Ancient Aliens s16e06 Episode Script

1 NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true? For over a decade, the hit TV series Ancient Aliens has examined the profound and highly controversial theory that extraterrestrials came to Earth thousands of years ago and quite possibly never left.
Now, on a special two-hour Ancient Aliens event WILLIAM SHATNER: I think it's utterly, utterly fascinating.
NARRATOR: William Shatner will boldly go where he has never gone before, talking to scientists, spiritual leaders, and, of course, ancient astronaut theorists in an attempt to answer the question: could it be that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials? SHATNER: Convincing me about ancient aliens is the first step to convincing me about the existence of a higher power.
So, convince me.
Hello, I'm William Shatner.
And we have around here this round table of experts in esoteric knowledge, practical knowledge, but also people who are equally curious about aliens.
I love the idea that we've been visited, we have been, we will be, we are, by aliens, but I have my doubts.
I want to be convinced of what you guys know and what you guys have done for a decade and more on Ancient Aliens.
So, I throw it open.
You.
- (laughter) - Giorgio.
There are ancient texts and oral traditions that have been handed down for thousands of years.
And pretty much, they all begin in the same way, that a long, long time ago, someone taught us how to build the ancient structures, how to figure out mathematics and agriculture and all those different things.
The ancient astronaut theory suggests that at some point, we've had teachers.
And they have far more advanced technology that our ancestors thought was divine or magic.
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theory challenges humankind's most established understandings of history, archaeology, science and religion.
Proponents suggest that the truth behind the very origins of the human race is far different and far more profound than what we've been taught.
TSOUKALOS: Ancient cultures have these very detailed stories of the so-called gods, and described someone descending from the sky.
We have these stories worldwide.
And so, the ancient astronaut theory suggests that these gods were flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials whom our ancestors misinterpreted as divine only because they descended from the sky.
All civilizations talk about beings coming from the sky to assist humankind in development.
They taught astrology, astronomy, how to make offensive and defensive weapons.
CHILDRESS: And these traditions - are all over the world.
- Mm-hmm.
And what they say is, there were these avatars.
Like Osiris, like Viracocha, coming from the sky.
Their mission was to bring civilization to man and to teach them medicine, - arts, metallurgy - Yes.
how to build things, construction, architecture.
Everything that we know.
Well, let me ask you a question about legends, then.
'Cause this is all legendary.
Legends are, uh, verbal.
HENRY: They're oral traditions.
- They're oral traditions.
- The entire Yeah.
And if I told you a joke, the whole joke would be different when it got to the other end of the table.
- Sure.
- Legends are oral traditions told around a campfire that change.
- Well - But not by ordinary people.
By priests and people trained with memory skills when you're dealing with aborigine peoples, oral traditions were actually very rigidly passed on from generation to generation.
SHATNER: Okay, I'm good with that.
But all of you spent a lifetime studying evidence that ancient aliens came here, are here, were here.
I need you to explain to me the timeline.
Did Erich von Daniken start it all, or was-was he the - He popularized it.
- CHILDRESS: Yeah, and Ancient Aliens is-is continuing that today.
NARRATOR: In 1968, Swiss author Erich von Daniken published what would become the seminal book for the ancient astronaut theory, Chariots of the Gods? The highly controversial text posed the question, did aliens come to Earth centuries ago? It caused an instant sensation, and two years later, a feature-length documentary based on Von Daniken's book was so highly regarded that it was nominated for an Academy Award.
Chariots of the Gods? was one of the most impactful and most intriguing publications in the modern history.
The questions made people seek an answer.
Chariots of the Gods? led to a fundamental rethink about our history, our origins and indeed our place in the cosmos.
MICHAEL DENNIN: It helped motivate and push science a little bit to think about things differently.
Now, the other feature, I think, that's interesting is in this space in the intersection between religion, science and other ways of thinking about the world, you added a new piece in the new dynamic.
When I was ten years old, my dad read Erich von Daniken's book and gave it to me and said, "Read this, son, it'll open your mind.
" So, that led me to be a scientist, to find out, "Well, I want to know what-what this really is saying.
" And if these things actually did happen, what can we learn from it that we could use today to make our lives better today? Yeah.
I think we can have him join on a Zoom call.
SHATNER: Let's get Erich von Daniken, father of the ancient alien theory, on screen.
There he is.
Erich von Daniken, how are you? - CHILDRESS: Hi, Erich.
- TSOUKALOS: Good to see you.
Hi.
Hi.
Erich, tell me what the ancient alien theory is.
I spent six years in a Catholic boarding school led by Jesuits in Switzerland.
And there we had to translate parts of the Bible from Latin to Greek and from Greek to German.
And I was a deep, absolute deep believer in God.
By the way, I still, as an old man, I still am a believer in God.
But God, for me, as a boy, had to have some qualities.
For example, God does not need a vehicle in which to move from point A to point B.
God is all over.
Our God is timeless.
Now, while making these translations, I came together with the God who had vehicles, he was moving around.
Uh, written by the prophet of Ezekiel, by Moses and others.
So, I simply had doubts in my own Catholic education, and I discovered the Book of Enoch.
Talk to us about Enoch.
Enoch is mentioned in the Bible very, very, uh, short.
In the beginning, you learn he was the seventh patriarch before the great flood.
He was the first human who disappeared with his body into the sky.
NARRATOR: Enoch is one of the earliest patriarchs mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
He was the great-grandfather of Noah, the man credited with building the ark that saved humankind and two of every animal from the great flood.
But where the Hebrew Bible only mentions Enoch briefly, his detailed story is told through more than 100 chapters in a book that bears his name.
The Book of Enoch can still be found in the Bible used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
And when archaeologists unearthed the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, they found that 11 different manuscripts of the Book of Enoch had been preserved, indicating that it was considered a work of vital importance.
Enoch was an incredibly popular book, uh, in the time leading up to the formation of Christianity.
In the book, the character of Enoch, it was said, he walked with God and then was no more.
But the tradition grew that Enoch never died.
In fact, the tradition has that he becomes the scribe of God.
He is the only one in heaven allowed to sit, you know, along with God.
And he actually writes these things down and he reveals information to humanity.
NARRATOR: One curious passage from the Book of Enoch tells the story of two angels who visit Enoch and take him up to heaven in what is described as a fiery chariot.
VON DANIKEN: It's fascinating because Enoch speaks in the first person.
The "I" version.
"I did.
I heard.
I learned.
" Now, Enoch has no language of technology.
He doesn't know what a spaceship is or a mother spaceship.
He says, "We were over the planet Earth.
"I saw the round face, the round face of the Earth.
"And up there was something like gigantic diamonds.
Doors opened and doors closed automatically.
" He was in space in a mother spaceship.
And finally, he stands before the throne of the almighty God.
But this is all nonsense.
If we really would have to do with the almighty God, God would never have stand up from his throne, take a few steps to Enoch, and shake his hand and welcome him.
TSOUKALOS: Our ancestors simply didn't understand that when they went to that so-called celestial realm, that they actually went, to put it in a simple term, to a spaceship, to a space station that is told in ancient texts that were orbiting the Earth.
VON DANIKEN: And the Bible is full of it.
And not only the Bible.
I know many, many myths, legends of this planet, and all came to the same thing.
