Ancient Aliens s11e10 Episode Script
The Prototypes
NICK REDFERN: If the theory of evolution is correct, we should see a steady, slow progression.
We're actually not seeing that.
DAVID CHILDRESS: What we're seeing, really, is something like out of The Lord of the Rings.
GEORGE NOORY: You have a group of people indigenous to this planet, and you really can't trace what their ancestry was.
The planet has been an experimental lab.
WILLIAM LEONARD: At this point, we don't know exactly why these other species died off.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Could this be an experiment by extraterrestrials where, in the end, only Homo sapiens survived? 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 proof be found by investigating the prototypes? NARRATOR: Temple University, Philadelphia.
1992.
History professor Dr.
David Jacobs releases his book Secret Life.
After over 30 years of collecting research data and interviewing hundreds of individuals claiming to have been abducted by extraterrestrials, Jacobs became convinced that aliens were using Earth as a genetic laboratory to create a new species of alien-human hybrids.
I've looked at about 1,150, 1,175 different abduction events, and I became convinced that this was the real item, that the people actually were being abducted.
And they all say the same thing, and it's global.
They're put on a table, there are procedures that are applied to them.
Men have sperm taken from them; women have eggs taken from them.
Very often, they're taken into other rooms where they see babies who look odd, look sort of like a cross between human and alien babies.
The question is: are humans being manipulated to become a hybrid species themselves? NARRATOR: Although critics acknowledge that Dr.
Jacobs' research is meticulous and methodical, they continue to dismiss the abduction phenomenon entirely.
But could it be that extraterrestrials are actually using human DNA to add a new branch to the evolutionary tree? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they suggest that, while modern-day abduction stories are compelling, the answer might best be found by examining mankind's very beginnings and the numerous other human-like species with whom we once shared the Earth.
(birds chirping) (animal growling) Gauteng Province, South Africa.
September 13, 2013.
Recreational spelunkers unearth a trove of human-like fossils deposited deep inside a cavern known as the Rising Star Cave.
Paleoanthropologists determine that the bones are remarkably distinctive from any previously found early human remains, and upon further examination, decide that they are actually not human at all, adding a startling new piece to the evolutionary puzzle.
They call this new species Homo naledi to correspond with the Dinaledi chamber it was discovered in, which translates to "chamber of stars.
" What is remarkable about these hominids is that they are a distinctive mix of both primitive and more advanced hominid characteristics.
So there are some elements of Homo naledi, like the shape of the skull, the size of the teeth, the feet, the ankles, that are very human-like.
There are other characteristics, like the brain size, only about 500 ccs, so about a third of modern human brain size, and also aspects of the shoulder and the trunk that are much more primitive, much more similar to our earlier hominin ancestors.
PETER WARD: The original thought is this might be, really, the first humans of Africa, seven to three million years ago.
But this cave seemed newer.
The way the bodies were placed seemed almost too regular.
It looked as if there was at least ceremony to what was being done.
And that, of course, suggests this would be a fairly well-on evolutionary advanced creature.
NARRATOR: Finding the Homo naledi bones is considered the most astonishing human fossil discovery of the last 50 years, as it adds a baffling new branch to the human family tree.
This is a tremendously exciting time.
Both the fossil and the genetic evidence really underscore that there is much more diversity in human forms in our evolutionary past than we previously recognized.
NARRATOR: The hominin, or hominid, branch of the evolutionary tree includes modern humans, as well as the extinct human predecessors such as Neanderthal, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and other early, intelligent standing primates that have long since vanished.
And despite many years of thinking otherwise, scientists are now discovering that many of these species co-existed.
CHILDRESS: What we're seeing, really, is something like out of The Lord of the Rings, where we have all kinds of different humanoids who are tall and short, who have different color skins, different types of hair.
Even their brains are slightly different.
Some are more animals or apes.
Others are more refined.
NARRATOR: Some researchers suggest that these recent discoveries may require a retooling of Darwin's theory of evolution, which was first proposed in 1859.
In his work On the Origin of Species, Darwin laid out the foundation for evolutionary theory by proposing that gradual multigenerational changes, occurring due to natural selection, would result in the modification of existing species.
If the theory of evolution is correct, we should see a steady, slow progression.
We're actually not seeing that.
We're seeing the sudden surfacing of early humans who are actually very highly evolved.
The scientific community explains everything away by nothing else but natural selection and coincidence.
And the intelligent design camp suggests everything was done by God.
What if this external force did in fact exist? But it may have been an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: Could it be that the evolution of humans, and even prehuman hominin, might not be entirely what Darwin proposed? Might there be an even more profound explanation for the different species of intelligent hominin that once existed on Earth? Perhaps clues can be found by exploring the details contained within some of humanity's earliest stories of our creation.
We have this notion that the people that were the earliest examples of a civilization were not the first attempts, that there were failures that came before, and finally they would come up with something better, and that would be the prototype that became the people.
Sumerian texts speak of deformed humans created by Enki and the mother goddess Ninhursag in the course of their efforts to fashion a perfect person.
In all, six protohumans were made before they came up with what they wanted.
In the Mayan text the Popol Vuh, "the Book of the People," it is said that there were three attempts to make people.
NARRATOR: Could the stories of gods creating multiple versions of man-- which can be found in the Mayan Popol Vuh, the ancient Sumerian texts and other writings-- be accounts of what actually happened on Earth in the distant past? And if so, just who were these gods? There's a very good chance that early humans were possibly genetically manipulated by advanced extraterrestrials trying to formulate and create the ultimate human species.
What if at the heart of it is the concept that the planet itself has been an experimental lab, an experimental garden, and that all of these different models getting to Homo sapien, that there had been all kinds of models, all for different reasons, all part of tests, -all done by DNA manipulation by nonhumans -(heart beating) in the extraterrestrial category.
NARRATOR: Could the widespread mythologies about the creation of various human prototypes be real accounts of an extraterrestrial experiment, an experiment that continues to this day? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining the fossil discovery of real-life hobbits.
