Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Global stories of a great deluge.

Growing evidence of an ancient, catastrophic event.

And enduring claims of otherworldly involvement.

For nearly two decades, Ancient Aliens has traveled

the globe exploring towering megalithic structures,

mysterious artifacts, and stories

of otherworldly beings in a quest for evidence

that might reveal the truth of our extraterrestrial origins.

You know, when we talk about flood stories,

we're not talking about just a few.

We're talking about over a thousand.

NARRATOR: Now we take a look back

through the Ancient Aliens archives,

to the show's very origins,

to examine the evidence that we are not alone.

We have never been alone.

♪ ♪

For me, one of the most interesting stories

that we have is the tale of the Great Flood

because it's not just in the Old Testament,

but we find this story in cultures all over the world.

And the more you learn about it, the more interesting it gets.

And it's not just about a global cataclysm.

It involves otherworldly beings who come out of the sky.

The whole thing sounds like an extraterrestrial event.

Right, and as we gather more evidence,

it turns out that this might not just be

a mythological tale, but it actually happened.

We've pretty much covered every aspect of the flood story

on Ancient Aliens, including some incredible revelations

in a season one episode called "Closer Encounters."

NARRATOR: September 2000.

The Black Sea, Turkey.

Marine archaeologist Robert Ballard

and his team of underwater scientists

discover what appears to be a farmhouse

some 330 feet below the surface.

Estimates suggest the submerged dwelling to be

approximately 7,500 years old.

Ballard and other scholars speculated

that rising ocean levels could have caused

the Mediterranean Sea to burst through a natural dam,

creating a flood so great,

it drowned an estimated 58,000 square miles

under 500 feet of water.

But more than finding the ruins of an ancient dwelling,

had Ballard actually discovered proof

that the biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood was true?

And those villages, of course, weren't built underwater.

So, Ballard concluded that the Black Sea,

as we know it, was only created some 8,000, 9,000 years ago.

And that is exactly what we're talking about with Noah's ark

and the flood, the same area where all that happened.

And, in fact, mainstream archaeologists know that,

in the Mediterranean, there are over 200 known sunken cities.

Those cities, too, were somehow flooded

the same time that the Black Sea was flooded.

NARRATOR: Also written in the Book of Genesis,

the story of Noah tells how God saw

that the wickedness of man was great

and decided to destroy all of creation.

Only Noah, his family and the animals aboard the ark

were allowed to survive and repopulate the planet.

But is this the whole story?

Was Noah selected only for his virtue?

Or was there another reason

he was chosen to save the planet?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe

the Bible doesn't tell the whole story.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s,

a series of ancient texts,

known as "the Dead Sea Scrolls,"

were discovered in a cave

located in what is now Israel's West Bank.

Among the ancient writings

are various stories not found in the traditional Hebrew Bible.

One such story tells of Noah and his strange, miraculous birth.

One of the Dead Sea scrolls is called "the Lamech scroll."

What is Lamech? Lamech was a shepherd.

And one day, Lamech, his woman was pregnant.

And he said to her, "This is impossible.

I was not here for months."

But his woman, with the name Bathenosh,

swears, "No one touched me."

But Lamech doesn't believe his wife, Bathenosh,

and he goes to his father, which was Methuselah.

And Methuselah says to Lamech,

"I can't help you. I don't understand this.

"I believe your woman, Bathenosh,

"that nobody touched her, and I believe you.

What shall I do?"

So, Methuselah goes to his father,

the grandfather now of Lamech.

His name is Enoch.

Now, Enoch tells to Methuselah

that the guardians of the sky

have made an artificial insemination

into the womb of Bathenosh, the wife,

and he should accept this child because this child

will be the father of a new human generation.

And in the Bible, this is Noah.

NARRATOR: What if, as ancient astronaut theorists believe,

the story of Lamech is true,

and the guardians of the sky described in the story

are, in fact, aliens?

Does this mean that Noah was the product

of an artificial insemination,

a genetic experiment performed by extraterrestrials?

If so, what was the reason for the Great Flood?

L.A. MARZULLI: Well, the reason for the flood,

and we-we need to understand this,

what it tells us is that Noah was pure

in all of his generations.

What does that mean?

You know, why-why would the account,

you know, specify pure in all his generations?

NARRATOR: According to the Bible, God sent the flood

because of man's wickedness and corruption.

But ancient astronaut theorists believe the flood was actually

a means of ridding the Earth of biological imperfections.

By using Noah and his family, they could repopulate

the planet with a genetically superior species.

VON DÄNIKEN: Part of this human society

is again, genetically backward, closer to the animal.

What can we do?

These humans were spread out over the planet.

So, they said, "We have to kill them all

by a Great Flood, and then we have to restart again."

(thunder rumbling)

NARRATOR: Another familiar element in the story of Noah...

...involves the collection of animals brought aboard the ark.

In the Bible, God commanded Noah to collect

two of every kind of living creature--

animal, bird and insect.

But many biblical scholars and theologians agree

that such a task would've been both physically

and biologically impossible.

Could there be another more scientific explanation?

TSOUKALOS: The story of Noah's ark is pretty implausible

if you think about it.

You have two animals of each creature

on planet Earth on a boat.

Not only would the boat have to be huge

but how are you gonna collect every animal on the planet

and put it on that ship?

So, could it be possible

that Noah's ark was once again misunderstood technology

and Noah's ark was a DNA bank?

JONATHAN YOUNG: Could it be a story?

Could it be technology somehow

gathering up all living things as in a DNA bank of some kind?

It fits together.

Hard to imagine, uh,

how that would happen so far back,

but if it did happen, it would need to be told as a story.

And the story of a boat works.

CHILDRESS: Perhaps this is really

an extraterrestrial DNA bank as well.

The extraterrestrials need plants and animals

and minerals on this planet, too.

Just like when we go to Mars or something,

we'll be using what we can use on that planet.

So extraterrestrials coming here would want to do that as well,

and if they knew that some cataclysm was coming,

they, too, would want to preserve

certain kinds of animals and plant life

and create, you know, what we think of as Noah's ark.

TSOUKALOS: Noah's ark wasn't necessarily

a boat made out of wood.

But what if Noah's ark was some type of

a DNA storage facility that was used

in order to preserve all the species on planet Earth?

If each species can be held in a tiny vial like this,

then it all becomes very logical.

And once again, we have to look at it from a perspective:

What did our ancestors try to describe?

What did they witness?

NARRATOR: Aliens artificially inseminating humans.

Ancient DNA banks.

