Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Legends of ant men...

MAN: They have antennae. They have elongated skulls.

NARRATOR: Beetles buried with Egyptian mummies...

SECOND MAN: The scarab was critical for the resurrection.

NARRATOR: And swarms of locusts targeting humans.

THIRD MAN: It's almost as if the locusts themselves

were programmed.

NARRATOR: In cultures throughout the world,

insects have been worshipped, feared,

and even thought of as gods.

But might these strange creatures

that have inhabited Earth

for hundreds of millions of years

provide a link to extraterrestrial beings?

FOURTH MAN: The idea that insect aliens are coming here

to this planet,

interacting with humans may well be based on something real.

NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world believe

we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true?

Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history?

And if so is there a connection between aliens and insects?

NARRATOR: The Nile Delta, Egypt.

A small, centimeters-wide trail

is cut in the desert floor

by the rolling cocoon of a dung beetle.

This strange-looking two-inch long insect,

also called a scarab, uses the dung

as both a source of nourishment

and a place for storing its eggs.

It will roll the ball in a straight line

despite all obstacles and is the only insect on Earth

known to navigate by following

the light of the Milky Way galaxy.

Biologists just made this discovery in 2013...

but 5,000 years ago with presumably no knowledge

of its unique connection to the stars,

the ancient Egyptians held the scarab as a sacred symbol,

representing a link to the gods.

MAN: Interesting that a great civilization could pay

so much attention to a little bug,

but it appears constantly

throughout Egyptian temples and hieroglyphics.

It's a very frequent image.

NARRATOR: At the Temple of Karnak,

overlooking the Sacred Lake

where the pharaohs received their coronation,

a giant scarab beetle stands watch,

representing the Egyptian god Khepri.

The Egyptians saw the sun moving across the sky during the day.

Also, around the desert sands,

you'd see beetles moving balls of dung.

And so the Egyptians thought that the force that moved

the sun across the sky was a giant scarab beetle god, Khepri.

And they believe that the sun was what is known

as the eye of Ra, which was Ra's chariot or his flying machine.

And the thing that moved it, they believed,

was the scarab-headed god, Khepri.

And the scarab represented Khepri, the pilot, if you like,

of Ra's sun ship or barge.

He was basically a pilot to the gods.

NARRATOR: But could there be another explanation

for why the Egyptians regarded Khepri as a pilot?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that the representation of Khepri as a scarab

and sometimes as a human with a scarab head...

may have been inspired by actual contact

the Egyptians had with an otherworldly being.

MAN: One has to wonder whether or not these beings

actually existed, because the ancient Egyptians

were incredibly proud in carving their history

into countless of walls.

And according to the ancient astronaut theory,

we all came about

through a deliberate mutation of our genes.

And so it is entirely possible, in my opinion,

that some of those creatures that we see

depicted in reliefs and in carvings

might have actually existed in the past.

NARRATOR: Is it possible the ancient Egyptians

could have encountered alien beings

that had an insect-like appearance?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes...

and as further evidence point to the fact

that the Egyptians' obsession with the scarab

also extended to their funerary rituals.

The Valley of the Kings, Egypt, November 1922.

Archaeologist Howard Carter discovers

the tomb of King Tutankhamen.

Among the treasure trove of artifacts found inside is

the young pharaoh's breastplate,

which features a scarab as the centerpiece.

The scarab is made of a yellow silica glass stone procured

from the Sahara, originally formed 28 million years ago

when the sand was superheated by a comet strike.

But why would the ancient Egyptians place a scarab,

and one sculpted from material produced by a cosmic event,

at the center of their pharaoh's funerary breastplate?

Curiously, scarabs always played an integral role

in the Egyptians' mummification process,

often included during the wrapping of the body.

In between those wrappings, the Egyptians put

a number of charms which served

not just a preservation function

but a magical function.

KRITSKY: There was a heart scarab

which was placed on the body.

