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>> NARRATOR: President Thomas Jefferson...

Christopher Columbus...

Crusaders in the Middle Ages... What did they have in common?

They either experienced or believed in the possibility

of alien encounters.

>> BILL BIRNES: And the fact is there have been so many

descriptions by various chroniclers talking about

a strange cloud in the sky that glowed red.

>> C. SCOTT LITTLETON: Columbus, on his first voyage, he noted

in the log, a glowing object rise out of the water and

head off into the atmosphere.

>> NARRATOR: Could alien beings have been responsible for

biblical floods, medieval plagues, and even ancient

nuclear attacks?

>> GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Visitations occurred since

before recorded history all the way to today.

>> NARRATOR: Millions of people around the world believe we have

been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings.

What if it were true? Did ancient aliens really help

to shape our history? And what if these visitations

didn't only occur thousands of years ago, but much more

recently? Might there be evidence of real‐life close encounters?

Captioning sponsored by A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS

>> NARRATOR: Alamogordo, New Mexico.

White Sands Proving Ground, July 16, 1945.

Early in the morning, a number of U. S. military officers and

scientists gather to watch a powerful new weapon being

tested. Some believe the device will be

a complete failure, others think it might destroy

the entire state of New Mexico. As a precaution, viewing

stations are placed from ten to 20 miles away from the test

site. At precisely 5:29 and 45 seconds, the first atomic bomb

is detonated.

>> Three, two, one...

Fire!

>> NARRATOR: The blast emits a fireball over 600 feet wide and

produces an explosion equal to 20,000 tons of TNT.

The mushroom cloud reaches over seven miles in height and the

reverberations can be felt nearly 100 miles away.

The world had a new weapon; one so terrifying it left even

its creator, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, shocked and shaken.

>> J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER: A few people laughed.

A few people cried. Most people were silent.

>> NARRATOR: For the first time in its history, the Earth had

been assaulted by a manmade weapon of incredible power.

But what if it had all happened before?

What if an explosion of even greater force and

destructiveness had long ago shaped the Earth's history?

>> ROBERT SCHOCH: Some people have suggested on the basis of

a number of lines of evidence that there may have been

atomic warfare, atomic bombs, atomic explosions, in the very

distant past.

>> NARRATOR: Atomic warfare among ancient civilizations may

sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but

descriptions of similar deadly occurrences can be found in the

very same text Dr. Oppenheimer quoted after the New Mexico

atomic test.

>> OPPENHEIMER: I remembered the line from the Hindu

scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I am become death, the

destroyer of worlds."

>> NARRATOR: Part of an ancient Hindu scripture known as

The Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita was written sometime

between the fifth and second century B. C.

This massive 100,000‐verse text contains stories about the

ancient empire of Rama, which it is said existed over 12,000

years ago, or roughly 5,000 years before the earliest

recorded civilization in Mesopotamia.

>> TSOUKALOS: If you read the ancient Indian epics, they

read like modern‐day science fiction.

Yet they are thousands of years old with references

not only of flying chariots and of these gods that had these

incredible technological capabilities, but incredible

weapons that they used in those epic battles.

>> NANCY RED STAR: They had what was called a Brahma weapon.

There were many people that were singed and burned and melted

by the Brahma weapon.

>> NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists believe the Brahma

weapon was an early nuclear device because the descriptions

of its deadly aftereffects are eerily similar to the effects

of exposure to intense radiation. It is a theory largely

discounted by conventional science.

>> ROBERT CARGILL: There is no evidence that a nuclear bomb was

described in The Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita.

It describes a battle. In battles there are explosions,

big explosions.

>> TSOUKALOS: It's one thing about suggesting that, you know,

battles have explosions, but that's not really what we're

looking at. You've got to look at the whole

picture. One reference that we have,

for example, speaks of these explosions that were brighter

than a thousand suns. And when these blasts occurred,

the suns were twirling in the air, trees went up in flames

and there was just this mass destruction.

After those blasts, people who survive start to lose their hair

and nails start to fall out. I mean, right there, we have

a concise reference to radiation poisoning, nuclear fallout.

And those texts are thousands of years old.

>> NARRATOR: But if The Mahabharata is based on

fact, wouldn't archaeologists have uncovered physical or

radiological evidence? According to ancient astronaut

theorists, they have. The Indus Valley,

Southern Pakistan. In 1922, an officer with an

Indian archeological survey group discovered the ruins of

an ancient city known as Mohenjo‐Daro.

According to mainstream archeologists, the city, whose

name means "mound of the dead," had flourished between 2600

and 1900 B. C. However, scientists in Pakistan

have suggested Mohenjo‐Daro is much older.

Mainstream archeologists believe the city was abandoned

as a result of climatic changes or possibly a decrease in trade.

But when the ruins of Mohenjo‐Daro were discovered in

the 1920s, 44 skeletons were found lying face down in the

street, many holding hands. Their faces and body positioning

suggested they suffered a sudden, violent death.

