Ancient Aliens s14e15 Episode Script
The Alien Mountain
1 A foreboding mountain bears witness to astonishing events.
NICK POPE: Over the years, there has been all sorts of weirdness on this mountain.
Mysterious lights, fire in the sky.
NARRATOR: Ancient stories link it to otherworldly contact.
Oh, look at that.
- The spaceman? - Spaceman, exactly.
Look at the helmet.
NARRATOR: And it has become a hot spot for modern-day UFO reports.
DAVID CHILDRESS: We have extraterrestrials giving a light show for people.
NARRATOR: Could this mysterious mountain be attracting extraterrestrial visitors to Earth? WILLIAM HENRY: The gods came to this very specific place because of something either in the mountain or something that was placed there by them.
NARRATOR: There is a doorway in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
NARRATOR: Turin, Italy.
Situated on the western bank of the Po River, this city of nearly two million people is an important international business hub.
It is also the heart of the Italian automotive industry, with the headquarters of Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo all located here.
But overlooking this modern metropolis is Italy's most mysterious and infamous ancient site: Mount Musinè.
Rising to an elevation of nearly 4,000 feet, Mount Musinè has stood at a unique crossroads of history, geology and the unexplained.
This is a mountain where, over the years, almost to the beginning of recorded human history, strange things have been seen.
Lights were seen.
Sometimes these lights have been associated with the forces of good, others with the forces of darkness.
But make no mistake about it, over the years there has been all sorts of weirdness on this mountain.
NARRATOR: Mount Musinè stands at the easternmost edge of Italy's Susa Valley, which stretches 31 miles west to the border of France.
During the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago, this valley represented a major crossroads, where the local Celtic people, called the Taurini, came into contact with the most prominent civilizations of the time.
The Bronze Age Celts of Northwestern Italy were very lucky, because their particular location was a kind of geographical hub that had access to Northern Europe, through the Alps, and access to the Mediterranean, going south, and, indeed, across the Mediterranean to Egypt.
And people think that the ancients pretty much stayed where they were born, but many of them traveled vast distances and encountered many other civilizations, and absorbed some of their ideas very willingly.
NARRATOR: The Celts in Northern Italy came into contact with the Etruscans, the Egyptians and the Greeks.
Each of these cultures had separate but very similar polytheistic traditions in which they worshipped a pantheon of gods that came down to Earth from the heavens.
And they all revered Mount Musinè as a place of power.
According to ancient astronaut theorists, Mount Musinè may in fact be a special location on Earth because of where it is positioned.
Mount Musinè has an amazing ancient history of magic and mystery.
The significance of its position is that it's located on a ley line, which is a gathering place of Earth energies.
NARRATOR: The concept of ley lines originated in the 1920s with English landscape photographer Alfred Watkins.
While researching his book, The Old Straight Track, Watkins made the curious discovery that many of the prehistoric standing stones and significant ancient sites of England and France line up in perfectly straight lines.
And many of these sites that these lines pass through have names that contain the letters "L-E-Y," like Leyland, Keighley and Otley.
Ley lines are an alignment of ancient sites, four or more of them over any distance.
And these stretch around the world in some cases, and these are often associated with the same sites on the straight-line alignments.
So there's a whole network around the planet of lots of different types, some linked with the magnetic field, others linked with underground water and natural energies that move through the land.
NARRATOR: One of the most significant ley lines that has been identified is the St.
Michael line.
Starting from Skellig Michael in Ireland, the seven major sites that lie along this line each have a church dedicated to the archangel Michael, all the way down to the Stella Maris Monastery in Israel.
And incredibly, there is no record of the people who lived in these separate locations having coordinated this.
One of the sites the St.
Michael line passes through is Mount Musinè.
You've got this straight line of all these sites, and not just any old sites, power sites.
The ancients believed that certain parts of the world were blessed with power, energy, that Musinè is slap-bang on that line.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that ancient people were aware of energy emanating from the Earth and were drawn to the area of Mount Musinè and the Susa Valley more than 2,000 years ago? And could these Earth energies also be responsible for the many strange events that have been documented in this area? (thunder crashing) Local legends passed down from ancient times tell about this mountain being home to werewolves and wizards.
It was rumored that a dragon guarded an enchanted cave, protecting a giant emerald.
And in the fourth century AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine claimed to have had a vision of a cross floating in the sky over Mount Musinè the night before a decisive battle, one that would lead to him seizing control of Rome from his rival, Maxentius, and converting the empire to Christianity.
POPE: This was a pivotal moment.
The adoption of Christianity as the official religion really changed the world, and that's now a large part of the world we live in.
So did Mount Musinè have a part in all of this? And if so, what the heck was this encounter? GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Now, it was not just Constantine's vision, because it is described that the army of Constantine also saw something up in the sky.
So the question is: Is this one of the earliest UFO encounters that we have on record? And in my opinion, yes, it is.
NARRATOR: Could the many extraordinary encounters recorded at Mount Musinè throughout the ages be the product of extraterrestrial visitation? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest that further evidence can be found by examining an incredible flurry of UFO sightings reported in much more recent times.
Northern Italy.
December 2, 1973.
An Alitalia flight is 17 miles outside of Turin when its pilot sees something unusual in the night sky over the nearby Mount Musinè, something no one can identify.
In 1973, an Alitalia pilot sees a strange glow over the mountain.
This is apparently later confirmed by the control tower.
NARRATOR: According to witnesses, the glow appeared to be coming from a mysterious round object.
Two Italian Air Force planes that were in the vicinity corroborated the sighting.
The UFO report is significant not only because it was witnessed by multiple pilots and passengers, but because within just a two-week period, no less than six separate UFO incidents were reported in the vicinity of Mount Musinè.
POPE: If this was in isolation, then perhaps you could disregard it.
But when I look at Italy, and particularly this specific part of Italy, it does seem as if something is going on, and it seems as if the Italian government, and maybe others, know that there's something going on.