Could such ideas really help our understanding of the Bible?

And is it possible that extraterrestrials

have influenced the development of mankind,

perhaps even orchestrating a Great Flood

to cleanse the Earth of their own creation?

There are many who claim

that the proof can be found inscribed on clay tablets

left behind by the world's earliest known civilization.

Most people know the story of the Great Flood

from the Bible's Old Testament,

but what's really fascinating is that a virtually identical story

was told centuries earlier

was told centuries earlier

by the world's first known civilization,

-the Sumerians. -TSOUKALOS: Right,

and what makes the Sumerian version so striking is that,

in it, it is told that multiple gods

descended from the sky with a lot of fire and smoke.

-The Anunnaki. -Yeah, and the Anunnaki

were supposedly coming from another planet.

We talked about this in a 2013 episode called

"The Anunnaki Connection."

NARRATOR: Nineveh, Iraq. 1849.

A treasure trove of ancient cuneiform texts is uncovered...

...detailing accounts of the creation of Earth,

man, and the lives of the gods.

ROBERT MULLINS: In 1849, Austen Henry Layard

made an archaeological expedition

to the city of Nineveh, a city that's mentioned in the Bible.

And in his excavations, he discovered the palace

of Sennacherib, who is well-known from the Bible.

This really galvanized the interest of the world.

Well, three years after this, his assistant found the palace

of his grandson Ashurbanipal on the opposite side of the mount.

Now, in both cases, they found archives,

and together, the archives form about 20,000 to 30,000 tablets.

NARRATOR: Recorded on seven of the tablets

is the Babylonian creation myth called "the Enuma Elish."

Enuma Elish was probably composed

in the 11th century BC,

but almost certainly, this story goes back

to much earlier periods.

NARRATOR: The tablets tell of a god named Marduk

who took blood from the god Kingu and mixed it with clay

in order to create the Earth's first humans.

POLTORAK: When the Anunnaki create the model man,

that person gets picked up as a story in the Bible,

and he's called Adam.

What I find interesting is that the Bible left out

some of the most important details

and cut the story short.

So, the Sumerian tablets, the Mesopotamian tablets,

have the more detailed versions.

NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,

the Enuma Elish vividly describes not mythic gods

but otherworldly beings,

alien visitors who possessed a highly advanced knowledge

of genetics.

M.J. EVANS: The Anunnaki began to figure out

how they could create a docile worker.

So, they took genes from a female hominid,

and after many, many trials, they figured out

that they could blend genes together

and create the perfect being.

In a sense, what these tablets are really talking about

is a genetic engineering

and the changing of the DNA within human beings.

TSOUKALOS: Clearly, something happened

where we went from nothing to all of a sudden

coming up with the most incredible of thought models.

So the question then is: How was it done?

And according to the ancient alien theory,

our ancestors were given intelligence

by a deliberate change of our DNA

by space travelers who came here thousands of years ago.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Anunnaki

created the human race using their own DNA?

According to ancient astronaut theorists,

startling evidence can be found in the numerous similarities

between the Babylonian myths and the Judeo-Christian Bible,

and most notably,

in writings from another ancient cuneiform tablet

known as "the Sumerian King List."

MULLINS: The Sumerian King List was found on a tablet

in ancient Mesopotamia and dates to somewhere around 2100 BC.

The list contains names of 140 kings.

What's most interesting about this list

is that the deities have enormously long lives.

One king, for example, ruled for 36,000 years.

And you have to wonder: How could people

have lived that long?

But yet, we have the same thing in the Bible.

Methuselah and Noah lived to be 800 or 900 years old,

which seems so fantastic to us.

HENRY: One explanation for why Noah and Methuselah could live so long

is that it's possible that they themselves

were star seeds or seeded by, perhaps,

the Anunnaki and contained

their extraterrestrial genes that prolonged their lives.

PHILIP COPPENS: And so, clearly, we can do one of two things:

pretend that this is all myth, that this doesn't exist,

or take what our ancestors gave us at face value.

And then we're confronted with the possibility

that we are, indeed, talking about

incredible extraterrestrial beings

whose lifespan might have been normal for their whereabouts

but definitely were extraordinary for planet Earth.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Sumerian kings

lived and ruled for hundreds, even thousands, of years?

And if so, could these so-called ancient kings

have been our extraterrestrial ancestors,

alien beings who created man using their own DNA?

There are those who believe that question was

already answered more than 35 years ago.

New York City. 1976.

Author and researcher Zecharia Sitchin

publishes his book The 12th Planet,

introducing his revolutionary interpretation

of the Anunnaki deities.

After studying Sumerian cuneiform tablets

for 30 years, he asserts that these so-called

Sumerian gods were, in fact, extraterrestrials

that landed on Earth in Mesopotamia

more than 450,000 years ago.

According to Sitchin's translations,

the Anunnaki both created human beings

and also had a part in mankind's downfall

when a Great Flood nearly destroyed all life on Earth.

But why?

What was the purpose of the Anunnaki's

earthly visitations?

And why did they create the creature known as man?

NICK REDFERN: Zecharia Sitchin wrote a number

of well-received books on the Anunnaki,

which he believed were basically extraterrestrial entities

from a planet called Nibiru,

which he quite controversially believed

actually exists in our solar system.

His theory was they upgraded the human race

and used them as sort of a slave species.

Sitchin understood, based on his interpretation

of the tablets, that the mission had to do

with the failing atmosphere around the planet Nibiru,

and that, when they came, they came to mine gold.

MARTELL: The Anunnaki had damaged their atmosphere.

And by using gold, they found that they could

patch these atmospheric holes,

becomes the story of our humanity.

The Anunnaki literally came to Earth to mine the gold.

And when realizing it was such a toil to do so,

created us as a worker race to do that for them.

NARRATOR: Zecharia Sitchin's hypothesis that the Anunnaki came to Earth

to mine gold and then created humans

to perform the task was both bold and controversial.

Needless to say, it was not embraced by mainstream scholars.

But many ancient astronaut theorists

believe that Sitchin's interpretation of the tablets

is not only correct but also provides

compelling evidence that the Anunnaki created mankind.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE: What if the whole Anunnaki story

is a global story of a nonhuman intelligence

that was manipulating genes all over the planet?

That it wasn't just gold.

It was a planetary base.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the Sumerian cuneiform tablets

detail a past vastly different

from that taught in our history books?

One in which the human race was created by entities

who traveled here from the stars?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and they suggest

that some of the most compelling evidence can be found

by examining the story of their departure

and the onset of a catastrophic flood.