We also find other scarabs

sometimes knitted into the linen of the deceased.

The scarab was thought to be critical for the resurrection,

because of its power and necessity for it to be present

when the sun rose in the morning.

The idea was, is that the soul, or even the body,

of the person that had departed

was carried by scarab beetles along the path

to the next life, to the next dimension.

It's almost as if the scarab beetle was some kind of device,

not an insect, but a device that actually allows travel

from one place to another.

Where did the Egyptians get the idea of resurrection

and this idea that we could be reborn as star beings?

It seems as if they were given this idea by Khepri.

NARRATOR: Could the inclusion of scarab-shaped objects

in the mummification process have been inspired

by an actual encounter with the scarab god Khepri?

To some ancient astronaut theorists,

it's not just the presence of scarabs that suggests

the Egyptians made a connection between insects

and the afterlife.

They say the mummification process

also mimics insect metamorphosis itself.

BARA: The similarities between mummification

and the cocooning process that a caterpillar goes through

before it becomes a moth are really quite incredible.

I think what the Egyptians were trying to do is actually cocoon

the human being so that when he emerged into the next life

at the next level up, he would be transformed

into something greater, more powerful,

and epically more beautiful.

MAN: This does mimic in nature

what we would see with a pupa or a chrysalis,

in which the caterpillar actually creates

a hard outer shell around itself,

and the material of the caterpillar's body

actually turns into a broth before it reconstitutes

into what ultimately emerges as a butterfly.

NARRATOR: While most people associate metamorphosis

with a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly,

beetles, like the scarab,

undergo a complete metamorphosis as well.

The hatched larva inside the ball of dung emerges

fully developed and capable of flight.

To the ancient Egyptians, it seemed the sacred scarab

had miraculously regenerated inside its cocoon.

The actual scarab beetle in ancient Egyptian

was called something that means "he that comes from nowhere,"

which is basically what the name Khepri means.

"He comes from nowhere. He can make himself exist."

NARRATOR: Much like the scarab emerging from its cocoon,

the Egyptians believed a mummified body could rise

from its sarcophagus as a transformed being

and live once again.

MAGLIOCCO: Part of the soul was inexorably attached to the body,

so in order for that part of the soul to live on

in the afterlife, the body had to be preserved

as closely as possible to the way that it had existed in life.

KRITSKY: The idea of the Egyptian soul is

so alien from our own that it's difficult to put parallels on.

For example, the Egyptians' concept of the soul

had five parts.

The Ba and the Ka are two in particular.

And part of their mythology was that the Ba must return

to the body... enter the body...

So that the body can rise and live again.

It's possible that the mummification process was

some kind of replication of this process

that the extraterrestrials went through,

and even the possibility that the mummies themselves were

going into some kind of larval stage and suspended animation,

where they would emerge eventually

into some kind of new body like the extraterrestrials did.

NARRATOR: While the scarab dominates Egyptian symbolism,

another beetle common to this part of the world,

the buprestid beetle, has a direct tie

to the Egyptians' most important god, Osiris.

KRITSKY: Buprestid beetles, when bothered by a predator,

actually tuck their legs up and lie perfectly still.

And the way they hold their limbs is very similar

to the way Osiris would be represented

in some tomb paintings.

Well, it turns out the buprestid beetle is found

in the tamarisk wood, and that is the wood

that comes from a tree that was part of the Osiris legend.

Actually becomes the Djed pillar.

And when Isis split this pillar, she found Osiris inside

and this beautiful beetle inside.

And so it's quite possible that this beetle may have

a relationship to the mummification process.

NARRATOR: But does the ancient Egyptian worship of a beetle

really suggest an encounter with insect-like extraterrestrials?

Could they be mimicking misunderstood technology

or might there be another explanation?

Perhaps further clues can be found

in the numerous ancient stories of ant people.

NARRATOR: Cambridge University, England, 2013.

Using a high-speed camera with intense magnification,

scientists from the department of zoology record

the movement of a plant-hopping insect called lssus.

