Ancient Aliens s03e04 Episode Script
Aliens and the Temples of Gold
Ancient cities lost for centuries.
Dozens of people have risked their lives trying to find where Paititi is.
Treasures hidden deep underwater.
The local people have told me not simply that the ships fly over the lake, but they actually enter the lake.
And secret chambers buried under the great Egyptian Sphinx.
Gold was the flesh of the gods.
Egypt had probably the best supply of gold anywhere in the ancient world.
Since the dawn of time, humans have been obsessed with legends of hidden gold.
But what if our desire for this precious metal is about something more than riches? It almost seems as if we're genetically programmed to love gold.
Ultimately, gold represents our connection with the stars.
A number of researchers have suggested that ancient aliens have come to Earth primarily to mine gold.
Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true? Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, might they have come here in search of gold? Lake Guanavita, Colombia.
Believed to be the site of an ancient meteor crater, this circular-shaped mountain lake is at the center of one of mankind's greatest searches the search for El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold.
Since the 16th century, El Dorado has been the "Holy Grail" for fortune hunters.
Legends abound about a place full of untold riches somewhere in South America.
Yet to this day, the mythical city remains undiscovered.
But if such a magnificent place does exist, how has it eluded explorers for centuries? Some believe the answer lies within this mysterious lake.
The story of El Dorado developed from the Lake Guatavita that was within the territory of the Muisca or the Chicha people which was a chiefdom.
Not quite as high civilization as Incas or as the Aztecs, but chiefdom with civilization itself that had a lot of gold.
The ruler in the southern half of the Muisca territory was known as the Zipa, but the Conquistadores who arrived there in the 16th century called him El Dorado, Spanish for "The Golden One.
" They gave him this name after observing the Muisca's most sacred ritual.
The Zipa would float out on a royal barge to float out on a royal barge to the middle of Lake Guatavita to make offerings of gold to a god believed to live at the bottom of the lake.
It was said that the chief, adorned with resin and then adorned with gold dust, would jump into the water in order to wash the gold dust off, and then this gold would accumulate in that lake, and that golden objects as sacrifices would be thrown into that particular lake.
And from that came the belief of El Dorado around Colombia.
In 1912 an excavation of Lake Guatavita was led by British engineer Hartley Knowles.
Knowles reported that he had recovered around $20,000 worth of treasure including golden artifacts.
But he also believed much more lay beneath the hardened lake bed.
Could Knowles find be evidence that the story of the Muisca chief is based on truth? If so, just who or what was the so-called god who dwelled at the bottom of the lake? A number of researchers have suggested that ancient aliens have come to Earth primarily to mine gold.
Zecharia Sitchin suggested that these extraterrestrials needed gold to spend it in the atmosphere and preserve their planet.
Is gold something that is really important to space exploration and to astronomy? Well, it actually is, very important and the reason why is because gold is an innert material.
It doesn't react with anything.
The other thing that's very important about it is that it is a wonderful conductor of electricity.
And last but not least is the fact that gold is a perfect reflector of infrared energy.
You can use gold blankets to protect spacecraft against the the intense heat of a star or any sort of heat source.
Gold is a very rare and valuable element throughout the universe.
Aliens coming to Earth searching for gold.
Could such a thing be possible? According to ancient astronaut theorists, it is not only possible, but they claim the proof exists in the numerous texts and legends of the ancient world.
Like that of the legendary Incan city of Paititi, thought to be located near the southeastern area of Peru.
The Conquistadors became obsessed with finding this mysterious city of gold that they heard was in the jungles of Eastern Peru somewhere.
They called it Paititi, the Golden City.
Stories of Paititi and El Dorado ultimately led to the exploration of the Amazon jungles.
El Dorado and Paititi are frequently confused.
I see El Dorado as being that particular gold-producing site that was in northern South America, and Paititi having been another civilization contemporaneous with the Incas in the area of Peru, Bolivia, that has yet to be definitively found.
And that's what part of my quest has been over these last 25 years.
Since 1984, American explorer Gregory.
Deyermenjian and his Peruvian counterpart, Paulino Mamani have staged more than 15 expeditions in search of this mythical city of gold.
There is an Incan road of stone leading towards what is supposed to be, as legend would have it, Paititi that's what we've been following.
They say that Pachamama, the earth goddess, covers these areas with such difficulty the moss, the jungle, the rivers that some things could be hidden here forever.
Their search began in Cuzco at the Incan holy place of Coricancha, which means, "Golden Courtyard".
In 1559, Spanish Conquistadores tore down Coricancha to construct the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, and it still sits in the center of Cuzco today, surrounded by the ruins of the ancient Incan temple.
The cathedral features an enormous altar covered in gold.
But according to the records of the Conquistadors, it pales in comparison to the magnificent Coricancha, which was not only filled with gold statues but was also covered in sheets of solid gold.
Gold was important with the Inca, because it was the sweat of the Sun.
The Sun was the highest deity of the Inca and therefore the sweat of the Sun represented the most sacred possession imaginable.
Ancient astronaut theorists believe a golden sun idol called the Punchal that once resided in Coricancha may provide evidence that extraterrestrials had contact with the Inca.
Coricancha was famous for it's gigantic golden disc that the ancient Inca worshiped.
That was a symbol of a giant golden disc that allegedly landed from the sky in front of the Inca ruler Atahualpa.
And he had direct contact according to legends with the sky gods.
Could the giant golden disc that once resided inside Coricancha have been made to honor an alien visitor? And if extraterrestrials did come to mine gold, might this also provide evidence that Paititi is nearby? In 1533 the Spanish overtook the city of Cuzco and plundered the temple of Coricancha in search of Incan gold.
But according to local legend, the gold had already been moved deposited at the bottom of a nearby lake.
Before the entire group of Spanish were able to get into Cuzco, the priests found out about it and they had all of the gold from all of the temples brought up to Lake Puray and thrown into the center.
None of it has been found, to this day.
The amount of gold at today's prices would be in the billions.
Perhaps even more mysterious are the frequent reports of unusual sightings in the skies over the area sightings that have been reported for hundreds of years.
