Ancient Aliens s09e04 Episode Script

A vision that changed our understanding of the universe.
The periodic table itself came to Mendeleyev in a dream.
A mysterious voice behind the world's first code of laws.
The Code of Hammurabi comes from a very advanced point of origin.
And an inspiration that strikes two inventors at the same time.
It has been suggested that maybe it is somehow physically in the air.
Throughout history, many of the world's greatest thinkers have credited their genius to otherworldly sources.
But could there really be an unseen force behind these incredible minds a force with extraterrestrial origins? These people are being influenced by higher beings who are guiding humankind.
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 be the inspiring force behind the world's greatest geniuses? Tacoma, Washington, 2002.
As he walks out of a karaoke bar, brutally mugged by two men, and knocked unconscious.
When he finally wakes up, doctors tell him he's lucky to have escaped the beating with just a bruised kidney and a concussion.
But in the coming days, Jason starts to see the world in a whole new way.
Jason Padgett was not a professional mathematician.
He had studied math a little bit when he was younger, like most of us did.
And he never really had a great interest in math.
But after he was beaten, he would see mathematical equations everywhere he looked and he would really find it beautiful.
He had developed something called synesthesia where he sort of saw the world in these fractal images and then became really interested in that phenomena and then started discovering mathematics.
He would see the Pythagorean theorem in objects that most of us don't notice or don't ever see those things.
He found them so beautiful that he decided to capture them in some sort of visual representation, and he started drawing all of these things.
Jason becomes the only person in the world with the extraordinary ability to hand-draw complex fractal shapes.
Scientists say that what may have happened is that the traumatic brain injury he suffered randomly re-wired Jason's neural network, bringing out genius-like abilities in some areas.
When a person has traumatic brain injury, it's going to be a shock to the brain to the way that it's wired.
Presumably in the incidents of a traumatic brain injury, your brain is, uh, repairing itself to a certain extent or sort of compensating for damage by potentially sort of re-routing neural circuits.
Jason Padgett's story, while incredible, is not entirely unique.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Derek Amato hit his head in a pool, and it transformed him into a talented pianist, even though he'd never played in his life.
In Massachusetts, 35-year-old Jon Sarkin suffered a stroke after surgery and became a world famous artist.
And after epileptic seizures, Daniel Tammet became a mathematical and linguistic genius, able to see the results of complex calculations and even learn a foreign language in a matter of days.
But if traumatic head injuries can endow a normal person with genius-like abilities, what might that tell us about the nature of genius? Genius is by definition a very rare, rare event.
There are very few geniuses in every generation that have fundamentally changed the way that we operate in this world.
And we'll never get a full, complete understanding of genius just by looking at the brain.
Is it possible that a blow to the head can unlock something in the brain that makes it more receptive to ideas, concepts, and an actual architecture of the universe that is normally reserved for geniuses? And if so, might this provide insight into why a handful of great thinkers in every generation with names like Einstein, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Confucius and Plato seem to be responsible for so many of the visionary ideas that have formed the fabric of our society for thousands of years? Modern science is still grasping for answers, as freak occurrences such as Jason Padgett's contradict the traditional view that brilliance is the result of good genes and hard work.
There is an inherited aspect to genius, and, and and we we know that from, we can name lots of, um, people who have come from famous families.
Like the Bacon family had a lot of famous scientists, the Darwin family.
So, there are a lot of geniuses where it's inherited.
All across history, you see some very similar characteristics among the people we tend to call geniuses.
One, geniuses tend to persevere against lots of odds.
Lots of them have had lots of handicaps when they were younger, maybe that even fueled them to want to achieve higher heights of creativity.
But they have this great ability to bounce back and continue persevering along their goals.
The 20th century's quintessential genius Albert Einstein is said to have perfectly embodied these characteristics.
His motivation and boundless curiosity were legendary, but his physical brain also had some extraordinary qualities that may have allowed for a more profound level of thinking.
Albert Einstein's brain when he died in 1955 was actually kept in formaldehyde for about 50 years and wasn't really deeply analyzed until more recently.
