All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens SP s02e03 Interstellar Fallout.eng

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.

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