The local people of this area have told me not simply that the ships fly over the lake, but they actually enter the lake.
The stories go that there's a little vortex that opens up just about the size of the spaceship, perhaps 20 feet across.
The spaceship enters the lake, the vortex closes.
Later the vortex opens and the ship leaves again.
If, as the local inhabitants claim, strange possibly alien spacecraft really do come to this area, might there be a connection between the visitations and the legends of gold hidden at the bottom of Lake Puray? Dozens of people have risked their lives, in some cases actually have died, trying to find where Paititi is.
You have the standard treasure hunt which just goes for the monetary value.
You have certain people who go to it because they know that that name will be immortalized forever after.
But you also have people who go in search of this because they know that if you find a treasure you will literally prove that a legend is factual.
Perhaps the greater mystery is not if or where the mythical cities of El Dorado and Paititi may be discovered but what might be revealed once they are found.
Tokyo lmperial University, March 1924.
In an early experiment with nuclear energy, Professor Hantaro Nagaoka directs at a mercury isotope under a dielectric layer of paraffin oil for four hours.
The purpose to strike out a hydrogen proton from the nucleus of the mercury and produce a new element gold.
The experiment is a success.
Professor Nagaoka has solved a mystery that has eluded scientists for centuries the mystery of the philosopher's stone.
The philosopher's stone was a ** you could have a magic kind of material that would turn, led or some very unexpensive metal into gold.
The thought that one could do that is attractive in and of itself.
For thousands of years, kings sought out this mythical device one that could create gold out of common metal.
Scientists and alchemists spent centuries trying to invent one.
Even Sir Isaac Newton obsessed over the mystery of the philosopher's stone in the 17th century, although the English Crown, fearing the potential devaluation of gold, had made the practice of alchemy punishable by death.
By the time of Professor Nagaoka's experiment in 1924, most of the scientific community had declared the process of producing gold from another metal impossible.
But that quickly changed once they knew where to look.
The secret of alchemy lies in the stars.
When you think about how gold's made, naturally gold is formed basically in the nuclear reactions in the sun.
And then is spread through the universe when a supernova occurs and the sun explodes and sends all of the products out.
Because we now can do controlled nuclear reactions, we have the ability, finally, to essentially manufacture gold from other elements.
Here, at the University of California, lrvine, Dr.
A.
J.
Shaka conducts experiments in alchemy nearly every day.
We put mercury into one of these tubes, and mercury has a minor isotope of .
15% mercury 196 it's called and that isotope will actually pick up a neutron and, in about To bring the reactor to full capacity, Dr.
Shaka removes the control rods that absorb neutrons and keep them from reacting with other atoms.
This generates power at a staggering rate.
In terms of the amount of power, including electrical energy, that you can generate from a given mass of material, nuclear is about ten to 20 million times better than anything else.
After 24 hours, the experiment has been a success and yields gold, a real-life philosopher's stone at work in the basement of a small university building.
The discovery of alchemy has been invaluable to science, but ironically it has not produced untold riches.
If you irradiate for about a day in our reactor, you make three-tenths of a cent worth of gold.
Since we charge $200 an hour to operate the reactor, you're pretty far in the hole.
But while modern-day alchemy is considered far too inefficient to create vast new caches of gold, ancient astronaut theorists believe a much greater technology than our our own may have been at work thousands of years ago, in ancient Egypt.
Another place where gold was linked to the gods.
The idea of gold being some sort of divine metal, divine element is very much in grain in the ancient Egyptian system of belief.
Gold was the flesh of the gods.
So therefore very great significance.
Egypt had probably the best supply of gold anywhere in the ancient world.
And we find that in some of the letters which survived between kings of Babylon, Assyria and others and Egypt, a lot of them are begging letters, basically saying to the Egyptian king, you you know, "Oh, my brother, the pharaoh, please send me gold, lots of gold, because gold is as dust in the land of my brother, the pharaoh.
" But just how did gold come to be so much more abundant in ancient Egypt than in neighboring lands? And why did the Egyptians view the metal as something not of this world? According to ancient astronaut theorists, it is entirely possible that the Egyptians were capable of actually manufacturing gold and may have received otherworldly help to do so.
If alchemical transmutations can be performed in a modest facility like the one at the University of California, lrvine, what might be possible with a larger reactor? A reactor, perhaps, the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Christopher Dunne has suggested that the Giza pyramid is some kind of giant machine and some kind of chemical reaction was taking place inside the pyramid.
It's possible that the Giza pyramid was actually being used to transmute other elements into gold.
Looking into the blueprints of the internal arrangements, passageways, chambers and shafts, the appearance of it to me did not resemble anything that would be used as a tomb.
The precision with which it was built, the precision of the stones that go into building, the queen's chamber, the grand gallery, and then, also, thousands and thousands of tons of granite that were brought down the Nile These are the features that really shout out and say: There's something going on here, there's something different.
It was built like a machine, perhaps it functioned like a machine.
Could it be that the Great Pyramid was the original philosopher's stone? If so, how could an ancient civilization have constructed the equivalent of a nuclear reactor? Might the centuries-old search for the philosopher's stone represent more than just a desire for gold and riches? Could it represent as ancient astronaut theorists suggest the search for lost technology? Perhaps the key to that knowledge still lies hidden somewhere here on Earth and can be found in areas still containing vast amounts of hidden treasure.
The Giza Plateau, Egypt.
For more than 3,000 years, the body of the Great Sphinx had been buried beneath the sand.
But after 11 years of work, Egyptian archaeologists uncover the entire monument for the first time since antiquity.
At 241 feet long and 66 feet high, it is the largest and oldest monolithic statue in the world.
Even more incredible is it's shape.
The Sphinx has the head of a man and the body of a lion.
Although egyptologists date the construction of The Great Sphinx to the reign of the Pharaoh Khafra, in approximately 2500 B.
C.
Others claim its construction could be much, much older.
The orthodox date about 2500 BC tagged on these monuments, has been challenged by a group of researchers including myself.
would argue that the erosion in the Sphinx suggest much, much older Sphinx.
