Ancient Aliens s09e06 Episode Script

Stories of immortality When he rose, it would be a body that would never die again.
The dead rising from their graves You can say, that to a certain extent zombies are real.
And first-person accounts of the afterlife The ancient Egyptians had a very deep soul technology.
Throughout history, there are tales of miraculous resurrections.
But are there people who have really returned from the dead? And if so, might they have had help from extraterrestrial beings? If you want to think of the technology that extraterrestrials might have, they could have the ability to resurrect the dead, if need be.
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 hold the secret to resurrection? Phoenix, Arizona.
Singer-songwriter Pam Reynolds is being rushed into surgery to repair a bulging arterial wall in her brain stem that is about to burst and kill her instantly.
The surgical team of 20 decides there is only one course of action: in order to save her life, they must first end it.
Pam Reynolds had a massive, um, aneurysm ready to to essentially rupture at any moment.
And so, physicians needed to reduce the pressure in those vessels so that they could work on them.
So they took her blood out of her body and cooled it slowly, so re-circulating.
What that does is it sort of tricks the body's cells into slowing down their metabolism and not realizing that they're lacking oxygen which, of course, buys physicians and emergency workers some time to go in and repair the the person's body while they're in this sort of hyper-cooled state where they're essentially not, um, alive.
For nearly an hour, Pam Reynolds lies on the operating table with her heart stopped, no blood pumping through her body, and no brainwave activity at all.
According to the traditional medical definition she is dead.
Five hours later, when doctors successfully finish their groundbreaking surgery, they slowly pump warm blood back into Reynolds' body.
Her heart starts to beat again and her brainstem begins responding to stimuli.
But when she regains consciousness, Reynolds tells a shocking story about a journey she says she made into the afterlife.
She remembers mingling with deceased relatives and angelic beings in a celestial netherworld a transcendent experience that ended only when doctors revived her.
Pam Reynolds' case, and other cases of resuscitation sort of call into question what it means to be alive.
We're sort of introducing new technologies that blur, I think, a little more the distinction of what does it mean to be dead.
If you want to use the term resurrection, I think it could be applied, in that case.
Does the resurrection of Pam Reynolds reveal evidence that human consciousness can exist beyond death? If so, could this mean that within each of us, there really is such a thing as an immortal soul? And might it even be identifiable by science? Two prestigious scientists have developed a theory that describes exactly how consciousness could continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function.
Oxford University's Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, from the University of Arizona, believe that quantum particles in the brain and nervous system could comprise what we call consciousness.
The theory is that there may actually be a real physical structure in your brain.
They're called microtubules, and they're small enough that all the weird quantum mechanical effects can occur.
These quantum mechanical effects may be what gives rise to consciousness.
But even after you die, that information isn't lost.
It still continues as a quantum mechanical state, and that may be what is giving rise to consciousness.
If Penrose and Hameroff are correct and our consciousness can exist after our physical body dies, does this explain why near-death experiences like Pam Reynolds' are reported by millions of people around the world? They have, usually, a feeling of peacefulness, positive emotions.
They feel like they're leaving their body.
They sometimes see sort of a tunnel with a light at the end.
They sometimes feel one with the universe.
They sometimes see relatives who had passed away.
So it's a common universal experience that happens to people who are either near or close to death, or even technically dead.
Some physicians believe near-death experiences could be triggered by hypoxia a lack of oxygen in the brain that can cause visions.
But other researchers disagree.
They point out that those who have these experiences see events occurring around them that are later confirmed to have happened.
And that their perceptions are not dulled in a way that would be consistent with a dying brain.
Perhaps even more significant, a recent study found that the near death experience was remarkably similar across the ancient world.
Professor Gregory Shushan at Oxford University has found that in some of the great early cultures ancient Egypt, uh, Mesopotamia, uh, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica that there are similar reports of near-death experience, that certain details keep cropping up, that the person in this experience encounters beings of light, even though the belief systems about death were very different in these cultures.
This suggests that there might be something about the mystical experience at death that is stronger than the cultural stories that hold it.
