All language subtitles for HISTORY CHANNEL - Ancient Aliens (2014) - (S08E03 - Mysterious Devices) BD 1080p

NARRATOR:
A 2,000-year-old computer...

MAN: It had more complicated
inner workings

than a modern-day Swiss watch.

NARRATOR: Giant power plants...

DIFFERENT MAN:
It's very strange,

but it's clearly a battery.

NARRATOR: And weapons
more powerful

than anything that exists today.

DIFFERENT MAN: It roared,

and then flashes of fire
came out of it.

NARRATOR: Throughout the world,
there are artifacts and stories

that point to advanced
technology in the distant past.

Could these be products
of our ancestors' imaginations,

or might there be a more
profound explanation?

DIFFERENT MAN: It sounds
fantastic to us that they could

have had some kind
of alien technology.

It's clearly
what they're describing.

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, might we find proof
by examining mysterious devices?

The Giza Necropolis,
Egypt, 1993.

A team of engineers uses
a remotely operated camera

in an attempt to discover
the true function

of what is believed to be
an air shaft leading

from the supposed queen's
chamber of the Great Pyramid.

First discovered in 1872,
archaeologists long considered

these narrow tunnels
to be ventilation ducts.

MAN: This robot traveled
up this small shaft

which was too small for a human

or any type of device
to go through,

and all of a sudden,
it finds a closed door

hinged by two little
metal clamps.

NARRATOR: According to
mainstream archaeologists,

the door and metal handles
were intentionally built

as a symbolic passageway
that the queen

would travel through
to the afterlife...

but some researchers
have questioned

why this passageway
would have been designed

with a deliberate blockage...

and why, on a plateau
filled with monumental pyramids

believed to serve
as royal tombs,

is the Great Pyramid
the only one with such a door.

Egyptologists
are very much fond of saying

that pyramids are tombs
and that they have been robbed

at some point in the past,
but the fact is

that we have found
in the 20th century

a number of pyramids
whose central king's chamber,

so to speak, is intact,

and when they opened
the sarcophagus,

they found that sarcophagus
to be empty, as well.

NARRATOR: If the Great Pyramid
was not a tomb,

what may have been
its true purpose?

In May 2011,
another team of researchers

set out to further explore

the blocked air shaft
in the queen's chamber.

This time, the crew used a robot

equipped with
a micro snake camera

to slip through a hole and
reveal what was beyond the door.

When they actually penetrated
this small door,

they found a hidden room
within the pyramid.

MAN: What they found was copper
fittings, or the metal fittings.

Another feature of the back
of these metal fittings

was that on one side, the loop
looked like it was corroded.

The camera also looked down
and scanned the floor,

and what we saw
was red markings.

My interpretation of those were,
they were electrical symbols,

but why were they there?

NARRATOR: Could these artifacts
be actual evidence

that electricity once coursed
through the structure,

and, if so, could
the Great Pyramid of Giza

have been built to serve
as not a royal tomb,

but a power plant,
as some researchers contend?

DUNN: If we dismiss
the tomb theory

and we look
at the pyramid itself,

we see something
that modern engineers

can really tune into
and understand.

What we have is a very,
very precise building

that has the precision
of a fraction of an inch,

is something
that is very noteworthy,

and not indicative of a simple,
agrarian culture.

So what we have is something
that is almost like a machine.

NARRATOR: If the Great Pyramid
was a sophisticated machine,

potentially capable
of creating energy,

how could it have worked?

Some researchers believe
clues can be found

by exploring
underneath the structure.

In 2000, maritime engineer
John Cadman proposed a theory

that the Egyptians pumped water
from the nearby Nile River...

into a small chamber
underneath the Great Pyramid.

The pump could then create
intense hydraulic pressure

that would cause
the entire pyramid to vibrate.

CADMAN:
In the subterranean chamber,

there is some evidence that
shows that there had been water

present in it and that there's
water erosion on the floor

and then up in the thin area,

and then, also because it was
a hydraulic pulse generator,

see how the rarefaction wave,
this extremely low-pressure wave

which would have
struck the ceiling,

and the ceiling
is actually chipped,

and that would have been
from the acts

of compression waves
hitting the ceiling.

