Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Asteroid strikes supplying Earth

with critical elements.

JOEL SERCEL: Many precious metals

actually came from the asteroids.

NARRATOR: Spaceborne viruses altering human genetics.

BILL BIRNES: Alien viruses infected planet Earth,

and human beings reached another stage of evolution.

NARRATOR: And evidence of alien life

entering our atmosphere.

MILTON WAINWRIGHT: Some civilization has put biological material

inside of this thing, and then spewed it out to Earth.

NARRATOR: Could these cosmic intrusions be directing the course

of life on our planet?

And if so, is humankind itself

the product of extraterrestrial intervention?

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Extraterrestrial intelligences deliberately sent

the building blocks of life right here to Earth.

NARRATOR: There is a doorway in the universe.

Beyond it is the promise of truth.

It demands we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

In the high-country desert,

just 35 miles southeast of the city of Flagstaff,

lies the Barringer Crater,

one of the largest and best-preserved impact craters

in North America.

DAVID CHILDRESS: The Barringer Crater is out in the desert.

You're driving south on this small road,

and then suddenly you see the crater rim.

And there's a building there.

You take an elevator up to the top of the rim,

and you're looking down at this amazing crater.

It's like you're looking at something

that's on another planet.

NARRATOR: According to scientists, the Barringer Crater was formed

roughly 50,000 years ago

when a massive asteroid,

measuring 150 feet in diameter

and weighing an incredible 300,000 tons,

slammed into the Earth's surface.

The resulting explosion was 150 times more powerful

than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

However, it is only one of many examples

of how asteroid impacts have caused

massive devastation on Earth,

and also shaped the world that we live in today.

MICHIO KAKU: Asteroids hitting the planet Earth

affect everything.

They've changed the climate.

They've created tremendous disasters on the planet.

The most famous taking place 66 million years ago,

when an object about six miles across

plowed into the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico,

wiping out the dinosaurs.

AVI LOEB: It created a whole new landscape on Earth,

and it allowed, perhaps, for creatures like ourselves

to exist. So, definitely,

rocks colliding with Earth

had a huge impact on the evolution of life on Earth.

NARRATOR: While a major life-altering asteroid impact

isn't known to have occurred on Earth for thousands of years,

smaller fragments, known as meteors,

penetrate the Earth's atmosphere on a regular basis.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: Statistically, we get hit by meteors all the time.

You can go out any night and you can see

shooting stars or falling stars,

which are objects outside of the Earth

entering the atmosphere and burning up.

Some of them actually make it to the ground.

KAKU: We sometimes forget that the world we see around us

originally came from outer space.

When you look at the history of the Earth,

4.6 billion years ago,

back then, there was basically rubble.

Rubble, gas, particles, circulating around the Sun,

and gravity began to coalesce much of this material,

which eventually became the planet Earth.

The Earth was molten for many billion years.

The elements like the platinum-based materials

and uranium tend to be heavy.

Much of the heavy metals drifted toward the center of the Earth

when the Earth was formed.

NARRATOR: But as the Earth's surface cooled and solidified,

an extended period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment" ensued,

wherein billions of comets,

asteroids and meteors made impact,

seeding our young planet with numerous resources,

including water and precious metals.

SERCEL: During that bombardment phase,

smaller impacts would hit the crust and be trapped.

So many of the precious metals

that we really value on the Earth

actually came from the asteroids.

NARRATOR: Were it not for the metals that arrived on Earth

from space during its formation,

the development of a technologically advanced

human civilization would not have been possible.

These asteroids and meteors,

they also contain

not just ordinary chemicals like carbon and iron

but also materials that are strong, conduct electricity.

Things like platinum.

Platinum that is used in the electronics industry.

Meteorites are providing materials like iridium,

quasi nanocrystals that are ultimately used

in our technology, and also gold.

The meteorites bring the surface gold.

A lot of particularly the rare metals

that are critical in things like cell phone technologies

and other electronic devices,

are often as likely to be here only because of meteor impacts,

and that material coming from elsewhere in space

rather than having formed naturally

in just the Earth's crust as part of its evolution.

NARRATOR: Although the evidence that cosmic impacts

have been critical to sustaining life on Earth is profound,

incredibly, scientists have recently discovered new evidence

that meteors may have seeded the Earth with DNA.

Researchers at Hokkaido University make

an extraordinary announcement.

After analyzing three meteorites that were formed

4.6 billion years ago,

at the very dawn of the solar system,

they discover that each object contains

all four components of DNA,

the central building block of life.

Could some of the origins of life come from space?

One idea you could imagine is an asteroid broke off

from a planet that had the right chemicals for life.

It traveled through space, entered the Earth's atmosphere

as a meteorite,

and that those chemicals interact

with the chemistry of the Earth.

And perhaps that was the starting point

for life as we know it here.

NARRATOR: For decades, mainstream scientists have studied

the hypothesis that life on Earth may have evolved from

a so-called 'primordial soup,' meaning that organic compounds

formed into living cells in the planet's primitive oceans.

It's still a question how life originated on Earth.

And oftentimes, you're told that this all happened

due to a primordial soup.

But there needed to be certain ingredients.

And astronomers are now saying that the secret ingredients

were brought here through meteor impacts.

NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists,

the possibility that meteors

carried the building blocks for human life on Earth

raises an intriguing question.

Could it be that these ancient meteor impacts

did not happen by chance,

but by design?

TSOUKALOS: Bio-astronomers have coined a concept called panspermia.

Panspermia essentially means seeding...

"Pan" means everything, "spermia" is seeding.

So, the seeding of everything.

Now, often meteor impacts are considered to be random.

But if you say "directed panspermia,"

that means that extraterrestrial intelligences

deliberately sent the building blocks of life somewhere

that they knew was going to be habitable.

Is it possible that meteors were sent to Earth

deliberately because extraterrestrials knew

that Earth can host life?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that some of the asteroids

that struck our planet carried the building blocks

for life on Earth?

And, if so, could they have been sent

with the intention of changing the course of human evolution?

NARRATOR: May 2018.

A group of 33 researchers and scientists publish

a groundbreaking article in the scientific journal

Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.

They claim that octopuses are, in fact, alien beings.

The octopus has no evolutionary

bridge to anything.

It defies all theories of how the genome grew

to form, from simple creatures, more complex creatures.

Suddenly, you get an incredibly gifted predator.

Big brain, excellent eyes...

...strategies.

It likes to collect bright shiny things.

It will be fascinated by its own reflection,

almost as if it is conscious.

And it learns very quickly.

By the conclusion of that article,

all I could think about was, well,

how come those scientists

cannot apply the same theory to our own origins?