NARRATOR: What can explain the strange incidents that have been continuously reported at Mount Musinè for hundreds of years? Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that extraterrestrials are drawn to this particular place on Earth? CHILDRESS: This light phenomenon and unusual activity on Mount Musinè has been going on for thousands of years, and continues to this day.
POPE: The challenge really is to find the connection, to draw together the disparate threads of this story and say, "What is it about this area that's so special?" NARRATOR: Perhaps further clues can be found by investigating the strange rock carvings found in the area, carvings that appear to be depictions of astronauts.
NARRATOR: Val Camonica, Italy.
June 13, 2019.
Ancient astronaut theorist William Henry has traveled to this UNESCO World Heritage Site 165 miles from Mount Musinè to investigate what he believes could be forensic evidence that the early civilizations of this region came into contact with extraterrestrials.
HENRY: Hi, I'm William.
Nice to meet you.
NARRATOR: Joining him is Luca Giarelli, the head of the Val Camonica Historical and Anthropological Society.
Luca has spent years studying this mysterious region of Northern Italy, and wants to show William the rock carvings for which this alpine valley is famous.
This place is massive.
I'm ready.
Let's go.
HENRY: I'm here at Val Camonica because it is a treasure trove of images from the ancient world that have been well-documented and studied by scholars.
They don't agree on the meaning of the images, but some of them are very open-minded to the ancient astronaut theory.
Footprints.
Wow.
They look like deer.
Look at this.
Incredible.
Wow.
HENRY: Oh, look at that.
The spaceman, exactly.
Look at that helmet.
Right.
It's like he's glowing.
HENRY: Ah, the Camunian rose.
HENRY: Wow.
19 Camunian roses? NARRATOR: Archaeologists call this mysterious object the Camunian rose because of its flower-like shape.
While its exact meaning is lost to history, some believe it to be a religious symbol or a representation of the movement of the stars.
But ancient astronaut theorists suggest it might also depict something else, the vessel that brought these helmeted figures to Val Camonica.
Look at that.
That looks like a spaceship.
It's like you look up in the sky, and you would see this kind of twirling, spinning ship in the sky.
It seems to me, just looking at it, they're trying to talk about beings coming from other worlds, maybe to this place.
Tell me about that five-pointed star.
HENRY: Mm-hmm.
HENRY: Sometimes the-the stars mean energy, like, energy from the stars would come to this place where star beings would come to this place.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
This is like a newspaper, then.
It says, "This was in the sky above us at some point, and this spaceman came down and maybe met the Camunian people.
" NARRATOR: According to the ancient stories of the Susa Valley, the city of Turin was founded by a character from Greek mythology called Phaethon, who came to Earth from the stars.
Legend states that Turin was founded by the god Phaethon, who is a son of the sun god Helios.
And in the myth of Phaethon, we learn the story of how he descended to Earth in a fiery chariot perhaps crashing into Mount Musinè.
This also led to something fortuitous because he brought gifts to this place.
He had great skills, was a metallurgist, and taught this to the local people.
CHILDRESS: When we look at myths such as the myth of Phaethon, here is really the story of a UFO landing on a mountain and interacting with the locals.
HENRY: When we look behind this myth of Phaethon, perhaps this is what we're also seeing at Val Camonica.
I think, given the-the connection with the spacemen that are etched into the rock, that we have to be open to the possibility that what the ancient artist is trying to portray is something that he actually saw in the sky, something coming out of the heavens.
NARRATOR: Is there a connection between the stone carvings found at Val Camonica and the story of Phaethon's descent from the sky? And do other clues exist here that point to ancient alien contact? Were there any other cultures that were connected with the valley? - What sort of engravings? - Uh Mm-hmm.
Oh, the horned god.
Yeah.
Right.
HENRY: That means the Celts were here.
So, is this the only location where we see the spaceman? - Even deeper into the woods? - Yeah.
I'd love to go.
All right.
NARRATOR: Luca guides William up a steep portion of the valley for a rare look at another carving hidden from public view.
I'm all right, thanks.
Wow.
We're-we're, like, on the edge of a cliff here.
Wait a minute.
Th-That's one of them.
Isn't it? Right there? - LUCA: Yeah.
- How cool.
HENRY: Wow.
LUCA: Like the other one.
HENRY: Yeah, these are just like the other guys.
Yeah.
- HENRY: The detail is amazing.
- Yeah.
HENRY: Mm-hmm.
HENRY: There's clearly some kind of an exchange that's happening here.
It's like they're making a photograph of what happened at this place.
They're trying to say, "At this spot, this is what we saw here.
" HENRY: Of all places to find a rock like this.
This is a very secretive, almost initiatory place where select people would be brought here to be told this story about these extraterrestrials.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: Were the ancient people of what is now Northwest Italy visited by beings from other worlds? And could these depictions of spacemen and strange craft descending from the heavens have a link not only to the origin story of Turin but also to the UFO sightings that have been reported over Mount Musinè in more recent times? Val Camonica is in this incredible vortex, if you will, that includes Mount Musinè.
We're looking at a-an entire territory here where these extraordinary experiences are being recorded.
NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists, the carvings at Val Camonica tell just one part of a larger story.
And they suggest that nearby ruins may reveal not only that extraterrestrials visited this region but why.
NARRATOR: The Susa Valley.
966 AD.
While ascending Mount Pirchiriano, 25 miles west of Turin, and directly across from Mount Musinè, a Catholic bishop is startled by an incredible sight that suddenly appears in the sky.
He sees strange lights in the sky.
And these things are described as planks and globes made of fire, firstly appearing to be on the mountain itself, then rising up, flying around across the sky.
But they weren't just sightings.
They were sightings that had a profound consequence.
These strange sightings prompted the bishop to say, "This will be the site on which we will build the new abbey," that came to be known as Sacra di San Michele.
CHILDRESS: So once again, we have what seems to be extraterrestrials giving a light show for people, uh, wanting to attract their attention and perhaps inspiring them to-to do certain things.
NARRATOR: The Sacra di San Michele, or Saint Michael's Abbey, still stands atop Mount Pirchiriano today.
