All language subtitles for Ancient.Aliens.S04E08.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

>> NARRATOR: Amazing inventions

centuries ahead of their time.

>> The helicopter, the airplane,

the submarine, all of these were

Leonardo da Vinci's concepts.

>> NARRATOR: Paintings said to

contain hidden messages.

>> It is only a portrait, and

yet it seems to have dimensions

and mysteries that have yet to

be explained.

>> NARRATOR: And sophisticated

robots designed more than five

centuries ago.

>> People would never have seen

something like this that was

able to move on its own.

>> NARRATOR: Leonardo da Vinci

is considered one of the most

brilliant minds the world has

ever known.

But what was the source of his

profound intellect?

>> He was absolutely immersed in

finding out, maybe even proving,

that we were not alone.

>> 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 there have been

a secret extraterrestrial

connection to Leonardo da Vinci

and other artists of his time?

>> Four, three, two, one, zero.

>> NARRATOR: February 24,

2011, embarking on its final

voyage, Space Shuttle Discovery

docks with the International

Space Station.

Its mission: to deliver the

most advanced model in robotic

engineering to date,

Robonaut 2.

But believe it or not, this

masterpiece of modern technology

is the latest in a line of

humanoid robots whose design is

based on illustrations created

more than 500 years ago

by Leonardo da Vinci.

>> MICHAEL DENNIN: When you

look at Robonaut 2, you can

trace his lineage back to

Leonardo da Vinci.

The basic design and structure

and ideas you can see in what

Leonardo was working on.

>> JONATHAN YOUNG: They're like

three‐dimensional blueprints.

You could virtually create a

human being from these, which is

essentially what the NASA

engineers did.

>> BETTY ANN BROWN: Leonardo

holds the position as the

greatest human genius that we

know of.

He had very high intellectual

ability, extraordinary creative

range, and used them to

accomplish quite a bit.

>> MARTIN KEMP: Leonardo is

somebody who is able to operate

across all these various fields,

which is very unusual.

He was trained as a painter, a

sculptor, but he manages to move

into geometry, optics,

mechanical design, anatomy,

geology, and so on, and in each

of these, he has extraordinary

insight.

So, if you're wanting to talk

about a universal genius, which

is a very Renaissance idea, then

Leonardo is the definition of

that.

>> NARRATOR: Leonardo da Vinci's

work, covering a staggering

range of disciplines, is still

influencing science, technology,

medicine, art, and numerous

other fields nearly half a

millennium after his death,

but just who was Leonardo

da Vinci?

Was he simply a man of profound

intellect and imagination?

Or is there, perhaps, something

more to his genius?

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

was born just outside Florence

in Vinci, Italy, on April 15,

1452.

He lived during the height of

the Italian Renaissance, an era

marked by great artistic and

scientific achievement and a

universal quest for knowledge.

>> BROWN: Renaissance is French

for "rebirth," and it saw itself

as giving birth again to the

values that they somewhat

romantically attributed to the

classical past, to Ancient

Greece and Ancient Rome.

And they see the thousand years

that have passed between Rome

and the rise of the Renaissance

as a dark age, and they want

to bring the light of humanism

back to the world with

intellectual and artistic

innovation.

>> GODFREY HARRIS: Florence was

larger than London, larger than

Paris, larger than Rome at the

time Leonardo lived there.

All these bright people had

gathered.

>> NARRATOR: But while the

Renaissance is considered an age

of enlightenment, it was also a

time fiercely dominated by the

Roman Catholic Church.

>> SEAN‐DAVID MORTON: When we

come to the Renaissance, the

Church is pretty much running

everything, so every artist,

pretty much anybody who can read

and write is either in the

monastic system of the Church,

and of course, the Church is the

main patron for all the

different artists in the

Renaissance.

>> NARRATOR: At a time when

everything was subject to the

scrutiny of the Church, a young

Leonardo da Vinci accepted one

of his earliest artistic

assignments‐‐ the illustration

of a wooden shield with a

likeness of the mythical Greek

monster, Medusa, a Gorgon whose

head was literally covered with

live snakes.

>> WILLIAM WALLACE: Leonardo

drew Medusa so frightening that

his father believed that he was

actually looking at live snakes.