Examining the footage, they make a shocking discovery.

The movement of the lssus is powered by mechanical gears.

It is the world's first evidence of mechanical gearing

in a biological structure.

This natural cog mechanism allows the lssus to make

powerful jumps with the gear teeth on the opposing hind legs

locking together like those in the gearbox of a car,

ensuring almost complete synchronicity of leg movement.

But how did a biological entity

develop mechanisms that appear manmade?

KRITSKY: Insects are essentially evolution's Tinkertoy set.

Insects were the first animal group to evolve

the ability to fly on their own power.

Insects have an exoskeleton,

which is almost like a living armor.

NARRATOR: In terms of sheer numbers,

insects are by far the most dominant life-form

on Earth, and with over one million different species,

they also remain the most mysterious.

KRITSKY: Insects appeared on the Earth

over 400 million years before humans appeared on the Earth.

They were incredibly successful,

well before the age of the dinosaurs,

and a long time before humans.

MAN: About half of the living creatures on the planet belong

to the group of insects.

They've really found ways to inhabit

just about every ecological niche in nature.

They have compound eyes, which in some cases,

they can see into the ranges that humans cannot,

like ultraviolet.

KRITSKY: They have a very sophisticated sensory system

that makes them different from what we can perceive.

For example, insects taste, smell, and feel

with the hairs on their body.

When they land on you, they're smelling you,

they're tasting you, they're feeling you.

There are upwards of a million species of insects

evolved so far.

So we may think of ourselves as being special, but in reality,

insects are the most successful animal group

that's ever evolved.

NARRATOR: In the more than 400 million years

that insects are believed to have existed,

no bug has thrived more than the ant.

KRITSKY: Ants are among the most successful animal groups

that we see on the face of the Earth.

One out of every 4 individual animals on the face of the Earth

is an ant.

Ants are incredible insects.

And they're highly evolved.

NARRATOR: In size and appearance, ants and humans

could not be more different.

But interestingly, in many ways,

these tiny bugs are more like us

than any other creature in the animal kingdom.

KRITSKY: Ants have a social system

where they have a division of labor.

You have a reproductive queen.

You have males that will mate with the queen.

You have sub-reproductives that can leave the colony

and start new colonies.

Then you've got a series of workers.

And then there are specialized workers that are soldiers

that can actually protect the colony if they're under attack.

So they're rather intriguing with regard to their behavior.

NARRATOR: But how is it that the behavior of ants

mirrors that of humans in so many ways?

Is it simply coincidence?

Or could ants and humans be more closely related than we think?

Ancient Greece.

In both Homer's "Illiad" and Ovid's "Metamorphoses,"

there is a group of warriors known as the Myrmidon,

who are born of mysterious origins.

According to the Ovid...

King Aeacus of Aegina pleads with the god Zeus to repopulate

his plague-ravaged country.

That night, he dreams that ants

fall from the branch of a tree and turn into men.

He awakes the next morning to find his dream has come true.

YOUNG: The story of the Myrmidons is

that they were ants made into warriors.

They were said to have fought with Achilles at Troy

and they were very effective.

BARA: The descriptions of the ant people are

very, very accurate in terms of the behavior

of the insect the ant itself.

They were very loyal.

They moved together as one, almost in a hive mentality.

KRITSKY: The Myrmidons were thought to be

the first to develop ships, and to sail under their own power.

This ability to be organized like an army

comes from the ants marching in a nice linear fashion.

The idea about being the first to sail comes

from the ant's ability to raft.

Ants will get on the surface tension of water and lock legs.

Other ants will climb on top, and this little mound of ants

will float around on the surface of water.

In the case of the Myrmidons, these were fierce warriors.

They were well-trained. They were organized just like ants.

BARA: These descriptions are so vivid and so accurate

in terms of the ants' behavior

that what Zeus seems to have done is actually some sort of

genetic crossbreeding between humans and insects

in order to create this army of ant people.