It is to this sacred abbey that ancient astronaut theorist William Henry is headed with author and historian Gnomo Orzo, who plans to reveal a historic secret.
- Wow.
- Oh, my gosh.
Look at this.
- Yes.
Susa Valley.
- Wow.
Wow, wow, wow.
- Look.
- That's incredible.
- HENRY: Musinè.
- ORZO: Yeah.
It's like Musinè and the Sacra are-are twin peaks.
- ORZO: Yes.
- HENRY: Incredible.
And in this place where the Sacra was built, we have some other interesting phenomenon NARRATOR: According to ancient stories, in this area of the St.
Michael line, the energy line, or ley line, that many believe runs straight through Italy, a highly advanced civilization existed thousands of years ago, a civilization that began when the god Phaethon came down from the sky in his fiery chariot.
The local accounts of Phaethon not only connect this figure with the ancient Greeks but also the ancient Egyptians.
And some ancient astronaut theorists suggest that as a bringer of technology, Phaethon could be the same extraterrestrial being that was known in Egypt as Ptah.
HENRY: Their names are very similar, Ptah and Phaethon.
The legend says that Phaethon founded Turin in honor of the Apis bull.
Turin, or Turino, is called the city of the bull.
Now, this is very interesting because in ancient Egypt, where the reverence for the Apis bull originated, we're told that the Apis bull, or Apis bull, was actually the Egyptian god of technology, Ptah, incarnate.
Ptah was the Egyptian god of smithcraft and alchemy.
So we have to ask the question: Is Musinè a place that was known in the ancient world, where the secrets of alchemy were ultimately going to be stored or could be accessed? There seems to be a very important connection between the cosmic knowledge of metallurgy, which was brought to Earth by the gods, and some kind of energy present at Mount Musinè.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials' knowledge of metallurgy and alchemy was used to create a technologically advanced ancient city around Mount Musinè, where did it go? In the first century BC, Rome conquered the area's original inhabitants and established Augusta Taurinorum, the colony that eventually became Turin.
All traces of the people and city that came before it seem to have vanished.
HENRY: So the Roman Empire came here and said, "We're gonna take your knowledge and secrets, we're gonna weaponize" Yeah, of course.
So the energy is still here in this valley.
- All right, let's go.
- Yeah.
NARRATOR: Gnomo and William head next to a hill near the village of Mompantero.
If extraterrestrials handed knowledge of advanced technology to the ancient people of this region, Gnomo believes it happened here, and he has located evidence to prove it.
Look at that.
So Right, so this is knowledge way beyond what we normally think of the - neolithic mind being able to grasp.
- Yeah.
BRUCE FENTON: Finding this triple spiral at Musinè is absolutely fascinating.
I suspect that among its many meanings, which most of which have to do with movement and energetic flow, I suspect amongst these we're also being told something about Earth energies.
They had a knowledge of these magnetic forces and these energies, you know, something that they perhaps should not have known but clearly did.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the ancient people of the Susa Valley received knowledge of Earth's magnetic forces from extraterrestrials that were present in the region of Mount Musinè? But if a technologically advanced city really did once exist in the Susa Valley, how is it that all evidence of it disappeared? Some researchers say remnants of this lost city can still be found in the shadow of Mount Musinè.
NARRATOR: Deeper in the Susa Valley of Northern Italy, Gnomo Orzo takes William Henry to a Roman archaeological site called Il Maometto.
But what he wants to show him is something hidden in the woods nearby that predates even the earliest identified Roman ruins.
HENRY: Wow, Gnomo.
Look at this.
Look at this incredible, incredible platform.
Yeah, huge wheels, uh, surrounded by a lot of very ancient walls.
HENRY: You know, I've seen something like this before in Egypt, at Abu Gorab, wheels just like this on this massive platform.
Quartz crystal embedded.
It's like a landing platform.
ORZO: Yeah.
NARRATOR: Approximately ten miles south of Cairo, the ancient site of Abu Gorab contains massive circular alabaster platforms.
Local tradition holds that this site is one of the oldest ceremonial centers on the planet and that the alabaster platforms created a harmonic resonance through sound vibrations to open the senses to communicate with divine energies.
When I came upon this platform in the middle of this forest, it took me back to Egypt where you see massive stone altars like this, for example, at Abu Gorab, that have exactly the same stone wheels in the center, and I'm thinking, this proves the Egyptian connection, too.
This is a-a common symbolic element that almost always connects with extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: For William Henry, the wheels also present another intriguing possibility.
He believes that they may have been made to commemorate the foundational story of the city of Turin, in which it is said that an otherworldly being called Phaethon descended from the sky in a fiery chariot.
In the story, the craft in which he descends to Earth is described as having wheels, but it is also said that he brought with him so-called "wheels of knowledge.
" The myth tells us that there was some kind of a craft that came into this area, and they describe wheels that Phaethon left, wheels of knowledge.
Is that what we have here? Wheels that match what we saw with the spirals on the rock of this extraordinary knowledge encoding the secrets of light itself.
- It's an incredible mystery.
- It's the incredible mystery.
Right away I think of the golden wheels of the-the solar discs in the Aztec and Inca cultures.
We know that they were great circles, and that on them would be engraved all sorts of knowledge, all sorts of information, astronomy, and other mythology being coded into the surface of the disc.
Now, could it be that at Musinè we have exactly the same thing happening, that we have this great golden wheel upon which is all of this information? NARRATOR: Might the ancient wheels carved into the rock at Il Maometto be just the tip of an historical iceberg? A sign of the lost ancient city buried beneath the ground? We enter into this valley where, what do we find, these ancient myths of a civilization that might have had some extraordinary knowledge that they're trying to protect, and we come into here and look at these walls, more ancient than ancient Rome.
Yeah.
HENRY: We've seen Val Camonica with these incredible depictions of spacemen on the rocks.
Thousands of years old.
Absolutely amazing.
Then we come through the gates of Musinè, where Constantine saw this flash of light, the heavens open.
