All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S05E10.The.Von.Daniken.Legacy.HDTV.x264-SPASM

NARRATOR: A young man's
spiritual journey.

ERICH VON DANIKEN: I was a boy,
16 years old, when I said,

"This is not God.
What are we talking about?"

NARRATOR:
A controversial bestseller.

GEORGE NOORY:
I was mesmerized by it.

I couldn't put it down.

NARRATOR: And a scientific theory
that threatened to change the world.

DAVID CHILDRESS: Everything
was turned upside-down

by Erich Von Daniken.

NARRATOR:
Just what are the

facts behind Erich Von Daniken
and ancient astronaut theory?

What were the divine inspirations...

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: The
ancient Egyptians did build the

pyramids with the assistance
of the Guardians of the Sky.

NARRATOR: the bizarre revelations...

JASON MARTELL: We're just
starting to rediscover ancient

technology that did exist
thousands of years ago.

NARRATOR: and the shocking
conclusions that were

too incredible to be ignored?

ROBERT BAUVAL: Even if there
is a chance in ten million that

he is right,
then everything changes.

VON DANIKEN: We have been
visited, and these visitors

will return to Earth again.

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, what does this say

not only about mankind's
past but about its future?

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NARRATOR: Minneapolis, Minnesota,

October, 2012.

I want to introduce
Erich Von Daniken.

NARRATOR: Hundreds gather
to hear iconic author and

researcher Erich Von Daniken
speak at the Paradigm Symposium,

a four-day event focused on
exploring ancient cosmology,

anthropology, archaeology,
and science fiction.

VON DANIKEN: Maybe we have
been visited from outer space.

Where's the proof?

What can we find?

NARRATOR: His books have sold
over 65 million copies worldwide.

He is a hero to some and
a heretic to others,

but Erich Von Daniken's
controversial theories have

captured the attention of the
world and ignited a movement

known as ancient astronaut theory.

VON DANIKEN: The scientific
community, they were always

afraid to think in this way.

We have to change our thinking.

NARRATOR: Von Daniken's
research has taken him all over

the world to investigate the unexplained
mysteries of ancient cultures.

He has spent his lifetime daring
to question what mainstream

scholars hold to be true.

VON DANIKEN: We are the
descendents, ladies and

gentlemen, we are the offsprings
of these extraterrestrials,

and it's not by coincidence.

NARRATOR:
Erich Von Daniken's

rise to notoriety began in
February, 1968, when the Swiss

hotel manager-turned-author
published his groundbreaking

book "Chariots of the Gods".

In it, the young writer
theorized that intelligent

extraterrestrial beings visited
Earth in the distant past

and made contact with mankind.

It caused a sensation, selling
an impressive 500,000

copies in its first
year of publication.

BAUVAL: When the book first
appeared was the year where we

landed a man on the moon, and
so there's a whole belief

now that it was possible to travel
into space, that we would

send people to space.

CHILDRESS: Many people were
very excited about this whole

new ancient astronaut theory.

They thought it made sense.

We were coming ourselves
into the modern space age.

MIKE BARA: People were
really, really interested in

these kinds of subjects and
wondering if maybe there had

been something that we had
secretly discovered on the moon

that may have pointed towards
extraterrestrial origins for man.

NICK REDFERN: Although the
phenomenon of ancient astronauts

has been around since the '50s,
it was really Von Daniken who

opened the doors to where it became
part of the popular culture.

CHRISTOPHER O'BRIEN: "Chariots
of the Gods" was a very

crucial book for me because
it opened my eyes up to the

possibility that ancient
cultures may have been in

connection with or interacting

with some sort of
off-planet intelligence.

NOORY: I was mesmerized by it;
I couldn't put it down.

It might've been the first book I
read cover to cover in one day.

His theories were just
phenomenal where he talked about

the possibility of
extraterrestrial visitations.

NARRATOR: By using rhetorical
questions, Von Daniken suggested

that evidence of alien close
encounters could be found in

everything from ancient
religious texts and mysterious

stone carvings to monumental
structures and monoliths located

all over the world.

BARA: What he basically says
is, you can no longer look at

the traditional interpretations
of historical events,

historical monuments,
historical structures,

historical cultures at face value.

You have to look at this in a
much broader context of what

could be perhaps
extraterrestrial intervention.

