Ancient Aliens s13e11 Episode Script
Russia Declassified
1 NARRATOR: A secret alliance hidden in plain sight.
NICK POPE: Has a deal been done? I think we don't know the whole picture.
NARRATOR: Joint space missions with undisclosed agendas.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: Why do we not have a good HD photograph of whatever that big tower is? Why? NARRATOR: Have the United States and Russia been working together from the very beginning of the Space Race POPE: Both Russia and the U.
S.
know about working extraterrestrial technology.
NARRATOR: in preparation for the ultimate extraterrestrial encounter? MIKE BARA: Cooperation is the only way that we could actually achieve some sort of mutual defense of the planet Earth.
NARRATOR: Seoul, South Korea.
March 26, 2012.
The leaders of over 50 nations gather for the Nuclear Security Summit, a two-day conference to discuss issues regarding the proliferation and safekeeping of nuclear weapons.
During a photo op between American President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was soon to be replaced by then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the two leaders have an off-the-record conversation that raises more than a few eyebrows.
But even more intriguing were recorded but not filmed comments in which President Obama told Medvedev, "It's important for him to give me space.
" And to which Medvedev replied, "I understand your message about space.
" POPE: The revelation was extraordinary.
President Obama's quote was, "It's important for him to give me space.
" What does that mean? Some people think it simply means breathing space, space to operate, room to maneuver politically.
But there is an interpretation that suggests he meant literally.
"It's important for him to give me space.
" Outer space.
BARA: Any time you hear governments talk about space, you hear them talk about space exploration, trust me, the-the underlying, implied, unspoken reality behind that is the alien presence.
POPE: It is possible that Russia and America, in some aspects of the space question and maybe the extraterrestrial question, maybe they are working together after all.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that, even between two of the world's most powerful political rivals, there is a secret understanding, one based on America and Russia's past and future roles in outer space? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they also believe that this secret understanding extends to numerous experiences involving extraterrestrial contact.
As evidence, they point to an occasion that took place just a few months after Medvedev's now-famous exchange with Barack Obama.
On December 7, 2012, after giving a primetime network interview in Moscow, Medvedev made remarks offstage which seemed to openly acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrials and the Russian government's efforts to keep that existence a secret.
(speaking Russian) NARRATOR: Although most of the journalists in the room believed the Russian president's remarks to have been made in jest, there were others who were not so certain.
RICHARD DOLAN: This is one of the most dramatic statements that emanates out of Russia, and so it's fascinating.
Dmitry Medvedev said, "When you become president of Russia", "you're given information on aliens in our country and the human groups that are monitoring them.
" He was totally with a straight face during all of this.
MICHAEL SALLA: Here he is on film saying that there is a secret governmental cooperation occurring in the background that has the highest levels of classification to really monitor extraterrestrials that are visiting our planet.
Forget all the differences.
Forget ideologies.
At the highest level, the two nations work together.
After World War II, there was a number of UFO encounters, very important encounters, and this gave impetus to joint cooperation between our nations.
NARRATOR: Joint cooperation? Even during the tension-filled decades of the Cold War? Ancient astronaut theorists believe that not only did such a secret relationship exist but that it began several decades ago as a consequence of what they believe to be the Soviet Union's first documented UFO encounter, an event they commonly refer to as the Russian Roswell.
Southern Russia.
June 19, 1948.
At a remote Soviet military installation known as Kapustin Yar, an unidentified flying object is detected over the base.
POPE: Strange blips were seen on radar.
Something was tracked performing extraordinary speeds and maneuvers.
And a Russian fighter jet was sent to intercept it.
The pilot saw a silver cigar-shaped object and was told, "Shoot this thing down.
It's in restricted military airspace.
" The UFO fired some sort of directed energy weapon, a death ray.
But before the Russian jet was downed, it managed to launch a missile and shoot down the UFO.
Some people have speculated this was the time that the Russians found out about extraterrestrials.
BARA: According to the myths and legends, at Kapustin Yar, they actually recovered bodies, they recovered the spacecraft itself, and it was kept there for study and reverse engineering.
PETER ROBBINS: We are told that there is a underground facility under Kapustin Yar, similar, probably, to facilities here in the States, where a full examination could be performed on the pilots of these craft.
NARRATOR: To ancient astronaut theorists and researchers, what makes the Kapustin Yar story all the more significant is that it occurred within a year of the now-infamous Roswell incident, in which a UFO reportedly crashed in the New Mexico desert sometime in June of 1947.
That took place near the only active military unit in the world that had nuclear weapons.
That was the Roswell 509th Bombing Unit, and they had nukes.
Similarly, over at the Soviet Union, at places like Kapustin Yar, we've got significant UFO activity being reported, military engagements, just like in the United States.
And I personally believe that extraterrestrials had a strong interest in the nuclear technologies that were then developing on planet Earth, which is exactly why they were there.
NARRATOR: Could it be that both the Kapustin Yar and Roswell incidents were attempts by extraterrestrials to make contact because of mankind's recent development of nuclear weapons? But if such contact did occur, did it signal an era of secret cooperation between the world's two great superpowers or did it only trigger a greater degree of rivalry and competition? In Roswell, you had the crash.
You had the recovered alien bodies, but the aliens were dead.
There was no way to communicate with them, because they had been killed.
So we had the technology but probably no really good idea on how to start reverse engineering it.
Whereas at Kapustin Yar, as the story goes, they not only got the spacecraft itself but, apparently, there was at least one survivor of the incident.
So what could the Russians possibly have learned from that alien extraterrestrial biological entity that we were not able to learn from our Roswell incident? Why were the Russians first into space? Why did they manage to do Sputnik 1 and then send Yuri Gagarin up into orbit and leave the Americans standing? Because, on paper, you'd think that the U.
S.
government should have won that race, but they didn't.
If the Russians got live aliens, maybe they found out something from what happened at Kapustin Yar that gave them the edge in the Space Race.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Soviet Union gained a strategic advantage in the so-called Space Race because of help it received from an extraterrestrial visitor? But if so, then how did the United States so quickly catch up and some would argue overtake them by being the first to put humans on the moon? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the answers are easily obtained, not by examining what the two nations were each admitting to in public, but what they were doing together in secret.