Although egyptologists have found no agreement as to when or why the strange monument was built.
Ancient astronaut theorists believe it may over prove of extraterrestrials being present in ancient Egypt.
We see in many ancient Sumerian and Egyptian inscriptions of sphinxes half man, half animal of some kind and it varies to a degree of different combinations of animals and human beings.
We have to wonder why would they be doing this and logically it starts to make more sense when we realize a lot of these ancient techs, explain that extraterrestrials came here and created those in their image and after their likeness.
If you believe the work of the late Zecharia Sitchin where he believes that the Anunnaki, came from a planet that is somewhere out in our Solar system and that they came here to mine for gold.
But they figured they are not gonna do the work by themselves.
So they decided to take what creatures were on this planet at that time genetically altered them and make mankind.
If that is the case, it is very possible that they are using genetic alterations, to experiment with, not only just humanity but a mixing of other species with humanity.
Could the Great Sphinx be the evidence of genetic engineering by ancient aliens? And if as Zecharia Sitchin proposed extraterrestrials were genetically altering humans and animals for the purpose of mining gold.
Might this enormous structure have at one point been repository for that gold? Is it possible that when Egyptian archeologists began excavating the Great Sphinx what they were really searching for was gold? Over the centuries, secret chambers, shafts and elaborate tunnel systems, have indeed been discovered all around the Giza Plateau.
A shaft was discovered, called the Osirian Shaft which led under the Giza Plateau behind the Sphinx.
Now, in that shaft there are various passageways, that lead seemingly nowhere.
In recent years, ground-penetrating radar, or GPR scans have been conducted which reveals evidence of numerous underground cavities located not only around the Sphinx but underneath it as well.
From a scientific point of view, a lot here about speculation and theories, and legends and so forth, there was a very first time that there's some strong indication that there might be these hidden tunnels and chambers under the Sphinx.
And according to this, they found very strong evidence of what looks like artificial chambers.
It is not a question as to whether or not, there is a secret underground passage underneath the Giza Plateau.
The question is can we get access to this, and of course a more important question is if there is something of extraordinary value or even something which defies science which may even be of an extraterrestrial nature.
If the alleged cavities under the sphinx contain not only gold, but gold mined by ancient alien beings might it also contain something even more than just material treasure.
Ancient astronauts theories believe an elaborate secret depository is located under the Sphinx's paws known as the Hall of Records.
It dates back to the fall of Atlantis, which according to ancient texts, it's said to have occurred nearly 12,000 years ago.
They also claim that there were extraterrestrials living in Atlantis.
and they needed a repository to house all their accumulated knowledge.
The Hall of Record was made by us but with the tools, the knowledge of extraterrestrials.
It is speculated that a group of survivors of Atlantis, came to Egypt at about 10,500 BC brought along with their records, their knowledge and built this storeroom somewhere at Giza.
If archeologists do some day unearth secret chambers below the Sphinx, what will they find? Gold, a library of ancient extraterrestrial knowledge or might they perhaps find both.
My personal view is that it would be loaded with gold technology, technology that once belonged to the Gods that will help us answer who built the pyramids, how they built it and likely there's a portal, or gateway that leads us to the stars within this Hall of Records.
If the Hall of Records really does exist, is it possible that it contains is it possible that it contains extra-terrestrial knowledge not on ancient ***, but stored on gold? Gold is a pretty amazing metal.
Gold is one of the best conductors of electricity we have which is obviously very important in electronic applications, Not you only need a really good conductor, but you need one that won't corrode.
And so gold when you really really need high-quality, long-lasting, good electronics, it's really the choice that you would make.
Is the ancient knowledge, not only stored with gold but stored on gold, really the mysterious secret of this precious metal? Perhaps the answer lies hidden 18,000 miles away deep beneath the church in Rennes-Le-Château, France.
The village of Rennes-Le-Château, France January 29th, 1953 Marie Dénarnaud, a frail 85-year-old woman, lies on her deathbed promising to divulge a long held secret about a vast treasure.
But a recent stroke has left her unable to speak or write and her secret dies with her.
Before Marie's death, she had promised to tell someone the secret.
I will tell you the secret, and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams.
And what she said was the people of this village walk on enough gold to make you wealthy for a 100 years and they have no idea.
And the secret, she was never able to speak it after she had her stroke.
So what was Marie talking about? Legends of a vast gold treasure hidden at Renne-le-chateau date all the way back to the 5th century, when after sacking Rome, in 410 AD.
Germanic warriors known as the Visigoths made their way to the area with all the stolen treasure they could carry.
But when they abandoned the region, some 200 years later they reportedly left some of their ill-gotten wealth behind.
The Visigoths were known to have buried treasure with their dead.
So when Rennes-Le-Château became significant because of that idea that there might be gold buried there.
For hundreds of years, the rumors of buried treasure persisted although no tangible evidence of it was ever found.
But then in 1891, a young parish priest named Bérenger Saunière, was restoring the local church when according to popular legend, he discovered something that turned him into an extremely wealthy man almost over night.
This wealth that he had was part of a vast golden treasure that was kept underground in this church in a weird series of catacombs.
These catacombs of Rennes-Le-Château were ancient.
They had been there long before the church had been built.
And here's an area that *** of these caves that were used by the Visigoths.
I lived here 16 years and we know here's a tunnel under this garden.
It comes along this way from the castle until to the church, and it runs this, in this way There have been people who have been coming here since the 1950s in search of gold, and some have found it.
The question is whether finding gold is everything there is to this mystery or whether it's just the first step along many steps to go before we actually uncover the real mystery of Rennes-Le-Château.
Although Father Saunière claimed to have come upon this vast wealth by chance, many believe he actively searched for the Visigoth gold.
And that much more still lies hidden in the catacombs beneath the church.
But even more mysterious than the priest's possible discovery of gold was his strange behavior afterwards, a behavior that became reflected in the design of the church itself.
Bérenger Saunière is a guy who goes in search of ancient documents, who goes in search of certain specific knowledge in alchemical circles.
