Ancient Aliens s11e07 Episode Script

TOK THOMPSON: The Aboriginal peoples of Australia are one of the world's very, very oldest cultures.
KEVIN GAVI DUNCAN: Our stories are older than the Stonehenge in England.
They're 20 or 30,000 years older than the pyramids of Egypt.
DAVID CHILDRESS: If you look at these Wandjina figures in the cave art, these figures look exactly like Grey aliens.
Wow.
GARY SIMON JAGAMARRA: We carved them, we sang them, we danced them in stories, we painted them, so when the visitors left, we didn't forget about them.
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has credited its origins to gods and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true? Did extraterrestrial beings really help to shape our history? And if so, might the secrets of our past have been entrusted to Australia's Wisdom Keepers? sub-rip: ®70 NARRATOR: In 2015, documentary filmmaker Damien Nott released an archive of over 2,000 UFO images taken over the skies of Australia in the past three years.
DAMIEN NOTT: Oh, my God.
WOMAN: It seems to be, like, illuminating.
NOTT: It's actually morphing shape and rotating as well.
-WOMAN: Yeah.
-This is phenomenal.
Australia is certainly a hot spot for UFO sightings.
We've had a phenomenal growth in the reporting of UFO sightings by the general public, especially since the advent of the Internet.
But all evidence shows that UFOs have definitely been visiting Australia for tens of thousands of years.
We've had records engraved on cave artwork by the Australian Aborigines, which goes back thousands of years.
Australia is one of the most mysterious continents, and the Aboriginals have all kinds of ancient stories of sky gods coming down.
These are probably some of the oldest stories of extraterrestrial intervention that we have on Planet Earth.
Australia was something of a last frontier long after America was settled.
Well, it was 1770 that the British explorer Captain Cook actually came across Australia, and it wasn't until 1788 that it was really settled-- that was the east coast of Australia-- settled by convicts.
That's what the British brought from their prisons.
NARRATOR: Today, the area of Sydney that the British first settled is a bustling metropolis, and Australia has become one of the most popular tourist destinations on Earth.
But hidden behind this modern facade is nearly 2½ million square miles of undeveloped and sparsely populated land, known as the outback.
And while Australia is a relatively new land to the Western world, for the nearly 700,000 people that call the continent their ancestral home, it has a history that dates back tens of thousands of years.
THOMPSON: There is something very, very special about Australia.
Here we have a situation where this huge land mass has been pretty much cut off from the rest of the world for 40,000 years.
And we don't really find that in-in many other places in the world.
NARRATOR: But what was happening on this island continent for the tens of thousands of years that it existed in isolation? DUNCAN: When the first Europeans arrived here, they didn't have much knowledge in regards to the sky world, where our people had much ancient knowledge of the star system, and the constellation of the stars.
Our knowledge and wisdom is so old.
NARRATOR: Anthropologists have dated the existence of the Australian Aboriginal people back 60,000 years, making it the most ancient continuous culture in the world.
THOMPSON: The Aboriginal peoples of Australia, are one of the world's very, very oldest cultures.
No other cultures in the world can compare with the Australian cultures.
They have knowledge that's been around for a lot longer than really any of our knowledge has been around.
NARRATOR: The Aboriginal people have no official written language.
Art, music, and oral storytelling are how they pass their histories and sacred knowledge to future generations.
Their past is encoded on various rock walls scattered across the continent.
Our oral traditions, our stories that are passed down from generation to generation, the wisdom and knowledge that have been given to us by our god, they're 10,000 or more years older than the Stonehenge in England.
They're 20,000 or 30,000 years older than the pyramids of Egypt.
NARRATOR: These ancient traditions are all strongly tied to Australia's connection with the stars, and with the beings that are said to have come down from them.
As evidence, ancient astronaut theorists point to the caves of the Northwest Kimberley region that contain depictions of beings called the Wandjina, the sky heroes of one of Australia's indigenous clans.
The Aboriginals have all kinds of ancient stories of Wandjina figures, of great heroes and sky gods who manipulated the continent and created the rivers and mountains, and fought amongst each other, and then they left.