>> NARRATOR: But why, when the

most prominent artists of his

day were painting images from

the Judeo‐Christian Bible, would

Leonardo have chosen to depict a

mythical Greek monster, one that

many ancient astronaut theorists

believe may have been based on

an extraterrestrial creature?

>> PHILIP COPPENS: When we

compare him to modern geniuses,

we know, for example, that these

beings were absolutely

interested in the idea that we

were not alone in the universe,

that somehow we had been

contacted by extraterrestrial

beings.

Leonardo da Vinci is a person

who believed in the existence

of extraterrestrial beings.

>> NARRATOR: While still a

teenager, Leonardo earned an

apprenticeship with one of the

most renowned artists of the

time, Andrea del Verrocchio,

and it is widely considered that

their most notable collaboration

during this period was

The Annunciation,

a scene depicting the moment

when the Virgin Mary is informed

that she will soon be made

pregnant with God's child.

>> KEMP: Verrocchio seems to

have begun the picture and begun

it in a traditional medium of

egg tempera, which is an egg

binder for the pigments, and at

some point, Leonardo intervened

and finished the picture,

and he painted an angel.

>> NARRATOR: In 1989, experts in

Florence performed an extensive

examination of The Annunciation

to verify if the angel in the

painting was truly the work of

Leonardo.

After close expert and

scientific inspection, it was

concluded that it was

undoubtedly the artist's work,

but they also discovered

something strange and

unexpected.

When subjected to X rays,

Leonardo's angel became

invisible.

>> SEAN ROBERTS: Verrocchio used

a lead‐based paint for at least

parts of his Virgin Mary.

Leonardo, on the other hand,

seems to have used, uh, rather

different pigments.

>> GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS:

Leonardo completed it using a

non‐lead‐based paint, which is

why, when looked at with certain

X‐ray technology, Leonardo's

angel disappears.

Now, why would Leonardo, being

the apprentice, finish his

mentor's work with a different

type of paint?

And one possibility is that he

was leaving some type of message

because he was notorious for

hiding things inside his

own paintings.

>> NARRATOR: Might Leonardo da

Vinci really have painted the

angel knowing he would be

creating a secret message that

wouldn't be discovered

for 500 years?

And if so, why?

Some believe the answer may be

found by examining the next

phase of the legendary

artist's life.

>> DAVID CHILDRESS: From the

years of 1476 to 1478, there is

a gap in his life.

We don't really know where he

was or what he was doing in

those years.

>> BROWN: There are years in

which he disappears from the

historical account.

There is a hiatus, and we don't

know even what town he was

living in, much less with whom

he was working or what

he was doing.

>> NARRATOR: What could account

for a man of Leonardo da Vinci's

stature literally disappearing

from all known historical

records, especially when it was

precisely during this period

when he was just beginning to

come into prominence?

>> CHILDRESS: One possible

scenario here is that during

those years, Leonardo da Vinci

was, in a sense, tutored by some

special individuals; people who

were showing him things that a

normal person wouldn't

necessarily have seen.

Perhaps like the biblical

prophet Enoch, he was even taken

aboard a spaceship, and the

aliens showed him Earth from

above and gave him a concept of

the cosmos and machines and

inventions and of Earth that no

one before him had ever had.

>> NARRATOR: Is it really

possible that Leonardo da Vinci

had received guidance from

extraterrestrial beings, as many

ancient astronaut theorists

contend?

One fact is certain: that after

Leonardo's return to Florence in

1478, his creative output

reached a whole new level, going

beyond art and extending to

numerous other disciplines.

He would produce aerial maps of

Italian cities with

incredible accuracy.

He would design and build the

world's first self‐propelled

vehicle.

And he would invent machines

years and even centuries

ahead of their time.

>> MORTON: There are some people

that think that maybe there's an

extraterrestrial influence to

what he knew, because you have

people throughout history who

would magically, mysteriously

come along every few hundred

years or so, that then

contribute to the fantastic

advancements to the human race

and the human species.

>> NARRATOR: What was the secret

behind Leonardo da Vinci's

incredible burst of creativity?

And why‐‐ during the age which

gave rise to the likes of

Copernicus, Michelangelo and

Shakespeare‐‐ did da Vinci tower

above his contemporaries?