You're dealing with an extremely advanced technology

that really, really understands how to use genetic manipulation

to create new species.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Myrmidons depicted

in the ancient Greek stories were

actually some type of ant-and-human hybrid

manufactured by an alien being?

Ancient astronaut theorists claim further evidence

that ants may have a connection to extraterrestrials

can be found in stories throughout numerous cultures.

In the Muslim holy book the Quran,

there is a story of ants speaking like humans.

In parts of Africa,

ants are considered to be the messengers of the gods.

And Native American tribes, like the Hopi and Zuni,

tell stories of the ant people

who emerge from beneath the Earth.

MAN: The ant people is a very interesting subject

when it comes to looking at the Hopi belief system.

Ant people, number one, are caretakers of the Earth.

NARRATOR: Unlike the Myrmidons of Greek mythology,

the ant people of the Native American stories

don't just behave like ants, they resemble them as well.

MAN: They have spindly arms. They have antennae.

They have elongated skulls.

These are clearly a merging of the human and the insect.

They are not simply a fable or a parable.

TSOUKALOS: If one explores the question

of insectoid alien life, then my question is why not?

Because if life is pervasive throughout the entire universe,

then that life comes in all shape, size, and color.

So the idea that insectoid aliens might exist is

very possible to me.

However, I think the idea came from our ancestors witnessing

physical features that made them look like ants

or could be best described as ants.

WILCOCK: If we look at the face of an ant,

we look at the head of an ant,

we see large, buggy eyes widely spaced on the face,

and a large head.

So this could be an illustration of people seeing beings

like what we now call the Greys,

and associating it with something

that's familiar to them.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the ant people that appear

in both Greek and Native American mythology

were really Grey aliens?

Or might they even be human-insect hybrids

engineered by otherworldly beings?

Perhaps the answer can be found in the accounts of those

who claim to have been victims of alien abductions.

NARRATOR: The Kalahari Desert, South Africa.

The indigenous people of this area called the San

represent one of the oldest existing populations on Earth,

with a culture that dates back approximately 80,000 years.

According to the origin story of this ancient society,

the first humans were created

not by traditional gods but by insects.

MAGLIOCCO: According to the San people,

the origin of humans lies with the praying mantis.

There once was a bee who was asked by a praying mantis

to carry him across a raging river.

And the bee did so.

He carried the praying mantis across the river

and deposited him on a leaf.

But before leaving, the exhausted bee

left an egg inside the praying mantis,

and that egg is the source of all human beings.

NARRATOR: But where did the San people get the idea

that humans were created by a praying mantis?

Curiously, the San tradition also holds that a praying mantis

gave early humans the gifts of language and fire.

And one of their most important gods, Cagn,

the creator of the world, often took the form of a mantis.

YOUNG: The San people of South Africa had

a fascinating theology.

Their god was known as Cagn, and Cagn was a trickster god.

He could shape-shift

and appear in a number of different forms...

but was very fond of appearing as a praying mantis.

BARA: Cagn had a lot of struggles on the planet Earth.

There were many wars that were fought,

and eventually he left the Earth

by means of going up into the sky.

CHILDRESS: Another interesting thing about Cagn is that it's

said that he created the moon.

And the San people do their planting

because of phases of the moon.

So you've got to wonder, is this praying mantis

extraterrestrial god just some mythical figure,

or is he really a representation

of some kind of real praying mantis insectoid alien

that's come to Earth?

NARRATOR: Could the prominence of the praying mantis

in San mythology suggest that their ancestors

actually encountered such beings in the distant past?

Although most anthropologists

regard these stories as fables,

some ancient astronaut theorists find it curious

that the praying mantis is also a recurring image

in reports of alien abduction.

Covina, California, 1963.

In this small farming town on the outskirts of Los Angeles,

17-year-old Linda Porter awakens

to find herself aboard a strange craft.