If you look at these Wandjina figures in the cave art, they have big white faces.
They have really no mouth to speak of.
They have very large, black eyes, and there's a field around their heads that's like a space helmet, perhaps.
So, in many ways these Wandjina figures look exactly like Grey aliens.
And you have to wonder, then, if the cave art is depicting extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Could these images really be depicting extraterrestrials that visited Australia in the ancient past? And if so, do the indigenous people living in Australia today still have insight into the meaning behind this ancient rock art? JAGAMARRA: We all have stories of people in crafts coming from the stars, going to the stars, and so on.
In order to keep them, pass them down to next generation, we carved them, we painted them, we sung them.
We danced them in stories to guarantee that they passed down.
So when the visitors left, we didn't forget about them.
And we never forget about the things that they passed down to us, and the knowledge they passed down.
GIORGIO A.
TSOUKALOS: Australia is one of the few places where we still have living mythologies where we can talk to the people whose story has been passed down over thousands of generations.
And they talk of teachers having descended from the sky, and bestowed any and all of knowledge to mankind.
So this, to me, is an incredible treasure trove for the ancient astronaut theory.
NARRATOR: Might the indigenous people of Australia, who carry an oral tradition that dates back tens of thousands of years, really hold secrets of humanity's past that the outside world has yet to discover? Perhaps more evidence can be found by examining the depiction of one of their most important sky gods.
NARRATOR: Coming up DUNCAN: They said the fire burnt the top of the mountain and all around it every time he landed.
TSOUKALOS: So the landings were always associated with a lot of noise, -smoke and fire? -Yes.
NARRATOR: Brisbane Water National Park.
New South Wales, Australia.
The Bulgandry preservation site is one of numerous sacred indigenous locations where ancient rock art and engravings can be found.
Many are believed to date back thousands of years.
Oh, wow.
NARRATOR: In February 2016, researcher and publisher Giorgio Tsoukalos traveled to Australia to meet with Aboriginal elder Kevin Gavi Duncan to learn about one of the oldest carvings that can be found here.
So what are we looking at here? So this image is an actual image of what we say is our Godfather creator being, Baiame.
That's what our people believe.
Okay.
Baiame came from, well, a place that we call the Morning Star within the Mirrabooka.
"Mirra" means stars, and "booka" means river.
That is the Milky Way that flows across the-the night sky.
No kidding? Okay.
And so he is one of those sky heroes that has descended from the Milky Way? Yes.
He's a sky hero, and Baiame is carved in the manner that you see there-- he has his arms out, and he holds the moon in one hand and the Morning Star in the other, which is a bit like what we call Planet Earth.
And these are the two moons which exist around the Morning Star in the Mirrabooka that Baiame came from.
TSOUKALOS: Mm-hmm.
And this is the canoe.
He sailed through the river of life, um, in the Mirrabooka across the sky world.
TSOUKALOS: So, he sailed through the Milky Way? DUNCAN: Yes, he sailed through the Milky Way and this was his vessel that he sailed, and he landed, to the earth and he crushed the top of the mountain, which is the sacred mountain of Mount Yengo not far from here.
And when he landed they said the fire came from his feet and it burnt the mount-- top of the mountain, and all around it every time he landed.
So, the landings were always associated with a lot of noise, smoke -and fire? -Yes.
The fire trail that was left when Baiame was leaving the top of the mountain into the sky world, when Baiame had left, was so bright, people interpret that as a spaceship of some kind TSOUKALOS: Yeah.
DUNCAN: as coming and going, but this is the way we simply interpret Baiame's spaceship.
Right, but it's because the vocabulary didn't exist at the time.
-Yes.
-So, to me, those are all wonderfully poetic ways to describe eyewitness accounts of things that were incredible.
DUNCAN: Yes.
This site is considered around 8,000 to 10,000 years old.
Wow.
DUNCAN: These carvings, these rock paintings, these are our books.
They are considered to be, basically, as truth.
NARRATOR: While many in the Western world regard indigenous tales as folklore, it has recently been found that at least some of their stories are historically accurate.
In September 2015, scientists studying Aboriginal lore of past sea level rise found corroboration in the geological record.
