Ancient Aliens s13e07 Episode Script
Earth Station Egypt
1 RAMY ROMANY: Welcome to Egypt, Giorgio.
NARRATOR: It's an Ancient Aliens event.
This is insane.
NARRATOR: As ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos joins Egyptologist Ramy Romany, for the journey of a lifetime.
ROMANY: Now let's go where no people are allowed, inside the Great Pyramid.
TSOUKALOS: This is incredible.
NARRATOR: It's a special two-hour search inside forbidden chambers ROMANY: Here it is.
TSOUKALOS: I have goose bumps.
NARRATOR: and a closer than ever exploration of the places behind mankind's greatest unsolved mysteries.
DAVID CHILDRESS: There are things in Egypt that we cannot really explain.
NARRATOR: For thousands of years, Egypt has been known as a place of colossal structures, strange rituals, and technologies so advanced that they continue to astonish.
ANDREW COLLINS: It's all here, in this sanctuary the whole story of humanity's beginning, its place in the stars.
NARRATOR: But what if the real history of Egypt cannot be found written on the walls of its tombs and temples, but on an alien planet, far, far away? CHILDRESS: Ancient Egypt was the center for extraterrestrial activity on planet Earth.
Welcome to Egypt, Giorgio.
It has been 18 years since my last visit, and in those 18 years, I have researched so much.
It is such an exciting time and I can't wait to to see everything with new eyes.
NARRATOR: In April 2018, ancient astronaut theorist and explorer, Giorgio Tsoukalos, traveled to Cairo in the company of Egyptologist and Cairo native, Ramy Romany.
Joining them is Dr.
Giulio Magli, a professor of archaeoastronomy from the Polytechnic University in Milan, Italy.
Giorgio is eager to see firsthand whether or not the recent scientific discoveries concerning the Great Pyramid could provide further evidence of the theory that extraterrestrials visited Egypt thousands of years ago.
I am personally very excited to take you inside the pyramid, because the Great Pyramid of Giza is not only one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, it's the most ancient one of them all.
- And the only one standing, Giorgio.
- Yeah.
And that's what we're gonna see today.
You know, I-I find very exciting to be able to share and exchange information.
Because what's happened recently, in my opinion, has turned Egyptology upside down.
- MAGLI: Absolutely.
- I completely agree.
And so, I think that for both of us it will be great as well, because every time you go there, it-it's like, uh, first time.
- Absolutely.
- Yes.
NARRATOR: In November 2017, media outlets around the world announced the discovery of what could be an enormous chamber within the Great Pyramid of Giza.
If it can be verified, it would be the first major find inside the pyramid since the 19th century, and a possible game-changer in understanding both the pyramid and the people who built it.
TSOUKALOS: The discovery of that void is sensational, because it opens up the whole discussion to more questions and to new answers.
NARRATOR: The process, known as muography, detected a chamber that appears to be so large it could fit the entire Statue of Liberty from head to toe.
ROMANY: This is it, guys, the pyramids.
TSOUKALOS: Wow.
Okay.
- Wonderful.
Incredible.
- This is incredible.
ROMANY: Look at the size of this thing.
Every single block is bigger than this car.
TSOUKALOS: Yeah, it is insane, it really is.
ROMANY: Are you ready for some climbing? TSOUKALOS: I have goose bumps on my calves right now.
Oftentimes, we throw around the words "awesome" or "monumental," and we don't really think about these words, but when you stand in front of the Great Pyramid, the word "awesome" is, in fact, true.
NARRATOR: Built from more than two million limestone blocks, each weighing thousands of pounds, the pyramid is aligned perfectly to the cardinal points of the compass, north, south, east and west, suggesting that its builders possessed extraordinary geographical knowledge.
According to mainstream Egyptologists, the Great Pyramid was built by the pharaoh Khufu, who reigned from 2589 to 2566 BC, during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
But this notion is hotly contested, as it is based entirely on a single and very controversial discovery.
In 1837, British explorer Richard Howard-Vyse claimed to have found the name of Khufu graffiti-ed onto a stone roof of a chamber inside the pyramid.
However, it was later discovered that Vyse had written in his private journal that he found nothing in the chamber that looked like hieroglyphics.
Some modern researchers suspect it may have been a forgery by Vyse's team to ensure that his expensive expedition was considered a rousing success.
One of the problems with Egyptology is that it's something that started in the late 1800s, and a lot of it is sort of solidified within the university system.
But Egyptologists and archeologists and geologists are discovering new things about Egypt all of the time that completely shakes the foundations of what they thought they knew about ancient Egypt.
We're even finding there are structures in Egypt much older than what the mainstream Egyptians would say.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists and a number of prominent archaeologists are concerned, the Great Pyramid was likely built long before the reign of Khufu.
There are some who believe the colossal structure could even be more than 10,000 years old, and date back to a period pre-dating that of the Great Flood.
The main reason this pyramid is the most magnificent of all of them is not because what you're seeing here.
It's what you're about to see, it's what's inside.
Let's go.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that whatever lies within the newly discovered void in the Great Pyramid will reveal not only incredible truths about ancient Egypt, but about the history of humankind? Could there be clues that reveal that Egypt was once home to an extraterrestrial civilization? NARRATOR: During his first visit to Egypt in nearly two decades, ancient astronaut theorist, Giorgio Tsoukalos, is eager to find out about a recent discovery concerning a possible hidden chamber located deep inside the walls of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- ROMANY: This way.
- NARRATOR: With him, are Egyptologist, Ramy Romany, and archaeoastronomer, Dr.
Giulio Magli.
They are making their way to what is called The Grand Gallery, which can only be reached after walking up a 200-foot-long passageway.
Directly above their heads is the area where an international team of scientists believe they may have located an enormous hidden chamber more than 100 feet long.
So this is it, The Grand Gallery.
You look at this, and you think they made this more than 4,000 years ago.
They actually built this.
TSOUKALOS: This is incredible.
ROMANY: From here to the ceiling is about ten meters high, and it goes about 50 meters in, which is 150 feet deep.
I mean, that just gives you an idea of how huge this place is.
And it's perfect.
The blocks, they fit together, and no mortar was used.
And you can't even put a money bill in between the fittings.
And this is what type of stone that we're looking at in here? Unlike the rest of the pyramid, - this is red granite.
- TSOUKALOS: Red granite, right.
ROMANY: Red granite doesn't come from a local quarry - like the limestone does.
- MAGLI: It comes from Aswan.
- Aswan.
- So that's a thousand kilometers away.
ROMANY: A thousand kilometers away.
TSOUKALOS: 600 miles.
ROMANY: So you think the void is right on top of our heads here? And how big is it in relation to where we're standing? - Okay, wow.
- NARRATOR: The news of a possible fourth chamber within the Great Pyramid has become a source of great controversy inside the archaeological community.
They have long held the belief that pyramids were essentially built as burial vaults, each possessing no more than three chambers.
Archaeologists and Egyptologists claim that they were tombs for the pharaohs, and yet no Egyptian pharaoh was ever found in a pyramid in Egypt.
We have found the mummies of many Egyptian pharaohs, but they're found in vaults deep underground at the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, hundreds of miles away from the pyramids.
The pyramids have no real explanation of what their purpose was.
In your opinion, what do you think is inside that void that was just discovered? Can you elaborate on that iron throne? NARRATOR: A throne? Containing pieces of metal found in a meteorite? Could such an object really be embedded inside a secret chamber located within the Great Pyramid of Giza? According to what are referred to as the Pyramid Texts, a collection of ancient religious texts that were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqâra more than 4,000 years ago, the god Osiris and his wife Isis came to Earth from the constellation of stars known as Orion's Belt, and it is from them that all human life originates.
JONATHAN YOUNG: Osiris was the central god of the Egyptian system, and he was a god of fertility and-and chthonic, that is, a god of the Earth, and died and was reborn in his son Horus.
So you have the cycle of death and rebirth.
And this is part of the-the Book of the Dead.
So, the pharaoh, the king, would die and be resurrected.
NARRATOR: According to the story, Osiris had an iron throne that was coveted by many who sought to possess its awesome powers.
One of these was Osiris's brother, Set, who murdered Osiris in an effort to obtain the throne.
WILLIAM HENRY: Throughout ancient Egypt, in the temples, we see depictions of the gods, extraterrestrial beings on their thrones.
These thrones are feathered, because they are ascension vehicles.
They are vehicles that take them to the stars and back.
I think it's very possible that the throne is in that void.
When we found this pyramid, there was no mummy.
There were, there were no treasures.
No nothing.
No hieroglyphics.
Nothing.
What if all this that we're looking at is a decoy? TSOUKALOS: You just raised a very interesting point.
The fact that we've come so far into this chamber and the entire way Not a single hieroglyphic.
Because, throughout the rest of Egypt, the walls are plastered with inscriptions telling the story of how it was built and by whom and when.
Yet, here, so far, complete anonymity.
Absolutely.
NARRATOR: Because the walls inside the Great Pyramid contain no hieroglyphics and there is no evidence that the colossal structure was ever used as a tomb or temple, there has been increasing speculation as to its original purpose.
One theory held by numerous scientists and archaeo-engineers is that the pyramid and others like it may have been built as one in an enormous network of power plants.
Christopher Dunn's theories indicate that some of these pyramids had chemicals mixed in them.
And, in fact, studies of his working devices have shown that this probably would work.
DUNN: The pyramids were actually geomechanical devices.
In other words, they were attached to the Earth, they were tuned to vibrate with the frequencies of the Earth, and they converted the energies of the Earth into electromagnetic energy.
The best example of this is in the-the Great Pyramid.
It's probably the most precise structure on the planet.
NARRATOR: According to Christopher Dunn's theory, the process of generating energy began with drawing water from the nearby Nile River to the base of the Great Pyramid.
Right in front of the door of the entrance door of the Great Pyramid, there used to be a well shaft, which was documented in 1857.
And so the water would just gravity feed down into, basically, a moat around the Great Pyramid and then go down the entrance shaft down under the ground.
The water was used in the subterranean chamber.
It is a water pump.
I believe the water was used to cause a compression wave and cause the pyramid to resonate.
DUNN: So, in the Queen's Chamber, two chemicals were introduced: hydrated zinc through the northern shaft and a dilute hydrochloric acid through the southern shaft.
This vessel represents the Queen's Chamber.
Into the tubes we're going to pour hydrated zinc and then hydrochloric acid.
When you bring these two liquids together, a chemical reaction occurs.
And a product of that chemical reaction is hydrogen.
And you can see the vapor, the hydrogen, escaping through the chimney.
And there you have the reaction.
NARRATOR: Adding credibility to Chris Dunn's remarkable theory is the fact that traces of both zinc and hydrochloric acid have recently been found in the shafts leading to the so-called Queen's Chamber.
But if the pyramid was really designed as a gigantic power plant, how was that power applied? DUNN: We can come up with all kinds of devices to power with that kind of energy, uh, from simple domestic appliances to highly advanced spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Might the Great Pyramid of Giza have been designed as part of an enormous network of ancient power plants, not 4,000 years ago but much, much earlier and by a civilization with incredibly advanced knowledge? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe there might be a connection between the pyramid's design as a power plant and the possible contents of the pyramid's newly discovered chamber.
I think that, with this new technology, we've entered a new age of discovery.
So I can't wait to see what we'll discover next.
TSOUKALOS: So, we're on our way to the Sphinx.
Are we able to get up close? Up close to the Sphinx? - Yeah.
- Absolutely.
NARRATOR: One day after their incredible journey inside the forbidden chambers of the Great Pyramid, ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos and Egyptologist Ramy Romany return to the Giza Plateau, this time to investigate another of the area's ancient wonders, the Great Sphinx.
No one is allowed to actually go down and get close, like, between the paws of the Sphinx.
No one, except for me.
- And now you.
- Oh, my God.
NARRATOR: Joining them is Ramy's family friend, Dr.
Zahi Hawass.
Dr.
Hawass is arguably the world's best-known Egyptologist and, in 2011, Egypt's first Minister of State Antiquities Affairs.
What is so special about the Sphinx? It's beautiful.
NARRATOR: For centuries, the Great Sphinx had appeared only as a giant head, peering out from a mound of deep desert sand.
Only after years of excavation was the enormity of the structure once again revealed to the world.
According to mainstream archaeologists, the Sphinx dates back to approximately 2500 BC, during the reign of the pharaoh, Khafra.