NARRATOR: July 17, 1975.
MAN (over radio): Moscow is go for docking.
Houston is go for docking.
It's up to you guys.
NARRATOR: High above the Earth, an American Apollo Command/Service Module docks with its Soviet counterpart, the Soyuz 19.
A few hours later, the two mission commanders, Thomas Stafford and Alexey Leonov, shake hands through the open hatch, the first international handshake to take place in space.
The historic mission, officially known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, marked the end of the Space Race that began when the Soviets launched Sputnik back in 1957 and ushered in a new era of open collaboration in space between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission was in itself an expression of cooperation of our two nations.
Detente was coming.
Hopes for cooperation.
Hopes for future space exploration.
Friendship.
NARRATOR: While Apollo-Soyuz was the first public demonstration of American and Soviet cooperation in space, there were many who believed that that collaboration began decades earlier, following two separate events that involved extraterrestrial visitations: one in Roswell, New Mexico, and another, known as Kapustin Yar, which happened near the town of Znamensk, in the western region of the former Soviet Union.
POPE: There's an argument that suggests the Apollo-Soyuz mission was actually a sort of soft disclosure.
Getting the story out there in a quiet way so that there would be no great bombshell revelation later.
NARRATOR: Moscow.
July 1965.
Exactly one decade prior to the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission, scientists at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute analyze a series of 25 photographs of the Moon transmitted from the Soviet unmanned probe, Zond 3.
The images, taken approximately 7,000 miles away from the lunar surface, are unprecedented in quality and offer the first clear view of the far side of the moon.
In the years following the Zond 3 mission, researchers have argued that the 25 photographs show structures on the Moon that did not occur naturally.
There were clear anomalies that had been seen on camera for the first time.
One was kind of a giant dome that appeared to have a glass-like structure to the top of it that had been shattered and beaten up.
And in another image, there was a 20-mile-high tower that was plainly visible on the photographs that were published.
Knowing the secrecy of the Soviets during this era, it's quite possible that they had other pictures that might reveal what these structures are.
Why do we not have a good HD photograph of whatever that big tower is that the Zond 3 probe took in 1965? Why? STONEHILL: Those pictures are still classified in Russia, as they were in the Soviet Union.
Apparently, some 25 pictures were transferred to NASA.
I don't know how.
Was this a CIA operation, or was this an actual transfer of information, which again shows you the level of exchange of cooperation between our governments? Something that's classified in Russia is openly available in the United States? NARRATOR: Did the Russians discover evidence of artificial structures on the Moon four years before the American astronauts landed there? And if so, did they secretly communicate their findings in order to help guide NASA's plans for the first manned mission to the Moon? Ancient astronaut theorists believe that such an audacious notion may be true, and also suggest that, while the United States later became focused on launching its Space Shuttle program, the Russians journeyed even deeper into space in search of further evidence of extraterrestrial activity in our solar system.
Baikonur Cosmodrome.
July 1988.
The Soviet Union launches two probes which are each programmed to photograph Phobos, one of the two moons that orbit the planet Mars.
Although the first probe fails to reach its target, the second proves more successful.
Named Phobos 2, it uses sophisticated cameras and infrared lasers to collect and transmit photos and data about the atmosphere and surface of the Martian moon.
In the final stage of its mission, the probe attempts a landing on the moon's surface.
Suddenly, without warning, the Russian craft stops transmitting but not until it relays one last incredible photo.
As they got closer with Phobos, we see one last frame that seems to have showed up.
What appears to be some type of laser beam, or some type of object, coming from Phobos and disabling the satellite.
And a very large cigar-shaped shadow, as if it's possibly a large craft of some kind hovering above the surface.
BARA: There have been members of the Soviet Science Academy and actual cosmonauts, like Marina Popovich, who came right out and said that the reports inside the Soviet Union indicated that Phobos 2 had been shot down.
NARRATOR: What happened to the Phobos 2 probe? Did it really photograph an alien craft? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and point to another Mars mission, almost a decade later, as proof of an extraterrestrial presence on Phobos.
WILLIAM HENRY: In 1998, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor took images of Phobos revealing a monolith 279 feet in length.
Instantly, ancient astronaut theorists and others connected this to what the Soviets had discovered in the 1980s and hypothesized that perhaps there is a working extraterrestrial element on Mars that seeks to prevent us from discovering the secrets of Phobos.
Now we have a situation where both Russia and the U.
S.
know about this.
And perhaps it's not just artifacts and ancient civilizations but working extraterrestrial technology.
NARRATOR: Were otherworldly forces guiding both the U.
S.
and Soviet space programs in an effort to encourage peaceful cooperation between the world's two great nuclear adversaries? Although such a far-fetched notion seems absurd, there are many who believe that not only was extraterrestrial contact taking place but that it had been happening for dozens of years, and that one such incident involved a number of top secret communications between a Russian scientist and what he believed to be his alien ancestors.
NARRATOR: Kaluga, Russia.
May 1903.
Little-known Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes a landmark paper on rocket science titled "Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices.
" At a time when the Wright Brothers are still working to achieve the first powered flight, Tsiolkovsky writes about groundbreaking concepts for the exploration of space, including what he calls the "ideal rocket equation," a formula which calculates the amount of velocity needed to lift a body into outer space.
Incredibly, his theories would prove instrumental in helping the Soviet Union launch the first man-made object into orbit more than 50 years later.
TAYLOR: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wasn't a classically trained scientist, he was a secondary school math teacher.
But he was so enamored with getting into space that he created the rocket science and mathematics in the early 1900s that led to the first thing created by humanity to be launched into space, Sputnik.
To put into perspective how influential Tsiolkovsky's work was, this is the basis work that everybody had to use later.
Von Braun used it during his research on rockets, and most of the world sees the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation as the beginning of modern rocket science.