NARRATOR: Shuruppak, south central Iraq.

1931.

While digging at this ancient Sumerian city,

archaeologists find what they believe

to be sedimentary evidence of flooding

from approximately 2900 BC.

According to accounts in the Sumerian King List,

King Ziusudra was the last Sumerian ruler

before a Great Flood on Earth.

(thunder cracks)

DAVID WILCOCK: Excavations of

the great city of Shuruppak began in 1931.

And it was from these excavations that they began

putting together the story of King Ziusudra.

At the city of Shuruppak, we find

sediment deposits that appear

to show a flood that occurred in around 2900 BC.

This is one link that shows that the biblical flood

may, in fact, be genuine and a way in which we can

ultimately prove that to be true.

FATHER WILLIAM FULCO: Many ancient cultures have a story of the flood,

which is intriguing.

The fact that the Mesopotamians had a story of a flood

is not surprising because, uh, Mesopotamian history

is fraught with stories

of trying to contain the Tigris and Euphrates

and make them usable for agriculture.

Until they built the canal system,

there were regular floods that wiped out cities.

It appears that the story of Noah's ark

may not be an original Hebrew story.

In the Sumerian texts, we find a much older story

of Ziusudra, who also survived the flood,

who constructed an ark and was able to save

part of his family as well.

Is this merely coincidence or does it suggest that, in fact,

the biblical tale is based upon the Sumerian original?

MULLINS: The similarities have caused many to suggest that perhaps

the biblical account is drawn in some sense from

the Mesopotamian account.

My feeling is that, most certainly,

the biblical writers adapted it for their own

theological reasons.

In the biblical account, the rationale

for the flood is human sinfulness.

And so, what the biblical writer has done

is used the flood account in order to provide

a theological rationale for why the flood took place.

NARRATOR: According to ancient Sumerian legend,

the Great Flood was not a natural event

but was directed by the god Enlil,

who had grown tired of the noise of humans.

The Anunnaki who came to Earth essentially had two leaders.

Enlil, who was the legal, legitimate son of Anu,

the king on the planet Nibiru,

and his half brother Enki, who was actually the firstborn.

They were in charge of the Earth contingent.

Procreation was out of control, and Enlil gets enraged.

He decides he's going to eliminate all the humans

and created what we know as Noah's flood.

HOWE: Enlil thought that humans should be erased.

They were too troublesome.

And Enki, like Prometheus and the Greeks,

took the side of the humans and said,

"No, they should be preserved."

NARRATOR: According to legend, Enki warned King Ziusudra to build a boat

so that he might be saved from the Great Flood,

just as Noah was directed to build an ark

in the stories of the Hebrew Bible.

Could both stories have their origins

in historical fact?

At Ur and other cities, we have evidence

of floods, major floods.

People have associated this with the story of Noah's flood,

and there are flood stories in other cultures.

So, I think we have a trend here where, over and over,

people have doubted the myths, have doubted the legends,

but, in fact, with more research,

we find that they have a genuine basis.

NARRATOR: Could the similarities of these two tales

be attributed to mere coincidence?

Or might the story of Noah

be directly based on the story of a displeased Anunnaki god,

a god who was bent on destroying the hybrid creatures

that inhabited the Earth?

CHILDRESS: Enki, the Anunnaki god, told the Sumerian King Ziusudra

that there was going to be, uh, this flood,

the same flood of the Bible,

and that he needed to build a craft--

we would say today a boat-- to escape it.

However, it's quite possible that the craft that he made

to escape this flood was actually a spaceship,

and that he went into space in order to escape the flood

and into orbit around our planet.

REDFERN: If there's one thing that unites ancient cultures

all across the world is that pretty much each and every

one of them have flood mythologies attached to them--

deluges, Great Floods, you know, just swamping and covering

the entire planet, wiping out whole races of people.

In most cultures, this is put down to the work

of the gods or a god displeased with the human race.

Now, of course, today, you know, many people

place that in a UFO context.

Other people place it in a religious context.

But many researchers sort of view

biblical accounts and stories as having

a basis in fact but of extraterrestrial origins.

Both the Bible and, specifically,

the ancient Sumerian accounts make it clear

that the flood was something which the gods created.

The gods made this flood happen.

And so, what we're seeing in the ancient accounts

is basically an interaction between the Anunnaki

on the one hand and our ancestors on the other hand.

And the Anunnaki basically make sure

that we, as a species, will survive,

because sections of the Anunnaki

were intent on destroying everything on this planet.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Anunnaki were responsible

for causing what has been called "the Great Flood"?

And if so, might it have affected not just the region...

...but the entire planet?

Perhaps evidence of such a worldwide catastrophe

can be found preserved in the geological record.

You know, when we talk about flood stories

in other traditions, we're not talking about just a few.

We're talking about over a thousand

from other ancient cultures.

from other ancient cultures.

Now, that, to me, does not sound like coincidence.

No, absolutely not.

And most of these ancient cultures around the world

supposedly had no contact with each other.

And we have evidence of a terrible cataclysm

in the distant past.

Like the Usselo horizon, this thin ash layer that's found

in the Earth all over the world.

You know, Andrew Collins examined this

for an episode of Ancient Aliens in 2014.

NARRATOR: It is one of the best-known stories of the Bible,

and variations of this ancient tale

can be found in cultures throughout the world.

From ancient Hindu teachings and Mesopotamian legends

to Mesoamerican myths, it is written that the gods

sent a powerful flood to wipe out all of humanity.

In stories much older than the story of Noah,

in the, uh, story of Gilgamesh,

the council of gods brought the flood.

And in Plato's writing, Zeus brought the flood.

DEEPAK SHIMKHADA: In Hinduism, God had instructed that,

"One day, the whole Earth will be flooded,

"and when that happens, you build a boat,

"and you gather the people, uh, some animals,

and then I will save you."

NARRATOR: The story of the Great Flood

is often considered to be mythological.

But similar stories of a cataclysmic flood

can be found in approximately 1,200 different cultures

around the world.

And many anthropologists say

that because these stories are so numerous

and date back thousands of years,

it is unlikely that they originated from a single source.

MAGLIOCCO: When we find similar myths all over the world,

like the myth of the flood,

then we have to ask ourselves:

Are these things that human beings

came up with independently?

Because let's say there was a Great Flood

in ancient history that has been memorialized

in people's mythologies because it was such a cataclysmic event

that people looked for a religious explanation for it.