But in recent years, that information has been challenged by new research, which suggests that the Sphinx could be much, much older possibly more than 10,000 years old.
In your opinion, what is the most fascinating thing about the Sphinx that you want people to know? What does it say? Tell us.
NARRATOR: Carved in rock, and located between the paws of the Sphinx, is an ancient inscription known as the "Dream Stela.
" Although mainstream archaeologists believe it provides evidence that the enormous statue was carved approximately 4,500 years ago, ancient astronaut theorists, as well as a growing number of archaeologists, believe the carving provides compelling evidence that the Sphinx was actually constructed much, much earlier.
TSOUKALOS: The stela writings tell us about a time when the gods still mingled with human beings.
The ancient Egyptians were very clear in this.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists are also intrigued by another part of the inscription in which the Sphinx tells Thutmose that, once dug out from the sand, the earth and everything illuminated by the "flashing eye of the lord of all" would be his.
HENRY: Now, the amazing thing about this is that we are learning of what's called the "flashing eye of the lord.
" What is the flashing eye of the lord? This sounds like some kind of technology that is in communication with the Sphinx, or perhaps channeled by the Sphinx, that could ensure the prosperity of Thutmose IV.
NARRATOR: The Sphinx is credited with ensuring the prosperity of Thutmose's dynastic family, that would later include the pharaoh Akhenaten.
During his reign, Akhenaten decreed that Egypt would no longer worship a number of gods, but just one the god Aten who was depicted as a golden disk in the sky.
Akhenaten was said to become enthralled with the sun disk and this eye of the lord.
Is it possible that the eye of the lord and the Aten disk are one in the same, and that they are, in fact, some kind of UFO spaceship that's hovering over Egypt as an eye in the sky and is guiding Egyptian civilization? ROMANY: There is literally no technology out there, not even carbon dating, that can actually tell us how old exactly the Sphinx is.
Mainstream Egyptology and mainstream archaeology claim that the Sphinx was sculpted the same time the second pyramid was.
But this all is a guess.
All the knowledge we have is still a guess.
We could be off by thousands of years.
What do you think about the alternative idea, then, that the Sphinx was-was sculpted 12,000 years ago? The-the erosion? NARRATOR: Dr.
Hawass's contention that the erosion evident around the base of the Great Sphinx was caused by wind is one that is widely held by many scholars and mainstream archaeologists.
But an increasing number of geologists including Dr.
Robert Schoch, who has studied the geological features of the Sphinx for more than 20 years are convinced that this is not the case.
SCHOCH: My geological analysis has indicated that the Sphinx goes back much earlier to what I call "forgotten civilization," before dynastic Egypt.
A couple of Egyptologists in the early 20th century saw that there were weathering patterns on the Sphinx that seemed not to fit the weathering patterns of other structures on the Giza Plateau.
So I went to look at this with a critical geological eye, and sure enough, I found that there was a incredible discrepancy between what we see on the Sphinx and other structures on the Giza Plateau.
Here we have a photograph of the Sphinx on the left side this is the rump of the Sphinx; this is the wall of the Sphinx's enclosure.
When you look at this, these are the lines of rock, or the strata, as we say geologically.
You can see how they've been weathered out, sort of a rounded, rolling profile.
This is caused by rain beating down and running over the rock.
- (thunder rumbles) - This was very evident to me as a geologist.
This had to go back to a earlier climatic period.
CHILDRESS: If the Sphinx was built in 2500 BC, there would not be the amount of water erosion on the Sphinx that we can see.
So either the climate of Egypt was drastically different than what we think of in 2500 BC, or the Sphinx is at least 10,000 or 12,000 years old.
The head of the Sphinx seems to be a bit too small for the actual body, and so it has been speculated that the head of the Sphinx was actually something else originally, and then was re-carved to be the head that it is today.
Some archaeologists do think that the original head on the Sphinx was the jackal head of Anubis.
NARRATOR: Anubis? One of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods? Dating back to the time of Isis and Osiris? But if that is true, why was the colossal statue changed, and when? Perhaps the answer lies like most of Egypt's secrets buried deep beneath the desert sands in an area located approximately 300 feet north of the Sphinx.
Relatively unexplored, it is an area where some archeologists and researchers believe lies yet another Sphinx, still deeply buried, and still bearing the head of the god Anubis.
It is an idea of symmetry.
(laughter) NARRATOR: If the ancient Egyptians didn't build the Sphinx, who did, and why? Could it have been used by a civilization far advanced from the one later depicted on the walls of Egypt's tombs and temples? A civilization whose origins were as numerous ancient Egyptian texts suggest not of this world? NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt.
While exploring a tomb in the Theban Necropolis a site used for ritual burials for much of the pharaonic period Italian antiquities collector Bernardino Drovetti comes upon an ancient papyrus document broken up into more than 300 pieces.
When it is pieced together at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy, the document is found to contain the most extensive list to date of all the Egyptian kings.
CHILDRESS: So, in the Turin papyrus, we have three columns, and the first column is of the gods of ancient Egypt.
The second column is of mythical kings that ruled back into far prehistory of Egypt.
And the third column is of historical kings and pharaohs of Egypt, and these are people that we have an actual historical record for.
So here we have a list of kings of Egypt that's essentially saying that Egypt has existed as a country for 36,000 years.
NARRATOR: If the so-called "Turin King List" is as many ancient astronaut theorists believe an accurate account of all the rulers of ancient Egypt, then everything that is traditionally taught or believed about mankind's history would be thrown into serious question.
The implications are staggering, because this would rewrite world history as we know it.
Robert Bauval suggested that the position of the pyramids aligned exactly with the belt stars of Orion back in 10500 BC.
Later, Graham Hancock determined that the Sphinx also looks out directly at the constellation of Leo at exactly the same time, which was also 10500 BC.
NARRATOR: 10500 BC? More than 8,000 years earlier than what mainstream scholars have long believed to be true? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and believe that somewhere, hidden inside the Great Sphinx, could be the proof they have been searching for concerning mankind's extraterrestrial origins.
Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Edgar Cayce an American psychic and healer famous for remotely and accurately diagnosing illness in patients located hundreds of miles away has a profound vision while in a self-induced trance.
He sees himself as a high priest in ancient Egypt, a priest who was directly associated with the building of the Sphinx.
According to Cayce's vision, this occurred not in 2500 BC, as mainstream archaeologists suggest, but 8,000 years earlier.
One of the greatest sources for information on the older civilization of Egypt is Edgar Cayce.
He is known as the "sleeping prophet," an American psychic of great repute and note.
He refers on one occasion to the date of 10390 BC, when he tells us, not only was this a time that the Great Sphinx of Giza was created, but he also tells us that the records of some previous civilization that had existed on Atlantis were buried within this.
NARRATOR: Atlantis? The legendary "lost continent"? According to the Greek philosopher Plato who wrote about it in the 4th century BC Atlantis was an island in the Atlantic that was home to a highly-advanced civilization, but was wiped out by a great flood.
In his vision, Edgar Cayce believed he saw under the right paw of the Sphinx a chamber that holds a hall of records from the lost civilization of Atlantis.
CHILDRESS: Edgar Cayce said there was a repository of high-tech devices and machines that had been left there for thousands of years for people to discover during our time period on Earth, our civilization, that we would discover these ancient high-tech artifacts in chambers beneath the Sphinx.
NARRATOR: Based on Plato's writings, Atlantis would have existed approximately 12,000 years ago.
This matches up with the time period when the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx were aligned with the constellations of both Orion and Leo.
Some researchers also suggest this was the same era that was described in ancient writings as Egypt's so-called, "Golden Age" or "Zep Tepi," a time in Egyptian prehistory when the god Osiris had come down to Earth from the stars.
COLLINS: There are accounts from the walls of different temples that tell of an earlier age of activity.
And it was said that this was when the gods themselves actually enter into Egypt and create everything that becomes a part of the later Egyptian civilization.
They create the first enclosure, the first temple, and various other strange structures, which suggest some form of high technology, and suggest that we might be dealing here with an advanced culture.
NARRATOR: Although there are many who dismissed Edgar Cayce's incredible vision as a mere hallucination, in 1978 46 years after his trance two of the tunnels.
Cayce envisioned were indeed discovered: one behind the head of the Sphinx, and another directly below.
But mainstream Egyptologists continue to insist these tunnels were made long after the Sphinx was constructed.
NARRATOR: But is the discovery of 2,500-year-old pottery proof that the tunnels beneath the Sphinx were made at the same time? Ancient astronaut theorists say no, and argue that artifacts from an earlier period could have been removed during the Sphinx's numerous renovations.
They also believe more evidence can be found by exploring additional pyramids throughout Egypt, and by examining the legends concerning a mysterious capstone and its direct link to extraterrestrial visitations.
NARRATOR: Saqqâra, Egypt.
This ancient necropolis, located 15 miles south of the Giza Plateau, is home to what mainstream archaeologists suggest is the first pyramid ever built in Egypt: the Step Pyramid of King Djoser.
The step pyramid at Saqqâra is known as "The Stairway to Heaven.
" The complex is vast.
It's about 40 acres.
Entirely walled in.
There's a 30-foot wall with 13 false doors.
You only get in if you know where the right door is.
NARRATOR: Curiously, the only reason why the pyramid is believed to have been built as a tomb for King Djoser is that statues of the monarch were found inside the pyramid.
Like all other pyramids, there was no credible evidence that a body was ever entombed there.
Now this pyramid is 5,000 years old.
That's amazing.
So is all of this made out of from mud brick? Correct, this was all made of mud brick just similar to that era.
The leap between this and then the Great Pyramid of Giza was massive.
NARRATOR: In recent years, the conventional notion that the step pyramid was built only 80 years earlier than the Great Pyramid of Giza has been challenged, not only by ancient astronaut theorists, but also an increasing number of archaeologists and scholars.
They believe that the likelihood that Egyptians went from building a 200-foot-tall step pyramid out of mud bricks to building a monumental marvel like the Great Pyramid in only 80 years to be a virtual absurdity.
They also believe that the mathematical precision of the Great Pyramid's construction coupled with its precise alignments, not only with regard to Earth's cardinal directions, but also to the Orion constellation, is proof that it was built by a highly-advanced civilization.
SCOTT CREIGHTON: One of the things you find, for example, is that if you take the geodetic location of the Great Pyramid as a decimal degree NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theory, the Great Pyramid was most likely built more than 12,000 years ago, some 7,000 years before the building of the step pyramid, and sometime before the cataclysmic event known as "The Great Flood.
" They also believe that after the flood, the original function of the Great Pyramid as a power plant was long forgotten, along with all of mankind's other technological achievements, and that it would take a series of interventions by other extraterrestrial visitors to help humans rebuild the world they once knew.
In the text that we can read about Djoser, does he mention at all how he was inspired to build this? It was one brilliant man.
That man was called Imhotep.
Okay.
Who, in history, came out of nowhere.
He was the designer and engineer of that pyramid.
What does "Imhotep" actually mean? It means I know you're gonna like this - it means "I come in peace.
" - Oh, really? - Yes.
- That's very interesting.
- So the extraterrestrial greeting so to speak? - Yes.
He showed up into the life of the king out of nowhere, and then ascended into position so quickly, which is very uncommon in ancient Egypt.
What does that mean? What do you mean "out of nowhere"? Did he drop from the sky, or did he come from another land? In Egyptian history, you can normally trace every position back to their parents, but Imhotep nothing.
YOUNG: Imhotep was a commoner, but a brilliant thinker who grew to great influence during the time of the pharaohs that he served, and then became virtually immortalized.
That is unlike any other commoner.
A cult formed around him.
Some have suspected that he was possibly Joseph from the Bible.
That's interesting, because Joseph was an adviser to a pharaoh in about the same period of time.
What we know for sure is that he was a brilliant scientist for his day.
HENRY: Imhotep rose to the incredible status as the vizier, or wizard to the pharaoh.
This is where we get that word "wizard," from "vizier.
" There are great mysteries about who Imhotep was, where he came from.
This is interesting, because later on, Imhotep is deified.
And what's fascinating is the depictions of him.
He looks like he's got this oversize head.
He's got strange-looking hands.
He almost looks non-human.
And one of the extraordinary texts tell us that his knowledge may have come from the stars.
Did Imhotep himself ever mention where he was educated or how he came by the knowledge of building something like this, for example? ROMANY: In ancient Egyptian history, Imhotep spoke like a true ancient Egyptian.