CHILDRESS: There is a new species that's come straight out of the incubator.
TSOUKALOS: Some people have suggested that this island served as some type of a petri dish.
NARRATOR: The Indonesian island of Flores, just north of Australia.
September 6, 2003.
Archaeologists seeking evidence for the first Homo sapiens migration to Indonesia come upon what they believe is the skull of a human child, embedded in the earth 20 feet beneath the surface of Liang Bua Cave.
After several days of careful excavation, enough of the cranium and mandible are exposed to reveal that the teeth belong not to a child, but to a fully grown adult.
The skull, along with the skeletal remains that were recovered weeks later, belong to an ancient hominin that stood only three-and-a-half feet tall.
Scientists name the species Homo floresiensis, but they are more commonly referred to as "the hobbits.
" The Flores hominids date to 16,000 to 18,000 years ago, a time period when, we thought, only anatomically modern humans existed.
What is remarkable about the Flores remains is their tiny, tiny body size.
And as well, at least one of the specimens has a brain size that is only about the size of a chimpanzee, 300 to 400 ccs.
And yet you have tools that are consistent with anatomically modern humans.
How to reconcile that is still an open question.
CHILDRESS: The recent discoveries of these hobbits on the island of Flores in Indonesia has really rocked the anthropological world.
And anthropologists were really not aware and didn't think that there would be this miniature type of person, who's a distinct species from Homo sapiens.
NARRATOR: Prehistoric stone tools found on the island of Flores suggest that these so-called hobbits may have arrived there 800,000 years prior.
How did this species get to the island? So there are two options how this could have happened.
One is that these hobbit people arrived there on boats, or they were planted there by extraterrestrials in the remote past.
Some people even have suggested that this island served as some type of a petri dish because of its isolation.
NARRATOR: Seven years after the initial Flores discovery, archaeologists stumble across yet another new species 8,000 miles away in the remote Altai Mountains of Siberia.
Isolated in a cave at an elevation over 2,400 feet above sea level, scientists discover a finger bone fragment and tooth of a previously unknown prehuman that existed at least 40,000 years ago.
They name the species Denisovan, after the name of the cave that the bones were found in.
It's particularly fascinating that when we look at the geographical distribution of the early humans, they're in different parts of the world.
We have the Denisovans in Siberia and Russia.
We have Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores.
And the list goes on.
It begs the question: How would that happen? Why would it not be the case that multiple different types of human would appear in multiple areas? But they had their own geographical location.
NARRATOR: Discoveries made in just the last two decades paint a picture of at least four distinct groups of intelligent hominins existing in isolated pockets of the world: Homo floresiensis, isolated on the island of Flores, Denisovans being found in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, Neanderthal found occupying Western Europe, and anatomically modern humans evolving in Africa.
Scientists don't entirely understand the role of geographic isolation, but what we know from studies of island populations of both humans and nonhuman species today is that isolated environments are fertile ground for producing unique and distinctive adaptations and also extremes in body size.
NARRATOR: In 1972, renowned evolutionary theorist Dr.
Stephen Jay Gould proposed a modification to the standard model of evolution.
His punctuated equilibrium theory addressed evidence that changes in the fossil record came not as a steady process of gradual evolution, as proposed by Darwin, but rather in fits and starts.
And these rapid changes seemed to primarily occur in situations of isolation.
His theory continues to be considered controversial, as it also suggested that there must've been an unknown mechanism at play.
But his research stops short of defining what this could have been.
CHILDRESS: We don't have the step-by-step changes that we were expecting to find.
So we have to ask ourselves, is there really this slow random evolution? Or are there sudden leaps, where suddenly there is a new kind of species that's just come straight out of the incubator? And so it's like we have these different species of humans that are being developed in isolation in different parts of the world.
HOWE: Extraterrestrials would use islands for one experiment, tops of mountains for another experiment.
But they would control what they were doing by keeping their different experiments separated from each other-- oceans, mountains, islands, peninsulas.
TSOUKALOS: If you subscribe to the zoo hypothesis, which suggests that this entire planet is nothing else but an experiment for extraterrestrial entities, then one has to wonder: Could this be an experiment by extraterrestrials where, in the end, only Homo sapiens survived? NARRATOR: Could remote areas of the globe have served as extraterrestrial incubation sites for protohuman development? If so, was the experiment eradicated to make room for the growth of Homo sapiens? Perhaps further clues can be found by taking a closer examination of our nearest evolutionary cousin-- the Neanderthal.
LEONARD: It doesn't look like a lack of intelligence led to the demise of Neanderthals.
REDFERN: This was extraterrestrial intervention wiping out early humans and starting over.
NARRATOR: Sima de las Palomas, Spain.
2011.
Archaeologists unearth a prehistoric grave containing three individuals buried side-by-side with their arms folded in a ritualistic fashion.
Because of the manner of their burial, the archaeologists assume the remains are human, but are surprised to discover that they are actually our evolutionary cousin, Neanderthal.
It takes a good deal of imagination to prepare the dead.
It suggests some kind of notion of an afterlife.
If there is that, there is usually a notion of a deity of some kind.
That is fairly complicated religious thinking, suggesting that the Neanderthals had a capacity for symbolic reasoning and the formation of culture.
This suggests a level of civilization, or at least the proto-culture, that is further along than we used to think.
Neanderthals, unfortunately, because of early discoveries that made them look like a brutish caveman, not intelligent, that they're very, very different from us.
They were shorter and stockier, but they had huge brains.
They clearly had clothing.
They cared for their sick and elderly.
They were very intelligent.
NARRATOR: In 2014, scientists analyzed materials from 40 different archaeological sites to determine a reliable extinction date for Neanderthals.
The date they came up with is 40,000 years ago, suggesting they coexisted with Homo sapiens for at least 1,000 years.
But just why did they die off? At this point, we don't know exactly why these other species died off.