TSOUKALOS: The fact that there are ancient stories that speak of

the same flood, it almost leads into that direction

that, at some point, some cataclysm happened that not just

affected one geographic area of the world

but the entire planet.

NARRATOR: If a cataclysmic flood really did occur,

killing most life on the planet, what could have caused it?

And is there any physical evidence

to suggest that it actually happened?

Scientists say answers to both questions

may be buried deep beneath the sea.

The Indian Ocean.

According to the five scientists

who make up the Holocene Impact Working Group,

this area, 900 miles southeast of Madagascar,

is where an enormous asteroid struck the Earth

thousands of years ago.

This impact may have been so large that it triggered

enormous tsunamis that flooded inland areas across the region,

an event the local inhabitants

would've perceived as a Great Flood.

Since so many ancient cultures have a flood story

or a flood mythology,

this is probably based in some sort of real event.

And an asteroid landing in the ocean

in the right place, triggering a tsunami,

would then lead to one of these major floods.

NARRATOR: The Holocene Group says evidence

for a catastrophic asteroid strike

lies in what they believe

is an 18-mile-wide crater on the floor of the Indian Ocean,

just west of the island of Madagascar.

Holocene Group scientists

believe further evidence supporting their theory

also lies in what are called "chevrons,"

ancient deposits of sediment and fossils

in both Madagascar and Australia.

What was so out of place and unusual about the chevrons

was that they weren't land-based debris,

but rather, it was the kind of debris you get

from an ocean sea bottom,

things like marine animals, marine fossils.

They've also found what's really the smoking gun

of any asteroid or comet impact, and that's microbeads.

The only way they're formed is by the extreme heat of an impact

melting the rock, the rock being thrown into the air or water

and cooling into these nice little spheres.

NARRATOR: Similar marine fossils have also been found

on the other side of the world,

at the ancient temple complex of Puma Punku

in modern-day Bolivia.

If the Holocene Group's initial findings prove true,

they could be definitive evidence that a cosmic strike

caused large-scale flooding thousands of years ago.

But if an asteroid really was responsible

for a worldwide flood,

scientists say it would have to have been as large as the one

that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs,

which measured eight miles wide and struck the Earth

with a force five billion times more powerful

than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

COLLINS: There are many ancient texts

that tell us that there wasn't just a flood

but there was also a conflagration,

a period of fire, when the Earth was bombarded

with firestorms, the gods bringing them down,

and that this period was then followed by a flood.

And it would seem that fragments of this comet

vaporized the ice sheets that had been covering

large parts of the northern hemisphere,

uh, for tens of thousands of years,

sending all of the water up

into the atmosphere, which then rained down,

perhaps even for 40 days, 40 nights, like the Bible tells us.

NARRATOR: According to those scientists who subscribe to this theory,

the fires that might have occurred just before the flood

would have left behind an ash layer in the Earth

all over the world.

This distinctive ash layer, which scientists call

the Usselo horizon, could be the ultimate proof

that the Great Flood really occurred,

and researchers believe they may have discovered it.

Just outside the small Belgian town of Lommel,

author and researcher Andrew Collins

follows local archaeologist Ferdi Geerts to the site

of a mysterious black layer of soil

excavated by a mining company.

COLLINS: I can already see a black layer,

um, in the soil here.

It's about just under a-a meter down,

um, three to four feet.

Um, and, um, are we looking here at the Usselo horizon?

-Is this, is this it? -GEERTS: Yes.

At the end of the ditch, we see a-a peat layer.

-Huh? -COLLINS: Yeah.

GEERTS: At the top of the peat layer,

-there is, uh, some charcoal. -COLLINS: Yeah. Right.

-So, c-can we go down and-and look at this? -Yes.

NARRATOR: Collins and Geerts get a closer look,

which allows them to determine

that this dark layer of soil seems to date to the end

of the last ice age,

about the same time the Usselo horizon

is supposed to have formed.

COLLINS: If we come down from the, from the-the surface here,

which is obviously the modern day,

there is this accumulation of sand over a period

of around 13,000 years that takes us back

to this point here.

-The black is a layer. Huh? -Yeah.

And the-the white is sand.

-We call that a soil horizon. -Yeah. Okay.

NARRATOR: According to Geerts, this black layer

dates back to the time period when a global flood may have

devastated Earth, but what is it made of?

Collins and Geerts dig into the soil

and discover that it is, indeed, charcoal.

This is the Usselo horizon,

and to Collins, it's confirmation

that the catastrophe described in the Bible was real.

This is physical evidence

of that flood, of that conflagration.

This is your absolute evidence that this event took place.

This is the evidence of the cataclysm.

NARRATOR: Could the Usselo horizon,

a possible impact crater in the Indian Ocean,

and sea fossils at Puma Punku all be proof

that the ancient story of a Great Flood is not a myth

but that it is based on actual events?

And if so, could the rest of the story,

in which God sent a flood to annihilate the human race,

be true as well?

This suggests that a Great Flood

did, in fact, happen, that it was real.

But then it also presents us with an intriguing possibility.

It is entirely possible that

there is an extraterrestrial origin

to this terrible flood.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the Great Flood

described in so many ancient texts

really did occur at the end of the last ice age?

And if so, could it have been brought on

by extraterrestrial beings?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and claim that evidence of this can be found

at the top of one of the world's most sacred mountains.

NARRATOR: Laurel, Maryland. October 2014.

At Johns Hopkins University,

At Johns Hopkins University,

top scientists from all over the world

gather for the first

international Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment workshop.

The focus of this event is to demonstrate

the latest technology designed for diverting the course

of asteroids headed for a collision with Earth.

The proposed method involves launching a spacecraft

to collide with the asteroid at a velocity

nine times faster than the speed of a bullet fired from an AK-47.

If we look at the dinosaurs, for example, 65 million years ago...

...they were wiped out due to the impact

of a giant rock that wiped out everything

on planet Earth at the time.

And so, right now, scientists around the globe

are working tirelessly

to redirect asteroids from possible collisions with Earth.

NARRATOR: In addition to using direct impact

to knock an asteroid off course,

scientists have also looked into the possibility

of creating a gravity tractor that could actually manipulate

the trajectory of the object.

But if we are close to developing

this kind of technology today...

...is it possible that extraterrestrials

who visited Earth in the distant past

already possessed the ability to redirect asteroids?

And if so, might they have used this technology

not to deflect an asteroid away from Earth but towards it?

We are talking about technology that equals ours today,

or as some have said, that it actually surpasses

whatever it is that we've achieved so far

in our modern age.