From what she is able to recall later under hypnosis,

a small creature that appeared to be a Grey alien

led her towards a light-filled room,

where she encountered another type of being,

one much taller and with the features of a praying mantis.

O'BRIEN: A very stand-alone, very odd case.

The fact that this occurred in 1963 is very intriguing

because it's before the abduction phenomenon

became popularized.

MAN: There have been depictions

throughout various abduction scenarios that include

the Grey aliens and this larger, tall insectoid being,

very praying mantis-like.

NARRATOR: Linda Porter claims that throughout her teens

and 20s, she experienced numerous other encounters

with these alien beings.

But it wasn't until the age of 45 that she finally reached out

to investigative journalist Linda MOULTON Howe

to tell her story.

I received a letter... carefully written... from Linda Porter.

This led up to her sending me a whole lot of drawings.

NARRATOR: These drawings appear in Linda MOULTON Howe's book.

"Glimpses of Other Realities."

HOWE: One of the drawings was of a praying mantis

about eight feet tall in a room that was very odd...

Had a cylindrical object and sparkles of light.

O'BRIEN: There have been quite a number of different types

of aliens seen, allegedly, by contactees.

But the ones that are really peculiar and very rare

are these very scary, skinny, large,

basically intelligent insects that have been reported.

People have drawn parallels between the aliens

that are reported on board UFOs and insects, particularly bees.

The Greys, for instance, could be equated in some way

to the drone or the worker bee.

The so-called praying mantis type could be seen, perhaps,

as the queen bee... larger than the others, more intelligent.

They're taller than a person 8 or even 9 feet tall.

And the Grey aliens may handle the person who's being abducted,

but in the background, there's this praying mantis type

that seems to be calling the shots.

NARRATOR: According to Porter, she is part

of a larger experiment,

one in which these aliens appear concerned with her soul.

HOWE: She said whatever we humans are, we have an animus,

a soul, that is mysterious to them,

and they are trying to find out where does the soul/spirit

go at the moment of death,

and that the non-humans were studying the recycling

of the souls in and out of containers.

MAN: She talked about being shown 3 cylinders.

Contained in each cylinder was a human being

in kind of like a state of suspended animation.

NARRATOR: Numerous alleged alien abduction victims have reported

seeing these cocoon-like containers,

but if these accounts are real, might there be

another explanation behind this technology?

Could it be, as some ancient astronaut theorists contend,

that aliens are performing genetic experimentation?

HOWE: Linda Porter came away from her 2 or 3 decades

of interaction with these non-humans,

including the at first terrifying praying mantis,

that these are extraterrestrial biological entities

that have taken a deep interest

in the evolution of life-forms here,

that they have manipulated DNA in already evolving primates,

that they have created a whole series of different models.

NARRATOR: Might the numerous accounts of mantis-like beings

reported by alleged alien abduction victims,

along with the ancient San story of a praying mantis god,

be evidence that an otherworldly race of insectoids

really does exist?

And, if so, could they be conducting genetic experiments

with humans to make us more like them?

Ancient astronaut theorists say further clues revealing

the connection between insects and aliens can be found

in the Holy Bible.

NARRATOR: Pi-Ramesses, Egypt, the 15th century, BC.

Most archaeologists believe this ancient city to be the site

of the 10 plagues as described in the Bible's "Book of Exodus."

According to the scripture, God brought these plagues

upon Egypt when the pharaoh refused to release

the Israelites from slavery.

Three of them involved insects.

[insects buzzing]

The third was a plague of gnats, which came up from the ground

and infested both man and animal.

The fourth was flies that attacked only the Egyptians,

sparing the Israelites.

And the eighth was a plague of locusts.

KRITSKY: Locusts are grasshoppers that have had

an unusual change in their biology and behavior.

They start to move in the same direction.

They will land, eat.

Other locusts flying over them will land and eat and so on

and so on, wiping out all the vegetation in a given area

and destroying all the crops that people might have planted.