Where did he get those ideas? Where does his knowledge come from? His ideas about space and civilizations that populate it were incredible, and he persisted that when humans will go into outer space, we will become like other alien civilizations.
NARRATOR: Alien civilizations? How did a Russian math teacher, who grew up in a small village in eastern Russia, come to believe that there were other intelligent beings in the universe and that it was mankind's destiny to join them in the cosmos? The answer is simple.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, like millions of other Russians of his day, subscribed to a philosophy known as cosmism, which promoted the idea that humanity has an ancient connection to extraterrestrial beings.
Russian cosmism began in the mid and late 19th century.
Within the traditions of cosmism there are many who believe that our origins are actually alien in nature, that is to say, the human civilization is an alien transplant, and that, in going into space, we are actually going back home.
MARTELL: From that perspective, it's very much in alignment with the ancient astronaut theory where human beings strive to reconnect with these ancient gods, through efforts like creating a more advanced space program.
NARRATOR: What made Tsiolkovsky, and others like him, so certain that aliens existed, and that space travel held the key to humans reconnecting with these otherworldly beings? For the answer, ancient astronaut theorists point to Tsiolkovsky's writings, in which he described extraterrestrial beings sending messages and information to mankind from the stars.
He also wrote that he himself had personally received a number of interplanetary communications.
STONEHILL: Tsiolkovsky experienced tremendous sightings in his life.
One was in 1889.
He was looking at the sky and all of a sudden he saw a perfect cloud in the shape of a four-pointed cross flying over him.
ROBBINS: He also felt that he was receiving telepathic messages from, um, extraterrestrials.
This leaves us to ponder was he actually in contact with intelligences from out there? Did they guide his hand? Did they supply this equation? MARTELL: Some of his models of what a spacecraft would look like are very much in alignment with the descriptions of various UFOs, this cigar elongated shape.
Was he actually in communication with the beings that are piloting these craft? Is it a vision that he got showing how they manipulate and pilot these vehicles, and that's why he was able to come up with such an accurate representation for that model? NARRATOR: For many ancient astronaut theorists, Russia's widespread embrace of cosmism might help explain why the Soviet Union's reaction to the UFO incident at Kapustin Yar was likely very different than the American military's reaction to Roswell.
The United States approached the Space Race with an eye toward achieving scientific and technological superiority.
The Soviet Union seemed less focused on technological goals, such as that of landing a man on the Moon, and more interested in using space travel as a means of realizing a kind of extraterrestrial destiny.
TAYLOR: So the Space Race was really a cover for creating new technologies in our defense industry.
To create rockets that could put large amounts of mass into space, put a satellite into orbit.
All these things required technological developments that enabled spy satellites, that enabled communication satellites.
They enabled intercontinental ballistic missiles.
STONEHILL: Russians were the first ones to promote this idea of unity between outer space and people on Earth.
Tsiolkovsky knew there were other civilizations in outer space, and he wanted to meet them.
He put the seeds in the minds of the people that helped develop rockets and space technology in the Soviet Union.
POPE: Maybe cosmism and then the Russian successes with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin made the Americans realize we need them.
The Russians can do things we can't do.
They have a philosophical outlook on this which gives them an inherent advantage.
And maybe in that sort of situation, each party brings something to the table.
NARRATOR: Could it be that when the Soviets launched Sputnik, it wasn't simply a show of scientific superiority or military might, but an attempt to directly connect with extraterrestrial beings? And, if so, could that have motivated the United States to work more closely with them, and, ultimately, partner with them? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining what happened to the American and Soviet space programs after the Soviet Union collapsed.
NARRATOR: Moscow.
Christmas Day, 1991.
I am now concluding my activity as president of the USSR.
NARRATOR: In one of the most significant events of the 20th century, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation.
Just five days short of its 70th anniversary, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is officially dissolved.
The Soviet Union collapsed 1989, 1990, 1991, and split up into its constituent republics.
Russia, at that time in the 1990s, was a hellhole.
Ethnic conflicts were brewing all around the borders of the Russian Federation, incredibly high levels of crime, the birth of the Russian Mafia.
NARRATOR: But of all the problems that now plagued the former Soviet Union, their space program was not one of them.
Their Mir orbiting space station was considered a huge success, which often stood in stark contrast to the United States' tragedy-plagued Shuttle program.
This contrast was so stark, in fact, that when the Shuttle program quietly ended in 2011, the United States suspended its own manned space program in favor of sending its astronauts up to the International Space Station as little more than passengers aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
POPE: It seems that the U.
S.
ceded control of space to the Russians, certainly in relation to manned missions.
But it is bizarre.
For whatever reason, the Russians, despite all their problems, seem to be ahead of the U.
S.
, in some respects, when you talk about space.
A couple of examples of where the U.
S.
seem to have ceded control, or certainly ceded the leadership position in space to the Russians, are the International Space Station, where now, American astronauts can't even get there without going up in Russian rockets.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists, the partnership between the two rival space programs was simply an admission of what had already been taking place in secret for decades.
It also proved that both the U.
S.
and Russian space programs were going to continue working together in the interest of furthering the goal of extraterrestrial contact.
But this time there was a difference: Russia was now largely controlled by deep-pocketed oligarchs, and run by tight-gripped autocrats like Vladimir Putin.
They were free of the kind of public scrutiny that would force full disclosure about just what they were doing in outer space.
If there are alien-human encounters taking place in space or in low Earth orbit, the Russians could bring back the information and share it with us.
STONEHILL: There is a certain level of secrecy that is very different in Russia than it is in the United States.
So it could be that most sensitive information is being handled by the Russian side so to make sure that it doesn't get released and doesn't spook the populations in different nations.
NARRATOR: But while information coming out of Russia is now under tight control, the same could not be said for the period when the Soviet Union was imploding.
And it was during this brief period that Russia's extensive history of extraterrestrial encounters became all but fully exposed.
In the waning days of the Soviet Union, a lot of interesting documents pertaining to UFOs were declassified.
For example, the KGB, so-called Blue File, 124 pages of information about UFO cases that came within to the KGB.