And so, if we can control the trajectories of asteroids

to direct them away from Earth, then it's certainly possible

that highly advanced extraterrestrials

could have had the technology

to direct an asteroid towards Earth.

It's interesting how the legends described how the flood came.

It is stated that

a great meteor or comet or something

was to swing around from behind the sun,

and as such, rip the oceans out of their bodies.

The flood was clearly contrived.

It was sent by higher powers

to correct things here on Earth.

They had an intent and a purpose for experiment Earth,

which they believed had become corrupted,

and therefore, the flood was sent

as an attack, an assault upon humanity.

NARRATOR: If the Great Flood was a real historical event,

could it have been deliberately caused by otherworldly beings,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

But if so, why?

What might they have been trying to destroy?

Mount Hermon, Lebanon. 1869.

Exploring the top of this historic mountain range,

British archaeologist General Sir Charles Warren

discovers the sacred temple of Qasr Antar,

believed to be the highest place of worship

in the biblical world.

CHILDRESS: Sir Charles Warren hiked up to the top of Mount Hermon.

The ruins of this temple are there.

And there he found an ancient stele,

and he broke this stele into two pieces

and brought it back to the British Museum.

NARRATOR: When scholars translated the Greek text, it read:

The inscription's significance was lost on archaeologists

for more than a century,

until biblical scholar George Nickelsburg

connected it to an oath

mentioned in the ancient Book of Enoch.

According to Enoch,

Mount Hermon is where a band of renegade angels,

known as "the Watchers,"

descended from the heavens in the distant past

and took an oath before meeting with humans.

In the time before time,

the sons of God came down to Earth.

They were the shining ones, the Enohim,

or fallen angels.

And they found the women very attractive,

and they married the women or bonded with the women.

NARRATOR: The offspring of these unnatural unions

between angels and humans

were said to produce giant hybrid beings,

called "the Nephilim,"

and God was so disgusted by their existence

that he decided to send a Great Flood

to cleanse the Earth of them.

But how is it that human women

were able to be impregnated by angels?

Could it be, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,

that the Book of Enoch is not actually describing angels

but rather a different kind of otherworldly being?

CHILDRESS: You've got to wonder: What was really going on here?

Are extraterrestrials coming and now breeding with humans,

which was somehow forbidden

and wrong, but they did it anyway?

So the other extraterrestrials decided,

"This is a big mistake.

Now we've got to destroy all these people."

NARRATOR: Could the story of the Great Flood

actually be describing

extraterrestrials coming to Earth long ago

and interbreeding with human women

to create a mutant race of giants?

If so, might there be evidence

of their time on Earth that was capable

of surviving a catastrophic flood?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and claim proof may be found by examining ruins

that are believed to date back thousands of years

before our earliest known civilizations.

Some of the most fascinating evidence we have

for the Great Flood comes from the geologist

Dr. Robert Schoch.

Because he found that the Sphinx in Egypt

Because he found that the Sphinx in Egypt

showed signs of water erosion.

Yes, major water erosion.

And remember, this is in the Sahara Desert.

So, that means, potentially, the Sphinx was built during

an earlier climatic period,

and that was more than 12,000 years ago.

Exactly. And that is right around the time

when many researchers now believe

the Great Flood actually happened.

NARRATOR: The Giza Plateau.

Egypt.

1925.

Rising out of the desert sand

is a giant stone statue of a human head.

For centuries, most visitors to the area believed

this was all that existed.

But French engineer Émile Baraize is convinced

that much more lies beneath the surface

than even archaeologists are aware of.

He begins an excavation to uncover it,

and after 11 years of extensive digging,

Baraize unearths a massive body resembling a lion

and reintroduces the world to the full splendor

of the Great Sphinx.

It is the largest monolithic sculpture on Earth.

RAMY ROMANY: It must have been quite eerie

to be there back then,

not knowing a lot about the ancient Egyptian history...

...and having this huge structure staring down at you.

NARRATOR: Facing east, toward the rising sun,

the Great Sphinx is located

nearly half a mile from Egypt's three largest pyramids.

It is carved from a single piece of limestone bedrock,

and stands over 60 feet tall

and 240 feet long.

People have asked themselves, for centuries:

What was the Sphinx for?

Why was it built?

There is a story behind it, but what is the story?

NARRATOR: The Sphinx is arguably

one of the most studied monuments in the world,

yet it remains one of the most mysterious.

There are no inscriptions on the Sphinx

to indicate who built it or why,

but most Egyptologists date it to 2500 BC...

...the time of the Pharaoh Khafre,

or Chephren, as he is known by Greek scholars.

The dating is based on a mention of Khafre

on a tablet found between the paws of the Sphinx.

BAUVAL: There's something else written on the Sphinx

that was ignored by Egyptologists.

The Sphinx actually says,

"I have been here since the first time."

Now, the word in ancient Egyptian

for "first time" is "zep tepi."

And what they meant by this

is the time when Osiris had come

at the beginning of the civilization.

The Egyptians talk about a golden age,

a golden age that existed

12,500 or so years ago.

This is something that goes back at least 8,000 years

before the current accepted chronology of Egypt.

At that time, the gods mingled

or walked with men.

NARRATOR: Could this extraordinary monument

be a remnant from a golden age

when extraterrestrials coexisted with humans,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?

If so, does the Sphinx date back

thousands of years before

conventional scholars believe possible?

Perhaps further clues of its true age

can be found in the geological record of the Giza Plateau.

Boston, Massachusetts.

Geologist Dr. Robert Schoch has studied

the geological features of the Sphinx

for over 20 years.

I looked specifically at the weathering and erosion

on the body of the Sphinx,

on the walls of the Sphinx enclosure.

I saw weathering patterns that were not compatible

with the Sahara conditions of the last 5,000 years.

Here we have a photograph of the Sphinx on the left side.

This is the rump of the Sphinx.

This is the wall of the Sphinx enclosure.

When you look at this, these are the lines of rock--

or the strata, as we say geologically.

You can see how they've been weathered out,

sort of a rounded, rolling profile.

This is caused by rain beating down

and running over the rock.

And this was very evident to me as a geologist.

NARRATOR: According to archaeologists,

significant rainfall in the Giza Plateau

would date back to before 3000 BC,

at least 500 years before

the time attributed to the building of the Sphinx.

SCHOCH: The degree and level of erosion

that we see on the Great Sphinx

has to go back to that earlier climatic period,

and not just a few hundred years--

thousands of years before Sahara times.

This put us back to at least 5000,

maybe 7000, 8000,

I now suspect even 10,000 BC.