CHILDRESS: One of the things
that Erich did was to take very

familiar Bible stories
and reinterpret them...

where people are
interacting with angels.

They're even taken up into space
in fiery chariots and things

like that, and what it was was a
re-examination of what we're taught.

NARRATOR: But despite being
well received by the public,

scholars and scientists regarded Von
Daniken's claims as pseudoscience.

VON DANIKEN: I expected to
be ridiculed, but I did not

expect the unfair way in which the
ridiculing happened in the media.

I was at that time attacked.

"Erich Von Daniken said..."

In reality, in "Chariots of the
Gods", I had 238 question marks.

Nobody read the question marks.

O'BRIEN: Trailblazers tend
to become targets, and so

academia for many years
has slagged Von Daniken,

saying it's sloppy research,
it's sloppy thinking,

it's sloppy analysis.

However, as the years have gone
on, more and more of his...

his early work has now kind of
been vindicated by other people,

and I think we can all trace
back this interest in this

subject to Von Daniken's
groundbreaking work.

MARTELL: All the great
thinkers of our time and in

the past have been people
who challenged the norm.

So Erich Von Daniken really
challenged the norm of academia

to show that these things that
we thought of as just religious

myths actually have scientific
merit, and we need to look

into them further.

NARRATOR: But what was the
source for Erich Von Daniken's

groundbreaking theory?

Where did the notion of alien
astronauts visiting the earth in

the ancient past come from?

VON DANIKEN: I was educated
in a boarding school led by Jesuits.

Three years, we had to translate
parts of the Bible from one

language into the other.

In the first Book of Moses...

(rumbling)

the Lord descends from the heavens
down to Earth on a holy mountain.

With smoke and fire and loud
noise and trembling, and

everyone was afraid.

That was the moment
when I said,

"This is not God".

What are we talking about?

My God does not need a vehicle
in which to move around, which

trembles and makes smoke
"and loud noise."

And it was the Jesuit priest who

said, "Erich, maybe you should
"read a Book of Enoch."

NARRATOR: The Book of Enoch was
excluded from the Bible and

is still considered controversial
by many theologians.

But for Von Daniken, it was proof
of something much greater.

VON DANIKEN: It says that
Enoch was taken away from our

planet Earth by the Lord
in a fiery chariot.

Now, we knew nothing in the
past about flying machines.

So, in religious terms, they say now
he has his flight into the heaven.

But in my eyes, Enoch, he sees
something which in reality

it was a spaceship.

NARRATOR: This omitted
account of Enoch's journey

only raised more questions
for Von Daniken.

He turned his focus to the story
of the biblical prophet Ezekiel.

Like Enoch, Ezekiel is also
taken away in a fiery vehicle,

a vehicle he describes in great

technical detail in the
pages of the Old Testament.

Von Daniken brought the strange
texts to the attention of his priest.

VON DANIKEN: So the priest
said, "Ezekiel has a vision."

I said, "No, that's not the vision
because he describes "the noise."

He compares the noise with the
thundering of a waterfall.

It's not a vision.
It's something different.

Something like rocket engines.

Now we are talking about contact
with extraterrestrials, space

travel, so it all came together.

CHILDRESS: Erich wasn't
completely rejecting religion

or the idea of God.

Or even angels for that matter.

He was looking at things
differently but still keeping

a certain spirituality and
knowledge of universal truths.

VON DANIKEN: I have grown up
as a Catholic, a Christian,

and I clearly say I am still
one of these believers in God.

I pray every evening.

We will never lose God, never, when
we deal with ancient astronauts.

NARRATOR: Is it possible, as
Erich Von Daniken and other

ancient astronaut researchers
suggest, that the evidence for

real-life close encounters can
be found embedded in the pages

of the Holy Bible?

It was a question that the Swiss
teenager was determined to answer.

And his search now took him to
the Egyptian desert and the

mysterious structures known...

as the Great Pyramids.

NARRATOR: Northeastern Egypt, 1954.

At the age of 19, Erich Von
Daniken traveled to Giza,

three miles from Cairo.

There he could examine the
Egyptian pyramids firsthand.

VON DANIKEN: I visited Egypt
for the first time when I was,

well, a youngster.