Certainly, it does broadly coincide with the expansion of anatomically modern humans to all parts of the globe.
But contrary to our notions from the past, it doesn't look like it was a lack of intelligence that led to the demise of Neanderthals.
NARRATOR: Although Neanderthals are long extinct, in 2013, evolutionary geneticists discovered select modern human populations carry genomes from both Neanderthal and Denisovans, suggesting that, at some point, interbreeding occurred.
Neanderthal genetic markers are concentrated in populations in Europe and parts of the Middle East.
Denisovan markers can be found in the mainland Asian populations, as well as Pacific Islander, New Guineans and Australian Aborigines.
According to some ancient astronaut theorists, this interbreeding may be the key to understanding the demise of the other intelligent hominin species that once shared the planet with humans.
Consider the possibility that these different hominid strains were meant to be kept geologically separated from each other, across tracts of land that were considered to be too vast for them to ultimately come into contact with one another.
Is it possible that interbreeding was frowned upon, and that once interbreeding with Neanderthals started to take place, it was damaging the very essence of the experiment? And because of that, the Neanderthal strain had to be terminated or removed from the planet to stop this from happening.
REDFERN: When we look at ancient texts, particularly religious texts, from millennia ago, what we find is the idea of the gods or a god wanting to create a human that was pure, sort of physically and morally.
What we also find are accounts where the wrath of God or the wrath of the gods -hammered down on us -(thunder crashing) for essentially going off the rails, so to speak.
And we could make a case that this was some example of extraterrestrial intervention to essentially try and purify again the species, and that might have involved wiping out significant portions of early humans and starting over.
NOORY: It's very possible that the aliens decided that in order to cleanse the planet, they needed to do things of huge magnitude, like the flood that the Bible talks about.
The flood was geared to primarily eradicating the people that were on the planet at that time.
Well, God could have been the extraterrestrials, -could have created that somehow.
-(panting) It's very possible and very likely -that in order to eradicate a species -(people screaming) that they may have genetically altered themselves and screwed up with, that they needed to get rid of them and start all over again.
NARRATOR: Did extraterrestrials eradicate various prehuman species in an attempt to keep the human genetic line clean? Could the evolutionary bottlenecks in our prehistory support this theory? And just as evidence of interbreeding exists in our genetic signature, might there also have been unintended survivors? NEKARIS: There is no connection between these two groups.
We couldn't understand why they're so different, these X haplogroups.
NOORY: You have people indigenous to this planet, and you really can't trace what their ancestry was.
NARRATOR: Emory University.
Atlanta, Georgia.
1998.
Researchers analyze DNA data collected from various Native American populations, in an effort to trace back their ancestral descent through the Bering Strait.
The lineages are categorized into four haplogroups: A, B, C or D.
Each line representing a different migration off the Asian continent between 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
But what they also find is that a small portion of the Native population falls completely outside any previously known genetic group.
They can trace the ancestry back 36,000 years, but not to the Bering Strait.
Scientists dub it the X lineage.
Among human haplogroups, one stands out: the X lineage, which is found in about 2.
5 percent of some Native American groups, and also in a small population of northern Europeans and the Middle East.
And there is no connection between these groups.
We couldn't understand why they're so different, these X haplogroups.
NOORY: Isn't it amazing that you have a group of people indigenous, we think, to this planet and you really can't trace what their ancestry was? Scientists throw up their hands and they simply say, "I don't know how this can be, because these people "aren't somehow related to these people.
How can this be?" NARRATOR: While the source of this X lineage remains a mystery, some ancient astronaut theorists believe it might be connected to a lost race of people that were said to have existed throughout the world, including North America.
CHILDRESS: It's possible that this X lineage gene is related to the giants that were reported throughout the world.
Starting in the mid-1800s, in America, archaeologists began excavating skeletons of giants who were seven to eight feet tall in many cases.
NARRATOR: In the 1800s, Smithsonian archaeologists unearthed dozens of oversized skeletons contained within the burial mounds of the ancient Adena Indian tribe.
The highest concentration of which were found in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia, an area known to researchers as the valley of the giants.
Author and researcher William Henry is meeting up with a local Adena Indian researcher, Jason Jarrell, to have a look at one of these ancient earthworks.
This is the Criel Mound, and this mound was excavated by the Smithsonian Institution in November of 1883.
The Smithsonian sank a circular shaft from the top of this mound -down through the center to the bottom.
-Wow.
JARRELL: And that's where they found an elaborate tomb.
This structure contained 11 burials.
Ten of these burials were arranged in a semi-circular fashion around a central personage.
So you have ten people around a central figure.
What was significant about this central figure? According to A.
R.
Sines, who assisted in the excavation of this mound, the central burial, when measured in the tomb, was six-foot-eight and three quarters.
Now, the skull had been pulverized by the excavation, so a complete measurement wasn't possible.
So, in all likelihood, this individual was probably around seven feet tall.
That's a giant.
It's a gigantic humanoid.
HENRY: So we're saying the Smithsonian came here in 1883 and discovered a giant? That's correct.
In fact, they discovered giants in many of the mounds here in Charleston.
There were originally 50 burial mounds -in this valley.
-Wow.
And I've actually got some documentation here to show you.
-Let's see.
-This is the manuscript of the agent of the Smithsonian who excavated these mounds.
And this represents his day-to-day journal of his excavations, including the one that's mentioned on this page, which is measured as seven foot, six inches in length.
HENRY: Incredible.
So wait a minute, this is a government worker -Correct.
Correct.
-who's out doing a job, excavating a mound, and he discovers giants? Multiple gigantic skeletons.
The ones in this valley being between seven and eight feet tall.
That is incredible.
So why don't we all know about it? How come it's not in history books? Well, the policy of denial of the discovery of gigantic human skeletons actually wasn't enacted until about 1920.
Uh, before that time period, the Smithsonian acknowledged these giants in their own reports.
HENRY: Absolutely amazing.
For years, I've been hearing stories, Native American legends about giants.