That's very evident.

NARRATOR: If Cadman's theory
proves true,

what would have been the purpose
of the hydraulic pulse?

Engineer Chris Dunn
believes the answer can be found

by further examination
of the shafts

in what some call
the queen's chamber,

where traces of zinc
and hydrochloric acid

have been discovered.

DUNN: I believe
the chemical coming in

through the northern shaft
was hydrated zinc

and the other chemical coming
through the southern shaft

and into the chamber
was dilute hydrochloric acid.

These are actually seen
on the chamber walls.

NARRATOR: Dunn suggests
that the two chemicals

were poured down
through the shafts

and then mixed together
inside the queen's chamber,

triggering combustion.

DUNN: This vessel represents
the queen's chamber.

Into the tubes, we're going
to pour hydrated zinc

and then hydrochloric acid.

When you bring
these two liquids together

and a chemical reaction occurs,

a product of that chemical
reaction is hydrogen,

and you can see the vapor,
the hydrogen,

escaping through the chimney,

and there you have the reaction.

NARRATOR: Dunn speculates
that the hydrogen gas traveled

from the queen's chamber
into the king's chamber.

Then the vibrations
from the subterranean pool

energized the hydrogen atoms
into a microwave energy beam.

The evidence that indicates
the use of hydrogen

can be found
in the king's chamber.

There's a shaft
in the king's chamber

has dimensions of 8.4 by 4.8,

which would be suitable
for a wave guide for a maser,

or microwave amplification

through stimulated
emission radiation,

and from there,
we can actually propose

many different ideas
of what they did with it.

MAN: The ancient Egyptians
demonstrated

an exceptional level of skill
in everything that they created

during the Old Kingdom,
but the question remains,

did they do it on their own,
or did they have some access

to information or technology
that was not of this earth?

NARRATOR: If Giza was,
in fact, a power plant,

could the energy have been used
for some otherworldly purpose,

as some ancient astronaut
theorists suggest?

Perhaps further evidence
that advanced technology

really did exist on Earth
thousands of years ago

can be found by examining
yet another mysterious device...

The Ark of the Covenant.

NARRATOR: Approximately 17 miles
northeast of Jerusalem

lies the ancient ruins
of the city of Jericho.

Here, archaeologists
have uncovered evidence

of settlements dating back
to 9,000 BC.

According to the Hebrew Bible,

Jericho is believed to be
where God spoke to Joshua,

the successor to Moses,
and instructed him

to march around the walled city
once every six days

with seven priests
carrying rams' horns

and followed
by the Ark of the Covenant,

the golden chest containing
the Ten Commandments.

Then on the seventh day
under orders by God,

Joshua and the Israelites

marched around the perimeter
of the city one last time...

[Shofars blaring]

But this time,
they blew the rams' horns.

The walls of Jericho fell,

and the city was sacked.

MAN: In the Old Testament,
you see very clear descriptions

in Joshua 6 about the shofar,
which is described as a trumpet

that was used
in the Battle of Jericho

to actually
bring the walls down.

[Shofars blaring]

NARRATOR: To religious scholars,

the collapse of Jericho's walls
was a miracle.

To most modern-day scientists
and historians,

the destruction
was most probably caused

by an earthquake,

but could it have been
something else?

Could the Israelites
have possessed

advanced sound wave technology?

If so, where did it come from?

MAN: In the scriptures,
we have a fascinating story

about the fall
of the walls of Jericho.

Armies were told to circle
the wall repeatedly

and then finally
blow their horns,

and down came the walls,

and we know there was
a powerful presence.

The Ark of the Covenant...
This mysterious, sacred item...

Was with them at all times,

which, of course,
was part of the event

and part of the fall
of the walls of Jericho.

[Shofars blaring]

MAN: The idea that
some kind of sonic weapon

was used to destroy these huge,
thick, ancient walls

to allow the Israelites
to basically take over that city

is a fascinating one.

So what kind of technology
were they using?