And everything he has his beauty, his knowledge and everything he has is from the gods.
Do we know how long he lived? That is also a mystery.
We don't know how he died, but he was buried in a tomb.
And that tomb was around here in Saqqâra.
The tomb of Imhotep has never been found.
- So far, right? Yeah.
- So far.
But look around you.
The desert is massive.
When the tomb of Imhotep is discovered, it will be the discovery of the century.
NARRATOR: If the tomb of Imhotep is discovered, will it provide further evidence that ancient Egyptian legends of gods descending to Earth from the constellation of Orion are based on fact? Perhaps.
But until that day comes, there are many who believe that proof of humankind's extraterrestrial ancestry already exists, in the form of curiously carved, pyramid-shaped objects known as Benben stones.
This is it, Giorgio, one of the many Benben stones, or pyramidions, inside the museum.
Look at it.
It's absolutely magnificent.
And it's perfect.
- Absolutely.
- I mean, if you look at it, there's not a single mistake.
Anywhere.
Just wonderful.
I'm familiar with the stories of the Benben, and I'm fascinated that sometimes it was described as this shape descending from the sky with a lot of smoke and a lot of fire.
And then a door opened and people walked out.
So, to me, as a mythology, that is fascinating, because where did that story originate? Yeah.
NARRATOR: According to mainstream Egyptologists, the story of the Benben stone is part of a religious allegory conceived by ancient Egyptians to explain how humankind was created.
But according to ancient astronaut theorists, the stone is based on an actual historical event, one that predates the building of the Great Pyramid by thousands of years.
TSOUKALOS: So when I hear a story like the Benben stone, I wonder if this may have been some type of a craft.
Egyptologists agree that this type of a shape descended from the sky in a giant fireball, made a controlled landing, the Benben stone opened, and people walked out.
The first creator gods.
In my opinion, I think these gods were flesh-and-blood space travelers whom the ancient Egyptians and many other ancient cultures misinterpreted as divine or spiritual beings because of their technological frame of reference of their current time.
This ties in directly with the idea of misunderstood technology.
When a technologically primitive society interacts with a technologically advanced society, the primitive society begins to worship the advanced society.
I once read that a Benben stone can also be considered the home - of the gods.
- Yes.
From my perspective, then that would be proof of extraterrestrial intervention.
Right here, this is a physical piece of evidence that, a long time ago, someone descended from the sky and taught mankind in various disciplines.
NARRATOR: If the original Benben stone was inspired by an actual alien spacecraft, as many ancient astronaut theorists believe, does the legend surrounding it further suggest that Egypt was one of the centers of extraterrestrial activity on our planet? Ancient astronaut theorists say the answer is a profound yes, and they suggest that further evidence can be found not by examining ancient Egyptian scrolls and hieroglyphs but by carefully reading the pages of the Holy Bible.
NARRATOR: Cairo, Egypt.
The 14th century AD.
Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi begins work on a series of writings that propose that the history of the Giza Plateau dates back much further than what is accepted by the mainstream historians of his day.
He has concluded that the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx were not constructed in 2500 BC, but thousands of years earlier, by a king named Saurid.
ERICH VON DANIKEN: Now, according to usual knowledge, we believe that the Great Pyramid was constructed by the Fourth Dynasty, more or less, two and a half thousand years from now.
But old Arabian traditions for example, Ibrahim Abdulla al-Masudi they say that the Great Pyramid was constructed by a ruler.
His name was Saurid.
And they say Saurid is the same which the Hebrew call Enoch.
Now, Arabian notation says Enoch plus Methuselah constructed the Great Pyramid.
NARRATOR: Enoch? The same Enoch who was written about in one of the so-called lost chapters of the Bible, who supposedly was taken up to heaven by angels called watchers in order for him to observe the human race? Could he really have been the same person who was responsible for the building of the Great Pyramid more than 12,000 years ago? HENRY: The Book of Enoch is a text that is believed to have been written by the Essenes, Jewish mystics, sometime between the third and second century BC.
In the story, they tell how one of the watcher angels, the archangel, Michael, came to Earth and took Enoch into the heavenly realms, to the throne of God, where Enoch is educated by the angels and given an opportunity to return to Earth to share the accumulated knowledge that he received.
It's very similar to what we see in the Pyramid Texts, where the pharaoh is taken into the stellar realms, where his body becomes like lightning, where the doors of heaven are opened, and where a human then can be educated by the gods.
NARRATOR: Are the so-called Pyramid Texts and the Hebrew Bible's apocryphal Book of Enoch both referencing the same period in prehistory, a period where extraterrestrial beings, referred to as gods, ruled the Earth? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe further evidence can be found by closely examining ancient texts concerning a race of angels that are referred to as the watchers.
RABBI ARIEL BAR TZADOK: In the Bible, there's a very curious passage that speaks about the sons of God who came down from heaven and took daughters of men as brides, from which came forth "the mighty ones.
" They came down with knowledge, knowledge which we today would understand as technology and science, and they became corrupted.
They made matters worse, not better.
And this is what led to God's decision to bring the flood.
NARRATOR: According to the Book of Enoch, the watchers were sent by God in order to help mankind on Earth.
But after a number of these watchers had sex with human women and produced children in the form of giant mutants known as the Nephilim, God caused a great flood that was intended to destroy them, along with all those who disobeyed his will.
Our main knowledge of the Nephilim comes not just from the Bible, but also from the Book of Enoch and also the so-called Book of Giants.
The Book of Giants says that they were destroyed in a cataclysm that not only involved a deluge but also fire that came out of the sky.
And I think that we can connect this story with what we call the Younger Dryas comet impact event that took place around 10800 BC that is known to have had a massive effect upon the Northern Hemisphere at this time.
NARRATOR: If, as ancient astronaut theorists believe, the foundations of ancient biblical and Egyptian texts are not based on mere imagination but on actual historical events, then it serves to strengthen their contention that the roots of ancient Egypt stretch back far earlier than currently believed by mainstream scholars and archaeologists.
TSOUKALOS: Archaeology is rooted in interpretation, just like the ancient astronaut theory.
I'm still of the personal opinion that the Great Pyramid complex, including the Sphinx, date back to a time when the gods walked among humans.
Something extraordinary happened right here in ancient Egypt, perhaps under the tutelage of extraterrestrials, teachers from another star system.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials and giant hybrid beings really did inhabit Egypt thousands of years before the first human pharaohs, could physical proof lie hidden within the mysterious void recently discovered inside the Great Pyramid? Or could it be found elsewhere in the form of 24 stone coffins buried deep beneath the desert sands? NARRATOR Saqqâra, Egypt.
1850.
While on an expedition to recover ancient manuscripts for the Louvre Museum in Paris, French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette spots a strange object sticking out of the sand.
Intrigued, Mariette has the sand cleared away and finds large rocks blocking what looks to be the entrance to an underground chamber.
After using explosives to remove them, he gains entrance to a tomb complex, also known as the Serapeum.
The Serapeum of Saqqâra, Giorgio.
- Yes.
- Oh, it's magnificent.
The name "Serapeum" comes from Serapis, - which is Apis bull and Osiris.
- Yes.
Right.
ROMANY: Combined together in one Greek god.
This is one of the most mysterious places in all of Egypt, Giorgio.
TSOUKALOS: Look how far all this goes! NARRATOR: Located deep beneath the desert surface lies a 700-foot-long passageway.
There, located in a series of alcoves neatly carved out of the limestone rock are 24 gigantic stone sarcophagi, perfectly constructed from solid granite, and each weighing roughly 100 tons the equivalent of 55 mid-sized automobiles.
The boxes themselves are, what, 70 to 75 tons? And then the lids are estimated to be 20 to 25 tons.
It's one of the most mysterious things about this place is really how they managed to bring these heavy structures all the way down here when we're breathing heavily just to get to the end.
(Tsoukalos laughs) TSOUKALOS: Can we actually go down to some of these? Of course we can.
Wow.
You know, I've always read about these, I've seen pictures, but it's humungous! You can walk underneath it! (laughs) NARRATOR: Each sarcophagus measures 13 feet long, seven and a half feet wide and over ten feet tall.
But just how the ancient Egyptians managed to transport these massive granite boxes remains unknown, as does their intended purpose.
As far as conventional Egyptologists and archaeologists are concerned, the sarcophagi were meant to house the remains of the sacred Apis bulls.
But as only one of the tombs was found to contain animal remains, and all the others were found empty, the true nature of the Serapeum is a source of deep contention as far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned.
The Apis bull is a representation for god Osiris, and there's something very important to mention.
Ancient Egyptians did not worship animals.
Their concept was, the gods sent the animals to be their messengers, and we have to respect them in that way.
NARRATOR: Based on an artifact from the 4th millennium BC called "The Bull Palette," some Egyptologists believe worship of the Apis bull dates back at least 6,000 years.
It was said that the first ever Apis bull was created when a ray of light came down from heaven itself and struck this cow who produced the first Apis bull.
So there is some relationship between the bull itself and the stars.
Those bulls were said to have the markings of a falcon on their back, as well as a diamond on the forehead, and the scarab beneath the tongue, all of which were symbols of the sky world, all of which indicate that here we have a place of contact with the other world itself.
And the greatest mystery to do with this bull is the Serapeum.
The sides, and also here the bottom the polishing is perfect.
And we can illustrate this by just looking at the angle.
I mean, it's a perfect 90-degree angle.
Check this out.
It is absolute perfection.
It's easy to cut limestone, but to cut basalt is, uh (laughs) That's a different story.
What do these inscriptions here say? These inscriptions were extremely important.
You see the doors.
Specifically, the so-called "false doors.
" They were the doors that allowed the spirit, the ka and the ba, the spirit and the soul to come out from the mummy.
And then read the hieroglyphic inscriptions.
They wanted to make sure that these Apis bulls come back to life, go to eternity so they could stay with Osiris in the sky.
Ancient historians' accounts, like Herodotus, Strabo, Eusebius all of these old, old chroniclers speak of a former glory age of Egypt known as "the Golden Age," which some have suggested dates back as far as 10500 BC.
So, is it possible that what we have right here may be a remnant of that time? When it comes to dating, I don't have a response.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists like Giorgio Tsoukalos are concerned, the fact that only one of the 24 sarcophagi found in the Serapeum contained animal remains the same one that features crude, almost graffiti-like, hieroglyphic carvings is evidence that archaeologists are mistaken in their belief that this magnificent complex was built as a burial site for sacred bulls.
It's a huge discrepancy in workmanship, especially with what we've seen in other examples of hieroglyphs carved or inscribed on other basalt items.
It leads me to think that whoever inscribed this box right here they came much, much later.
I can't tell you for a fact that this was made 3,000 years ago.
Till today, there's a debate on when were these made.
NARRATOR: It is Giorgio's belief that not only was the Serapeum built more than 10,000 years ago back to the time when the Great Pyramid was constructed but that it was likely built to house the remains, not of bulls, but of giant extraterrestrial beings.
COLLINS: It is a fact that when most of these gigantic sarcophagi were opened, nothing was inside them.
But in my opinion, I think that this acted as some kind of otherworldly environment for communication with the cosmos itself.
CHILDRESS: These things may well have been created by extraterrestrials.
Later, the Egyptians took them over, used them as sarcophagi, perhaps for these bulls.
I mean, I find it wild that this place was even discovered.
And there's probably much more to be discovered here in Saqqâra, and we never know what we're gonna find.
Absolutely! NARRATOR: Could it be that the Serapeum of Saqqâra was originally built as a repository for extraterrestrial remains? But if so, what happened to them? How could they have simply vanished without a trace? Ancient astronaut theorists believe one possible answer can be found by closely examining another of ancient Egypt's most compelling artifacts: mummies.
NARRATOR: In the shadow of Egypt's majestic pyramids and monuments, and beneath its ever-shifting sands lie the tombs and resting places of more than one million human mummies.
The bodies, often thousands of years old, are so well preserved that most are still covered in flesh.
Mummification in ancient Egypt could be extremely expensive, and was a very slow process.
Families in Egypt would spend their entire fortune mummifying the dead.
But why were the Egyptians mummifying people and going through these elaborate mummification rituals? It would seem to be that they did want to preserve the body as best they could.
NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians went to great lengths to keep the bodies of their dead from decomposing.
All organs, except for the heart, were extracted.