But why are accounts of near-death experiences so similar across so many different cultures? Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that the answer may lie with the fact that these beings of light encountered in many near-death experiences are remarkably similar to the descriptions of extraterrestrials in alien abduction reports.
Could these two types of ethereal entities actually be the same.
The common ground is the tunnel of bright white light, and beings wearing shiny garments or bright white garments of light that either stand before that gateway or are actually in it.
And you have to wonder: is it possible that, in reality, the afterlife is just another dimension or another plane of existence that is inhabited, that's navigable and is accessible not only by those in the afterlife realm but also by living extraterrestrial beings.
I think that both near-death experiences and abduction experiences are coordinated by the same higher reality.
Is it possible that extraterrestrials hold the secret behind resurrection? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and claim further evidence can be found by exploring resurrection stories from antiquity.
The Kingdom of Israel.
The 9th century BC.
In the Hebrew Bible, Elijah is portrayed as a great prophet and a powerful warrior who slaughters the followers of the god Baal.
Yet he is perhaps best known not for putting people to death, but for bringing them back to life.
In the Biblical book of we actually have the story of the prophet Elijah who takes a widow's son who had died and lays on him three times and then prays to God.
And the son comes back to life.
Was this a miracle from the hand of God? Was there some kind of a medical involvement here? There was some clear physical intervention on behalf of Elijah.
That's all this text tells us.
But we know that Elijah was a great mystic and esotericist.
He possessed a power cloak called his "pala-garment," which means "power garment.
" He ultimately ascended into the heavens in a whirlwind, like a spacecraft, while wearing this.
So you have to ask, is there some kind of otherworldly or even extraterrestrial technology that Elijah had access to? Ancient astronaut theorists point out that similar resurrections occur in religions around the world.
From the Hindu god Krishna to the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl.
They believe these gods may, in fact, have been extraterrestrial beings sent to Earth on a mission.
When you read the stories of the celestials or extraterrestrials that came in the ancient past, they were always delivering these forbidden teachings about crossing that boundary into a beautiful and glorious realm.
And one of their purposes in coming here is to teach us how to cross over that boundary.
Is it possible that some ancient accounts of gods rising from the dead are not actually divine events, but rather examples of extraterrestrial technology? And if so, are there stories in which ancient cultures regularly performed resurrections? Ancient astronaut theorists believe astounding answers can be found buried in the Sahara Desert.
Low Earth Orbit.
September 2007.
An experiment aboard a Russian Foton M-3 spaceship is trying to determine how resurrection works in the natural world.
It contains dozens of microscopic animals called tardigrades.
The tardigrades are a class of organisms that we refer to as extremophiles, meaning they can, um, withstand extreme stresses that would kill most organisms.
On Earth, tardigrades are almost impossible to kill.
They can survive temperatures far above boiling and far below freezing by shedding almost all water in their cells.
The tardigrade is a really interesting creature, and it's actually evolved to have this amazing ability to go into these deep states of what you might call hibernation.
They're able to survive in really harsh conditions.
But there's still metabolism going on, just very, very slowed down.
On this mission, scientists want to see if they can survive long blasts of solar radiation, so they're placed outside the capsule for 12 days.
They become inert, but are they actually dead? They were brought back to Earth, rehydrated.
We think they also have really good, very efficient, DNA repair mechanisms, because they essentially come back to life, often rather rapidly.
Scientists do refer to that as as a resurrection.
There's a curious parallel to the tardigrade in the ancient world a dead creature that was preserved by removing all liquids while it awaited resurrection.
Egyptian mummies.
In preparation for the afterlife, the ancients removed all blood, water and organs from a body they planned to mummify.
In order to preserve a body, you cannot leave organs in the body that are going to rot the body.
And the Egyptians learned that very quickly.
And they knew which organs had to be removed, and that the blood had to be drained from the body to preserve the body for potential resurrection.
If the body was properly prepared, the Egyptians believed its soul would start its long and arduous journey into the afterlife.
There were a lot of rules.
There was a lot of very specific navigation, uh, that needed to take place in order to get your soul from death into this this afterlife.
Sometimes these rules were so difficult that they would be written down.