So what we have found in a lot of other alchemical processes is the importance of gold.
What happens next is that he begins to build a church.
He builds it according to a plan.
This plan is to make contact with the divine, and so I think.
Saunière realized that certain metals could be transformed into something which truly made it a spiritual experience.
Might the golden treasure Father Saunière supposedly unearthed have contained more than just monetary value? Could it have held some otherworldly knowledge? The priest confided in only one other person as to the origin of this mysterious wealth, his housekeeper Marie Dénarnaud.
But what was the secret that they shared? Ancient astronaut theorists believe a clue may lie in the inscription found over the door of the church.
Bérenger Saunière placed an inscription over the door that people have been talking about for 100 years.
The inscription says "Terribilis est locus iste.
" It's mistakenly translated most often as "This place is terrible" but, in fact, the inscription comes from the Old Testament, from the Book of Genesis.
Jacob has a dream about a ladder that connects Heaven to Earth, where humans could connect to the divine.
So when you look at the Old Testament translation, what it really says is "This place is awesome".
Is this inscription from the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible a reference to something divine, or might it point to an extraterrestrial connection? I believe Rennes-Le-Château could be a stargate to another world.
This is based on the inscription placed above the entrance to the church by Bérenger Saunière.
Why would this priest put this inscription there unless he is indicating that is awesome and tremendously powerful place.
Rennes-Le-Château is a gateway to the stars? Rennes-Le-Château, to me, is one of the spookiest and most powerful places I've ever been.
The ground there is oozing mystery.
We know that people have said that Rennes-Le-Château is a place for UFOs.
We know people have reported time slips.
And people have said that they have had encounters with the Devil.
So there is definitely something about that area which suggests that, for centuries, very strange and bizarre things happened.
Could this tiny village be a gateway to an extraterrestrial past or even another dimension? Perhaps the answer lies buried with Marie Dénarnaud.
Or, as some believe, the secrets of Rennes-Le-Château might still be revealed.
And the answer may lie not in France but just to the north, in Scotland.
Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland.
Perched atop a hill overlooking the village of Roslin, seven miles south of Edinburgh, sits this medieval 15th century church.
Some say that, hidden on the grounds, in secret chambers within the church, are some of the world's greatest lost relics.
Including the treasure of the Knights Templar.
This elite band of warrior monks had been based at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Christian Crusades.
They were also rumored to have been in possession of many valuable religious artifacts including the most valuable golden relic of all the Holy Grail the cup used by Jesus during the Last Supper.
The Knights Templar began excavating at Solomon's Temple.
They said that they discovered secret caverns which held a huge horde of gold artifacts.
At the time of the sacking of the Solomon's temple, the treasure there suddenly vanished.
They then took this treasure to Scotland and buried it at Rosslyn Chapel.
Rosslyn Chapel is one of the most fascinating possible recreations of Solomon's Temple.
It literally is a Holy Grail temple, that was constructed by William Sinclair and it is designed to be a repository of Holy Grail secrets.
When it was created it had the most wonderful and fantastic symbolism perhaps anywhere in the world.
Could Rosslyn Chapel really been built to house the Holy Grail? Some believe the architecture of the Chapel is adorned with mysterious messages and symbols that reveal the secret whereabouts of the cup of Christ.
And here we are, this is Rosslyn Chapel.
William Sinclair was responsible for building the Chapel.
He was a very rich individual, he was the Chancellor of Scotland at the time.
We see these extraordinarily gifted brilliant men collecting the wisdom traditions from around the world and stealing all of those into Rosslyn Chapel.
Among the many carvings found in the walls of Rosslyn Chapel are faces called, "The Green Men", pagan deities that represent growth and rebirth.
Some believe these strange faces provide a clue that the chapel truly does hold the Holy Grail.
The carvings themselves have a dual meaning; they always have had a dual meaning.
The Green Man appears in over 110 different locations.
As you watch the progression of the Green Man from east to west, that progression represents the passing of time.
So all the youngest of all the Green Man carvings are on the eastern wall, and towards the west they become older.
This symbolizes the ultimate secrets of nature, and it makes one wonder if, in fact, the Grail is connected with these secrets and the presence of the Green Man in this Holy Grail chapel.
But if the Holy Grail truly does reside in Rosslyn Chapel, where might it be hidden? Some believe it lies within an ornate pillar called the Apprentice Pillar, and at least one person has actually attempted to retrieve it.
We actually have a story which is known to be factual a person came into the Chapel, with an ax who was going to be intend on hacking down the Apprentice Pillar because he was convinced that the Grail was actually inside.
What is the Grail? What it *** to say is the Grail is your DNA.
Because it's your past and it's your future.
And a very interesting thing is when you look at that Pillar you see that it is actually the DNA form.
Might all these mysterious carvings that have been linked to the Holy Grail indicate that the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper was something more than just a drinking vessel? The whole story is very fascinating to the ancient **** theory.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, for example, suggests that the Holy Grail arrived from the stars.
And the question is, what did he mean by that? It is often described as this vessel that had blinking red lights.
Were the Templar in possession of some technological device? Could the Holy Grail really be an ancient link between Jesus and some spiritual or otherworldly power? And might finding it provide proof of a link between ourselves and an extraterrestrial origin? If so, might this mysterious church, like others so-called.
"Temples of Gold" in Peru Egypt and France contain treasure far more valuable than mere monetary wealth? Whether we are in Rosslyn Chapel, whether we are in Rennes-Le-Château, we always go back underneath the earth, where there might not just be spiritual treasure to be found, but also physical treasure.
Gold has been one of the most important quests of all ancient and sacred traditions.
Gold symbolizes wealth.
It symbolizes power.
But ultimately, gold represents our connection with the stars.
Cultures all over the world value gold more than anything else, and it seems that they knew something about gold that we are yet to discover.
Could gold actually be the ultimate link between humans and otherworldly beings.
A tangible connection to extraterrestrial ancestors that came to Earth thousands of years ago? Perhaps.
But if the search for gold really is one of the reasons why ancient aliens traveled to the third planet from the sun, one more question remains: Will they return for more?