That was long before
Chariots of the Gods.

And it impressed me very, very much.

I always had the feeling this
is not only done by humans.

Somebody must have done the planning.

Of course, I learned at that
time that archaeology says

this building is made by a
pharaoh with the name of Cheops.

I asked, "Where does the
name Cheops come from?"

Because we don't have
a statue of Cheops.

We don't have a mummy of Cheops.

You would think if somebody
makes this gigantic building

like the Great Pyramid, he would
be proud and he would say,

"Hey, I did it.
I was the one who constructed this."

But the Great Pyramid
is the total anonymity.

PHILLIP COPPENS: The
Great Pyramid has always

intrigued the ancient alien
theory for a number of reasons.

It's the last surviving wonder
of the ancient world, and nobody

has been able to explain how
precisely it was built.

Erich is not saying
that aliens built it.

Erich is saying that the
pyramids, specifically the Great

Pyramid, the way it is explained
by academics today does not fit

with what his research is indicating.

NARRATOR: The puzzling way in
which the Great Pyramid was

constructed and the mystery
surrounding its purpose, served

to fuel both the Swiss teenager's
curiosity and his imagination.

Could it be that everything his
teachers had told him about

ancient civilizations was false?

NOORY: The pyramids in Egypt are
probably one of the greatest

wonders of this planet.

Some people say that they're,
you know, landing marks for

extraterrestrials, power plants,
stabilizers for the planet

creating energy waves.

There's no doubt that somebody
had to provide the information

to help get this thing built
because they're just too

immense, they're too accurate.

TSOUKALOS: There is
absolutely no question that

the Great Pyramids of Giza
were built by human beings.

The ancient Egyptians did it.

However, what the ancient
Egyptian texts also tell us,

that the ancient Egyptians did
build the pyramids, but with the

assistance of the
Guardians of the Sky.

NARRATOR: Was it possible the
early Egyptians had received

otherworldly knowledge in order to
construct the Great Pyramid of Giza?

And if so, could proof be
found by examining other

archaeological sites?

1971...

Eastern India.

It was here, at the Sanskrit
College in Calcutta, that Erich

Von Daniken met with Professor
Dileep Kanjilal to study the

Vedic Sanskrit, an ancient language
used in religious Hindu texts.

VON DANIKEN: Professor Dileep
Kanjilal has gone through old

Indian texts and made
modern versions of it.

Now, it comes out in the old
books, the so-called gods, they

used flying machines to
travel from heaven to Earth.

TSOUKALOS: According to the
ancient Vedic texts of India,

the gods descended from the
sky in flying vehicles.

They refer to those
vehicles as "vimanas."

There are very detailed
descriptions: what these vimanas

looked like, how they traveled
from place to place, what was

necessary in order to pilot
them, all those things are

described in ancient Hindu texts
that are thousands of years old.

CHILDRESS: And for Erich, he
naturally felt that these

vimanas were real
nuts-and-bolts aircraft.

And of course, he's saying
these are the vehicles

of the ancient astronauts.

TSOUKALOS: When Erich first
went to India, he explored

a whole bunch of different
sites, and he quickly

came to the realization that
India is a treasure trove for

the ancient astronaut theory,
because all over India, we can

find these magnificent temple
towers that are referred to as

"stupas" and also "vimanas."

And so we have to ask
ourselves, where did the form

for a stupa come from?

COPPENS: Another great
contribution of Erich is that

he focused on India.

Very few people had really
studied the ancient Indian

civilization, even though it
is thousands of years old.

And what he saw there were
structures which were alleged to

have been replicas of vimanas.

VON DANIKEN: So many Hindu
temple in the Far East, they are

representations in their architecture
what was going up in the sky.

So the upper part of a Hindu

temple often is seen as a
flying object, as a vimana.

COPPENS: And basically what
we're being confronted with is

the realization that these
people built in stone objects

which they seem to
have seen in the sky.

MARTELL: When we look at the
most ancient records we have,

coming out of the Vedic texts
in India, there are clear

descriptions of aerial battles
taking place with vimanas.

So this really starts to
raise the question

about our own cycle of history.

Is it completely linear?

Or is it possible that we're
just starting to rediscover

ancient technology that did
exist thousands of years ago?