And oftentimes, we find them written on the insides of the tops of coffins.
At Saqqara is where we find the pyramid texts, some of the oldest religious texts in the world.
They're devoted to the concept of how to not only preserve the human body, but to prepare the soul for journeying into the stars.
The ancient Egyptians made it clear that they were in contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.
In particular, one god, Ptah, came from Sirius.
Now, Ptah is also the god the ancient Egyptians said who crafted or fashioned the human body.
He is also the god of technology.
So, when you put all this together, it sure sounds like Ptah taught the ancient Egyptians how to resurrect the body and travel the cosmos.
Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that the Egyptians' complex beliefs about resurrection came from the extraterrestrial beings that they believed had visited their civilization in the past? It's very possible that when we look at the Egyptians performing their very intricate mummification process, this is something that they might've witnessed.
Maybe they didn't fully understand the process of what made it possible, but they would do their best to mimic it, and that's exactly what we see with mummification.
But if the Egyptians believed the soul traveled through the cosmos, why did they make such an effort to preserve the corpse? According to their texts, the ancient Egyptians believed the soul was made up of five parts.
The two most important were the Ba and Ka.
The Ba journeyed into the afterlife while the Ka remained in the body.
The proper preparation of a corpse during burial was essential to success in the afterlife.
That is, the Ka needed a properly prepared body in which to dwell.
And if that body, if that vessel, isn't properly maintained, that person could die a second death in the afterlife.
Most scholars say the Egyptians believed resurrection involved the soul being born again in the afterlife, rather than being physically resurrected on Earth.
The ultimate objective was for the Ba to unite with its twin, our Ka, as they called it, and form a third entity that they called the Akh the shining one, the shining being, that was then capable of traveling the stars as a celestial being.
So, this is suggesting that the ancient Egyptians had a very deep soul technology or a way of transforming the soul, certainly prying it out of the body, uniting it with its twin self and creating a light-being form.
But could it be that the Egyptians believed that the part of the soul that remained within the body could be resurrected as well? Might this be why they went to such great lengths to preserve the body? Because they believed there would be a time when they would be bodily resurrected here on Earth? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest further evidence that this was knowledge taught to our ancestors by otherworldly visitors can be found by examining stories from the African rain forest stories of real-life zombies.
The Kingdom of Kongo.
Portuguese explorer Diogo Cao is the first European to sail up the Congo River into the heart of this ancient African nation.
Despite the dense rain forest on both sides of the river, Cao spends months exploring this unknown land and meeting its inhabitants.
After he reports his discoveries back home, the king of Portugal dispatches waves of missionaries to the region.
The goal is to convert tribesman from their ancient religion OF Vodun to Catholicism.
You have to remember, this isn't too long after the Crusades.
So, uh, Europe had already sort of went from right from the Crusades into colonialism, and one of the big projects was not just to get land and money and slaves, although that was it, but also to gain souls, converts for the Catholic Church.
Over the next century, European missionaries have great success turning the Kingdom of Kongo into a Catholic land.
Their belief that a sky god created the Earth and its inhabitants is changed to the Catholic origin story.
But the locals hold on to some of their beliefs, including the concept, which is also held by the ancient Egyptians, that people have more than one soul.
We have what's called the big soul and the little soul.
And one of them is responsible for what we normally think of as our personality, what makes you, you, what makes me, me.
But the other one is more of a basic sort of soul that animates us, that gets the flesh moving.
They speak of us as each having a lesser angel and a greater angel.
At the time of death, the lesser angel stays with the body.
It doesn't know what to do.
But the greater angel leaves the body.
As missionaries convert much of the population to Christianity, traditional bokors or witch doctors are forced to perform some Vodun ceremonies in secret.
European missionaries hear astounding stories that these witch doctors use ancient rituals and traditional knowledge to raise the dead, creating automatons that are later dubbed "zombies.
" The idea of the zombies is that they actually have only one of these two souls.
They've passed on, they've died and they've been resurrected.
But only with the soul that animates us.
So they're lacking in that personality and in that personal feelings and things.