Incredibly, the information was faithfully preserved even though these events occurred somewhere between 7,000 to 18,000 years ago.
Similar findings noting the accuracy of indigenous myths have been published since the 1980s, including knowledge of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteorite impacts, and solar eclipses in the remote past.
WILLIAM HENRY: Their stories of events that happened 12,000 years ago, maybe older, have now been verified by the geological record.
This is extremely important because if they're telling the truth about geological events, can we then take at face value their stories or their recollections of extraterrestrial beings, spirit beings, sky beings, coming to Earth and intervening in human affairs? I believe that we can.
NARRATOR: Might the Aboriginal stories of sky beings not be myth but actual historical fact? Could their creator gods have been extraterrestrial visitors? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining evidence of an ancient pilgrimage to Australia made by the Egyptians.
And here we are.
Wow.
How old do you reckon these are? EVAN STRONG: We're thinking that it's about 4,600 years old.
Wow.
DUNCAN: We have stories about their visits long before Europeans had arrived here.
NARRATOR: Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia.
Deep in the Brisbane Water National Park is a mysterious site known as the Gosford Glyphs.
The site consists of two massive, eight-foot-high walls engraved with over 300 ancient carvings, carvings that experts say do not resemble indigenous artwork, but Egyptian hieroglyphs.
After deciphering the texts, 21st century Egyptologist Ray Johnson believed them to reveal the burial site of Lord Nefer-ti-ru, a member of the Egyptian royal family who died while visiting the area with his brother sometime between 2637 and 2614 BC.
Absolutely beautiful out here.
Oh, I know.
NARRATOR: While visiting the area in 2016, Giorgio Tsoukalos met with local ancient astronaut theorist Evan Strong to get a firsthand look at these enigmatic carvings.
-And here we are.
-Wow.
That's incredible.
I had no idea, I mean, this looks totally different than on pictures.
So, what do these -hieroglyphs say? -Well at least one panel talks about two brothers, two princes, coming here from Egypt.
They were shipwrecked.
One of them ended up getting bitten by a snake.
He then died.
The theory is, then, he was interred here, and that's why -you've got hieroglyphs here -Mm-hmm.
because he died here but there's these other walls with a mixture of symbols.
This one over here, it's-it's more of a philosophical astrophysics style thing with symbols meaning all sorts of esoteric stuff, so Now, h-have these symbols at all been interpreted by Egyptologists? There have been a-a few, actually.
Mm-hmm.
Um, a few different, um, people have done that.
And what was their reaction? Well, Raymond Johnson was one of the first people to come here and-and translate.
He actually sent some of his translations off to the Cairo Library, and Dr.
Abou Dia' Ghazi ended up saying, "Yep, you're on the right track.
" It's something called proto-Egyptian.
And how old do you reckon these are? We're thinking because of the prevalence, at least in one, uh, panel of proto-Egyptian, that it's about 4,600 years old.
TSOUKALOS: Wow.
Are there any hieroglyphs that stand out to you? Yeah, definitely.
Follow me down here and I'll show you this other one.
So, this one here, um, we call the UFO glyph and people have called it that since they've been coming here because it kind of looks like a UFO.
TSOUKALOS: It definitely has the classic UFO shape.
It's-it's got the the rays or whatever you want to call it.
What would you suggest if anyone says, well, this is not a UFO, it's-it's some other symbol that-- but certainly not that? I think that someone suggested that it's jewelry but it's a completely different symbol that's upside down and it really doesn't quite fit in.
It's one of those symbols here that-that doesn't fit into the canon.
In your opinion, why do you think the Egyptians made it all the way to Australia? I think they were looking for esoteric wisdom, definitely.
-From the Aboriginals? -Yes.
DUNCAN: The ancient Egyptians, we have stories, and Aboriginal stories, about their arrival, and about their visits long before Europeans had arrived here.
Naturally, we would have shared ceremony with these people because they have the same similar beliefs as our people.
Egyptians have that same spiritual connection to the sky world.
