Houston, you are go for landing, over.
Roger, understand. Go for landing, 3000 ft.
July 20th, 1969.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin,
became the first men to land on the moon.
It's one small step for man...
... one...
... giant leap for mankind.
Just like aliens, visiting from another world.
It have been the stuff of science fiction.
Now...
everything that could be imagined,
seem possible.
If mankind could travel the skies and go to other planets,
why couldn't beings from other planets,
visit the Earth?
Amidst a wave of modern UFO sightings,
a new theory emerged.
That aliens...
... visited Earth in antiquity,
and were regarded as Gods.
But if that were true,
wouldn't there be proof?
Perhaps... there was.
All we needed to do,
was open our eyes...
... and, our imaginations.
The proof perhaps, was all around us.
WHO WERE THEY?
WHY DID THEY COME?
WHAT DID THEY LEAVE BEHIND?
WHERE DID THEY GO?
WILL THEY RETURN?
ANCIENT ALIENS THE SERIES
CHARIOTS, GODS AND BEYOND
In May 2008, a startling proclamation was issued by the Vatican.
For the first time in it's two thousand year history,
the Catholic Church acknowledge the possibility,
that intelligent life could exist on other planets.
And that a belief in extraterrestrials,
did not contradict a belief in God.
Which means of course, that we are now entering an age,
in which the universe is beginning to be conceived in different ways
from what it was before.
And if it is a reality for us, why could it not have been a reality
for other... beings in the universe who could have visited... our Earth,
and perhaps guided culture in ancient times.
But just what sparked this sudden turn around in religious thought?
Could the Church have been influenced by recent scientific discoveries?
In 2002, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft,
detected enormous reservoirs of ice, beneath the Martian surface.
The presence of ice, and the possibility of water,
suggested that life could be sustained, or even generated, on another planet.
After decades of orbiting space shuttles and robotic rovers,
the idea of sending man back into space, to Mars and beyond,
ignited the imagination...
and brought back the notion, that mankind and alien beings,
had cross paths before.
In 1968, just one year before Neil Armstrong's epic space flight,
a book was published that forever changed the way many in the scientific,
religious and creative communities, would view their home planet.
Written by Swiss author Erik Von Däniken...
"Chariots of the Gods", attempted to prove that alien explorers,
have visited the Earth thousands of years ago.
When I was a young man, I was educated as a strict catholic in a boarding school.
And there, we had to make translations of parts of the bible.
Greek to Latin, Latin to German.
For example, the First Book of Moses.
"Before the Lord descends on the Holy Mountain,
Moses was ordered to construct a gate around the mountain,
otherwise the Israelites will be damaged".
I was shocked. I said, "This is impossible."
My God, he would never use first, a gate to protect himself,
or to protect the Israel". What are they talking about?
And now the work... started.
I started to read thousands of pages,
of the beginning of religions, of every mythology.
It's always the same story,
of course with different names, with different heroes.
"Somebody descends, from the sky, to the humans.
Our forefathers could not understand it.
They believed that these are some gods".
I was shocked. I asked the question,
"Were primitive human influenced by extraterrestrials, not gods?"
And if, it all was like I suggested, where's the proof?
So you start trying to find at least indications.
That's what I have done now for at least 45 years.
You have pictorial evidence, you have artifacts and archeology,
and you have what come out of old literature,
hundreds of indications, which you cannot deny anymore.
What it means is that we need new explanations for human origins.
That perhaps we are not alone in the universe,
and that human-like beings came to this planet
from some other planet,
elsewhere in the cosmos.
I think that's a very good idea myself.
It really excited people. It was a new way of looking at the past,
looking at ancient civilizations.
And it put this very modern space age spin to the whole thing.
"Chariots of the Gods" caused a sensation,
fuelled in no small part
by the popular response to books like Frank Herbert's "Dune",
television shows like "Star Trek",
and feature films like "2001: A Space Odyssey".
The time was right, because everybody was talking of possible space travel,
of possibility of extraterrestrials,
So it's all wonderful coming together, but it was not planned.
After a Swiss newspaper printed excerpts of it on a weekly basis,
more than 10,000 copies of the book were sold before ever hitting the market.
So it was a running best-seller starting in Switzerland first,
then going over to Germany and then the rest of the world.
They had to print and print and print and print.
[Swiss German Speech] Incredible!
In 1970, a feature length documentary was released to theaters.
Followed by dozens of best-selling books,
and growing legions of fans and supporters.
"Chariots of the Gods", was tremendously influential.
It somehow spoke to people, who want to believe.
When I was a boy,
"Chariots of the Gods" was one of books I first read.
I mean I ripped apart, I digest it I couldn't get enough of it.
I just fell in love with that book,
'cos it really open up all kinds of new questions,
and Von Däniken was able to point out many anomalies in history,
that the mainstream archaeologists can't answer very well.
He had what was a revolutionary new idea.
That of "Gods" from outer space coming to the planet,
helping create civilization.
When I first read "Chariots of the Gods"
I couldn't put that book down, because it answered...
... a whole bunch of questions, that I had.
And it was a great combination of archeology and adventure.
It's just a wonderful way to see the world and pursue these ancient mysteries.
And it truly was, I think, the catalyst for what people like I do today,
and that is, to talk about the mysteries, and the unusual and the paranormal.
He pave the way for a lot of us to talk about these strange stories,
and that continues to grow
and it's gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger.
People want answers, to questions that they can't answer themselves.
But in spite of the book's enormous popularity, or perhaps because of it,
Von Däniken's theories were scorned by scientists,
and jeered at by theologians.
Of course, it created a storm of controversy.
I was completely attacked, specially by the scientific news papers.
They said "Come on, he's just telling a story,
he's a liar or he's a fraud" or whatever.
There is not a single piece of evidence that Von Däniken puts forward,
that cannot be attributed to human ingenuity, technology and development.
Don't try to reduce the scriptures to a science book.
Or don't try to reduce the scriptures
to an explanation of our modern world today.
I don't expect that the scientific community now
embraces and kisses me and say
"Oh wonderful, great you did!"
We have to live with critics, this is normal.
"Chariots of the Gods" was full of speculation.
I had 238 question marks.
Nobody read the question mark.
They only said, "Mr. Von Däniken is saying...".
I did not say, I asked the questions,
"Would that be a possibility?"
In "Chariots of the Gods", I made clear difference between speculations...
... and facts.
But as controversial, as many of Von Däniken theories are...
... believers point, to tangible evidence.
How for example, could a centuries-old map, chart a land mass,
that has only recently been discovered?
Would tend to indicate that the map
was made at a time
when Antartica was ice free.
Which would be...
many millions of years ago.
And how could a primitive civilization,
know how to harness electricity?
Or even build a computer?
This was tantamount to finding a jet airplane...
... in the tomb of King Tut.
And just who, were these mysterious designs,
only visible from high altitude, intended for?