And across the valley we have Sacra San Michele, where the monk saw the light as well.
Extraordinary complex there.
It's telling us that there was contact in the ancient world at this place.
For some reason people have been coming into this valley.
They're attracted by something here, for a very long time, and talking about these amazing mysteries and knowledge.
Yeah, like There is so much more here to investigate than I ever imagined.
NARRATOR: Ancient visitors sharing the secrets of metallurgy? Tales of a lost civilization that once held advanced knowledge? And ruins still waiting to be identified in the Susa Valley? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the area of Mount Musinè provides overwhelming evidence that extraterrestrials were once present here.
But if these otherworldly visitors helped to establish a technologically advanced civilization in the Susa Valley, what happened to it? Ancient astronaut theorists suggest further clues might be found by examining strange encounters that have occurred on Mount Musinè in more recent times.
And they point to the possibility that the lost city still exists.
NARRATOR: Northern Italy, 1933.
With the threat of war casting an ominous shadow across Europe, an incredible series of events unfolds, all under the supervision of one of history's most powerful and feared leaders, Benito Mussolini.
In 1933, it's claimed that a UFO crashed in the Lombardy region of Italy.
This was apparently an object around 50 feet in diameter, like two saucers joined together.
It was described as being grayish in color, and metallic.
And apparently it was then taken by the military and studied on the personal orders of the then-dictator Benito Mussolini.
NARRATOR: According to some accounts, the UFO crashed near the city of Magenta, just 80 miles northeast of Mount Musinè.
The craft was found to be unoccupied, and unlocking its secrets became a top priority.
This flying saucer was something that the Mussolini government took a lot of interest in.
And so there was an establishment of a group of experts to study this phenomenon.
To study exactly what it involved, who made it.
And this committee was called RS/33.
NARRATOR: To lead the committee, it is said that Mussolini enlisted the noted engineer and famed inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi.
Mussolini said, "Find out what it is, and because it seems to be so advanced, build one.
" And Marconi apparently said, "Well, we can't.
"We can't figure it out.
"There is a technology here over and above anything we possess.
" And that only left the conclusion that this, for want of a better term, was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Was a crashed extraterrestrial craft really recovered by the Italian government in 1933? And if so, is it merely coincidence that it happened so close to Mount Musinè? Let's just suppose that the common thread here is actually Earth energies which the UFOs know about and use, perhaps, to draw the energy that they need.
So, might we be dealing with not just visitation but a more permanent facility? MARTELL: So, when we look at Mount Musinè and this energy, we wonder if there isn't something happening below ground as well.
Could this be a location of some type of secret base? NARRATOR: A secret alien base? Could this be the reason why so many strange events have been reported in this area for centuries? And might it also explain what happened to the lost city? Does it still exist inside the mountain? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the most compelling evidence of all may be found by examining an incident that happened not above Mount Musinè but on its slopes.
December 8, 1978.
Two hikers are on Mount Musinè when they witness a strong and blinding light that seems to envelop the mountain summit.
Curious, one of the men approaches the light and vanishes into thin air.
When he turns up again, he is dazed, confused, he's apparently in shock.
He has a scalded leg.
And when he comes around, he relays this account of how he was taken on board this craft.
NARRATOR: Immediately following this terrifying ordeal, both hikers come down with a sever case of conjunctivitis, an inflammation or infection of the membrane that lines the eyelid and covers the whites of the eyes.
So it would seem that they were in contact with some kind of radiation that ultimately affected their health, in a sense.
And this is a story that occurs over and over again in UFO lore.
POPE: When we look at this incident and some of the previous ones, what are the themes? Fire in the sky.
Energy.
Scalding.
Burning.
It's all about power.
Are these sightings being caused because there are, perhaps, underground facilities, bases? And if that's true, maybe it's not just one base but a network of bases in that area.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials have remained on Earth for thousands of years, secretly operating from bases hidden throughout Italy's Susa Valley, why haven't they left? Ancient astronaut theorists believe that the most recent activity to be reported on Mount Musinè may suggest that the answer will soon be revealed.
Corio, Italy, 20 miles north of Mount Musinè.
June 6, 2018.
At 11:00 p.
m.
, the residents of this small town are startled by the sight of two F-16 fighter jets.
They appear to be in pursuit of a giant orb of light passing rapidly overhead in the night sky.
Government officials later claim that the object was nothing more than a drone.
But the local townspeople who witnessed the craft claimed that it appeared to be nearly 200 feet in diameter, and that the low-flying jets were chasing the object at such extreme velocity, it shook their windows.
POPE: So, again, this sighting has to be fit in with all these other pieces of the puzzle.
All these other sightings over the years in this exact same area, right back from the day of Constantine through to the Italian Air Force chasing UFOs.
Of all the hundreds of UFO conferences I've attended over the years, I've only ever once been to one where a delegation of military officers have arrived in uniform and actually given a presentation.
That conference took place in San Marino, and the officers were from the Italian Air Force.
There's something about this area that's important, but we don't know what it is yet.
When we try to come to a conclusion or a summation about what is going on in Italy, going back from prehistoric times to modern times, the common element is: The gods came to this very specific place because of something at Mount Musinè.
Something either in the mountain or something that was placed there by them.
NARRATOR: Some ancient astronaut theorists believe that it is not just Mount Musinè, but also Mount Pirchiriano, where the Sacra di San Michele was erected, and other peaks throughout the Italian Alps that are hiding secret alien bases.
CHILDRESS: Perhaps these mountains are like outposts or embassies where the extraterrestrials are active, they have their technology.
Craft are coming and going from these secret mountain bases.
And part of their agenda is to contact people, to influence them.
So this is, perhaps, what these mountains are about.
This is why these incredible legends and myths are associated with them.
NARRATOR: Have extraterrestrials been hiding out in the mountains of Northern Italy for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years? Is this the location of an alien embassy on Earth, known to high ranking government officials throughout the world? Perhaps the mysterious carvings found in Val Camonica represent not only visitors who came to Earth in the distant past, but who are still here, preparing to reconnect with humanity once again.