It was some gods who created humans but always according their own image.
We are the copy.
We are the offsprings of extraterrestrials.
And now you arrive in the legend of Adam and Eve and the so-called "God created humans according their own image.
" SHATNER: And how do you account for archaeological evidence that shows the evolution, uh, Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon? VON DANIKEN: That's all correct.
I fully agree with-with archaeology, with the theory of evolution, except, for our branch, there was an artificial mutation made by the extraterrestrials.
And you can really compare it.
I mean, all our family brothers and sisters the apes, the gorillas, the chimpanzees they still exist.
We are still of the same family.
But they have not created intelligence, language, information.
Only we.
Why only we, out of the same family tree? Because we are the product of an artificial mutation.
HENRY: What he's saying is our intelligence is far greater than the chimpanzee and gorilla.
We now know why.
We have an activated neocortex, which is the basis for all human civilization.
NARRATOR: The neocortex of the human brain is the region responsible for language, logical reasoning and conscious thought.
Many scientists believe the activation of the neocortex is what makes humans different from all other earthly creatures.
The neocortex is kind of one layer of our cortex, um, that is fairly unique to Homo sapiens.
And as far as we can tell, that's the area where activity is occurring directly related, particularly, to consciousness, but probably also some of our other senses in the way they interact.
It is probably the part of the brain, because of that, that most sets us apart from other primates.
HENRY: There was a genetic alteration.
The National Institute of Health, in their own publication, says this is not a natural fusion of chromosome 2 that activated our neocortex.
SHATNER: So, are you saying that the neocortex was activated - by ancient aliens? - Yes.
VON DANIKEN: Just a small comment.
I'm a specialist in the old writings, and practically every old writing says the same thing.
Some gods created humans.
Now, is this just imagination? Worldwide, worldwide, I mean, the Sumerians or the biblical translation.
Or the Maya in Central America or Plato in Greek.
Why should they all come to the same lies, the gods created human according their own image? Erich, in your opinion, for you, what is your top example for a physical representation of the ancient astronaut theory? Well, th-there are many.
One of them which everyone can watch every year.
Just go down to Mexico, go to the city of Chichen Itza.
There is a big pyramid laid out in a special way.
NARRATOR: The great pyramid of El Castillo in Chichen Itza was built by the Maya sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries AD.
It served as a temple to the feathered serpent god Kukulkan and was built to reenact his descent to Earth through the manipulation of light and shadow.
JON C.
LOHSE: The Castillo is a stepped pyramid with some outward radiating staircases.
And these staircases have big, high balustrades on them.
And on the autumn and the spring equinox, the Sun casts a shadow across the corner of this stepped pyramid, and you see the shadows of the steps on the staircase balustrade.
Well, at the base of the balustrade are these big, carved snakeheads.
And, so, the entire image is created of an enormous coiled serpent that begins to descend from this building at this important sunrise event.
VON DANIKEN: This message is clear.
You see god Kukulkan coming down the step of the pyramid in form of triangles of light and shadow, light and shadow.
Erich, why couldn't these people who lived by the weather and the Sun when to plant their crops, when to harvest why wouldn't they divine through observation that this was the moment to plant? Why does it have to prove that an ancient alien gave them - the knowledge? - Well, because they say it.
They say it in their writings, in their mythology.
They say, "We have received - our astronomical knowledge from the gods.
" - SHATNER: I see.
VON DANIKEN: The first writers of the Maya wrote down in their holy writings that a god with the name of Kukulkan, which they represented as a snake with feathers, descended to them and give them their knowledge.
It's their idea, not Erich von Daniken's.
Why have our ancestors worldwide created the most gigantic temples or pyramids? Why? The answer is, all over the world, the same: for the gods.
The so-called gods were teacher.
They give them information.
And it's the people who have written down this.
SHATNER: The-the basic question that I want to have answers to, and-and we're touching on the edges of it, but-but it seems like a It's-it's metaphysical.
I can't quite reach it.
Why would a civilization all these billions of light-years away come here and leave? Or, if they're here, why aren't they displayed? Well, I-I don't know about the present.
But I'm a specialist in the past, and in the past, they wanted to multiply intelligence.
These extraterrestrials change our line of evolution simply because they wanted to multiply intelligence in the universe.
We are simply too arrogant to accept this.
We want to be the greatest.
We should become a little more humble and learn we are not the greatest.
Erich von Daniken, uh, what a pleasure it is to speak to you.
We appreciate you being here, Erich, and a pleasure to have talked to you.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you very much, too.
- SHATNER: Um, Talk to me about the physical evidence of ancient aliens.
There are many areas of the world, all over the world, where gigantic megalithic structures exist that people point at and say, "How did that get there?" The crazy part: a lot of the architectural engineering used to build some of these large megalithic structures is technology that we do not understand today.
And these temples are aligned to specific star systems.
Why do you do that unless you're trying to get there or call people in? - That's the extraterrestrial connection.
- Well, again, the-the whole idea of the pondering the stars.
They had nothing to do but lie on their back and say, "I see a thing here in the sky.
" - TZADOK: Nothing to do? - But, see, the ancient - What? - Nothing to do? - Well, look, well Just building pyramids.
All these slaves.
- Nothing to do.
- Yeah, pyramids we can't build today.
SHATNER: No, I'm talking about a guy with a beard lying on his back looking at the stars and saying, - "Geez, I see the same" - TZADOK: Why not a woman? Judging-judging from the archaeological evidence, I think they were very busy doing other things.
HENRY: When you're in Egypt and you are in the Osirion, a temple at a place called Abydos, you're in a temple that now we think is at least 10,000 years old.
And it's composed of red granite blocks that weigh, on average, about 50 tons.
And it's the perfection, the precision.
It's an intelligence.
It's ancient astronaut evidence.
NARRATOR: The Osirion in Abydos is just one of the many ancient megalithic structures that can be found all over the world, built with stone blocks that weigh tens and even hundreds of tons.
Stonehenge in England.
The ancient temples of Malta.
Baalbek in Lebanon.
Nan Madol in Micronesia.
Sacsayhuamán in Peru.
No historical record has ever been found to explain how these and dozens of other megalithic structures were made.
By the way, where were those megalithic blocks mined? Was it down in the valley, or was it up on the mountain? That's also a great question.
It's often It's often many miles away.
- At Ollantaytambo - TSOUKALOS: Yes.
Over mountains, over valleys.
- Yeah, up-up high.
Yeah.
- Over bodies of water.
CHILDRESS: They brought giant blocks that are weighing 60, 80 tons at Ollantaytambo.
They actually brought them down a mountain, up over a river, across a river, which they haven't been able to explain.
- TSOUKALOS: 60-ton blocks.
- Yeah, and then up And there is a ramp there, actually, but then they they move it up to the very top of a cliff.
(wind whistling) NARRATOR: The cliff where the ancient site of Ollantaytambo was built is located at an elevation of over 9,000 feet in the Andes Mountains of Peru.
Historians date it to 1440 AD and credit the Inca with its construction.
But some scholars say Ollantaytambo was built upon the ruins of a far older city, one whose origins remain unknown.
The gate behind me is called the Gateway of the Gods, and it was built several thousand years before the Inca arrived here.
It was built by a culture we call the Urin Pacha.