With zombie-ism, it is then only the physical body is is resurrected in a sense and the personalities, that part of the soul, has completely disappeared.
Could these stories have been true? And if so, might this be proof that both the Egyptians and the tribes of the Congo were correct in their belief that our consciousness is divided into separate parts? But how could witch doctors, who lived hundreds of years ago, with no access to modern technology have been able to breathe life into the dead, reviving just the part of the soul responsible for animating the flesh? Ancient astronaut theorists point out that African myths suggest voodoo magic originated with the sky gods and their emissaries to Earth, known as Orishas or Loas.
The topic of the Orishas is very interesting to me, because they are looked upon as these divine messengers, messengers of knowledge.
And the stories are very clear that the Orishas arrived from the sky.
And what I find interesting is that in many of the old carvings that we can find in wood, for example they're depicted in sitting in these weird craft, that look like a craft, and that they all seem to feature these elongated skulls.
Is it possible that these African sky gods were actually extraterrestrials that not only taught the natives the secrets of the soul, but also showed them how to resurrect the dead? And could this be the origin of our modern-day stories of zombies? Perhaps, through the centuries, these original teachings of these celestial beings were lost.
Sorcerers and magicians in Africa and elsewhere began mimicking or trying to copy what the originals had done and had a limited degree of success.
They were able to create zombies.
But the source is clear.
These teachings originally came from celestial beings.
Maybe some of the extraterrestrials had an accident, so the extraterrestrials helped him like a doctor would do today and the natives watched it.
They couldn't understand what what was going on in medicine and they copied it.
Were African witch doctors mimicking the technology of their sky gods when they tried to bring the dead back to life? And if so, are there stories in which both parts of the soul have been successfully resurrected? Ancient astronaut theorists believe further evidence can be found by exploring ancient Hindu beliefs in which the conscious self can be reborn in a new body.
Delhi, India.
1930.
Four-year-old Shanti Devi tells her family that in a previous life she was a woman named Lugdi Bai and that she had lived in the nearby village of Mathura.
At first, they dismiss the story as a childhood fantasy.
But she knows so much about this other world that she eventually convinces them she's telling the truth, and they journey to Lugdi Bai's former village.
She actually went to meet her previous husband in her other life.
He also, after talking to her, believed that she was the reincarnation of his previous wife, who had died in childbirth.
And then, eventually, Mahatma Ghandi got involved in this whole story.
Uh, he had an investigation made and Ghandi himself said that he was satisfied that she was the reincarnation of this other woman.
Could Lugdi Bai have died and been reincarnated as Shanti Devi? The Hindu faithful believe reincarnation a spiritual resurrection in which a soul is reborn in a new body happens to almost everyone after death.
When the soul goes up and then it has to be born into something else, in another life life form.
So then it it comes back to Earth in another living form.
So that is the idea of reincarnation.
In Hindu and other traditions, the body is viewed simply as a vessel for the soul, that's capable of reincarnating into successive bodies, or successive lifetimes.
If the concept that the part of our consciousness that forms our personality, that makes us who we are, continues to exist after the body has died, then might many of us have lived past lives? And only a handful of people like Shanti Devi are able to remember them? Some believe that not only is reincarnation real, but that in certain cases there has even been physical evidence to support this.
When we examine the reincarnation research, a consistent theme emerges regarding the existence of birthmarks on someone's body.
What we've found is multiple cases of people who have bizarre birthmarks who then accurately remember having been someone else in another lifetime.
In some of these cases, we can confirm that their past life person died in a particular way, and they come back with a birthmark corresponding to that exact area.
If they die by gunshot, we know where the gunshot wound took place.
The person reincarnates, and they have a birthmark right where the gunshot actually entered.
Is it possible that a birthmark could be the consciousness creating a physical manifestation of a traumatic event that happened in a previous life? Proponents of reincarnation say further evidence that our consciousness can be resurrected in another body can be found in the fact that reincarnation isn't just part of Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.
It appears in most ancient religions worldwide.
Early Greek religion had a process, a belief, in reincarnation.
Plato writes about it in his writings, that the soul would enter into the body, and then, when you died, the soul would be reprocessed and then would enter back into a body.