It was declassified.
We know that most of the documents pertaining to the SETKA program, which was the official Soviet top secret UFO program, which existed for 13 years, from '78 to 1991, most of those cases are not available, but the cases that we know about, that I've studied, are enough to make you amazed to know, and of what they have discovered, and what may be in store.
NARRATOR: If the United States and the Soviet Union each experienced decades of extraterrestrial contact, and had been secretly sharing their experiences and information with each other, what is their ultimate agenda? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the answers can be found in recently revealed Russian research that is intended to change the human body, in order to prepare it to travel the galaxy.
NARRATOR: Voronezh, Russia.
September 27, 1989.
A group of children playing in a park witness a shining ball in the sky that transforms into a disc-shaped craft and lands nearby.
They see strange beings emerge from the craft, beings that do not appear to be human.
In the days after the encounter, as many as 30 other eyewitnesses corroborate their account.
ROBBINS: Many people were out and observed it, children as well as adults.
Observers watched a hatch open and two beings come out, a very tall one and a modest-sized one.
The tall one was described as, um, rather mechanical-looking but a being that estimates were from nine to 12 feet tall.
The small one looked like a robot.
Both were distinguished by very small heads.
They began to move about the park.
People reacted.
One report has a boy in shock the taller being pointing an apparatus at the boy and freezing him.
He was reactivated, so to say, before the craft took off.
DOLAN: This is one of these cases where there are so many witnesses and they have all been interviewed and they're just all sincere.
They all saw something.
Some of the witnesses definitely described those things as artificial-looking and mechanical.
Well, we, ourselves, seem to be moving in that direction.
Are we creating ourselves as synthetic beings in the future? And the answer is we sure may be.
That's the way it seems to be going.
NARRATOR: If there are extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth, is it possible that they are not biological like us but have adopted synthetic bodies better suited for traveling the cosmos? And if so, might humanity be forced to do the same in order to travel into deep space? Many scientists believe this to be the case, and there is a growing movement in Russia to take the first steps of this transformation.
Moscow.
February 2012.
Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov brings together over 50 leading scientists to discuss what he believes is the next step in human evolution, immortality.
Through his ambitious project, called the 2045 Initiative, Itskov hopes to create technology that would ultimately upload the human brain into a computer by the year 2045.
JENKS: The 2045 Initiative, it really is a call to bring minds together to solve the problem of, essentially, digitizing a human being.
And in that case, you could download it.
You could, uh, transfer it to another source.
You could allow it to go into space.
STONEHILL: They want to make human being immortal, being that can explore farthest reaches of the universe.
To me, this exactly ties in with what the Russian, uh, philosophers and scientists talked about in the beginning of the 20th century, Russian cosmism.
In this, we hear echoes of the vision of Tsiolkovsky.
He told us that he was in contact with extraterrestrial beings.
He specifically noted that they were, in fact, light beings.
So, is it possible that what we are doing is catching up with his vision, that, if we create avatar humans, are we, in fact, then recreating the extraterrestrials who originally connected with him? Who knows if the Russians could actually achieve this 2045 Initiative, but they are thinking about it.
And they don't seem to be upset with the process that's planned.
The United States, on the other hand, wouldn't even consider such an idea.
Doing experiments on a human of transplanting a brain into a robot is probably gonna take a lot of approval and a long time for anyone to sign on to that.
But is it the same if you were in Russia? Their system of government is a little different, and they might do experiments like that easier than the United States.
POPE: In the U.
S.
and in the West, it is perhaps a long, hard journey to convince people that these things should be done.
Maybe we will never convince them.
But in Russia, through cosmism, through transhumanism, as the Russians practice it, you're trying to do things that Russians already believe in and aspire to.
There's real benefit to the U.
S.
in making the Russians our partners.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that humanity, led by the United States and Russia, is poised to take bold steps into deep space? If so, is this escalation limited to space travel or might it also include something like a military space force? NARRATOR: The White House.
June 18, 2018.
At a meeting of the National Space Council, President Donald J.
Trump calls on the Pentagon to develop a sixth branch of the United States military, a space force.
I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.
That's a big statement.
NARRATOR: The stunning news was followed ten days later by the announcement that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would have a private, behind-closed-doors meeting the following month.
Is it possible that these two high-profile events were strategically related? If both nations are aware that there is an extraterrestrial presence and that it is potentially hostile, then cooperation is the only route to go.
It's the only way that we could actually achieve some sort of mutual defense of the planet Earth.
POPE: This one-on-one between Trump and Putin may just be the latest in a long line of secret, high-level communications between the world leaders.
And it may be that things like the creation of the space force show that there's been an escalation.
Well, the reason you create a force of any kind is to deal with a threat.
- MAN: Liftoff.
- TAYLOR: We're reaching a point in our civilization here on Earth that we're beginning to send probes and maybe even soon people throughout the solar system, maybe even into deeper space.
It's quite possible the space force could be set up in an outpost in case there was some incident on Mars or in the asteroid belt or at Jupiter or way out at the Kuiper belt.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the U.
S.
-Russia relationship in space is the direct result of an extraordinary agenda not on the part of world leaders but by an extraterrestrial intelligence, an intelligence that believes that each nation has the unique ability to complement the other's strengths and weaknesses and that outer space should be explored not as a function of competition but as the result of mankind's shared need to fulfill its ultimate destiny.
It seems that Russia and America have been inextricably bound together in this Space Race, a space race run, perhaps, not between nations but with nations racing alongside each other.
STONEHILL: In actuality, the, uh, idea of Space Race is not correct, because there were n-never Space Race.
There was cooperation which had to be kept secret for a while.
But sooner or later, you could see fruits of such cooperation.
We actually have to work together and explore together and cooperate together to prevent any danger to Earth.
NARRATOR: As humans prepare for their journey to Mars and beyond, they will become the extraterrestrial visitors of other worlds.
And if ancient astronaut theorists are correct, their journey will have been aided by alien visitors who see our planet not as a number of warring nations but as a launching pad filled with people eager to explore an amazing universe.