One of the things that they found was that he has a thicker corpus callosum.
And that's the band of fibers that connects the left and the right hemisphere.
Scientists believe the corpus callosum helps different parts of the brain communicate and aids in both creativity and higher thinking.
But are the physical characteristics of the brain the only factor in determining a person's intelligence? Ancient astronaut theorists believe there may be an even more profound reason.
When we look at the human brain, we wonder if we really have the neurological brain power to to really be such geniuses and and think of all of these amazing inventions and and, in some cases, just envision them in in their totality all at once.
So, some scientists have speculated that what these geniuses are doing is is tapping into ideas that are coming from outside of them.
Do geniuses have an access to another level of consciousness where some of their ideas are being sent to them? Or they have the capability of downloading it during their dreams? These are the great questions of humankind, of the universe.
Is it possible that there is something much more important going on with consciousness than the physical brain? It's a compelling possibility that reveals deeper truths about the nature of what it means to be human and whether, in fact, there is some greater organized effort being made to steer human knowledge towards a desired outcome.
Is it possible that genius comes not entirely from within the brain, but also from some force outside the body? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest the evidence for this can be found by examining the world's earliest geniuses and what they claimed was the true source of their inspiration.
The Louvre.
Paris, France.
This historic museum houses perhaps the most significant legal text in the ancient world.
This stele features the Babylonian god Shamash talking to King Hammurabi, and below them, carved in cuneiform text, are the laws they gave to their people.
It is called the Code of Hammurabi.
Hammurabi, without a doubt, was one of the great geniuses of the ancient world, and of course, he's famous, not just for being the ruler of ancient Babylonia, but for coming up with what is called the Code of Hammurabi, which was the first written legal record.
It's a primitive document, compared to what we have now, but he had a whole system of order and how taxes were collected and various civil principles and the rather famous punishment an eye for an eye, which has been modified over the years, but that he had a system.
The Code of Hammurabi begins with a prologue, in which the king boasts of his great deeds, but he also writes that the code itself was dictated to him by the Babylonian god Shamash.
The great King Hammurabi went into a trance, and God began dictating this incredible document and channeling it through the great King Hammurabi, who was speaking it in a voice very unlike his own, language unlike his own.
It's all coming from God.
And when Hammurabi wakes up from his trance, the scribes read it back to him, and he has no memory of dictating it.
It all came from God, and it is brilliant.
An important part is that Hammurabi did not claim authorship.
He knew this was not of his making, of his intelligence.
The system of law that comes through the Code of Hammurabi is so intrinsic to the basic moral understandings of how to run a society that much of it is still preserved in some form in our modern day legal system.
This suggests that the Code of Hammurabi comes from a very advanced point of origin.
The story behind the Code of Hammurabi is not unique.
In the ancient world, moments of genius, including basic religious beliefs and scientific principles from Greece and Rome to India and China were often said to have been inspired by divine voices.
Think about it: Moses, Abraham, Noah, the prophets, Jesus.
A lot of the laws, the rules, the customs, the traditions that we have are based upon individuals claiming to have been told something by a deity.
And it's not just the Judeo-Christian tradition.
I would argue that in every culture, you've got a lot of laws that are essentially traced back to people claiming to have been told something by a being who's not of this world.
Is it possible that the course of human civilization has been determined not by history's most profound thinkers, but by some external force that was guiding them? The ancients were convinced they knew the answer.
In fact, the Latin word "genius" is where the term "genie", or supernatural creature, comes from.
In the ancient world, the idea of genius had much more autonomy than our modern view.
The genii, which had a life of its own, a kind of spiritual demon, entered you.
You had a relationship with the genii, and it was really the source of the brilliance.
You were a channel, you were a host, you were involved, but it was not as personal and the ownership wasn't as great.
The Greeks believed that they were inspired by the muses.
So what caused a musician to come up with a new tune? What caused a writer to come up with a new story? It was the spirit of a muse that went inside the person and caused that person to become creative and we see that in the word "inspire", in spirit.