The brain was pulled out through the nose.
All moisture was removed from the body.
And hundreds of yards of linen were used to wrap the deceased, all in preparation for what the Egyptians believed to be the afterlife.
Giorgio, this is it.
The Royal Mummies Room.
NARRATOR: Here in the Royal Mummies Room at the Cairo museum, ancient astronaut theorist - Giorgio Tsoukalos - This is amazing.
and Egyptologist Ramy Romany have come to examine some peculiarities concerning mummification that have been largely hidden from the public.
So, tell me about mummification.
Why did the ancient Egyptians mummify their dead? Mummification was extremely important for ancient Egyptians because the concept of their religion.
They believed that if they can perfectly preserve their body as is, then they can live for eternity in a different dimension in the underworld, in the world of the dead.
That's very interesting.
The mummies that we see in here, I mean, it is extraordinary, the level of preservation.
Absolutely.
Look.
You can see every bit.
You can see his teeth - are still in there.
- (laughs): Yeah.
ROMANY: The queen there.
You can see her hair is still there.
Every toe.
The toenails are still there.
And I have to tell you, big parts of it still is a mystery to us.
What were the ingredients needed in order to mummify a body? The first and most important ingredient in the process of mummification is the natron salt.
The mummy would have to stay in the natron salt for a couple of weeks before it can go through the rest of the process.
It's the driest salt there is.
'Cause the main reason they want that salt is to take the liquid out as fast as possible from the mummy before the mummy starts rottening, to keep every part of it safe with all the liquids out.
The one thing that's always fascinated me is the idea that they were mummified in order to live on in the afterlife.
And the afterlife, with all the religious symbology that exists in ancient Egypt, always had something to do with the stars.
Now, if you look at the future, one way of reaching another planet would be if we put ourselves into a state of suspended animation.
And we would do this by being inside pods sleeping like this.
And so my question is whether or not the ancient Egyptians witnessed something like this and didn't understand that it was someone going back to their planet, putting on the suit, getting inside their sarcophagus, which looks like a pod, or the pod looks like a sarcophagus.
So it's not symbolic at all, but in fact they witnessed something and misinterpreted it as a spiritual event.
The origin of it may have been rooted in misunderstood technology.
But I think there is a point to be made here.
You are assuming that they believed that this was symbolic, but for them it wasn't symbolic.
TSOUKALOS: So, this raises an interesting point that only mummies of the New Kingdom so far have been found and no one in the Old Kingdom.
So where have they gone? NARRATOR: Until recently, it was believed that mummification began in Egypt somewhere around 2600 BC.
But in 2014, evidence was discovered that suggested the practice could have begun thousands of years earlier, long before the time of the pharaohs.
But were the bodies of the dead being preserved for a future in the afterlife or for some other even more incredible purpose? I think the whole process of mummification and burial was, instead of a sacred thing, a very practical method of harvesting the energy of the Earth to charge the body of the mummy and transforming the whole thing into a very high-power capacitor.
NARRATOR: A power capacitor? Transforming the bodies of dead pharaohs into sources of energy? Could such an audacious theory be scientifically possible? CHIRIAC: Why do they use natron salt that comes from dry bed lakes instead of marine salt from the Mediterranean Sea or the Red Sea? Natron salt is very alkaline.
The body will become alkaline.
And they were covering it with linen, with natural resins.
Now, that resin is acidic.
In contact with the alkaline body, you will have some sort of an ion exchanger.
When we look at the mummification process and the tombs of the pharaoh, we find granite tombs.
The ancient Egyptians referred to granite as a fire stone.
They called it that because it's loaded with pure quartz crystal, and crystal holds vibration.
When we combine this with the massive amounts of gold and other precious jewels that were used in the mummification process and placed upon the body, you begin to wonder: were they trying to trigger some kind of a electrical process that somehow transmuted the body? Maybe we're dealing with some other sort of technology here or an ancient civilization on Earth.
They were making the body to vibrate, creating some sort of energy.
Soul booster, if you want, of the deceased.
HENRY: The reason why the ancient Egyptians mummified their pharaohs is that they were going to self-create a new light body, a new vehicle for the pharaohs' consciousness to survive.
So effectively, they could continue on their journey into the stars.
Our cutting-edge artificial intelligence and sci-fi-like desire to upload our consciousness into is an absolute and pure reflection of the ancient Egyptian mummification concept, this idea that we can create a new vehicle for ourselves, a non-biological entity that will enable us to live as immortal beings.
NARRATOR: Could it be that with the process of mummification, the ancient Egyptians were trying to recreate a process that had been used in Egypt thousands of years earlier at a time when the land was inhabited by an advanced, extraterrestrial civilization? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest that a direct similarity exists between the burial practices performed on the Egyptian pharaohs and the original purpose of the stone sarcophagi in the Serapeum: the conversion of physical beings into pure energy.
They also believe further evidence of extraterrestrial activity in ancient Egypt can be found by examining the hieroglyphs carved into the walls of one of the country's most elaborate and intriguing sacred sites.
NARRATOR: Was Egypt the destination for Earth's earliest extraterrestrial visitors? And, if so, were the ancient pyramids, tombs and temples actually built by ancient aliens, or were they, perhaps, inspired by them? To find the answer, Egyptologist, Ramy Romany, has invited ancient astronaut theorist and researcher, Andrew Collins, to join him on a visit to one of the most impressive and best-preserved shrines in Egypt the Temple of Edfu, located on the west bank of the Nile, 465 miles south of Cairo.
Look at this temple.
This is, like, my most favorite facade in all of the temples of ancient Egypt.
NARRATOR: According to mainstream archaeologists, Edfu is believed to have been built sometime between 237 and 57 BC.
It is dedicated to the falcon-headed god Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis.
ROMANY: This temple was one of the last temples that was ever built in ancient Egypt, during the Roman times.
When they built that temple, they were like, "We want to preserve the stories, "so let's gather all the mythology of ancient Egypt and try to put it in one temple.
" It took 150 years to make this happen.
And then finally, we had the book of ancient Egyptian mythology.
It's right in front of us on all these walls.
Every wall is absolutely covered in hieroglyphs and images, not only of the foundation of ancient Egypt and the first temple, but also how the world came into being, how Egypt came into being, how the universe was essentially founded in the first place.
I mean, there's just so much here.
NARRATOR: The most sacred part of Edfu, the holy of holies, is its inner sanctum, featuring a 12-foot-tall granite stone.
ROMANY: This is it right here.
This is how it all began.
Every symbol, every text, every little drawing in here represents the most sacred thing for ancient Egyptians.
The question that humans now still ask themselves: How did it all began? What created us? Every religion talks about it.
Scientist tries to figure out.
Ancient Egyptians had an answer, and it was right there.
Right on top of this is the pyramidion.
That pyramidion is the primeval mound that appeared in the middle of the marshes, where all the gods came and landed on for the first time to start creating humanity.
This is the beginning of humanity.
What we have here is a focus of all of these chapels, finishing with-with this incredible structure pointing towards the north.
It's actually pointing towards the origins of the gods themselves.
It's a way of projecting the soul back to its place of origin amongst the stars.
There's another piece of evidence here that you might like.
This is the boat, or a symbol of the boat that they believed the gods came on to the first primeval stone.
So it's all here in this sanctuary, the whole story of humanity's beginning, you know, its place in the stars, and how it arrived here in the first place.
This, to me, strongly suggests that they were aware that our origins are found amongst the stars.
I think probably the answer is yes.
Or could it just simply be humans trying to make religions explain what science can't explain? But I don't think it's about religion.
This is about cosmology, an ancient cosmology that was believed by the ancient Egyptians, and a cosmology that we're now beginning to understand for the first time, within science, whether it be to do with astronomy, astrophysics, or quantum existence.
NARRATOR: Are the ancient hieroglyphs carefully inscribed on the granite stone at the Temple of Edfu merely the fanciful notions of ancient Egyptian priests, or could they be based on actual historical events? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, they believe that extraterrestrials first came to Egypt in a pyramid-shaped spacecraft that was later referred to in the Pyramid Texts as the Benben stone.
But once here, they may have used an even more incredible technology to travel to the stars and back: the so-called Ship of Eternity.
HENRY: The story here is that Osiris, the god of resurrection, was cut into pieces.
The head of Osiris was found at Abydos.
When we look at the hieroglyph for the head of Osiris, it clearly resembles an electrical transformer.
On the opposite wall, we see the same device attached to what is referred to as the Ark of the Millions of Years, the Ship of Eternity.
The pyramid texts are replete with stories of the pharaohs flying through the cosmos on the Ship of Eternity, which they portrayed on the walls of the temples as looking exactly like the way modern science portrays a wormhole.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the human body could be transformed into a light being form that matched that of the gods.
And so, we have to ask, is this device some kind of a transformational device that could take the human body, turn it into a light being form, perhaps, that could then travel through a wormhole to a distant star system? Orion, for example.
NARRATOR: Does the Ship of Eternity represent a star gate through which extraterrestrials and perhaps even humans traveled instantaneously to other parts of the universe? Perhaps even back to their home planet located somewhere in the constellation of Orion? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they suggest that such a device may still exist today hidden within a recently discovered void inside the Great Pyramid.
NARRATOR: An ancient Hebrew text from the 3rd century BC entitled Exagoge, attributed to the poet and playwright known as Ezekiel the Tragedian, tells the story of a strange encounter Moses had while on Mount Sinai.
Moses comes upon a noble being who's sitting on a throne.
This noble being invites Moses to sit on the throne, and when he does so, this noble being gives him a crown and a scepter.
Suddenly, Moses finds himself looking at the Earth from space.
TSOUKALOS: It actually gives the description.
"I looked forth upon the earth's wide circle Then at my feet, behold, a thousand stars.
" So we have to look at these ancient stories and wonder what's described.
How is it possible that you put on a crown and all of a sudden you're in space? NARRATOR: According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses was raised as a nobleman in ancient Egypt, and as the adopted son and brother of two powerful pharaohs.
Is it possible that when he led the Israelites on their Exodus into the desert, he was already in possession of secret extraterrestrial devices, devices that would be thousands of years ahead of his time? JASON MARTELL: Today, through augmented reality and VR, we can see that our technological advances can actually extend someone into a whole new environment by placing these devices on their head.
It's very possible that some of these ancient devices, constructed for the pharaoh, were actually extending their consciousness to another physical location.
Or possibly project his physical body, like a star gate, to some other location.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the biblical account of a throne one that transported Moses to the stars is directly connected to Dr.
Giulio Magli's theory that the recently discovered void inside the Great Pyramid could contain some sort of sacred metallic transportation device? And if so, could it be the same object that the ancient Egyptians referred to as the Ship of Eternity? For ancient astronaut theorists, the answer is a profound yes, and they believe that the ultimate evidence of Earth's extraterrestrial past may be closer than ever before.
This place, to me, is ground zero for all of the theories that I have investigated.
And actually, my resolve has strengthened in taking a secondary and a tertiary look at ancient Egypt, to look at even more evidence, because I think that's incredibly important.
What I've learned as well is that just the fact that you, and hopefully others, are also open-minded enough to debate and discuss the theories, which is extremely important, in my opinion.
That's how science actually works.
Absolutely.
Look, I agree that many of the ancient things are rooted in symbolism.
However, my question is always how or where did the symbolism originate? Many of the ancient structure were built in honor of the gods, but my question is why? And where did it begin? And, above all, how? - How was the religion inspired? - Yes.
What inspired the religion? - Yes.
- And it's a great question to have.
And I don't have an answer for it.
- We are at a crossroads - Yes.
that is about to change the future.
I think we're about to enter a new era of archaeotechnology.
And, when archaeology and technology mix together, I think the future of Egyptology will be fascinating.
I mean, think how much, how much stuff is under the sands - just right in front of you, right here.
- Yes.
I 100% agree.
I argue that perhaps the ancient Egyptians had access to sophisticated technology.
So, the fact that we today are discovering ancient sites by means of modern technology, that, to me, is the present meeting the past, and the past meeting the present and the future, of course.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists, the mysteries of the early Egyptians are perhaps best understood as an attempt by them to replicate behavior that was practiced by their ancestors thousands of years earlier, when the region served as the center of extraterrestrial activity on our planet.
They also believe that new, cutting-edge technologies, like the one used to discover the mysterious void inside the Great Pyramid, will be instrumental in proving their theory.
For them, the answers exist all around us.