NICK POPE: Has a deal been done? I think we don't know the whole picture.
NARRATOR: Joint space missions with undisclosed agendas.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: Why do we not have a good HD photograph of whatever that big tower is? Why? NARRATOR: Have the United States and Russia been working together from the very beginning of the Space Race POPE: Both Russia and the U.
S.
know about working extraterrestrial technology.
NARRATOR: in preparation for the ultimate extraterrestrial encounter? MIKE BARA: Cooperation is the only way that we could actually achieve some sort of mutual defense of the planet Earth.
NARRATOR: Seoul, South Korea.
March 26, 2012.
The leaders of over 50 nations gather for the Nuclear Security Summit, a two-day conference to discuss issues regarding the proliferation and safekeeping of nuclear weapons.
During a photo op between American President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was soon to be replaced by then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the two leaders have an off-the-record conversation that raises more than a few eyebrows.
But even more intriguing were recorded but not filmed comments in which President Obama told Medvedev, "It's important for him to give me space.
" And to which Medvedev replied, "I understand your message about space.
" POPE: The revelation was extraordinary.
President Obama's quote was, "It's important for him to give me space.
" What does that mean? Some people think it simply means breathing space, space to operate, room to maneuver politically.
But there is an interpretation that suggests he meant literally.
"It's important for him to give me space.
" Outer space.
BARA: Any time you hear governments talk about space, you hear them talk about space exploration, trust me, the-the underlying, implied, unspoken reality behind that is the alien presence.
POPE: It is possible that Russia and America, in some aspects of the space question and maybe the extraterrestrial question, maybe they are working together after all.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that, even between two of the world's most powerful political rivals, there is a secret understanding, one based on America and Russia's past and future roles in outer space? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they also believe that this secret understanding extends to numerous experiences involving extraterrestrial contact.
As evidence, they point to an occasion that took place just a few months after Medvedev's now-famous exchange with Barack Obama.
On December 7, 2012, after giving a primetime network interview in Moscow, Medvedev made remarks offstage which seemed to openly acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrials and the Russian government's efforts to keep that existence a secret.
(speaking Russian) NARRATOR: Although most of the journalists in the room believed the Russian president's remarks to have been made in jest, there were others who were not so certain.
RICHARD DOLAN: This is one of the most dramatic statements that emanates out of Russia, and so it's fascinating.
Dmitry Medvedev said, "When you become president of Russia", "you're given information on aliens in our country and the human groups that are monitoring them.
" He was totally with a straight face during all of this.
MICHAEL SALLA: Here he is on film saying that there is a secret governmental cooperation occurring in the background that has the highest levels of classification to really monitor extraterrestrials that are visiting our planet.
Forget all the differences.
Forget ideologies.
At the highest level, the two nations work together.
After World War II, there was a number of UFO encounters, very important encounters, and this gave impetus to joint cooperation between our nations.
NARRATOR: Joint cooperation? Even during the tension-filled decades of the Cold War? Ancient astronaut theorists believe that not only did such a secret relationship exist but that it began several decades ago as a consequence of what they believe to be the Soviet Union's first documented UFO encounter, an event they commonly refer to as the Russian Roswell.
Southern Russia.
June 19, 1948.
At a remote Soviet military installation known as Kapustin Yar, an unidentified flying object is detected over the base.
POPE: Strange blips were seen on radar.
Something was tracked performing extraordinary speeds and maneuvers.
And a Russian fighter jet was sent to intercept it.
The pilot saw a silver cigar-shaped object and was told, "Shoot this thing down.
It's in restricted military airspace.
" The UFO fired some sort of directed energy weapon, a death ray.
But before the Russian jet was downed, it managed to launch a missile and shoot down the UFO.
Some people have speculated this was the time that the Russians found out about extraterrestrials.
BARA: According to the myths and legends, at Kapustin Yar, they actually recovered bodies, they recovered the spacecraft itself, and it was kept there for study and reverse engineering.
PETER ROBBINS: We are told that there is a underground facility under Kapustin Yar, similar, probably, to facilities here in the States, where a full examination could be performed on the pilots of these craft.
NARRATOR: To ancient astronaut theorists and researchers, what makes the Kapustin Yar story all the more significant is that it occurred within a year of the now-infamous Roswell incident, in which a UFO reportedly crashed in the New Mexico desert sometime in June of 1947.
That took place near the only active military unit in the world that had nuclear weapons.
That was the Roswell 509th Bombing Unit, and they had nukes.
Similarly, over at the Soviet Union, at places like Kapustin Yar, we've got significant UFO activity being reported, military engagements, just like in the United States.
And I personally believe that extraterrestrials had a strong interest in the nuclear technologies that were then developing on planet Earth, which is exactly why they were there.
NARRATOR: Could it be that both the Kapustin Yar and Roswell incidents were attempts by extraterrestrials to make contact because of mankind's recent development of nuclear weapons? But if such contact did occur, did it signal an era of secret cooperation between the world's two great superpowers or did it only trigger a greater degree of rivalry and competition? In Roswell, you had the crash.
You had the recovered alien bodies, but the aliens were dead.
There was no way to communicate with them, because they had been killed.
So we had the technology but probably no really good idea on how to start reverse engineering it.
Whereas at Kapustin Yar, as the story goes, they not only got the spacecraft itself but, apparently, there was at least one survivor of the incident.
So what could the Russians possibly have learned from that alien extraterrestrial biological entity that we were not able to learn from our Roswell incident? Why were the Russians first into space? Why did they manage to do Sputnik 1 and then send Yuri Gagarin up into orbit and leave the Americans standing? Because, on paper, you'd think that the U.
S.
government should have won that race, but they didn't.
If the Russians got live aliens, maybe they found out something from what happened at Kapustin Yar that gave them the edge in the Space Race.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Soviet Union gained a strategic advantage in the so-called Space Race because of help it received from an extraterrestrial visitor? But if so, then how did the United States so quickly catch up and some would argue overtake them by being the first to put humans on the moon? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the answers are easily obtained, not by examining what the two nations were each admitting to in public, but what they were doing together in secret.