Dozens of people have risked their lives trying to find where Paititi is.
Treasures hidden deep underwater.
The local people have told me not simply that the ships fly over the lake, but they actually enter the lake.
And secret chambers buried under the great Egyptian Sphinx.
Gold was the flesh of the gods.
Egypt had probably the best supply of gold anywhere in the ancient world.
Since the dawn of time, humans have been obsessed with legends of hidden gold.
But what if our desire for this precious metal is about something more than riches? It almost seems as if we're genetically programmed to love gold.
Ultimately, gold represents our connection with the stars.
A number of researchers have suggested that ancient aliens have come to Earth primarily to mine gold.
Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true? Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? And if so, might they have come here in search of gold? Lake Guanavita, Colombia.
Believed to be the site of an ancient meteor crater, this circular-shaped mountain lake is at the center of one of mankind's greatest searches the search for El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold.
Since the 16th century, El Dorado has been the "Holy Grail" for fortune hunters.
Legends abound about a place full of untold riches somewhere in South America.
Yet to this day, the mythical city remains undiscovered.
But if such a magnificent place does exist, how has it eluded explorers for centuries? Some believe the answer lies within this mysterious lake.
The story of El Dorado developed from the Lake Guatavita that was within the territory of the Muisca or the Chicha people which was a chiefdom.
Not quite as high civilization as Incas or as the Aztecs, but chiefdom with civilization itself that had a lot of gold.
The ruler in the southern half of the Muisca territory was known as the Zipa, but the Conquistadores who arrived there in the 16th century called him El Dorado, Spanish for "The Golden One.
" They gave him this name after observing the Muisca's most sacred ritual.
The Zipa would float out on a royal barge to float out on a royal barge to the middle of Lake Guatavita to make offerings of gold to a god believed to live at the bottom of the lake.
It was said that the chief, adorned with resin and then adorned with gold dust, would jump into the water in order to wash the gold dust off, and then this gold would accumulate in that lake, and that golden objects as sacrifices would be thrown into that particular lake.
And from that came the belief of El Dorado around Colombia.
In 1912 an excavation of Lake Guatavita was led by British engineer Hartley Knowles.
Knowles reported that he had recovered around $20,000 worth of treasure including golden artifacts.
But he also believed much more lay beneath the hardened lake bed.
Could Knowles find be evidence that the story of the Muisca chief is based on truth? If so, just who or what was the so-called god who dwelled at the bottom of the lake? A number of researchers have suggested that ancient aliens have come to Earth primarily to mine gold.
Zecharia Sitchin suggested that these extraterrestrials needed gold to spend it in the atmosphere and preserve their planet.
Is gold something that is really important to space exploration and to astronomy? Well, it actually is, very important and the reason why is because gold is an innert material.
It doesn't react with anything.
The other thing that's very important about it is that it is a wonderful conductor of electricity.
And last but not least is the fact that gold is a perfect reflector of infrared energy.
You can use gold blankets to protect spacecraft against the the intense heat of a star or any sort of heat source.
Gold is a very rare and valuable element throughout the universe.
Aliens coming to Earth searching for gold.
Could such a thing be possible? According to ancient astronaut theorists, it is not only possible, but they claim the proof exists in the numerous texts and legends of the ancient world.
Like that of the legendary Incan city of Paititi, thought to be located near the southeastern area of Peru.
The Conquistadors became obsessed with finding this mysterious city of gold that they heard was in the jungles of Eastern Peru somewhere.
They called it Paititi, the Golden City.
Stories of Paititi and El Dorado ultimately led to the exploration of the Amazon jungles.
El Dorado and Paititi are frequently confused.
I see El Dorado as being that particular gold-producing site that was in northern South America, and Paititi having been another civilization contemporaneous with the Incas in the area of Peru, Bolivia, that has yet to be definitively found.
And that's what part of my quest has been over these last 25 years.
Since 1984, American explorer Gregory.
Deyermenjian and his Peruvian counterpart, Paulino Mamani have staged more than 15 expeditions in search of this mythical city of gold.
There is an Incan road of stone leading towards what is supposed to be, as legend would have it, Paititi that's what we've been following.
They say that Pachamama, the earth goddess, covers these areas with such difficulty the moss, the jungle, the rivers that some things could be hidden here forever.
Their search began in Cuzco at the Incan holy place of Coricancha, which means, "Golden Courtyard".
In 1559, Spanish Conquistadores tore down Coricancha to construct the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, and it still sits in the center of Cuzco today, surrounded by the ruins of the ancient Incan temple.
The cathedral features an enormous altar covered in gold.
But according to the records of the Conquistadors, it pales in comparison to the magnificent Coricancha, which was not only filled with gold statues but was also covered in sheets of solid gold.
Gold was important with the Inca, because it was the sweat of the Sun.
The Sun was the highest deity of the Inca and therefore the sweat of the Sun represented the most sacred possession imaginable.
Ancient astronaut theorists believe a golden sun idol called the Punchal that once resided in Coricancha may provide evidence that extraterrestrials had contact with the Inca.
Coricancha was famous for it's gigantic golden disc that the ancient Inca worshiped.
That was a symbol of a giant golden disc that allegedly landed from the sky in front of the Inca ruler Atahualpa.
And he had direct contact according to legends with the sky gods.
Could the giant golden disc that once resided inside Coricancha have been made to honor an alien visitor? And if extraterrestrials did come to mine gold, might this also provide evidence that Paititi is nearby? In 1533 the Spanish overtook the city of Cuzco and plundered the temple of Coricancha in search of Incan gold.
But according to local legend, the gold had already been moved deposited at the bottom of a nearby lake.
Before the entire group of Spanish were able to get into Cuzco, the priests found out about it and they had all of the gold from all of the temples brought up to Lake Puray and thrown into the center.
None of it has been found, to this day.
The amount of gold at today's prices would be in the billions.
Perhaps even more mysterious are the frequent reports of unusual sightings in the skies over the area sightings that have been reported for hundreds of years.