CHILDRESS: Ancient texts all
over the world talk about flying

vehicles, people who could fly
through the air, flying horses.

But it was Erich who
really put it together.

That the gods weren't just
flying around like Superman;

they had to get into some kind
of nuts-and-bolts craft,

just like we do,
and go somewhere.

And this was "The Chariots of the Gods".

VON DANIKEN: Enoch tells us
about the Guardians of the Sky

who came down.

He says they are called fallen
angels and they wanted to have

sex with humans, and the
offspring of it were giants.

So there were sexual contacts between
extraterrestrials and the humans.

TSOUKALOS:
What does this mean?

Well, it's very simple.

Erich Von Daniken's
interpretation was, we are

nothing else but hybrids of
an extraterrestrial race that

jump-started our civilization
thousands and thousands of years ago.

And that extraterrestrials, in
fact, gave us intelligence.

Homo sapiens existed
for 250,000 years.

But only in the last 50,000
years, this quantum leap all of

a sudden happened where we went
from munching bananas in a cave

to essentially building civilizations.

COPPENS: Science is holding out
great hope and expectation

that at one point they will
find this missing link between

everything else on
Planet Earth and us.

But despite looking for over 150
years, they haven't come any closer.

The answer might be found in what
our ancestors have always said,

which is that we have been
made by the gods, that we are

not like anything else
here on Planet Earth.

We stand out, because
we have been created.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE: As we
look at the whole history of

this planet, there is
this huge question.

How many advanced intelligences
have been on this planet maybe

for millions of years,
terraforming, and manipulating

genes in all kinds of life, and
that maybe even modern human

is one of those manipulated
genetic creations.

BAUVAL: Imagine all the knowledge
human beings possessed.

Astronomy, mathematics,
engineering and writing, were

brought down from
heaven by the gods.

It does raise the question,
is Daniken right?

Because even if there is the
faintest possibility, a chance

in a million, a chance in ten
million that he is right, then

everything changes.

NARRATOR: Do ancient religious
texts really provide

evidence of alien contact with
cultures throughout history?

Chariots of the Gods had
opened the door to much

discussion, speculation,
and criticism.

But its enormous success also
gave the Swiss writer

the ability to travel the world
in search of more answers.

It was a search that would take
him halfway across the globe,

to see firsthand the ancient
ruins of South America.

NARRATOR:
Bolivia, South America.

Here lie the ruins of Puma
Punku, a mysterious temple

complex located in the
ancient city of Tiahuanaco.

It is believed to have been
built about 2,000 years ago.

The year he published his
bestselling book Chariots of

the Gods, author Erich Von
Daniken made a pilgrimage to

this archaeological site for
more proof of his controversial

theory that extraterrestrial
beings had visited Earth

in the distant past.

VON DANIKEN: Puma Punku is
in the highland of Bolivia.

You stand there and you
are absolutely shocked.

There are gigantic
platforms laying around.

At that time, in 1968, there was no
archaeological work done up there.

MARTELL: When Erich Von Daniken
arrived at Puma Punku,

here he found evidence, clearly,
of lost high technology.

We see laser-perfection drilled
holes, stone that has been

somehow liquefied, or almost

kind of made vitrified,
and stuck together.

This is not possible without
the use of high technology.

CHILDRESS: Erich was able
to see these "H" blocks.

They're big granite blocks all
articulated and cut as if they

were pre-manufactured, and in
such a way that they would fit

together and create
these giant walls.

It was such a high-tech kind of
construction that it boggled

everyone's mind.

COPPENS: So what we have in Puma
Punku is the traditional...

what I would say Erich Von
Daniken tackling archaeology.

There is, within the methodology
of how these stones were

constructed, a certain degree of
difficulty which our ancestors

simply never attained in the
surrounding landscape of Tiahuanaco.

Stone carvers basically told him
that it was almost impossible

or extremely difficult to create
these artifacts, and that

specifically why they would be
doing it is something which

really defies explanation.

NARRATOR: Another aspect of
Puma Punku that captivated

Von Daniken was the legend of
its creation, as put forward by

the indigenous people
of the region.

TSOUKALOS: The population living
there are called the Aymara.

And the Aymara themselves say
that they had no involvement

in building Puma Punku.

In fact, when you ask them who
built Puma Punku, they will

point to the sky and they
will say, "Los Dioses."