Ancient astronaut theorists

believe answers may be found by

examining Leonardo's paintings

and the many secret messages

that can be found hidden within

his famous works of art.

>> NARRATOR: The Vatican.

Set within the fortified walls

of a 110‐acre plot of land and

surrounded by the city of Rome,

it is the smallest independent

nation state in the world.

And it was here from 1513 to

1516 that Leonardo da Vinci

began performing an act that‐‐

during the time‐‐ was a crime

punishable by death:

the dissection of human corpses.

>> HARRIS: Leonardo was brought

from Milan to the

Vatican to paint.

But because the Vatican had

these great catacombic depths,

they were very cool places, and

so you could dissect a body

without losing it to

decomposition.

A number of autopsies we know

were performed in the Vatican

under the nose of the Pope,

who‐‐ policy of the Catholic

Church‐‐ was to forbid that.

>> COPPENS: Da Vinci stops at

nothing to find out about the

human body.

He buys dead bodies even though

there is a penalty of death on

doing the things he is doing.

It's like he cannot stop

himself.

He needs to know.

Da Vinci has this extraordinary

drive to know and understand

despite the fact that it

might kill him.

>> NARRATOR: In his 36 months at

the Vatican, Leonardo da Vinci

documented dozens of dissections

with incredible detail.

But to keep his work secret, his

notes on human anatomy were

recorded in code using a device

known as mirror writing.

>> WALLACE: We know from early

in his life Leonardo adopted

mirror writing.

At a later point in his career

it also served his purposes.

>> HARRIS: Mirror writing is

writing backwards.

Why did Leonardo do it?

He wrote backwards so prying

eyes couldn't see what

he was writing.

>> CHILDRESS: He realized that

the things that he was working

on, including various inventions

and even anatomy, were something

that the Church would not

approve of.

So he had to do these things,

uh, in secret, and he knew that

it was dangerous.

>> TSOUKALOS: Da Vinci

implemented mirror writing in

all of his creations and he most

certainly was not playing games

when he did this.

It was in order to preserve the

knowledge that he had gained

from the uneducated masses.

>> NARRATOR: But why was Da

Vinci so obsessed with the

workings of the human body?

What secret and forbidden

knowledge was he trying to

uncover or reveal?

Florence, Italy, 1503.

Leonardo da Vinci begins work on

a portrait commissioned by a

wealthy silk merchant for his

wife, but it is a painting he

will never part with, obsessing

over every detail for what would

be the last 16 years of his

life‐‐ the Mona Lisa.

>> WALLACE: It is only a

portrait and yet it seems to

have dimensions and mysteries

that have yet to be explained.

>> ROBERTS: The Mona Lisa's

smile is not the kind of smile

that we tend to see in

portraits.

She seems to know something that

we don't.

>> KEMP: What starts as a

portrait, a representation of a

woman, turns into something

quite different.

It turns into a kind of

philosophical meditation on all

his intellectual concerns.

>> NARRATOR: What was it about

the Mona Lisa that would so

consume the final years of

Leonardo da Vinci's life?

And why would he dedicate so

much of his time to a single

20‐by‐30‐inch portrait?

>> WALLACE: There are a lot of

theories that Leonardo has

secret symbols and secret

messages in his paintings.

Everything he's doing he's

rethinking even traditional

subjects in the very beginning

and really imagining them in new

and creative ways.

>> NARRATOR: All his life

Leonardo da Vinci incorporated a

technique called mirror writing.

Is it possible that he also used

a similar technique in his

artwork, leaving hidden messages

that can only be revealed with

the use of mirrors?

>> COPPENS: The mirror is

something which defines him.

And so, the possibility that he

was also using the mirror as an

unknown dimension whereby he

needs to have the mirror to see

certain things within his

paintings is definitely

something which I think we need

to explore.

>> NARRATOR: At Northeastern

University in Boston,

Massachusetts, graphic designer

Terrence Masson uses computer

technology to search for hidden

messages in Leonardo's

masterworks.

>> TERRENCE MASSON: We know that

he was insatiably curious about

reflections and refractions and

optics and the human anatomy of

the eye, and how that mirrored

reflections of conical‐shaped

mirrors.