>> PHILLIP COPPENS: You have a culture of people who

literally were lying dead in the street.

Archaeologists have found human remains, and something big

has happened to these people.

>> NARRATOR: What, in fact, did happen to the people of

Mohenjo‐Daro? Why is there evidence that wild

animals avoided scavenging their remains?

And why, even after thousands of years, had their bones not

decayed?

>> TSOUKALOS: In certain areas of that site, you find increased

levels of radiation. And radiation exists all

over the place. When, all of a sudden, you

have higher levels of radiation in certain areas of the world,

the question, arises, "Why?"

>> NARRATOR: Is it possible that Mohenjo‐Daro was one of the

cities mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita‐‐ a city that

suffered the equivalent of a sudden atomic attack?

In his 1979 book, Atomic

Destruction in 2000 B. C., British researcher David

Davenport claimed to have found a 50‐yard‐wide epicenter

at Mohenjo‐Daro where everything appeared to have been fused

through a transformative process known as "vitrification."

>> TSOUKALOS: Vitrification is a process in which regular‐type

stone gets molten into a magma

state and then it hardens again. But once the stone is hardened

again, it feels like glass. At Mohenjo‐Daro, we find

evidence of vitrification, which could have only been achieved

if the material was exposed to extreme heat by some type of

a blast.

>> DAVID CHILDRESS: When British and Indian and Pakistani

archeologists began doing excavations in the Sian Desert,

on the borders of India and Pakistan, in the late 1940s and

early 1950s, what they found in these cities‐‐ Mohenjo‐Daro,

Harrapa, Kot Diji‐‐ was archeological evidence to show

there were apparently atomic weapons.

Only it happened in ancient times.

There's other evidence in parts of Africa and the Middle East,

where it would seem to be like some sort of atomic explosion

had taken place there, and had turned the desert sand

into glass. And that's exactly what happened

at Alamogordo, in New Mexico, when they detonated the first

atom bomb in the desert.

>> NARRATOR: Could the strange ruins found in the Indus Valley

really contain evidence of an ancient atomic explosion?

If so, where did these powerful weapons come from?

Who was using them? And why?

>> TSOUKALOS: In the ancient Indian texts themselves it says,

and I quote, "At one point, three giant cities were orbiting

the Earth." And those giant cities were

often described as being made of gleaming metal and iron.

And at one point, those three cities went to war with each

other. And it's described how the gods

threw weapons at each other, destroying those cities,

they all went up in flames and fire came raining down onto

Earth. So, when you read those

passages, the question ask is: What is it that our ancestors

tried to describe here? And I think that it was some

type of a technology that was witnessed, yet our ancestors,

while being highly intelligent, didn't understand the nuts and

bolts aspects behind that technology.

And so they created something divine out of it, something

supernatural, yet it never was divine.

It never was supernatural.

>> NARRATOR: If, in fact, The Mahabharata is describing

historical events, might we also find similar accounts

in other ancient writings? As far as ancient astronaut

theorists are concerned, we need look no further than in the

pages of the Holy Bible.

>> NARRATOR: According to one of the stories contained in the

book of Genesis, angels were sent by God to destroy the

cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sins of their

inhabitants. Only a righteous man named Lot,

along with his family, was to be spared.

But while making their escape, Lot's wife ignores the angels'

warning not to look back, and upon gazing at the horror and

devastation, is turned into a pillar of salt.

>> TSOUKALOS: When you are at a nuclear testing range and you

witness a nuclear blast, you're told to look away and not to

look straight into the blast. And here we have a similar

description in ancient biblical text where instructions were

given, "Whatever you do, don't look back because you will die."

And sure enough, it happened to Lot's wife.

>> NARRATOR: Could it be that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah

is really a description of a nuclear explosion, similar

to the one described in the Hindus' Mahabharata?

Do the stories of The Mahabharata and the Bible

represent actual historical events?

For ancient astronaut theorists, the answer is a resounding

"yes." And they believe the so‐called

"angels" who brought forth the devastation were, in fact,

beings from another planet‐‐ alien visitors armed with

advanced weaponry. September, 2000.

The Black Sea, Turkey. Marine archaeologist Robert

Ballard and his team of underwater scientists discover

what appears to be a farmhouse some 330 feet below the surface.

Estimates suggest the submerged dwelling to be approximately

7,500 years old. Ballard and other scholars

speculated that rising ocean levels could have caused the

Mediterranean Sea to burst through a natural dam, creating

a flood so great it drowned an estimated 58,000 square miles

under 500 feet of water. But more than finding the ruins

of an ancient dwelling, had Ballard actually discovered

proof that the biblical story of Noah and the great flood was

true?

>> CHILDRESS: Those villages, of course, weren't built

underwater. So Ballard concluded that the

Black Sea, as we know it, was only created some eight, 9,000

years ago. That is exactly what we're

talking about with Noah's Ark and the flood, the same area

where all that happened. And in fact, mainstream

archeologists know that in the Mediterranean there are over

200 known sunken cities. Those cities, too, were somehow

flooded the same time that the Black Sea was flooded.