The local people of this area have told me not simply that the ships fly over the lake, but they actually enter the lake.
The stories go that there's a little vortex that opens up just about the size of the spaceship, perhaps 20 feet across.
The spaceship enters the lake, the vortex closes.
Later the vortex opens and the ship leaves again.
If, as the local inhabitants claim, strange possibly alien spacecraft really do come to this area, might there be a connection between the visitations and the legends of gold hidden at the bottom of Lake Puray? Dozens of people have risked their lives, in some cases actually have died, trying to find where Paititi is.
You have the standard treasure hunt which just goes for the monetary value.
You have certain people who go to it because they know that that name will be immortalized forever after.
But you also have people who go in search of this because they know that if you find a treasure you will literally prove that a legend is factual.
Perhaps the greater mystery is not if or where the mythical cities of El Dorado and Paititi may be discovered but what might be revealed once they are found.
Tokyo lmperial University, March 1924.
In an early experiment with nuclear energy, Professor Hantaro Nagaoka directs at a mercury isotope under a dielectric layer of paraffin oil for four hours.
The purpose to strike out a hydrogen proton from the nucleus of the mercury and produce a new element gold.
The experiment is a success.
Professor Nagaoka has solved a mystery that has eluded scientists for centuries the mystery of the philosopher's stone.
The philosopher's stone was a ** you could have a magic kind of material that would turn, led or some very unexpensive metal into gold.
The thought that one could do that is attractive in and of itself.
For thousands of years, kings sought out this mythical device one that could create gold out of common metal.
Scientists and alchemists spent centuries trying to invent one.
Even Sir Isaac Newton obsessed over the mystery of the philosopher's stone in the 17th century, although the English Crown, fearing the potential devaluation of gold, had made the practice of alchemy punishable by death.
By the time of Professor Nagaoka's experiment in 1924, most of the scientific community had declared the process of producing gold from another metal impossible.
But that quickly changed once they knew where to look.
The secret of alchemy lies in the stars.
When you think about how gold's made, naturally gold is formed basically in the nuclear reactions in the sun.
And then is spread through the universe when a supernova occurs and the sun explodes and sends all of the products out.
Because we now can do controlled nuclear reactions, we have the ability, finally, to essentially manufacture gold from other elements.
Here, at the University of California, lrvine, Dr.
A.
J.
Shaka conducts experiments in alchemy nearly every day.
We put mercury into one of these tubes, and mercury has a minor isotope of .
15% mercury 196 it's called and that isotope will actually pick up a neutron and, in about To bring the reactor to full capacity, Dr.
Shaka removes the control rods that absorb neutrons and keep them from reacting with other atoms.
This generates power at a staggering rate.
In terms of the amount of power, including electrical energy, that you can generate from a given mass of material, nuclear is about ten to 20 million times better than anything else.
After 24 hours, the experiment has been a success and yields gold, a real-life philosopher's stone at work in the basement of a small university building.
The discovery of alchemy has been invaluable to science, but ironically it has not produced untold riches.
If you irradiate for about a day in our reactor, you make three-tenths of a cent worth of gold.
Since we charge $200 an hour to operate the reactor, you're pretty far in the hole.
But while modern-day alchemy is considered far too inefficient to create vast new caches of gold, ancient astronaut theorists believe a much greater technology than our our own may have been at work thousands of years ago, in ancient Egypt.
Another place where gold was linked to the gods.
The idea of gold being some sort of divine metal, divine element is very much in grain in the ancient Egyptian system of belief.
Gold was the flesh of the gods.
So therefore very great significance.
Egypt had probably the best supply of gold anywhere in the ancient world.
And we find that in some of the letters which survived between kings of Babylon, Assyria and others and Egypt, a lot of them are begging letters, basically saying to the Egyptian king, you you know, "Oh, my brother, the pharaoh, please send me gold, lots of gold, because gold is as dust in the land of my brother, the pharaoh.
" But just how did gold come to be so much more abundant in ancient Egypt than in neighboring lands? And why did the Egyptians view the metal as something not of this world? According to ancient astronaut theorists, it is entirely possible that the Egyptians were capable of actually manufacturing gold and may have received otherworldly help to do so.
If alchemical transmutations can be performed in a modest facility like the one at the University of California, lrvine, what might be possible with a larger reactor? A reactor, perhaps, the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Christopher Dunne has suggested that the Giza pyramid is some kind of giant machine and some kind of chemical reaction was taking place inside the pyramid.
It's possible that the Giza pyramid was actually being used to transmute other elements into gold.
Looking into the blueprints of the internal arrangements, passageways, chambers and shafts, the appearance of it to me did not resemble anything that would be used as a tomb.
The precision with which it was built, the precision of the stones that go into building, the queen's chamber, the grand gallery, and then, also, thousands and thousands of tons of granite that were brought down the Nile These are the features that really shout out and say: There's something going on here, there's something different.
It was built like a machine, perhaps it functioned like a machine.
Could it be that the Great Pyramid was the original philosopher's stone? If so, how could an ancient civilization have constructed the equivalent of a nuclear reactor? Might the centuries-old search for the philosopher's stone represent more than just a desire for gold and riches? Could it represent as ancient astronaut theorists suggest the search for lost technology? Perhaps the key to that knowledge still lies hidden somewhere here on Earth and can be found in areas still containing vast amounts of hidden treasure.
The Giza Plateau, Egypt.
For more than 3,000 years, the body of the Great Sphinx had been buried beneath the sand.
But after 11 years of work, Egyptian archaeologists uncover the entire monument for the first time since antiquity.
At 241 feet long and 66 feet high, it is the largest and oldest monolithic statue in the world.
Even more incredible is it's shape.
The Sphinx has the head of a man and the body of a lion.
Although egyptologists date the construction of The Great Sphinx to the reign of the Pharaoh Khafra, in approximately 2500 B.
C.
Others claim its construction could be much, much older.
The orthodox date about 2500 BC tagged on these monuments, has been challenged by a group of researchers including myself.
would argue that the erosion in the Sphinx suggest much, much older Sphinx.