When we are inspired, we are filled with spirit.
And we create those things.
In Alexandria, Egyptians founded what would become the greatest library in the ancient world by erecting a temple to the muses and asking them to fill their library with wisdom.
When we say that "I'm looking for my muse," you are looking for the key with which to unlock this kingdom of creativity that resides within each and every living being.
Is it possible, by reaching this altered state of consciousness, to come in contact with beings or with entities that are of those different realms? I think that this is possible.
Could it be that the forces of inspiration that the ancients attributed to the gods really did emanate from an otherworldly source, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest? In the ancient world, it was really believed that people were influenced from outside to have special thoughts, to have special inspiration and genius-type ideas, and it was coming from outside of you.
So you have to wonder if these ideas aren't possibly some kind of thoughts that are being projected into your mind, possibly by extraterrestrials.
Perhaps behind all of this is a belief that people were directly influenced by extraterrestrial beings who gave them immense inspiration or profound knowledge that then they were able to share with others.
Is it possible that the geniuses of the ancient world, and even those among us today, receive their inspiration from otherworldly forces? Perhaps further evidence can be found by exploring Hindu teachings that say wisdom can often come to us in our dreams.
Madras, India.
In the first decade of the 20th century, Srinivasa Ramanujan a young mathematician with no formal training repeatedly stuns the academic world with innovative theorems.
Even some of the world's leading mathematicians are confounded by his remarkable formulas.
But just as astounding as Ramanujan's work is the fact that these formulas came to him in dreams.
He claimed that a goddess, a Hindu goddess known as Namagiri transmitted these theorems to him.
These theorems came to be known as modular functions, and still to this day, they are the most advanced form of mathematics that is used by physicists dealing with relativity and quantum mechanics.
How could someone without any background in mathematics see such complicated theorems in dreams? Does Ramanujan's story reveal how humanity can access knowledge outside the brain? So it really raises, I think, the interesting question as we explore consciousness more from a scientific point of view, and understand it better what types of connections and communications are occurring on the more cosmic scale? So "what other connections exist" "out there?" I think is a very interesting question to explore.
The people who have these inspirations, it's not like they were deriving it.
It comes from the unconscious.
The unconscious is still a great mystery, you know? Is it just our unconscious? Or is it the collective unconscious? Could true genius be the product of a universal mind or collective unconsciousness? Ancient Hindus believed such a repository of knowledge actually exists a universal force that includes every thought, action, emotion or experience that any person ever had or ever will have.
Westerners later named it the Akashic Record.
This is a Sanskrit word, it means "sky.
" It's something that can be accessed through your mind, through your brain power, through your spiritual wavelength.
Having access to that information which is there, that is not written, but it somehow you have to be able to be in tune with that frequency in order to obtain that.
Could it be that the common talent all geniuses possess is actually an ability to access the wisdom of the Akashic Record or universal mind? And if so, have other modern geniuses acquired knowledge from an otherworldly realm? Einstein received the inspiration for his groundbreaking theory of relativity in a dream.
Friedrich August Kekulé discovered the elusive shape of the benzene molecule during a daydream in which he saw a snake chasing its tail.
And the brilliant Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev literally dreamed up the Periodic Table of the Elements.
He, in this dream, saw exactly where all of the elements lined up.
The periodic table itself came in a dream.
Just fully formed.
After coming out of the dream, he quickly drew them all down.
And it's still the same that we use today.
Is it possible that a universal mind has bestowed genius on certain individuals throughout history? And might there be scientific evidence of this phenomenon? At the Mind Research Network at the University of New Mexico, neuropsychologist Rex Jung uses a magnetoencephalography or MEG machine to measure the brainwave activity of a test subject.
Dr.
Jung believes this test may show how creative inspiration strikes the brain.
Okay, Andre, you ready to begin? We have three tasks that we're going to run with Andre.
The first one is vocabulary, second one is paper folding and the third one is inductive reasoning.
Andre, I want you to clench your jaw now.
As the test subject performs these everyday tasks, the MEG machine measures normal brain activity.