TSOUKALOS: If we are to subscribe to the idea

that the Sphinx displays markings of water erosion,

then that means

that what's staring us in the face

is much, much older

than what mainstream science proposes.

NARRATOR: Is the Sphinx really older

than our history books have led us to believe?

If so, who or what

was responsible for its construction?

Could it be a colossal creation from a pre-flood civilization?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining the ruins of ancient cities in India

that lie beneath the sea.

When Dr. Schoch proposed

that the Sphinx was built around 12,000 years ago,

all the archaeologists said he was nuts.

all the archaeologists said he was nuts.

And only a few years later,

they discovered the amazing megalithic site of Göbekli Tepe.

And guess what.

It has been scientifically dated to around 12,000 years ago.

And that blew people's minds.

And now we've found another site,

Gunung Padang in Indonesia,

that's dated to approximately the same time.

-Mm-hmm. -CHILDRESS: And we even

have, uh, entire cities underwater that might be

part of a pre-flood civilization.

And we covered all this in a 2014 episode

called "the Great Flood."

NARRATOR: The Gulf of Khambhat, India.

2001.

Scientists working some 25 miles from shore

and 125 feet below the surface

stumble across something extraordinary:

what appears to be the signs of an ancient civilization.

SHIMKHADA: Recently, the marine archaeologists of India

have discovered two cities in the Bay of Khambhat.

They are still working on it, uh, you know,

going down there and archiving it

and taking photographs and videos.

CHILDRESS: They think that these cities were destroyed

in a geological change

that happened many thousands of years ago.

But you have to wonder yourself

if there are not more sunken cities all around India.

Their own legends and myths say exactly that.

NARRATOR: Ruins found beneath the ocean in the Gulf of Khambhat

are thought to date back at least 9,000 years,

to the time when some researchers believe

a comet struck the Earth...

...and caused a global deluge.

Could these submerged cities

not only be evidence that the Great Flood really did occur

but also that it wiped out an advanced society

that existed long before

the earliest known human civilization?

Scientists say further evidence can be found

in archaeological sites around the world

that date back to end of the last ice age.

In southeastern Turkey lies Göbekli Tepe,

an extraordinary series of circular stone structures

with intricately carved pillars weighing as much as 50 tons.

Radiocarbon dating indicates

parts of the complex were built about 10,000 BC,

and at least one archaeologist

believes there are signs it may have been destroyed by a flood.

SCHOCH: We have evidence there of catastrophic destruction,

of pillars being knocked over at the end of the last ice age,

that things were very severe,

people were trying to rebuild it at the time.

Eventually, they effectively gave up

and covered over the entire site,

maybe to come back later to uncover it,

maybe to simply bury it for posterity.

NARRATOR: In the rainforests of Indonesia

is a series of terraces, walls and steps on a hill

that the locals call Gunung Padang.

When scientists drilled into the earth to determine its age,

they discovered the site dates back

to at least 9700 BC.

Very interestingly, one of the layers of Gunung Padang

that's been exposed seismically

shows that there was an entrance to a cave

at about 9700 or so BC

that was subsequently covered over.

Again, I think this ties in with the events

at the end of the last ice age.

People were going into caves, they had to escape,

and then things were covered over after that.

NARRATOR: Are these ruins that are found across the world

evidence of an advanced civilization

that existed before a global deluge?

And if so, might we find mention of it

in ancient myths?

MAGLIOCCO: If we go back to ancient Greece,

one of the myths,

one of the sacred narratives that Plato preserves,

is the narrative that there used to be a great continent,

which he calls Atlantis,

and Atlantis had a great advanced civilization.

Atlantis was one of the continents that was destroyed

by the Great Flood.

SCHOCH: When does he date Atlantis?

To 9600 BC,

which is very close to the modern date

of the end of the last ice age.

So all this, I believe, ties together

that we had an earlier cycle of civilization.

It was devastated at the end of the last ice age

by natural catastrophes.

Humanity was driven into a dark age

that lasted thousands and thousands of years

until civilization reemerged

about 5,000 years ago.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the story of Atlantis

is really describing a civilization

that existed before 10,000 BC,

when the Great Flood and the end of the ice age

are said to have happened?

Did Atlantis suffer the same fate as Göbekli Tepe,

Gunung Padang,

and many other ancient structures

that appear to have been hit by some catastrophic event?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest that the most compelling evidence can be found

and suggest that the most compelling evidence can be found

not with what was destroyed but with what survived.

Just as fascinating as these sites like Göbekli Tepe

and Gunung Padang

are these vast underground complexes that have been found,

are these vast underground complexes that have been found,

like the Huashan Grottoes in China,

these incredible stone rooms with pillars and bridges.

And, of course, we have Derinkuyu

-in Turkey... -Right.

...where over five million square feet of rock

were removed to create this underground dwelling space.

Yeah, and it goes without saying that an underground structure

might not be the best place to escape a flood.

But some people have suggested that solar flares

and meteor strikes happened as well,

and so perhaps some of these were shelters

for some kind of an aerial threat.

NARRATOR: Central Anatolia, Turkey.

300 miles from the ancient site of Göbekli Tepe.

December 28, 2014.

A local crew excavating for an urban renovation project

stumbles across a strange series of carved rooms and tunnels

deep underground.

Upon further exploration,

they find the subterranean network

spans several miles and extends hundreds of feet

below the surface of the Earth,

much like the nearby caves of Derinkuyu.

COLLINS: What they discovered was that these caves extended

for a distance of 370 feet

down into the rock.

NARRATOR: Archaeologists estimate

that more than five million square feet of rock,

the volume of over 370 Olympic-sized swimming pools,

was removed to carve out this subterranean city.

Yet there is no evidence of the extracted material in the area.

This mysterious cave system is still under excavation

and closed to the public.

But in June 2017,

author and researcher Andrew Collins

was granted access to the site.

The sheer size of some of these rooms is absolutely amazing.

I mean, this one that we're in now is 120 feet in length.

And yet it's just one of hundreds of similar rooms

that we find inside this great hill.

These tunnels that you see seem to go on and on.

And yet what's incredible

is that not only were they full of people

but there was also livestock down here.

And we're told that as many as 20,000 people,

perhaps even as much as 60,000,

could've lived here at any one time.

NARRATOR: Not only is there evidence

that these caves once housed thousands of people

but archaeologists have found air vents and water wells

that would have made it possible to live underground

for years at a time.

These were cut deeply into the rock,

sometimes for hundreds of yards in depth.