The gods.

VON DANIKEN:
In Puma Punku

they say, "The gods constructed
the place in one night."

This makes sense.

You have an extraterrestrial
crew, they come down to Earth.

So they construct with their
tools just something which we

would call today a basic camp.

They behaved themselves like
archaeologists would do: they learn.

They teach a little to humans,
they learn their language...

One day they disappeared,
their job is over.

They take all their instruments
back to the mother spaceship,

and left are only a few
ruins of the basic camp.

NARRATOR: Was Puma Punku
really a base camp for

extraterrestrials that visited
Earth in the distant past?

And were the magnificent stones
that make up the ruins made with

the help of advanced building methods?

For Erich Von Daniken the answer
was clearly "yes,"

and it compelled him to continue
his search nearly 3,000 miles away

at the ruins of another ancient city.

Chichén Itzá, Mexico.

Located on the Yucatán
Peninsula are the ruins

of an ancient Mayan city that
thrived from 750 to 1200 A.D.

It was here, in 1969, that
Erich Von Daniken had

an amazing realization involving the
city's central pyramid of El Castillo.

VON DANIKEN: I was standing
before this great pyramid.

I understood nothing.

I took every possible literature
from Central American

archaeologists to learn
what's this all about.

And then I learned again, they are
talking of visitors from outside.

Of course they call them gods.

TSOUKALOS: According to the
ancient Mayan myths, their main

deity was Quetzalcoatl
or Kukulkan, Gukumatz.

All those different names for
the exact same deity, which was

described to be a winged or a
flying serpent, or a flying snake.

Whatever it was that they saw
up in the sky could best be

described as a flying snake.

COPPENS: When we're looking
across the world,

Chichén Itzá
is a very important location.

It is one of those places where
it is said that the gods

descended to and decreed
a fate of mankind.

And there is one specific
pyramid, El Castillo,

the castle, where you see an
intricate light show happening

on specifically the equinoxes,
March 21 and September 21.

VON DANIKEN: In the early
morning you see the sun rising

up, and while the sun goes up,
you see on the stairway,

light and shadow, triangles
of light and shadow.

They are produced because
of the nine platforms.

The light and shadow triangles
slowly go down the step to the

pyramid until the sun is up there.

The message is absolutely clear.

God Kukulkan visited the earth
and disappeared again

with the promise to return
in a far away future.

So they have given this
whole information

of the return of the
gods into their temple.

COPPENS: And I think this is
one of the great things which

Erich has done, not just in
the story of Chichén Itzá,

but of so many other aspects on
other places in this world as well.

Whereby he focuses on certain

details and says, look,
this is important.

This is a detail which is
extremely difficult to create.

This is something which traditional
archaeology tends to overlook.

NARRATOR: By making a
connection between the ancient

Mayas' knowledge of astronomy
and their precise architecture,

Erich Von Daniken was convinced
that there was much more to his

ancient alien hypothesis
than he had imagined.

For further proof he looked
to another Mayan temple.

One that housed what some say

was the first ancient
astronaut Lord Pakal.

CHILDRESS: At the ancient
Mayan city of Palenque was a

tomb that was discovered
in the 1950s.

And inside this tomb was a lid on
the sarcophagus for Lord Pakal.

And that lid is, is very highly
decorated with a picture of Lord Pakal.

And in that picture he's doing
some really unusual things.

VON DANIKEN: You see a man

bending forward, almost
like a racing motorcyclist.

He has his nose on some
kind of oxygen mask.

He uses his upper hand
to manipulate the knob.

You see his lower hand, he
manipulates some controls.

He's sitting on a kind of chair.

In a sort of a capsule.

CHILDRESS: When Erich looked

at that lid, he saw a Mayan
king in a rocket ship.

And that guy was returning to the
stars, going back into space.

It was an exciting interpretation.

And it was one of the main
things in Chariots of the Gods.

And when other people looked
at that lid and saw his

explanation, they had
to agree with him.

NARRATOR: Could Erich
Von Daniken be correct?

Was Lord Pakal really an
extraterrestrial who visited

Earth in the distant past?

One who perhaps shared highly
advanced knowledge with mankind?