And once we discover the truth, humankind will be ready to realize its ultimate destiny.
NARRATOR: It's an Ancient Aliens event.
This is insane.
NARRATOR: As ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos joins Egyptologist Ramy Romany, for the journey of a lifetime.
ROMANY: Now let's go where no people are allowed, inside the Great Pyramid.
TSOUKALOS: This is incredible.
NARRATOR: It's a special two-hour search inside forbidden chambers ROMANY: Here it is.
TSOUKALOS: I have goose bumps.
NARRATOR: and a closer than ever exploration of the places behind mankind's greatest unsolved mysteries.
DAVID CHILDRESS: There are things in Egypt that we cannot really explain.
NARRATOR: For thousands of years, Egypt has been known as a place of colossal structures, strange rituals, and technologies so advanced that they continue to astonish.
ANDREW COLLINS: It's all here, in this sanctuary the whole story of humanity's beginning, its place in the stars.
NARRATOR: But what if the real history of Egypt cannot be found written on the walls of its tombs and temples, but on an alien planet, far, far away? CHILDRESS: Ancient Egypt was the center for extraterrestrial activity on planet Earth.
Welcome to Egypt, Giorgio.
It has been 18 years since my last visit, and in those 18 years, I have researched so much.
It is such an exciting time and I can't wait to to see everything with new eyes.
NARRATOR: In April 2018, ancient astronaut theorist and explorer, Giorgio Tsoukalos, traveled to Cairo in the company of Egyptologist and Cairo native, Ramy Romany.
Joining them is Dr.
Giulio Magli, a professor of archaeoastronomy from the Polytechnic University in Milan, Italy.
Giorgio is eager to see firsthand whether or not the recent scientific discoveries concerning the Great Pyramid could provide further evidence of the theory that extraterrestrials visited Egypt thousands of years ago.
I am personally very excited to take you inside the pyramid, because the Great Pyramid of Giza is not only one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, it's the most ancient one of them all.
- And the only one standing, Giorgio.
- Yeah.
And that's what we're gonna see today.
You know, I-I find very exciting to be able to share and exchange information.
Because what's happened recently, in my opinion, has turned Egyptology upside down.
- MAGLI: Absolutely.
- I completely agree.
And so, I think that for both of us it will be great as well, because every time you go there, it-it's like, uh, first time.
- Absolutely.
- Yes.
NARRATOR: In November 2017, media outlets around the world announced the discovery of what could be an enormous chamber within the Great Pyramid of Giza.
If it can be verified, it would be the first major find inside the pyramid since the 19th century, and a possible game-changer in understanding both the pyramid and the people who built it.
TSOUKALOS: The discovery of that void is sensational, because it opens up the whole discussion to more questions and to new answers.
NARRATOR: The process, known as muography, detected a chamber that appears to be so large it could fit the entire Statue of Liberty from head to toe.
ROMANY: This is it, guys, the pyramids.
TSOUKALOS: Wow.
Okay.
- Wonderful.
Incredible.
- This is incredible.
ROMANY: Look at the size of this thing.
Every single block is bigger than this car.
TSOUKALOS: Yeah, it is insane, it really is.
ROMANY: Are you ready for some climbing? TSOUKALOS: I have goose bumps on my calves right now.
Oftentimes, we throw around the words "awesome" or "monumental," and we don't really think about these words, but when you stand in front of the Great Pyramid, the word "awesome" is, in fact, true.
NARRATOR: Built from more than two million limestone blocks, each weighing thousands of pounds, the pyramid is aligned perfectly to the cardinal points of the compass, north, south, east and west, suggesting that its builders possessed extraordinary geographical knowledge.
According to mainstream Egyptologists, the Great Pyramid was built by the pharaoh Khufu, who reigned from 2589 to 2566 BC, during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
But this notion is hotly contested, as it is based entirely on a single and very controversial discovery.
In 1837, British explorer Richard Howard-Vyse claimed to have found the name of Khufu graffiti-ed onto a stone roof of a chamber inside the pyramid.
However, it was later discovered that Vyse had written in his private journal that he found nothing in the chamber that looked like hieroglyphics.
Some modern researchers suspect it may have been a forgery by Vyse's team to ensure that his expensive expedition was considered a rousing success.
One of the problems with Egyptology is that it's something that started in the late 1800s, and a lot of it is sort of solidified within the university system.
But Egyptologists and archeologists and geologists are discovering new things about Egypt all of the time that completely shakes the foundations of what they thought they knew about ancient Egypt.
We're even finding there are structures in Egypt much older than what the mainstream Egyptians would say.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists and a number of prominent archaeologists are concerned, the Great Pyramid was likely built long before the reign of Khufu.
There are some who believe the colossal structure could even be more than 10,000 years old, and date back to a period pre-dating that of the Great Flood.
The main reason this pyramid is the most magnificent of all of them is not because what you're seeing here.
It's what you're about to see, it's what's inside.
Let's go.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that whatever lies within the newly discovered void in the Great Pyramid will reveal not only incredible truths about ancient Egypt, but about the history of humankind? Could there be clues that reveal that Egypt was once home to an extraterrestrial civilization? NARRATOR: During his first visit to Egypt in nearly two decades, ancient astronaut theorist, Giorgio Tsoukalos, is eager to find out about a recent discovery concerning a possible hidden chamber located deep inside the walls of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- ROMANY: This way.
- NARRATOR: With him, are Egyptologist, Ramy Romany, and archaeoastronomer, Dr.
Giulio Magli.
They are making their way to what is called The Grand Gallery, which can only be reached after walking up a 200-foot-long passageway.
Directly above their heads is the area where an international team of scientists believe they may have located an enormous hidden chamber more than 100 feet long.
So this is it, The Grand Gallery.
You look at this, and you think they made this more than 4,000 years ago.
They actually built this.
TSOUKALOS: This is incredible.
ROMANY: From here to the ceiling is about ten meters high, and it goes about 50 meters in, which is 150 feet deep.
I mean, that just gives you an idea of how huge this place is.
And it's perfect.
The blocks, they fit together, and no mortar was used.
And you can't even put a money bill in between the fittings.
And this is what type of stone that we're looking at in here? Unlike the rest of the pyramid, - this is red granite.
- TSOUKALOS: Red granite, right.
ROMANY: Red granite doesn't come from a local quarry - like the limestone does.
- MAGLI: It comes from Aswan.
- Aswan.
- So that's a thousand kilometers away.
ROMANY: A thousand kilometers away.
TSOUKALOS: 600 miles.
ROMANY: So you think the void is right on top of our heads here? And how big is it in relation to where we're standing? - Okay, wow.
- NARRATOR: The news of a possible fourth chamber within the Great Pyramid has become a source of great controversy inside the archaeological community.
They have long held the belief that pyramids were essentially built as burial vaults, each possessing no more than three chambers.
Archaeologists and Egyptologists claim that they were tombs for the pharaohs, and yet no Egyptian pharaoh was ever found in a pyramid in Egypt.
We have found the mummies of many Egyptian pharaohs, but they're found in vaults deep underground at the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, hundreds of miles away from the pyramids.
The pyramids have no real explanation of what their purpose was.
In your opinion, what do you think is inside that void that was just discovered? Can you elaborate on that iron throne? NARRATOR: A throne? Containing pieces of metal found in a meteorite? Could such an object really be embedded inside a secret chamber located within the Great Pyramid of Giza? According to what are referred to as the Pyramid Texts, a collection of ancient religious texts that were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqâra more than 4,000 years ago, the god Osiris and his wife Isis came to Earth from the constellation of stars known as Orion's Belt, and it is from them that all human life originates.
JONATHAN YOUNG: Osiris was the central god of the Egyptian system, and he was a god of fertility and-and chthonic, that is, a god of the Earth, and died and was reborn in his son Horus.
So you have the cycle of death and rebirth.
And this is part of the-the Book of the Dead.
So, the pharaoh, the king, would die and be resurrected.
NARRATOR: According to the story, Osiris had an iron throne that was coveted by many who sought to possess its awesome powers.
One of these was Osiris's brother, Set, who murdered Osiris in an effort to obtain the throne.
WILLIAM HENRY: Throughout ancient Egypt, in the temples, we see depictions of the gods, extraterrestrial beings on their thrones.
These thrones are feathered, because they are ascension vehicles.
They are vehicles that take them to the stars and back.
I think it's very possible that the throne is in that void.
When we found this pyramid, there was no mummy.
There were, there were no treasures.
No nothing.
No hieroglyphics.
Nothing.
What if all this that we're looking at is a decoy? TSOUKALOS: You just raised a very interesting point.
The fact that we've come so far into this chamber and the entire way Not a single hieroglyphic.
Because, throughout the rest of Egypt, the walls are plastered with inscriptions telling the story of how it was built and by whom and when.
Yet, here, so far, complete anonymity.
Absolutely.
NARRATOR: Because the walls inside the Great Pyramid contain no hieroglyphics and there is no evidence that the colossal structure was ever used as a tomb or temple, there has been increasing speculation as to its original purpose.
One theory held by numerous scientists and archaeo-engineers is that the pyramid and others like it may have been built as one in an enormous network of power plants.
Christopher Dunn's theories indicate that some of these pyramids had chemicals mixed in them.
And, in fact, studies of his working devices have shown that this probably would work.
DUNN: The pyramids were actually geomechanical devices.
In other words, they were attached to the Earth, they were tuned to vibrate with the frequencies of the Earth, and they converted the energies of the Earth into electromagnetic energy.
The best example of this is in the-the Great Pyramid.
It's probably the most precise structure on the planet.
NARRATOR: According to Christopher Dunn's theory, the process of generating energy began with drawing water from the nearby Nile River to the base of the Great Pyramid.
Right in front of the door of the entrance door of the Great Pyramid, there used to be a well shaft, which was documented in 1857.
And so the water would just gravity feed down into, basically, a moat around the Great Pyramid and then go down the entrance shaft down under the ground.
The water was used in the subterranean chamber.
It is a water pump.
I believe the water was used to cause a compression wave and cause the pyramid to resonate.
DUNN: So, in the Queen's Chamber, two chemicals were introduced: hydrated zinc through the northern shaft and a dilute hydrochloric acid through the southern shaft.
This vessel represents the Queen's Chamber.
Into the tubes we're going to pour hydrated zinc and then hydrochloric acid.
When you bring these two liquids together, a chemical reaction occurs.
And a product of that chemical reaction is hydrogen.
And you can see the vapor, the hydrogen, escaping through the chimney.
And there you have the reaction.
NARRATOR: Adding credibility to Chris Dunn's remarkable theory is the fact that traces of both zinc and hydrochloric acid have recently been found in the shafts leading to the so-called Queen's Chamber.
But if the pyramid was really designed as a gigantic power plant, how was that power applied? DUNN: We can come up with all kinds of devices to power with that kind of energy, uh, from simple domestic appliances to highly advanced spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Might the Great Pyramid of Giza have been designed as part of an enormous network of ancient power plants, not 4,000 years ago but much, much earlier and by a civilization with incredibly advanced knowledge? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe there might be a connection between the pyramid's design as a power plant and the possible contents of the pyramid's newly discovered chamber.
I think that, with this new technology, we've entered a new age of discovery.
So I can't wait to see what we'll discover next.
TSOUKALOS: So, we're on our way to the Sphinx.
Are we able to get up close? Up close to the Sphinx? - Yeah.
- Absolutely.
NARRATOR: One day after their incredible journey inside the forbidden chambers of the Great Pyramid, ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos and Egyptologist Ramy Romany return to the Giza Plateau, this time to investigate another of the area's ancient wonders, the Great Sphinx.
No one is allowed to actually go down and get close, like, between the paws of the Sphinx.
No one, except for me.
- And now you.
- Oh, my God.
NARRATOR: Joining them is Ramy's family friend, Dr.
Zahi Hawass.
Dr.
Hawass is arguably the world's best-known Egyptologist and, in 2011, Egypt's first Minister of State Antiquities Affairs.
What is so special about the Sphinx? It's beautiful.
NARRATOR: For centuries, the Great Sphinx had appeared only as a giant head, peering out from a mound of deep desert sand.
Only after years of excavation was the enormity of the structure once again revealed to the world.
According to mainstream archaeologists, the Sphinx dates back to approximately 2500 BC, during the reign of the pharaoh, Khafra.
But in recent years, that information has been challenged by new research, which suggests that the Sphinx could be much, much older possibly more than 10,000 years old.