We give them that name because we have no idea who they were, where they came from or where they went.
It's clearly evident that the earliest parts of Ollantaytambo dates to at least 12,000 years old, if not older.
NARRATOR: But how could people living thousands of years ago have produced such astonishing stonework, with massive, interlocking blocks precisely fitted together? Or have moved and set colossal stones of granite, each weighing more than 50 tons? BILL BIRNES: What you can't explain is the moving of 50-ton stones up the sheer face of a cliff to create the walls of the fortress.
That, in and of itself, required more than cranes, more than lifts, more than scaffolds.
And part of the problem there is that the mainstream archaeologists are saying: Okay, well, you got a 60- or 80-ton block of red granite all you have to do is just get enough people, and they supposedly didn't have the wheel or anything, but you had they propose that they're all wearing harnesses, and you get, say, 200 people, - Yeah? Okay.
- and they're all, you know, to drag this block, okay? - What's wrong with that? - Well, there's a there's nothing really wrong with it at first, because you can mathematically say, okay, this block weighs 60 tons, so we this is how many people we need to drag it.
But they're taking it up onto a narrow cliff, okay? - There's no place for those 200 people to stand.
- SHATNER: Wow.
And they have to bring it around corners.
So how do mainstream archaeologists explain it? - HENRY: They don't.
- (overlapping chatter) No, no, no, no.
'Cause they're archaeologists.
They don't they're not engineers.
But when you bring in an engineer and you say, "Okay, now, how are you gonna do this?" And they don't have an answer.
They they say, "I don't know.
" (overlapping chatter) They're the real experts.
I would love to have an engineer here to TAYLOR: I have three different engineering degrees.
- You-You've been in that room? - Here.
We've got one right here.
- I have three different engineering degrees.
- (laughter) You're just the man I want to talk to.
(laughter) But-but are you prejudiced? Uh, toward what? Towards, uh, ancient aliens.
No.
In fact, I was skeptical of a lot of the ideas that's being thrown out, but I always thought that there was something more to the story.
I want to know, could we do this? We have places where where there are, like, laser-cut rocks that we don't even have the tools that can do this today.
You take a master toolmaker my father is one.
He's looked at some of these things and said, "I can see the toolmarks.
Somebody used a tool machine to cut this thing.
" But that was 10,000 years ago.
HENRY: Before the wheel.
So what we're saying is there was civilization prior to what we think was civilization.
TSOUKALOS: In the early 1990s, Dr.
Robert Schoch proposed that, according to his research, the Sphinx on the great Giza Plateau -is at least 12,000 years old, -Mm-hmm.
because it shows geological features that indicate water marks of a long-ago flood.
HENRY: It was assumed that the erosion on the Sphinx was caused by wind.
As a geologist, Schoch spent three seconds looking at it, saying that's not wind, that's water.
And the only time there was water like this in Egypt was at the end of the Younger Dryas, 10,000 BC.
Mm-hmm.
And so what happened was that he was ripped apart by the archaeological community, because nothing before 10,000 BC could exist on Earth, because that is what mainstream archaeology suggests.
And they said, "Well, can you show us anywhere else - on the planet" - But hunter-gatherers were around 10,000 years ago.
But an archaeological, like, a structure, - a monumental structure.
- Uh-huh.
Oh, I see.
But in 1993, Gobekli Tepe was suddenly discovered, and mainstream archaeologists agree that this is a minimum of 12,000 years old.
Which is the same age as the as the Sphinx.
Yes.
NARRATOR: The ancient stone complex unearthed in Southeastern Turkey known as Gobekli Tepe contains the world's oldest known megalithic structures.
With monoliths weighing up to ten tons and sophisticated carvings, experts say that only an advanced civilization could have built it.
But according to mainstream historians, the world's first true civilization the Sumerians did not arise until thousands of years after Gobekli Tepe Was built.
One thing that I've been working on very intensely over the last 30-plus years is the concept that globally, civilization goes well back before 5,000 years ago.
This started when I started pushing back the age of the Sphinx based on the erosional features and the geological features that were incompatible with the arid conditions at the present day.
Then we had Gobekli Tepe, and that site goes back well over 11,000, 12,000 years ago.
PAUL BAHN: Gobekli Tepe became one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.
These limestone pillars are up to 18 feet high.
They're beautifully dressed and smoothed.
We've never seen work like that from that period before.
And the geomagnetic analysis that have been done of what's under the surface seem to indicate that there are at least 20 major circular structures in this mound, and so far they've dug up to half of them.
But there's still an awful lot of work to go.
SCHOCH: These early sites go back to the end of the last ice age.
We now know, based on a lot of geological data, that there were incredible climatic changes at the end of the last ice age.
There were well-developed cultures, I believe, probably around the world at this early period.
Okay, but when you talk about something like ancient healing, and we discover that Lister discovers, uh, bacteria, uh, cleanliness why didn't they know that 4,000 years ago? HENRY: A key tenet of ancient astronaut theory is that we have lost knowledge.
We are a civilization with amnesia.
We don't know our past.
Wow.
Somebody, uh, explain to me and I know a little but not enough about practical knowledge in ancient times that, uh, is, um unexplained.
A key tenet of ancient astronaut theory is that we have lost knowledge.
We are a civilization with amnesia.
- We don't know our past.
- That's true.
- CARTER: Oh, yes.
- Oh, yeah.
- CHILDRESS: What traditions say all over the world is there have been civilizations before us.
They have risen and fallen.
TAYLOR: Don't forget that the planet is four and a half billion years old.
- Don't forget that.
- Yeah.
We're This solar system has been here for four and a half billion years.
- Mm-hmm.
- And humanity, as far as we know, has only been here for a few thousand, - maybe tens of thousands of years.
- Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So what happened before that? And we know from the fossil records that there were many mass extinctions.
So who's to say civilizations don't rise and fall for over long periods of time? But the mass extinctions We-we archaeologists know what those mass extinctions were and what was alive at that time and what almost petered out.
I mean, it-it's - there in the earth.
- But there were there were civilizations there, there were, that came and went.
- Well - Part of it is, it's how we look at the past, and modern archaeologists are just assuming; it's an assumption.
Well, they're from the Stone Age.
They don't have electricity.
They don't have machines.
They don't have heavy equipment.
(clears throat): Um, you know, they don't have power plants and things like that.
But that may be completely wrong.
- Right.
- The evidence is there that in ancient times they had electricity, they had batteries, they had - Look at the Baghdad Battery.
- Yeah.
They had batteries? NARRATOR: In 1938, the director of the National Museum of Iraq discovered in the archives Terra-cotta pots and copper cylinders that may have been used as galvanic cells.
The nearly 2,000-year-old devices, called "Baghdad Batteries," are believed to predate the invention of the cell battery by more than 1,000 years.
JASON MARTELL: Usually a Baghdad Battery would consist of a clay pot, and it would have an iron rod surrounded by an asphalt stopper.
And you'd pour any type of weak acidic liquid in there wine, grape juice, vinegar and with a voltmeter, you can consistently get about four volts with something about that large.
Now, all over Egypt, we see large vials, which could be a representation of a much larger Baghdad Battery being able to generate a much larger current.
NARRATOR: Mainstream scientists agree that the Baghdad Battery is evidence that ancient people had the means to create power and the understanding of how to apply it.