>> NARRATOR: Is it possible

that Leonardo applied his mirror

technique to hide secret

messages in the Mona Lisa?

But if so, why?

>> MASSON: Here's our classic

Mona Lisa.

Leonardo's portraiture always

has very dramatic hand

positioning.

His hand position was a clue to

the access points of rotation

of the mirror.

So if we try this, what will we

see?

(taps keys)

>> NARRATOR: Is this

helmet‐shaped creature simply

the product of a parlor trick?

If so, then why can a similar

creature be seen in another

famous painting by da Vinci:

Virgin and Child with St. Anne?

>> MASSON: Well, this painting‐‐

Virgin of the Rocks‐‐ we always

notice the dramatic hand poses

of Leonardo.

Is that giving us a hint about

where to put the reflective

plane?

So, we're in a 3‐D environment

here.

We can do anything we want.

We just make a little duplicate.

That's a little spooky.

So, interesting similarity to

what we did with the Mona Lisa,

right?

We've got something close to

modern understanding of alien

heads.

>> NARRATOR: Could there really

be hidden messages in Leonardo

da Vinci's paintings?

Messages that reveal the

artist's connection to

otherworldly beings?

And why was the artist so

obsessed with dissecting the

human form?

Was it for purposes of his art?

Or was there another, more

extraterrestrial reason?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by examining the work of other

artists during the Renaissance.

(bell tolling)

>> NARRATOR: London, England.

Housed here, in the British

Library, is Leonardo da Vinci's

Codex Arundel, a collection of

283 papers containing drawings,

inventions, thoughts and

writings covering numerous

scientific and creative

disciplines.

>> KEMP: Leonardo is quite

well‐documented compared with

most artists of the time.

We've got thousands and

thousands of pages of writing,

which tell us a lot about what

he's thinking about, but there's

almost no personal record,

interestingly.

Leonardo is quite a private

figure in that respect.

>> NARRATOR: Found among

Leonardo's papers were a few

personal anecdotes, composed

just after his two‐year

disappearance between 1476 and

1478.

In one account, the artist

details his youthful adventure

encountering a vast, mysterious

cave.

>> ROBERTS: He describes being

on the edge of this dark cave,

and saying that he felt

terrified by the darkness

of that cave and what

might be within it.

On the other hand, he felt a

certain desire to try to

understand what was in there.

>> TSOUKALOS: Some have

speculated that this

incident occurred around the

same time in his childhood as

when he fashioned his famous

shield with the head of the

monstrous Medusa on it.

So the question is, what exactly

did Leonardo find in this cave?

We can assume that this was a

very significant event in his

life, because it made a strong

enough impression on him to

write it down as one of the few

autobiographical notes he ever

made.

>> NARRATOR: Why did Leonardo da

Vinci, a man who wrote almost

nothing of his personal life,

choose to write about this cave

as one of the first entries in

his journal?

And why was his experience with

the cave so important to him?

Some ancient astronaut theorists

believe that several of the

artist's paintings and drawings

provide evidence that da Vinci

may have had an extraterrestrial

encounter.

>> ROBERTS: One of the things

that we see in the grotesque

heads is a fairly marked

departure from the natural

appearance of the human body,

the human face, even in its

most extreme manifestation.

>> KEMP: Visually, the works are

so compelling.

They're often slightly creepy.

They've got this very strange

presence to them.

>> YOUNG: They are misshapen

faces, elongated skulls,

flattened faces.

Very eerie, troubling, monstrous

images.

Now this is an artist known for

careful, realistic depiction of

what he was looking at, which

raises the question‐‐ what in

the world was he looking at?

Did he actually encounter

creatures that looked like this?

They're very, very strange.

>> NARRATOR: Are Leonardo's

grotesque heads simply products

of the artist's creative

imagination?

Or might they be evidence of Da

Vinci's encounters with

otherworldly beings?

According to historical records,

there were, during the

Renaissance, a large number of

unexplained phenomena seen in

the skies over parts of Europe

and Asia.

During the siege of

Constantinople in 1453, soldiers

reported that a fire descended

upon them from the sky.

In 1458, a giant moon‐like disc

was seen soaring above the

landscape in Japan.