In your opinion, what is the most fascinating thing about the Sphinx that you want people to know? What does it say? Tell us.
NARRATOR: Carved in rock, and located between the paws of the Sphinx, is an ancient inscription known as the "Dream Stela.
" Although mainstream archaeologists believe it provides evidence that the enormous statue was carved approximately 4,500 years ago, ancient astronaut theorists, as well as a growing number of archaeologists, believe the carving provides compelling evidence that the Sphinx was actually constructed much, much earlier.
TSOUKALOS: The stela writings tell us about a time when the gods still mingled with human beings.
The ancient Egyptians were very clear in this.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists are also intrigued by another part of the inscription in which the Sphinx tells Thutmose that, once dug out from the sand, the earth and everything illuminated by the "flashing eye of the lord of all" would be his.
HENRY: Now, the amazing thing about this is that we are learning of what's called the "flashing eye of the lord.
" What is the flashing eye of the lord? This sounds like some kind of technology that is in communication with the Sphinx, or perhaps channeled by the Sphinx, that could ensure the prosperity of Thutmose IV.
NARRATOR: The Sphinx is credited with ensuring the prosperity of Thutmose's dynastic family, that would later include the pharaoh Akhenaten.
During his reign, Akhenaten decreed that Egypt would no longer worship a number of gods, but just one the god Aten who was depicted as a golden disk in the sky.
Akhenaten was said to become enthralled with the sun disk and this eye of the lord.
Is it possible that the eye of the lord and the Aten disk are one in the same, and that they are, in fact, some kind of UFO spaceship that's hovering over Egypt as an eye in the sky and is guiding Egyptian civilization? ROMANY: There is literally no technology out there, not even carbon dating, that can actually tell us how old exactly the Sphinx is.
Mainstream Egyptology and mainstream archaeology claim that the Sphinx was sculpted the same time the second pyramid was.
But this all is a guess.
All the knowledge we have is still a guess.
We could be off by thousands of years.
What do you think about the alternative idea, then, that the Sphinx was-was sculpted 12,000 years ago? The-the erosion? NARRATOR: Dr.
Hawass's contention that the erosion evident around the base of the Great Sphinx was caused by wind is one that is widely held by many scholars and mainstream archaeologists.
But an increasing number of geologists including Dr.
Robert Schoch, who has studied the geological features of the Sphinx for more than 20 years are convinced that this is not the case.
SCHOCH: My geological analysis has indicated that the Sphinx goes back much earlier to what I call "forgotten civilization," before dynastic Egypt.
A couple of Egyptologists in the early 20th century saw that there were weathering patterns on the Sphinx that seemed not to fit the weathering patterns of other structures on the Giza Plateau.
So I went to look at this with a critical geological eye, and sure enough, I found that there was a incredible discrepancy between what we see on the Sphinx and other structures on the Giza Plateau.
Here we have a photograph of the Sphinx on the left side this is the rump of the Sphinx; this is the wall of the Sphinx's enclosure.
When you look at this, these are the lines of rock, or the strata, as we say geologically.
You can see how they've been weathered out, sort of a rounded, rolling profile.
This is caused by rain beating down and running over the rock.
- (thunder rumbles) - This was very evident to me as a geologist.
This had to go back to a earlier climatic period.
CHILDRESS: If the Sphinx was built in 2500 BC, there would not be the amount of water erosion on the Sphinx that we can see.
So either the climate of Egypt was drastically different than what we think of in 2500 BC, or the Sphinx is at least 10,000 or 12,000 years old.
The head of the Sphinx seems to be a bit too small for the actual body, and so it has been speculated that the head of the Sphinx was actually something else originally, and then was re-carved to be the head that it is today.
Some archaeologists do think that the original head on the Sphinx was the jackal head of Anubis.
NARRATOR: Anubis? One of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods? Dating back to the time of Isis and Osiris? But if that is true, why was the colossal statue changed, and when? Perhaps the answer lies like most of Egypt's secrets buried deep beneath the desert sands in an area located approximately 300 feet north of the Sphinx.
Relatively unexplored, it is an area where some archeologists and researchers believe lies yet another Sphinx, still deeply buried, and still bearing the head of the god Anubis.
It is an idea of symmetry.
(laughter) NARRATOR: If the ancient Egyptians didn't build the Sphinx, who did, and why? Could it have been used by a civilization far advanced from the one later depicted on the walls of Egypt's tombs and temples? A civilization whose origins were as numerous ancient Egyptian texts suggest not of this world? NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt.
While exploring a tomb in the Theban Necropolis a site used for ritual burials for much of the pharaonic period Italian antiquities collector Bernardino Drovetti comes upon an ancient papyrus document broken up into more than 300 pieces.
When it is pieced together at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy, the document is found to contain the most extensive list to date of all the Egyptian kings.
CHILDRESS: So, in the Turin papyrus, we have three columns, and the first column is of the gods of ancient Egypt.
The second column is of mythical kings that ruled back into far prehistory of Egypt.
And the third column is of historical kings and pharaohs of Egypt, and these are people that we have an actual historical record for.
So here we have a list of kings of Egypt that's essentially saying that Egypt has existed as a country for 36,000 years.
NARRATOR: If the so-called "Turin King List" is as many ancient astronaut theorists believe an accurate account of all the rulers of ancient Egypt, then everything that is traditionally taught or believed about mankind's history would be thrown into serious question.
The implications are staggering, because this would rewrite world history as we know it.
Robert Bauval suggested that the position of the pyramids aligned exactly with the belt stars of Orion back in 10500 BC.
Later, Graham Hancock determined that the Sphinx also looks out directly at the constellation of Leo at exactly the same time, which was also 10500 BC.
NARRATOR: 10500 BC? More than 8,000 years earlier than what mainstream scholars have long believed to be true? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and believe that somewhere, hidden inside the Great Sphinx, could be the proof they have been searching for concerning mankind's extraterrestrial origins.
Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Edgar Cayce an American psychic and healer famous for remotely and accurately diagnosing illness in patients located hundreds of miles away has a profound vision while in a self-induced trance.
He sees himself as a high priest in ancient Egypt, a priest who was directly associated with the building of the Sphinx.
According to Cayce's vision, this occurred not in 2500 BC, as mainstream archaeologists suggest, but 8,000 years earlier.
One of the greatest sources for information on the older civilization of Egypt is Edgar Cayce.
He is known as the "sleeping prophet," an American psychic of great repute and note.
He refers on one occasion to the date of 10390 BC, when he tells us, not only was this a time that the Great Sphinx of Giza was created, but he also tells us that the records of some previous civilization that had existed on Atlantis were buried within this.
NARRATOR: Atlantis? The legendary "lost continent"? According to the Greek philosopher Plato who wrote about it in the 4th century BC Atlantis was an island in the Atlantic that was home to a highly-advanced civilization, but was wiped out by a great flood.
In his vision, Edgar Cayce believed he saw under the right paw of the Sphinx a chamber that holds a hall of records from the lost civilization of Atlantis.
CHILDRESS: Edgar Cayce said there was a repository of high-tech devices and machines that had been left there for thousands of years for people to discover during our time period on Earth, our civilization, that we would discover these ancient high-tech artifacts in chambers beneath the Sphinx.
NARRATOR: Based on Plato's writings, Atlantis would have existed approximately 12,000 years ago.
This matches up with the time period when the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx were aligned with the constellations of both Orion and Leo.
Some researchers also suggest this was the same era that was described in ancient writings as Egypt's so-called, "Golden Age" or "Zep Tepi," a time in Egyptian prehistory when the god Osiris had come down to Earth from the stars.
COLLINS: There are accounts from the walls of different temples that tell of an earlier age of activity.
And it was said that this was when the gods themselves actually enter into Egypt and create everything that becomes a part of the later Egyptian civilization.
They create the first enclosure, the first temple, and various other strange structures, which suggest some form of high technology, and suggest that we might be dealing here with an advanced culture.
NARRATOR: Although there are many who dismissed Edgar Cayce's incredible vision as a mere hallucination, in 1978 46 years after his trance two of the tunnels.
Cayce envisioned were indeed discovered: one behind the head of the Sphinx, and another directly below.
But mainstream Egyptologists continue to insist these tunnels were made long after the Sphinx was constructed.
NARRATOR: But is the discovery of 2,500-year-old pottery proof that the tunnels beneath the Sphinx were made at the same time? Ancient astronaut theorists say no, and argue that artifacts from an earlier period could have been removed during the Sphinx's numerous renovations.
They also believe more evidence can be found by exploring additional pyramids throughout Egypt, and by examining the legends concerning a mysterious capstone and its direct link to extraterrestrial visitations.
NARRATOR: Saqqâra, Egypt.
This ancient necropolis, located 15 miles south of the Giza Plateau, is home to what mainstream archaeologists suggest is the first pyramid ever built in Egypt: the Step Pyramid of King Djoser.
The step pyramid at Saqqâra is known as "The Stairway to Heaven.
" The complex is vast.
It's about 40 acres.
Entirely walled in.
There's a 30-foot wall with 13 false doors.
You only get in if you know where the right door is.
NARRATOR: Curiously, the only reason why the pyramid is believed to have been built as a tomb for King Djoser is that statues of the monarch were found inside the pyramid.
Like all other pyramids, there was no credible evidence that a body was ever entombed there.
Now this pyramid is 5,000 years old.
That's amazing.
So is all of this made out of from mud brick? Correct, this was all made of mud brick just similar to that era.
The leap between this and then the Great Pyramid of Giza was massive.
NARRATOR: In recent years, the conventional notion that the step pyramid was built only 80 years earlier than the Great Pyramid of Giza has been challenged, not only by ancient astronaut theorists, but also an increasing number of archaeologists and scholars.
They believe that the likelihood that Egyptians went from building a 200-foot-tall step pyramid out of mud bricks to building a monumental marvel like the Great Pyramid in only 80 years to be a virtual absurdity.
They also believe that the mathematical precision of the Great Pyramid's construction coupled with its precise alignments, not only with regard to Earth's cardinal directions, but also to the Orion constellation, is proof that it was built by a highly-advanced civilization.
SCOTT CREIGHTON: One of the things you find, for example, is that if you take the geodetic location of the Great Pyramid as a decimal degree NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theory, the Great Pyramid was most likely built more than 12,000 years ago, some 7,000 years before the building of the step pyramid, and sometime before the cataclysmic event known as "The Great Flood.
" They also believe that after the flood, the original function of the Great Pyramid as a power plant was long forgotten, along with all of mankind's other technological achievements, and that it would take a series of interventions by other extraterrestrial visitors to help humans rebuild the world they once knew.
In the text that we can read about Djoser, does he mention at all how he was inspired to build this? It was one brilliant man.
That man was called Imhotep.
Okay.
Who, in history, came out of nowhere.
He was the designer and engineer of that pyramid.
What does "Imhotep" actually mean? It means I know you're gonna like this - it means "I come in peace.
" - Oh, really? - Yes.
- That's very interesting.
- So the extraterrestrial greeting so to speak? - Yes.
He showed up into the life of the king out of nowhere, and then ascended into position so quickly, which is very uncommon in ancient Egypt.
What does that mean? What do you mean "out of nowhere"? Did he drop from the sky, or did he come from another land? In Egyptian history, you can normally trace every position back to their parents, but Imhotep nothing.
YOUNG: Imhotep was a commoner, but a brilliant thinker who grew to great influence during the time of the pharaohs that he served, and then became virtually immortalized.
That is unlike any other commoner.
A cult formed around him.
Some have suspected that he was possibly Joseph from the Bible.
That's interesting, because Joseph was an adviser to a pharaoh in about the same period of time.
What we know for sure is that he was a brilliant scientist for his day.
HENRY: Imhotep rose to the incredible status as the vizier, or wizard to the pharaoh.
This is where we get that word "wizard," from "vizier.
" There are great mysteries about who Imhotep was, where he came from.
This is interesting, because later on, Imhotep is deified.
And what's fascinating is the depictions of him.
He looks like he's got this oversize head.
He's got strange-looking hands.
He almost looks non-human.
And one of the extraordinary texts tell us that his knowledge may have come from the stars.
Did Imhotep himself ever mention where he was educated or how he came by the knowledge of building something like this, for example? ROMANY: In ancient Egyptian history, Imhotep spoke like a true ancient Egyptian.