Might our ancestors have possessed other advanced technology? So, today there is a carving in Egypt, uh, at the Dendera Temple, and it's in a underground crypt.
And it is this depiction of what looks like Archaeologists refer to it as a snake and a lotus flower.
But what's so interesting is the hieroglyphics that have been translated not only say that what is depicted here is dangerous but also it is the bringer of light.
- And so you - Wait a minute.
So the hieroglyphics warn you but also say it's the bringer of light.
- Yes.
- So that wants you It's both "stay away" and "come.
" - (overlapping chatter) - Well, and the hieroglyphics show a a detailed drawing of the equipment.
NARRATOR: The reliefs that have become known as the Dendera bulbs are carved into the walls of a 4,000-year-old temple dedicated to the Egyptian sky goddess Hathor.
Within the temple, Hathor is depicted sailing in a ship of eternity along the Milky Way.
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that this is, in fact, a representation of an extraterrestrial arriving in a flying craft and the Dendera bulbs are a technology they gave to the Egyptians.
The reason why we have proposed that in Dendera we have depictions of light bulbs is because you have that cable coming out of that lotus flower or the bulb's socket that goes underneath it to a box.
And the actual bulb rests on what's called a djed pillar.
And a djed pillar is always referred to as something to do with significant power.
And so the suggestion is that the extraterrestrials provided lighting sources and then that was also put in stone.
There is a-a theory that sound could levitate something and-and that may be the answer to-to these giant megaliths that seemed to be too heavy for even us to-to lift.
- Address that.
- Well, there are so many of the ancient astronaut legends - where the big blocks were levitated in.
- Yeah, there are ancient NARRATOR: One of the most well-known ancient stories of levitation can be found on Chile's Easter Island, where standing along the shoreline are nearly 900 megalithic stone statues called moai that weigh up to 90 tons each.
According to the oral traditions of the native Rapa Nui people, a type of energy known as mana was used to levitate the giant sculptures into place.
Curiously, similar stories can be found in association with other ancient megalithic sites all over the world, like Stonehenge in England, the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Uxmal pyramid in Mexico, Nan Madol in Micronesia and Puma Punku in Bolivia.
It would be one thing to me if this levitation of stones across an island would be the only story or legend worldwide.
But the fact of the matter is that we have multiple stories that these stones somehow were levitated or flown through the air.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that acoustic technology could levitate stones weighing tens and even hundreds of tons? Uh, my father said when he they were testing sh uh, shake testing the Saturn V first stage that they used a thing that the German scientists created using wind tunnels and made a big flute horn.
And it they shot it with acoustic, uh, energy and they called it the Jericho device because it was like a big Jericho horn and it would shake the-the stage and-and mimic launch, the vibration of a launch.
And he said one day they tuned it to a particular frequency and, when it did, that it broke the bolts that were that had this first stage bored into the concrete, picked the rocket first stage up it had to weigh tons and moved it several meters.
And they were afraid it was gonna fall over - and destroy the first stage.
- Wow.
TAYLOR: And so that's - Yeah, wow.
- And that's part of part of the mystique of the-the subject, that sound is mathematical.
Uh, you can draw mathematics to sound and maybe find the formula for the kind of sound you need.
That's so totally fascinating.
And the idea that the stones were cut like a with a machine.
Was it your dad that saw machine cuts on - on-on the - And several others have.
Several others have seen 'em.
So-so talk to me about that, because that, that's less dreaming.
There's a place in the high Andes on a plateau called Puma Punku.
It's one of the most magnificent sites on planet Earth.
And there, strewn about, are these big platforms made out of red sandstone.
And they're massive, and some of 'em are up to 60 tons.
6-0.
But amongst these stones are also andesite blocks.
There is one rectangular block.
It's about this high.
And on one side, there is a perfect groove that is so (stammers) the edges are so perfect, that if you were to go down like this with your thumb, you could cut yourself.
NARRATOR: Giorgio Tsoukalos has been studying Puma Punku for more than two decades and has made over a dozen visits to the ancient site.
This is It's beautiful.
NARRATOR: During one such visit in 2014, he documented his investigation of the incredible stonework found among the mysterious megalithic ruins.
So, this is this is pretty amazing.
I mean, check this out.
If you look at this groove right here, you simply cannot do this with primitive tools.
And you've got these holes drilled at an equidistant, as if it's some type of a female piece to a male piece.
I mean, these look like technical components, part of a larger, almost industrial-type construction.
I've got a little paper clip, ordinary paper clip, that I've just unfurled to see how deep they go.
And they actually go equidistant all the way down.
I mean, that is something that cannot be achieved with-with chicken bones.
So, is there any explanation as to how they carved it? Anything? So, according to the local legends that go back a long, long time, they say that this was built by the so-called gods.
Now, whenever I hear stories about the gods, my ears perk up.
Nobody discusses the question or asks the question "who were these gods?" What are we talking about? Everything that we call "advanced" in the ancient days from which we would ask, where did this come from? - SHATNER: But - Now, you could say it came from the angels.
- You could say it came from aliens.
- (overlapping chatter) Here-Here's the crazy part.
We could not build the pyramids today.
We cannot build the pyramids today.
Why not? What we're talking about here at this table is physical evidence that ancient aliens, uh, came here, are here, were here.
Talk to me about the first one that comes to mind, of course, is the, uh, pyramid.
Remember where Moses brought the children of Israel out from.
- Egypt.
- HENRY: Egypt.
TZADOK: The Torah and the Jewish tradition, which is the foundation of Western tradition, originally came out of Egypt.
- Right.
- All right? In the tradition that later became the Bible, ideas, beliefs like the Ark of the Covenant, they these things were clearly based upon knowledge that was brought out of Egypt.
CHILDRESS: Erich von Daniken said an interesting thing there, too, that the Great Pyramid of Egypt is not a tomb for the pharaohs, -uh, but rather a-a repository -SHATNER: A-a library.
of ancient knowledge.
- It's a library.
- Yeah.
NARRATOR: Egypt's Great Pyramid is perhaps the most familiar and most mysterious megalithic structure in all the world.
It is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids that stand on the Giza Plateau.
But exactly how and why the Great Pyramid was constructed remains a mystery.
The Great Pyramid of Giza isn't just one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World.
It's the most ancient of them all.
And it's the only one still standing.
And it's what's inside the Great Pyramid of Giza that is absolutely mind-boggling.
You look at a beautiful, perfect tunnel with perfectly smooth walls and a vaulted ceiling that rises all the way up.
And there are shafts, tunnels, and the architecture and the way it was built is a mystery till today.
NARRATOR: The Great Pyramid consists of nearly two and a half million limestone and granite blocks, many of which were quarried from 500 miles away.
It stands 480 feet high, covers 13 acres and has an estimated mass of six million tons.
According to most Egyptologists, this miracle of engineering was constructed during a 20-year period by order of the pharaoh Khufu sometime around 2500 BC.
But many experts dispute this notion, and ancient astronaut theorists suggest the origins of the Great Pyramid are far more profound.
This is applies to this discussion right now, you know, to move these blocks in the sand, because anybody who's ever played in the sandbox or anybody who's been to the beach, it's very difficult to do.