NARRATOR: July 17, 1975.
MAN (over radio): Moscow is go for docking.
Houston is go for docking.
It's up to you guys.
NARRATOR: High above the Earth, an American Apollo Command/Service Module docks with its Soviet counterpart, the Soyuz 19.
A few hours later, the two mission commanders, Thomas Stafford and Alexey Leonov, shake hands through the open hatch, the first international handshake to take place in space.
The historic mission, officially known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, marked the end of the Space Race that began when the Soviets launched Sputnik back in 1957 and ushered in a new era of open collaboration in space between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission was in itself an expression of cooperation of our two nations.
Detente was coming.
Hopes for cooperation.
Hopes for future space exploration.
Friendship.
NARRATOR: While Apollo-Soyuz was the first public demonstration of American and Soviet cooperation in space, there were many who believed that that collaboration began decades earlier, following two separate events that involved extraterrestrial visitations: one in Roswell, New Mexico, and another, known as Kapustin Yar, which happened near the town of Znamensk, in the western region of the former Soviet Union.
POPE: There's an argument that suggests the Apollo-Soyuz mission was actually a sort of soft disclosure.
Getting the story out there in a quiet way so that there would be no great bombshell revelation later.
NARRATOR: Moscow.
July 1965.
Exactly one decade prior to the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission, scientists at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute analyze a series of 25 photographs of the Moon transmitted from the Soviet unmanned probe, Zond 3.
The images, taken approximately 7,000 miles away from the lunar surface, are unprecedented in quality and offer the first clear view of the far side of the moon.
In the years following the Zond 3 mission, researchers have argued that the 25 photographs show structures on the Moon that did not occur naturally.
There were clear anomalies that had been seen on camera for the first time.
One was kind of a giant dome that appeared to have a glass-like structure to the top of it that had been shattered and beaten up.
And in another image, there was a 20-mile-high tower that was plainly visible on the photographs that were published.
Knowing the secrecy of the Soviets during this era, it's quite possible that they had other pictures that might reveal what these structures are.
Why do we not have a good HD photograph of whatever that big tower is that the Zond 3 probe took in 1965? Why? STONEHILL: Those pictures are still classified in Russia, as they were in the Soviet Union.
Apparently, some 25 pictures were transferred to NASA.
I don't know how.
Was this a CIA operation, or was this an actual transfer of information, which again shows you the level of exchange of cooperation between our governments? Something that's classified in Russia is openly available in the United States? NARRATOR: Did the Russians discover evidence of artificial structures on the Moon four years before the American astronauts landed there? And if so, did they secretly communicate their findings in order to help guide NASA's plans for the first manned mission to the Moon? Ancient astronaut theorists believe that such an audacious notion may be true, and also suggest that, while the United States later became focused on launching its Space Shuttle program, the Russians journeyed even deeper into space in search of further evidence of extraterrestrial activity in our solar system.
Baikonur Cosmodrome.
July 1988.
The Soviet Union launches two probes which are each programmed to photograph Phobos, one of the two moons that orbit the planet Mars.
Although the first probe fails to reach its target, the second proves more successful.
Named Phobos 2, it uses sophisticated cameras and infrared lasers to collect and transmit photos and data about the atmosphere and surface of the Martian moon.
In the final stage of its mission, the probe attempts a landing on the moon's surface.
Suddenly, without warning, the Russian craft stops transmitting but not until it relays one last incredible photo.
As they got closer with Phobos, we see one last frame that seems to have showed up.
What appears to be some type of laser beam, or some type of object, coming from Phobos and disabling the satellite.
And a very large cigar-shaped shadow, as if it's possibly a large craft of some kind hovering above the surface.
BARA: There have been members of the Soviet Science Academy and actual cosmonauts, like Marina Popovich, who came right out and said that the reports inside the Soviet Union indicated that Phobos 2 had been shot down.
NARRATOR: What happened to the Phobos 2 probe? Did it really photograph an alien craft? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and point to another Mars mission, almost a decade later, as proof of an extraterrestrial presence on Phobos.
WILLIAM HENRY: In 1998, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor took images of Phobos revealing a monolith 279 feet in length.
Instantly, ancient astronaut theorists and others connected this to what the Soviets had discovered in the 1980s and hypothesized that perhaps there is a working extraterrestrial element on Mars that seeks to prevent us from discovering the secrets of Phobos.
Now we have a situation where both Russia and the U.
S.
know about this.
And perhaps it's not just artifacts and ancient civilizations but working extraterrestrial technology.
NARRATOR: Were otherworldly forces guiding both the U.
S.
and Soviet space programs in an effort to encourage peaceful cooperation between the world's two great nuclear adversaries? Although such a far-fetched notion seems absurd, there are many who believe that not only was extraterrestrial contact taking place but that it had been happening for dozens of years, and that one such incident involved a number of top secret communications between a Russian scientist and what he believed to be his alien ancestors.
NARRATOR: Kaluga, Russia.
May 1903.
Little-known Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes a landmark paper on rocket science titled "Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices.
" At a time when the Wright Brothers are still working to achieve the first powered flight, Tsiolkovsky writes about groundbreaking concepts for the exploration of space, including what he calls the "ideal rocket equation," a formula which calculates the amount of velocity needed to lift a body into outer space.
Incredibly, his theories would prove instrumental in helping the Soviet Union launch the first man-made object into orbit more than 50 years later.
TAYLOR: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wasn't a classically trained scientist, he was a secondary school math teacher.
But he was so enamored with getting into space that he created the rocket science and mathematics in the early 1900s that led to the first thing created by humanity to be launched into space, Sputnik.
To put into perspective how influential Tsiolkovsky's work was, this is the basis work that everybody had to use later.
Von Braun used it during his research on rockets, and most of the world sees the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation as the beginning of modern rocket science.
Where did he get those ideas? Where does his knowledge come from? His ideas about space and civilizations that populate it were incredible, and he persisted that when humans will go into outer space, we will become like other alien civilizations.