It appears that we've unearthed evidence, proof of their existence, here in West Virginia.
But, for whatever reason, that proof was suppressed.
It probably has to do with the fact that it doesn't fit with our model of human evolution.
We have to ask: Is there an extraterrestrial connection? CHILDRESS: You have these Biblical stories of the watchers and the sons of God coming to Earth, breeding with humans to create this new race of giants, the Nephilim.
These giant skeletons seem to be evidence of-of the watchers and the Nephilim.
We have to ask ourselves who these seven, eight-foot giants were.
Were they somehow the vestiges of these giants of the Bible? It's a mystery that archeologists have yet to solve.
And part of the answer may be extraterrestrial DNA that's part of these giants.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the remains of a giant-sized population were discovered on the North American continent over 100 years ago? If so, were these beings a variation of Homo sapiens, an ancient intelligent hominin, or an otherworldly species altogether? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining the rarest and most mysterious human blood type on Earth.
NOORY: Rh-negative people may have been evolved from a different kind of species.
NEKARIS: There is a danger because these two blood types can't interbreed.
NARRATOR: Located between the border of Spain and France is the Pyrenees Mountain Range.
The people that occupy this isolated region are known as the Basque, and they have long confounded anthropologists and historians.
The language spoken by the enclave is not related to any other in that part of the world.
And the population also has the highest concentration of Rh-negative blood type in the world.
Up to 35% of Basque people have Rh-negative blood.
And Rh-negative blood is one of the most unusual blood types.
And it's the one blood type that is least likely to mutate or interact with other blood types.
NARRATOR: Human blood types are grouped into four distinct designations that include O, A, B and AB.
Additionally, there is another variance between blood types known as the Rh-factor, or Rhesus factor, which is a measure of Rhesus-based antigens in the blood.
The name comes from a monkey from India and other parts of Asia, which is the rhesus macaque.
And this monkey was used in experiments, looking at blood transfusions.
How blood was received from recipients varied.
And it was discovered that the Rhesus factor could be positive or negative.
Most humans in the world are Rhesus positive.
NARRATOR: 85% of humans in the world are Rh-positive and have no issues receiving blood from positive or negative donors.
But for the Rh-negative population, receiving Rh-positive blood may be fatal, as the body will try to destroy the foreign antigens.
And for women that are Rh-negative, mating with a Rh-positive partner could be detrimental to the fetus.
If a Rhesus positive and a Rhesus negative parents were to have an offspring, there is a potential danger to the offspring, because these two blood types can't interbreed, basically.
Medical intervention is needed.
It's why actually, in the past, people had to have a blood test before they were allowed to get married.
REDFERN: The very fact that an Rh-negative mother, her body would actually try to kill an Rh-positive baby generates bizarre scenarios.
How on earth could this happen? It suggests somewhere in our lineage that the Rh-negatives and the Rh-positives are perceived as being profoundly different.
And also, studies of Rh-negatives suggest that they have lower than normal blood pressure, lower than normal pulse.
In a number of cases, they have an extra vertebra in their back.
WILL HART: Rh-negative is very rare.
Most of the world didn't have it until colonization started in the 15th century.
Rh-negative didn't exist in the Americas, and it didn't exist in southern Africa, it didn't exist in Asia.
It was only in Europe, so it spread out from there.
Out of Africa, that theory has it that all human beings originated in Africa, southern Africa, sub Sahara.
They're all Rh-positive.
They don't have any Rh-negative.
Where did Rh-negative evolve, then? NOORY: 15% of the humans have Rh-negative blood.
Fifteen percent.
And scientists have no idea where it came from.
What they do believe is that if you have that, you may have been evolved from a different kind of species on this planet.
Now was that species put here, genetically altered? Or was it just a natural formation of the planet in its evolutionary stage? Who knows? But the fact is that Rh-negative people-- and again, there's 15% of them on this planet-- may have come from outside sources.
NARRATOR: Could the Rh-negative blood type offer evidence of a vastly different prehuman evolution than what we are led to believe in our history books? -Might it offer indisputable proof -(heart beating) of extraterrestrial intervention in the remote past? But if so, is the experimentation with intelligent hominin over, or is it still taking place? NARRATOR: A decade and a half after Dr.
David Jacobs wrote his book proposing that aliens are experimenting on humans, anthropologist Dr.
John Hawkes publishes research suggesting that humans have inexplicably experienced an accelerated evolution in recent history.
Humanity entered into a supercharged period of evolution.
If you look at DNA from a human walking around in 3,000 B.
C.
, and you compare it to what we have today, it is seven percent different.
What is this telling us? It could be that extraterrestrials are involved in that process, shepherding our genetic change through contact, through genetic work that they are doing.
NOORY: Millions of people report being abducted.
They can't all be wrong.
Something is happening to these people.
And if you assume for a moment that we may be the test tube of the universe, where they experiment and genetically manipulate and change things, it's very possible that the experiment continues.
Young children are changing.
They're smarter, they're more mature, they're growing up much faster than we did when we were children.
What will it be like 50 years from now or a 100 years from now is anybody's guess.
NARRATOR: Could it be-- as ancient astronaut theorists suggest-- that evolution is not just the result of natural selection, but also alien manipulation? And that humans are quickly becoming an entirely new species, designed to replace Homo sapiens? HENRY: What we will begin to see in the coming decades is the fulfillment of a plan by extraterrestrials to ultimately transform humans into celestial beings.
The ultimate goal is to make us better suited for traveling in space and the return to the stars.
Are we now being replaced by a brand-new hybridized species? One of the things that I think about often now: Neanderthals never knew they were going to be replaced by Homo sapiens.
NARRATOR: Is mankind the result of an extraterrestrial experiment? Could isolated regions of Earth have served as laboratories until the time when one species was chosen to continue? And might this genetic manipulation still be ongoing even to this day? Perhaps it will soon be revealed that we, too, are experimental humans, serving as the latest link in the chain of a directed evolution, and being prepared for a future alongside our alien ancestors.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS
We're actually not seeing that.