Many stories from all over this continent, not just from here, but all over this continent, talk about those who came by the sea and came to these continents, and some of our knowledge and wisdom and technology went back with them, and if you do some of the research, in the last pyramids that they found, they found boomerangs made from iron bark from here, and they have hieroglyphs of black fellows throwing the boomerangs to take out the ducks and the geese.
Now the question would be, why would they paint us and carve us on their walls if they didn't come here? And if that meeting and relationship was not significant, they wouldn't have carved it.
It must've been significant in order to carve.
NARRATOR: Aboriginal artifacts found in Egypt? Hieroglyphs found in Australia? Might the continent have actually served as a pilgrimage site for visitors seeking a direct connection to the so-called gods? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest further evidence of this otherworldly link can be found in a megalithic structure lost to time.
This really puts the Aboriginal culture in a totally different light.
DUNCAN: He asked Aboriginal people, "Where do you people come from?" And our people would always just point to the sky.
NARRATOR: Mullumbimby, New South Wales, 1939.
Frederic Slater, the president of the Australian Archaeology Society, was dispatched to investigate the discovery of a complex Aboriginal arrangement consisting of 188 standing stones.
Slater dubbed the formation the "Stonehenge of Australia" and became convinced that it was one of the oldest temple complexes in the world, predating those found in Europe and the Middle East.
Frederic Slater found that the site he was investigating was part of a larger, much larger site, and fitted in very closely with Aboriginal sacred law, myths and legends.
After a time, Frederic Slater began to posit and suggest that instead of out of Africa, that maybe we should reexamine the evolution of man as out of Australia.
He took a massive leap and started declaring that in ancient times in Australia, the Aborigines were more advanced than any culture that he could recount on the planet.
He was declared almost insane by the rest of the academic community.
The landowners were so terrified of the controversy that it implied that it was pretty much destroyed by bulldozers.
CHILDRESS: There are many stone circles, uh, throughout the British Isles and Europe.
Stonehenge is one of the most well known.
And they all have some relationship to astronomical observatories.
This Aboriginal Stonehenge would really alter the way we think of the Aboriginals and the sophistication of their society.
Where they had astronomical and archaeoastronomical structures that helped them monitor the heavens, much as standing stones in Europe would have done.
NARRATOR: Could the so-called Aboriginal Stonehenge provide us insight into the other stone arrangements found scattered throughout the world? If so, might they serve to provide a permanent record of a significant connection to another world? Uluru Rock, also known as Ayers Rock, is located nearly in the center of the continent, over 1,200 miles from the nearest major Australian city.
This geological anomaly is one of the largest isolated rocks in the world.
It is over two miles long and rises over 1,100 feet.
It is, in fact, the exposed tip of a huge vertical slab of rock that continues below the surface for three miles.
It is a huge sedimentary boulder that's gigantic, sitting there in the middle of the desert.
And geologists cannot really explain how Ayers Rock came to be.
It's almost as if it was lifted up from somewhere else and brought to the center of the continent and then just dumped there.
NARRATOR: For the indigenous population, Uluru is one of their most sacred sites and a place of pilgrimage.
They consider it the navel of the earth.
THOMPSON: For the Aboriginal cosmologies, a lot of times the landscape itself is sort of like the Bible and Heaven, rolled into one.
So, in places like Uluru, Ayers Rock, this rock is of great significance because they built this into their cultural memories of when the world was formed by sky spirits coming to Earth.
NARRATOR: The creation stories at Uluru Rock are primarily associated with the rainbow serpent.
This divine being is said to have come out of the sky at the beginning of time, and held in its belly all of creation, including the first human beings.
DUNCAN: The Rainbow Serpent, we call Gria.
And the Rainbow Serpent is related to all Aboriginal nations right across Australia.
And it connects us all as Aboriginal people, because it was regarded as a very sacred symbol of creation.
STRONG: An elder we're in good contact with told us a story about Uluru, which is quite fascinating.
That we were actually seeded from the spear from the Pleiades through space.
And it actually hit the ground, and where that place was is Uluru.
So Uluru and its creation story with the rainbow serpent could perhaps even be indicative of an ancient astronaut kind of seeding moment in-in our history.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists have long proposed that Earth was seeded by alien visitors in the remote past.