NICK POPE: Over the years, there has been all sorts of weirdness on this mountain.
Mysterious lights, fire in the sky.
NARRATOR: Ancient stories link it to otherworldly contact.
Oh, look at that.
- The spaceman? - Spaceman, exactly.
Look at the helmet.
NARRATOR: And it has become a hot spot for modern-day UFO reports.
DAVID CHILDRESS: We have extraterrestrials giving a light show for people.
NARRATOR: Could this mysterious mountain be attracting extraterrestrial visitors to Earth? WILLIAM HENRY: The gods came to this very specific place because of something either in the mountain or something that was placed there by them.
NARRATOR: There is a doorway in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
NARRATOR: Turin, Italy.
Situated on the western bank of the Po River, this city of nearly two million people is an important international business hub.
It is also the heart of the Italian automotive industry, with the headquarters of Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo all located here.
But overlooking this modern metropolis is Italy's most mysterious and infamous ancient site: Mount Musinè.
Rising to an elevation of nearly 4,000 feet, Mount Musinè has stood at a unique crossroads of history, geology and the unexplained.
This is a mountain where, over the years, almost to the beginning of recorded human history, strange things have been seen.
Lights were seen.
Sometimes these lights have been associated with the forces of good, others with the forces of darkness.
But make no mistake about it, over the years there has been all sorts of weirdness on this mountain.
NARRATOR: Mount Musinè stands at the easternmost edge of Italy's Susa Valley, which stretches 31 miles west to the border of France.
During the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago, this valley represented a major crossroads, where the local Celtic people, called the Taurini, came into contact with the most prominent civilizations of the time.
The Bronze Age Celts of Northwestern Italy were very lucky, because their particular location was a kind of geographical hub that had access to Northern Europe, through the Alps, and access to the Mediterranean, going south, and, indeed, across the Mediterranean to Egypt.
And people think that the ancients pretty much stayed where they were born, but many of them traveled vast distances and encountered many other civilizations, and absorbed some of their ideas very willingly.
NARRATOR: The Celts in Northern Italy came into contact with the Etruscans, the Egyptians and the Greeks.
Each of these cultures had separate but very similar polytheistic traditions in which they worshipped a pantheon of gods that came down to Earth from the heavens.
And they all revered Mount Musinè as a place of power.
According to ancient astronaut theorists, Mount Musinè may in fact be a special location on Earth because of where it is positioned.
Mount Musinè has an amazing ancient history of magic and mystery.
The significance of its position is that it's located on a ley line, which is a gathering place of Earth energies.
NARRATOR: The concept of ley lines originated in the 1920s with English landscape photographer Alfred Watkins.
While researching his book, The Old Straight Track, Watkins made the curious discovery that many of the prehistoric standing stones and significant ancient sites of England and France line up in perfectly straight lines.
And many of these sites that these lines pass through have names that contain the letters "L-E-Y," like Leyland, Keighley and Otley.
Ley lines are an alignment of ancient sites, four or more of them over any distance.
And these stretch around the world in some cases, and these are often associated with the same sites on the straight-line alignments.
So there's a whole network around the planet of lots of different types, some linked with the magnetic field, others linked with underground water and natural energies that move through the land.
NARRATOR: One of the most significant ley lines that has been identified is the St.
Michael line.
Starting from Skellig Michael in Ireland, the seven major sites that lie along this line each have a church dedicated to the archangel Michael, all the way down to the Stella Maris Monastery in Israel.
And incredibly, there is no record of the people who lived in these separate locations having coordinated this.
One of the sites the St.
Michael line passes through is Mount Musinè.
You've got this straight line of all these sites, and not just any old sites, power sites.
The ancients believed that certain parts of the world were blessed with power, energy, that Musinè is slap-bang on that line.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that ancient people were aware of energy emanating from the Earth and were drawn to the area of Mount Musinè and the Susa Valley more than 2,000 years ago? And could these Earth energies also be responsible for the many strange events that have been documented in this area? (thunder crashing) Local legends passed down from ancient times tell about this mountain being home to werewolves and wizards.
It was rumored that a dragon guarded an enchanted cave, protecting a giant emerald.
And in the fourth century AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine claimed to have had a vision of a cross floating in the sky over Mount Musinè the night before a decisive battle, one that would lead to him seizing control of Rome from his rival, Maxentius, and converting the empire to Christianity.
POPE: This was a pivotal moment.
The adoption of Christianity as the official religion really changed the world, and that's now a large part of the world we live in.
So did Mount Musinè have a part in all of this? And if so, what the heck was this encounter? GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Now, it was not just Constantine's vision, because it is described that the army of Constantine also saw something up in the sky.
So the question is: Is this one of the earliest UFO encounters that we have on record? And in my opinion, yes, it is.
NARRATOR: Could the many extraordinary encounters recorded at Mount Musinè throughout the ages be the product of extraterrestrial visitation? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and suggest that further evidence can be found by examining an incredible flurry of UFO sightings reported in much more recent times.
Northern Italy.
December 2, 1973.
An Alitalia flight is 17 miles outside of Turin when its pilot sees something unusual in the night sky over the nearby Mount Musinè, something no one can identify.
In 1973, an Alitalia pilot sees a strange glow over the mountain.
This is apparently later confirmed by the control tower.
NARRATOR: According to witnesses, the glow appeared to be coming from a mysterious round object.
Two Italian Air Force planes that were in the vicinity corroborated the sighting.
The UFO report is significant not only because it was witnessed by multiple pilots and passengers, but because within just a two-week period, no less than six separate UFO incidents were reported in the vicinity of Mount Musinè.
POPE: If this was in isolation, then perhaps you could disregard it.
But when I look at Italy, and particularly this specific part of Italy, it does seem as if something is going on, and it seems as if the Italian government, and maybe others, know that there's something going on.
NARRATOR: What can explain the strange incidents that have been continuously reported at Mount Musinè for hundreds of years? Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that extraterrestrials are drawn to this particular place on Earth? CHILDRESS: This light phenomenon and unusual activity on Mount Musinè has been going on for thousands of years, and continues to this day.