And in 1492, during Christopher

Columbus' epic journey across

the Atlantic, weird lights were

seen floating above the ocean.

>> COPPENS: Just before

Christopher Columbus reaches the

New World, he sees anomalous

lights in the sky, and he

reports them.

People see them from his ship.

These lights cannot be

explained.

>> CHILDRESS: Some ancient UFO

was seemingly guiding Columbus'

ships to the New World.

So here we may well have ancient

aliens making sure that Columbus

would do something so important

as discovering the New World.

>> NARRATOR: Might Leonardo da

Vinci have been aware of the

sightings of these early UFO

sightings?

Ancient astronaut theorists

believe the answer is a

profound yes and point to even

greater evidence that can be

found by studying the works of

other Renaissance artists.

>> COPPENS: In the Renaissance

period, what we see is this

extraordinary explosion of

paintings which show anomalies

in the background, anomalies

which today we identify as UFOs.

>> TSOUKALOS: There are

paintings that depict something

very odd in the sky, depictions

of UFOs, of strange orbs,

or rays coming out of the sky,

or falling stars with people

sitting inside of them.

>> NARRATOR: Why would 15th

century artists depict

mysterious objects in paintings

of biblical scenes?

Were they trying to communicate

something about the origin of

Christianity?

Or could these otherworldly

images be linked to the numerous

sightings of bizarre flying

objects in the sky?

At Northeastern University,

researcher Terrence Masson

examines the strange images

found in Renaissance paintings.

>> TERRENCE MASSON: One specific

example, The Baptism of Christ

by Gelder, is just bizarre.

So many other examples can be

explained by different

iconography, graphic

representations of angels in

clouds and lights, but if you

look at this painting, it's just

a solid, shiny disk with four

laser beams shining down at the

Christ child.

A specific example is The

Madonna with Saint Giovannino.

You look at this, and it's not

one of those that is easily

explained away as being a

literal interpretation of an

angel in the cloud, for

instance.

So, the striking feature of this

is what is that, exactly, in the

sky?

See if I can get a little close.

Zoom in.

And we can see it's clearly

something.

It's not a mistake.

It's not a blemish.

It was obviously painted there.

You can see the brushstrokes,

uh, even more so now that the

composition of the painting

shows our shepherd shielding his

eyes.

It's definitely not an angel or

a cloud.

Something is flying, and it's

unidentified, so when pressed,

we have a 16th century painting

of a UFO.

>> CHILDRESS: It's as if the

painter is trying to depict some

divine messenger, and those

depictions, apparently, are of

UFOs, and here we have the

Renaissance painters, basically,

bringing us Jesus and a UFO

together in the same painting.

During the Renaissance, people

like Da Vinci may well have had

knowledge of extraterrestrials.

>> NARRATOR: Might the

mysterious images in Renaissance

paintings be evidence that

Leonardo and his contemporaries

had encounters with

extraterrestrial beings during

the 15th century?

For the answer, ancient

astronaut theorists turn not to

Da Vinci's artwork but to his

incredible inventions.

>> NARRATOR: The Boeing AH‐64

Apache helicopter.

This four‐blade, twin‐engine

attack aircraft has a top speed

of 192 miles per hour

and can reach heights of 21,000

feet.

It is also able to fly just a

few feet above the ground in an

effort to avoid radar detection.

But even more amazing than this

modern‐day aerial marvel is the

fact that its construction may

have never been possible without

the designs for vertical flight

first drawn up by Leonardo

da Vinci nearly 500 years ago.

>> MORTON: The helicopter,

the airplane,

the submarine,

all of these were Leonardo

da Vinci's concepts.

He invented all of the modern

weapons that we're actually

using today.

If we had developed the various

ideas, concepts, and scientific

discoveries of Leonardo da

Vinci, there is an argument to

be made that we, possibly, could

have landed somebody on the moon

in about the 1800s.

>> BROWN: He was 500 years

before his time, and many of his

devices could not have been

constructed during his time.

They didn't have the technology.

>> NARRATOR: One design of

Leonardo's that the inventor was

actually able to realize during

his lifetime was this one: the

world's first fully functional

robot.

In 1517, at the famous Château

du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France,

65‐year‐old Leonardo da Vinci

presented King Francis I with a

gift in the form of a full‐sized

mechanical lion.

(roaring)

Like the replica that exists

today in the Château museum, the

mechanical lion could move

independently and was able to

display amazing dexterity.

>> ROBERTS: From the accounts

that we have of Leonardo's lion,

we know that it moved across the

floor on its own power.

The vast majority of people who

were watching this presentation

to the king would probably have

encountered the mechanical lion

with fear because, in their

experience, they would never

have seen, uh, something like

this that was able to move on

its own.

>> NARRATOR: But how did Da

Vinci even conceive of such an

elaborate and sophisticated

device?

One that wouldn't be duplicated

for another 300 years?

>> BROWN: He was challenged by

the engineering.

How do I get a robot to walk?

Even if it's a lion robot, and

even if he didn't use the word

robot, he did create a

functioning robot.

>> JOHN RODGERS: For Leonardo to

take those ideas in his

drawings and literally be able

to project their use in the

future is just remarkable.

He's given credit for all

mechanical and robot ideas that

we know today.

>> NARRATOR: Here, at the

Leonardo da Vinci Machines

Exhibition in St. Louis,

Missouri, Italian artists and

engineers have painstakingly

recreated over 60 of Leonardo's

inventions.

>> RODGERS: This is the first

tank we know of.

Leonardo da Vinci had the idea

for the 360 degree firepower.

(cannons firing)

It was originally designed for

horses, but the horses became

spooked so easily that he

quickly designed it to the human

being.

At the time that is was

presented, the tank was a bit

impractical, and it was not

built until centuries later.

This is Leonardo da Vinci's

underwater breathing apparatus.

Leonardo theorized that you did

not want to exhale into the air

that you were inhaling.

He had the idea for carbon

dioxide, and he brought down

another tube that you could

exhale into that tube, only

receiving fresh air from the

surface.

>> HARRIS: He invented the air

compressor.

Somebody on shore or on a boat

could press down and force the

air through the tube to the

helmet, allow the person to

breathe.

When the British replicated the

Leonardo design, it worked.

(bubbling)

>> NARRATOR: But of all Leonardo

da Vinci's incredible

inventions, perhaps the most

impressive are those involving

aircraft technology.

Nearly 400 years before the

Wright brothers' first flight at

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the

15th century inventor had

designed numerous flying

machines, including a hang

glider and an aircraft that

operated like a modern‐day

helicopter.

>> RODGERS: This is Leonardo da

Vinci's famous air screw, and

this is the first attempt that

we know of for vertical flight.

This was designed to have four

human beings run around in a

circle, providing power,

literally screwing it up into

the air.

The air screw resembles our

modern‐day helicopters.

>> COPPENS: Leonardo needed to

know answers to some of the big

questions, which the ancient

alien question has as well‐‐ the

question of flight.

>> TSOUKALOS: There is no

question in my mind that a

person like Leonardo da Vinci

most certainly asked himself the

question: are we alone in the

universe?

And his conclusion even at that

time was: no.

>> NARRATOR: What was the source

of Leonardo da Vinci's

incredible and prophetic

inventions?

Were they the product of his

immense genius, or is it

possible, as ancient astronaut

theorists believe, that Leonardo

had been influenced by an

otherworldly intelligence‐‐ an

intelligence he encountered in

the past or one that he

possessed from within?

>> NARRATOR: The North

Apennines, Italy.

Here, in the mountains just

outside Florence, a young

Leonardo da Vinci spent much of

his time examining the mysteries

of nature.

Because his parents were not

married, he was excluded from

the prestigious academies

attended by many of his

contemporaries.

>> COPPENS: In Florence the

Platonic Academy is reformed and

this institute of learning comes

about.

Now, we know that Leonardo da

Vinci is not allowed to enter

this academy.

>> WALLACE: This is a young man

who is pretty much left on his

own in some ways for up to 19

years, traveling around the

countryside.

He was looking at rocks.

He was studying birds.

He was looking at the flow of

water.

He was studying mountains.

He was literally immersed in

nature.

No other artist in the

Renaissance really showed that

much interest in the natural

world and the surrounding world.

>> COPPENS: He strives for

knowledge.

He strives for information.

He is able to create a body of

knowledge which is on par with

the body of information which

the Platonic Academy, as a group

of beings, is able to put out.

>> NARRATOR: It was also in the

North Apennine Mountains that

Leonardo is believed to have

discovered the cave that he

wrote about in his journal.

>> ROBERTS: The story of the

cave‐‐ it's very likely that it

happened around 1480, since it

appears that that's the moment

at which this is written in the

codex.

The fact that Leonardo chooses

to record this encounter with

the cave, I think, indicates

that it had a significant impact

on the artist psychologically.

>> NARRATOR: But although the

exact location of the cave‐‐ and

the date Leonardo discovered

it‐‐ remains unknown, there are

many who believe that it may

provide the key to understanding

the source of the artist's

incredible genius and the answer

to the mystery of what happened

to him during his missing two

years.

>> WILLIAM HENRY: He goes inside

the cave and then he disappears,

and it suggests to me time

travel portals.

He's opening portals or star

gates and beaming to either the

past or the future and then

returning to the present time.

>> CHILDRESS: In history you

have certain people like

Leonardo da Vinci, whose genius

is just so incredible and the

visions that they have‐‐ in many

ways it's like they are able to

see the future and they're not

going to just influence the

world then, but what they're

going to do is going to

dramatically change the world

forever, and you have to wonder

where people get this kind of

inspiration, and in the case of

Leonardo he was able to see

things and invent them, in a

sense things that we weren't

going to have for hundreds of

years.

>> NARRATOR: Is it really

possible that Leonardo da Vinci

may have obtained his incredible

creative and scientific

knowledge as the direct result

of an extraterrestrial

encounter, or might Leonardo

have fallen through a time

portal‐‐ one which allowed him

to actually visit the future‐‐

a future where robots,

helicopters, military weapons,

and other amazing machines

actually existed... and which

the artist would later try to

duplicate?

Some ancient astronaut theorists

believe the answer can be traced

back to work he did on The

Annunciation and the

significance of his so‐called

"disappearing angel."

>> ROBERTS: Leonardo and

Verrocchio's Annunciation

portrays the moment at which the

Angel Gabriel has arrived and is

telling the Virgin Mary that she

is pregnant with the Son of God.

>> TSOUKALOS: What some scholars

have speculated is that by

painting the angel in The

Annunciation so that it

disappears under X ray, he is

telling us that, like Gabriel,

he is the messenger, and then

with his next painting we're

told that this great gift to

mankind has arrived, and

Leonardo da Vinci's

contributions to mankind are

truly a gift to the world.

>> CHILDRESS: You have to wonder

if Leonardo wasn't doing this

because he was being encouraged

in secret by some kind of

extraterrestrial masters who

were somehow behind him.

>> NARRATOR: Might Leonardo da

Vinci, the man many have called

the greatest genius who ever

lived, have been chosen by

extraterrestrials to accelerate

the advancement of the human

race, or was he merely trying to

communicate the incredible

future inventions he had

witnessed firsthand?

>> HARRIS: Without doubt the

most influential personality of

the first millennium was Jesus.

Now, you go to the second

millennium and I believe

Leonardo is the most important,

dominant personality, made the

most contributions in the most

areas during those thousand

years.

>> COPPENS: Wherever we look in

ancient times we find that the

genius was always identified

with superhero, divine

qualities.

Even today we put geniuses on a

separate pedestal and almost

worship them.

And this is really something

throughout mankind's history.

So the question is: where does

this come from?

And whenever you look into

mythology, you'll also find that

the geniuses were the ones who

were created by the gods.

Genius and divine go hand in

hand.

>> NARRATOR: Leonardo da Vinci‐‐

the man who created some of the

most famous artwork in the

world, designed machines 500

years ahead of their time, and

laid the groundwork for today's

advanced robotics.

Was he a time traveler‐‐ a man

who, by accident, was provided a

glimpse into the future‐‐ or was

he chosen to serve an unknown

agenda‐‐ a human messenger who

conspired to keep a secret pact

with extraterrestrial beings?

Perhaps the answer lies not in

space but right before our eyes,

hidden in plain sight within the

smile of a 500‐year‐old

portrait.

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