In the Bible, Jesus says, "Who do you say that I am?" "Some people say you're John the Baptist.
Some people say you're Elijah.
Some people say you're Jeremiah.
" Well, those people are all dead.
So what they're saying is, "You've come back "as this person.
" That's what reincarnation is about.
In each of these religions, the gods are the ones that educated people about reincarnation.
Is it possible that the ancients misunderstood who had bestowed this knowledge on their societies and that they were actually extraterrestrial beings sharing their wisdom about the afterlife? Ultimately, when you trace back the the origins of the stories of reincarnation, you're led to extraterrestrial sources.
This was a teaching that was brought here, and represents the ultimate spiritual attainment on Earth.
We have over 30 ancient cultures around the world independently contacted by human-looking messengers who give them a unified body of spiritual knowledge, which usually describes reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul from one physical incarnation to the next, as a reality.
Could it be that celestial beings have mastered the science of reincarnation to the point where they treat death as just another form of life? And if so, are these aliens helping nurture our understanding of this otherworldly realm? If resurrections are really a resurrection of the spirit rather than the body, then it's possible that we would have a technology to follow that spirit from one body to the next.
And you have to wonder if this doesn't come from extraterrestrials.
Could extraterrestrials have the ultimate answers to life, death and resurrection? And if so, will humanity ever possess those secrets? Ancient astronaut theorists believe some people may already have them without even knowing it.
Northern Israel, approximately 33 AD.
According to the gospels of the New Testament of the Bible, in the months before his death, Jesus leads three of his apostles away from the village in which they're staying and together, they journey to a nearby mountain.
The story here is that Jesus went up a high mountain with Peter, James and John his three closest followers.
While they were there, a glowing object hovered over them.
And Moses and Elijah were reported to appear to him.
While they were there, the body of Jesus began to glow tremendously.
And when they were finished with this scene, they went down the mountain and Jesus told the disciples not to tell anybody about this until after his crucifixion and resurrection.
This says to me that maybe the body of Jesus went through some type of transformation which changed his body so that when he arose from the dead, it would be a body that would never die again.
According to the Bible, it was several months after this incident that Roman authorities arrested Jesus and put him to death by crucifixion.
We know, following the crucifixion on Friday night, he is laid into a tomb.
On Sunday, when Mary Magdalene and the other women come to anoint his body, the tomb is empty.
The stone has been rolled back and his burial cloths are all that remain.
Although Jesus is said to have ascended to a heavenly realm, it is written that he ascended "bodily.
" This has led some ancient astronaut theorists to form a different interpretation of the scriptures, based also on events that occurred just after the resurrection, that indicate it may have had extraterrestrial origins.
Matthew's gospel, chapter 28 says that, "An angel of God descended from heaven", rolled back the stone and sat upon it.
"And his clothing glistened white.
" And so we have a being reported to be there.
This means that powers from another world were involved in the resurrection of Jesus.
People come to the tomb.
They find the tomb empty.
They're describing, in in a couple of the gospels, young men with raiment that was shining.
Much like extraterrestrial, uh, encounters today, where we see beings of light.
And they say, "Well, why are you seeking the living among the dead? Jesus is gone, just like he said would happen.
" Many Christians believe this seminal resurrection in Western culture signifies that humans can and many eventually will be raised from the dead.
But does it actually give humanity clues about how to pierce the veil between life and death? Some ancient astronaut theorists say that further evidence that resurrection is possible can be found in the modern-day church service.
St.
Patrick's Cathedral.
New York City.
Give us perseverance, and lead us to salvation.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan says Mass at one of America's most impressive Catholic churches and during the Eucharist, he consecrates bread and wine.
According to church doctrine, at this moment, he is literally turning them into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Cardinal Dolan, or any other priest who performs this ritual, is actually performing a resurrection.
The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation argues that this is a miracle.
The Eucharist is a miracle.
When you partake of the bread and the wine, that it miraculously transforms into the actual body and blood of Jesus.
We then ingest the holy.
We ingest Christ, incorporate play on word that is, make part of our corpus, part of our body, the divine, in this ritual form.