Because that is what the ancient astronaut theory suggests:

that, at some point, our genetic makeup

was changed due to an extraterrestrial event.

So I say that it won't be long until

a similar type article will be published,

but the main focus will be the origin of human beings.

NARRATOR: But if octopuses are not a product of Earth evolution,

how did they get here?

And could the answer reveal the truth

about mankind's own extraterrestrial origins?

Could extraterrestrials have sent asteroids

to our planet in order to speed up, or even initiate,

Earth's biological evolution?

In 2011, former NASA astrobiologist

Richard Hoover published an article

in the Journal of Cosmology

revealing three separate meteorites

that contain microfossils of bacteria.

So you have to ask the question of where did life start?

And one idea you could imagine,

is the actual chemical basis of life

first started somewhere else,

not on Earth.

And then, you have to ask,

well, how did those chemicals get here?

And the obvious candidate for that is a meteorite.

An asteroid of some type broke off,

maybe from a planet that had life.

It traveled through space,

and it entered the Earth's atmosphere as a meteorite.

And then, upon impact...

chemicals would survive

and interact with the chemistry of the Earth.

And perhaps that was the starting point

for life as we know it here.

WARD: So, when people talk about meteorites that could

bring life to Earth, or could change life here on Earth,

this is the kind of meteorite that can do that.

It first fell in Murchison, Australia, in 1969.

And inside it is just

a plethora of organic compounds.

There's all the building blocks for DNA, RNA.

This has everything in it to start life.

CHILDRESS: This whole concept of meteorites that could be

filled with DNA is a theory that's very sound.

So you have to ask yourself, would extraterrestrials

actually use meteorites as projectiles

in order to seed life on other planets?

TSOUKALOS: Now, the question is: if some extraterrestrial culture

sent out probes filled with DNA

and the building blocks for life throughout the entire universe,

are they our forefathers?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that extraterrestrials

used meteors in the distant past as a means of

sending the building blocks of life to Earth?

Although ancient astronaut theorists agree

that such a profound notion does seem farfetched,

they point to the fact that some of today's scientists

are planning to implement

this very same idea with regard to other planets.

In 2016, German physicist Dr. Claudius Gros proposed

"The Genesis Project", which would use probes

to seed life on distant stars within our galaxy.

Once, I visited the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.

And I came back with a very beautiful

slice of petrified wood.

NARRATOR: Dr. Gros and other scientists have suggested

that, after jump-starting life,

humans would follow these probes,

conveyed by larger asteroids,

and further alter life for their own purposes.

And according to ancient astronaut theorists,

this is exactly what happened on Earth thousands of years ago.

We find in the Aztec tradition a very interesting story

about how the Mother God and Father God

bonded together and gave birth

to what's called a "flint stone,"

a knife of some kind,

which terrified them to such a point

that they actually cast it down to the Earth.

From which came forth many gods.

And these many gods sought

to create man and woman.

What we also find are similar stories

from halfway around the world.

From the Biblical tradition, the Babylonian tradition,

the early Sumerian traditions.

CHILDRESS: Is this really an analogy of some huge rock,

meteorite in the sky that extraterrestrials,

gods from outer space, sent here to the Earth and created humans?

The humans that we are today?

NARRATOR: Could it be that certain meteor strikes in Earth's history

did not happen by chance,

but were, in fact, directed here

by an extraterrestrial intelligence?

Perhaps further clues can be found by examining

ancient cultures that believe meteorites possess

an otherworldly connection.

NARRATOR: Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

At the center of Islam's holiest city

stands the Grand Mosque,

the largest house of Islamic worship on Earth.

It is also the final destination of the Hajj pilgrimage,

which every Muslim is required to complete

once in their life if they are physically able.

In the mosque's central courtyard

stands an ancient structure called the Kaaba, or Cube.

And embedded in one corner of the Kaaba

is the most sacred object in Islam: the Black Stone.

A mysterious rock that is believed

to have come from the heavens.

For the world's 1.8 billion Muslims,

this stone is crucial.

When Muslims face, they face in the direction of Mecca,

they face in the direction of that stone.

The Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca,

is some kind of fragment

that is held together by a silver band,

and the object is actually said

to have fallen from heaven.

And it is said to have landed in paradise,

where it was picked up by Adam and Eve.

HUSSAIN: The first human being, Adam,

in Islamic tradition, builds the first temple

out of this stone; the first place to worship God.

(thunder rumbling)

Then the story is that stone gets lost

during the flood,

and is then rediscovered by Abraham.

So Abraham, with his son Ishmael,

build in Mecca the first place of prayer.

That's why Mecca is important to Muslims.

What survives of that original building

going back thousands of years earlier

is this black stone in the Eastern corner of the Kaaba.

If we're scientific, we may call that a meteorite.

JONATHAN YOUNG: If we take the scripture seriously,

this story tells us this stone

was the communication between the two dimensions,

from the heaven to the Earth.

For Adam and Eve,

this was the first altar to communicate

with the celestial realm.

NARRATOR: The Black Stone of Mecca is arguably

the world's most venerated meteorite,

but it is hardly alone.

Many other ancient cultures believe meteorites

and impact sites have a connection to a higher realm.

In Roman times, a very prominent meteorite

was found in Syria, and was worshipped.

It was referred to as Helio Elagabalus,

which literally means the Sun touching down to the Earth.

In Delphi, a meteorite was associated

with Apollo at his temple in Delphi.

So, this is a constant theme

that we have in the ancient world,

tying physical objects to the gods,

to the skies, to the heavens.

NARRATOR: Historians of religion agree that people have venerated

meteorites and impact sites throughout history.

The question is why.

HENRY: Something that we find repeated over and over again

in these crater impact sites is that

they believe that through these meteorites they can talk

with the gods, and the gods

can actually see them as well.

So, the meteorite then becomes a way of connecting

with the divine beings.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that numerous ancient cultures

around the world simply passed down

similar mythological stories

that meteorites and earthly impact sites

could allow them to communicate with higher beings?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that these otherworldly encounters

may have actually happened.

And for further evidence, they point to one of the most

mysterious and sacred sites in North America...

Sprawling across a large clearing

that divides a wooded landscape

sets a 1,370-foot-long monument in the shape of a coiling snake.

It is known as the Great Serpent Mound.

According to historians, an Indigenous Native American

culture called the Adena built the mound in 320 BC.

And curiously, it is positioned right

on the edge of an enormous crater.

HUGH NEWMAN: It actually sits right on

a 300 million-year-old meteor impact crater,

which was so powerful that it even went down

to the mantle inside the Earth.

And this has created all sorts of gravitational

and magnetic anomalies in the area.

And it's thought that the reason

the Adena people who built this site

chose it is because it has these kind of

energetic, almost spiritual qualities associated with it.

One of the great mysteries of Serpent Mound

is that this meteorite creates this impact site,

this impact crater 250 million years ago.

Then suddenly, 3,000 years ago, the Adena people come along,

and they're somehow able to identify

its significance and they build an effigy.

And it becomes this very powerful place of reverence

for the Adena people for the next 2,000 years or so.

When you look at the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio,

you have to wonder if there was some energy

there that they were feeling.

And so they built the Serpent Mound there

as a testament to the extraterrestrial

connection, perhaps, that's with this crater.

NEWMAN: Serpent Mound has long been talked about

as being like an otherworldly connection point.

And in traditions that go way, way back,

there's talk of the star people.

They're described in certain ways in myths,

which in modern terms we would see as, like, UFOs landing

and interacting with these extraterrestrial beings.

So, is Serpent Mound part of this ancient tradition?

NARRATOR: As unique as the Great Serpent Mound is

against its forested landscape, it is not the only

asteroid impact site on Earth where ancient cultures believed

there was an extraterrestrial connection.

HENRY: In Australia we find an extraordinarily

mysterious site: the Wolfe Creek Crater.

The Indigenous people call it Kandimalal,

the star that fell from the sky.

It's an impact crater site that's 3,000 feet in diameter.

Even more interesting than that is

the Indigenous legend that is attached to it.

They talk about two serpents that emerge

from the dreamtime and created this crater.

And it suggests once again that these Indigenous cultures

were in contact with otherworldly beings

that either are connected with the crater,

the impact site, or somehow emerged from it.

NARRATOR: Could it be that meteorites and meteor impact sites

provide a connection to other worlds?

And if so, might our ancestors have learned this

from extraterrestrial visitors?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest there is

evidence that interstellar fallout is all around us.

NARRATOR: March 2018.

Author and researcher Andrew Collins travels to

Sheffield, England to witness a remarkable demonstration.

- Hi, guys. - Andrew, how are you?

- Chris, I presume. And Milton. - Pleasure.

NARRATOR: He is meeting with microbiologist Milton Wainwright

and engineer Chris Rose, two members of the research team

who are convinced that life on Earth

may have originated in space

through a process known as panspermia, a theory

that dates as far back as the fifth century BC.

According to the theory, microbial life is capable of

traveling through the universe and may, on occasion,

survive entry into Earth's atmosphere.

I understand you've made

some incredible discoveries. Please tell me all about it.

In the early 2000s, my colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe,

and we were launching balloons from India.

And these were sampling the air at 41 kilometers.

And they showed that organisms

are continually arriving all the time.

Panspermia is an extremely simple idea.

Basically, it's the idea that life came from space.

Instead of being formed on this planet, it came from space.

My findings relate to panspermia simply, in that

they show that organisms are coming in

at this very moment from space.

Tell me how you actually collect these samples.

This is our balloon that's going to give us

the buoyancy from the hydrogen gas here.

Now, our capture mechanism is right here.

Let me show you this.

This exposes little metal stubs to the environment.

And you're looking to see if you can get microbes

coming from the upper atmosphere

and not from the Earth itself?

That's right. All the critics say they're

coming from Earth because we're surrounded by life.

But we have lots of evidence that this material

is not coming from Earth.

- It's incoming from space. - This sounds incredible.

I mean, have you ever lost any of these?

No, and we're not about to start today.

- So, fingers crossed, guys. - Brilliant.

NARRATOR: The team moves the balloon into launch position,

from which it will ascend

more than 37 kilometers, or 23 miles, into the air.

Okay, guys, ready?

- Andrew, on you. Countdown, please. - Okay.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Let it go!

ROSE: Oh, there she goes.

NARRATOR: Once the balloon reaches its target altitude

within the Earth's stratosphere,

the capture mechanism will hopefully

collect samples of non-Earth-based microbial life.

After the sampling is complete,

the balloon bursts

and the capture mechanism descends back to Earth

under the safety of a parachute.

The team uses GPS tracking to locate

where the mechanism lands.

Once retrieved, the sample is quickly secured

in a sealed container so that it does not become contaminated

with microbes from Earth.

Moments later, Andrew joins Milton and Chris

at a nearby laboratory.

Here they will extract the microbes inside a sterilized

clean room and then analyze them to make sure

no Earth microbes have contaminated the sample.

COLLINS: A clean room.

- Mm-hmm. - How can you ensure the sterilization?

What are the protocols behind this process?

It's really all about sterilizing the air inside

to make sure the air inside contains no microorganisms.

So all the air is filtered.

NARRATOR: Milton and Chris remove the carbon tabs

from the capture mechanism

and place them into vacuum-sealed containers.

This will further prevent contamination while

they view the samples with a scanning electron microscope.

- WAINWRIGHT: Wow. - COLLINS: What on Earth is that?

I can tell that this is biological.

If you analyzed this, I'm pretty certain this would show

as carbon, oxygen, and a little bit of nitrogen.

Now, that's the signature for life.

COLLINS: We're saying that this piece of

biological life could potentially be

- extraterrestrial in origin? - Right.

There's nothing from Earth around it.

It's pristine. So it's incoming.

Now, if we do a bit of modeling studies,

we come to the conclusion that nothing bigger

than six microns can go out.

- Okay. - And this is 200.

So it's a very large particle and it's coming in.

What we actually could be looking at here

is a genuine alien life-form?

What you're looking at there is an organism or a clump

of organisms that is incoming from space to Earth.

Nothing bigger than six microns can go from the surface

of the Earth to these altitudes that we sample at.

And yet we are finding particles all the way up to 200.

They can't be coming up from Earth.

Absolutely amazing.

It's blown my head off.

NARRATOR: Biological organisms?

Not from Earth but from somewhere in space?

Could we be looking at actual evidence

of a living organism from a world other than our own?

We've actually found evidence of what

could be extraterrestrial biological entities.

To see those images was extraordinary,

and it's convinced me that the Earth is surrounded

by life that almost certainly came from outer space.

This is one we took earlier, as they say.

This is the most amazing image I've ever seen in my life.

It's got biological material here, and this material

we know contains carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen.

So this is biological.

When we analyzed the ball, we found it contained titanium

and a small amount of vanadium.

So, this is a titanium sphere

with life inside and life on the outside.

Now, what on Earth is it?

One possibility is that this is directed panspermia.

Some civilization has put biological material inside

and just on the outside of this thing,

and they spewed it out.

And this suggests that some alien civilization

is seeding planets.

This smoking gun of panspermia,

or even directed panspermia,

could give us the best evidence yet

that aliens, in some form,

seeded life on this Earth, which is an incredible thought.

NASA have a department known as the Office of

Planetary Protection to safeguard the Earth from

extraterrestrial biological

entities, whatever you want to call them.

- Yeah. - From actually penetrating into the Earth's atmosphere.

There are extremely detailed plans and protocols

for bringing back any probe that we send

to another planet or moon or asteroid.

COLLINS: The protocols that are in place

shut out the possibility of

us studying actual biological entities that may exist

on the edge of our own stratosphere

that have arrived here from deep space themself.

And I find that very sad, very tragic.

NARRATOR: If extraterrestrial microbes are landing on

our planet, can NASA's strict protocols really protect us

from biological contamination?

Or could it be that the contamination

is not only unstoppable, but it is the very method

by which life on Earth began to evolve millions of years ago?

NARRATOR: A Stanford University study published in the journal

eLife reveals a remarkable finding that dramatically

changes our understanding of human evolution.

The study reports that since modern humans first

emerged from earlier primates, roughly one third of

their evolutionary adaptations have been caused

not by means of natural selection but by viruses.

We have genes in our own genome that were derived from

a retrovirus at some point in our history.

And some actually have important functions

for our development as humans.

This suggests that there has been some kind of

symbiotic relationship

with viruses since the beginning of life itself.

Sometimes viruses help human evolution.

NARRATOR: According to another study, one important human adaptation

that resulted from a virus is a special

layer of the human placenta that prevents

a fetus from being rejected by the mother's body.

The genes that create this tissue are called syncytins,

and they were not originally found in human ancestors.

FISHER: They were acquired at a couple different points

in our history about 25 and 40 million years ago.

And they're important for the connection

between the mother and the fetus.

NARRATOR: Some scientists now believe that viral genes like this were

as important for human evolution as natural selection.

RICHARD B. HOOVER: I think that horizontal gene transfer being carried out

by viruses or phages

was probably the primary mechanism

whereby changes in species

and major changes within a species occurred.

NARRATOR: Was it by pure chance that viruses helped to create

a species as sophisticated as humans?

Or might this viral evolution have been

intelligently directed by beings from outer space?

Anthropologists are telling us that humans evolved over time

out of Africa and that we had certain genetic leaps...

...where we were suddenly smarter,

our communication skills

became greater, and so these genetic leaps

throughout evolutionary history

might have just been a natural thing,

but they could have been engineered as well.

TSOUKALOS: There is no doubt in my mind

that viruses that have originated from space

somehow had to do with our development here on Earth.

However, it is very clear that the ancient

astronaut theory proposes that the one reason

why we became humans as we are today is not

due to an accident by some natural virus from outer space

but a deliberate, artificial change of our DNA.

NARRATOR: Could humans be the subject of a bioengineering project

by extraterrestrials who use viruses from space

to alter our evolution?

And if so, could those viruses

have been delivered to Earth in comets?

Ancient astronaut theorists

point to a curious event in our evolutionary history.

The moment humans almost went extinct.

Around 75,000 years ago,

there was a bottleneck in human evolution.

It's suggested that the human population actually went down

from millions down to just a few thousand.

This is certainly something that genetics backs up.

And we have to ask ourselves what was going on at this time.

PHILIP IMBROGNO: Originally, geologists believe that that bottleneck of humanity

was caused by the supervolcano in Sumatra exploding.

Now, recent finds have indicated

that's not the case,

and they're leaning more towards

a virus, a plague that was genetically programmed

for early humans... wipe them out.

NARRATOR: One controversial theory is that the cause

of this bottleneck event was not just a virus

but a virus that was brought to Earth on a comet.

According to this theory, a comet slammed into

the planet with such devastating force

that it created a nuclear winter, killing almost

all human life on Earth.

Almost, because those that could survive both

the nuclear winter and the alien virus emerged

as a profoundly altered and improved species.

It was immediately following this event that humans

first began to leave evidence of symbolic thinking:

art, music, and advanced language.

Somehow human beings reached another stage of evolution.

It was the transformation of the human brain.

Could it be-- and we believe it did happen--

that alien viruses infected planet Earth at this inflection

point of the extinction of the human species?

They implanted viruses in the human species

that changed the brain.

NARRATOR: But could viruses really survive in the frozen vacuum of space?

And if so, could they have come here not by accident

but as some kind of extraterrestrial invasion?

Until recently, it was believed that radiation,

extreme temperatures, and the vacuum of space--

that is to say, the absence of any oxygen--

would kill any life-form.

- MAN: Pressurization. Go, Atlas. - MAN 2: Go, Centaur.

NARRATOR: But ever since humans first ventured into space,

scientists have been finding evidence to the contrary.

NASA's unmanned Surveyor 3 lander touches down on the Moon

and begins its mission

collecting soil from the lunar surface.

Two years later,

astronauts on the Apollo 12 mission

recover parts of Surveyor 3 and return them to Earth.

To the astonishment of scientists,

living strep bacteria is found on the probe.

But this is only the first of many cases

of microorganisms surviving space travel.

There have been experiments in which microorganisms

have been flown to the International Space Station

and exposed to the hard vacuum and the radiation

and the temperature changes of deep space.

And many of those organisms survived.

NARRATOR: Incredibly,

several types of bacteria

have thrived back on Earth

after spending up to two years

outside the International Space Station.

Now, in the last 20 years,

it was shown b-beyond any doubt

that microbes are essentially born space travelers.

They can survive almost any of the rigors that you can think of

that would greet them in space--

high temperatures,

high radiation,

intense cooling,

and even intense heating.

It's also well-established

that microorganisms can very easily survive

in bodies like comets

and could well live in bodies like Europa

and Enceladus, because there is ice there.

There is liquid water oceans underneath the icy crust.

NARRATOR: In recent years, astronomers are identifying

more and more planets that could potentially harbor life.

Some believe that microbial life

first evolved on one of these distant planets.

Eons later, meteor impacts blasted some of them into space,

where they took root in comets.

But even if true,

how could they descend to Earth and infect humans?

HOOVER: We know for a fact

that material from other bodies in our solar system

is continually raining down

on the surface of the planet Earth

and it could well be bringing with it

dead and possibly even living microorganisms

as it enters the Earth's atmosphere

and then lands in oceans or lakes or streams of the planet.

NARRATOR: Could this explain many of the plagues that sickened

and killed millions throughout history?

In 2007,

an international team of researchers

set up a research facility

in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain

to collect data on microbes falling to Earth from the sky.

What they discovered remains controversial.

The total amount of viruses

that were falling down on the Earth

was something like 800 million individual viruses

per square meter of the Earth.

The conclusion they came to, of course,

was that this was, essentially,

viruses that were lofted from the surface of the Earth,

taken up to the clouds, and brought back.

Now, I think some would have been recirculated in this way

but not all.

And I feel that this is one of the most striking examples

of science being, essentially,

dishonest in its conclusions.

These 800 million viruses per square meter

falling on the Earth must include viruses

that are coming from outside.

NARRATOR: Although some scientists believe

that life on Earth actually originated with microbes

that rained down from comets...

...a theory known as panspermia,

an even more controversial theory

called directed panspermia proposes

that these comets were sent here not by accident...

...but deliberately.

If I'm an alien species...

...and I want to start a colony on a different planet,

think of what we're doing now.

We want to send human beings back to the Moon.

We want to send human beings to Mars.

What if that's not what they did?

What if the ancient aliens

didn't send complete life-forms...

...but sent submicroscopic life-forms?

NARRATOR: Mainstream scientists remain skeptical

that microbes can survive for thousands of years

inside icy comets,

much less that they might be sent to Earth

deliberately to alter human evolution.

But others argue that the proof

can be found right here on Earth,

in the closest environment we have to comets--

the icy depths of glaciers.

NARRATOR: Whistler, Canada.

April 17, 2019.

Ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos

and retired NASA scientist Dr. Richard Hoover

are about to board a helicopter bound for a massive ice cave

in the Canadian wilderness.

All right, you ready for this?

- Yes. Absolutely. - All right.

NARRATOR: Dr. Hoover spent most of his career studying fossils

for signs of extraterrestrial microscopic life

and is a leading proponent of panspermia,

the idea that life on Earth originally rained down

from comets in outer space.

He has invited Giorgio to accompany him

while he investigates the Whistler Ice Cave...

I always love this.

...where he is confident they will find the glacial ice

teeming with microbial

and perhaps even more sophisticated life-forms.

Life-forms that may be thousands of years old.

HOOVER: Oh, this is just...

absolutely magnificent.

It really is.

NARRATOR: If alien viruses are reaching Earth,

Dr. Hoover suggests that those that don't find a host

could survive within such an environment

for long periods of time.

Today he'll examine the glacier for the perfect samples

to analyze in his laboratory.

So, Richard, how excited are you

to be here to conduct this experiment?

Well, I'm tremendously excited.

- This-this is absolutely a-a marvelous opportunity... - Yeah.

...to do more studies of life in ice.

NARRATOR: After a 20-minute helicopter ride,

the team arrives at the Whistler Ice Cave

in the Pemberton Glacier.

TSOUKALOS: Wow!

This is incredible.

HOOVER: Amazing.

Look at that. There must be

a thousand shades of blue in this ice cave.

It's absolutely fantastic.

And here we see all of these magnificent shades of blue.

And up there you see big streaks of black.

Glaciers like to eat rocks.

And as they eat rocks,

the rocks gather inside.

And when the Sun shines through the ice and hits the rocks,

it can cause it to melt and form nice little pools of water.

And then, when bacteria and algae grow in there and respire

and produce their-their photosynthetic products,

they make their own atmosphere.

So, around every tiny rock in this glacier,

there is a tiny planetary system with its own biology,

its own atmosphere, its own soil, in effect,

and its own oceans.

NARRATOR: The ice here is tens of thousands of years old.

But Dr. Hoover believes it is teeming with life.

Wow. I mean, this is, uh, spectacular.

So you just described basically our environment

- on a microscopic level. - Exactly.

There is an enormous amount of biology above us

and throughout this w-wonderful glacier.

What we're about to do is take a core sample

- of this beautiful blue ice. - Uh-huh.

So, what are you looking for specifically right now?

HOOVER: What I want to do first

is chop away an outer layer and get into the inner ice.

We'll be looking inside of the ice for the ice microorganisms.

Now we know there can't possibly be any contamination,

because this ice has been in the glacier

and now is only freshly exposed.

And now we take the core.

Now, we're into the ice.

I'll pull...

the ice core out.

- Okay. - Mm-hmm.

And that's enough, right?

- That's enough. Yeah. - Okay, great.

HOOVER: For that first sample.

- Yeah, c-cap that. - Okay.

All the microorganisms that grow in ice

typically grow very, very slowly.

So, in fact, there are some microorganisms

that only reproduce once every half a century

- or once a century. - Mm-hmm.

So, the-the microbes that are found in here,

are they in suspended anima-animation

or are they moving around?

Probably both.

So, essentially, what you're saying

is that this entire cave

is filled with life.

Yes. But not just that.

This entire ice cap is filled with life.

There is this enormous amount of microorganisms

that live and thrive

and love to live in these low temperatures

of the-- of the ice cave that we have here

and ice caves and icy, uh, glaciers

all over the planet Earth

and probably all over icy regions

within our entire solar system

and may... may be widely distributed

throughout the entire universe.

Are we essentially inside the interior of a-- of a comet?

- Is this what it looks like? - Well...

Yes. Microorganisms can live in ice,

and ice is the dominant component of comets.

Organisms can remain alive

and protected by the icy material of the comet

until it arrives into another solar system

and blows off chunks of material that can find a planet

that it can consider a wonderful home.

And so this basically ties into the whole idea of panspermia.

Water is a wonderful radiation shield.

And when you have a comet that is a few miles in diameter,

on the inside of that cometary crust,

there is all of this magnificent ice that has been

frozen and then reworked with material going in and out.

So comets are not just a magnificent place

for panspermia.

I am convinced that comets are a absolutely wonderful place

for the origin of life.

NARRATOR: Incredibly,

Giorgio and Dr. Hoover discover

that the glacier isn't home to just microscopic life.

This is magnificent. Look. These ice worms.

- This one has just crawled out of the glacier. - Oh, wow.

HOOVER: He's deep in the ice. Look at this.

Over here, two more ice worms.

They're all in here...

- TSOUKALOS: He's clearly looking for something. - Yeah, he's hunting.

TSOUKALOS: We discovered

life in the most inhospitable of environments.

NARRATOR: Amazingly, Dr. Hoover has found

some of the rarest animals on Earth.

Ice worms only exist

in a handful of locations in North America.

But how can animals live and thrive in frozen blocks of ice?

So, how did these ice worms come about?

HOOVER: This is an incredible evolutionary phenomenon.

They have apparently evolved to be able to live and grow

and feed and reproduce inside of glacial ice and snow.

They are feeding on algae, cyanobacteria,

and other bacteria that live in the ice.

And they can make burrows through the ice,

just like an earthworm makes burrows through the soil.

And we may see similar kinds of organisms

on the polar cap of Mars

or perhaps even in craters in the Moon

or perhaps the icy moons of our solar system,

like Europa and Enceladus.

You know, it's kind of incredible,

because we came here in the hopes of finding microbial life.

And here we are looking at ice worms,

which are actual animals.

So this is more than what we'd hoped for.

I-It's incredible.

NARRATOR: As Giorgio and Dr. Hoover

take their samples to a lab to be analyzed...

...what kind of life-forms might they find

within the Pemberton Glacier?

Could it support the theory

that life on comets is more common

than we ever thought possible?

And if so, is it just the random byproduct of a universe

that is teeming with various forms of life?

Or is it part of a more strategic plan,

a plan deliberately designed to alter human evolution?

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos

and retired NASA scientist Dr. Richard Hoover

have just collected deep ice core samples

from the Pemberton Glacier in Whistler, Canada.

First sample that we got.

NARRATOR: Now back in the lab,

they are hoping to observe microorganisms

that remained dormant within the glacial ice

and are just now returning to life for the first time

in thousands of years.

- Do you see anything? - Oh, yes, yes.

We've got bacteria.

This is fantastic. I mean, look at this one spinning right here.

This one just moves straight across the screen.

And this one is tumbling.

And notice there's a cell

that has just undergone cell division.

- Here's another one that's just undergone cell division. - Okay.

The quest for extraterrestrial life, to me,

has been a lifelong one, as it has been with you.

So I've traveled around the world climbing pyramids,

I've looked at statues, I've been to hundreds of museums,

I've read countless ancient texts, and here

we are looking at something that shows extraterrestrial life

that may have come here millions of years ago.

The fascinating thing is that

a far more extraordinary hypothesis

than the existence of extraterrestrial life

is the hypothesis that life exists

on the planet Earth and nowhere else in the universe.

If that were to turn out to be what really is the case,

then we would be completely unique

and we would be different from everywhere else in the universe.

And that would be an amazing discovery.

Much more amazing than finding out that bacteria

or ice worms are crawling around on the surface of Europa today.

This is incredibly fascinating,

you know, and it's also refreshing to hear

an actual NASA scientist telling me these things.

NARRATOR: If, as Dr. Hoover's research indicates, icy comets

are ideal incubators for extraterrestrial life,

and if microorganisms are

incredibly common in the universe,

is the Earth being regularly bombarded

by tiny alien life-forms?

Life-forms that could not only could grow and mutate

but could also pose a deadly threat to mankind.

Sussex, England, 1992.

Cattle are slaughtered by the thousands

as government officials try to prevent the spread

of the most frightening new disease on Earth.

Called mad cow disease, it is an entirely new kind of illness

caused by bizarre proteins called prions.

So mad cow really sort of challenged

our traditional concepts of disease causation

in the sense that it wasn't a bacterium.

It wasn't a virus.

It's actually sort of, like, rogue proteins

that don't fold correctly and sort of pass on that information

to other proteins, and that sort of makes them

dysfunctional as well.

NARRATOR: Some of the microbes found in cometary debris

contain chemical structures very similar to prions.

HOOVER: They could have been introduced from space because of the fact

that mad cow disease seemed to have appeared rather abruptly

and been transferred rather widely.

NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists, the sudden appearance

of mad cow disease raises an intriguing question:

could many of history's worst epidemics have come from space?

And, if so, did they come here purely by chance,

or were they sent here on purpose?

BIRNES: What if the terrible plagues that ravaged the Earth

were the result of alien viruses that are

constantly bombarding the planet?

NARRATOR: The small village of Yambuku, in Zaire,

is struck by a deadly disease

that causes victims to ooze blood from every orifice.

The name of the disease... Ebola.

Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever

of humans and other primates.

So it causes, like, massive internal bleeding

and often death in, like, over 50% of cases.

NARRATOR: Initially thought to be a new disease,

alert historians recognized the symptoms of Ebola as being

identical to those of an epidemic that ravaged

the Roman Empire nearly 2,000 years ago.

In 250 AD, the Plague of Cyprian

struck the city of Carthage in North Africa.

Incredibly contagious, it caused infected victims to

ooze blood from every orifice, just like Ebola virus,

and killed off half the population.

But just as quickly as it appeared,

the plague seemed to disappear completely from the planet.

If Ebola is present on Earth in the third century,

and it then disappears

all the way through to the 1970s,

if it isn't somewhere hiding on Earth,

is it possible that it was out in space itself,

perhaps on a comet,

and that this is the reason why

it returned on a comet itself--

to rain down more misery on humanity?

NARRATOR: Was the virus that we know as Ebola

really dormant for nearly 20 centuries?

Or was it deliberately sent to Earth not once but twice?

As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,

the answer is obvious.

And, as proof, they point to accounts

concerning another of history's worst plagues--

the Black Death.

TSOUKALOS: What's interesting about these accounts

is that they seem to have originated

after something strange was seen up in the sky.

For example, they saw this black shield travel across,

and then it's also described that this black dust

came off that particular object.

IMBROGNO: Also, in the wheat fields they reported these strange figures

holding some type of device, like a sickle.

Some people feel today these reports were some

types of extraterrestrials causing the disease.

NARRATOR: Ironically, with half the population gone,

those who survived the plague enjoyed twice the wealth

and natural resources of the previous generation.

They also had much stronger immune systems.

So, could this have been part of some

deliberate extraterrestrial plan?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe that

such an audacious notion is possible.

If you're an alien culture and you're seeing Earth

overpopulating to the point where the planet can't

sustain the population...

What do we do with animals in the wild?

We cull them. What if these plagues were

alien cultures culling us?

BARA: These could actually be designer viruses,

designer bacteria that are sent here

to kill people with specific genetic weaknesses

and make the rest of the gene pool that much stronger.

NARRATOR: But if extraterrestrials are trying to cull

our population, or strengthen our genetic makeup

through the introduction of microbes... why?

Some ancient astronaut theorists suspect

that the ultimate objective is to make us more like them.

And as evidence, they point to humanity's ongoing

efforts to explore and alter other worlds.

NARRATOR: NASA announces funding for a bold new initiative,

one that will define the future of interstellar transportation.

Called RAMA, the program will focus

on repurposing asteroids for space exploration.

NASA's currently working on this project called RAMA,

Reconstituting Asteroids for Mechanical Automata.

The idea is to take an asteroid and turn it into

a probe that we would then send to another star system.

NARRATOR: If the RAMA program is successful,

it is NASA's belief that asteroids will not only

become useful tools in the exploration of space

but also in the terraforming of other planets.

But why would an advanced society

choose to explore and colonize

the cosmos by using asteroids?

So, a rocket is very expensive to launch from the Earth.

And what you really want to do is take something

very small and light, like a few key robots,

not a heavy payload, get it out into space, and then

use the raw materials in space to from scratch build a rocket.

And once it's out there,

it's got all the raw materials it needs to actually

build another spaceship that's viable for space travel.

NARRATOR: While the idea of using asteroids as a method of space

travel does seem far-fetched,

it is far less so when taking into consideration

what many asteroids are made of-- minerals.

There is a bodacious amount of resources.

In fact, meteors that are meteor samples

show us that the asteroid belt contains

organics, it has metals, it has refractories.

Everything we could possibly want to build a space program.

TAYLOR: The meteors are made of very strong material like iron

and nickel and cobalt, things like that.

These are alien objects, and we really don't understand

everything about them.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists are convinced that the notion of

using asteroids as a form of spacecraft is not only

possible, but that it has been happening and affecting

the history of our planet for thousands of years.

West Linn, Oregon, 1902.

Walking home after a day's work, pioneer Ellis Hughes spots

an enormous and unusually-shaped boulder hidden in the woods.

Curious, he pulls out his hammer and strikes the rock.

He jumps, startled, as it rings loudly, like a bell.

Over the next several days, Hughes digs tirelessly to

uncover a historic treasure-- the largest meteorite ever found

in North America-- the Willamette Meteorite.

YOUNG: The Willamette Meteor is enormous.

The actual shape of the meteor has changed over time.

It now looks something like a piece of modern art.

It is fascinating and enormous. The thing's the size of a car.

TAYLOR: If we look at the makeup of the Willamette Meteorite,

it's got iridium, germanium, gallium and nickel.

It weighs about 15 tons. A very large object.

BRANDENBURG: The nickel actually helps it from not corroding.

And it, of course, shows evidence

of having gone through the atmosphere.

You know, it's pitted.

And what's interesting, it landed intact

and didn't break into a billion pieces.

So it's a quite remarkable meteorite.

The Willamette Meteorite is an example

not only of a strange meteorite arriving intact

but also that it had a profound effect on the local people.

It became kind of a shrine to them, a message from the gods.

NARRATOR: Long before Ellis Hughes

discovered the meteorite in 1902,

a Native American tribe called

the Clackamas, who have inhabited Western Oregon

for centuries, were aware of this extraterrestrial object.

They also believed it had special powers.

TZADOK: The Clackamas tribe, they had a long,

long history of interaction with this rock.

They would look at this rock as a gift, a conduit

which united heaven, Earth, and with water.

Within the stone itself, there are holes in there from

erosion and the like, which gathered pools of water.

Now, this water was used for healing purposes, for blessing.

In other words, there was something in the water

which was gathered from this meteor

that had energetic power.

YOUNG: They would dip their arrowheads and their spear tips

into the water, thinking that this ritual would

sharpen the blades and help them in their hunt.

HENRY: The Clackamas named the meteorite Tomanowos

and believed that it was, in fact,

a messenger of their sky god.

This is hugely significant because it tells us

that, in fact, that rock is not just a rock,

it's an actual link to an extraterrestrial being.

We're talking about a 15-ton meteorite that crash-landed,

but yet there's no evidence of an impact.

I think we have to go back to the original

Clackamas connection that says that perhaps there's

extraterrestrial intervention involved

in the positioning of this meteorite.

JASON MARTELL: They firmly believed it was brought here

by someone intentionally.

They actually thought that it came from the gods,

not by chance that it fell from the sky.

NARRATOR: But how did the Clackamas people believe the Willamette Meteorite

came from the sky,

considering that it is believed to have

fallen to Earth thousands of years ago?

Is it possible that it once possessed powers

not of a spiritual but of a technological kind?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest

that the strange holes found in this giant metal object

may once have held technological apparatus

that burned up in the atmosphere as it fell to Earth.

The same kind of apparatus that NASA is planning to install

on asteroids being harnessed for space travel.

So now you have to look at NASA's RAMA initiative...

...and how they are planning to take asteroids,

hollow them out, make them into self-powered spacecraft,

pack them with DNA and technology,

and send them to other planets.

And so you have to wonder, are we just perpetuating this cycle

where, eons ago, extraterrestrials

sent meteorites here

and the Clackamas discovered the remains of

a highly technical little spaceship that has been sent

as a space probe to other planets?

Meteorites do have a lot of unanswered

questions about their origins, their composition.

And why is it, exactly, that they arrive here on Earth?

Is there some type of intelligent design?

Are these meteorites being harnessed,

infused with information and then sent to Earth?

NARRATOR: Could NASA's plans to repurpose an asteroid as a probe

for exploring distant star systems be a real possibility?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and point to a recent discovery

that may be the genesis of NASA's bold endeavor.

NARRATOR: The island of Maui.

Here, atop a dramatic 10,000-foot summit,

stands the Haleakala Observatory.

On October 19, 2017, astronomers detect

a mysterious object traveling through our solar system.

It is unlike anything that has been seen before.

I was in charge of coordinating the observing

to characterize the object.

There were four images taken that showed an object

moving rapidly with respect to the stars.

The stars are individual dots of light,

and this object was a streak.

So they knew it was moving fast.

At that point, they started to compute an orbit

to try and understand what this object was.

Everything in the solar system

is either on a circular or an elliptical orbit.

But once more data came in, it was very clear that the orbit

was hyperbolic, meaning something coming

from outside the solar system.

We have never seen an object on an orbit like this ever before.

And it's an irregularly shaped object that's about

800 meters, or half a kilometer, in length.

This was really exciting.

NARRATOR: The landmark discovery is the first time an object

is officially recognized as interstellar.

To signify the importance of the finding,

the astronomers gave it a fitting name.

MEECH: In honor of this object being discovered

by a telescope in Hawaii, the team came up with the name

Oumuamua, which means

"voyager from the distant past reaching out to us."

NARRATOR: Astronomers were not only mystified by where Oumuamua

came from but also by its strange oblong shape,

which was like no asteroid ever detected.

The interstellar object moved steadily

through the solar system,

and astronomers were taken by surprise once again

when, after passing by the Sun, it appeared to accelerate.

MEECH: Oumuamua was moving rapidly away from the Sun.

When it made its closest pass to the Sun, uh, inside

the orbit of Mercury, it was moving very fast.

A little more than 195,000 miles per hour.

So, this is moving rapidly out of the solar system.

NARRATOR: To Harvard astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb,

the unusual behavior indicated that the object

wasn't an asteroid or a comet.

Instead, he proposed an extraordinary hypothesis:

Oumuamua was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Oumuamua was definitely an outlier,

and the question is: why would

the first interstellar meteor be so unusual?

There was a question as to what pushed Oumuamua

away from the Sun, and my thought was,

that raises the possibility that it may have been

a spacecraft, propelled artificially.

TAYLOR: Oumuamua could possibly have been a probe coming into

our solar system the same way we send probes to Jupiter.

It came into our solar system, went around the Sun,

and flew by Earth as if, uh, it was a probe looking at us.

NARRATOR: Intrigued by the possibility that Oumuamua

might actually be a probe sent to our solar system

by an extraterrestrial civilization,

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb began searching for evidence

of other celestial objects moving in a similar fashion.

I came across a meteor catalog that the government

compiled using its missile warning system.

It's called CNEOS, and I asked my student

to check if any of those meteors

came from outside the solar system.

He found that one of them was actually moving at

60 kilometers per second, clearly unbound to the Sun.

NARRATOR: Astronomers determined that this object, like Oumuamua,

did, in fact, originate outside the solar system.

This new discovery was first observed

by military satellites in January 2014,

three years before Oumuamua was identified.

But unlike Oumuamua, this object did not pass

by the planet but actually entered Earth's

atmosphere and exploded over the Pacific Ocean.

The meteor burned up

about 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

And it released a few percent of the energy of

the Hiroshima bomb when it exploded.

From that we inferred it was about half a meter

in size when it exploded.

NARRATOR: Excited by the discovery, Dr. Loeb closely examined

the data captured by the military satellites.

And he noticed something extraordinary.

LOEB: The government released data of the explosion,

and from that we inferred

that the object must have been tougher than iron.

So not only was this object

the first interstellar meteor, but it was also tougher

than all other meteors

detected by the government in that catalog.

And that raises the possibility that it may have been

a spacecraft, propelled artificially and made of

some alloy that is much tougher than iron meteorites.

To find out, we need to find the material.

If we do end up concluding that it was

artificial in origin, perhaps a spacecraft,

that will have huge implications

for the future of humanity.

KAKU: Some people are saying this object came from

outside the solar system.

Maybe, just maybe,

it's a technosignature of intelligent life.

And that has created a sensation because

this is a new branch of science.

We're not just looking at asteroids anymore.

We're looking for remnants of intelligence.

HENRY: When you consider the vastness of space and just how tiny

our planet is-- it's literally a tiny speck within

the Milky Way galaxy--

and then you factor in direct hits by meteorites

that came from beyond our solar system,

you have to wonder,

are these meteorites somehow intelligently directed?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the meteor

that exploded near Papua New Guinea in 2014

was carrying extraterrestrial technology?

If so, could an advanced civilization be

sending such objects to Earth deliberately?

Perhaps further clues will be revealed

by an audacious new mission

designed to retrieve a piece of a meteor

that might contain extraterrestrial technology.

NARRATOR: Theoretical physicist Dr. Avi Loeb announces

an ambitious new expedition.

Its goal is to recover fragments of

the interstellar meteor that exploded

over the Pacific Ocean in February 2014.

LOEB: This meteor was roughly half a meter in size,

bigger than a basketball, and it burned up

about 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

The ocean is very deep.

It's about a mile deep there, but we plan to use a sled

equipped with a magnet that will attract the small fragments

and collect them.

And we will go back and forth

across the region of interest,

just like mowing the lawn,

for a couple of weeks, and we hope to find

those fragments.

We hope, just like detectives, to collect enough evidence

that will tell us the origins of this object.

NARRATOR: If the project is successful, it will mark the first time

humanity has recovered material from another solar system.

LOEB: Whatever we find will have a big impact

on our understanding of interstellar objects.

NARRATOR: But what excited Dr. Loeb the most about the meteor

isn't where it came from but what it might contain.

LOEB: The reason that the meteor is interesting

is because the possibility that it may have been

a spacecraft, propelled artificially and made

of some alloy that is much tougher than iron meteorites.

If we do end up

concluding that it was artificial in origin,

perhaps a spacecraft,

that would be the first time that we found evidence

for an object that originated from another civilization.

NARRATOR: Could the remnants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft

really be lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?

While it may be a sensational notion,

the possibility has excited researchers around the world.

KAKU: So, there's talk that maybe we should try to capture

this material that plunged into the Pacific. Because who knows?

Maybe it was sent here by an alien civilization

in outer space.

Now, the probability of that happening

is very small, let's face it.

It's a long shot.

But, hey, science is based on long shots.

You never know where the next discovery's being made.

And so I think it's worthwhile to try to see whether

we can retrieve this object.

TSOUKALOS: This object may contain some type of extraterrestrial

technology or some type of an extraterrestrial signature

that points towards intelligence.

If they can find this object and study it,

it could potentially be one of the greatest discoveries

in human history.

NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,

the findings may help answer an essential question.

Have alien civilizations

from across the galaxy been sending materials to Earth

for eons,

with the deliberate intention

of developing our planet,

altering evolution, and setting us on a path to our future?

In a groundbreaking announcement,

Harvard scientist Avi Loeb reveals that his expedition team

successfully recovered hundreds of small metallic spheres from

the ocean floor off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

Of the 700 salvaged objects, 57 display compositions

distinct from any known material in our planetary system.

The spheres were sent out to various labs

for further in-depth analysis to help determine

if they are of natural or artificial origin.

TAYLOR: Perhaps, out of all these things that crash

into the Earth's atmosphere, some percentage of them

could be of extraterrestrial origin.

And if we go and look at all these, as many as we can find,

perhaps we'll find that one needle in the haystack

that tells us this is a device, or was a device

before it impacted the Earth, that came from outside

of our solar system and from some advanced civilization.

TSOUKALOS: Maybe we'll find new DNA

or we'll find new building blocks for life.

Life that we didn't even know could even exist.

And what implications does that have for us?

NARRATOR: From the asteroid events that introduced precious

resources to our planet, to microbes containing the building

blocks of life raining down to Earth, to the human

adaptations said to have been triggered by cosmic viruses,

life on Earth, as we know it, has been

profoundly influenced by interstellar fallout.

Perhaps soon, as humanity prepares to harness

space debris to aid in terraforming other planets,

we may discover that the radical transformation

of ourselves and our planet

have not been merely a product of chance but rather

a calculated evolution of extraterrestrial design.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0