DAVID CHILDRESS: What we're seeing, really, is something like out of The Lord of the Rings.
GEORGE NOORY: You have a group of people indigenous to this planet, and you really can't trace what their ancestry was.
The planet has been an experimental lab.
WILLIAM LEONARD: At this point, we don't know exactly why these other species died off.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Could this be an experiment by extraterrestrials where, in the end, only Homo sapiens survived? 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 proof be found by investigating the prototypes? NARRATOR: Temple University, Philadelphia.
1992.
History professor Dr.
David Jacobs releases his book Secret Life.
After over 30 years of collecting research data and interviewing hundreds of individuals claiming to have been abducted by extraterrestrials, Jacobs became convinced that aliens were using Earth as a genetic laboratory to create a new species of alien-human hybrids.
I've looked at about 1,150, 1,175 different abduction events, and I became convinced that this was the real item, that the people actually were being abducted.
And they all say the same thing, and it's global.
They're put on a table, there are procedures that are applied to them.
Men have sperm taken from them; women have eggs taken from them.
Very often, they're taken into other rooms where they see babies who look odd, look sort of like a cross between human and alien babies.
The question is: are humans being manipulated to become a hybrid species themselves? NARRATOR: Although critics acknowledge that Dr.
Jacobs' research is meticulous and methodical, they continue to dismiss the abduction phenomenon entirely.
But could it be that extraterrestrials are actually using human DNA to add a new branch to the evolutionary tree? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they suggest that, while modern-day abduction stories are compelling, the answer might best be found by examining mankind's very beginnings and the numerous other human-like species with whom we once shared the Earth.
(birds chirping) (animal growling) Gauteng Province, South Africa.
September 13, 2013.
Recreational spelunkers unearth a trove of human-like fossils deposited deep inside a cavern known as the Rising Star Cave.
Paleoanthropologists determine that the bones are remarkably distinctive from any previously found early human remains, and upon further examination, decide that they are actually not human at all, adding a startling new piece to the evolutionary puzzle.
They call this new species Homo naledi to correspond with the Dinaledi chamber it was discovered in, which translates to "chamber of stars.
" What is remarkable about these hominids is that they are a distinctive mix of both primitive and more advanced hominid characteristics.
So there are some elements of Homo naledi, like the shape of the skull, the size of the teeth, the feet, the ankles, that are very human-like.
There are other characteristics, like the brain size, only about 500 ccs, so about a third of modern human brain size, and also aspects of the shoulder and the trunk that are much more primitive, much more similar to our earlier hominin ancestors.
PETER WARD: The original thought is this might be, really, the first humans of Africa, seven to three million years ago.
But this cave seemed newer.
The way the bodies were placed seemed almost too regular.
It looked as if there was at least ceremony to what was being done.
And that, of course, suggests this would be a fairly well-on evolutionary advanced creature.
NARRATOR: Finding the Homo naledi bones is considered the most astonishing human fossil discovery of the last 50 years, as it adds a baffling new branch to the human family tree.
This is a tremendously exciting time.
Both the fossil and the genetic evidence really underscore that there is much more diversity in human forms in our evolutionary past than we previously recognized.
NARRATOR: The hominin, or hominid, branch of the evolutionary tree includes modern humans, as well as the extinct human predecessors such as Neanderthal, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and other early, intelligent standing primates that have long since vanished.
And despite many years of thinking otherwise, scientists are now discovering that many of these species co-existed.
CHILDRESS: What we're seeing, really, is something like out of The Lord of the Rings, where we have all kinds of different humanoids who are tall and short, who have different color skins, different types of hair.
Even their brains are slightly different.
Some are more animals or apes.
Others are more refined.
NARRATOR: Some researchers suggest that these recent discoveries may require a retooling of Darwin's theory of evolution, which was first proposed in 1859.
In his work On the Origin of Species, Darwin laid out the foundation for evolutionary theory by proposing that gradual multigenerational changes, occurring due to natural selection, would result in the modification of existing species.
If the theory of evolution is correct, we should see a steady, slow progression.
We're actually not seeing that.
We're seeing the sudden surfacing of early humans who are actually very highly evolved.
The scientific community explains everything away by nothing else but natural selection and coincidence.
And the intelligent design camp suggests everything was done by God.
What if this external force did in fact exist? But it may have been an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: Could it be that the evolution of humans, and even prehuman hominin, might not be entirely what Darwin proposed? Might there be an even more profound explanation for the different species of intelligent hominin that once existed on Earth? Perhaps clues can be found by exploring the details contained within some of humanity's earliest stories of our creation.
We have this notion that the people that were the earliest examples of a civilization were not the first attempts, that there were failures that came before, and finally they would come up with something better, and that would be the prototype that became the people.
Sumerian texts speak of deformed humans created by Enki and the mother goddess Ninhursag in the course of their efforts to fashion a perfect person.
In all, six protohumans were made before they came up with what they wanted.
In the Mayan text the Popol Vuh, "the Book of the People," it is said that there were three attempts to make people.
NARRATOR: Could the stories of gods creating multiple versions of man-- which can be found in the Mayan Popol Vuh, the ancient Sumerian texts and other writings-- be accounts of what actually happened on Earth in the distant past? And if so, just who were these gods? There's a very good chance that early humans were possibly genetically manipulated by advanced extraterrestrials trying to formulate and create the ultimate human species.
What if at the heart of it is the concept that the planet itself has been an experimental lab, an experimental garden, and that all of these different models getting to Homo sapien, that there had been all kinds of models, all for different reasons, all part of tests, -all done by DNA manipulation by nonhumans -(heart beating) in the extraterrestrial category.
NARRATOR: Could the widespread mythologies about the creation of various human prototypes be real accounts of an extraterrestrial experiment, an experiment that continues to this day? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining the fossil discovery of real-life hobbits.