Andre, now move your eyes back and forth.
But then Jung has the test subject clear his mind.
Andre, can you close your eyes and relax your brain for a moment, please? As the subject relaxes his mind, his brain activity decreases.
But then, suddenly, the MEG machine detects something new: alpha waves.
Scientists say these brainwaves indicate the unconscious mind is working behind the scenes, outside our conscious thoughts.
The alpha wave have found to be associated with divergent thinking, the manifestation of creative cognition, and it's also associated with relaxing the brain and this is something very important, I think, to the manifestation of genius, this ability to, uh, think of new and useful ideas that haven't been thought of before.
Could alpha waves have been how Ramanujan, Einstein and Mendeleev received their flashes of brilliance? Or how the ancients could have channeled the gods' wisdom as they developed their civilization? If so, where does mainstream science believe these thoughts come from? That is, uh, the million-dollar question.
Uh, it's kind of like, uh, you know, what is consciousness? This is kind of a question that really stumps neuroscientists.
Ancient astronaut theorists believe it is possible that what appears to be divine or inspired brilliance that pops unexpectedly into the minds of geniuses could come not from the human mind, but from an extraterrestrial realm.
Overall, time after time, we're seeing a through line here suggesting that there is a deliberate interface with our minds that is steering the progress of human invention and human innovation according to a predefined script for a desired, targeted outcome.
So you have to ask yourself, are extraterrestrials somehow using this incredible volume of knowledge of the universal mind and then directing it to certain people at certain times when the time is right and, in a sense, uh, supervising the the education of certain people who are ready to receive this knowledge? If the Akashic Record actually exists, could extraterrestrials be using it to transmit knowledge intended to shape our civilization? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining breakthroughs in science and technology that are achieved by multiple people in separate locations simultaneously.
Washington, D.
C.
February 14, 1876.
A lawyer representing Alexander Graham Bell hand-delivers a patent application to the U.
S.
Patent Office for what Bell describes as a "harmonic telegraph" a device that can transmit vocal sounds.
However, Bell's is actually the second patent filed that same day for what later becomes known as the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell is generally credited with inventing the telephone.
It's interesting to note that a man named Elisha Gray seems to have invented a similar device right about the same time that Bell did.
Bell's invention involved speaking to one piece of equipment that was not connected to the part that allowed one to hear.
Gray's device involved those two pieces being connected and in fact, that's the way telephones work today.
How is it that two inventors came up with the same revolutionary idea at the exact same point in history? Such a patent had never been filed before anywhere in the world, and yet two are filed on the same day.
Could this be evidence that there really is an Akashic Record, a universal mind that certain people are able to tap into? Bell and Gray each charged that the other had stolen his ideas, but there is no dispute that both geniuses had been independently developing the concept of the telephone for years.
This amazing story is not unique.
In fact, independent simultaneous invention happens surprisingly often.
Throughout history, there's been this odd phenomenon of multiple people discovering the same thing at about the same time, even though they are separated and they don't know what the other person is doing.
In 1922, two Columbia University sociologists, William Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas, published an academic paper entitled, "Are Inventions Inevitable?" Their research found at least 148 instances of simultaneous inventions in which the creators knew little or nothing about their rivals' work.
You had Wallace and Darwin both independently coming up with evolution.
And you had, um, calculus, um, independently discovered as well.
There's multiple people who discovered oxygen.
There's multiple people who invented the periodic table.
It's a very surprisingly common phenomenon.
Ogburn and Thomas concluded that if the geniuses behind many inventions had died at birth, their discoveries would not have been lost to history.
Others would have made similar discoveries at about the same time.
We often have the expression that an idea that's about to be discovered is in the air.
Some concept, some experiment.
It's just sort of in the air.
Little bits and pieces are floating around and someone just has to bring all of that together to make the new discovery.
Now, it has been suggested that maybe it is somehow physically in the air.
There's some sort of information that the human mind can tap into to make something like this happen.