NARRATOR: Alien civilizations? How did a Russian math teacher, who grew up in a small village in eastern Russia, come to believe that there were other intelligent beings in the universe and that it was mankind's destiny to join them in the cosmos? The answer is simple.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, like millions of other Russians of his day, subscribed to a philosophy known as cosmism, which promoted the idea that humanity has an ancient connection to extraterrestrial beings.
Russian cosmism began in the mid and late 19th century.
Within the traditions of cosmism there are many who believe that our origins are actually alien in nature, that is to say, the human civilization is an alien transplant, and that, in going into space, we are actually going back home.
MARTELL: From that perspective, it's very much in alignment with the ancient astronaut theory where human beings strive to reconnect with these ancient gods, through efforts like creating a more advanced space program.
NARRATOR: What made Tsiolkovsky, and others like him, so certain that aliens existed, and that space travel held the key to humans reconnecting with these otherworldly beings? For the answer, ancient astronaut theorists point to Tsiolkovsky's writings, in which he described extraterrestrial beings sending messages and information to mankind from the stars.
He also wrote that he himself had personally received a number of interplanetary communications.
STONEHILL: Tsiolkovsky experienced tremendous sightings in his life.
One was in 1889.
He was looking at the sky and all of a sudden he saw a perfect cloud in the shape of a four-pointed cross flying over him.
ROBBINS: He also felt that he was receiving telepathic messages from, um, extraterrestrials.
This leaves us to ponder was he actually in contact with intelligences from out there? Did they guide his hand? Did they supply this equation? MARTELL: Some of his models of what a spacecraft would look like are very much in alignment with the descriptions of various UFOs, this cigar elongated shape.
Was he actually in communication with the beings that are piloting these craft? Is it a vision that he got showing how they manipulate and pilot these vehicles, and that's why he was able to come up with such an accurate representation for that model? NARRATOR: For many ancient astronaut theorists, Russia's widespread embrace of cosmism might help explain why the Soviet Union's reaction to the UFO incident at Kapustin Yar was likely very different than the American military's reaction to Roswell.
The United States approached the Space Race with an eye toward achieving scientific and technological superiority.
The Soviet Union seemed less focused on technological goals, such as that of landing a man on the Moon, and more interested in using space travel as a means of realizing a kind of extraterrestrial destiny.
TAYLOR: So the Space Race was really a cover for creating new technologies in our defense industry.
To create rockets that could put large amounts of mass into space, put a satellite into orbit.
All these things required technological developments that enabled spy satellites, that enabled communication satellites.
They enabled intercontinental ballistic missiles.
STONEHILL: Russians were the first ones to promote this idea of unity between outer space and people on Earth.
Tsiolkovsky knew there were other civilizations in outer space, and he wanted to meet them.
He put the seeds in the minds of the people that helped develop rockets and space technology in the Soviet Union.
POPE: Maybe cosmism and then the Russian successes with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin made the Americans realize we need them.
The Russians can do things we can't do.
They have a philosophical outlook on this which gives them an inherent advantage.
And maybe in that sort of situation, each party brings something to the table.
NARRATOR: Could it be that when the Soviets launched Sputnik, it wasn't simply a show of scientific superiority or military might, but an attempt to directly connect with extraterrestrial beings? And, if so, could that have motivated the United States to work more closely with them, and, ultimately, partner with them? Perhaps further clues can be found by examining what happened to the American and Soviet space programs after the Soviet Union collapsed.
NARRATOR: Moscow.
Christmas Day, 1991.
I am now concluding my activity as president of the USSR.
NARRATOR: In one of the most significant events of the 20th century, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation.
Just five days short of its 70th anniversary, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is officially dissolved.
The Soviet Union collapsed 1989, 1990, 1991, and split up into its constituent republics.
Russia, at that time in the 1990s, was a hellhole.
Ethnic conflicts were brewing all around the borders of the Russian Federation, incredibly high levels of crime, the birth of the Russian Mafia.
NARRATOR: But of all the problems that now plagued the former Soviet Union, their space program was not one of them.
Their Mir orbiting space station was considered a huge success, which often stood in stark contrast to the United States' tragedy-plagued Shuttle program.
This contrast was so stark, in fact, that when the Shuttle program quietly ended in 2011, the United States suspended its own manned space program in favor of sending its astronauts up to the International Space Station as little more than passengers aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
POPE: It seems that the U.
S.
ceded control of space to the Russians, certainly in relation to manned missions.
But it is bizarre.
For whatever reason, the Russians, despite all their problems, seem to be ahead of the U.
S.
, in some respects, when you talk about space.
A couple of examples of where the U.
S.
seem to have ceded control, or certainly ceded the leadership position in space to the Russians, are the International Space Station, where now, American astronauts can't even get there without going up in Russian rockets.
NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists, the partnership between the two rival space programs was simply an admission of what had already been taking place in secret for decades.
It also proved that both the U.
S.
and Russian space programs were going to continue working together in the interest of furthering the goal of extraterrestrial contact.
But this time there was a difference: Russia was now largely controlled by deep-pocketed oligarchs, and run by tight-gripped autocrats like Vladimir Putin.
They were free of the kind of public scrutiny that would force full disclosure about just what they were doing in outer space.
If there are alien-human encounters taking place in space or in low Earth orbit, the Russians could bring back the information and share it with us.
STONEHILL: There is a certain level of secrecy that is very different in Russia than it is in the United States.
So it could be that most sensitive information is being handled by the Russian side so to make sure that it doesn't get released and doesn't spook the populations in different nations.
NARRATOR: But while information coming out of Russia is now under tight control, the same could not be said for the period when the Soviet Union was imploding.
And it was during this brief period that Russia's extensive history of extraterrestrial encounters became all but fully exposed.
In the waning days of the Soviet Union, a lot of interesting documents pertaining to UFOs were declassified.
For example, the KGB, so-called Blue File, 124 pages of information about UFO cases that came within to the KGB.
It was declassified.