And everything he has his beauty, his knowledge and everything he has is from the gods.
Do we know how long he lived? That is also a mystery.
We don't know how he died, but he was buried in a tomb.
And that tomb was around here in Saqqâra.
The tomb of Imhotep has never been found.
- So far, right? Yeah.
- So far.
But look around you.
The desert is massive.
When the tomb of Imhotep is discovered, it will be the discovery of the century.
NARRATOR: If the tomb of Imhotep is discovered, will it provide further evidence that ancient Egyptian legends of gods descending to Earth from the constellation of Orion are based on fact? Perhaps.
But until that day comes, there are many who believe that proof of humankind's extraterrestrial ancestry already exists, in the form of curiously carved, pyramid-shaped objects known as Benben stones.
This is it, Giorgio, one of the many Benben stones, or pyramidions, inside the museum.
Look at it.
It's absolutely magnificent.
And it's perfect.
- Absolutely.
- I mean, if you look at it, there's not a single mistake.
Anywhere.
Just wonderful.
I'm familiar with the stories of the Benben, and I'm fascinated that sometimes it was described as this shape descending from the sky with a lot of smoke and a lot of fire.
And then a door opened and people walked out.
So, to me, as a mythology, that is fascinating, because where did that story originate? Yeah.
NARRATOR: According to mainstream Egyptologists, the story of the Benben stone is part of a religious allegory conceived by ancient Egyptians to explain how humankind was created.
But according to ancient astronaut theorists, the stone is based on an actual historical event, one that predates the building of the Great Pyramid by thousands of years.
TSOUKALOS: So when I hear a story like the Benben stone, I wonder if this may have been some type of a craft.
Egyptologists agree that this type of a shape descended from the sky in a giant fireball, made a controlled landing, the Benben stone opened, and people walked out.
The first creator gods.
In my opinion, I think these gods were flesh-and-blood space travelers whom the ancient Egyptians and many other ancient cultures misinterpreted as divine or spiritual beings because of their technological frame of reference of their current time.
This ties in directly with the idea of misunderstood technology.
When a technologically primitive society interacts with a technologically advanced society, the primitive society begins to worship the advanced society.
I once read that a Benben stone can also be considered the home - of the gods.
- Yes.
From my perspective, then that would be proof of extraterrestrial intervention.
Right here, this is a physical piece of evidence that, a long time ago, someone descended from the sky and taught mankind in various disciplines.
NARRATOR: If the original Benben stone was inspired by an actual alien spacecraft, as many ancient astronaut theorists believe, does the legend surrounding it further suggest that Egypt was one of the centers of extraterrestrial activity on our planet? Ancient astronaut theorists say the answer is a profound yes, and they suggest that further evidence can be found not by examining ancient Egyptian scrolls and hieroglyphs but by carefully reading the pages of the Holy Bible.
NARRATOR: Cairo, Egypt.
The 14th century AD.
Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi begins work on a series of writings that propose that the history of the Giza Plateau dates back much further than what is accepted by the mainstream historians of his day.
He has concluded that the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx were not constructed in 2500 BC, but thousands of years earlier, by a king named Saurid.
ERICH VON DANIKEN: Now, according to usual knowledge, we believe that the Great Pyramid was constructed by the Fourth Dynasty, more or less, two and a half thousand years from now.
But old Arabian traditions for example, Ibrahim Abdulla al-Masudi they say that the Great Pyramid was constructed by a ruler.
His name was Saurid.
And they say Saurid is the same which the Hebrew call Enoch.
Now, Arabian notation says Enoch plus Methuselah constructed the Great Pyramid.
NARRATOR: Enoch? The same Enoch who was written about in one of the so-called lost chapters of the Bible, who supposedly was taken up to heaven by angels called watchers in order for him to observe the human race? Could he really have been the same person who was responsible for the building of the Great Pyramid more than 12,000 years ago? HENRY: The Book of Enoch is a text that is believed to have been written by the Essenes, Jewish mystics, sometime between the third and second century BC.
In the story, they tell how one of the watcher angels, the archangel, Michael, came to Earth and took Enoch into the heavenly realms, to the throne of God, where Enoch is educated by the angels and given an opportunity to return to Earth to share the accumulated knowledge that he received.
It's very similar to what we see in the Pyramid Texts, where the pharaoh is taken into the stellar realms, where his body becomes like lightning, where the doors of heaven are opened, and where a human then can be educated by the gods.
NARRATOR: Are the so-called Pyramid Texts and the Hebrew Bible's apocryphal Book of Enoch both referencing the same period in prehistory, a period where extraterrestrial beings, referred to as gods, ruled the Earth? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe further evidence can be found by closely examining ancient texts concerning a race of angels that are referred to as the watchers.
RABBI ARIEL BAR TZADOK: In the Bible, there's a very curious passage that speaks about the sons of God who came down from heaven and took daughters of men as brides, from which came forth "the mighty ones.
" They came down with knowledge, knowledge which we today would understand as technology and science, and they became corrupted.
They made matters worse, not better.
And this is what led to God's decision to bring the flood.
NARRATOR: According to the Book of Enoch, the watchers were sent by God in order to help mankind on Earth.
But after a number of these watchers had sex with human women and produced children in the form of giant mutants known as the Nephilim, God caused a great flood that was intended to destroy them, along with all those who disobeyed his will.
Our main knowledge of the Nephilim comes not just from the Bible, but also from the Book of Enoch and also the so-called Book of Giants.
The Book of Giants says that they were destroyed in a cataclysm that not only involved a deluge but also fire that came out of the sky.
And I think that we can connect this story with what we call the Younger Dryas comet impact event that took place around 10800 BC that is known to have had a massive effect upon the Northern Hemisphere at this time.
NARRATOR: If, as ancient astronaut theorists believe, the foundations of ancient biblical and Egyptian texts are not based on mere imagination but on actual historical events, then it serves to strengthen their contention that the roots of ancient Egypt stretch back far earlier than currently believed by mainstream scholars and archaeologists.
TSOUKALOS: Archaeology is rooted in interpretation, just like the ancient astronaut theory.
I'm still of the personal opinion that the Great Pyramid complex, including the Sphinx, date back to a time when the gods walked among humans.
Something extraordinary happened right here in ancient Egypt, perhaps under the tutelage of extraterrestrials, teachers from another star system.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials and giant hybrid beings really did inhabit Egypt thousands of years before the first human pharaohs, could physical proof lie hidden within the mysterious void recently discovered inside the Great Pyramid? Or could it be found elsewhere in the form of 24 stone coffins buried deep beneath the desert sands? NARRATOR Saqqâra, Egypt.
1850.
While on an expedition to recover ancient manuscripts for the Louvre Museum in Paris, French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette spots a strange object sticking out of the sand.
Intrigued, Mariette has the sand cleared away and finds large rocks blocking what looks to be the entrance to an underground chamber.
After using explosives to remove them, he gains entrance to a tomb complex, also known as the Serapeum.
The Serapeum of Saqqâra, Giorgio.
- Yes.
- Oh, it's magnificent.
The name "Serapeum" comes from Serapis, - which is Apis bull and Osiris.
- Yes.
Right.
ROMANY: Combined together in one Greek god.
This is one of the most mysterious places in all of Egypt, Giorgio.
TSOUKALOS: Look how far all this goes! NARRATOR: Located deep beneath the desert surface lies a 700-foot-long passageway.
There, located in a series of alcoves neatly carved out of the limestone rock are 24 gigantic stone sarcophagi, perfectly constructed from solid granite, and each weighing roughly 100 tons the equivalent of 55 mid-sized automobiles.
The boxes themselves are, what, 70 to 75 tons? And then the lids are estimated to be 20 to 25 tons.
It's one of the most mysterious things about this place is really how they managed to bring these heavy structures all the way down here when we're breathing heavily just to get to the end.
(Tsoukalos laughs) TSOUKALOS: Can we actually go down to some of these? Of course we can.
Wow.
You know, I've always read about these, I've seen pictures, but it's humungous! You can walk underneath it! (laughs) NARRATOR: Each sarcophagus measures 13 feet long, seven and a half feet wide and over ten feet tall.
But just how the ancient Egyptians managed to transport these massive granite boxes remains unknown, as does their intended purpose.
As far as conventional Egyptologists and archaeologists are concerned, the sarcophagi were meant to house the remains of the sacred Apis bulls.
But as only one of the tombs was found to contain animal remains, and all the others were found empty, the true nature of the Serapeum is a source of deep contention as far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned.
The Apis bull is a representation for god Osiris, and there's something very important to mention.
Ancient Egyptians did not worship animals.
Their concept was, the gods sent the animals to be their messengers, and we have to respect them in that way.
NARRATOR: Based on an artifact from the 4th millennium BC called "The Bull Palette," some Egyptologists believe worship of the Apis bull dates back at least 6,000 years.
It was said that the first ever Apis bull was created when a ray of light came down from heaven itself and struck this cow who produced the first Apis bull.
So there is some relationship between the bull itself and the stars.
Those bulls were said to have the markings of a falcon on their back, as well as a diamond on the forehead, and the scarab beneath the tongue, all of which were symbols of the sky world, all of which indicate that here we have a place of contact with the other world itself.
And the greatest mystery to do with this bull is the Serapeum.
The sides, and also here the bottom the polishing is perfect.
And we can illustrate this by just looking at the angle.
I mean, it's a perfect 90-degree angle.
Check this out.
It is absolute perfection.
It's easy to cut limestone, but to cut basalt is, uh (laughs) That's a different story.
What do these inscriptions here say? These inscriptions were extremely important.
You see the doors.
Specifically, the so-called "false doors.
" They were the doors that allowed the spirit, the ka and the ba, the spirit and the soul to come out from the mummy.
And then read the hieroglyphic inscriptions.
They wanted to make sure that these Apis bulls come back to life, go to eternity so they could stay with Osiris in the sky.
Ancient historians' accounts, like Herodotus, Strabo, Eusebius all of these old, old chroniclers speak of a former glory age of Egypt known as "the Golden Age," which some have suggested dates back as far as 10500 BC.
So, is it possible that what we have right here may be a remnant of that time? When it comes to dating, I don't have a response.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists like Giorgio Tsoukalos are concerned, the fact that only one of the 24 sarcophagi found in the Serapeum contained animal remains the same one that features crude, almost graffiti-like, hieroglyphic carvings is evidence that archaeologists are mistaken in their belief that this magnificent complex was built as a burial site for sacred bulls.
It's a huge discrepancy in workmanship, especially with what we've seen in other examples of hieroglyphs carved or inscribed on other basalt items.
It leads me to think that whoever inscribed this box right here they came much, much later.
I can't tell you for a fact that this was made 3,000 years ago.
Till today, there's a debate on when were these made.
NARRATOR: It is Giorgio's belief that not only was the Serapeum built more than 10,000 years ago back to the time when the Great Pyramid was constructed but that it was likely built to house the remains, not of bulls, but of giant extraterrestrial beings.
COLLINS: It is a fact that when most of these gigantic sarcophagi were opened, nothing was inside them.
But in my opinion, I think that this acted as some kind of otherworldly environment for communication with the cosmos itself.
CHILDRESS: These things may well have been created by extraterrestrials.
Later, the Egyptians took them over, used them as sarcophagi, perhaps for these bulls.
I mean, I find it wild that this place was even discovered.
And there's probably much more to be discovered here in Saqqâra, and we never know what we're gonna find.
Absolutely! NARRATOR: Could it be that the Serapeum of Saqqâra was originally built as a repository for extraterrestrial remains? But if so, what happened to them? How could they have simply vanished without a trace? Ancient astronaut theorists believe one possible answer can be found by closely examining another of ancient Egypt's most compelling artifacts: mummies.
NARRATOR: In the shadow of Egypt's majestic pyramids and monuments, and beneath its ever-shifting sands lie the tombs and resting places of more than one million human mummies.
The bodies, often thousands of years old, are so well preserved that most are still covered in flesh.
Mummification in ancient Egypt could be extremely expensive, and was a very slow process.
Families in Egypt would spend their entire fortune mummifying the dead.
But why were the Egyptians mummifying people and going through these elaborate mummification rituals? It would seem to be that they did want to preserve the body as best they could.
NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians went to great lengths to keep the bodies of their dead from decomposing.
All organs, except for the heart, were extracted.
The brain was pulled out through the nose.
All moisture was removed from the body.