Might this be true? And if so, do the Aboriginal stories reflect this truth? When the first Europeans arrived here, Captain Phillip, who was an English sailor, planted the Union Jack in Sydney, and he asked Aboriginal people around that time, he said, "Where do you people come from?" And our people would always just point to the sky.
He couldn't believe that such people, who were grounded by Mother Earth, say that they come from the sky world.
NARRATOR: Might humanity actually have been seeded on Earth from another planet, as the Aboriginal elders claim? And could this truth be encoded in the Australian landscape, preserved for future generations? Researchers suggest some sacred Aboriginal sites continue to serve as extraterrestrial outposts.
ROADS: They've got tales of mystery, disappearing people, strange noises and strange creature sightings.
Some people had actually traveled back to the Morning Star.
(wind whistling) NARRATOR: The Blue Mountains.
Australia.
Throughout the walls of Red Hands Cave are the stenciled handprints of ancient Aboriginal men, women and children.
The art stands as a testament to their physical time here on Earth, hundreds and possibly even thousands of years ago.
According to local elders, the location served as an initiation site for young warriors.
And it was here that the collective wisdom of the land and the sky was passed on to future generations by the sky gods.
We leave our images on the cave walls, such as our handprints, from the time we are, uh, children.
This would be done generation after generation.
The Blue Mountains is a very sacred area, a sacred place, especially the highest places, because we were being closer to Baiame, closer to God.
NARRATOR: Mount Yengo-- the original point of descent of the Aboriginal creator god, Baiame-- is located here, within the Blue Mountain range.
And curiously, the area is also well-known today for the mysterious disappearances of numerous hikers campers and soldiers in addition to countless UFO sightings.
Australia's Blue Mountains have become internationally known as a hot spot for UFO sightings and other mysteries.
There is certainly a lot of mystery in the Blue Mountains.
Campers, bushwalkers, explorers all have got tales of mystery, disappearing people, strange tunnels, strange noises and strange creature sightings.
The UFO sightings of the Blue Mountains have triggered many magazine articles, radio shows and books.
A lot of people have come forward over the last few decades to document and put onto the record their own experiences.
We have a great tradition of some hundreds of sightings.
I myself have gathered about 600, 800 sightings or so of UFOs.
And it's growing all the time, in my own lifetime.
We have stories of UFOs amongst early pioneer settlers dating back to 1850, thereabouts.
There's a story from about the 1890s of a farmer who was plowing his field and a craft, a silver craft, came over the cliffs.
He stood there and watched it while it disappeared.
It came back after dark and landed there.
And he grabbed his rifle and went out to see what was going on, and the craft took off again.
I would suggest that the Blue Mountains have served as a contact point for E.
T.
s from an advanced civilization in space.
CAROLINE CORY: What is interesting to note is that there are several umbilical cords on the planet.
This particular location is located exactly at -33 latitude.
Which means it is aligned specifically with the center of the galaxy.
Now having said that, there's an interesting parallel with the 33 latitude on Planet Earth.
And that particular point is considered to be continuously being visited from different parts of the planetary system, from different parts of the galaxy, and even from beyond this galaxy, from way out in the universe.
MAN: Wow.
WOMAN: Yeah, did you see that thing? CHILDRESS: There is a lot of UFO activity.
So here, we have something that would be like a stargate, some portal to another dimension and jumping to hyperspace, perhaps, and for some reason, Australia was the place where they put this hyperspace portal that is used by extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Could the Blue Mountains of Australia function as an extraterrestrial gateway? Might this explain the strange phenomena reported in and around the area? But if so, is there some connection to the local Aboriginal tribe? DUNCAN: There is stories that elders would say that some people had actually traveled back to the Morning Star and have come back again.
That's not so much of an abduction, but they have basically went-- have gone back there and come back.
ROADS: The Australian Aborigines have a connection and a relationship with what we call extraterrestrials and UFOs, which goes back tens of thousands of years.
They're rather nonplussed by their existence.
They have developed an awareness of individual types of visitors from what we'd call outer space.
This is not new.
This has happened thousands of times before.