We know that most of the documents pertaining to the SETKA program, which was the official Soviet top secret UFO program, which existed for 13 years, from '78 to 1991, most of those cases are not available, but the cases that we know about, that I've studied, are enough to make you amazed to know, and of what they have discovered, and what may be in store.
NARRATOR: If the United States and the Soviet Union each experienced decades of extraterrestrial contact, and had been secretly sharing their experiences and information with each other, what is their ultimate agenda? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the answers can be found in recently revealed Russian research that is intended to change the human body, in order to prepare it to travel the galaxy.
NARRATOR: Voronezh, Russia.
September 27, 1989.
A group of children playing in a park witness a shining ball in the sky that transforms into a disc-shaped craft and lands nearby.
They see strange beings emerge from the craft, beings that do not appear to be human.
In the days after the encounter, as many as 30 other eyewitnesses corroborate their account.
ROBBINS: Many people were out and observed it, children as well as adults.
Observers watched a hatch open and two beings come out, a very tall one and a modest-sized one.
The tall one was described as, um, rather mechanical-looking but a being that estimates were from nine to 12 feet tall.
The small one looked like a robot.
Both were distinguished by very small heads.
They began to move about the park.
People reacted.
One report has a boy in shock the taller being pointing an apparatus at the boy and freezing him.
He was reactivated, so to say, before the craft took off.
DOLAN: This is one of these cases where there are so many witnesses and they have all been interviewed and they're just all sincere.
They all saw something.
Some of the witnesses definitely described those things as artificial-looking and mechanical.
Well, we, ourselves, seem to be moving in that direction.
Are we creating ourselves as synthetic beings in the future? And the answer is we sure may be.
That's the way it seems to be going.
NARRATOR: If there are extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth, is it possible that they are not biological like us but have adopted synthetic bodies better suited for traveling the cosmos? And if so, might humanity be forced to do the same in order to travel into deep space? Many scientists believe this to be the case, and there is a growing movement in Russia to take the first steps of this transformation.
Moscow.
February 2012.
Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov brings together over 50 leading scientists to discuss what he believes is the next step in human evolution, immortality.
Through his ambitious project, called the 2045 Initiative, Itskov hopes to create technology that would ultimately upload the human brain into a computer by the year 2045.
JENKS: The 2045 Initiative, it really is a call to bring minds together to solve the problem of, essentially, digitizing a human being.
And in that case, you could download it.
You could, uh, transfer it to another source.
You could allow it to go into space.
STONEHILL: They want to make human being immortal, being that can explore farthest reaches of the universe.
To me, this exactly ties in with what the Russian, uh, philosophers and scientists talked about in the beginning of the 20th century, Russian cosmism.
In this, we hear echoes of the vision of Tsiolkovsky.
He told us that he was in contact with extraterrestrial beings.
He specifically noted that they were, in fact, light beings.
So, is it possible that what we are doing is catching up with his vision, that, if we create avatar humans, are we, in fact, then recreating the extraterrestrials who originally connected with him? Who knows if the Russians could actually achieve this 2045 Initiative, but they are thinking about it.
And they don't seem to be upset with the process that's planned.
The United States, on the other hand, wouldn't even consider such an idea.
Doing experiments on a human of transplanting a brain into a robot is probably gonna take a lot of approval and a long time for anyone to sign on to that.
But is it the same if you were in Russia? Their system of government is a little different, and they might do experiments like that easier than the United States.
POPE: In the U.
S.
and in the West, it is perhaps a long, hard journey to convince people that these things should be done.
Maybe we will never convince them.
But in Russia, through cosmism, through transhumanism, as the Russians practice it, you're trying to do things that Russians already believe in and aspire to.
There's real benefit to the U.
S.
in making the Russians our partners.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that humanity, led by the United States and Russia, is poised to take bold steps into deep space? If so, is this escalation limited to space travel or might it also include something like a military space force? NARRATOR: The White House.
June 18, 2018.
At a meeting of the National Space Council, President Donald J.
Trump calls on the Pentagon to develop a sixth branch of the United States military, a space force.
I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.
That's a big statement.
NARRATOR: The stunning news was followed ten days later by the announcement that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would have a private, behind-closed-doors meeting the following month.
Is it possible that these two high-profile events were strategically related? If both nations are aware that there is an extraterrestrial presence and that it is potentially hostile, then cooperation is the only route to go.
It's the only way that we could actually achieve some sort of mutual defense of the planet Earth.
POPE: This one-on-one between Trump and Putin may just be the latest in a long line of secret, high-level communications between the world leaders.
And it may be that things like the creation of the space force show that there's been an escalation.
Well, the reason you create a force of any kind is to deal with a threat.
- MAN: Liftoff.
- TAYLOR: We're reaching a point in our civilization here on Earth that we're beginning to send probes and maybe even soon people throughout the solar system, maybe even into deeper space.
It's quite possible the space force could be set up in an outpost in case there was some incident on Mars or in the asteroid belt or at Jupiter or way out at the Kuiper belt.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the U.
S.
-Russia relationship in space is the direct result of an extraordinary agenda not on the part of world leaders but by an extraterrestrial intelligence, an intelligence that believes that each nation has the unique ability to complement the other's strengths and weaknesses and that outer space should be explored not as a function of competition but as the result of mankind's shared need to fulfill its ultimate destiny.
It seems that Russia and America have been inextricably bound together in this Space Race, a space race run, perhaps, not between nations but with nations racing alongside each other.
STONEHILL: In actuality, the, uh, idea of Space Race is not correct, because there were n-never Space Race.
There was cooperation which had to be kept secret for a while.
But sooner or later, you could see fruits of such cooperation.
We actually have to work together and explore together and cooperate together to prevent any danger to Earth.
NARRATOR: As humans prepare for their journey to Mars and beyond, they will become the extraterrestrial visitors of other worlds.
And if ancient astronaut theorists are correct, their journey will have been aided by alien visitors who see our planet not as a number of warring nations but as a launching pad filled with people eager to explore an amazing universe.