The signs are made for somebody who flies,
there's no way out of this.
Could Von Däniken's theory,
that ancient gods were really alien visitors,
contain any serious scientific merit?
The answer involves a search around the world,
and even, right before our eyes.
If alien beings from other planets,
had visited the Earth thousands of years ago,
how would our ancient ancestors have tried to communicate with them?
And wouldn't there be some physical evidence of the time they spent here?
One answer may lie in the Nazca desert of Peru.
There, atop an arid plateau
that stretches for nearly 50 miles,
countless geometric patterns and figures decorate the landscape.
You fly over this desert and you see some lines.
The lines look like air stripes, they start abruptly, they end abruptly.
The longest of it, is 23 kilometers,
right away, not one curve, just incredible.
And ending in one of this so called air strips.
In the mixture of large lines and small lines
you see gigantic figures in the ground.
Figures of fishes,...
... monkeys,...
... spiders,...
... apes.
But of such over dimensional size,
that you can see them only from the air.
People built them, or somebody built them,
hundreds and hundreds of years ago,
perhaps maybe even thousands of years ago.
That could be signs of "Hello up there!",
"Here we are!". It's something.
Various disputed explanations suggest
that the lines could have been used for irrigation ditches,
giant astronomical calendars,
or pathways, perhaps used for religious worship.
Looking at Nazca from the air,
it looks like an airport.
And it really does!
Because you have all these... bands,
wide bands, that look like air strips that are...
... laid on top of each other,
but you also have these gigantic long straight lines,
that go for miles and miles,
over valleys, over mountains.
So once again you... you've got this idea like
"Ok, people are creating this...
but, what is the reason?
Is it to show these...
... gods and aerial vehicles land here?
kind of a thing.
Because we just don't have a good idea of why...
people would do this?
And it really does seem that they're trying to signal people...
... who are in the air, in space or flying around our planet.
During World War II,
American troops created air bases on remote Pacific islands.
To natives who had never witness advanced technology,
the sight of giant metal birds touching down,
looked to them as if the gods themselves
has turned the earth into a planetary pitstop.
They would see these big planes land and it was all technology that...
...that... just out of the sky.
They didn't know how these things work,
but they could see them land.
And what they like about it?
Was, they were getting free stuff, they were getting cargo.
Suddenly when the war was over,
all these air strips were abandoned and everyone left.
And the islanders scratched their heads and they all said to themselves,
"Wow, wasn't it great when all these planes came out the sky and
gave us free cans of corned beef and stuff?
We really like that cargo.
Entire religions... sprung out from this.
Where priests actually said, "Yes, you know, that was our dead ancestors"
sending us cargo.
So what they did then...
was they began going to the old air strips,
and they would build mock wooden airplanes,
to try and get those planes to come back...
... from the sky and deliver the cans of corned beef to them again.
And so you can see how that an analogy with modern cargo calls
plays exactly into the ancient astronaut scenario.
For something like this could have easily happened in the past,
and entire religions built around ancient astronauts.
But gigantic geoglyphs
aren't the only mystery surrounding Nazca.
I was flying over Nazca for days,
hanging out the aircraft with the camera.
And shooting and shooting and shooting.
I have more or less about 4000 pictures of Nazca, this is really...
... fascinating.
You see, this is one of the picture which prove that this mountain
was made flat artificially.
Because you compare it with the mountains around there,
there the mountains caps run off from both sides.
Here, it is flat, this is absolutely incredible. This is...
... one of the most craziest pictures I made about Nazca.
The crazy thing is... the rubble,
the remains, of that summit
or a mountain top... gone!
It's nowhere, it not in the valley down below.
It's nowhere in the region. What happened to it?
Because all the mountains around it, have their summits, it's there!
And then you have other mountains that are as flat as a table,
with bands on top that look like runways.
Another question.
Why would visiting ETs...
be drawn to the bone dry deserts of Peru?
Let's just say hypothetically,
that a spaceship arrives, here on Planet Earth,
and you want to quickly find out what this planet consist of.
Nazca would be the perfect place to go and visit for some sampling
and for some experimentation.
Because Nazca's still today is one of the most abundant areas in the world
regarding raw materials.
There you find everything.
You find gold,
you find... uranium...
What have you is basically the cliffnotes of planet Earth.
You go to Nazca and you immediately know everything about
what our planet consists of,
because all the raw materials,
converge there at high volumes.
Why do we have to believe that this simply cannot be
an expression of an artistic impulse, you know?
Is it really that outlandish to believe that...
you know, that... that...
these natives in Peru, might have wanted to create some large scale work of art?.
And to say that such a large scale work of art could not have been created merely...
for the possibility of having created it,
rather than the Nazca lines are so inhumanly vast.
That they can only be admired by people who are capable of flight.
Well you know you can say the same thing about the Great Wall of China.
And yet the Great Wall of China has a purpose
that is... that is political, that is martial.
Somebody might have walk the Nazca lines as a spiritual labyrinth
in the shape of a spiritual totemic object
and were in their own way suppose to get a kind of epiphany from that.
The fact that we don't understand the purpose of a thing...
opens it to tremendous speculations.
Nazca and the Nazca figures make no sign
seen from the earth.
You have to fly over it.
The signs are made for somebody who flies.
There's no way out of this.
I hope archeologists sooner or later will come to a similar conclusion.
But if visitors from other planets were thought to be Gods,
wouldn't there be written accounts of them?
Perhaps the answer can be found, right in front of us.
In one of the most shocking places...
... of all.
Ironically, Erik Von Däniken's firm belief that Earth has been visited in the past
by beings from other planets,
is entirely consistent with his belief in God and the Bible.
It is merely a question of interpretation.
One has to understand, I was a very very deep believer in God.
By the way I'm still a believer in God. I never lost my God.
But for a young man, my God had to be all mighty.
My God would never need a vehicle in which to move around,
a vehicle to go from point A to point B.
In what Christians refer to as the Old Testament,
there are in fact several accounts of God and his angels visiting the Earth.
Sometimes these visitatons are accompanied by tremendous noise,
and clouds of billowing smoke.
In the book of Ezekiel for example,
the prophet claims that he witnessed a visitation by heavenly beings,
coming down from the skies, aboard of a fantastic flying machine.
As far as Von Däniken is concerned,
it's a highly detail description, of an alien sighting.
This is incredible. Ezekiel not only describes what he see.
He also describes what he hears.
He describes the whole thing as being the splendour of God.
The prophet also details several four-face winged creatures,
who appeared in a likeness of man,
and who travelled upon a gleaming wheeled device.
Inside the splendors of God, there's was something like a throne.
And on this throne was a being sitting
looking like a human in glitterin' clothes.
And beneath it, he saw some vehicles, he saw some wings.
He describes the noise of the wings.
He describes the noise of the wings with a thundering of a waterfall.
Ezekiel saw a wheel within a wheel.