How do we know that? From all of the remnants that are left behind by the ancients.
Only a fool could say, "Oh, no.
"We're the only ones here in this vast amount of space.
" NARRATOR: Might the indigenous Australians really have an ongoing relationship to otherworldly beings? Beings who have been visiting the continent for thousands of years? Ancient astronaut theorists suggest further evidence of extraterrestrial contact can be found by examining the Aboriginal rituals known as "dreaming.
" NARRATOR: As the bustling streets of Sydney fill with workers and tourists-- over 500 miles away, Aboriginal elders known as "men of learning" prepare for a dreaming ceremony.
Dreaming is sacred to the culture and represents a complex spiritual concept that transcends linear time.
JAGAMARRA: In the beginning, there was great spirit.
From the stars they came, and they came down to this place.
YOUNG: The elders, the spiritual leaders of the Aboriginal peoples, will-will not only chant, but use hypnotic techniques like the didgeridoo, which makes this humming sound.
(didgeridoo droning) (singing in native language) It will take you into an altered state.
It takes them into connection with the Dreamtime, the unseen worlds, to commune with the ancestors, the sky gods.
The Dreamtime is this vast storehouse of accumulated wisdom and images and stories.
And it's like other traditions that believe there is a place that everything that has happened is recorded and can be reached by the elders through their altered states.
(chanting) THOMPSON: There's probably no more fundamental concept in Aboriginal cosmology than the concept of the dreaming.
Sometimes this is referred to as "the Dreamtime.
" And this is the idea of this mythic beginnings of the world, but it's important in that it's a sort of transcendent time.
And what I mean by that is in their view, it's never gone away.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that in many ways, the concept of Dreamtime mirrors the ancient Hindu idea of the Akashic record a collection of past, present, and future knowledge believed to be encoded in a non-physical existence known as the astral plane.
HENRY: The Akashic records are sort of like a giant hologram, a holographic world that we can step into to gain wisdom, access knowledge perhaps even to connect with extraterrestrial beings.
It's pretty remarkable that the Aborigines would have a concept, the Dreamtime, that matches not only the Akashic records, but also the idea of a holographic paradigm.
NARRATOR: In 1997, theoretical physicists proposed a revolutionary idea called the holographic paradigm.
Curiously, this theory mirrors the ancient concept shared by the indigenous Australians and also the Hindu tradition.
The holographic universe theory suggests that the world that we see is a mere projection from a 2-D space.
What we perceive as physical objects are actually projected fragments of data.
YOUNG: There is a fascinating idea that perhaps the universe is not three-dimensional.
That it's a projection from a two-dimensional slide of some kind.
That it's a-a hologram-- something like The Matrix, in the movie-- and that we are walking around inside of what seems like 3-D, but in fact is an illusion.
NARRATOR: While this incredible theory may seem far-fetched, in 2013, researchers at Ibaraki University in Japan found that the theoretical model is mathematically feasible and might actually be correct.
CHILDRESS: We have this parallel between the Aboriginal Dreamtime, the Hindu Akashic record, and the Holographic Universe Theory-- what would appear to be some kind of extraterrestrial technology that's putting all the information of the universe into one spot.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Aboriginal elders are tapping into an otherworldly plane when they perform their ceremonies? A plane that our greatest scientific minds don't yet fully understand? If so, does this provide evidence of a maintained connection between this indigenous culture and advanced extraterrestrial beings? TSOUKALOS: We have to remind ourselves that the Aboriginals are our last direct connection to our extraterrestrial past.
It would behoove us to listen, because one thing is clear to me today-- their stories are very clear in their message that we are not alone in the universe.
DUNCAN: We are the extraterrestrials.
Our body is made up of this earth, but our spirit comes from the Morning Star.
We come from another place, from another world.
We were brought here a long time ago to populate this place everyone now calls Earth.
NARRATOR: Might the Aboriginal Wisdom Keepers serve as a direct link to our extraterrestrial creators? And could there be messages left behind for mankind encoded in their sacred traditions? As we stand at the threshold of a new level of science and understanding, perhaps we will discover that the stories of the world's oldest living culture not only reveal our true origins but also our destiny.
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