CHILDRESS: There is a new species that's come straight out of the incubator.
TSOUKALOS: Some people have suggested that this island served as some type of a petri dish.
NARRATOR: The Indonesian island of Flores, just north of Australia.
September 6, 2003.
Archaeologists seeking evidence for the first Homo sapiens migration to Indonesia come upon what they believe is the skull of a human child, embedded in the earth 20 feet beneath the surface of Liang Bua Cave.
After several days of careful excavation, enough of the cranium and mandible are exposed to reveal that the teeth belong not to a child, but to a fully grown adult.
The skull, along with the skeletal remains that were recovered weeks later, belong to an ancient hominin that stood only three-and-a-half feet tall.
Scientists name the species Homo floresiensis, but they are more commonly referred to as "the hobbits.
" The Flores hominids date to 16,000 to 18,000 years ago, a time period when, we thought, only anatomically modern humans existed.
What is remarkable about the Flores remains is their tiny, tiny body size.
And as well, at least one of the specimens has a brain size that is only about the size of a chimpanzee, 300 to 400 ccs.
And yet you have tools that are consistent with anatomically modern humans.
How to reconcile that is still an open question.
CHILDRESS: The recent discoveries of these hobbits on the island of Flores in Indonesia has really rocked the anthropological world.
And anthropologists were really not aware and didn't think that there would be this miniature type of person, who's a distinct species from Homo sapiens.
NARRATOR: Prehistoric stone tools found on the island of Flores suggest that these so-called hobbits may have arrived there 800,000 years prior.
How did this species get to the island? So there are two options how this could have happened.
One is that these hobbit people arrived there on boats, or they were planted there by extraterrestrials in the remote past.
Some people even have suggested that this island served as some type of a petri dish because of its isolation.
NARRATOR: Seven years after the initial Flores discovery, archaeologists stumble across yet another new species 8,000 miles away in the remote Altai Mountains of Siberia.
Isolated in a cave at an elevation over 2,400 feet above sea level, scientists discover a finger bone fragment and tooth of a previously unknown prehuman that existed at least 40,000 years ago.
They name the species Denisovan, after the name of the cave that the bones were found in.
It's particularly fascinating that when we look at the geographical distribution of the early humans, they're in different parts of the world.
We have the Denisovans in Siberia and Russia.
We have Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores.
And the list goes on.
It begs the question: How would that happen? Why would it not be the case that multiple different types of human would appear in multiple areas? But they had their own geographical location.
NARRATOR: Discoveries made in just the last two decades paint a picture of at least four distinct groups of intelligent hominins existing in isolated pockets of the world: Homo floresiensis, isolated on the island of Flores, Denisovans being found in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, Neanderthal found occupying Western Europe, and anatomically modern humans evolving in Africa.
Scientists don't entirely understand the role of geographic isolation, but what we know from studies of island populations of both humans and nonhuman species today is that isolated environments are fertile ground for producing unique and distinctive adaptations and also extremes in body size.
NARRATOR: In 1972, renowned evolutionary theorist Dr.
Stephen Jay Gould proposed a modification to the standard model of evolution.
His punctuated equilibrium theory addressed evidence that changes in the fossil record came not as a steady process of gradual evolution, as proposed by Darwin, but rather in fits and starts.
And these rapid changes seemed to primarily occur in situations of isolation.
His theory continues to be considered controversial, as it also suggested that there must've been an unknown mechanism at play.
But his research stops short of defining what this could have been.
CHILDRESS: We don't have the step-by-step changes that we were expecting to find.
So we have to ask ourselves, is there really this slow random evolution? Or are there sudden leaps, where suddenly there is a new kind of species that's just come straight out of the incubator? And so it's like we have these different species of humans that are being developed in isolation in different parts of the world.
HOWE: Extraterrestrials would use islands for one experiment, tops of mountains for another experiment.
But they would control what they were doing by keeping their different experiments separated from each other-- oceans, mountains, islands, peninsulas.
TSOUKALOS: If you subscribe to the zoo hypothesis, which suggests that this entire planet is nothing else but an experiment for extraterrestrial entities, then one has to wonder: Could this be an experiment by extraterrestrials where, in the end, only Homo sapiens survived? NARRATOR: Could remote areas of the globe have served as extraterrestrial incubation sites for protohuman development? If so, was the experiment eradicated to make room for the growth of Homo sapiens? Perhaps further clues can be found by taking a closer examination of our nearest evolutionary cousin-- the Neanderthal.
LEONARD: It doesn't look like a lack of intelligence led to the demise of Neanderthals.
REDFERN: This was extraterrestrial intervention wiping out early humans and starting over.
NARRATOR: Sima de las Palomas, Spain.
2011.
Archaeologists unearth a prehistoric grave containing three individuals buried side-by-side with their arms folded in a ritualistic fashion.
Because of the manner of their burial, the archaeologists assume the remains are human, but are surprised to discover that they are actually our evolutionary cousin, Neanderthal.
It takes a good deal of imagination to prepare the dead.
It suggests some kind of notion of an afterlife.
If there is that, there is usually a notion of a deity of some kind.
That is fairly complicated religious thinking, suggesting that the Neanderthals had a capacity for symbolic reasoning and the formation of culture.
This suggests a level of civilization, or at least the proto-culture, that is further along than we used to think.
Neanderthals, unfortunately, because of early discoveries that made them look like a brutish caveman, not intelligent, that they're very, very different from us.
They were shorter and stockier, but they had huge brains.
They clearly had clothing.
They cared for their sick and elderly.
They were very intelligent.
NARRATOR: In 2014, scientists analyzed materials from 40 different archaeological sites to determine a reliable extinction date for Neanderthals.
The date they came up with is 40,000 years ago, suggesting they coexisted with Homo sapiens for at least 1,000 years.
But just why did they die off? At this point, we don't know exactly why these other species died off.
Certainly, it does broadly coincide with the expansion of anatomically modern humans to all parts of the globe.