POPE: The challenge really is to find the connection, to draw together the disparate threads of this story and say, "What is it about this area that's so special?" NARRATOR: Perhaps further clues can be found by investigating the strange rock carvings found in the area, carvings that appear to be depictions of astronauts.
NARRATOR: Val Camonica, Italy.
June 13, 2019.
Ancient astronaut theorist William Henry has traveled to this UNESCO World Heritage Site 165 miles from Mount Musinè to investigate what he believes could be forensic evidence that the early civilizations of this region came into contact with extraterrestrials.
HENRY: Hi, I'm William.
Nice to meet you.
NARRATOR: Joining him is Luca Giarelli, the head of the Val Camonica Historical and Anthropological Society.
Luca has spent years studying this mysterious region of Northern Italy, and wants to show William the rock carvings for which this alpine valley is famous.
This place is massive.
I'm ready.
Let's go.
HENRY: I'm here at Val Camonica because it is a treasure trove of images from the ancient world that have been well-documented and studied by scholars.
They don't agree on the meaning of the images, but some of them are very open-minded to the ancient astronaut theory.
Footprints.
Wow.
They look like deer.
Look at this.
Incredible.
Wow.
HENRY: Oh, look at that.
The spaceman, exactly.
Look at that helmet.
Right.
It's like he's glowing.
HENRY: Ah, the Camunian rose.
HENRY: Wow.
19 Camunian roses? NARRATOR: Archaeologists call this mysterious object the Camunian rose because of its flower-like shape.
While its exact meaning is lost to history, some believe it to be a religious symbol or a representation of the movement of the stars.
But ancient astronaut theorists suggest it might also depict something else, the vessel that brought these helmeted figures to Val Camonica.
Look at that.
That looks like a spaceship.
It's like you look up in the sky, and you would see this kind of twirling, spinning ship in the sky.
It seems to me, just looking at it, they're trying to talk about beings coming from other worlds, maybe to this place.
Tell me about that five-pointed star.
HENRY: Mm-hmm.
HENRY: Sometimes the-the stars mean energy, like, energy from the stars would come to this place where star beings would come to this place.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
This is like a newspaper, then.
It says, "This was in the sky above us at some point, and this spaceman came down and maybe met the Camunian people.
" NARRATOR: According to the ancient stories of the Susa Valley, the city of Turin was founded by a character from Greek mythology called Phaethon, who came to Earth from the stars.
Legend states that Turin was founded by the god Phaethon, who is a son of the sun god Helios.
And in the myth of Phaethon, we learn the story of how he descended to Earth in a fiery chariot perhaps crashing into Mount Musinè.
This also led to something fortuitous because he brought gifts to this place.
He had great skills, was a metallurgist, and taught this to the local people.
CHILDRESS: When we look at myths such as the myth of Phaethon, here is really the story of a UFO landing on a mountain and interacting with the locals.
HENRY: When we look behind this myth of Phaethon, perhaps this is what we're also seeing at Val Camonica.
I think, given the-the connection with the spacemen that are etched into the rock, that we have to be open to the possibility that what the ancient artist is trying to portray is something that he actually saw in the sky, something coming out of the heavens.
NARRATOR: Is there a connection between the stone carvings found at Val Camonica and the story of Phaethon's descent from the sky? And do other clues exist here that point to ancient alien contact? Were there any other cultures that were connected with the valley? - What sort of engravings? - Uh Mm-hmm.
Oh, the horned god.
Yeah.
Right.
HENRY: That means the Celts were here.
So, is this the only location where we see the spaceman? - Even deeper into the woods? - Yeah.
I'd love to go.
All right.
NARRATOR: Luca guides William up a steep portion of the valley for a rare look at another carving hidden from public view.
I'm all right, thanks.
Wow.
We're-we're, like, on the edge of a cliff here.
Wait a minute.
Th-That's one of them.
Isn't it? Right there? - LUCA: Yeah.
- How cool.
HENRY: Wow.
LUCA: Like the other one.
HENRY: Yeah, these are just like the other guys.
Yeah.
- HENRY: The detail is amazing.
- Yeah.
HENRY: Mm-hmm.
HENRY: There's clearly some kind of an exchange that's happening here.
It's like they're making a photograph of what happened at this place.
They're trying to say, "At this spot, this is what we saw here.
" HENRY: Of all places to find a rock like this.
This is a very secretive, almost initiatory place where select people would be brought here to be told this story about these extraterrestrials.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: Were the ancient people of what is now Northwest Italy visited by beings from other worlds? And could these depictions of spacemen and strange craft descending from the heavens have a link not only to the origin story of Turin but also to the UFO sightings that have been reported over Mount Musinè in more recent times? Val Camonica is in this incredible vortex, if you will, that includes Mount Musinè.
We're looking at a-an entire territory here where these extraordinary experiences are being recorded.
NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists, the carvings at Val Camonica tell just one part of a larger story.
And they suggest that nearby ruins may reveal not only that extraterrestrials visited this region but why.
NARRATOR: The Susa Valley.
966 AD.
While ascending Mount Pirchiriano, 25 miles west of Turin, and directly across from Mount Musinè, a Catholic bishop is startled by an incredible sight that suddenly appears in the sky.
He sees strange lights in the sky.
And these things are described as planks and globes made of fire, firstly appearing to be on the mountain itself, then rising up, flying around across the sky.
But they weren't just sightings.
They were sightings that had a profound consequence.
These strange sightings prompted the bishop to say, "This will be the site on which we will build the new abbey," that came to be known as Sacra di San Michele.
CHILDRESS: So once again, we have what seems to be extraterrestrials giving a light show for people, uh, wanting to attract their attention and perhaps inspiring them to-to do certain things.
NARRATOR: The Sacra di San Michele, or Saint Michael's Abbey, still stands atop Mount Pirchiriano today.