This sounds more high-tech than supernatural,... and...
... we can suppose that people 3000 years ago,
would understand the difference between supernatural and high-tech.
But what if there is more to Ezekiel's heavenly visions,
than the imaginative insights of a religious man?
What if there was a scientific foundation for them?
Yes, I once had the opportunity of meeting,
and spending time and traveling with...
a gentleman by the name of Joseph Blumrich.
He was a senior chief engineer at NASA.
First hand involvement in the Mariner expedition to Mars.
He was also in charge of the landing gear for the Mariner spaceship.
And he told me himself,
that the idea of the design used for the Mariner spaceship,
that landed on Mars, came to him...
from the reading of the biblical text in which
there is talk about wheels within wheels.
So here you have another example of the person of curiosity, who conceives...
... of these ideas.
Another biblical figure who continues to fascinate Von Däniken...
... is the character of Enoch.
Enoch is not part of the Bible.
In the Bible, in the Old Testament you find maybe just one phrase about Enoch.
That's all.
But among the apocryphic texts,
there are volumes and volumes if you know them.
You find the Book of Enoch.
Enoch is the first person in antiquity,
who writes in the 1st person, "I did, I hear, I was there".
In one of the ancient texts, this great-grandfather of Noah,
is said to have been taken away by God for 300 years.
He was taken up to the sky.
Up there he meets the highest,
the so called highest, in religion they called "God".
He meets the highest, and the highest fess to his servants,
"You teach this young man in our language,
and then you teach him writing, so he writes books".
Of course,...
... he knows all these foreigners by name,
he quotes them by name.
He knows their profession.
He knows which of these extraterrestrials, were the astronomers.
So, Enoch is the only and first person,
thousand of years ago,
who give some of the names of the extraterrestrials,
and give some of their professions. How is this possible?
We have an eyewitness, and nobody speaks about it.
So, I really was confused.
That... that would be the argument,
that... that the followers of Von Däniken would say.
Why is so absurd for aliens to come when is completely acceptable for God...
... to intervene in human history.
The difference is...
Von Däniken's arguing that aliens came and gave...
technologies to people to advance those cultures.
So basically they gave objects, they gave new ideas and new technologies,
and that those cultures advanced because of that.
Whereas... at least in the Bible. It's not like God gave...
a human kind, a magic watch, you know, or a new missile,
that they could use to defeat their enemies.
Hum... God gives instructions, at least the Bible records,
God gives instructions on how to live, but not on how to build new devices
that further or advance a specific culture.
Can we liken Ezekiel's chariot to a UFO?
The ancients used myth,
and metaphor and images to describe their experience of God.
I think what we don't wanna fall to is...
a type of fundamental literalism.
The stories of the Old Testament emerged out of the people of that time.
Out of their own context to make sense of their experience of God.
We can gain insight by reading the Old Testament,
and reading about Ezekiel's Chariot.
But it's not to draw a strict analogy between his chariot and a UFO.
When all of these stories were written down,
writing was a fairly new invention.
The very first thing they wrote down,
is something that actually happened to them.
It was so important, so compelling, so significant to them...
that they had to put it in writing.
Why can't modern society come to grips,
that these stories...
... might be true, after all?
Von Däniken's research...
turned up evidence of other arguably extraterrestrial phenomena,
... and not only in the Bible.
Almost every religion has similar stories about deities,
with spectacular powers and abilities,
who come to Earth and directly influenced the lives of men.
Suddenly one day I said to myself, "Now come on,"
"This is similar to stories in so many old religions,"
"are they talking about extraterrestrials?"
These so-called gods are here, they give orders,
they force the humans to do certain things, and one day they disappear.
But they always disappear with the promise to return...
... in a far away future.
If, as I believe, people in ancient civilizations,
were familiar with space travel...
... people in ancient civilizations were in communication
with human-like beings from other planets,
then, I think we should expect to find evidence,
for this in their literatures, which we do find.
Throughout the ancient Sanskrit epics of India,
there are numerous descriptions of Vimanas or mythical flying machines.
One of these accounts even dates back over 5000 years.
In the Bhagavata Purana, which is an ancient Sanskrit history,
there is a description of a spacecraft,
that was piloted by a King named Shol'va.
It's described that was made of metal,
it was described that it sometimes appeared to be in two places at once,
it was described as having a motion similar to that of a butterfly,
and these descriptions are consistent,
with what people who observe UFOs today, report.
In other Sanskrit texts,
such as the Mahabharata, the Rigveda and the Ramayana,
there can be found descriptions of Vimana measuring as wide as 100 ft.
And often equipped with the capabilities of modern aircraft.
One Vimana produce a shaft of light,
which when focused on a target, consumed it with it's power.
It's like a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon movie from the 30's.
They read like the wild of science fiction.
People are flying around in airships called Vimanas.
Blasting each other and having aerial fights, destroying entire cities.
And the crazy thing is...
... that all of those stories are totally accepted in the modern society of India.
I don't think we can say that these descriptions are simply imagination,
because even though they were written thousands of years ago,
they match what many people today report,
in terms of observing the actions of UFOs.
Were they just mythological tales that they're making up, fantasy?
Or these physical real events,
and they're trying to describe them as the best as they could.
That seems to make more sense to me.
I can tell you this, I would be out of a job in India,
because there if I were to talk about ancient aliens and ancient gods,
they would say, "Ok, so what else is new?"
When backing up their claims of extraterrestrial visitation,
ancient aliens theorists, draw upon two kinds of examples.
There's the evidence you can read, such at that found in ancient texts,
and then there's the evidence you can actually see.
Among the earliest types of physical specimens,
numerous cave and rock drawings, and stone sculptures found all over the globe.
You know, pictures are worth a thousand words.
Absolutely.
When you see pictures depicted for example on a cave in Italy,
that shows two astronauts with helmets on,
I don't know what the heck could it be?
What could it be?
Each of these ancient illustrations or statues,
depict figures dressed in strange attire for the times,
and sporting unusual headgear.
But could they really be representations of alien astronauts,
visitors from other worlds, who touch down upon the Earth thousands of years ago.
All over the world we have statues, and sculptures and paintings
and depictions of these extraterrestrial beings.
Even in the United States, at Sego Canyon, Utah,
we have petroglyphs,
of very weird looking creatures,
that have antennae on their heads, helmets.
And halfway around the world, in Kimberley, Australia, for example,
we have the exact same depictions of these helmeted beings,
with a halo around their heads.
And the question I have is,
"What did our ancestors see, that compelled them...
to put this on their cave walls?"
On yet another continent, in Guatemala City,
we have a sculpture that looks eerily reminescent of a modern day astronaut.
I mean, that thing is wearing a helmet,
there some type of a mouth-piece,
and on his chest are some type of controls,
or rebreathing apparatus.
How is this possible, 1500 years ago?
And in Colombia,
there were thousands of tomb artifacts that look like modern day airplanes.
It has fixed wings, it has a fuselage,
and it has an upright tail fin, which is not intrinsic to nature,
but it it's intrinsic to modern day aerodynamics.
Did our ancestors see something similar flying in the air? Absolutely.
Another compelling artifact that was found, was at the Istanbul museum,
where you have this headless spaceman, sitting inside some type of space vehicle.
You can see his hands, and you can see tubing,
that go to some sort of devices.
He's wearing a suit, his legs are cramped in there.
I mean, even to the untrained eye, this looks very aerodynamic,
and it looks something, that, you know, came from outer space.
These people witnessed something, they were told something,
and they tried to depict it,
the best way they could, with the kind of technology they had at that time.
And that was simple tools and simple artwork.
Many of these ancient civilizations were widely separated, in space and time.
They weren't in communication with each other,
but still they had the same kinds of accounts.
I think it's because they all experienced these things.
And they all had the idea that we are part of a cosmic hierarchy of beings.
So I think we can't explain things away so easily.
But for Erik Von Däniken...
and other proponents of these ancient astronaut theories,
perhaps the most significant illustration, can be found in Mexico.
The Mayan archaeological site of Palenque,
had been abandoned for centuries,
before it was stumbled upon by Spanish explorers.
So get to the top of this... and suddenly...
... here are the great pyramids of Palenque.
Here, deep within a secret tomb,
under one of the age old temples.
lies the 7 tons sarcophagus,
of Palenque 7th century ruler, Pakal the Great.
Lord Pakal apparently died here at Palenque.
He was barely a mysterious Mayan leader, he was a giant.
7-8 ft tall actually.
And then they built this pyramid around his tomb.
The Mayans literally worship him as some kind of a god.
King Pakal sarcophagus,
is adorned with a carving that has become...
a famous example of classic Mayan art.
Most believe the illustration shows Pakal
descending into the Mayan underworld.
But ancient astronaut theorists, interpret the carving a vastly different way.
On this slab an incredible enchiseling.
You see a man, and he is sitting on a sort of capsule,
he has some sort of mask on his nose,
and you see his upper hand, he is manipulating some control.
From the lower hand, he is turning something on.
The heel of his left foot is on a kind of pedal,
and outside of the capsule you see a linking flange.
This is incredible.
This is absolutely proof of extraterrestrials.
3...
2...
1...
Zero. Lift off.
If we look at the similarities of what our astronauts look like when they are
in a rocket ship or in a space shuttle and have a gear attached to them,
there are similarities been shown, so...
one just has to ask the question of
you know, it's this just an artifact,
symbolically showing something or are they trying to depict
with their own limited understanding at the time,
what was taking place?
Was Lord Pakal just some Mayan King that everyone liked?
Was he some important visitor from some far off land?
Or was he even possibly,
some extraterrestrial, from another planet?
Although most scientists and archaeologists,
discredit Von Däniken's interpretation of the Palenque carvings,
visitors to the site are often treated to stories,
and offered souvenirs that support his claim.
This is Erik Von Däniken's theory...
"The Chariots of the Gods".
You see, Pakal supposed to be driving...
the rocket,
holding the controls,
the pedals...
the engine,
and the fire of the rocket.
This would be the cabin.
And this is the oxygen.
Mainstream archaeologists claim that it's really a depiction of Lord Pakal,
and his journey to the underworld.
He is going under the ground,
rather than out into space.
Both are interesting theories, and either could be right in my mind.
In recent years, Pakal's Tomb has been close to tourists and casual visitors.
Although the sarcophagus is off limits, ancient astronaut theorists
can still find a wealth of evidence in the carvings along the walls of Palenque.
This is very similar to what's on... the lid of Lord Pakal, of his tomb.
The way he's got his left hand right here in a, like an odd position, and his wrist.
Also some kind of rocket exhaust or something is coming out of them.
But Lord Pakal may not have been the only alien,
who once walked the Palenque ruins.
The Mayans had such a advanced calendar and mathematical system.
Why were they so obsessed with the stars?
One of the most advanced of any ancient cultures.
And yet the Mayans just vanished around 500 A.D.
We do not know where they went. And one explanation,
is it the Mayans were some kind of extraterrestrials,
and they literally left our planet.
But ancient cave drawings and stone carvings,
aren't the only type of illustrations that fascinate ancient alien theorists.
In 1929, historians discovered a map,
which had been painted onto a piece of gazelle hide.
They traced the document back to a sixteen century Turkish admiral...
... named Piri Reis.
But in stark contrast to other maps dating back to that time,
the map depicts land masses that were still, as yet unexplored.
It shows the coast of Antarctica as it exists under the current ice cover.
Now that's really pretty amazing, because it would tend to indicate that the map,
was made at a time when Antarctica was ice free.
Which would be many millions of years ago.
The map also accurately charts the coasts of Europe and North Africa.
But its the illustration of northern Antarctica,
that truly astonishes ancient astronaut theorists.
Because this region wouldn't even be discovered for another 300 years.
If remembered that Antarctica is covered by at least a mile thick ice.
We didn't have ground-penetrating radar until 1958.
So for a map to exist in 1531 accurately showing this topography,
it's pretty interesting.
When cartographers superimpose the Piri Reis map,
over modern map of the world, they were amaze to discover,
that the ancient chart was fantastically accurate in the most minute of details.
But how could the creators of centuries old map,
have known of mountains or rivers that have yet to be discovered?
In 1531 I really don't know of any one who was flying above the surface of the Earth,
high enough to map topography,
and how would they see underneath the ice?
Their maps were so accurate...
... I mean we know that they didn't go to Antarctica and explore it,
but yet they were able to draw these maps of it.
But if ancient aliens possessed the technology to travel the universe,
with the only evidence of their journey be in the form of a few carvings,
or a mysterious map?
Wouldn't there also be signs of a highly advanced technology?
Signs that might be too large to overlook.
You mean to tell me that people of that time period did this by hand?
I don't think so.
When it comes to searching for evidence of ancient aliens,
Erik Von Däniken literally leaves no stones unturned.
I have collected for more than 40 years information.
And there are two sorts of evidences to support my hypothesis.
The one source is literature,
this might be archaeological or mythological... literature,
and the other source are practical objects.
For example, if the pyramids are linked to the gods,
the gods who once descended from the sky to us earthlings.
Without a little interplanetary help,
how else could early Egyptians have learned to stack...
the nearly two and a half million limestone and granite blocks,
that create the Great Pyramid?
How could prehistoric man moved the immense boulders at Stonehenge?
And how could ancient builders at Cuzco, fixed stones so closely together,
that even a razor blade can't fit between them?
Whilst traveling around the world trying to piece together this... this...
... this puzzle of the ancient world,
there's not that much to really get a good grasp on. But what there is...
is... giant blocks of stone,
huge articulated granite,
or basalt blocks in many cases.
Sometimes they weigh a thousand tons.
These things are the size of railway cars,
and you find them in Peru and Bolivia and Mexico and ancient Egypt.
You have to ask yourself,
Why...
and how...
could ancient people have dragged this railway car sized blocks of stone
stack them up together into these giant buildings?
Perhaps the most familiar,
and most mysterious,
megalithic structure in all the world
is the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The oldest and largest of Egypt's three great pyramids.
This miracle of engineering,
is believed to have been constructed during a twenty year period
ending around 2,560 B.C.
But to ancient alien theorists those numbers just don't add up.
The Great Pyramid was not built in only 22 years,
because logistically speaking,
you would have to cut,
transport and put into place, one stone...
... every nine seconds.
And there are modern engineers,
who have come forward and said,
"We couldn't do this in twenty two years either".
There are all kinds of theories on how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built.
So many theories, you just sit back and shake your head.
And that includes ET visitations,
levitating the blocks with some kind of sound system,
antigravity.
Thousands of workers pulling long ropes,
on a ramp that has to be almost two miles long
to get it up to where it is.
All I know...
is that they are so finely aligned,
and that the architecture is so precise,
that even modern people today,
with great technology, would have a difficult time,
being that good.
How for example in the inside of the pyramids in the tombs
could they build granite and marble areas that were just so perfect and so clean?
You mean to tell me that people of that time period
did this by hand?
I don't think so.
The enormous size and weight of the stones
multiplied by the sheer number of them
makes one thing certain.
The construction of the Great Pyramid
remains one of the greatest marvels
and mysteries
of architectural engineering.
I don't want to discount human ingenuity
because I do believe that we do have the ability to do these things
over a longer period of time,
but the knowledge to build some of these monuments.
There had to have been some type of intervention
or some type of knowledge given to ancient man,
to carry out those instructions.
They couldn't have just come up it with on their own.
In Egypt there are old traditions
saying the Great Pyramid was constructed
by a Pharaoh with the name of Saurit,
and they say Saurit is the same...
... which the Hebrew community
calls Enoch.
Enoch is a prophet in the Old Testament.
There are books of Enoch called the apocryphy texts.
You make a connection with Enoch to this extraterrestrials.
He clearly says he met these extraterrestrials.
Now we have writings in the book of Enoch,
and he gave the order to construct a building which cannot be destroyed
by the thousands of years of the future.
And the ancient Egyptian texts
speak that the pyramids were built by human beings
with the assistance of the guardians of the sky,
meaning, The Gods.
And so we have proposed
that the pyramids were built by human hands,
but with the assistance of extraterrestrial technology.
As one of the Seven Wonders of the World,
the Great Pyramid remains...
not only an archaeological mystery, but a geographical marvel.
In 1877, author and theologian, Joseph Seiss,
demonstrated, that the great pyramid resides
at the intersection of the longest line of latitude
and the longest line of longitude.
The exact center of all the land mass in the world.
Also...
each of its four sides,
aligns almost precisely, with the four points of the compass,
though such an instrument, wasn't even designed until thousands of years later.
But is it just mere coincidence, that pyramid construction,
very similar to that practised in ancient Egypt,
was also evolving half way around the world.
There are pyramids on remote Pacific islands,
and in India,
and in Mexico.
So this is something that's all over the world.
Archaeologists haven't really been able to explain why
dissimilar cultures, separated by huge oceans,
are building the same structures and in many ways the same way.
Here in central Mexico,
stands an ancient city that dates back more than 2000 years.
It's name... "Teotihuacán", literally means "City of the Gods".
And located at it's center, is the Pyramid of the Sun.
Incredibly, this pyramid's perimeter,
is virtually the same as that of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
A structural coincidence, or... could it be...
... that both were inspired by the same designers?
Couple of theories for that.
Ok, One...
maybe they were all taught the same thing by an extraterrestrial race.
Two...
there were ancient travelers from within this planet,
who... went from one area to another,
over the thousands of past years.
And then there some skeptics will say,
Hey, that's the greatest archaeological way to make it,
so they just knew it.
I don't think that's the case.
At Teotihuacan here you have... a...
Giant Pyramid of the Sun and the Giant Pyramid of the Moon.
According to the legends, these things were built by gods who were giants
at the end of one of the destructions of the world.
Civilizations such as the Aztecs,
and the Mayans and the Hopi Indians of Northern Arizona,
they believe that the world has been destroyed four times in the past.
One time by ice,
once by fire,
once by water...
Each time mankind rebuild again.
And Teotihuacan supposedly was built,
just at the beginning of one of these four worlds.
You may ask the question,
Why build these huge, huge structures?
For what purpose?
Well... in Egypt, for example, either the Pharaohs had incredible egos,
and they wanted out do themselves, right?
So they build these huge museums for themselves,
or... its also possible that these ancients wanted to leave behind something for us?
It is written in ancient Egyptian texts,
the purpose why the pyramids was built?
Was to store knowledge?
300 books, which allegedly contain the knowledge of the universe,
dictated by the guardians of the sky.
Of course, the pyramids aren't the only ancient monuments,
that continue to baffle scientists and archaeologists.
There they literally hundreds of them,
and they can be found in every corner of our world.
In a remote area of the Pacific Ocean,
lies one of the most isolated yet inhabited locations in the world.
Easter Island.
Here, over 800 stone guardians called Moai stand watch over the island's coast line.
But are they primitive native carvings or eerie portrait's of alien visitors,
from thousands of years ago?
Whatever they were for, they're made to last for thousands of years,
they're built out of... block of stones that weight many... many tons.
Not only are people building structures out of these huge megalithic blocks of stone,
but this was going on around the world.
And yet supposely it's just primitive people doing this
for no really good reason it would seem.
I think one of the things that comes into our considerations
of what ancient cultures could have accomplish,
is whether they were able to write it down or not.
We're very tied to if we have evidence that they wrote down,
how they did it, then we believe we know how they did it.
So, Egypt we have a lot more writings and drawings,
that show them building the pyramids,
give us an idea of the technology.
If you go somewhere like Easter Island
we don't have any real written evidence of what they did.
And sometimes that leads us to question their innovativeness.
3000 miles away,
in the Republic of Bolivia,
stone work exists,
which is amazingly similar to the statues of Easter Island.
Tiwanaku is in fact,
so ancient, that it defies modern dating techniques.
It is estimated, to be over 17000 years old.
Perhaps the oldest city in the world.
And somehow the sculptures at Tiwanaku,
were constructed in the same style,
and with the same enigmatic expressions,
as their distant cousins on Easter Island.
A lot of the stuff at Tiwanaku, you can see in earlier civilizations.
All way back, you know, before into the... into the centuries B.C. in Peru.
You see some these same patterns, some of the same iconography, imagery,
and you can see the ancestry of this.
But while tourists flocked to the ruins of Tiwanaku,
perhaps the most mystifying of all ancient sites,
lies just a few hundreds yards away.
Of relatively little interest to most visitors,
Puma Punku, is a field of stone ruins
that both thrills and stimulates,
the imaginations of ancient alien theorists.
In my opinion,
the most significant piece of evidence that we have,
in this entire ancient astronaut puzzle,
is Puma Punku, in the highland of Bolivia.
While the Pyramids at Giza,
are incredible feat of achievement,
compared to Puma Punku, the Pyramids are childplay.
Logic does not exists at Puma Punku,
because there we have megalithic structures,
which just lie about this entire site,
as if ripped apart by... by some sort of a great force.
The blocks of Puma Punku,
were so finely cut,
that they once perfectly interlocked,
like the pieces of an elaborate puzzle.
But with the nearest quarry, over ten miles away,
how did these colossal stones, some weighing hundreds of tons,
... even get here.
We are talking about a place 4000 meters, over sea level.
That means there are no trees up there, which you could use for rollers.
Nothing grows except a few grasses and bushes.
I have stood in front of many monuments, however...
Puma Punku takes the crown,
because what we find there, is so inexplicable,
so inachievable,
that... the question remains, how was it done and for what purposes?
Mainstream archaeologists say...
... that Puma Punku was built by the Aymara Indians.
And we would all have to agree that in order to built something like Puma Punku,
you need writing, you need planning, and you need some sort of the... idea,
where... which piece goes and how it ultimately all fits together.
But there is one thing that all the mainstream archaeologists agree upon,
that the Aymara...
... didn't have any writing.
So how is it possible that they built all of this...
... without plans?
What's really amazing...
and why the ancient astronaut theorists are so drawn to Puma Punku and Tiwanaku,
is that the quality of the stone work and the immense size of these blocks
is so incredible...
... and perfect, that there's actually evidence of machining.
and that they were using machines tools,
to cut these blocks.
One of the platforms is 800 tons.
And they are so smoothly polished.
You have some stone, megalithic stones,
with grooves which are a just few millimeters inside.
Which definitely cannot be made with stone age chisels.
It doesn't work with stone age chisels so...
there is another technology behind it.
The lines carved into these rocks are exactly straight,
and precisely the same depth from one end to the other.
It's as if only master builders...
were allowed to work there.
Because everything is so precise,
everything is so perfect.
You wonder how any of these was even possible?
One of the most intriguing things there is...
that the stones that were used there...
... aren't sand stone.
They're granite and diorite.
The only stone that's harder than diorite...
... is diamond.
So the only way that this could have been achieved...
... is if the tools were tipped with diamonds.
American professors who were up there with their computer and modern measurements,
they were really shocked.
In their literature they say, "It is impossible...
to reconstruct Puma Punku, it's absolutely impossible".
But is it really difficult to believe
that ancient peoples could have so precisely carve these stones.
Or could build such an incredibly intricate structure from them.
If there was ancient astronauts teaching them these building techniques
why don't we see just perfect almost skyscraper like vertical edificies?
Everything was all pyramid like?
Stone cutting techniques have been invented and re-invented
and independently invented all over the world.
If you think of yourself as a god king and you want to have a structure built
that's going to last thousands of years,
it's much better to built it out of perfectly fitting stones without mortar,
that degrades and decays and has to be mantained.
So we see mortarless structures,
megalithics structures all over the world.
We have an anomaly here,
where on one hand these people are suppose to be... very primitive.
They're just one step out the stone age.
Yet... what they doing are things that we couldn't even do today,
... apparently. We'll have extreme difficulty.
And that is building with this giant block of stone...
... perfectly fitting them together with other blocks...
... interlocking them.
The ancient people of our time on this planet,
truly saw strange things, they witness bizarre events.
But those stories other than in depictions,
some artwork and things like that...
... they're gone, for some reason they're just gone.
But left behind...
... are incredibly things that we have,
that make you wonder...
how in the heck were these things built?
Those are great mysteries, and I think...
... one of the things that keeps people...
... just continuing to push for the answers...
are the fact that these things are so out there,
that they can't figure it out.
But uncovering the mystery,
of just how these incredible structures were built...
will only solve one piece of the puzzle.
Finding out why they were built and how they were used,
poses equally compelling questions...
questions that may not be answerable, here on Earth.
Did aliens really inspire our ancestors to build ancient temples and pyramids?
And if they came here,
did they leave behind any advanced knowledge of physics,
... astronomy or mathematics?
If so, is there any evidence that remains to this day?
One example might be this one.
Often described as the world's first mechanical computer,
it dates back over 2000 years.
The Antikythera device was found in 1900 by sponge divers,
diving off a small island in the Aegean called Antikythera.
There was a ship wreck there, and...
in it was a coral-encrusted box.
And it was made of metal alloys,
and it then went to the Athens museum,
where a good 50 years later, they were able to X-Ray this box,
and they were able to discern,
cog wheels that were interconnected,
and give us a very good depiction of what this thing was.
And it is a computer. It's a really sophisticated machine.
It's a very interesting piece of technology because it serves two purposes.
One, was there was an astronomical device, where you could...
... by using it, chart the position of the stars
and navigate your way through the seas.
It was also an astrological device,
so that some could tell you,
ah, if you are born on this day and your planet sign is this,
then certain things are going to happen to you
when the planets are in this alignment.
So it was a very interesting piece of technology,
that literally had...
more complicated gears in...
inner workings than a modern day Swiss watch.
And it's found to be dated I think like 200 B.C.
So it's really an anomaly as to...
Who could have created that and what it was being used for?
When archaeologists first start examining this thing at the 1950s...
... they said that they never could conceived
of the ancient Greeks having such complicated machinery.
And in fact they said...
this was tantamount out to finding a jet airplane...
... in the tomb of King Tut.
Even older than the Antikythera mechanism...
are these carvings on a wall...
at the Dendera temple complex in Egypt.
To some...
the strange designs look eerily similar to objects very much in use today.
In Egypt, there it's this underground crypt, at Dendera,
that was always secret and only the high priests,
had access to that crypt.
It's very hot in there,
very narrow low ceiling,
and on the walls, you have this reliefs...
of what looks like...
... ancient light bulbs.
Because we have to question one thing.
How did the ancient Egyptians...
light the inside of their tombs?
According to most mainstream archaeologists...
torches were used by the ancient Egyptians
to light the pitch black chambers of tombs and temples.
Yet nowhere on the ceilings
is there even the slightest evidence of soot or smoke residue.
But if torches weren't used,
how else could this ancient rooms and hallways have been illuminated?
Another theory that was proposed,
is that the light was directed from outside by copper mirrors.
"And then there was... light".
"Hey, that is a neat trick".
And they've actually tried to recreate that theory,
but unfortunately they failed because only after a few corners,
the sunlight disappeared because...
the copper mirrors were too weak.
Also, there isn't enough oxygen inside those tombs,
with which to support or feed a flame of a torch.
I was once inside the King's Chamber, inside the Pyramid of Giza,
and somebody turn off the lights and immediately,
we were in pitch darkness.
And I said, "No problem,
I'll just take out my lighter from my satchel...
and I turned on the lighter...
... and it didn't worked.
So, how were the insides of the temples lit?
I mean, the only remaining solution is by some sort of an artificial light source.
And that is, for example a light bulb.
So, at an underground crypt at Dendera,
we find reliefs of such light bulbs.
Egyptologists explanation of this...
and they have to have some explanation, there's got to be one.
And has to be pretty mundane, it can't be that it is an electrical device.
Their explanation is that...
it is...
... a lotus flower.
... And what appears to be...
... a bulb around is the aroma...
... of the lotus flower.
And so it's just a very odd depiction of... a flower.
But another explanation of course would be...
they actually had electrical lights.
But if the ancient Egyptians had use some kind of electric light,
to illuminate their passage ways,
why is the visual evidence exists
only in the temple at Dendera?
In Egypt you have different areas...
... of specialty.
And Dendera... was the... area...
... where the knowledge of the light giving source...
... was kept.
And this secret knowledge, was kept by the high priests.
They're the only ones who are privy to this type of information.
Because Dendera was "The Special Place",
where this specific knowledge was guarded and kept.
The scientific community is not saying,
"Oh, there aren't extraterrestrials, or they never did it."
They are judging whether or not this is a valid scientific theory,
and would do I mean by that.
For something to be a scientific theory
it really needs to be something you can test
with the obvious experiment.
But how could the ancient Egyptians
have use anything resembling a modern day light bulb
without access to electricity?
After all,
electricity...
wouldn't be discovered for thousands of years.
That is of course...
... with the exception of what scientists call...
... the Baghdad battery.
The Baghdad battery was discovered in Ancient Iraq.
Scholars today say "There's no way that...
... ancient man was using electricity or light bulbs".
So they look at this Baghdad battery
there's about a dozen of them that
have been found in Iraq.
And the only mainstream theory
is that they were using it for electroplating jewelry.
Two major proponents of ancient aliens theory,
Jason Martel and Giorgio Tsoukalos,
demonstrate just how the Baghdad battery could generate electricity,
using a modern mock up of the device.
Well basically this is made of a clay pod,
clay just found naturally in that region in southern Iraq.
And then they would use a small copper lining,
and something along lines of an asphalt stopper wrapped around an iron rod.
And these all apply together.
And the combination of some weak acidic acid
vinegar, grape juice, orange juice in this case, wine...
would be able to generate a charge,
by combining these elements with the rod
and the iron rod and the copper
and the combination of that creates an abundance of electricity.
So, what we gonna do is basically just fill the clay pot
with some orange juice here. I'll try not to spill it too much.
Right...
And we go ahead and put the rod back in there, the copper and iron rod.
Will give it a moment to kind of fill that... copper area there.
And then by turning on the voltmeter...
... and applying this to each side,
we should be able to generate a charge.
And there it goes, into the positives.
And if we give it some time to get the electrolytes
really buzzing in there, you'll see that this volt will actually continue to rise.
But while some see the Baghdad battery
as evidence that man was spark on by extraterrestrial wisdom,
others look at it and simply say, "So what?"
You can take some ancient technology like the Baghdad battery
which probably was used for something like metal plating
in which you just mix chemicals and enhance certain chemical reactions
to it that they're using for this reason,
and we can take and put a voltmeter
and go "Oh look, we're able to get a reading out of it!"
Well... so what?
That's just a chemical reaction.
If they were using it, say... these battery to operate other machines
where are the other machines?
If they were sending the electricity down wires,
where are all the wires that would have been all over the culture.
In other words, its not like the... a one of a invention like that
is going to survive...
without all the other inventions that would have been there at the same time?
It is a battery, everybody agrees with that,
but nobody knows why they made it.
And how they made it, what mind would think of that.
You know, electrical current that several thousand years ago.
It's very strange, but its clearly a battery.
The whole idea that ancients civilizations
actually had knowledge of electricity and used electricity
is an accepted archaeological fact today.
Just like in our... own civilization where about 200 years ago,
Benjamin Franklin and other scientists began experimenting with
simple electrical devices,
We now have evidence...
... that...
... over 3000 years ago,
people were also experimenting with electrical devices.
Where might they have left them?
What other electrical devices would they have been able to create?
I believe they probably created all kinds of electrical devices.
Tombs,
temples,
ancient light bulbs,
even electricity.
Here on Earth exists evidence
of architectural and technological wonders,
centuries before we ever believe them possible.
But if evidence of ancient astronauts exists here on Earth,
what about elsewhere?
Might we find what we are looking for...
... by looking...
... in the sky.
Here at the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Mexico,
evidence suggests...
that ancient cultures possesed an incredibly accurate knowledge,
of our neighboring planets.
Some scholars have even interpreted the number
and orientation of its pyramids,
to perfectly reflect a model...
... of our own solar system.
Along the "Avenida de los muertos", the "Avenue of the Dead".
The pyramids there align in perfect distance...
of each of the orbit's...
of our planets in our solar system.
Perhaps significant is the fact that the large Pyramid of the Sun...
is positioned at the center of the other structures.
Reflecting the fact...
... that the Sun is at the center of our solar system,
... and that the planets, revolve around it.
It was a known fact back then already,
that the Sun was at the center of our solar system,
which "Western science" didn't find out until much, much later.
But just how could Teotihuacan's designers had known so early on...
... that the planets in our solar system, revolve around the sun?
Didn't that take...
many more centuries of scientific progress...
... and investigation to figure out?
Interestingly enough...
... debunkers will say,
"Oh, this is just coincidence".
That these pyramids are aligned...
with the planets of our solar system.
But, if we go on the other side of the planet,
to Stonehenge, we have another ancient site
which is way older by the way than Teotihuacan.
Where if you look at Stonehenge from a bird's eye view,
you see that these are all concentric circles,
and each of these circles corresponds exactly...
... with the orbit of all of our planets...
...in our solar system.
So we have two places on Earth where we have the same thing.
In recent years, Stonehenge has also been interpreted by some archaeologists
to be a kind of astronomical calendar,
one which could be used to calculate events, such as solar eclipses.
But if that were true,
whoever aligned these massive stones on the barren English landscape,
would have to have had precise astronomical knowledge of the path of the sun.
Built between the seventh and ninth centuries,
the stone temples of Tikal,
tower more than 200 ft above the Guatemalan rain forest.
Tikal is home to one of the largest excavation sites in the world,
one where thousands of structures, still remain buried beneath the jungle.
According to most scientists, Tikal's Pyramids played an essential part...
in helping the Mayans device their calendar.
By aligning the side lines between the highest points of the structures
ancient astronomers could pinpoint the most important dates of the year.
Such as an upcoming equinox...
... or solstice.
But, what also excites ancient astronaut theorists...
is how prefectly the layout of Tikal's pyramids...
correlate to the star map of the Pleiades Orion region of the sky.
An overhead view of the structures,
almost exactly mirrors the alignment of the constellation.
This same outline has been spotted in an area...
far from Tikal...
much...
... much further.
Recently discovered on the Mars...
is a cluster of land forms that offers a near perfect replication,
of the pyramid pattern of Tikal.
Three distinct locations,
one unique pattern.
Coincidence...
... or design?
At Tikal, the legends and the mythologies that we have,
all speak of a time...
when the gods intermingle and interconnected with our ancestors.
So Tikal also was built...
... as a message for future generations to see...
... that a long, long time ago,
we were visited by extraterrestrials.
Someone who have seen this had to have actually relay the information to them
because they couldn't just guess, so...
it really start to raise the question of saying,
this ancient astronaut theory really needs to have more light shed on the topic.
It's certanly possible that the ancient people not only measured
all of this... astronomy events
but were able to come up with a mathematical theory,
to put them together,
and then to predict new things.
We shouldn't think that the ancient people were dummies.
Early man, people in ancient times didn't have dashboard mounted GPS unit's.
They had those...
"Path of the sun through the sky",
"The path of the moon through the sky".
They could see the stars at night.
These were permanent fixtures that they could navigate from.
So, it's not surprising at all,
that almost every culture,
recorded astronomical phenomenon.
We never look up at the sky and enjoy the beauty of it.
Ancient people didn't have electricity,
the sky would be so dark and the stars would be so bright.
Not only that, but they relied on the sky
for directions...
for seasons in which to plant,
and for variety of things.
Today, with our GPS units, and navigation systems...
... and computers, we don't need to look at the sky.
I want to be very clear about one thing.
That our ancestors were as smart as we are today.
However, ...
I don't believe that ancient astronauts visited the Earth in the remote past.
I am convinced of it,
because of all the countless indications,
and pieces of evidence that we can find from all around the world,
in different ancient cultures,
in different mythologies and legends.
I know it happened, because if you look at all the pieces,
it's the only conclusion that you can draw.
But just why...
... were ancient people so focused on the sky...
... and the stars, in the first place?
Were they waiting for something to happened?
Or perhaps...
... for something,
... or someone,
... to return?
Four decades may have passed,
but the ideas put forth, by Erik Von Däniken,
are still captivating his followers,
and frustrating his skeptics...
... to this day.
Like an Old Testament prophet, or an ancient shaman,
the author is still out here, spreading his firmly held message,
that "We are not alone."
But while the proof of Von Däniken's theories may be debatable,
their influence on movies,
TV series,
and even radio programs...
... is undeniable.
It's a tremendous lightning rod for fiction and for fictional story-telling.
The classic "Battlestar Galactica" series starts with a narration that said,
"There are those who believe that life here began out there
with tribes of humans far across the universe,
who may have been the forefathers
of the Egyptians,
and the Toltecs,
and the Mayans.
You know that's, straight out of Von Däniken as in that kind of belief, you know.
It puts us in contact with an idea of mythological intelligence,
and that is one of the things as we as humans beings crave desperately.
Is to know that we are not alone in the world,
and that somebody else out there is either they looking after us
or coming to fight for us in that we unite against a common enemy.
I was reading lot of books from Erik Von Däniken,
and...
I can't imagine that's the true what he wrote in his books and so...
I can imagine this, that we had
help from aliens,
but...
I don't know, I'm not sure.
We only know so much in this world
and what we do now is so limited,
and everyday we're finding more.
It... requires us to ask more questions and bigger questions and think bigger.
It's possible that something from another planet came,
some other lifeform, intelligent lifeform came and
... to this.
I mean, who knows, it could be,
because the origins of many things are lost in antiquity,
all we have are remnants and shreds of evidence
to suggest what might have happened.
Someone told me that it was proven that aliens...
... had a part in this, I wouldn't be that surprised.
Why not?
To be honest, ancient astronaut theory has never crop up in a discussion...
... with my colleagues.
I don't care how many pints into it we've been,
we have never discussed ancient astronaut theory,
in any credible way whatsoever.
One of the good things about the ancient astronaut theory,
is that it make us think.
It... it...
brings out... the...
What about this?, What about that?.
We need explanations for all of these things.
And I think that one of the main reasons,
why mainstream archaeologists,
get a real knee-jerk reaction to the ancient astronaut theory,
is that, it's very disturbing to them,
because they don't have all the answers.
Now some of them may believe that life could exist in the universe.
But their bottom line is...
"Show me the proof, show it to me... for real".
"I want to see the spaceship, I want to see something concrete".
Not just a few pictures that everybody can interprete, as being...
... this... or that.
Farfetched,
ridiculous,
insane.
Ancient aliens visiting Earth centuries ago,
building monuments,
influencing scripture.
But what if all turned out to be true?
What would happened if just one piece of evidence turn up,
one stone,
one key,
that prove that Von Däniken had been right all along?
And if he is right,
what does that suggest about our future?
If alien visitors had come here before,
would they come... again?
Even I think the idea of aliens are visiting us,
it's very exciting, interesting, and it be really cool if that happen.
So get people excited about the question,
maybe they start thinking about it,
and like many thing they might ultimately
come to thinking of the Physics
or the Archaeology,
and get involved in the scientific process.
So that could be a positive side effect,
of these theories and their popularization.
If it turns out,
that ancient astronaut theory, is wrong,
I will be the first one to say,
"Ok, no problem"
But so far...
... certain pieces of evidence, have not been debunked.
If the ancient alien astronaut theory,
is somehow proven to be true,
this would be a huge boom...
to my work,
and to the search for other planets like Earth with life on them.
Because, if aliens astronauts have visited Earth in the distant past...
it means they pretty near by,
and it means that we don't have to look very far,
to find planets like Earth, with signs of life on them.
But evidence has to be treated with a great deal of caution,
because it has different meanings.
I'm not sure what the reaction of the population will be.
It will strike them, the general concept that our history of religions in the world,
needs be looked at again with more respect,
and also with more wonder, meaning
What are we suppose to make of this now, and what are we suppose be doing of this now.
If science detects life on Mars,
if science detects a UFO,
then we need to take what science is saying to us,
and begin to re-think about ourselves...
... on Earth,
in light of the possibility of new life.
Does that change our understanding of God?
It should, if anything, broaden it.
If we do find alien life, we should rejoice.
And honestly the way things are going on this planet right now,
I would welcomed a visitation every once in a while, a little help.
There is no doubt that my hypothesis
will be accepted by the mainstream.
It maybe a question of just 5 or 10 years.
Sooner or later we will have contact with someone out there,
and then, the thinking...
... they will return.
And if you don't listen to Erik Von Däniken,
you will have the... "Shock of the Gods".