After publishing his second
book, Gods from Outer Space,

in 1970, Erich Von Daniken now
found himself caught in the

crosshairs of a bitter fight
between traditional science and

conventional religion, which
denounced the notion

that life existed on other planets.

It was a battle the author seemed
ill-equipped to fight alone.

NARRATOR: In the more than
four decades since the

publication of Chariots of the
Gods, writer and researcher

Erich Von Daniken has continued
his search for the truth

about mankind's otherworldly origins.

VON DANIKEN: I wish and I
hope that the society finally

starts to take this proposition
we make here serious, that the

scientific community starts
to think in this way.

But I have to express one thing
very clear: what I do here has

nothing to do with a new religion.
I would turn myself in my tomb

if some idiots create a new
religion according to my thinking.

This is the last thing I wish.

Absolutely not.

NARRATOR: And joining Erich Von
Daniken has been a small but

growing number of what have
become known as ancient

astronaut theorists...
men and women who have expanded and

at times refined
Von Daniken's findings.

HOWE: I'm curious... how many people
here have seen in their lifetime

some unidentified aerial
object in the sky?

How many?
Hands.

You represent what I think is a
slice of humanity everywhere

because I am convinced that
telling the human family of this

planet the truth is probably what
most souls are hungering for.

PAUL VON WARD: One of the
things that we know about human

behavior is that it is shaped by
our world view, our paradigm,

and I would suggest that this
is a very significant time to

change this paradigm.

We are not alone in the universe
and that we are a part of this

bigger network of life.

TSOUKALOS: To me, personally
I think there is a paradigm

shift going on, and it's an
incredibly positive movement

because we're all in this together.

VON DANIKEN: We live in a society
which I call reasonable.

To be reasonable means to believe
what the scientists say.

So it's up to us; just don't accept
everything the reasonable ones say.

Please be unreasonable.

I am unreasonable.

CHILDRESS: What I've really
liked about Erich is that he

does bring up a lot of unusual ideas.

Uh, he points out inconsistencies
in, uh, mainstream archaeology.

I've never really bought into
all of Erich's conclusions,

but I was always interested in it.

So in many ways, he spurred me
to go around the world...

to remote islands, to unusual
archaeological sites.

I wanted to check
them out for myself.

Now, all of his explanations
weren't always the explanation

I would have given, but it's
what's leading me and other

people down a certain track:

investigate this.

Go check it out for yourself.

Don't just take my word for it.

COPPENS: When I began to
explore ancient civilizations,

in a library in Belgium, I
stumbled upon a book by Erich

Von Daniken, and I was hooked.

Because I think I was one of
thousands, if not millions, of

people who began to realize that
ancient history wasn't clear-cut.

And he really, in me, began
to open up this exploratory

process, whereas I had always
been interested in recent

history, that really this mystery
of the ancient world was

more complex, more beautiful
and more interesting.

And so in the last two decades,
Erich has informed me on my path

of saying: we need to explore,
we need to open up our minds

into trying to understand what
our ancient ancestors were

doing, because there are still
gigantic question marks as to

how our past has been created.

BAUVAL: We must be open
to Erich Von Daniken.

Daniken is the first man who...

gutsily came out and faced the
world in saying: I think it's

possible... that ancient
astronauts have come to visit

our planet, and the pyramids,
the various temples, all this

was perhaps remnants of their visits.

Now, I must say that I was a
great skeptic on the ancient

alien theory until recently.

Because everything has
changed for us skeptics.

For example, within the last 12
years we've looked at the little

patch of our galactic system,
which is the Milky Way, and so

far we've found 3,000 planets.

When we extrapolate the
possibility over the whole

galactic system, it's estimated
that there must be about a

billion planets in our galaxy alone.

So the odds are extremely high
of finding life out there.

(rocket rumbling)

Now, having said this, if we can

go out there, why
can't they come here?

We must be open to possibility
that life on this planet has

been touched by
extraterrestrial beings.

TSOUKALOS: Thanks to my
grandmother, growing up, ideas

of ancient aliens and Atlantis
and all those alternative

viewpoints on history, that was dinner
table conversation at my house.

I grew up in Switzerland, and
Erich Von Daniken was Swiss as

well, and so I started to attend
his lectures, I read and studied

all of his books.

I have been to places
that Erich has described.