It is to this sacred abbey that ancient astronaut theorist William Henry is headed with author and historian Gnomo Orzo, who plans to reveal a historic secret.
- Wow.
- Oh, my gosh.
Look at this.
- Yes.
Susa Valley.
- Wow.
Wow, wow, wow.
- Look.
- That's incredible.
- HENRY: Musinè.
- ORZO: Yeah.
It's like Musinè and the Sacra are-are twin peaks.
- ORZO: Yes.
- HENRY: Incredible.
And in this place where the Sacra was built, we have some other interesting phenomenon NARRATOR: According to ancient stories, in this area of the St.
Michael line, the energy line, or ley line, that many believe runs straight through Italy, a highly advanced civilization existed thousands of years ago, a civilization that began when the god Phaethon came down from the sky in his fiery chariot.
The local accounts of Phaethon not only connect this figure with the ancient Greeks but also the ancient Egyptians.
And some ancient astronaut theorists suggest that as a bringer of technology, Phaethon could be the same extraterrestrial being that was known in Egypt as Ptah.
HENRY: Their names are very similar, Ptah and Phaethon.
The legend says that Phaethon founded Turin in honor of the Apis bull.
Turin, or Turino, is called the city of the bull.
Now, this is very interesting because in ancient Egypt, where the reverence for the Apis bull originated, we're told that the Apis bull, or Apis bull, was actually the Egyptian god of technology, Ptah, incarnate.
Ptah was the Egyptian god of smithcraft and alchemy.
So we have to ask the question: Is Musinè a place that was known in the ancient world, where the secrets of alchemy were ultimately going to be stored or could be accessed? There seems to be a very important connection between the cosmic knowledge of metallurgy, which was brought to Earth by the gods, and some kind of energy present at Mount Musinè.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials' knowledge of metallurgy and alchemy was used to create a technologically advanced ancient city around Mount Musinè, where did it go? In the first century BC, Rome conquered the area's original inhabitants and established Augusta Taurinorum, the colony that eventually became Turin.
All traces of the people and city that came before it seem to have vanished.
HENRY: So the Roman Empire came here and said, "We're gonna take your knowledge and secrets, we're gonna weaponize" Yeah, of course.
So the energy is still here in this valley.
- All right, let's go.
- Yeah.
NARRATOR: Gnomo and William head next to a hill near the village of Mompantero.
If extraterrestrials handed knowledge of advanced technology to the ancient people of this region, Gnomo believes it happened here, and he has located evidence to prove it.
Look at that.
So Right, so this is knowledge way beyond what we normally think of the - neolithic mind being able to grasp.
- Yeah.
BRUCE FENTON: Finding this triple spiral at Musinè is absolutely fascinating.
I suspect that among its many meanings, which most of which have to do with movement and energetic flow, I suspect amongst these we're also being told something about Earth energies.
They had a knowledge of these magnetic forces and these energies, you know, something that they perhaps should not have known but clearly did.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the ancient people of the Susa Valley received knowledge of Earth's magnetic forces from extraterrestrials that were present in the region of Mount Musinè? But if a technologically advanced city really did once exist in the Susa Valley, how is it that all evidence of it disappeared? Some researchers say remnants of this lost city can still be found in the shadow of Mount Musinè.
NARRATOR: Deeper in the Susa Valley of Northern Italy, Gnomo Orzo takes William Henry to a Roman archaeological site called Il Maometto.
But what he wants to show him is something hidden in the woods nearby that predates even the earliest identified Roman ruins.
HENRY: Wow, Gnomo.
Look at this.
Look at this incredible, incredible platform.
Yeah, huge wheels, uh, surrounded by a lot of very ancient walls.
HENRY: You know, I've seen something like this before in Egypt, at Abu Gorab, wheels just like this on this massive platform.
Quartz crystal embedded.
It's like a landing platform.
ORZO: Yeah.
NARRATOR: Approximately ten miles south of Cairo, the ancient site of Abu Gorab contains massive circular alabaster platforms.
Local tradition holds that this site is one of the oldest ceremonial centers on the planet and that the alabaster platforms created a harmonic resonance through sound vibrations to open the senses to communicate with divine energies.
When I came upon this platform in the middle of this forest, it took me back to Egypt where you see massive stone altars like this, for example, at Abu Gorab, that have exactly the same stone wheels in the center, and I'm thinking, this proves the Egyptian connection, too.
This is a-a common symbolic element that almost always connects with extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: For William Henry, the wheels also present another intriguing possibility.
He believes that they may have been made to commemorate the foundational story of the city of Turin, in which it is said that an otherworldly being called Phaethon descended from the sky in a fiery chariot.
In the story, the craft in which he descends to Earth is described as having wheels, but it is also said that he brought with him so-called "wheels of knowledge.
" The myth tells us that there was some kind of a craft that came into this area, and they describe wheels that Phaethon left, wheels of knowledge.
Is that what we have here? Wheels that match what we saw with the spirals on the rock of this extraordinary knowledge encoding the secrets of light itself.
- It's an incredible mystery.
- It's the incredible mystery.
Right away I think of the golden wheels of the-the solar discs in the Aztec and Inca cultures.
We know that they were great circles, and that on them would be engraved all sorts of knowledge, all sorts of information, astronomy, and other mythology being coded into the surface of the disc.
Now, could it be that at Musinè we have exactly the same thing happening, that we have this great golden wheel upon which is all of this information? NARRATOR: Might the ancient wheels carved into the rock at Il Maometto be just the tip of an historical iceberg? A sign of the lost ancient city buried beneath the ground? We enter into this valley where, what do we find, these ancient myths of a civilization that might have had some extraordinary knowledge that they're trying to protect, and we come into here and look at these walls, more ancient than ancient Rome.
Yeah.
HENRY: We've seen Val Camonica with these incredible depictions of spacemen on the rocks.
Thousands of years old.
Absolutely amazing.
Then we come through the gates of Musinè, where Constantine saw this flash of light, the heavens open.
And across the valley we have Sacra San Michele, where the monk saw the light as well.
Extraordinary complex there.