And if you have a 75-ton block - 60.
- Or 60, and - No, 15 tons is a lot more.
- No, no.
They all vary, by the way.
There are, inside the Grand Gallery, - there are some 75-ton blocks in there.
- Really? So, they floated them on barges, and then - But the bottom line is - And then they picked them up, and they took them up on the SHATNER: But-but okay, - so I-I can get beyond - (overlapping chatter) H-Hold on.
I-I need you to explain to me the timeline.
What was the what's the pyramids supposed to be? - 4,500 years.
- 4,500.
- 4,500 So-so the Sphinx predated the-the pyramids.
Yes, and so, today, according to some archaeologists, it is 12 thou a minimum of 12,000 years old.
- Which is the same age as the as the Sphinx.
- Yes.
NARRATOR: The dating of the Great Pyramid has been the subject of much controversy, and over the years, many experts have suggested that it was built far earlier than the reign of the pharaoh Khufu, who ruled around 2500 BC.
In 1837, a British colonel who became an archaeologist, named Richard Howard Vyse, used dynamite (hissing, explosion) to get up into the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid.
This was something that had not been entered by other archaeologists before.
When he got into these upper chambers, he then apparently claimed that he found some hieroglyphic cartouches that mentioned the pharaoh Khufu.
NARRATOR: The cartouche, or signature, of Khufu in the King's Chamber is what Colonel Vyse used to date the Great Pyramid to 2500 BC.
But he was under tremendous pressure to make a major discovery due to the enormous cost of his expedition, and some researchers have suggested that he may have actually fabricated this evidence.
CHILDRESS: Recently it has been discovered, by going through Vyse's journals, that he, in his journals, actually says that there were no hieroglyphs within this chamber.
And so, it is suspected that Vyse did, in fact, forge this cartouche of the pharaoh Khufu.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed long before the reign of Khufu, and with the help of extraterrestrials? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and as further evidence, point to a very curious detail regarding the placement of the pyramid.
TAYLOR: Here's something else, Bill.
The central peak of the pyramid, its location on the planet, coincides with the location that is the same number, out to about ten digits at least, - as the speed of light.
- What do you mean, the same number? What does that what does that mean? So the speed of light is like 2.
99879 Okay, so if you project a photon out of the tip of the No.
No.
No, no, no, no.
If you look at the position on Earth that it is, its location on the map - SHATNER: The geographic location? - Geographic location.
- Is what? - Geographic location, and then the-the The number that describes its position, uh, an inclination is the same number as the speed of light.
NARRATOR: The latitudinal coordinate for the Great Pyramid is 29.
9792458 degrees north, a number that exactly matches the speed of light when measured in meters per second.
Now that's interesting because the Great Pyramid is known, um, as the "Mountain of Light.
" So here we have the value of the speed of light encoded into the Great Pyramid.
Another thing we find, as well, is that the location of the Great Pyramid is really unique, because at that specific location, if you pass a great circle from the Great Pyramid through its cardinal and its ordinal directions, what you find is that these circles will pass through more land mass of the Earth than any other location on the Earth.
You find that the Great Pyramid is essentially located at the center of the world's landmass.
TSOUKALOS: This is amazing stuff.
When you consider the vast amount of information about the Earth encoded into the Great Pyramid, you cannot consider it all to be coincidence.
NARRATOR: Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that the information encoded in the Great Pyramid of Giza is a signature of its alien architects? Sophisticated mathematical and-and scientific concepts are being embedded, were embedded into the pyramids.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are still hidden chambers that many believe are still to be discovered in the pyramids and that might give us the answers.
The King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid is about the size of this room right here, and there are room for 47 more of these rooms inside the pyramid.
And just three years ago, we discovered that when you go into the pyramid And I've been in there 40 times.
- Have you? - Yes, and you ascend the Grand Gallery.
And now we know that riding upon the Grand Gallery is another chamber that we knew nothing about - until a few years ago.
- Massive.
- And so now, we have - Did we open it? - We haven't opened it yet.
- Why not? Well, talk to the Egyptian authorities.
SHATNER: You're-you're giving me facts, but you haven't convinced me.
To me, it's improbable that a spaceship, given the unimaginable distances, could traverse those distances.
Does anybody have an answer to that here? In a universe nearly 14 billion years old, civilizations might be out there - with millions of years head start.
- Right.
Yeah, just because we can't do it - doesn't mean somebody else can't.
- Right.
I've actually had conversations with, uh, Michio Kaku several times about the idea of what we would have to do in modern day to build a warp drive to travel between the stars.
NARRATOR: The ancient astronaut theory suggests that aliens from another world and most likely, another star system, came to Earth in the distant past.
Mainstream scientists, however, argue that the distances between stars are simply too vast for this to be possible.
But Dr.
Michio Kaku, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, has proposed that there are likely to be other intelligent beings in the universe who are even more advanced than humans, and that they could, in fact, possess the technology to travel between stars.
Michio Kaku is, uh, waiting to talk to us on the television set.
Michio? - Yes? - It's Bill Shatner, and I'm pleased to see you again.
Last time we met, we were talking string theory.
- That's right.
- Michio, what's your opinion of the ancient alien philosophy, theory, if you will? - What do you think about it? - Well, I think we have to keep our minds open, because first of all, we've discovered 4,000 planets in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy.
We now realize that there could be literally billions of earth like planets, some of them twins of the Earth in outer space.
And to believe that we're the only game in town, I think, is rather presumptuous.
- Yeah.
- Since the universe is 13.
8 billion years old, there's plenty of time for civilization to rise and fall.
We're discussing here time travel, warp drive, all those things, and most people think that's theoretically possible, but practically impossible.
What have you got to say about that? Well, you know, the skeptics make a big mistake thinking that-that aliens can never visit the Earth 'cause distances are too large.
That assumes that the aliens are maybe only 100 years more advanced than us.
But they could be a million years more advanced than us, in which case they might, just might, have the capability of rocketing across space-time faster than the speed of light.
This is not out of the question at all.
There are two ways in which you can use Einstein's equations to break the light barrier.
The first is wormholes.
NARRATOR: The concept of traveling through a wormhole, or Stargate, as it is sometimes called, has become a popular device in science fiction.
But the theory was actually proposed by the most famous astrophysicist who ever lived Albert Einstein.
In 1935, Einstein and fellow physicist Nathan Rosen theorized that two separate points in space could be connected through an Einstein-Rosen bridge, or what we now call a wormhole.
This would make travel to the most remote stars in the universe a real possibility.
What you're talking about is a structure in space that involves very, very strong bending of space and the connecting of two different parts of space.
So if you think of a piece of paper curved around and then punched out and connected from one place to the other, that's your basic wormhole.
Alice's looking glass would be the wormhole.
That is punching a hole in space and time.
The second possibility is what's explored in Star Trek.
And that is compressing space or the Alcubierre drive.
You know, Alcubierre once told me that he was watching an episode of Star Trek, and said, "Well, if they do it on Star Trek, why can't I as a physicist do it with Einstein's equations? I love it.
NARRATOR: In the Star Trek television series, the starship Enterprise is equipped with a warp drive, which enables it to rocket through space faster than the speed of light.
While some scientists have suggested that faster-than-light travel is an impossibility, in 1994, Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a warp drive that would do just that.