Although egyptologists have found no agreement as to when or why the strange monument was built.
Ancient astronaut theorists believe it may over prove of extraterrestrials being present in ancient Egypt.
We see in many ancient Sumerian and Egyptian inscriptions of sphinxes half man, half animal of some kind and it varies to a degree of different combinations of animals and human beings.
We have to wonder why would they be doing this and logically it starts to make more sense when we realize a lot of these ancient techs, explain that extraterrestrials came here and created those in their image and after their likeness.
If you believe the work of the late Zecharia Sitchin where he believes that the Anunnaki, came from a planet that is somewhere out in our Solar system and that they came here to mine for gold.
But they figured they are not gonna do the work by themselves.
So they decided to take what creatures were on this planet at that time genetically altered them and make mankind.
If that is the case, it is very possible that they are using genetic alterations, to experiment with, not only just humanity but a mixing of other species with humanity.
Could the Great Sphinx be the evidence of genetic engineering by ancient aliens? And if as Zecharia Sitchin proposed extraterrestrials were genetically altering humans and animals for the purpose of mining gold.
Might this enormous structure have at one point been repository for that gold? Is it possible that when Egyptian archeologists began excavating the Great Sphinx what they were really searching for was gold? Over the centuries, secret chambers, shafts and elaborate tunnel systems, have indeed been discovered all around the Giza Plateau.
A shaft was discovered, called the Osirian Shaft which led under the Giza Plateau behind the Sphinx.
Now, in that shaft there are various passageways, that lead seemingly nowhere.
In recent years, ground-penetrating radar, or GPR scans have been conducted which reveals evidence of numerous underground cavities located not only around the Sphinx but underneath it as well.
From a scientific point of view, a lot here about speculation and theories, and legends and so forth, there was a very first time that there's some strong indication that there might be these hidden tunnels and chambers under the Sphinx.
And according to this, they found very strong evidence of what looks like artificial chambers.
It is not a question as to whether or not, there is a secret underground passage underneath the Giza Plateau.
The question is can we get access to this, and of course a more important question is if there is something of extraordinary value or even something which defies science which may even be of an extraterrestrial nature.
If the alleged cavities under the sphinx contain not only gold, but gold mined by ancient alien beings might it also contain something even more than just material treasure.
Ancient astronauts theories believe an elaborate secret depository is located under the Sphinx's paws known as the Hall of Records.
It dates back to the fall of Atlantis, which according to ancient texts, it's said to have occurred nearly 12,000 years ago.
They also claim that there were extraterrestrials living in Atlantis.
and they needed a repository to house all their accumulated knowledge.
The Hall of Record was made by us but with the tools, the knowledge of extraterrestrials.
It is speculated that a group of survivors of Atlantis, came to Egypt at about 10,500 BC brought along with their records, their knowledge and built this storeroom somewhere at Giza.
If archeologists do some day unearth secret chambers below the Sphinx, what will they find? Gold, a library of ancient extraterrestrial knowledge or might they perhaps find both.
My personal view is that it would be loaded with gold technology, technology that once belonged to the Gods that will help us answer who built the pyramids, how they built it and likely there's a portal, or gateway that leads us to the stars within this Hall of Records.
If the Hall of Records really does exist, is it possible that it contains is it possible that it contains extra-terrestrial knowledge not on ancient ***, but stored on gold? Gold is a pretty amazing metal.
Gold is one of the best conductors of electricity we have which is obviously very important in electronic applications, Not you only need a really good conductor, but you need one that won't corrode.
And so gold when you really really need high-quality, long-lasting, good electronics, it's really the choice that you would make.
Is the ancient knowledge, not only stored with gold but stored on gold, really the mysterious secret of this precious metal? Perhaps the answer lies hidden 18,000 miles away deep beneath the church in Rennes-Le-Château, France.
The village of Rennes-Le-Château, France January 29th, 1953 Marie Dénarnaud, a frail 85-year-old woman, lies on her deathbed promising to divulge a long held secret about a vast treasure.
But a recent stroke has left her unable to speak or write and her secret dies with her.
Before Marie's death, she had promised to tell someone the secret.
I will tell you the secret, and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams.
And what she said was the people of this village walk on enough gold to make you wealthy for a 100 years and they have no idea.
And the secret, she was never able to speak it after she had her stroke.
So what was Marie talking about? Legends of a vast gold treasure hidden at Renne-le-chateau date all the way back to the 5th century, when after sacking Rome, in 410 AD.
Germanic warriors known as the Visigoths made their way to the area with all the stolen treasure they could carry.
But when they abandoned the region, some 200 years later they reportedly left some of their ill-gotten wealth behind.
The Visigoths were known to have buried treasure with their dead.
So when Rennes-Le-Château became significant because of that idea that there might be gold buried there.
For hundreds of years, the rumors of buried treasure persisted although no tangible evidence of it was ever found.
But then in 1891, a young parish priest named Bérenger Saunière, was restoring the local church when according to popular legend, he discovered something that turned him into an extremely wealthy man almost over night.
This wealth that he had was part of a vast golden treasure that was kept underground in this church in a weird series of catacombs.
These catacombs of Rennes-Le-Château were ancient.
They had been there long before the church had been built.
And here's an area that *** of these caves that were used by the Visigoths.
I lived here 16 years and we know here's a tunnel under this garden.
It comes along this way from the castle until to the church, and it runs this, in this way There have been people who have been coming here since the 1950s in search of gold, and some have found it.
The question is whether finding gold is everything there is to this mystery or whether it's just the first step along many steps to go before we actually uncover the real mystery of Rennes-Le-Château.
Although Father Saunière claimed to have come upon this vast wealth by chance, many believe he actively searched for the Visigoth gold.
And that much more still lies hidden in the catacombs beneath the church.
But even more mysterious than the priest's possible discovery of gold was his strange behavior afterwards, a behavior that became reflected in the design of the church itself.
Bérenger Saunière is a guy who goes in search of ancient documents, who goes in search of certain specific knowledge in alchemical circles.
So what we have found in a lot of other alchemical processes is the importance of gold.