Is it possible that the collective knowledge of the universe what some call the Akashic Record is embedded in the energy that is all around us, and that those we call geniuses are the handful of individuals who have the greatest access to it? What's going on here? These are complex abstract thoughts.
We are not talking about something that you're just going to come up with at random.
Some would suggest that it's just a collective unconscious, that it's some sort of impersonal mind that we're all sharing that's doing this.
But there is also the interesting idea that there is a deliberate effect being enacted here.
That extraterrestrials are working through us to implant certain ideas and concepts, so that we fit onto a timeline of prescribed human evolution in which certain discoveries happen at certain times.
Could simultaneous inventions be more than coincidence, more than the fact that inventors are working from the same basic technology? And if so, are there otherworldly beings pulling the strings using the Akashic Record to reveal information to humanity's geniuses when it fits their timetable? So, it may be that as these academics and inventors are all working on similar problems and inventions, then suddenly, yeah, they all tune in simultaneously to that little bit of knowledge and piece of information that they're all missing and they all find it.
And it's all because they're tapping into this universal mind and tuning in at a time when it's just right and we've been taken right to that level and we're ready to pluck that little apple from the tree.
If extraterrestrials really are using the Akashic Record to transmit wisdom that is shaping the course of human civilization, what is their agenda? Ancient astronaut theorists believe the answer can be found by exploring one of the most important innovations of the 21st century.
San Francisco.
January 9, 2007.
Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.
At the annual Macworld Conference, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs introduces what will quickly become one of the most iconic inventions in modern history.
What we want to do is make a leap-frog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been and super easy to use.
And we are calling it iPhone.
With its sleek design and savvy marketing, the iPhone becomes a sensation, selling 500 million devices over the next seven years.
Along with the iPod, iMac and iPad, Jobs' genius revolutionizes modern society.
The inventions of Steve Jobs changed our lives in significant ways in that it made access to information seem easier, seem more straightforward, seem more doable for people who otherwise might say, "I don't know how to" work this thing.
" He took complex things, whether it's a computer, a telephone, and made it so ordinary people could figure it out and use it and change their lives.
But like Da Vinci, Tesla and Einstein before him, Jobs believed the inspiration for his groundbreaking inventions came to him because of something as profoundly simple as meditation.
The Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California's Los Padres National Forest is the oldest Japanese Buddhist Soto Zen monastery in the United States.
It was here, while deep in meditation, that Jobs thought he received much of the inspiration that transformed the modern world.
Steve Jobs encountered Buddhism in his early adult years and understood that contemplation for him was an important aspect.
Looking back on his life and seeing what he did, certainly turning inward, clearing the mind, a contemplative approach to things had a big impact for him.
Jobs believed Zen meditation allowed him to calm his thoughts so he could tap into a source of inspiration that existed outside his body.
As Jobs described it, "Your mind just slows down and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment.
You see so much more than you could see before.
" To me, I think what was really going on there is that he was really good at getting into the flow state of consciousness.
The flow state is an altered state of consciousness.
But it's that state of consciousness to where all time seems to recede into the background.
We seem to feel like we're one with what we're creating.
Is it possible that Steve Jobs' genius not only revolutionized our technology, but also gave humanity a blueprint for how the universal mind works and how we can attain enlightenment through it? With the iPhone, did Jobs unconsciously recreate on a smaller level what already exists in the universe a library of collective knowledge that every user is contributing to? And if so, could this technology be teaching us how to access that great repository of cosmic knowledge called the Akashic Record that some scientists are starting to believe may exist all around us? Consciousness itself may in fact, be a greater energetic existence that we are simply accessing much like going online.
You don't say that all the knowledge of the Internet is inside your smartphone.
But you access the Internet through your smartphone.
In much the same way, perhaps what we are calling the subconscious mind is actually our connection to a greater energetic domain in which the seeds of philosophy, the seeds of physics, the seeds of mathematics and the true nature of human existence itself are hidden away, waiting for those who are bright enough and adept enough to tap into these great cosmic mysteries.