But contrary to our notions from the past, it doesn't look like it was a lack of intelligence that led to the demise of Neanderthals.
NARRATOR: Although Neanderthals are long extinct, in 2013, evolutionary geneticists discovered select modern human populations carry genomes from both Neanderthal and Denisovans, suggesting that, at some point, interbreeding occurred.
Neanderthal genetic markers are concentrated in populations in Europe and parts of the Middle East.
Denisovan markers can be found in the mainland Asian populations, as well as Pacific Islander, New Guineans and Australian Aborigines.
According to some ancient astronaut theorists, this interbreeding may be the key to understanding the demise of the other intelligent hominin species that once shared the planet with humans.
Consider the possibility that these different hominid strains were meant to be kept geologically separated from each other, across tracts of land that were considered to be too vast for them to ultimately come into contact with one another.
Is it possible that interbreeding was frowned upon, and that once interbreeding with Neanderthals started to take place, it was damaging the very essence of the experiment? And because of that, the Neanderthal strain had to be terminated or removed from the planet to stop this from happening.
REDFERN: When we look at ancient texts, particularly religious texts, from millennia ago, what we find is the idea of the gods or a god wanting to create a human that was pure, sort of physically and morally.
What we also find are accounts where the wrath of God or the wrath of the gods -hammered down on us -(thunder crashing) for essentially going off the rails, so to speak.
And we could make a case that this was some example of extraterrestrial intervention to essentially try and purify again the species, and that might have involved wiping out significant portions of early humans and starting over.
NOORY: It's very possible that the aliens decided that in order to cleanse the planet, they needed to do things of huge magnitude, like the flood that the Bible talks about.
The flood was geared to primarily eradicating the people that were on the planet at that time.
Well, God could have been the extraterrestrials, -could have created that somehow.
-(panting) It's very possible and very likely -that in order to eradicate a species -(people screaming) that they may have genetically altered themselves and screwed up with, that they needed to get rid of them and start all over again.
NARRATOR: Did extraterrestrials eradicate various prehuman species in an attempt to keep the human genetic line clean? Could the evolutionary bottlenecks in our prehistory support this theory? And just as evidence of interbreeding exists in our genetic signature, might there also have been unintended survivors? NEKARIS: There is no connection between these two groups.
We couldn't understand why they're so different, these X haplogroups.
NOORY: You have people indigenous to this planet, and you really can't trace what their ancestry was.
NARRATOR: Emory University.
Atlanta, Georgia.
1998.
Researchers analyze DNA data collected from various Native American populations, in an effort to trace back their ancestral descent through the Bering Strait.
The lineages are categorized into four haplogroups: A, B, C or D.
Each line representing a different migration off the Asian continent between 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
But what they also find is that a small portion of the Native population falls completely outside any previously known genetic group.
They can trace the ancestry back 36,000 years, but not to the Bering Strait.
Scientists dub it the X lineage.
Among human haplogroups, one stands out: the X lineage, which is found in about 2.
5 percent of some Native American groups, and also in a small population of northern Europeans and the Middle East.
And there is no connection between these groups.
We couldn't understand why they're so different, these X haplogroups.
NOORY: Isn't it amazing that you have a group of people indigenous, we think, to this planet and you really can't trace what their ancestry was? Scientists throw up their hands and they simply say, "I don't know how this can be, because these people "aren't somehow related to these people.
How can this be?" NARRATOR: While the source of this X lineage remains a mystery, some ancient astronaut theorists believe it might be connected to a lost race of people that were said to have existed throughout the world, including North America.
CHILDRESS: It's possible that this X lineage gene is related to the giants that were reported throughout the world.
Starting in the mid-1800s, in America, archaeologists began excavating skeletons of giants who were seven to eight feet tall in many cases.
NARRATOR: In the 1800s, Smithsonian archaeologists unearthed dozens of oversized skeletons contained within the burial mounds of the ancient Adena Indian tribe.
The highest concentration of which were found in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia, an area known to researchers as the valley of the giants.
Author and researcher William Henry is meeting up with a local Adena Indian researcher, Jason Jarrell, to have a look at one of these ancient earthworks.
This is the Criel Mound, and this mound was excavated by the Smithsonian Institution in November of 1883.
The Smithsonian sank a circular shaft from the top of this mound -down through the center to the bottom.
-Wow.
JARRELL: And that's where they found an elaborate tomb.
This structure contained 11 burials.
Ten of these burials were arranged in a semi-circular fashion around a central personage.
So you have ten people around a central figure.
What was significant about this central figure? According to A.
R.
Sines, who assisted in the excavation of this mound, the central burial, when measured in the tomb, was six-foot-eight and three quarters.
Now, the skull had been pulverized by the excavation, so a complete measurement wasn't possible.
So, in all likelihood, this individual was probably around seven feet tall.
That's a giant.
It's a gigantic humanoid.
HENRY: So we're saying the Smithsonian came here in 1883 and discovered a giant? That's correct.
In fact, they discovered giants in many of the mounds here in Charleston.
There were originally 50 burial mounds -in this valley.
-Wow.
And I've actually got some documentation here to show you.
-Let's see.
-This is the manuscript of the agent of the Smithsonian who excavated these mounds.
And this represents his day-to-day journal of his excavations, including the one that's mentioned on this page, which is measured as seven foot, six inches in length.
HENRY: Incredible.
So wait a minute, this is a government worker -Correct.
Correct.
-who's out doing a job, excavating a mound, and he discovers giants? Multiple gigantic skeletons.
The ones in this valley being between seven and eight feet tall.
That is incredible.
So why don't we all know about it? How come it's not in history books? Well, the policy of denial of the discovery of gigantic human skeletons actually wasn't enacted until about 1920.
Uh, before that time period, the Smithsonian acknowledged these giants in their own reports.
HENRY: Absolutely amazing.
For years, I've been hearing stories, Native American legends about giants.
It appears that we've unearthed evidence, proof of their existence, here in West Virginia.