And for every one million locusts,

they can eat a ton of food.

NARRATOR: But an even more incredible story of locusts

can be found in the Bible's New Testament "Book of Revelation."

Rising from deep pits within the earth,

these locusts form waves of scorpion-tailed warhorses,

protected by iron breastplates.

And unlike the locusts from the Book of "Exodus,"

the target isn't the crops.

The locusts themselves actually didn't eat any crops,

they didn't clear any fields.

They only attacked people,

and they only ate up and devoured and damaged people.

It's almost as if the locusts themselves were programmed.

MARTELL: The locusts that appear out of the smoke have

some type of ability to sting people

with a scorpion-like sting.

Now, locusts are known not to have any type of way

of harming people, so these locusts were special in origin.

HENRY: These locusts only sought out humans who did not have

the seal of God on their foreheads.

And it makes you wonder if these locusts are, in fact,

some kind of an advanced extraterrestrial technology

that was sent to seek specific human beings.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that what is described

in the "Book of Revelation" is not the plant-eating locust

we have today but some type of advanced weaponry

wielded by an extraterrestrial being?

BARA: Now, if an extraterrestrial was fighting

a war, a weapon that you could use would be mechanical devices

that basically were like little nanotechnology

that would attack certain very specific targets.

There are, in fact, such weapons in use today.

NARRATOR: DARPA headquarters, Arlington, Virginia.

This is the military's visionary toy shop,

where the blueprints for the weaponry of tomorrow are drawn.

Here stealth technology and GPS were conceived.

Now, according to sources, a new arms race is underway,

one focused not on the biggest weapons but the smallest.

Insects are one of the most amazingly designed creatures

that exist on planet Earth.

I mean, they're extraordinary.

It's no surprise that the United States military is

interested in insects.

It's absolutely logical.

Why not send a small insect or a crawling beetle

into a war zone, into a place to gather intelligence?

That's exactly what we see happening now.

NARRATOR: At DARPA, scientists have been experimenting

with electronically modifying beetles

so they can actually manipulate their flight.

Threading thin wires into the base of the beetles'

optic lobes, they can control the region of the brain

that makes the beetles start and stop flying.

With another pair of wires in the wing muscles,

they can also make the beetle veer to the right

or to the left by remote control.

And scientists working with nanotechnology are

not only looking for ways to control insects

but to actually recreate them.

Thomas Vaneck at Physical Sciences, Incorporated,

is currently developing flying robots based on insects.

MAN: Instant Eye is a very small aerial robot

about the size of a pie plate.

It's relatively simple, yet it can do amazing things.

Just about any insect you can imagine

is being studied by somebody.

NARRATOR: Hornets, dragonflies,

mosquitoes.

All are said to be potential models for the next generation

of biomimetic weapons...

Robots that could one day be indistinguishable

from actual insects.

VANECK: Right now, probably the smallest insect-inspired robot

that we can make is about the size of a hummingbird

from the technologies that are available to us today.

The driving force there is energy storage,

because we just don't have a battery

that stores enough energy.

We're going to figure it out.

I can easily envision that you're going to have a robot

the size of a fruit fly.

O'BRIEN: And if it landed on the wall in some terrorist's house,

he probably wouldn't know.

And we're able to fit so much into such a small space now.

Keep the weight down.

We can give it wings,

and the average person would just try to swat it away.

VANECK: In the not-too-distant future,

you're going to sit there and go,

"Wow! What a beautiful insect."

Maybe it's not an insect at all.

NARRATOR: But if we can produce insect drones today,

is it possible that the biblical stories of locusts sent by God

are really accounts of alien technology in the ancient past?

And could this be the reason

why insects are feared by humans, even to this day?

Some ancient astronaut theorists believe

such an incredible notion is possible, and for proof,

point to a mysterious area in Nevada simply known as Area 51.

NARRATOR: Kingman, Arizona, May, 1953.