What happens next is that he begins to build a church.
He builds it according to a plan.
This plan is to make contact with the divine, and so I think.
Saunière realized that certain metals could be transformed into something which truly made it a spiritual experience.
Might the golden treasure Father Saunière supposedly unearthed have contained more than just monetary value? Could it have held some otherworldly knowledge? The priest confided in only one other person as to the origin of this mysterious wealth, his housekeeper Marie Dénarnaud.
But what was the secret that they shared? Ancient astronaut theorists believe a clue may lie in the inscription found over the door of the church.
Bérenger Saunière placed an inscription over the door that people have been talking about for 100 years.
The inscription says "Terribilis est locus iste.
" It's mistakenly translated most often as "This place is terrible" but, in fact, the inscription comes from the Old Testament, from the Book of Genesis.
Jacob has a dream about a ladder that connects Heaven to Earth, where humans could connect to the divine.
So when you look at the Old Testament translation, what it really says is "This place is awesome".
Is this inscription from the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible a reference to something divine, or might it point to an extraterrestrial connection? I believe Rennes-Le-Château could be a stargate to another world.
This is based on the inscription placed above the entrance to the church by Bérenger Saunière.
Why would this priest put this inscription there unless he is indicating that is awesome and tremendously powerful place.
Rennes-Le-Château is a gateway to the stars? Rennes-Le-Château, to me, is one of the spookiest and most powerful places I've ever been.
The ground there is oozing mystery.
We know that people have said that Rennes-Le-Château is a place for UFOs.
We know people have reported time slips.
And people have said that they have had encounters with the Devil.
So there is definitely something about that area which suggests that, for centuries, very strange and bizarre things happened.
Could this tiny village be a gateway to an extraterrestrial past or even another dimension? Perhaps the answer lies buried with Marie Dénarnaud.
Or, as some believe, the secrets of Rennes-Le-Château might still be revealed.
And the answer may lie not in France but just to the north, in Scotland.
Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland.
Perched atop a hill overlooking the village of Roslin, seven miles south of Edinburgh, sits this medieval 15th century church.
Some say that, hidden on the grounds, in secret chambers within the church, are some of the world's greatest lost relics.
Including the treasure of the Knights Templar.
This elite band of warrior monks had been based at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Christian Crusades.
They were also rumored to have been in possession of many valuable religious artifacts including the most valuable golden relic of all the Holy Grail the cup used by Jesus during the Last Supper.
The Knights Templar began excavating at Solomon's Temple.
They said that they discovered secret caverns which held a huge horde of gold artifacts.
At the time of the sacking of the Solomon's temple, the treasure there suddenly vanished.
They then took this treasure to Scotland and buried it at Rosslyn Chapel.
Rosslyn Chapel is one of the most fascinating possible recreations of Solomon's Temple.
It literally is a Holy Grail temple, that was constructed by William Sinclair and it is designed to be a repository of Holy Grail secrets.
When it was created it had the most wonderful and fantastic symbolism perhaps anywhere in the world.
Could Rosslyn Chapel really been built to house the Holy Grail? Some believe the architecture of the Chapel is adorned with mysterious messages and symbols that reveal the secret whereabouts of the cup of Christ.
And here we are, this is Rosslyn Chapel.
William Sinclair was responsible for building the Chapel.
He was a very rich individual, he was the Chancellor of Scotland at the time.
We see these extraordinarily gifted brilliant men collecting the wisdom traditions from around the world and stealing all of those into Rosslyn Chapel.
Among the many carvings found in the walls of Rosslyn Chapel are faces called, "The Green Men", pagan deities that represent growth and rebirth.
Some believe these strange faces provide a clue that the chapel truly does hold the Holy Grail.
The carvings themselves have a dual meaning; they always have had a dual meaning.
The Green Man appears in over 110 different locations.
As you watch the progression of the Green Man from east to west, that progression represents the passing of time.
So all the youngest of all the Green Man carvings are on the eastern wall, and towards the west they become older.
This symbolizes the ultimate secrets of nature, and it makes one wonder if, in fact, the Grail is connected with these secrets and the presence of the Green Man in this Holy Grail chapel.
But if the Holy Grail truly does reside in Rosslyn Chapel, where might it be hidden? Some believe it lies within an ornate pillar called the Apprentice Pillar, and at least one person has actually attempted to retrieve it.
We actually have a story which is known to be factual a person came into the Chapel, with an ax who was going to be intend on hacking down the Apprentice Pillar because he was convinced that the Grail was actually inside.
What is the Grail? What it *** to say is the Grail is your DNA.
Because it's your past and it's your future.
And a very interesting thing is when you look at that Pillar you see that it is actually the DNA form.
Might all these mysterious carvings that have been linked to the Holy Grail indicate that the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper was something more than just a drinking vessel? The whole story is very fascinating to the ancient **** theory.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, for example, suggests that the Holy Grail arrived from the stars.
And the question is, what did he mean by that? It is often described as this vessel that had blinking red lights.
Were the Templar in possession of some technological device? Could the Holy Grail really be an ancient link between Jesus and some spiritual or otherworldly power? And might finding it provide proof of a link between ourselves and an extraterrestrial origin? If so, might this mysterious church, like others so-called.
"Temples of Gold" in Peru Egypt and France contain treasure far more valuable than mere monetary wealth? Whether we are in Rosslyn Chapel, whether we are in Rennes-Le-Château, we always go back underneath the earth, where there might not just be spiritual treasure to be found, but also physical treasure.
Gold has been one of the most important quests of all ancient and sacred traditions.
Gold symbolizes wealth.
It symbolizes power.
But ultimately, gold represents our connection with the stars.
Cultures all over the world value gold more than anything else, and it seems that they knew something about gold that we are yet to discover.
Could gold actually be the ultimate link between humans and otherworldly beings.
A tangible connection to extraterrestrial ancestors that came to Earth thousands of years ago? Perhaps.
But if the search for gold really is one of the reasons why ancient aliens traveled to the third planet from the sun, one more question remains: Will they return for more?