There's so many psychologists and philosophers, cogno-scientists, neuroscientists, trying to answer the question, "Where do these thoughts exist?" Where do these ideas exist?" You can look at my brain and have some idea that I'm having thoughts, but you don't know what those thoughts are.
You can't explain the nature or the form of those thoughts.
It's hotly debated to what extent the mind and the brain are the same thing and trying to understand that rich inner stream of consciousness is one of the most exciting questions in the field of philosophy of mind today.
Is it possible that the brain acts as a receptor of cosmic intelligence, which exists outside our physical body? And if so, is this so-called universal mind shared with other beings throughout the universe? We have our brains and all of the the functioning there.
But our mind is is somewhere else, really.
Somewhere we can't really place.
So if our mind is really part of this universal mind, it seems very possible that we are being bombarded and infused by all kinds of extraterrestrial thoughts and we don't even know it.
But if we all are connected to this universal cache of knowledge and geniuses are simply those who've been allowed a greater glimpse, might extraterrestrials be guiding us towards the day when we will be fully enlightened? Ancient astronaut theorists suggest the answer may be revealed by examining a recent trend in human intelligence.
July 20, 1969.
Houston, you are go for landing, over.
Roger.
Understand.
Go for landing, 3,000 feet.
When Apollo 11's lunar lander touches down on the surface of the moon, humanity takes a giant leap forward into a new era.
It's one small step for a man.
One giant leap for mankind.
The genius of men like Werner von Braun and other scientists has propelled humans off planet Earth for the first time in recorded history.
The event marks the high point of a remarkable 150-year-long explosion of technological and scientific genius, the likes of which the world has never seen.
Starting early 1800s with the Industrial Revolution, the last two centuries have been the most extraordinary time in human history.
In technology, we've gone from steam power to electric engines to nuclear power systems.
In science, we've discovered things like electromagnetism, relativity, quantum mechanics.
In our daily lives, something as seemingly small as just the germ theory of Pasteur, antibiotics, anesthesia These are enormous changes in technology, in science, in just medicine, everyday life.
But scientists say what's developing just as fast as our technology is the intellectual capability of the human mind.
Studies reveal an astounding 30-point increase in the average IQ score over the last century.
Some scientists attribute this improvement to better education and nutrition, but others believe it may be due to the evolution of our consciousness and the ability to access our inner genius.
Human cognition is continually evolving, it's always changing.
Now, most of these changes are actually very subtle, very gradual.
However, there have been a few times when there have been major upgrades in human cognition.
But we might make the argument that the Information Revolution of the 20th century are leading to another upgrade in human cognition.
Could this curious increase in IQ be evidence that humanity is being slowly moved toward a new collective intelligence? Are we all gradually gaining greater access to the knowledge of the universe? If so, might we eventually be able to merge humanity's collective knowledge with this great galactic mind and, at that time, discover that extraterrestrials have been guiding us all along? Over the past 100 years, we have made strides, uh, leaps and bounds with, you know, advancements in technology and I think that the reason why UFO encounters and reports have increased is because any extraterrestrial society would have to be aware if a society reaches a certain level of technology.
You wonder, "Where's" all this taking us?" And the answer seems to be it's taking us to the level of the mind of the gods; that we are going to be thinking more like gods and having tremendous godlike ability as a result of tapping into this cosmic consciousness.
These extraterrestrials may very well be giving us the tools that we need to ensure that this evolution proceeds accordingly and help guide us through this mass quantum human evolution.
It would seem that, as mankind progresses step by step, and through more and more knowledge, much of it gained through the universal mind, that we will then eventually create a civilization that is so highly developed that we are ready to meet with the extraterrestrials face to face and interact with them as equals, which is what I believe they want us to do.
What inspires geniuses to great heights of creativity? Were the ancients right in thinking that something outside of the brain is responsible for brilliance? Can the root of all wisdom be found in the Akashic Record a universal mind that we are given access to by extraterrestrial beings? We may not discover the truth until the world's geniuses propel humanity to true enlightenment.
And perhaps only then will we be ready to reunite with our alien ancestors.