At the height of the Cold War, an unidentified object

reportedly crashed in the desert sands.

What remained was allegedly sent

to America's most top-secret facility...

[camera shutter clicks]

Area 51.

But it wasn't until 45 years later, in 1998,

that a retired military engineer named Bill Uhouse came forward

to make a stunning claim.

The military didn't just have the extraterrestrial technology.

They had an actual living alien.

CHILDRESS: Uhouse claimed that he worked

in a secret laboratory,

supposedly in the Papoose Mountains of Area 51 in Nevada,

and that since 1953,

the American government had an insectoid alien

that was working with them.

His name was J-Rod.

REDFERN: J-Rod supposedly assisted the military

in understanding and duplicating the incredible power systems

and futuristic technology that was combined and created

for the Kingman craft.

NARRATOR: Shortly after Bill Uhouse broke the story,

microbiologist Dan Burisch came forward to confirm his claim.

But according to Dan Burisch,

J-Rod claimed that he was not an alien.

What he revealed was something even more shocking.

This insectoid alien J-Rod said that he had

actually come from our future...

and that, at some time in the near future to us

there is a catastrophe on this planet...

and much of mankind is destroyed...

and that mankind splits into 2 different species.

And one of these species goes and lives underground...

and while underground,

they develop these insectoid traits...

which is exactly what the Hopi and Zuni and even Navajo legends

say, that during the transition period

between the third and the fourth worlds,

this above world of today was not habitable,

and they had to go underground

and live for some time with what they called the ant people.

And you have to wonder if perhaps J-Rod is

actually an insectoid human being from our own future.

NARRATOR: Could the accounts of J-Rod confirm

that the Hopi stories of ant people were

more than just mythology?

And if the so-called insectoids really do exist,

is it possible that they are not aliens

but humans from the future?

MARTELL: Aliens appear to be a part of our human evolution

over thousands of years.

A lot of it has to do with our reproductive systems.

Maybe they're actually trying to create a new race

possibly that will be able to withstand atmospheric changes

here on Earth or potentially lead us to a point

where we have to leave the planet.

NARRATOR: But if humans are someday forced underground

by a cataclysmic event, does it even make scientific sense

that we would evolve to have insect-like characteristics?

According to some scientists, we are part insect already.

KRITSKY: The work on the human genome has indicated

that possibly up to half of our DNA may be

the result of transposons.

That's a fancy word for jumping genes...

Genes that can jump from one species to another.

Recently, it was shown that Rhodnius...

This is the sucking insect that spreads Chagas disease...

Not only can spread the trypanosome,

the disease-causing agent, from organism to organism,

it also can spread its own genes to those organisms.

Humans get Chagas disease.

So far they have not tested humans for this insect DNA.

Odds are we do have some of these insect genes

in our system.

We know some of these transposons probably came

from diseases we caught

when our ancestors were bitten by insects.

NARRATOR: Could the studies on horizontal gene transfer

one day prove that we really do have insect DNA

in our genetic makeup?

And if so, might it be not by chance

but by some extraterrestrial design?

WILCOCK: Is it possible that evolution is being guided

by some sort of greater galactic or universal intelligence?

Could it be possible that in certain circumstances

insects could be the dominant species

that ultimately becomes sentient

and develops hominid characteristics?

The contactee reports are consistent.

Some people are seeing beings like this

communicating with them intelligently

and for benevolent purpose.

CHILDRESS: The whole idea of mixing these life-forms together

is fascinating, making hybrids of the two of them.

Throughout history, people have honored and even worshipped

insects, built temples to them.

It's quite possible that there is an insectoid type life

on other planets that actually have intelligence

beyond our own.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that there really is

a connection between insects and aliens?

Are they related to beings from beyond our world,

as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

And if so, might they have a secret purpose

we have yet to discover?

Perhaps one day we'll find that alien beings

don't only inhabit the furthest reaches of space

but that there are, in fact, billions here on Earth

and most of them right under our feet.