It is a powerful activity.
But how can bread and wine be changed into flesh and blood? According to the Catholic Church, it's a mystery that humans cannot possibly unravel.
But some believe that instead of a physical transformation, Jesus is resurrected metaphysically during the church service that Jesus was, and still is, an advanced being that can move from one dimension to another.
As evidence, they cite what Jesus told his followers about the power of gathering in groups to invoke his name.
Christ said, "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also.
" Something happens and it happens in ritual worship, collective worship.
Now, I'm not putting aside the power and value of private spiritual practice, but there's something else that happens when this is done collectively.
Is this a form of resurrection as well, where they, in fact, then, in a way, embody the Christ energy during the Mass.
So maybe this is the purpose of the Mass is to create this environment where they can transform their body into a vehicle capable of manifesting or holding the Christ energy.
Is it possible that worshippers around the world actually resurrect an otherworldly being every time they gather to pray? And if so, is this just a resurrection of the spirit? Or could we eventually reanimate the body so it can be reunited with the soul? Ancient astronaut theorists believe stunning advances in modern medicine might soon make this possible.
Tubingen, Germany.
2013.
Scientists at the University of Tubingen report a landmark event.
They have sequenced and decoded DNA that was extracted from five Egyptian mummy heads.
Somehow, the way the ancient Egyptians embalmed the bodies of their dead allowed DNA to survive for thousands of years.
One of the things that happens in mummification is that they rapidly, uh, extract the water, and it's thought that water actually is one of the major contributors to the degradation of the DNA.
So that rapid extraction of water is believed to protect the mummy from DNA degradation.
Researchers have not yet found a complete set of genetic blueprints to the ancient Egyptian body.
But this material shows them that if they do find enough DNA, they can, in theory, bring these people back to life to physically resurrect them.
If we have the physical remains of a corpse, it might be possible to resurrect this corpse literally, to regenerate the DNA.
Now, the process would be extremely difficult, but the technology is on its way, and that will be amazing.
I mean, we would they would literally have achieved their objective is to be resurrected again.
Is it possible that scientists are finally starting to unravel the secrets to resurrection? And if so, can humanity eventually master this power so we can bring bodies and souls back into the physical world whenever we choose? Some ancient astronaut theorists suggest that many religions describe the moment when humans reach this stage of evolution.
It's variously called the Rapture, the Day of Judgment, End of Days, or the Apocalypse.
According to the legends, all humanity is to evolve into a higher form.
The proper word would be transformation, wherein which we will have achieved the purpose for which we have come to Earth in the first place.
But that, in and of itself, is not the end of the road.
Then we evolve beyond that.
This is referred to as the Great Resurrection.
One thing is crystal clear.
In all of the ancient texts, those gods promised to return.
Not just in the Bible, but in many of the ancient sacred texts.
Could the End of Days that most religions foresee actually be the time when humanity discovers the secret to resurrection, allowing everyone to move between physical and spiritual planes of existence? And if so, will this realm be the place where we finally meet the extraterrestrials that ancient astronaut theorists say visited Earth thousands of years ago? The idea of of resurrection or rebirth into a new realm of existence, a new kingdom of heaven, was central to our interaction with the celestials or extraterrestrial beings.
You can almost make the argument that that's why they came here was to teach us how to resurrect ourselves, our bodies, to transform our bodies into a celestial form, a light body form.
We find a direct through line connecting extraterrestrials, angels and the near-death experience.
There is a compelling suggestion that at the End of Days, the veil between realities will be parted and we will gain the capability of moving directly between the world of the living and the world of the afterlife.
And I don't think that is anything that we should look upon with dread, but with joy, because it means we're not alone and, you know, they're there with us.
Might we really have souls that exist in a realm that can be accessed by otherworldly beings? And if so, could stories involving the second coming of prophets, the reanimation of the dead, and the close encounters of those on the brink of death, be evidence that extraterrestrials hold the secret to resurrection? Perhaps as we come to better understand our own mortality, we, too will uncover the mysteries of the afterlife and in the process, discover the truth about our alien origins.