It's telling us that there was contact in the ancient world at this place.
For some reason people have been coming into this valley.
They're attracted by something here, for a very long time, and talking about these amazing mysteries and knowledge.
Yeah, like There is so much more here to investigate than I ever imagined.
NARRATOR: Ancient visitors sharing the secrets of metallurgy? Tales of a lost civilization that once held advanced knowledge? And ruins still waiting to be identified in the Susa Valley? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the area of Mount Musinè provides overwhelming evidence that extraterrestrials were once present here.
But if these otherworldly visitors helped to establish a technologically advanced civilization in the Susa Valley, what happened to it? Ancient astronaut theorists suggest further clues might be found by examining strange encounters that have occurred on Mount Musinè in more recent times.
And they point to the possibility that the lost city still exists.
NARRATOR: Northern Italy, 1933.
With the threat of war casting an ominous shadow across Europe, an incredible series of events unfolds, all under the supervision of one of history's most powerful and feared leaders, Benito Mussolini.
In 1933, it's claimed that a UFO crashed in the Lombardy region of Italy.
This was apparently an object around 50 feet in diameter, like two saucers joined together.
It was described as being grayish in color, and metallic.
And apparently it was then taken by the military and studied on the personal orders of the then-dictator Benito Mussolini.
NARRATOR: According to some accounts, the UFO crashed near the city of Magenta, just 80 miles northeast of Mount Musinè.
The craft was found to be unoccupied, and unlocking its secrets became a top priority.
This flying saucer was something that the Mussolini government took a lot of interest in.
And so there was an establishment of a group of experts to study this phenomenon.
To study exactly what it involved, who made it.
And this committee was called RS/33.
NARRATOR: To lead the committee, it is said that Mussolini enlisted the noted engineer and famed inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi.
Mussolini said, "Find out what it is, and because it seems to be so advanced, build one.
" And Marconi apparently said, "Well, we can't.
"We can't figure it out.
"There is a technology here over and above anything we possess.
" And that only left the conclusion that this, for want of a better term, was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
NARRATOR: Was a crashed extraterrestrial craft really recovered by the Italian government in 1933? And if so, is it merely coincidence that it happened so close to Mount Musinè? Let's just suppose that the common thread here is actually Earth energies which the UFOs know about and use, perhaps, to draw the energy that they need.
So, might we be dealing with not just visitation but a more permanent facility? MARTELL: So, when we look at Mount Musinè and this energy, we wonder if there isn't something happening below ground as well.
Could this be a location of some type of secret base? NARRATOR: A secret alien base? Could this be the reason why so many strange events have been reported in this area for centuries? And might it also explain what happened to the lost city? Does it still exist inside the mountain? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, the most compelling evidence of all may be found by examining an incident that happened not above Mount Musinè but on its slopes.
December 8, 1978.
Two hikers are on Mount Musinè when they witness a strong and blinding light that seems to envelop the mountain summit.
Curious, one of the men approaches the light and vanishes into thin air.
When he turns up again, he is dazed, confused, he's apparently in shock.
He has a scalded leg.
And when he comes around, he relays this account of how he was taken on board this craft.
NARRATOR: Immediately following this terrifying ordeal, both hikers come down with a sever case of conjunctivitis, an inflammation or infection of the membrane that lines the eyelid and covers the whites of the eyes.
So it would seem that they were in contact with some kind of radiation that ultimately affected their health, in a sense.
And this is a story that occurs over and over again in UFO lore.
POPE: When we look at this incident and some of the previous ones, what are the themes? Fire in the sky.
Energy.
Scalding.
Burning.
It's all about power.
Are these sightings being caused because there are, perhaps, underground facilities, bases? And if that's true, maybe it's not just one base but a network of bases in that area.
NARRATOR: If extraterrestrials have remained on Earth for thousands of years, secretly operating from bases hidden throughout Italy's Susa Valley, why haven't they left? Ancient astronaut theorists believe that the most recent activity to be reported on Mount Musinè may suggest that the answer will soon be revealed.
Corio, Italy, 20 miles north of Mount Musinè.
June 6, 2018.
At 11:00 p.
m.
, the residents of this small town are startled by the sight of two F-16 fighter jets.
They appear to be in pursuit of a giant orb of light passing rapidly overhead in the night sky.
Government officials later claim that the object was nothing more than a drone.
But the local townspeople who witnessed the craft claimed that it appeared to be nearly 200 feet in diameter, and that the low-flying jets were chasing the object at such extreme velocity, it shook their windows.
POPE: So, again, this sighting has to be fit in with all these other pieces of the puzzle.
All these other sightings over the years in this exact same area, right back from the day of Constantine through to the Italian Air Force chasing UFOs.
Of all the hundreds of UFO conferences I've attended over the years, I've only ever once been to one where a delegation of military officers have arrived in uniform and actually given a presentation.
That conference took place in San Marino, and the officers were from the Italian Air Force.
There's something about this area that's important, but we don't know what it is yet.
When we try to come to a conclusion or a summation about what is going on in Italy, going back from prehistoric times to modern times, the common element is: The gods came to this very specific place because of something at Mount Musinè.
Something either in the mountain or something that was placed there by them.
NARRATOR: Some ancient astronaut theorists believe that it is not just Mount Musinè, but also Mount Pirchiriano, where the Sacra di San Michele was erected, and other peaks throughout the Italian Alps that are hiding secret alien bases.
CHILDRESS: Perhaps these mountains are like outposts or embassies where the extraterrestrials are active, they have their technology.
Craft are coming and going from these secret mountain bases.
And part of their agenda is to contact people, to influence them.
So this is, perhaps, what these mountains are about.
This is why these incredible legends and myths are associated with them.
NARRATOR: Have extraterrestrials been hiding out in the mountains of Northern Italy for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years? Is this the location of an alien embassy on Earth, known to high ranking government officials throughout the world? Perhaps the mysterious carvings found in Val Camonica represent not only visitors who came to Earth in the distant past, but who are still here, preparing to reconnect with humanity once again.