:26,603 --> 00:29:28,963
even etched in stone.

441
00:29:30,283 --> 00:29:35,203
They directed less advanced cultures
to memorialize what happened

442
00:29:35,283 --> 00:29:36,563
with huge monuments

443
00:29:36,643 --> 00:29:39,963
incorporating specific,
dateable alignments,

444
00:29:41,883 --> 00:29:47,563
and megalithic memorials recording
those dates, buried as time capsules.

445
00:29:52,323 --> 00:29:58,043
And these ancients helped reboot humanity
in a scarred and devastated landscape.

446
00:30:01,923 --> 00:30:04,643
In my travels and adventures
over the decades,

447
00:30:04,723 --> 00:30:09,163
I've learned to respect the wisdom
and, yes, the science of the ancients.

448
00:30:10,523 --> 00:30:12,643
They understood the threat from the skies,

449
00:30:12,723 --> 00:30:16,403
and kept their attention focused
very closely on the cosmos,

450
00:30:16,483 --> 00:30:20,043
and on its sometimes deadly
interactions with the Earth below.

451
00:30:21,763 --> 00:30:24,323
Their myths
and their monumental structures,

452
00:30:24,403 --> 00:30:27,683
so carefully aligned
to the stars and to the Sun,

453
00:30:27,763 --> 00:30:29,523
bear witness to this obsession,

454
00:30:30,723 --> 00:30:33,883
and memorialize the terrible events
at the end of the Ice Age

455
00:30:33,963 --> 00:30:38,843
that changed the human story forever,
and gave birth to the modern world.

456
00:30:42,083 --> 00:30:47,963
Perhaps our own advanced civilization
should heed their warnings,

457
00:30:48,843 --> 00:30:52,523
lest our own story end the same way.