RICHARD DOLAN: Miguel Alcubierre developed an equation of warp drive in which he developed mathematics that said, look, with enough energy, you could actually warp space and time around your craft to create a kind of space-time bubble, and in a sense shrink space in front of you and extend that space behind you.
So you're not exceeding the speed of light within that bubble.
You're obeying all of the laws of physics there.
But you're warping space and time.
You compress the space in front of you, expand the space behind you and, whomp, you break the light barrier.
There's always a catch there.
You need fantastic amounts of energy in order to do this.
Now, of course, on Star Trek, we have the dilithium crystals, so your spaceship may go zapping through at warp speed.
HENRY: Let's say you're visiting Earth and you want to leave the most important piece of scientific information for these rudimentary humans to discover.
What would you think that could be? Well, I think they would probably leave a piece of their DNA because mechanical things can rust, fall apart, but DNA self-replicates.
It constantly mutates to survive and the one thing that will survive over millions of years after the aliens have left, for example, would be DNA because it's self-replicating, mutating, adaptive, while steel will rust, computers fall apart and machines break down, but DNA simply keeps on going forever.
HENRY: And they could conceivably also program that DNA or implant scientific knowledge into it that could be rolled out over a millennia, perhaps.
In fact, yeah, in fact, scientists have actually looked for messages in the DNA.
And so far, they find none.
But it's conceivable that one day if we do find a message in DNA, that'll be an existential shock.
An existential shock, realizing that somebody is communicating with us after millions of years.
Long since machines have turned to dust that these self-replicating molecules are mutating and surviving and are leaving a message.
We haven't found it yet, but we cannot rule it out.
SHATNER: Thank you so much for that beautiful way of expressing your thoughts.
It was a delight to have talked to you, a pleasure.
And I hope we do it again soon.
My pleasure.
And a great honor to be with you.
Thank you.
Take care.
Well, what a gift.
TSOUKALOS: But with his last answer, the circle has closed because he mentioned DNA.
What Dr.
Michio Kaku said was so important, because almost the single biggest objection from the skeptics to the whole whether it's the UFO phenomenon, the ancient astronaut theory is you can't get here from there.
And there was Dr.
Michio Kaku saying, "Oh, yes, you can.
" - If you had a certain level of technology.
- TSOUKALOS: Yes.
- We're unlikely to be first - SHATNER: No, of course we want to be able to The salient question, of course, even that is our imperative, is to stay alive.
Have the our civilization stay with us long enough to be able to invent that kind of thing.
You wouldn't build big massive starships to travel around and populate the universe at first.
That's, that would take too much time, energy and resources.
What you would do is create a teeny, tiny little probe.
And our DNA replicates itself over and over and over.
And you can send it as a particle across the universe and when it lands there a billion years later, it might stimulate the growth of life and DNA propagating in other species.
HENRY: That's the term "panspermia.
" NARRATOR: Panspermia is a hypothesis that suggests alien organisms have reached our planet traveling on meteorites.
Some proponents believe that panspermia was responsible for seeding all life on Earth, while others propose that it may have introduced just one highly unique species humans.
TSOUKALOS: In the concept of panspermia, there's two ways to look at this.
One is panspermia that happens just like that.
And then there's another version that is called direct panspermia, and direct panspermia would suggest that it was done deliberately by a faraway extraterrestrial advanced civilization.
And why wouldn't a-a rock which has the cells of life that land on Earth, why don't we think of that sending its seed? Francis Crick himself said life is a miracle and the most practical way to explain how life arose on Earth is that some advanced civilization sent out rockets packed with DNA.
NARRATOR: Francis Crick was a British geneticist, who, in 1953, along with American biologist James Watson, discovered the three-dimensional double-helix shape of DNA.
This scientific breakthrough was a giant leap forward in unraveling the mystery of humankind's origins.
But Francis Crick found our genetic code to be so complex that he proposed it could not have developed by mere evolutionary chance, and most likely did not originate on Earth.
The information content of life at the level of DNA is so incredibly vast, super astronomical, that one could entertain a possibility that there has been an artificial creation of this.
So what Francis Crick suggested is that perhaps there was a super intelligent life-form somewhere nearby to the Earth that essentially designed the life that exists on the Earth.
The origin of life is extremely improbable is something that I would agree with.
I'm skeptical on that.
I sit at this table, obviously, as-as somebody who investigated UFOs for the British government.
I bow to the greater expertise of my colleagues on the ancient astronaut theory, of course.
That's not my specialist area.
But I am a little skeptical of some of this, "Well, aliens tinkered with us.
" I think that normal random mutations and natural selection - could explain this.
- Fred Hoyle, Fred Hoyle commenting - TAYLOR: But actually, it can't.
- Fred Hoyle, commenting on Statistically, mathematically, it can't.
- Fred Hoyle, yes.
- Fred Hoyle, astronomer, scientist, commenting on this genetic alteration of chromosome 2 said, "The odds "of this happening are like a tornado sweeping "through a junkyard of 747 parts and manifesting - a fully functional 747.
" - TAYLOR: Yes.
TSOUKALOS: A lot of stuff happens by coincidence.
But there are certain things where you have to say, "Coincidence doesn't quite apply.
" So, some people say, "Oh, well, that was God," and some people say, "Well, no, maybe it wasn't God, but it was an extraterrestrial.
" - (overlapping chatter) - Or it happened so many times, - it was bound to happen in that way.
- TAYLOR: You have to think, "Well, could this have been a random cosmic ray "bounced and caused this thing? What are the odds of that actually happening, and could it?" Now, that did happen in probably billions of instances.
But certain things, like lining up the human chromosome chain and getting that right and causing that to happen is beyond statistical probability within the life of the universe.
- I high You don't know that.
- Yes, you do! Yes, you do.
- You can mathematically - No, you don't, because, I can tell you why you don't know it.
Because the numbers involved in the universe, the numbers of what could happen, you-you Our mind can't encompass it.
Well, but in order for the human genome to be created, this thing has to happen, and then this thing, and then this thing, and then this thing, and then this thing.
It's not these things in parallel, and so, the probabilities multiply times each other, and in And when you get to the point where all of these things had to happen in sequence to get to the end point, you can actually do the statistical math for this and show that you could not create that randomly within the age of the universe.
POPE: Well, look, I was the one who disagreed on the point - about tinkering with evolution.
- Please, Nick.
I want you to hold forth, Nick.
Yeah, I think that it can all be explained with random mutation and natural selection, so But the point is, we don't necessarily agree all around this table.
You've got a diverse group here.
I think it would be very unproductive if we all just nodded along and agreed.
We have different backgrounds, - different areas of specialism.
- SHATNER: Yes.
Yes.
- But that's where we get to the good stuff.
- Yes.
- Where we do disagree and debate.
- I absolutely agree, and-and I want you to disagree.
And I can't tell you how I love this.
We've covered ancient aliens, but what about today? Does anybody know anything about them today? I'd love to hear from you guys about, uh, about UFOs and Roswell.
You keep hearing it was a weather balloon, it wasn't.
TSOUKALOS: Before Ancient Aliens, I never paid any attention, really, to the modern-day UFO phenomenon.
But over the past few years, because of Ancient Aliens and some of the people sitting at this table, I've gotten very much interested in the modern-day UFO phenomenon.