It sounds utterly fantastic
to us that they could have had

some kind of advanced
alien technology.

It's clearly
what they're describing.

There is little doubt

that the Ark of the Covenant
was a weapon.

It was described as a weapon,
famously, when the Israelites

crossed over into Canaan
and they had to pass by Jericho,

and it could be that there
was some technology.

NARRATOR: According to many
ancient astronaut theorists,

Moses and the Israelites
acquired a supernatural source

of energy at Mount Sinai.

This powerful energy source
was later contained

in the Ark of the Covenant
and would have provided

the kind of power necessary
to amplify Joshua's horns

and make them into
a powerful sonic weapon.

WILCOCK: The Ark of the Covenant
appears to be

some sort
of advanced technology.

What's interesting
about the Battle of Jericho

is that this particular use
of the shofar

clearly seems to be
the same thing that we're seeing

with particle beam technology,

death ray technology,
thunderbolt technology.

It very clearly seems
that, once again,

we have an extraterrestrial
technology

that the ancient people had
at the ready that they could use

when needed
for military campaigns.

NARRATOR: But even
if the Israelites

possessed some sort of advanced,
extraterrestrial technology,

could the amplified sound
of rams' horns

really bring down stone walls?

According to scientist
and former astronaut.

Professor Taylor Wang,
recent research into the field

of physical acoustics suggests
it is a distinct possibility.

Jericho wall breaking apart,

if you said it has happened
caused by acoustic,

caused by sound...

well, the possibility has to be

somehow a resonance
is built in that wall.

May not be the whole wall,

maybe some
of the structure material,

when that resonance happens,
amplitude gets large enough,

yes, it could
destroy almost anything

because what the resonance
does is store

the enormous amount of energy.

So you keep on,
keep on feeding it,

eventually,
it shatters everything.

MAN: When you want to know
how powerful sound is,

you have to realize that
the basic thing that sound is

is a pressure wave,
and it will come down

to the amount of energy you put
into your sound wave

and whether or not
that particular pressure wave

you generate
will couple or impact

the thing you're trying
to destroy.

You can make it quite powerful

because you can make
a very high amplitude,

very large pressures
in the sound.

It might be at a frequency
or amplitude

where we no longer
hear it as sound,

but from a physics
point of view,

it is still sound because it's
a pressure wave in the air.

So it can get quite destructive

if you put enough
energy into it.

You could also think of it
as a particle weapon

because you're
moving air around,

and you would just need
something to focus the sound,

which we know how to do,
and so that would give you

a directed energy beam
with sound.

NARRATOR: Did advanced
extraterrestrial technology

really help the Israelites
survive their exodus

in the desert,
as the Hebrew Bible contends,

and, if so, might early humans
have possessed

other equally astounding
technological devices?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes

and believe further clues
can be found

by examining an object
that dates back

to the second century BC,

one that functioned
as a computer.

NARRATOR: Did aliens
really inspire our ancestors

to build ancient
temples and pyramids,

and if they came here,
did they leave behind

any advanced knowledge
of physics,

astronomy, or mathematics?

If so, is there any evidence
that remains to this day?

One example might be this one.

Often described as the world's
first mechanical computer,

it dates back over 2,000 years.

CHILDRESS: The Antikythera
device was found in 1900

by sponge divers
diving off a small island

in the Aegean
called Antikythera.

There was a shipwreck there,

and in it was
a coral-encrusted box,

and it was made of metal alloys,

and it then went
to the Athens Museum,

where a good 50 years later,
they were able

to X-ray this box,
and they were able to discern

cogged wheels
that were interconnected

and give us
a very good depiction

of what this thing was,
and it is a computer.

It's a really
sophisticated machine.

MARTELL: It's a very interesting
piece of technology

because it served two purposes.

One was that it was
an astronomical device

where you could, by using it,
chart your position to the stars

and navigate your way
through the seas.

It was also
an astrological device

so that someone could tell you,
if you were born on this date

and your planet sign is this,

then certain things
were going to happen to you

when the planets
are in this alignment.

So it was a very interesting
piece of technology

that literally had
more complicated gears

and inner workings
than a modern-day Swiss watch,

and it's found to be dated,
I think, like, 200 BC.

So it's really an anomaly
as to who could've created that

and what it was being used for.

CHILDRESS: When archeologists
first started

to examine this thing
in the 1950s,

they said that they never could
conceive of the ancient Greeks

having such complicated
machinery,

and, in fact, they said,
this was tantamount

to finding a jet airplane
in the tomb of King Tut.

NARRATOR: Even older
than the Antikythera mechanism

are these carvings on a wall

at the Dendera Temple complex
in Egypt.

To some, the strange designs
look eerily similar

to objects
very much in use today.

TSOUKALOS: In Egypt,
there is this underground crypt

at Dendera
that was always secret,

and only the high priests
had access to that crypt.

It's very hot in there,
very narrow, low ceiling,

and on the walls,
you have these reliefs

of what looks like
ancient light bulbs

because we have to question
one thing...

How did the ancient Egyptians
light the inside of their tombs?

NARRATOR: According to most
mainstream archeologists,

torches were used
by the ancient Egyptians

to light the pitch-black
chambers of tombs and temples.

Yet nowhere on the ceilings
is there even

the slightest evidence
of soot or smoke residue.

There isn't enough oxygen
inside those tombs

with which to support
or feed a flame of a torch.

The only remaining solution
is by some sort

of an artificial light source,

and that is, for example,
a light bulb.

So at an underground crypt
at Dendera,

we find reliefs
of such light bulbs.

NARRATOR: But how could
the ancient Egyptians

have used anything resembling
a modern-day light bulb

without access to electricity?

After all, electricity
wouldn't be discovered

for thousands of years,
that is, of course,

with the exception
of what scientists call

the Baghdad Battery.

MARTELL: The Baghdad Battery
was discovered in ancient Iraq.

Scholars today say there's
no way that ancient man

was using electricity
or light bulbs.

So they look
at this Baghdad Battery,

and there's about a dozen
of them that have been found

in Iraq and the only
mainstream theory is that

they were using it
for electroplating jewelry.

NARRATOR: Two major proponents
of ancient alien theory,

Jason MARTELL
and GIORGIO TSOUKALOS,

demonstrate just how
the Baghdad Battery

could generate electricity

using a modern mock-up
of the device.

Well, basically,
this is made out of a clay pot,

clay just found naturally
in that region in Southern Iraq,

and then they would use
a small copper lining

and something along the lines
of an asphalt stopper

wrapped around an iron rod,
and these all applied together

and the combination of some
weak acidic acid... vinegar;

Grape juice; Orange juice,
in this case; Wine...

Would be able
to generate a charge

by combining these elements
with the rod, the iron rod,

and the copper,
and the combination of that

creates an abundance
of electricity.

So what we're gonna do
is basically just

fill the clay pot
with some orange juice here.

I'll try not to spill it
too much...

TSOUKALOS: OK.

MARTELL: And then we'll go ahead

and put the copper rod
back in there,

copper and iron rod.

We'll give it a moment to kind
of fill that copper area there,

and then by turning on
the volt meter and applying this

to each side, we should be able
to generate a charge,

and there it goes,
into the positive...

TSOUKALOS: Mm-hmm.

MARTELL: And if we
give it some time

to get the electrolytes
really buzzing in there,

you'll see that this volt
will actually continue to rise.

It is a battery.

Everybody agrees with that,
but nobody knows

why they made it
and how they made it.

What mind would think of that,

electrical current,
back several thousand years ago?

It's very strange,
but it's clearly a battery.

CHILDRESS: The whole idea
that ancient civilizations

actually had knowledge of
electricity and used electricity

is an accepted
archeological fact today.

Just like in our own
civilization...

Where about 200 years ago,
Benjamin Franklin

and other scientists
began experimenting

with simple electrical devices...

We now have evidence
that over 3,000 years ago,

people were also experimenting
with electrical devices.

Where might it have led them?

What other electrical devices

would they have been
able to create?

I believe they probably created
all kinds of electrical devices.

NARRATOR: Are the Antikythera
device and the Baghdad Battery

evidence that our ancestors
really were in possession

of advanced technology,
and, if so,

might this technology have had
extraterrestrial origins?

Ancient astronaut theorists
believe further clues

may be found in the story
of a top-secret Nazi project

simply known as The Bell.

NARRATOR: In a remote valley

just outside
Ludwikowice, Poland...

stands a strange
circular structure

known as the Henge, or Fly Trap.

MAN: We are in the middle
of a valley

which was taken over by the SS
and transformed

into a secret research,
development,

and industrial facility.

It was closely guarded.

Inside of this valley,
we have three security rings,

closing specific areas
from each other.

Inside of the innermost circle,
this structure stands,

and it's quite mysterious.

NARRATOR: Mainstream scholars
believe the structure served

as the concrete support base
to a cooling tower

used by a coal mine,
but according to Witkowski

and others,
the German high command

would not have devoted
so many military resources here

if the valley contained
only an energy plant.

They say the Henge
was used to test a new,

highly advanced machine
known as Die Glocke,

or The Bell.

MAN: The Bell, Die Glocke,
was probably

one of the top secret projects
of the Third Reich.

It was so secret
that it's even unclear

on how much Hitler was told.

There's a great deal
of evidence that suggests

that the scientists,
including Hermann Oberth

and Wernher Von Braun
and others,

were working
on a bell-shaped craft

that was electromagnetic
in its propulsion system.

NARRATOR: Surviving sketches
depict The Bell as having

a ceramic covering
and dimensions measuring

ten feet high
and five feet in diameter.

Its design appears contrary to
modern aerodynamic principles.

DENNIN: If you're starting
to think about a bell shape

for flight, the challenge
you're facing, I think,

is making it aerodynamic
when you move around

side to side
and forward and backward

because you're presenting a very
large cross-sectional area

to the air, and you're gonna
generate a lot of drag.

So you might be very good
if you wanted just a hovercraft

that went up and down,
but once you start moving,

I think you're gonna
run into trouble.

NARRATOR: But if The Bell
was not a new type of aircraft,

then what was it?

According to some
ancient astronaut theorists,

The Bell may have been
a time machine.

There is a kind
of vortices named solitons

which are vortices
isolated electromagnetically

from the outside world.

Recent research and experiments
show that the link

between gravity
and electromagnetic physics

is much stronger
than the scientists

thought for some time.

GREER: The laws of the universe
being universal,

if you take the right
electromagnetic field

and very high-voltage pulse it
or phase it in a certain way,

you can get
some very strange phenomenon.

You can make things
disappear and reappear.

Therefore, it follows to reason
that this would be studied

and that the Nazi Bell
was probably an attempt

by that regime to develop
some type of flying machine

that would use
these sort of advanced

electromagnetic concepts.

NARRATOR: But was time travel
even a possibility?

According to German-born
physicist Albert Einstein,

humans were theoretically
capable of it.

DENNIN: His theory of special
relativity actually showed

for the first time that time can
slow down when you go very fast,

and so that has an impact
on going into the future.

It allows you to travel
really fast somewhere,

and your time goes slower
than somebody else,

and you end up in the future

relative to what you thought
you were doing.

The harder one to think about
is general relativity

where Einstein talks
about gravity

and how to describe gravity,
and there you can start thinking

about space-time and bending it,
and actually by warping space

and time in the right way, you
end up going backwards in time.

NARRATOR: While no records exist
indicating The Bell

was ever used during the war...

as the Allied military forces

pushed into Germany,
the entire project

and its commander
SS General Hans Kammler

suddenly disappeared.

MARRS: SS General Hans Kammler,
who was going to defect

in exchange for immunity,
but then by the end of the war,

he disappeared.

So where did Hans Kammler go,
and what did he take?

I think he took The Bell.

Did he create a wormhole?

Did he create a Stargate

and this is what the Nazis
were working on?

NARRATOR: Did Kammler and the
other Nazis really use The Bell

to escape justice
by disappearing across time

or possibly to another planet?

In the spring of 1945,
Germany's war effort collapsed,

and as the Allied armies
advanced towards Berlin,

German scientists and engineers
abandoned their laboratories.

Hitler's search
for a wonder weapon failed.

Instead, it was the Americans

who scored the decisive
technological edge

with their development
of the atomic bomb...

but according to ancient
astronaut theorists,

a similar and perhaps
even more devastating weapon

had already existed,
unleashed in an area

that is now part of India,
more than 3,000 years ago.

NARRATOR: An unmanned aerial
vehicle hurtles across the sky.

It travels at supersonic speeds,
spitting fire,

launching deadly missiles

programmed to seek and destroy.

The effect is devastating,

high-tech warfare
at its most lethal,

but what could be a page stolen

from a U.S. military
black project

is actually a description
written down

over 2,500 years ago
in the sacred Hindu text

known as the Mahabharata.

COPPENS: When it comes
to the ancient Indian accounts,

they're really eyewitness
testimony of the gods fighting.

CHILDRESS: When you read
the ancient Hindu epics,

they talk
about horrific weapons...

Missiles and atomic weapons,

massive laser weapons

that are melting and devastating
entire cities.

TSOUKALOS: I refuse to think
that our ancestors

came up with these stories
out of thin air.

When writing was first invented,
they wrote down their history.

The first things that were ever
written down were actual events.

NARRATOR: How is it that some
of the earliest written accounts

of warfare describe
sophisticated weaponry

that humans wouldn't develop
for thousands of years?

For the answer, ancient
astronaut theorists point

to numerous descriptions
of deadly weapons

found throughout
the Mahabharata,

many strikingly similar to those
used by the military today.

One example are the incendiary
weapons wielded by Vishnu...

which are specially equipped
to find their targets.

MAN: Vishnu has
a flying guided missile,

the Narayanastra,
and once it is launched,

it will destroy
everything that is moving.

So, according
to the description,

it is a motion-detecting weapon

which is very much
like our modern weaponry.

There is also a weapon
that was heat-seeking.

MAN: Heat-seeking
is a very effective way

of finding something.

You would fire a missile
from behind one aircraft

at an aircraft in front of you
specifically targeted

against the hot engine,
and then you were able

to move off
from behind the airplane,

and the heat seeker would still
be able to find the target.

TSOUKALOS: I am aware that
there are forces of nature...

You've got thunder,
lightning, earthquakes...

But how would you go
from witnessing that

to a description
of heat-seeking missiles?

NARRATOR: In addition
to guided missiles,

the Mahabharata
is filled with accounts

of other sophisticated weapons
wielded by the gods.

SHIMKHADA: In the Mahabharata,

46 different types of weapon
are described,

and each one
has a specific function.

The Pashupatastra is a weapon
that actually multiplies

into seven different arrows.

So then it hits seven different
targets at the same time.

Salva is an anti-god.

He can make
his vehicle disappear.

So we're talking about
a flying object that is stealth,

and he also can put people
into sleep.

So we're perhaps talking
about nerve gas.

CHILDRESS: They talk about
weapons that are so high-tech

that it could only be
from extraterrestrials.

NARRATOR: But of all the weapons
described in the Mahabharata,

perhaps the most deadly was
a device called the Brahmastra,

a weapon that, the texts warned,
was never to be used.

SHIMKHADA:
Brahmastra is described

as the ultimate weapon.

Once it is launched,
it will simply burn everything.

So it will incinerate
the entire universe.

We're talking about a nuclear
blast a hundredfold magnitude

of the bomb that we have seen
or experienced in our own times,

so it'd never be used,

and yet someone was going
to make use of that Brahmastra.

So that's the dilemma
that the book talks about

in the Mahabharata.

India now has a rocket program,

and one of their rockets
is called Shakti.

Shakti means goddess energy.

This is also another
divine weapon.

Indians are now sort of
going back to their text

or their mythology,

and they're reliving it
by their modern technology.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that
alien beings visiting the earth

thousands of years ago dealt
with the same issues

of nuclear annihilation that
humans are dealing with today,

and might the deadly weapons
currently being deployed

by the world's military
really be recreations of weapons

first used on earth
by extraterrestrials

in the ancient past?

Perhaps, but then it should also
be possible to predict

mankind's military future
by searching

through still more
ancient texts.

NARRATOR: May, 2010,
off the coast of California.

A powerful new weapon shoots
down unmanned aerial drones

during secret testing
carried out by the U.S. Navy.

Firing from a warship at
a distance of nearly two miles,

a ray of intense laser energy
burns through targets

traveling at speeds
of more than 300 miles per hour,

but is it possible that
such so-called death rays

could have been used before,
perhaps in ancient times?

I'm quite convinced
that there have been in the past

advanced civilizations
on Earth that did have

such things
as the so-called death ray.

Whether it was used as a weapon
or whether it was just observed

being used is a very,
very open question.

NARRATOR: In 214 BC,
Greeks living

in the Sicilian city of Syracuse
prepared for an attack

by a fleet of Roman warships.

Though outnumbered
by a superior military force,

ancient texts suggest
that Syracuse was well-defended

by a mysterious
and powerful new weapon.

CHILDRESS: Probably the most
famous ancient death ray

was the one that was built by
the Greek inventor Archimedes.

He was able to create this giant
mirror and parabolic disk

and focus the sun's rays
on the fleet

and set these ships on fire.

So here we have what would be
a primitive kind of death ray

that really worked.

NARRATOR: But how could
Archimedes have conceived

such a formidable weapon,

one far in advance
of any known at the time?

Researchers suggest the inventor
may have drawn inspiration

from Greek myths written
nearly 600 years

before the Battle of Syracuse,

myths that told the stories
of gods that brandished

cosmic weapons of incredible
destructive force.

WILCOCK: If you look
in the Greek tradition,

they have
a very clear description

of Zeus' thunderbolt,
which he was able to point

at people or at other things
that he wanted to explode,

hit the button, and what
they described as lightning

would come out and create
a fierce and terrible explosion.

NARRATOR: But if death-ray-type
weapons had been used

in ancient times, might there be
some sort of tangible proof?

Perhaps there is.

Here scattered throughout
the Scottish countryside

can be found numerous
ancient ruins.

Many appear to have been forts
or other enclosures

dating back thousands of years.

Remarkably, they also appear
to have been subjected to fire

and heat so intense,
it practically turned

the stone structures into glass.

It's a process
more scientifically known

as vitrification.

WILCOCK: Here you have
these stone buildings

in which an analysis
of the outside

comes to the conclusion
that they were heated

to over 1,000 degrees Celsius
in temperature.

Conventional fire could not
have reached this heat.

You needed a sustained burn
at 1,000 degrees Celsius

for a long period of time.

NARRATOR: According
to Celtic legend,

there once was a god named Lugh,
also known as the Shining One,

the Sun God, and the God of War.

Like the Greek god Zeus,
Lugh was said to wield

a mighty, magic spear
not unlike the thunderbolts

of his Greek counterpart.

When battle was near,
Lugh would draw out his spear,

and it roared, and then
flashes of fire came out of it

and it tore through the ranks
of the enemy,

never tired of killing
and slaying.

It was one amazing weapon.

I mean, how else can we explain
all those numerous

vitrified forts where
the surface of the stone

is as smooth as glass,
and these spots

can only be found
in very concentrated areas

through Northern Scotland?

All these descriptions
of sophisticated weaponry

sounds almost like science
fiction, but is it really?

Because we have
those weapons today,

and I think that all the stuff
that we have today

has been around before
and that our past

is not science fiction,
but science fact.

NARRATOR: Deadly laser beams...

acoustic weapons...

time machines.

Were these mysterious devices
really in the possession

of our ancestors
thousands of years ago,

and, if so, could they
have been built

with the help
of extraterrestrial beings?

Perhaps as our own technology
continues to advance,

we will come closer
not only to our future,

but to a rediscovery of our past

and a reconnection
with our alien ancestors.