It has opened my mind to
possibilities, because the big

point of Erich's books
are the questions.

What if everything in our past is
not the way it's presented to be?

What if our planet was visited by
extraterrestrials in the past?

That means that creation is even
more magnificent than what we're

being told, because the divine
is permeating throughout the

entire universe, not
just on Planet Earth.

In fact, Jesus himself said: My
father's home has many rooms.

And so what if that was just a
metaphor to suggest that the

universe houses a whole bunch
of different species, that the

universe is teeming with life
and we all belong to it?

NARRATOR: Although mainstream
scholars have so far refused to

acknowledge Erich Von Daniken's
controversial theories as little

more than pseudoscience, his
exhaustive efforts on behalf of

ancient astronaut theory have
started to gain acceptance...

not in the hallowed
halls of academia...

but with ordinary citizens...
men and women who, like the

Swiss author himself, prefer
to ask their own questions...

even if it means challenging
Erich Von Daniken himself.

MAN: The ancient alien hypothesis,
what did you purport that was wrong?

CROWD: Five! Four! Three!

Two! One!

(cheering)

(rumbling)

NARRATOR: At a time when we
have just begun to explore Mars

and look forward to an era when
space travel is commonplace,

might we find the answers to
the questions mankind has been

asking for centuries?

Who are we?

Why are we here?

CHILDRESS: We're gonna go
back to the moon, and we're

gonna go to Mars, and so
once we become, ourselves, a

a space-faring people, the idea
of ancient astronauts coming

here will be even more
accepted, I think.

COPPENS: It takes decades,
sometimes centuries, before

paradigm is changed.

And I think what's going to be
shown in the next decade is that

society as a whole is
going to explore this.

And I think Erich is going to
be perceived as really the

instigator of this all, the
man who was able to pose the

question in such a way that it
became acceptable for the people

of the world to really ponder it.

REDFERN: We have to bear in
mind that he was talking about

ancient astronaut stuff nearly
50 years ago and people are

still talking about it to this day.

The important thing is, if there
was nothing to his work...

the whole phenomena
would have died a death.

NARRATOR: Did ancient astronauts
really come to Planet Earth?

And if so, what was their purpose?

And perhaps even more important,
will they come again?

CHILDRESS: These highly
developed people, with high

technology, high civilization,
would interact with these

primitive humans and show them
certain things, including

agriculture and building
techniques and how to live

together in harmony in order to
try to develop civilization and

bring us to a higher state, and the
state that we're living in today.

The ancient alien hypothesis,

what have you jettisoned
in the intervening time?

What did you purport that was
wrong, and what have you revised?

VON DANIKEN: Of course, when I
was young I was enthusiastic,

and I was not so proper in
researching, so there were a

few things which I had
to learn I was wrong.

And then you accept you were
wrong, but you try with every

book to become better.

Because, ladies and gentlemen,
I learned we must continue to

ask the questions.

Our scientists have a tunnel view.

They don't want to see things which
go further than their thinking.

And that's why we all here,
we change the thinking, the

consciousness of all this society.

Thank you.

(cheering, applause)

REDFERN: Inevitably, anyone
that reads Von Daniken's books

and thinks carefully about his
work whether they accept his

conclusions or not, they cannot
fail to wonder and ponder on the

idea of: has religion actually
got it wrong, were we just

really visited by ancient aliens
and nothing else... and we've

incorporated that into our
belief systems and created these

structured religions which are
based on ancient UFO visits?

VON DANIKEN: Looking at our planet,
we have two groups of human.

One group is religious.

♪ ♪

The other group is a scientific group.

The religious group believe that
God created everything,

the whole universe...the suns,
the solar systems, the trees,

the plants, the animal, but we
humans are the crown of creation.

♪ ♪

The other group, the scientific
group, they think we know

everything about mutation, selection,
that we are on top of evolution.

Now, in both cases we think
we humans are the greatest.

There is nothing higher than we.

We have to learn that we are just one
of the million species out there.

We have been visited
and it continues.

These visitors will
return to Earth again.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Will mankind's
origins remain a mystery?

Perhaps the answers lie right in
front of us, in every corner of

the globe, and all we need to do
is what Erich Von Daniken began

doing more than half a century ago...
keep digging... keep exploring...

and keep watching the skies.

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