And one person from whom I've learned a lot is Linda Moulton Howe, who is one of the experts - in modern-day UFO - SHATNER: She's the journalist? The award-winning journalist filmmaker? NARRATOR: Investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe has been documenting strange phenomena, UFO sightings and alien encounters for more than four decades.
She has received numerous awards for her journalistic excellence in a wide range of fields and today is reporter and editor of the website Earthfiles.
com, which contains an archive of nearly 3,000 in-depth UFO reports.
We've got her ready on a call.
- HENRY: Hey, Linda.
- TAYLOR: Hi, Linda.
- Hi, everyone.
Hi, Linda.
I-I'm William Shatner, Bill Shatner.
- It's a pleasure to-to meet you.
- HOWE: Yeah.
I've heard so much about you.
- Well - Everybody around here has come up to tell me how wonderful you are.
- (chuckles) - It's true.
And Well, I-I feel like I know you as a longtime Star Trek fan.
- Oh, I appreciate that.
- Wonderful - to be here with you.
- SHATNER: Well, thank you.
And I'm consumed by the subject matter, and we've arrived at, uh, spaceships and-and-and and ancient aliens.
Where are they now? I think a lot of them are hiding right here on this planet and have been here for millions of years.
I think this is a revolutionary time.
No matter whatever else happens, we have to learn we're not alone in the universe.
Are we seeing space vehicles, then? Was Roswell an example of that? I'll tell you from firsthand knowledge that there was the retrieval of a craft in July of 1947 when that big headline, a real, honest headline came out that the Roswell Army Airfield was reporting the downing of a flying disk.
NARRATOR: The Roswell incident has become the most famous UFO event on record, the crash landing of an unidentified object in the New Mexico desert in July 1947.
And it was the United States Army that reported the craft as a flying disk.
On July 8th of that year, the Roswell Daily Record had an incredible headline, which was that the United States Army had captured one of these flying disks that everyone had been talking about.
It was absolutely a big, big news story at the time.
NARRATOR: Within days, the military walked back its story, suddenly claiming that the crashed object was nothing more than a weather balloon.
But curiously, they said that the balloon was taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
DOLAN: When you really think about this, why on earth would anyone send any kind of weather balloon or the alleged Mogul balloon that the Air Force came up with many years later? And you're gonna send this off to Wright Field for technical analysis? None of it makes any sense whatsoever.
Unless that material was much more exotic and much more scientifically interesting than just a mere balloon.
NARRATOR: In April 2011, the FBI released thousands of files as part of its online FBI Vault, and one of those files included a 1950 briefing to FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover regarding informant information about three flying saucers that were recovered in New Mexico.
Many researchers believe this corroborates long-standing rumors that the Roswell incident involved not one but three crashed UFOs.
SHATNER: Have there been more things that are noted in the news? Sightings, uh, saucers and things? The one that most people are not aware of today, the date was February 25, 1942, and it's called the Battle of Los Angeles.
It made the L.
A.
Times and a big front-page story.
NARRATOR: Five years before the now famous Roswell incident, an extraordinary UFO event was witnessed in the sky over Los Angeles.
(air-raid siren wailing) What's called the Battle of L.
A.
is actually one of the earliest unexplained UFO mysteries in our modern era.
It took place on the early morning of February 25, 1942.
1,430 artillery shells were fired at several unknown objects.
Many eyewitnesses on the ground saw this.
So, the question is what were these things? Uh, in terms of covering it up, uh, the military consistently downplayed this.
The secretary of the Navy, uh, said to the public it was just war nerves.
There was nothing out there whatsoever.
In the 1970s, an FOI request obtained a memorandum by Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall in which he wrote a memo about this incident to President Franklin Roosevelt.
So, it's clear that the military was interested in it.
NARRATOR: The secret memo that General Marshall sent to President Roosevelt directly contradicted the Navy's public statement that there was nothing in the sky over Los Angeles that night, claiming instead that as many as 15 unidentified airplanes may have been involved.
We've had a policy of denial since World War II, thinking that humans could not handle whatever it is that is the perceived bottom-line truth.
SHATNER: But assuming all that is true, does American technology have those super ships? Do we know anything more? Uh, did anything result as a result of that advanced technology? (chuckles): Well, I think that there is a huge, um, if you want to call it underground or a black world of all kinds of back engineering and laboratory and all things related to, uh, whether they were crashed disks or technology deliberately placed in our hands.
Given the way the government, uh, sends out whistleblowers, all kinds of, uh, hidden information we're getting all the time, this mind-blowing idea that you've just espoused, it seems it would be impossible to hide for any length of time.
We honestly do not fully understand agendas, and the biggest problem we have is how do we trust? It's our own governments and power brokers that keep the human family in the dark.
SHATNER: Fascinating.
Linda, thank you so much for that, uh, interesting information.
We'll have an occasion to discuss it here.
Uh, and it was very informative, and I thank you so much for spending your time - with us.
- TSOUKALOS: Thank you, Linda.
Oh, thank you.
- TAYLOR: Bye, Linda.
- Bye, Linda.
Take care.
When you get into the UFO phenomenon, it-it doesn't take long as you scratch the surface that a conspiracy is there because there's, at-at the very least, if there are UFOs, there is a conspiracy - to cover it up.
- But it's not a conspiracy.
- Why? - Why? - CHILDRESS: Well POPE: This is where I part company from some of the-the people more deeply into the conspiracy theories, because my view and I've-I've actually done this for the British government my view is that government doesn't necessarily have all the answers to this.
TAYLOR: That's exactly right.
I agree with that 100%.
And Nick and I have talked about this.
This is what your conspiracy is.
Your conspiracy is time.
If something happened in 1947 in Roswell, three or four guys, because that's all there was budget for to go investigate whatever this was, went out there.
They took stuff, packed it up in carts, and they may have taken it and had some scientists look at it.
They may not.
They may not have had budget to hire a scientist to look at it.
Scientists are expensive.
Then, when they were done with it, they shoved it in a safe or a drawer or a vault somewhere, and they retired.
And when they retired, so, the next guy comes into the building, and he says, "Hey, I need room in the vault.
What's this stuff over here?" And nobody owned up to whose it This is This is 100% it happened, 'cause it happened to the Saturn V blueprints.
Yeah, yeah, you can imagine.
We find the Saturn V blueprints in barns - in North Alabama all the time.
- SHATNER: So, what you ascribe as a as a plot is stupidity and ignorance and-and - and lethargy.
- No, it's a lack of lack of resources and time.
POPE: It's also it's also the inherently secretive nature of the organizations that tend to be running these programs.
Well, I will I'll go with that.
I mean, look, the NASA supposedly erased all the master tapes of the Apollo 11 program.
- I mean, supposedly.
- Why? - And they said, oh Yeah, why? - TAYLOR: They needed them.
- They didn't need them.
- TAYLOR: No, - they needed them.
- CHILDRESS: Yeah, they The tapes were still intact.
They needed to reuse them, - so they rerecorded over them.
- TAYLOR: You guys - Be careful.
- Did they erase the tapes? They erased the tapes because they needed them on another mission, and these tapes didn't exist in-in multitudes at the time.