And hundreds of yards of linen were used to wrap the deceased, all in preparation for what the Egyptians believed to be the afterlife.
Giorgio, this is it.
The Royal Mummies Room.
NARRATOR: Here in the Royal Mummies Room at the Cairo museum, ancient astronaut theorist - Giorgio Tsoukalos - This is amazing.
and Egyptologist Ramy Romany have come to examine some peculiarities concerning mummification that have been largely hidden from the public.
So, tell me about mummification.
Why did the ancient Egyptians mummify their dead? Mummification was extremely important for ancient Egyptians because the concept of their religion.
They believed that if they can perfectly preserve their body as is, then they can live for eternity in a different dimension in the underworld, in the world of the dead.
That's very interesting.
The mummies that we see in here, I mean, it is extraordinary, the level of preservation.
Absolutely.
Look.
You can see every bit.
You can see his teeth - are still in there.
- (laughs): Yeah.
ROMANY: The queen there.
You can see her hair is still there.
Every toe.
The toenails are still there.
And I have to tell you, big parts of it still is a mystery to us.
What were the ingredients needed in order to mummify a body? The first and most important ingredient in the process of mummification is the natron salt.
The mummy would have to stay in the natron salt for a couple of weeks before it can go through the rest of the process.
It's the driest salt there is.
'Cause the main reason they want that salt is to take the liquid out as fast as possible from the mummy before the mummy starts rottening, to keep every part of it safe with all the liquids out.
The one thing that's always fascinated me is the idea that they were mummified in order to live on in the afterlife.
And the afterlife, with all the religious symbology that exists in ancient Egypt, always had something to do with the stars.
Now, if you look at the future, one way of reaching another planet would be if we put ourselves into a state of suspended animation.
And we would do this by being inside pods sleeping like this.
And so my question is whether or not the ancient Egyptians witnessed something like this and didn't understand that it was someone going back to their planet, putting on the suit, getting inside their sarcophagus, which looks like a pod, or the pod looks like a sarcophagus.
So it's not symbolic at all, but in fact they witnessed something and misinterpreted it as a spiritual event.
The origin of it may have been rooted in misunderstood technology.
But I think there is a point to be made here.
You are assuming that they believed that this was symbolic, but for them it wasn't symbolic.
TSOUKALOS: So, this raises an interesting point that only mummies of the New Kingdom so far have been found and no one in the Old Kingdom.
So where have they gone? NARRATOR: Until recently, it was believed that mummification began in Egypt somewhere around 2600 BC.
But in 2014, evidence was discovered that suggested the practice could have begun thousands of years earlier, long before the time of the pharaohs.
But were the bodies of the dead being preserved for a future in the afterlife or for some other even more incredible purpose? I think the whole process of mummification and burial was, instead of a sacred thing, a very practical method of harvesting the energy of the Earth to charge the body of the mummy and transforming the whole thing into a very high-power capacitor.
NARRATOR: A power capacitor? Transforming the bodies of dead pharaohs into sources of energy? Could such an audacious theory be scientifically possible? CHIRIAC: Why do they use natron salt that comes from dry bed lakes instead of marine salt from the Mediterranean Sea or the Red Sea? Natron salt is very alkaline.
The body will become alkaline.
And they were covering it with linen, with natural resins.
Now, that resin is acidic.
In contact with the alkaline body, you will have some sort of an ion exchanger.
When we look at the mummification process and the tombs of the pharaoh, we find granite tombs.
The ancient Egyptians referred to granite as a fire stone.
They called it that because it's loaded with pure quartz crystal, and crystal holds vibration.
When we combine this with the massive amounts of gold and other precious jewels that were used in the mummification process and placed upon the body, you begin to wonder: were they trying to trigger some kind of a electrical process that somehow transmuted the body? Maybe we're dealing with some other sort of technology here or an ancient civilization on Earth.
They were making the body to vibrate, creating some sort of energy.
Soul booster, if you want, of the deceased.
HENRY: The reason why the ancient Egyptians mummified their pharaohs is that they were going to self-create a new light body, a new vehicle for the pharaohs' consciousness to survive.
So effectively, they could continue on their journey into the stars.
Our cutting-edge artificial intelligence and sci-fi-like desire to upload our consciousness into is an absolute and pure reflection of the ancient Egyptian mummification concept, this idea that we can create a new vehicle for ourselves, a non-biological entity that will enable us to live as immortal beings.
NARRATOR: Could it be that with the process of mummification, the ancient Egyptians were trying to recreate a process that had been used in Egypt thousands of years earlier at a time when the land was inhabited by an advanced, extraterrestrial civilization? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest that a direct similarity exists between the burial practices performed on the Egyptian pharaohs and the original purpose of the stone sarcophagi in the Serapeum: the conversion of physical beings into pure energy.
They also believe further evidence of extraterrestrial activity in ancient Egypt can be found by examining the hieroglyphs carved into the walls of one of the country's most elaborate and intriguing sacred sites.
NARRATOR: Was Egypt the destination for Earth's earliest extraterrestrial visitors? And, if so, were the ancient pyramids, tombs and temples actually built by ancient aliens, or were they, perhaps, inspired by them? To find the answer, Egyptologist, Ramy Romany, has invited ancient astronaut theorist and researcher, Andrew Collins, to join him on a visit to one of the most impressive and best-preserved shrines in Egypt the Temple of Edfu, located on the west bank of the Nile, 465 miles south of Cairo.
Look at this temple.
This is, like, my most favorite facade in all of the temples of ancient Egypt.
NARRATOR: According to mainstream archaeologists, Edfu is believed to have been built sometime between 237 and 57 BC.
It is dedicated to the falcon-headed god Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis.
ROMANY: This temple was one of the last temples that was ever built in ancient Egypt, during the Roman times.
When they built that temple, they were like, "We want to preserve the stories, "so let's gather all the mythology of ancient Egypt and try to put it in one temple.
" It took 150 years to make this happen.
And then finally, we had the book of ancient Egyptian mythology.
It's right in front of us on all these walls.
Every wall is absolutely covered in hieroglyphs and images, not only of the foundation of ancient Egypt and the first temple, but also how the world came into being, how Egypt came into being, how the universe was essentially founded in the first place.
I mean, there's just so much here.
NARRATOR: The most sacred part of Edfu, the holy of holies, is its inner sanctum, featuring a 12-foot-tall granite stone.
ROMANY: This is it right here.
This is how it all began.
Every symbol, every text, every little drawing in here represents the most sacred thing for ancient Egyptians.
The question that humans now still ask themselves: How did it all began? What created us? Every religion talks about it.
Scientist tries to figure out.
Ancient Egyptians had an answer, and it was right there.
Right on top of this is the pyramidion.
That pyramidion is the primeval mound that appeared in the middle of the marshes, where all the gods came and landed on for the first time to start creating humanity.
This is the beginning of humanity.
What we have here is a focus of all of these chapels, finishing with-with this incredible structure pointing towards the north.
It's actually pointing towards the origins of the gods themselves.
It's a way of projecting the soul back to its place of origin amongst the stars.
There's another piece of evidence here that you might like.
This is the boat, or a symbol of the boat that they believed the gods came on to the first primeval stone.
So it's all here in this sanctuary, the whole story of humanity's beginning, you know, its place in the stars, and how it arrived here in the first place.
This, to me, strongly suggests that they were aware that our origins are found amongst the stars.
I think probably the answer is yes.
Or could it just simply be humans trying to make religions explain what science can't explain? But I don't think it's about religion.
This is about cosmology, an ancient cosmology that was believed by the ancient Egyptians, and a cosmology that we're now beginning to understand for the first time, within science, whether it be to do with astronomy, astrophysics, or quantum existence.
NARRATOR: Are the ancient hieroglyphs carefully inscribed on the granite stone at the Temple of Edfu merely the fanciful notions of ancient Egyptian priests, or could they be based on actual historical events? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, they believe that extraterrestrials first came to Egypt in a pyramid-shaped spacecraft that was later referred to in the Pyramid Texts as the Benben stone.
But once here, they may have used an even more incredible technology to travel to the stars and back: the so-called Ship of Eternity.
HENRY: The story here is that Osiris, the god of resurrection, was cut into pieces.
The head of Osiris was found at Abydos.
When we look at the hieroglyph for the head of Osiris, it clearly resembles an electrical transformer.
On the opposite wall, we see the same device attached to what is referred to as the Ark of the Millions of Years, the Ship of Eternity.
The pyramid texts are replete with stories of the pharaohs flying through the cosmos on the Ship of Eternity, which they portrayed on the walls of the temples as looking exactly like the way modern science portrays a wormhole.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the human body could be transformed into a light being form that matched that of the gods.
And so, we have to ask, is this device some kind of a transformational device that could take the human body, turn it into a light being form, perhaps, that could then travel through a wormhole to a distant star system? Orion, for example.
NARRATOR: Does the Ship of Eternity represent a star gate through which extraterrestrials and perhaps even humans traveled instantaneously to other parts of the universe? Perhaps even back to their home planet located somewhere in the constellation of Orion? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they suggest that such a device may still exist today hidden within a recently discovered void inside the Great Pyramid.
NARRATOR: An ancient Hebrew text from the 3rd century BC entitled Exagoge, attributed to the poet and playwright known as Ezekiel the Tragedian, tells the story of a strange encounter Moses had while on Mount Sinai.
Moses comes upon a noble being who's sitting on a throne.
This noble being invites Moses to sit on the throne, and when he does so, this noble being gives him a crown and a scepter.
Suddenly, Moses finds himself looking at the Earth from space.
TSOUKALOS: It actually gives the description.
"I looked forth upon the earth's wide circle Then at my feet, behold, a thousand stars.
" So we have to look at these ancient stories and wonder what's described.
How is it possible that you put on a crown and all of a sudden you're in space? NARRATOR: According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses was raised as a nobleman in ancient Egypt, and as the adopted son and brother of two powerful pharaohs.
Is it possible that when he led the Israelites on their Exodus into the desert, he was already in possession of secret extraterrestrial devices, devices that would be thousands of years ahead of his time? JASON MARTELL: Today, through augmented reality and VR, we can see that our technological advances can actually extend someone into a whole new environment by placing these devices on their head.
It's very possible that some of these ancient devices, constructed for the pharaoh, were actually extending their consciousness to another physical location.
Or possibly project his physical body, like a star gate, to some other location.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the biblical account of a throne one that transported Moses to the stars is directly connected to Dr.
Giulio Magli's theory that the recently discovered void inside the Great Pyramid could contain some sort of sacred metallic transportation device? And if so, could it be the same object that the ancient Egyptians referred to as the Ship of Eternity? For ancient astronaut theorists, the answer is a profound yes, and they believe that the ultimate evidence of Earth's extraterrestrial past may be closer than ever before.
This place, to me, is ground zero for all of the theories that I have investigated.
And actually, my resolve has strengthened in taking a secondary and a tertiary look at ancient Egypt, to look at even more evidence, because I think that's incredibly important.
What I've learned as well is that just the fact that you, and hopefully others, are also open-minded enough to debate and discuss the theories, which is extremely important, in my opinion.
That's how science actually works.
Absolutely.
Look, I agree that many of the ancient things are rooted in symbolism.
However, my question is always how or where did the symbolism originate? Many of the ancient structure were built in honor of the gods, but my question is why? And where did it begin? And, above all, how? - How was the religion inspired? - Yes.
What inspired the religion? - Yes.
- And it's a great question to have.
And I don't have an answer for it.
- We are at a crossroads - Yes.
that is about to change the future.
I think we're about to enter a new era of archaeotechnology.
And, when archaeology and technology mix together, I think the future of Egyptology will be fascinating.
I mean, think how much, how much stuff is under the sands - just right in front of you, right here.
- Yes.
I 100% agree.
I argue that perhaps the ancient Egyptians had access to sophisticated technology.
So, the fact that we today are discovering ancient sites by means of modern technology, that, to me, is the present meeting the past, and the past meeting the present and the future, of course.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists, the mysteries of the early Egyptians are perhaps best understood as an attempt by them to replicate behavior that was practiced by their ancestors thousands of years earlier, when the region served as the center of extraterrestrial activity on our planet.
They also believe that new, cutting-edge technologies, like the one used to discover the mysterious void inside the Great Pyramid, will be instrumental in proving their theory.
For them, the answers exist all around us.
And once we discover the truth, humankind will be ready to realize its ultimate destiny.