But, for whatever reason, that proof was suppressed.
It probably has to do with the fact that it doesn't fit with our model of human evolution.
We have to ask: Is there an extraterrestrial connection? CHILDRESS: You have these Biblical stories of the watchers and the sons of God coming to Earth, breeding with humans to create this new race of giants, the Nephilim.
These giant skeletons seem to be evidence of-of the watchers and the Nephilim.
We have to ask ourselves who these seven, eight-foot giants were.
Were they somehow the vestiges of these giants of the Bible? It's a mystery that archeologists have yet to solve.
And part of the answer may be extraterrestrial DNA that's part of these giants.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the remains of a giant-sized population were discovered on the North American continent over 100 years ago? If so, were these beings a variation of Homo sapiens, an ancient intelligent hominin, or an otherworldly species altogether? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining the rarest and most mysterious human blood type on Earth.
NOORY: Rh-negative people may have been evolved from a different kind of species.
NEKARIS: There is a danger because these two blood types can't interbreed.
NARRATOR: Located between the border of Spain and France is the Pyrenees Mountain Range.
The people that occupy this isolated region are known as the Basque, and they have long confounded anthropologists and historians.
The language spoken by the enclave is not related to any other in that part of the world.
And the population also has the highest concentration of Rh-negative blood type in the world.
Up to 35% of Basque people have Rh-negative blood.
And Rh-negative blood is one of the most unusual blood types.
And it's the one blood type that is least likely to mutate or interact with other blood types.
NARRATOR: Human blood types are grouped into four distinct designations that include O, A, B and AB.
Additionally, there is another variance between blood types known as the Rh-factor, or Rhesus factor, which is a measure of Rhesus-based antigens in the blood.
The name comes from a monkey from India and other parts of Asia, which is the rhesus macaque.
And this monkey was used in experiments, looking at blood transfusions.
How blood was received from recipients varied.
And it was discovered that the Rhesus factor could be positive or negative.
Most humans in the world are Rhesus positive.
NARRATOR: 85% of humans in the world are Rh-positive and have no issues receiving blood from positive or negative donors.
But for the Rh-negative population, receiving Rh-positive blood may be fatal, as the body will try to destroy the foreign antigens.
And for women that are Rh-negative, mating with a Rh-positive partner could be detrimental to the fetus.
If a Rhesus positive and a Rhesus negative parents were to have an offspring, there is a potential danger to the offspring, because these two blood types can't interbreed, basically.
Medical intervention is needed.
It's why actually, in the past, people had to have a blood test before they were allowed to get married.
REDFERN: The very fact that an Rh-negative mother, her body would actually try to kill an Rh-positive baby generates bizarre scenarios.
How on earth could this happen? It suggests somewhere in our lineage that the Rh-negatives and the Rh-positives are perceived as being profoundly different.
And also, studies of Rh-negatives suggest that they have lower than normal blood pressure, lower than normal pulse.
In a number of cases, they have an extra vertebra in their back.
WILL HART: Rh-negative is very rare.
Most of the world didn't have it until colonization started in the 15th century.
Rh-negative didn't exist in the Americas, and it didn't exist in southern Africa, it didn't exist in Asia.
It was only in Europe, so it spread out from there.
Out of Africa, that theory has it that all human beings originated in Africa, southern Africa, sub Sahara.
They're all Rh-positive.
They don't have any Rh-negative.
Where did Rh-negative evolve, then? NOORY: 15% of the humans have Rh-negative blood.
Fifteen percent.
And scientists have no idea where it came from.
What they do believe is that if you have that, you may have been evolved from a different kind of species on this planet.
Now was that species put here, genetically altered? Or was it just a natural formation of the planet in its evolutionary stage? Who knows? But the fact is that Rh-negative people-- and again, there's 15% of them on this planet-- may have come from outside sources.
NARRATOR: Could the Rh-negative blood type offer evidence of a vastly different prehuman evolution than what we are led to believe in our history books? -Might it offer indisputable proof -(heart beating) of extraterrestrial intervention in the remote past? But if so, is the experimentation with intelligent hominin over, or is it still taking place? NARRATOR: A decade and a half after Dr.
David Jacobs wrote his book proposing that aliens are experimenting on humans, anthropologist Dr.
John Hawkes publishes research suggesting that humans have inexplicably experienced an accelerated evolution in recent history.
Humanity entered into a supercharged period of evolution.
If you look at DNA from a human walking around in 3,000 B.
C.
, and you compare it to what we have today, it is seven percent different.
What is this telling us? It could be that extraterrestrials are involved in that process, shepherding our genetic change through contact, through genetic work that they are doing.
NOORY: Millions of people report being abducted.
They can't all be wrong.
Something is happening to these people.
And if you assume for a moment that we may be the test tube of the universe, where they experiment and genetically manipulate and change things, it's very possible that the experiment continues.
Young children are changing.
They're smarter, they're more mature, they're growing up much faster than we did when we were children.
What will it be like 50 years from now or a 100 years from now is anybody's guess.
NARRATOR: Could it be-- as ancient astronaut theorists suggest-- that evolution is not just the result of natural selection, but also alien manipulation? And that humans are quickly becoming an entirely new species, designed to replace Homo sapiens? HENRY: What we will begin to see in the coming decades is the fulfillment of a plan by extraterrestrials to ultimately transform humans into celestial beings.
The ultimate goal is to make us better suited for traveling in space and the return to the stars.
Are we now being replaced by a brand-new hybridized species? One of the things that I think about often now: Neanderthals never knew they were going to be replaced by Homo sapiens.
NARRATOR: Is mankind the result of an extraterrestrial experiment? Could isolated regions of Earth have served as laboratories until the time when one species was chosen to continue? And might this genetic manipulation still be ongoing even to this day? Perhaps it will soon be revealed that we, too, are experimental humans, serving as the latest link in the chain of a directed evolution, and being prepared for a future alongside our alien ancestors.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS