Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Cultural artifacts...

obliterated.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: It is absolutely barbaric!

They're destroying our cultural heritage.

NARRATOR: Irreplaceable texts reduced to smoldering ash.

NICK POPE: It's as if the roots of human civilization itself

are being hidden from us.

NARRATOR: And sacred lands

looted under the cover of darkness.

WILLIAM HENRY: Armed men spent three days digging

and left with something in tow.

What exactly it was, nobody knows.

NARRATOR: Throughout history, mankind's most ancient

and sacred sites have been

plagued by conflict and warfare.

But could this constant turmoil

really be part of an otherworldly agenda?

DAVID WILCOCK: Could an extraterrestrial intelligence

be deliberately thwarting

any effort for itself to be discovered

from the ancient records?

NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization,

mankind has credited its origins to gods

and other visitors from the stars.

What if it were true?

Did extraterrestrial beings

really help to shape our history?

And if so,

might the most compelling evidence

lie hidden in forbidden zones?

NARRATOR: Northern Iraq.

20 miles south of Mosul lies

the ancient Assyrian capital city of Nimrud.

Built over 3,000 years ago

in the 13th century B.C.,

the site is an archaeological treasure trove.

Among the antiquities found here

are monumental statues

of winged lions with human-heads,

and massive relief carvings

depicting the ancient gods of Mesopotamia.

(indistinct shouting)

But on March 6, 2015,

militants from the Islamic State

stormed the ancient site,

violently destroying

everything in their path.

After obliterating irreplaceable relics,

they wired the entire site with explosives

and leveled it completely...

forever wiping it from the face of the Earth.

This group seems to be more destructive

than just about anything people can recall in history.

It's almost as if we're being orphaned from our past.

We are having our parentage,

our ancestors, cut off from us;

The record of them.

It is absolutely barbaric what is going on currently

in the Middle East

with some factions going deliberately

to ancient sites

and just eradicating

our cultural heritage.

NARRATOR: This volatile region

is widely considered

to have been the cradle of civilization.

And its archaeological destruction

could mean the loss of information about mankind's

historical past.

Iraq, Syria... What we call the Middle East,

uh, or the Near East, uh,

is called the cradle of civilization for a reason.

Anthropologically,

this appears to be the place

where the first humans arose.

This is where people came from.

And all of the earliest civilizations,

cities, governments,

come from this region.

NARRATOR: In the 21st Century,

the violence and destruction

have reached an unprecedented level,

but the Middle East has been embroiled

in conflict for thousands of years.

The Islamic state today is doing what the Taliban did before,

which is doing what Byzantine Christians and Jews

before them have all done.

They don't want any graven images.

So because of their religious beliefs,

they are basically destroying

our own cultural heritage for religious purposes.

And like human lives,

many of these you can't get back.

NARRATOR: Since 1990,

the Middle East has seen the destruction

of cultural heritage on an unprecedented scale.

A scale not seen since the Christian vandalism

that began during the Roman Empire.

Over 700,000 archaeological,

cultural and religious artifacts

have been stolen or destroyed.

And over 200 significant historical sites

have been completely left in ruins.

The Middle East seems to be

in an almost permanent state of instability.

Is this deliberate?

Is someone keeping it that way?

Maybe to prevent us from discovering something?

Is there something

that would fundamentally change our understanding

of who we are and where we come from?

TSOUKALOS: It is absolutely horrifying

to see the erasing of our history.

And what's worse all of these ancient sites

are one giant piece of the puzzle

that we might have been visited

in the past by extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: For thousands of years,

northern Africa,

the Middle East and India

have been in an almost constant state of unrest.

But also in Southeast Asia,

the regions of Kashmir and Tibet

are considered among the most disputed territories

in the world.

And halfway across the globe,

the northern triangle of Central America...

Which includes Guatemala,

El Salvador and Honduras...

Has been declared the deadliest region

on Earth

outside of active war zones.

Could there be a reason that these specific areas

experience so much chaos?

ERICH VON DANIKEN: It might be that on such places,

the extraterrestrials descended some thousands of years ago,

on such places, they have, uh, hidden something.

GEORGE NOORY: There could be

something special about the sites.

These are areas that are so important

to the things that have happened on this planet.

And, I still think that the knowledge,

and the success of where we go as people

on planet Earth

is directly related to those areas.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that there is

an otherworldly connection

between certain areas of global conflict

and places of significant archaeological importance?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest

there could very well be so-called

forbidden zones on planet Earth...

Areas that extraterrestrial entities

want to keep humans from exploring?

But if so, why?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining a conflict

in another volatile region,

where some of mankind's greatest treasures are being looted

from beneath the desert sands.

NARRATOR: Cairo, Egypt.

2011.

(shouting)

In what has come to be known as the Arab Spring,

riots break out throughout Egypt.

Protesters demand the resignation

of President Hosni Mubarak.

(shouting, chanting)

With the media and law enforcement

focused on the demonstrations,

looters gain greater freedom

to pillage Egypt's ancient sites

and artifacts.

MARTIN: For many people,

getting rid of Mubarak was just a license

to profit from the new situation.

They would loot archaeological sites.

They were suddenly free of the dictator

and a lot of them went crazy.

HENRY: During the Arab Spring, insiders told me

that trucks loaded with deep digging equipment

accompanied by armored vehicles and armed men,

spent three days digging in the sands outside Cairo

and left with something in tow.

What exactly it was, nobody knows.

ERIN NELL: Guards were powerless to do anything to stop it.

This created a huge amount of havoc,

just because of the lack of security

and the intentions of certain people

to steal Egyptian antiquities.

You can tell from the satellite imagery

the increase in different holes in the ground,

you know, looters' pits that they've dug.

This is the site of Dahshur.

This picture was taken in 2010.

But when you look at this one over here,

I think this was taken in 2013,

the difference between the two is pretty amazing.

Look at all these pits that were dug by looters.

When it comes to Egypt,

everyone's familiar with the pyramids,

but really that's only a tiny part

of what survives of that ancient

and sophisticated civilization.

NARRATOR: According to modern archaeologists,

less than one percent of ancient Egypt

has been discovered and excavated.

But how is it that such a pivotal ancient culture

disappeared unnoticed into the desert sands?

NELL: There were several different cultures

that came in with armies... The Nubians,

the Assyrians were in there once,

the Persians twice

and then the Greeks.

When the Romans took over,

they just drained it of Egyptian religion and culture.

So when the Arabs came in, in 641,

most of these temples were at least halfway covered in sand,

so all you have are these huge magnificent columns

kind of coming out of the ground.

The Sphinx, you know, was buried right up to his head.

POPE: By the time Napoleon got to Egypt,

the hieroglyphs were indecipherable.

No one knew what these things were, what they meant.

We had to re-learn it.

It was only with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone

that we got our first insight

into what these hieroglyphs might actually be saying.

NARRATOR: But is Egypt's long history

of political unrest merely man-made,

or is there something extraterrestrial at work?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that further answers

can be found still buried in the desert sands.

I think if you could blow all the sand away

from the Middle East and Egypt,

you would find incredible relics.

I also think that information about extraterrestrials

is probably deeply hidden away

under the sands of that region.

NARRATOR: Abydos, Egypt.

February 2011.

300 miles south of Cairo,

looters target what was once

the most sacred site to the ancient Egyptians

during the time of the Pharaohs.

It was here that Egypt's first rulers were buried

and the earliest forms of hieroglyphs were found,

as well as an inscription bearing the names and chronology

of the first kings of Ancient Egypt.

Abydos was considered sacred to the god Osiris,

Lord of the Dead

and Egypt's first otherworldly ruler.

According to ancient legends,

his dismembered head was buried at the site.

ANDREW COLLINS: So who was Osiris?

Was he simply an ancestor

of the ancient Egyptians?

Or was he a god

that descended to Earth,

you know, from the sky world?

Obviously, we cannot say today.

But we know he was said to have existed in an age

that was known as Zep Tepi, the First Time.

NARRATOR: In the 13th century B.C.,

the Pharaoh Seti I

was building his temple here in Abydos,

when... according to some accounts...

He had an encounter with the god Osiris.

HENRY: When King Seti was building his temple,

he had a dream in which

the Egyptian god Osiris appeared to him.

And he told Seti

that if he was to dig behind his temple location,

that he would find something of enormous significance.

Seti digs 40 feet beneath the temple

and finds the tomb of Osiris.

NARRATOR: For hundreds of years,

no such tomb was known to exist in Abydos.

But at the turn of the 20th century,

archaeologists digging

behind the temple of Seti I

unearthed a massive underground structure

consisting of granite and sandstone blocks,

some weighing nearly 60 tons.

The Osirion, as it is now known,

was found buried under 40 feet of silt.

And ancient astronaut theorists are convinced

that further excavations would reveal

something much more profound hidden within it.

HENRY: The interesting thing about it

is that on the exterior wall of the Temple of Seti

is inscribed what is called

the head or tower of Osiris,

what looks like some kind of

an ancient antennae-type of a device.

It's clearly technological or mechanical-looking.

According to legend,

it has been buried and is awaiting rediscovery.

WILCOCK: Abydos is a veritable treasure trove

of artifacts, ancient records,

inscriptions on temple walls

of people who look very different than us.

There are repositories of ancient technologies

that are still hiding under the desert sands.

There's a lot of vested interest

these extraterrestrials... The gods... might have

in keeping these things hidden from us.

NARRATOR: Could it be that Abydos holds alien technology

that was deliberately hidden from mankind?

Is the instability in this region...

Like that in other forbidden zones...

Somehow being generated by extraterrestrials

that want to keep humanity from rediscovering it?

And if so, just how are they accomplishing this?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining the latest scientific breakthroughs

in using technology to incite violence.

NARRATOR: Lhasa, Tibet.

Situated nearly 12,000 feet above sea level,

the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, or "Place of the Gods,"

has long been considered

one of the least accessible areas of the world.

For over three decades,

Tibet was entirely closed off to outsiders

after the forcible takeover of the region

and exile of its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama

in 1959 by the Chinese Army.

During their siege of the city,

Chinese Red Guards systematically destroyed

temples, frescoes,

and ancient religious texts.

It's a terrible legacy... from the Great Library at Alexandria,

the library at Sarajevo, more recently in Phnom Penh.

Other stories like the Nazi book burning... there seems

to be this thing that happens where some revolutionary energy

wants to destroy the cultural treasures of the past.

CARGILL: When one culture conquers another culture,

you want to kill their ideology,

and the way that you do that is you burn their books.

You banish their ideas.

You banish their language.

You banish their religious practices.

You burn the ancient records.

(shouting)

NARRATOR: Throughout history, military conflict has resulted

not only in loss of life

but also the destruction of cultural heritage.

And even when setting out to colonize the New World,

early explorers and missionaries systematically eradicated

what they considered to be pagan texts

and mythologies of Native American,

Mesoamerican, and Polynesian tribes they encountered.

They destroy artifacts. They bury sites.

It's almost as if

this is a deliberate blotting out of the past.

It's as if the roots

of human civilization itself are being hidden from us.

CHILDRESS: With the destruction of knowledge,

we may well be losing our connection to the gods,

extraterrestrials of the past, how they interacted

with us, what they wanted us to do.

WILCOCK: Why is it that these records

continually seem to get misplaced

or they get burned or they get destroyed

or they're deliberately ruined?

Is it possible that there is, in fact,

an ongoing extraterrestrial presence

that has somehow infiltrated into our society?

Could this extraterrestrial intelligence

be deliberately thwarting any effort for itself

to be discovered from the ancient records?

(horse neighs)

NARRATOR: Could there really be aliens among us

inciting conflict, as some

ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

And, if so,

might we find this conflict

concentrated in so-called forbidden zones?

But why?

And perhaps even more importantly,

how has this violent behavior been accomplished?

Pasadena, California.

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology

identify a set of neurons

in the hypothalamus of mouse brains

that correspond to aggression.

Through a technique called optogenetics,

the group uses pulses of light to activate the neurons

and instantaneously incite violence in the mice.

There are many ways in which we can affect or manipulate

the brain or brain function.

And there's a really exciting new technique

called optogenetics.

And although it's not being used in humans yet,

it's being used in animal trials.

And what that is is they actually manipulate a virus

so that it becomes a delivery system for a gene

that's taken from a photosensitive algae.

And that gene is then delivered to specific neurons,

and then those neurons are triggered to fire via light.

You can control the behavior of the animal via remote control

in the sense all you have to do

is trigger the different types of receptors to fire.

If you actually go in and stimulate

the prefrontal cortex,

you can cause animals to act out.

NARRATOR: In 2010,

scientists at Osaka University and at the University of Texas

publish separate findings both indicating

that up to eight percent of the human genome comes from viruses

and not from our ancestral DNA.

Could this help explain

how extraterrestrials might be able

to incite humans to violence,

just as researchers have used viruses

to trigger aggression in mice?

NOORY: Somebody genetically altered us

a long, long time ago,

and they intentionally put in this ability to become violent.

There's no question that people could be manipulated,

could be used to do all kinds of things

and they wouldn't even know it.

We are simply a pawn

on an extraterrestrial chess game that they can move

and manipulate any time they want,

that they serve up, at their whim, whenever they want.

There's no question about that.

NARRATOR: Could humans be artificially stimulated

to create acts of violence,

as some ancient astronaut theorists propose?

And might this stimulation be targeted to people

living in certain regions of the world?

Perhaps the answers can be found

buried deep in the jungles of Guatemala.

(birds chirping)

NARRATOR: Deep in the jungles of Guatemala lie the ruins

of the ancient Mayan city of El Mirador.

Dating back to at least the fifth century BC,

the site is believed to predate the classic Mayan civilization.

But, curiously, it was abruptly abandoned around 150 BC.

Western archaeologists rediscovered the site in 1979

in an area currently controlled

by one of the most feared drug cartels in the region.

Today, armed soldiers stand guard

just outside the archaeological site

that is larger than Manhattan

and contains one of the tallest pyramids in the world.

ED BARNHART: El Mirador, in fact, has dozens of pyramids.

Many of them are as big

as anything that the classic Maya made.

But it's also one of their very oldest cities.

NARRATOR: But perhaps the most intriguing discovery

at El Mirador is a carving believed to be a depiction

of the Mayan creation story known as the Popol Vuh.

It dates back more than 2,000 years

and is the oldest known version to survive

after Central America was overtaken

by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century.

TSOUKALOS: The conquistadors requested

for all these different Mayan codices to be destroyed.

And so after this pillaging and destruction happened,

the Popol Vuh was re-created by the ruling elite at the time.

And, to the best of their abilities,

they tried to put on paper

their histories and their mythologies of their ancestors.

But these stories go back much further back in time.

The Popol Vuh is foundational to Maya civilization.

As foundational as the Bible is to Christianity.

But now, things like what we found

at El Mirador are telling us

that that story goes back at least to 200 BC.

And that's exciting.

Now we have a continuity of the Popol Vuh

being pivotal to Maya people

all the way back to their origins.

NARRATOR: Curiously, the Popol Vuh narrative

and the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis

contain many similarities,

including the stories concerning the creation of the world,

animals, and then, finally mankind.

- (thunderclaps) - They both include stories

of a great flood.

And in both texts, it is suggested

that there is information

purposely kept from mankind by his creator.

But what is unique to the Popol Vuh is an account

of an earlier time

when humans had access to greater knowledge.

YOUNG: In the great Mayan creation narrative,

the Popol Vuh, the gods created humans,

and they had terrific knowledge.

So much so that it worried the gods.

And so they put a veil over the consciousness of the people

so that they could only see

what was right there in front of them.

They limited their ability to know.

WILLIAM BRAMLEY: The earliest human beings in the Popol Vuh...

They were very smart.

They basically understood things.

They could see things.

And so, the gods of creation said, "Oh, we can't have this."

"So what we have to do is,

we have to put a screen over that vision."

Knowledge became less and less available

to the overall population.

What happened to the humans who were smarter than us?

Were they, in fact, the ancient Egyptians,

the Sumerians and many other ancient cultures?

These areas, apparently, would have

all of the records that we would need to completely

rebuild our history.

These are the most unstable areas on Earth.

Could this be why?

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that ancient humans possessed greater knowledge

than we currently do today,

as the Mayan mythology seems to suggest?

If so, who were these gods

that the Mayans believed to be their creators?

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

their true identity might be revealed

by examining one of the carvings contained

within the Popol Vuh...

The so-called "Hero Twins."

If you look at that carving, the guy is clearly wearing a helmet,

and he has this backpack.

And he's actually floating in space,

or he is descending from the sky.

You have, uh, what seem to be like some kind of helmet.

And even one of the figures looks like a flying saucer.

Could these stone carvings be

depictions of ancient astronauts?

And if that is the case, then it would indicate

that these extraterrestrials have actually created us.

And in fact, they're still here today,

manipulating us and guiding us into the future.

NARRATOR: Do the carvings at El Mirador contain information

about mankind's past that we were not meant to discover?

If so, could it be

that extraterrestrials have been creating barriers and warfare

to prevent us from learning about our true origins?

Or is there an even more profound explanation?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest the ultimate proof

of just what they are trying to hide can be found

by examining one of the most fought-over sites on Earth...

Temple Mount.

(gunfire, shouting and chatter)

(loud shouting)

NARRATOR: Jerusalem, October, 2014.

(gunfire)

Amidst tension and violence after the assassination attempt

on a Jewish activist,

Israeli authorities shut down

the sacred site of Temple Mount.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas

pronounces the closure "a declaration of war."

And although access to the temple is quickly restored,

many fear that a third intifada, or holy war, is now inevitable.

That was the uprising that the Palestinians engaged in.

This was their revolution.

It began first in 1987, and was waged for five years.

Then, in 2000, it lasted for another five years.

There was tremendous violence

between Palestinians and Israelis.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that

the Temple Mount would be a flashpoint

for all these conflicts.

NARRATOR: The Temple Mount is a 35-acre platform

that has long had great significance to Jews,

Christians and Muslims.

It is revered in the Jewish tradition

as the place where God gathered the dust to create Adam,

where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac

to prove his faith to God,

and where King Solomon built the First Temple

to house the Ark of the Covenant.

Christians honor the site

as the location of some of Jesus's most sacred teachings.

And for Muslims, Temple Mount...

Which they refer to as "the Noble Sanctuary,"

or "Haram al-Sharif"...

Is believed to be the location

where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven

on the back of a winged horse.

The three monotheistic faiths...

Judaism, Christianity and Islam...

All believe that God has a special connection to this area.

They all believe that this is where people will ascend

to Heaven when the day of judgment comes.

They all want it, but they don't want to share it.

(shouting)

FANTHORPE: Temple Mount has been a holy place

for many, many generations.

And there are strange religious traditions,

rumors, legends of what lies underneath it.

And the idea is, there is something so precious

underneath it that God himself intervenes to protect it.

NARRATOR: Could there really be some powerful force

contained within Temple Mount?

Is that why three religions are at such odds

over this sacred site?

Some researchers and religious scholars suggest

that Temple Mount may not only serve

as a place of spiritual connection,

but also as a gateway to other points in the universe.

The Temple Mount has long been considered

to be a portal to Heaven.

It is said that when the patriarch Jacob rested

one night, he placed stones on the ground.

And there, he saw a ladder ascending to Heaven,

where the angels were going up and coming down.

This was always known to have been a vortex, a portal.

NARRATOR: A ladder descending from Heaven?

A visitation site for otherworldly beings?

Could it really be that the significance of Temple Mount

is not what's under it but the location itself?

WILCOCK: It could very well be

that there was a natural area on the Earth

that the Temple Mount was deliberately built around

and that natural physics that we don't yet understand

in conventional science allow for there to be a slipstream

between realities, a gateway, a parting of the veil

between this world and other parallel universes.

POPE: There have been a number of UFO sightings

around the Temple Mount.

MAN: Whoa!

Is the site important not just to human religions

but does it have some special significance

for extraterrestrials?

Is that why this site is so untouchable?

(bystanders gasping)

NARRATOR: Do sacred sites like Temple Mount in Jerusalem

not only hold secrets about mankind's origins

but possibly even serve as portals

to other parts of the universe?

And, if so, might the turmoil in various forbidden zones

be due in part to extraterrestrials

that want to keep humanity from discovering the truth?

Perhaps the answers can be found

by reexamining what some claim

is the motivation behind the Western invasion of Iraq.

NARRATOR: Iraq.

March 19, 2003.

The United States military

begins its Shock and Awe air campaign

over the city of Baghdad.

It is a preemptive strike aimed

to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein,

who the government believes

is in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

POPE: Saddam Hussein wanted to make Iraq

a regional and perhaps a global superpower.

He spoke about himself as the new Nebuchadnezzar.

NARRATOR: Nebuchadnezzar II

was the great Babylonian warrior king,

most famously known for rebuilding and expanding

the Babylonian Empire in the sixth century BC.

His armies conquered Egypt

as well as ransacking and destroying.

Solomon's Temple in 597 BC.

MARTIN: Saddam Hussein went nuts.

He believed he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar,

so he ordered massive reconstruction of Babylon,

which was done with bricks bearing his name on them.

Everyone would come to respect the ancient Nebuchadnezzar

and the new Nebuchadnezzar.

HENRY: The missing piece to the puzzle of why we went to war

with Iraq is the understanding

that Saddam Hussein sought to outdo

what Nebuchadnezzar had accomplished

in his earlier life.

The ultimate accomplishment of Nebuchadnezzar

was the opening of the fiery furnace.

Nebuchadnezzar had gone to Jerusalem,

looted and leveled the Temple of Solomon,

and he brought the wise men of the temple

back to Babylon with him.

What happened in the story is absolutely amazing.

These three wise men enter this fiery furnace.

Not only did they come back out in perfect condition...

They weren't alone.

They came back with an extraterrestrial visitor in tow.

In today's terms, we would obviously call this

a stargate or a portal.

Saddam knew this.

Saddam Hussein's esoteric interests

were probably like those of the Nazis,

aimed at uncovering some power,

some technology, some relic that would enable him

to become this world leader that he dreamed of being.

There's one theory that the Iraq War

was actually a war about a stargate.

Saddam Hussein, so the theory goes,

got access to this stargate,

maybe threatened to use it.

Was that why the allied powers went in?

It sounds farfetched, but this theory is widely believed.

NARRATOR: Is it possible the United States military

was pursuing more than weapons of mass destruction

when they invaded Iraq?

Could something of great significance,

perhaps a portal to another world,

have been found amongst the chaos?

And if there are truths

about extraterrestrial involvement with our planet

hidden in forbidden zones,

just what would happen when the truth is finally revealed?

WILCOCK: With the knowledge that's coming into view now

as we're reconstructing bit by bit, piece by piece

this tile mosaic of ancient history,

we're gaining the ability to reconstruct the view

of what really happened to us and what it means to be human

and our relationship to the greater cosmos that's around us.

NOORY: If you believe in the extraterrestrial presence,

it was always to kind of keep us down

so that we wouldn't get that much knowledge.

They want to keep us ignorant and fighting and greedy.

It's very possible that we will never know

what happened on this planet a long time ago.

TSOUKALOS: It's our own test,

and the reason why no official contact has taken place yet

is because we ourselves are on the verge

of destroying this planet.

So my suggestion is

we first have to learn how to interact with each other

before being allowed to receive this knowledge.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the perpetual violence

experienced in certain parts of the world

is more than just a consequence of political

and religious conflict?

Could it be that it is actually spurred on

by extraterrestrial forces,

forces that are trying to hide the truth

about mankind's origins?

Perhaps once we have proven

that we can conquer our aggression and anger,

we will be able to access this knowledge

and join our creators in the stars.