- It's just like the whole fallacy - SHATNER: So, what How What's the loss in, uh, - erasing the tapes? - All the original footage of going to the Moon has been lost.
TZADOK: Do not ever underestimate the power and abilities of our governments to keep secrets.
POPE: I would certainly agree with that.
There's something in our airspace.
There are factions within government that probably think it's Russia or it's China or it's our own tech, and then there's a faction that probably thinks, "What if this is extraterrestrial?" CARTER: Is it possible that the reason that now we're hearing all this stuff from the government, because, you know, we got our cell phones, I mean, everybody's under surveillance one way or another, is it possible that one day there's gonna be a sighting that cannot be explained away? TSOUKALOS: What's interesting is that since UFO groups have come into existence in the 1970s, 1980s, they've always been laughed at, belittled, and the U.
S.
government for decades has denied that they're investigating UFOs.
But in December 2017, there was a New York Times headline story, front page, that said: yes, the U.
S.
government had been investigating UFOs, and there was a special program for it, and this was not the first time nor is it the last time.
NARRATOR: On December 16, 2017, The New York Times ran a front-page story entitled: "Glowing Auras and Black Money: The Pentagon's Mysterious UFO Program.
" It brought to light a top secret U.
S.
government project, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, otherwise known as AATIP.
This took the subject of UFOs out of the fringe and into the mainstream.
For the first time, these top-level political outlets were talking about this in a serious, investigative journalist mode, not as a joke.
So that was really what opened the floodgates, and revelation followed revelation.
This is a completely new ball game here.
We are in new and uncharted territory.
NARRATOR: The article reported that in 2007, without any public debate, $22 million was allocated from a "black money" budget to investigate UFOs.
But wait a minute, wait a minute.
They've been investigating.
- Yes.
- They didn't say, "We now, "as a result of our investigation, we definitively say there are" Well, that was that was December 2017.
On April 27, 2020, the U.
S.
government itself admitted that, "Yes, "we are investigating craft, and we do not know where they are from.
" They did not say it is extraterrestrial, - Right.
- but, you know, in a press release, you have to read between the lines.
I would be careful about reading between those lines.
May I please finish? - Oh, I love that.
Argue.
- So, in order Either the U.
S.
government just admitted that somebody else on this planet has better technology than the U.
S.
Air Force, which I doubt that they would admit this, or they're pointing to the direction of a non-earthly source.
NARRATOR: Within months of the New York Times headline, extraordinary videos associated with AATIP featuring three separate UFO encounters captured by infrared cameras mounted on Navy jets were leaked to the public.
(laughs) NARRATOR: While skeptics initially suggested the footage was not genuine, in 2020, the Navy officially released the same videos, confirming not only that the footage is real but also that the objects recorded were, in fact, unidentified craft.
I've analyzed those videos, uh, in detail, and I-I will tell you that there is no evidence in them that says that it's not our near peer adversaries, like Russia or China.
However, if Russia or China invented these devices, whatever they are in these videos, then they are way ahead of us in physics and engineering.
And that's something that's doesn't add up, because you don't see the large multi billion-dollar efforts to put all of the right brains in one location.
- There isn't the industry going on there - Yeah.
- that would make them that superior.
- So-so that raises your eyebrow.
Whatever the craft is itself is extremely cold, and it looks like there's a vacuum around this vehicle.
And then the vehicle makes maneuvers that are so rapid, -you would pull so many g-forces -Yeah.
- that it would kill any occupants almost instantly.
- Yeah.
I wouldn't call that a smoking gun, but I would say that the technology is so far advanced in these videos that we can't explain how it's doing what it's doing.
SHATNER: This is now This is the meat.
This is the this is the The nut has opened up and the kernel is here.
And I'm the captain.
- (chuckling) - The, uh That information is like opening the can up.
(overlapping chatter) POPE: The U.
S.
Navy videos, - the Senate Intelligence Committee, - Right.
that's tangible.
Three or four things else have happened which are worthy of note here.
Firstly, the U.
S.
Navy issued instructions to its own pilots telling them what to do - if they encounter these things.
- Which are what? - That Uh, that-that's classified.
- Right.
- They confirmed that they've issued the Sure.
- Well, it's either run - or fight, right? - (overlapping chatter) - Well, no.
H-Hold on.
Let me let me finish.
This is important.
So, they've confirmed that those instructions have been issued, but they have not confirmed what they will say.
In parallel with that, the Senate Intelligence Committee just put into the Intelligence Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2021 this demand for a report from Director of National Intelligence.
And in response to that, a body called the UAP Task Force, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
And they released a list of 38 technical studies that they did as part of this program: antigravity, wormholes, warp drive.
But here's the smoking gun.
There was a paper on the Drake equation.
Now, the only purpose of the Drake equation is to estimate the number of communicable civilizations in our galaxy.
NARRATOR: In 1961, radio astronomer Frank Drake proposed a mathematical argument for the likelihood of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life in the galaxy.
DENNIN: Frank Drake developed an equation that took the probability of different things happening having the right type of sun, having the right type of planet, how many planets and stars there were and made an estimate of how likely life would be.
JOHN BRANDENBURG: The Drake equation would seem to logically predict tens of thousands of civilizations out there that we ought to be able to hear on radio traffic.
The thing with the videos there are factions that probably think it's Russia or it's China or it's our own tech.
And so it's not Russia and China.
Otherwise, the Drake equation wouldn't be part of that.
I don't know whether I've heaved a sigh of relief or, uh, - or-or holding my breath in - So, let-let-let - But it's all - None of this is disputed.
- TAYLOR: Let me add to this.
Up until recently, if a pilot saw and reported a UFO, it was the end of his career.
- Right.
- They decided he was nuts or whatever and wasn't trustworthy - or it was something you didn't talk about.
- Mm.
The new protocols are, while there may be pieces that are classified to it, the deal is if you see something, you have to say something to us.
Because if these things are flying around in our airspace, - we need to know about it.
- They destigmatized it.
- Yeah.
That-that was the point.
- But it's okay for the pilots to talk about.
I think that Ancient Aliens has enabled the world to talk about these topics in a more open fashion.
I think that a discussion of the extraterrestrial question, the way it is conducted today, - was not possible 15 years ago.
- Mm.
I mean, there are some on at-at this table who have been following this, including myself, for 25-plus years.
- SHATNER: Wow.
- And I think that Ancient Aliens was the reason for this paradigm shift, that we blazed the trail for these discussions to go on right now and for more people to come on board with these ideas.
So I think that Ancient Aliens has been part of disclosure.
SHATNER: I think it's utterly, utterly fascinating.
And, you know, we've been at this, uh, discussion so beautifully and so connectively, I feel like I-I've known you all my life.
So, the through line that I started our discussion was "convince me.
" What I'd like to tell you is and I got a chill just thinking about it is that I feel (stammers) I-I believe much more now about what you purportedly think of as ancient aliens.
I'm beginning to understand more why people of your intelligence and education believe this-this-this to be true.
I understand that more completely now.
I am so grateful that you imparted to me and hopefully to the audience watching the show this passionate information, in all its various forms that you all individually believe.
It smacks of passion.
It smacks of truth.
It smacks of intrigue.
It smacks of complexity and a mystery that is, uh, unexplained.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, Bill.
- Yeah.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS