All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S04E04.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

>> NARRATOR: Volcanic

eruptions...

>> It will cover the sun for

years.

>> NARRATOR: Devastating

earthquakes and tsunamis...

>> And it's possible the

extraterrestrials themselves are

influencing some of these

events.

>> NARRATOR: And asteroids

smashing the Earth, causing

massive extinctions.

>> What you're seeing is that

this is done on purpose.

>> NARRATOR: Have the world's

worst global disasters been the

result of nature's fury?

Or have they been triggered by

more supernatural forces?

>> I don't think we can rule out

the idea that this is the work

of highly advanced,

technological aliens seeking to

obliterate the human race.

>> 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 could there be an

extraterrestrial connection to

some of the world's

mega‐disasters?

>> NARRATOR: Japan.

Friday, March 11, 2011.

43 miles off the northeast

coast, a massive 8.9 magnitude

earthquake produces an explosive

upheaval of the seafloor.

200 miles away, in Tokyo,

buildings shake violently.

Within half an hour of the

earthquake, a powerful 30‐foot

tsunami strikes the northern

coast of Japan...

...and sweeps across the

landscape, reaching six miles

inland, destroying everything in

its path.

(panicked shouts)

Local officials estimate that

over 19,000 lives were lost in

the rapidly rising tide.

>> MICHAEL DENNIN: Tsunamis are

basically the name for a giant

sea wave that's fairly coherent,

has a lot of energy and will

travel over a large distance.

And it's really a matter of

scale more than anything else.

It's huge enough to cause huge

amounts of damage when it hits

the shore.

These have to be generated by a

large pulse of energy being put

into the ocean.

And the most common source of

that is a massive earthquake

under the ocean floor.

>> FRANK BILLINGSLEY: They're

used to earthquakes in this part

of the world, but the fact that

they had such little time, they

just couldn't get away from it.

So you can be a very

sophisticated, first‐world,

developed country, you can be a

superpower, and still have these

kind of mega‐disasters come

your way.

>> NARRATOR: According to

Japan's Kyodo News Agency, in

the days following the

devastation, thousands of UFO's

were sighted over Japan.

If confirmed, what might this

mean?

>> DAVID CHILDRESS: It's

interesting to note that when

the tsunami occurred, there was

suddenly an increase of UFO

sightings in that area of Japan.

So you have to think, well, are

the extraterrestrials

particularly interested in what

happens to us in certain

catastrophes and life‐changing

events that are occurring on

this planet?

And it's possible the

extraterrestrials themselves are

influencing some of these

events.

>> NARRATOR: But is it really

possible, as ancient astronaut

theorists believe, that

otherworldly forces could

provoke such deadly disasters?

Crete.

Located in the middle of the

Mediterranean Sea, it is the

largest of the Greek Islands.

Here, in 365 AD, this once‐

quiet province of the Byzantine

Empire was destroyed by a

devastating underwater

earthquake and subsequent

tsunami.

According to Roman historians,

the tsunami also hit Alexandria,

Egypt, and other cities along

the Mediterranean coast, causing

great destruction.

>> MARK A. WILSON: The Crete

earthquake of 365 was one of the

great natural disasters of the

Mediterranean world.

So this was an earthquake that

was probably an eight on the

Richter scale.

So it was very large.

It produced a tsunami, and it

raised the isle of Crete by nine

meters.

So it was an extraordinary

event.

>> NARRATOR: The ancient Greeks

attributed earthquakes to the

god of the sea, Poseidon.

According to Greek myths,

Poseidon was known as the "Earth

Shaker" because of his power to

provoke earthquakes, sea storms

and tidal waves.

>> WILSON: Ancient peoples would

have ascribed natural disasters

to the gods... as a really

logical answer, because at first

these events are deadly,

so their lives depend upon

trying to appease or please gods

who control those things.

>> PHILLIP COPPENS: Crete was

said to be the home of the gods.

There are caves today in Crete

which we can visit which are

identified as being the place

where Zeus was raised from

a baby to an infant.

And so when you find that

something is happening in Crete

in early Christian times, you

really have to ask whether this

is somehow going to change the

future of mankind.

>> CHILDRESS: This may be the

wrath of Poseidon, because what

was happening at that time was

the early Christians were

struggling against a resurgence

of paganism...

...and that tsunami came...

to destroy, finally, all the

pagan religion in the area.

And so, modern Christianity

became dominant.

>> NARRATOR: But was the god

Poseidon merely a figure of myth

and legend?

Or might this supernatural being

have had a more otherworldly

origin, as ancient astronaut

theorists believe.

>> CHILDRESS: Poseidon was

always depicted as holding this

weapon or instrument, his

trident.

And this trident could cause

earthquakes and tsunamis.

He could control the oceans with

his trident.

You have to wonder if this

trident wasn't some high‐tech,

extraterrestrial device.

>> MICHAEL CREMO: The weapons

used by these Greek gods can be

compared in some ways to modern

weaponry.

It's interesting that the United

States Navy developed nuclear

missiles for its submarines with

the names "Poseidon" and

"Trident."

>> CHILDRESS: Perhaps this was

Poseidon carrying out some sort

of wrath on ancient Crete for

finally rejecting him as a god.

>> NARRATOR: Is it really

possible that mega‐disasters

caused by earthquakes and

tsunamis could be triggered by

alien technology, as some

ancient astronaut theorists

believe?

And if so, might such

catastrophic events have been

provoked to change the course of

human history?

Perhaps further evidence can be

found in modern military

technology designed to use the

weather as a weapon of mass

destruction.

>> NARRATOR: Haiti,

January 12, 2010.

(rumbling, debris clattering)

At 4:53 p. m., a fierce 7.0

magnitude earthquake slams into

the Haitian capital of Port Au

Prince, causing massive

destruction.

It is the country's most severe

earthquake in over 200 years.

>> BILLINGSLEY: An earthquake

that doesn't affect anyone is a

natural hazard.

When that natural hazard makes

landfall, and affects a

population, that is when it

becomes a natural disaster.

When it's a huge system that

affects a lot of people with

death and destruction, then we

term it a mega‐disaster.

>> NARRATOR: According to local

news reports, missionaries in

Haiti videotaped a strange ball

of light floating in the sky,

less than 24 hours before the

earthquake.

>> WILLIAM BRAMLEY: UFOs have

been reported throughout

history, connected to

earthquakes.

Scientists used to disregard

the idea of earthquake lights

up until the 1960s, when

they were actually photographed

in Japan.

Finally, they had to

take notice that, yeah, there

are strange aerial phenomena

that go along with earthquakes.

>> NARRATOR: Often referred to

as earthquake weather,

scientists have linked this

strange phenomena to the

geophysical activity that

precedes an earthquake.

>> DENNIN: Earthquakes are

basically when the plates on the

surface of the Earth move

relative to each other in a

sudden fashion.

This sudden motion releases a

lot of energy.

>> BRAMLEY: If they were simply

tectonic plates that gave off

light, for example‐‐

a discharge into the air‐‐ they

would burn out pretty quickly.

But we are talking about bright

lights that hover and linger.

>> NARRATOR: Could the sudden

discharge of immense energy

really have produced strange

lights in the skies above

earthquake zones?

Or might the lights and

the apparent natural disasters

have had a more technological

origin?

In 1996, the United States Air

Force commissioned a secret

study called the "2025 Report."

In it, the military examined the

feasibility of combat

capabilities and tactics in the

year 2025.

>> NICK REDFERN: One of the

areas that was seen as ripe for

research, exploitation, and

development, was the

modification of the weather as

a tool of warfare.

People might think the idea that

we can weaponize the weather is

something just straight out of

science fiction.

The idea that we could

pulverize whole nations just by

modifying and exploiting the

weather, and this is a

verifiable report that is now in

the public domain.

So we do know that government

and military bodies are

significantly researching

weaponizing the weather.

>> MIKE BARA: Well, one of the

big advantages of using weather

as a weapon is that it's really

difficult to prove who attacked

you.

The other thing is that weather

itself can cause a hof a lot

more damage than weapons can.

You could have, for instance, a

powerful thunderstorm that could

go all the way across the U. S.

and cause basically nuclear‐

level destruction all the way

across a huge swath.

>> WILSON: There have been many

attempts to control the weather

during warfare, and one of the

most famous attempts was in

Vietnam.

In which there was a real effort

to seed the clouds over the

Ho Chi Minh Trail, and create

torrential rains.

By flooding the North Vietnamese

and Viet Cong supply lines, it

would reduce their utility and

choke off supplies to guerillas

in the south.

So, certainly we've had success

in seeding clouds.

>> NARRATOR: If the weather can

be manipulated by the military

to produce powerful storms, and

even catastrophes, is this only

a recent innovation, or is there

evidence of the weaponized use

of weather in the ancient past?

Tales of a great flood

destroying the world can be

found in the earliest myths of

many ancient cultures across the

globe.

Both the Hebrew Bible and the

Islamic Koran describe an epic

flood in the tale of Noah's Ark.

>> JONATHAN YOUNG: God was

unhappy with the people for

their sinful ways, and as a kind

of punishment and also an act of

purification, sent the Great

Deluge.

Most living things would die in

this except for a few birds and

fish, but he told Noah very

specifically how to build a

craft that could survive the

storm.

>> WILSON: Noah is to collect

pairs of the air‐breathing

animals on Earth, and he packs

these animals and his family

into the ark, and then it rains

for 40 days and 40 nights

and floods the entire Earth.

And all air‐breathing animals

and people are killed.

>> NARRATOR: In Ancient

Mesopotamia, a similar story of

a catastrophic flood was

chiseled into clay tablets

dating to 2,000 BC.

Known as the "Epic of

Gilgamesh," this early Sumerian

poem describes angry gods that

send a great flood to destroy

mankind while allowing only

a chosen few to survive.

>> BRAMELY: The gods had created

humanity to perform whatever

labor they were supposed to do,

but what happened was, according

to the old Mesopotamian stories,

human beings just started

causing too much trouble.

They became noisy.

They became rebellious.

And it was just time to wipe

them out.

And that's actually what's

reported in those old creation

stories.

>> NARRATOR: But did such

stories of great floods

engulfing the world merely

spring from man's imagination,

or were they real?

If so, might such devastation

have had an otherworldly origin,

as ancient astronaut theorists

believe?

>> REDFERN: If the human race in

the early 21st century is now

weaponizing the weather, why

shouldn't aliens from some

faraway world have already

developed it?

If ancient aliens were able to

weaponize the weather, then I

don't think we can rule out the

idea that possibly some of these

great ancient floods may not

have been the work of gods, but

could have been the work of

highly‐advanced technological

aliens actually seeking to

potentially obliterate the human

race.

>> GRAHAM HANCK: There are

more than a thousand different

flood myths from cultures all

around the world, and the

tendency has been for

archeologists to say that

that's simply because people's

fantasies work in the same way.

But I honestly think there's a

much simpler explanation for why

the flood myth is so universal.

I think it's a memory of what

happened at the end of the

Ice Age.

What's much more mysterious is

that coupled with these memories

of global devastation, there are

also memories of almost godlike

beings with incredible powers

and abilities who were caught up

in that cataclysm.

>> BRAMLEY: The deluge stories

are really very interesting.

What they all say is that the

angels, the gods, whatever we

want to call them today‐‐ they

basically just got tired of

humanity, where there's a wanton

intention to wipe out, or thin

out, the human race.

>> GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: Right

there we have a perfect example

that maybe the extraterrestrials

were unhappy with Homo sapiens,

and it is possible that they

then created some type of a

catastrophe, some flood to

eliminate mankind.

But it's also possible that

benevolent extraterrestrials

warned us about an impending

catastrophe so that not everyone

would be destroyed.

>> NARRATOR: Could the mythic

floods of the ancient past

really have been the result of

extraterrestrial influence?

Or is it possible, as some

ancient astronaut theorists

contend, that aliens may have

actually helped mankind survive

nature's fury?

Perhaps further evidence can be

found near one of Earth's most

dangerous places‐‐ active

volcanoes.

>> NARRATOR: The Republic of

Indonesia, Southeast Asia.

This archipelago, encompassing

over 17,000 islands, is home to

129 active volcanoes.

Here, in April 1815, the Mount

Tambora volcano exploded in a

cataclysm of fire, smoke and

ash.

The amount of material

discharged into the atmosphere‐‐

estimated to have been 120 cubic

tons‐‐ makes the event the

largest volcanic eruption in

recorded history.

With a death toll of nearly

71,000 people, it was the

world's deadliest eruption.

>> ROSALY LOPEZ: It had quite an

effect worldwide.

The year of 1816 was known as

the year without a summer.

And the reason is because very

large volcanic eruptions inject

a lot of ash and aerosols in the

atmosphere, and they can

actually lower the global

average temperature.

>> WILSON: A volcano on its own

is not the disaster, but when it

erupts and affects large groups

of people, it certainly is.

And volcanic eruptions have

killed millions of people over

time.

>> NARRATOR: According to local

religious traditions, volcanoes

are considered sacred.

And the Mount Tambora eruption

is thought to have been the work

of the gods.

But why?

Researchers believe answers can

be found near the most volatile

volcano in Indonesia today‐‐

Mount Merapi‐‐ a site believed

by Java mysticism to be the

center of the world.

(rumbling)

Strangely, this revered volcano

is located just 29 miles from a

mysterious ancient Buddhist

temple called Borobudur.

>> COPPENS: Whenever we are

confronted with certain temple

sites, some of them are

obviously more interesting than

others.

But in this case, we have a very

interesting location, because it

is said that this mountain is

the center of the universe.

And you will always find that

this is linked somehow in

mythology with the ascent or the

descent of a very important god,

sometimes a creator deity or

somebody else.

>> NARRATOR: Built during the

eighth and ninth centuries, the

Borobudur temple was designed in

the form of a stepped pyramid,

and features a large round dome

on top, encircled by 72 statues

of Buddha, each seated in a

bell‐shaped enclosure called

a stupa.

Is it possible, as ancient

astronaut theorists believe,

that the temple and stupas were

built to honor otherworldly

beings and their spacecraft that

arrived at Mount Merapi in the

ancient past?

>> TSOUKALOS: There is no

question that Borobudur was a

place of pilgrimage that was

built only because something

significant happened in the

remote past, in that specific

area.

The volcano was so huge for

them, so incomprehensible, that

they, over time, built stupas,

all directed to the sky.

Because each stupa, on that

complex, represents a chariot of

the gods, with which to actually

reach outer space.

>> COPPENS: This is a very

specific shape for a temple.

It's almost as if it is a

flat‐topped pyramid with

something sticking on top there,

as if something has landed.

And then the question is, why

did they construct it so

specifically?

Was it something which was

visually remembering as to what

had happened there, or what was

still happening on a regular

interval?

>> CHILDRESS: All over the

world, volcanoes often have some

god associated with them who's

controlling the volcano, causing

earthquakes, causing devastating

eruptions.

And in fact, in Indonesia, the

people there believe that there

is an entire city of gods inside

Mount Merapi.

>> TSOUKALOS: When I read

stories about ancient volcano

gods descending or ascending

from and into volcanoes, then I

think to myself, are we really

talking about something here

that's a figment of our

ancestors' imagination?

Or is there some truth behind

these stories?

And the answer is yes.

It was not some type of

spiritual event, but it was

where extraterrestrials

descended from the sky in

nuts‐and‐bolts spaceships.

>> NARRATOR: But what is it

about volcanoes that seem to

attract celestial visitors?

And might they have had the

power to trigger volcanic

eruptions?

(explosion rumbling)

The Hawaiian Islands.

Here, in the middle of the

Pacific Ocean, lies Mount

Kilauea.

Spewing lava almost continuously

since 1983, it is the most

active volcano in the world.

According to ancient Hawaiian

legends, the volcano is home to

Pele, the goddess of lightning

and fire.

>> YOUNG: She lives in the

enormous volcano on the Big

Island in her crater, and I've

been up there.

It's a big crater, and you can

imagine a powerful goddess could

live there.

She has come from a place of the

clouds, a place in the sky.

And that's mysterious.

We don't know where that is.

>> NARRATOR: Is it possible,

as ancient astronaut theorists

believe, that the origin of the

Pele legend can be traced to

contact with extraterrestrial

beings?

>> CHILDRESS: Just like the

American military has hollowed

out Cheyenne Mountain, near

Colorado Springs, to create a

secret and virtually

impenetrable military base

inside of a mountain, we have,

in a sense, similar stories of

ancient gods or

extraterrestrials doing this to

volcanoes, using them as bases.

And if there was some danger of

people discovering it, or people

were building their homes or

cities too close, these aliens

could have their volcano erupt.

>> TSOUKALOS: Is there something

extraterrestrial behind those

stories of volcano gods?

Absolutely yes, because all

around the world, our ancestors

worshipped nature.

There was a god of thunder...

...there was a god of rain, and

even a god of a volcano.

However, there was a fine line

between worshipping nature and

worshipping something else.

And that something else was

extraterrestrials.

They were space travelers that

came here from another planetary

system.

>> NARRATOR: Might some of the

planet's most active volcanoes

really have been home to

extraterrestrial forces, as some

ancient astronaut theorists

contend?

Researchers believe further

clues can be found in one of the

driest and deadliest places

on Earth.

>> NARRATOR: The Sahara Desert.

Stretching across Northern

Africa and covering nearly

three‐and‐a‐half‐million square

miles, it is one of the hottest

and most formidable places on

Earth.

With an average rainfall of only

half an inch per year, humans

have fought a relentless battle

to adapt to the harsh

environment or die.

>> CHILDRESS: Historians have

often looked at the Sahara

Desert and wondered what it is

that created this particularly

inhospitable desolate area of

the planet.

>> NARRATOR: But in the Algerian

Sahara, in the region of Tassili

n'Ajjer, numerous cave

paintings, some estimated to

date back as far as 8,000 BC,

depict a time when the land was

lush and teeming with life.

But if so, what happened?

>> CHILDRESS: The scenes that

you see at Tassili n'Ajjer are

totally bizarre.

They're showing a Sahara that

was once fertile with giraffes

and antelope and other animals

we find only in Central Africa

really.

And combined with them are these

bizarre pictures of what even

the archeologists have called

the Martians and the spacemen.

They have strange helmets on and

suits.

They look exactly like

extraterrestrials.

>> TSOUKALOS: The petroglyphs

that we find there are

incredible.

They look like modern‐day

astronauts with suits, with

helmets, with visors, and

according to the legends of the

Tassili region, the natives were

visited at a time when a climate

change was about to happen.

So is it possible that the

reason why we have these

depictions of these ancient

aliens is because they assisted

the native population at the

time of climate change to move

into a new area of habitation?

>> NARRATOR: Did alien beings

visit this region thousands of

years ago?

And if so, might they have

warned the local population of

an enormous climate change‐‐ one

that would trigger a vast

migration?

Ancient astronaut theorists

believe the answer is yes.

(drum playing)

(singing)

And for evidence, they point to

the ancient oral traditions of a

Western African tribal people

known as the Dogon.

>> CHILDRESS: According to the

Dogon themselves, they were

guided by their alien fish gods,

the Nommo, to this area near the

Niger River where there's a lot

more water.

So they had to transit across

the inhospitable Sahara to find

their homeland...

...and their own explanation

is that alien gods led them

to this fertile area where

they could establish their

civilization.

>> JASON MARTELL: The Nommos

describe coming down in some

type of flying craft.

The Dogon Tribe gave some very

interesting details, which sound

like a UFO‐‐

a large spinning disc that made

a lot of sound and wind as it

descended to Earth and the

Nommos appear.

So, this is a very interesting

story, which was replicated by

many different cultures of

seeing beings descending from

the heavens to Earth.

Were they gods, or were they

extraterrestrials?

(drums playing, chanting)

>> NARRATOR: Even today, the

Dogon believe they are the

children of the Nommo, fish‐like

gods who came here from the

Sirius star system.

>> NOORY: The Dogon Tribe look

up at the star system of Sirius,

and they are convinced that they

were visited here, and they were

told about a star system, a

binary system that we didn't

know about for years later.

I mean, how did these people

know this?

>> COPPENS: The Dogon have

always been focused upon in the

sense that they have this story,

this information about their

ancestors who somehow had this

contact with this non‐human

intelligence.

Now the question is, how did

they attain this?

It really might come from the

Sahara Desert, from specifically

culture pockets like Tassili

n'Ajjer, and that the Dogon are

descendants from these people.

>> NARRATOR: Could the Tassili

n'Ajjer cave paintings and the

legends of the Dogon tribe

really be proof of alien contact

in the distant past, as ancient

astronaut theorists believe?

Perhaps additional evidence can

be found half a hemisphere away

at an archeological site near

the city of Chifeng in China.

Here, scholars have found

5,000‐year‐old stone carvings

and other artifacts believed to

have been engraved by a

Neolithic people known as the

Hongshan.

>> CHILDRESS: The Hongshan

people in China are known to

have strange carvings, jade

statuettes, showing longheaded

people looking very much like

extraterrestrials.

>> NARRATOR: But the most

curious among the Hongshan's

ancient carvings is this one‐‐

an image of what many scholars

and archaeologists believe to be

the depiction of a massive comet

or meteor, similar to the one

that did, in fact, strike this

region around 3,000 BC.

>> SEAN‐DAVID MORTON: The

evidence that we have that there

was a massive catastrophe at

that time, approximately between

3113 and about 3116 BC, is so

fascinating.

A whole team at Harvard and

Princeton took a look,

scientifically, at the Peruvian

ice shelves there in the Andes

Mountains, and they dug down,

and they said there was a

massive, planet‐wide glaciation

of the Earth, a gigantic

catastrophe that froze wooly

mammoths with tropical

vegetation in their mouths,

froze the entire planet at that

time.

>> NARRATOR: But how is it

possible that these ancient

people could have known of a

catastrophic meteor strike that

wouldn't occur for another 200

years?

>> CHILDRESS: It seems like they

were possibly warned by their

extraterrestrial gods of this

coming catastrophe and were able

to leave and relocate somewhere

else.

>> TSOUKALOS: If we argue that

this carving was done before the

event took place, then somebody

must have given them this

knowledge, and in the ancient

astronaut opinion, that

knowledge was given to the

Hongshan culture by

extraterrestrials.

>> COPPENS: The question

whether this is by coincidence

or somehow by some intelligence

who's pulling the string of

these meteorites and comets,

our ancestors were absolutely

convinced that there was an

intelligence behind it.

You might have certain comets

which are programmed to bring

life.

You might also have certain

comets which are programmed to

bring destruction.

>> NARRATOR: Might the Hongshan

people, like the ancient

ancestors of the Dogon tribe,

really have received warnings of

impending catastrophes from

extraterrestrial beings, as many

ancient astronaut theorists

believe?

If so, why?

Did ancient visitors really want

to save the lives of Earth's

human inhabitants?

Or were they trying to achieve

something more, something that

might forever change the course

of human history?

>> NARRATOR: November 8, 2011.

A massive asteroid, a quarter

mile in diameter, narrowly

misses the Earth while passing

by inside the orbit of the moon.

It is known as a Near‐Earth

Object.

>> MORRISON: It's a kind of

wake‐up call.

It tells us that indeed these

objects are real.

They come very close, and

someday, they may come so close

that they would hit.

There are probably a million

near‐Earth asteroids that are

large enough that they could do

significant destruction, by

which I mean, if they hit a

city, they would destroy it.

They could kill millions of

people.

>> NOORY: An asteroid strike of

significance, something big,

could be devastating for the

planet.

It will cover the sun for years,

and we'll go into an ice age,

and we'll all starve to death.

>> NARRATOR: According to

mainstream science, one such

object, an asteroid six miles in

diameter, smashed into the Earth

65 million years ago, triggering

a global catastrophe that

forever changed the history of

our planet.

>> WILSON: The Chicxulub Crater

is in Yucatan, Mexico, and it's

the largest impact crater on

Earth.

And this crater is 180

kilometers in diameter.

It's absolutely gianormous, and

it represents an event that

occurred at the end of the

Cretaceous Period, 65 million

years ago, and that's

coincident with a mass

extinction.

And that's the mass extinction

that took out many animals and

plants...

...most particularly,

the dinosaurs.

>> MORRISON: Many scientists are

still studying the details of

the impact that produced the

dinosaur extinction.

They discovered the actual

crater, the smoking gun, the

remnant of that impact.

From the size of the crater, we

can infer how much energy.

It was 100 million megatons of

TNT equivalent.

We don't have any other example

that's that clean, but there

must have been impacts like that

throughout the history of the

Earth.

>> NARRATOR: Was such a

devastating collision the

result of chance, an

intergalactic accident?

Or might it have been a planned

event, as some ancient astronaut

theorists believe?

And if so, why?

>> CHILDRESS: The reason that

some kind of alien force would

want to create the extinction of

dinosaurs and other large

animals would be to make the

Earth safer for people.

The idea of tidal waves and

earthquakes, catastrophes

causing mass extinctions, the

Earth becomes a better place to

live.

We're able to have our

civilization in a much more

protected manner without having

to worry about giant animals

crashing into our house all the

time.

>> TSOUKALOS: One can ask the

question, why would

extraterrestrials do this?

Well, the answer is very simple.

We are their product.

We are their offspring.

>> WILLIAM HENRY: They treat us

as creator beings, and we are

their offspring, and they're

able to make decisions about

humanity based on their needs.

So, perhaps their needs were

satisfied, and they decided they

didn't want humankind around

anymore, so it's just as easy to

wipe them out as it is to

continue to perpetuate their

existence.

>> REDFERN: If aliens are

visiting us, you know, and

they're not necessarily hostile,

but the very fact that there

have been UFO sightings during

earthquakes, tsunamis, floods,

tornadoes...

Is this a concern?

>> VON DANIKEN: If you look at

us humans from the religious

side, or if you look at the

humans from the scientific side,

we look at us as the greatest.

Something so gigantic and

wonderful like humans does not

exist somewhere in the universe

out there.

I could imagine that the

extraterrestrials, one day, they

have enough of our arrogance and

ignorance, and they say we tried

to teach now since centuries,

but you still believe you are

the greatest thing out there in

the universe.

So we have enough, and we

punish you again.

>> CHILDRESS: You have to wonder

if extraterrestrials, with their

super technology, haven't been

involved in some of these

catastrophes, actually creating

them to change history.

>> COPPENS: We know that our

ancestors survived some of the

greatest disasters.

And on each occasion, there is

always an intelligence out there

who's willing to tell us and

help us in making sure that we

survive, and the question is, if

something is going to happen in

the future, are we going to be

relying once again on the

nonhuman intelligence to help

us?

>> NARRATOR: Devastating

earthquakes and deadly floods,

catastrophic eruptions and

planet‐crushing collisions...

Are Earth's mega‐disasters

simply the consequence of

natural events?

Or is mankind simply a pawn in

the great cosmic experiment,

one engineered by otherworldly

forces?

Might alien forces be

manipulating human history, in

an effort to test us, to make us

stronger?

Or are they paving the way

for Earth's future, a future

where humans would no

longer exist?

Captioning sponsored by

A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS

Captioned by

Media Access Group at WGBH

access.wgbh.org