And at the base of them were wells

that provided water to these underground populations.

This is what is known as a self-sealing door.

And they're, in fact, huge great stone wheels

made of a volcanic rock known as "basalt."

And their function was that they would be wheeled into position

so that they would lock

so that nobody was able to get inside the underground cities.

NARRATOR: When it was discovered,

historians recovered artifacts

that suggest the cave system was used

by the early Christians to escape persecution.

So they dated the site to be approximately 1,500 years old.

But based on new evidence, the caves might be much older.

COLLINS: A few years ago,

I interviewed an archaeologist by the name of Ömer Demir.

And he found within it Paleolithic tools,

tools that went back at least 10,000 to 12,000 years

and, arguably, even earlier still.

NARRATOR: If these caves can be dated to at least 12,000 years ago,

around the same time archaeologists believe

the nearby site of Göbekli Tepe was constructed,

just who built them?

And what drove the builders underground?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest clues can be found

not embedded in stone

but in the pages of ancient Persian religious texts.

Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest

monotheistic religions, founded by the prophet Zoroaster

in ancient Iran approximately 3,500 years ago.

The central figure of the religion

was a powerful god named Ahura Mazda,

who is often depicted seated inside a winged disc.

According to the story recorded in a text

known as the Vendidad,

he sent a powerful warning to a young priest named Yima

about a coming cataclysm.

Ahura Mazda told the great early king Yima

that there would be a terrible disaster.

A giant serpent would descend from the heavens to the earth.

Well, that sounds like a comet or a large meteorite

falling to Earth.

And a winter would come such as has never been known.

NARRATOR: Prior to the event,

Yima is given very specific instructions

to build an underground shelter

in order to survive the coming "giant freeze."

Ahura Mazda instructs Yima to build a Vara.

This is a huge structure--

two miles long, two miles wide.

An underground hall of sorts

where things can be protected from the terrible winter.

Yima was to hide a remnant of the people

and an extensive seed bank.

Also, a pair of each of the animal species.

Once Yima is finished building the Vara,

he takes 2,000 people in,

a representation of mankind.

They are there for 150 years.

But when the winter is over and they come out,

it is a barren world.

They will have to rebuild civilization from scratch.

CHILDRESS: The Vara is supposed to be a-a huge enclosure

that not only houses a large number of people

but also animals and seeds.

It's a storehouse, just like Noah's ark.

So you've got the same story.

And it would seem that this is a very real thing

that ancient people knew about and wrote about.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the story of Noah's ark

and the Vara of Zoroastrianism are one and the same...

...and the reference to an ark was later misunderstood

to be a large ship?

But if these accounts are, in fact, true,

how is it that mankind had enough advanced warning

to build such sophisticated places of refuge?

The ancient texts are very clear

that the gods, they always warned people

that this catastrophe would happen

so that they would save a select group of that population.

So, how was that possible?

Well, either they had access to sophisticated technologies

with which to predict the weather,

or what's the other option?

And if you combine that with the fact

that Ahura Mazda was known to have descended from the sky

in a vehicle with fixed wings,

it looks like some type of flying device.

That would suggest that he was, in fact, an extraterrestrial.

NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,

the Vara described in the ancient Zoroastrian texts

is strikingly similar to the recently discovered

subterranean town in Central Anatolia.

HENRY: The underground caves in Turkey sound exactly like the Vara

that was made by Yima in Zoroastrian mythology.

Is it possible that this cave system

supplies the evidence that tells us

that the Zoroastrian mythology is, in fact, a real, true story?

NARRATOR: If these caves provide evidence

that the account recorded in the ancient Zoroastrian texts

is factual,

did the inhabitants of the Vara

emerge to find a barren wasteland

where they were to rebuild civilization?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,

and they suggest a strikingly similar story

can be found half a world away,

can be found half a world away,

in the deserts of North America.

One of the places where we have stories

of a Great Flood is right here in North America.

-Mm-hmm. -And we have many Native American traditions

-Mm-hmm. -And we have many Native American traditions

that also talk about a global cataclysm.

Right. The Zuni and the Hopi, for example,

who say they're all the survivors

of this massive cataclysmic event.

And they actually take it

one step further in their traditions by saying

the survivors received help

-from the so-called Ant People. -HENRY: Yeah.

And these Ant People are described as humanoid figures

who dwelled beneath the earth and had high technology.

So what are we talking about here?

Extraterrestrials who helped humanity

survive the Great Flood?

NARRATOR: Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

In the desolate high desert of the American Southwest

stand the ruins of the most important ceremonial site

of the ancient Pueblo people.

Constructed around 900 AD,

the central feature of this vast complex is the great kiva.

A kiva is basically, um,

a Native American version of a church.

It is a circular structure.

Chaco Canyon has an absolutely giant one that's located there.

When you enter one,

you're literally entering another world

to commune with the gods from before.

In ancient Pueblo culture,

every place you went had a small kiva of some kind.

But they would get together

maybe eight or nine different kivas, small ones,

into a larger great kiva.

And the great kivas were huge.

When the Spanish came in, in the 1600s,

they took their church and interposed it

on top of the kiva.

So everywhere in these Hopi villages,

in the Pueblo villages that you see a Catholic church,

it's usually on the high point of land

where the kiva was destroyed

and the church was built over the top of it.

NARRATOR: Every kiva includes a feature called a "sipapu."

In some kivas, the sipapu

is a small hole in the subterranean wall.

In kivas that are enclosed,

it is often represented by a hole in the roof.

In both cases, it is the most important part of the structure,

symbolizing the entrance to a subterranean world.

All of the Pueblos share a story

in which humankind began under the earth.

And we slowly, over generations,

crawled up and out of a hole called "sipapu."

And the kivas have this little hole in it symbolizing that.

NARRATOR: The descendants of the Ancestral Pueblo

share the belief that Earth was populated three separate times

before the era of modern humans,

with each previous age ending in a devastating cataclysm.

HENRY: The Pueblo Indians believe

that there, in fact, were three worlds or epochs before ours.

And they were all destroyed.

First by fire, the second by ice,

and the third by water.

In each instance, they tell us that it was due

to mistreatment of the Earth.

And so that tells us

that there could have been previous examples of humanity

that were destroyed who knows how long ago.

CHILDRESS: We're living now in the Fourth World.

And the Zunis and Hopis believe

our Fourth World will also end in a cataclysm.

HENRY: Their prophecy says that there would be a-a gourd of ashes

that would come from the sky.

That's interpreted as nuclear warfare.

TSOUKALOS: The Hopi suggest that there were previous worlds

or civilizations before.

And this is interesting because

there are other cultures,

ancient cultures around the world,

who speak of similar stories.

HENRY: The kabbalah teaches that there were

previous advanced human civilizations.

A number of them.

The Hindus teach about the Yugas,

where civilization advances to a very high place

and then descends and then reascends.

It, too, is divided into four different ages.

So, all of these traditions corresponds directly

with what the Native American tradition is teaching.

NARRATOR: Could the Native American tradition

describing previous ages of humankind be true?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest that these stories

also contain evidence of extraterrestrial intervention.

The Hopis of Northern Arizona have a very curious myth

of surviving the third of the cataclysms

by going underground and living with what they call the Ant Men.

HENRY: The stories the Hopi tell is that the Ant People rescued them

from cataclysm by taking them underground, literally,

and helping the Hopi to survive underground.

And then, once it was safe to return

to the surface of the Earth,

the Hopi were taken up through the sipapu by the Ant People

and repopulated the Earth.

But in all instances, the Ant People are described

as having a special relationship with the Hopi

and also of having a connection with the star realms.

NARRATOR: Despite their name,

Ant Men are described not as insects

but rather as small humanoid figures.

The reason they call these creatures Ant Men

is that they lived under the earth

and they would emerge much like ants crawling out of a hive.

So they called them "Ant Men."

But what they were were extraterrestrials

that were entering our world through the portal.

CHILDRESS: The Ant Men were underground dwellers

who had a high technology

and looked very similar, apparently,

to what we would call Grey aliens.

So this is something of a mystery,

of who these Ant Men were.

Many Hopis and-and the Zunis have similar belief that,

yes, the Ant Men were extraterrestrials.

CLIFFORD MAHOOTY: There were beings that are of the extraterrestrial origin

that were...

were part of that whole emergence mythology.

The entrance to the Fourth World.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the story of the Ant Men

is a genuine account of extraterrestrials

helping humanity survive a global cataclysm?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and suggest further clues can be found

and suggest further clues can be found

by comparing the Native American traditions

to accounts of a legendary lost continent called Atlantis.

NARRATOR: Athens, Greece.

The fourth century BC.

In his famous dialogues Timaeus and Critias,

the Greek philosopher Plato writes about a lost continent

the Greek philosopher Plato writes about a lost continent

that existed 9,000 years before his time

and was home to a highly advanced civilization.

Called Atlantis, it was founded by the Greek god Poseidon,

and the inhabitants possessed sophisticated technology.

But Atlantis was ultimately destroyed

by a terrible cataclysm.

And according to some researchers,

the story of its destruction is strikingly similar

to Native American traditions detailing the end

of the Third World.

HENRY: The Hopi and other Pueblo Indians tell us

that third devastating cataclysm

was due to human greed

and wandering away from the-the spiritual truths of our creator.

What's interesting about this is that this idea is echoed

in Plato's story of the destruction of Atlantis.

The Atlanteans were also created by gods.

As soon as humanity wandered off into materialism...

...that's when Atlantis was destroyed by water.

A perfect correspondence with what the Hopi said happened

at the end of the Third World.

NARRATOR: Could there be a connection

between the ancient Greek tale of Atlantis

and Native American origin stories?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

another story told by early Native Americans

bears striking similarities to Atlantis--

the legend of the lost city of Aztlán,

which appears in the traditions of the Aztecs

and numerous Native American groups throughout the Southwest.

Of the Hopis.

So we have all these oral histories also...

There's debate among scholars

as to exactly what Aztlán looked like.

And we know that the Aztecs say

that their capital of Tenochtitlan

was made in the image of Aztlán.

And from that capital, we get a backwards projection

that their origin place is a island surrounded by water.

They actually built Tenochtitlan up into the lake

and put causeways out

so that it looks very much like Atlantis.

NARRATOR: According to the Aztecs,

the god Huitzilopochtli was the founder of Tenochtitlan,

which, as far as ancient astronaut theorists

are concerned, provides yet another intriguing connection

to Plato's description of Atlantis.

Tenochtitlan was a place made artificially.

Compare it to Atlantis.

In both cases, a god was the ruler of it.

In Atlantis, we have Poseidon.

Now, Poseidon was an extraterrestrial.

Not everyone should have access to Atlantis.

The same thing in Aztlán or Tenochtitlan.

They wanted to be separated.

They had a certain technology there

which was a hidden technology,

and it was not for the general public.

So it's the same thing.

TSOUKALOS: The fact that we have stories

that are not just similar but identical

leads me to think that perhaps

these ancient cultures were visited

by the same extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: While mainstream academics

consider the stories of these lost civilizations

and their destruction to be mythological,

the recent discovery of vast sunken landmasses

such as Doggerland,

located just east of the British Isles in 2012,

and Zealandia, found near New Zealand in 2017,

may offer proof that a catastrophic water event

did, in fact, change the face of the Earth.

CHILDRESS: So here we have authentic legends

of lost lands that were destroyed in cataclysms.

Mainstream historians, you know, still pretty much reject this,

feel that it's all myths.

But it would seem, really, that all kinds

of civilizations could have come and gone on our planet.

We know that there are over 200 known submerged cities

in the Mediterranean.

There's just so much on our planet

that we have yet to find out.

YOUNG: In the Native American Indigenous teaching,

there are cycles of destruction and rebirth.

The interesting part is that

this is parallel to other great world teachings.

In the story of Noah,

the sons of God came down to Earth,

and they were teaching the humans evil ways.

And God decided to intervene and brought this Great Flood.

In the story of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian legend,

the council of gods brought the flood.

The Inca god Viracocha created the Great Flood.

HENRY: So, all of these traditions correspond directly

with the Hopi four worlds tradition

about previous civilizations...

...destroyed by the gods.

The story is always the same.

Some believe these cataclysms are cyclical.

I mean, can you imagine

if something happened to our culture, our civilization,

everything's wiped off

the surface of the Earth, all you have are

these stories, oral traditions that say,

"There was this advanced civilization,

and it was destroyed by a cataclysm,"

how would future generations

ultimately be able to piece the story back together?

Right. And some people call this "mankind in amnesia."

-Mm. -Where we've had

these cataclysms that have destroyed civilization

and we're slowly trying to put it all back together,

like what happened and what was the past really like?

Right. And, I mean, it only takes about two

or three generations for any memory to be completely erased.

And so the idea is that, after a while,

this true information of life generations ago

will delve into the realm of mythology and legends.

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