>> NARRATOR: Also written in the book of Genesis, the story of

Noah tells how God "saw that the wickedness of man was

great," and decided to destroy all of creation.

Only Noah, his family, and the animals aboard the ark were

allowed to survive and repopulate the planet.

But is this the whole story? Was Noah selected only for his

virtue? Or was there another reason he

was chosen to save the planet? Ancient astronaut theorists

believe the Bible doesn't tell the whole story.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a series of ancient

texts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a

cave located in what is now Israel's West Bank.

Among the ancient writings are various stories not found in

the traditional Hebrew Bible. One such story tells of Noah

and his strange, miraculous birth.

>> ERICH VON DANIKEN: One of the Dead Sea Scrolls is called

"The Lamech Scroll." What is Lamech?

Lamech was a shepherd. And one day, Lamech, his woman

was pregnant. And he said to her, "This is

impossible. I was not here for months."

But his woman with the name Bathenosh swears, "No one

touched me." But Lamech doesn't believe his

wife, Bathenosh, and he goes to his father, which was Methuselah.

And Methuselah says to Lamech, "I can't help you.

I don't understand this. I believe your woman, Bathenosh,

"that nobody touched her, and I believe you. What shall I do?"

So Methuselah goes to his father, the grandfather now of

Lamech. His name is Enoch. Now Enoch tells to Methuselah

that the guardians of the sky have made an artificial

insemination into the womb of Bathenosh, the wife.

And he should accept this child, because this child will be

the father of a new human generation.

And in the Bible, this is Noah.

>> NARRATOR: What if, as ancient astronaut theorists believe,

the story of Lamech is true and the guardians of the sky

described in the story are, in fact, aliens?

Does this mean that Noah was the product of an artificial

insemination, a genetic experiment performed by

extraterrestrials? If so, what was the reason for

the great flood?

>> L. A. MARZULLI: Well, the reason for the flood, and we

need to understand this. What it tells us is that

Noah was pure in all of his generations. What does that mean?

You know, why would the account, you know, specify "pure in all

his generations"?

>> NARRATOR: According to the Bible, God sent the flood

because of man's wickedness and corruption.

But ancient astronaut theorists believe the flood was actually

a means of ridding the Earth of biological imperfections.

By using Noah and his family, they could repopulate the

planet with a genetically superior species.

>> VON DANIKEN: Part of this human society is, again,

genetically backward, closer to the animal. What can we do?

These humans were spread out over the planet.

So they said, "We have to kill them all by a great flood, and

then we have to restart again."

>> NARRATOR: Another familiar element in the story of Noah

involves the collection of animals brought aboard the ark.

In the Bible, God commanded Noah to collect two of every

kind of living creature‐‐ animal, bird and insect.

But many biblical scholars and theologians agree that such

a task would have been both physically and biologically

impossible. Could there be another more

scientific explanation?

>> TSOUKALOS: The story of Noah's Ark is pretty

implausible, if you think about it.

You have two animals of each creature on planet Earth on a

boat. Not only would the boat have to

be huge, but how are you going to collect every animal on the

planet and put it on that ship? So, could it be possible that

Noah's Ark was once again misunderstood technology, and

Noah's Ark was a DNA bank?

>> JONATHAN YOUNG: Could it be a story?

Could it be technology somehow gathering up all living things

as in a DNA bank of some kind? It fits together.

Hard to imagine, uh, how that would happen so far back, but

if it did happen, it would need to be told as a story, and the

story of a boat works.

>> CHILDRESS: Perhaps this is really an extraterrestrial DNA

bank as well. The extraterrestrials need

plants and animals and minerals on this planet, too.

Just like when we go to Mars or something, we'll be using

what we can use on that planet. So, extraterrestrials coming

here would want to do that as well.

And if they knew that some cataclysm was coming, they, too,

would want to preserve certain kinds of animals and plant life,

and create, you know, what we think of as Noah's Ark.

>> NARRATOR: An alien DNA bank? Is there any evidence that such

a thing is even possible? In 2008, on the Arctic island

of Svalbard, a vault was built to store the seeds of hundreds

of thousands of plants in the event of a global catastrophe.

Elsewhere, similar efforts are reportedly underway to store

animal and human DNA as well. Cutting‐edge science or merely

history repeating itself?

>> TSOUKALOS: The Frozen Ark Project is a program that was

initiated by the London Natural History Museum.

What they've done is they started to store DNA of

endangered species for future generations, for preservation.

And, as of today, over a thousand species have been

preserved in small little vials. So, the question arises,

could it be possible that Noah's Ark wasn't necessarily a

boat made out of wood, but what if Noah's Ark was some type of a

DNA storage facility that was used in order to preserve all

the species on planet Earth? If each species can be held

in a tiny vile like this, then it all becomes very logical.

And, once again, we have to look at it from a perspective, "What

did our ancestors try to describe?

What did they witness?"

>> NARRATOR: Aliens artificially inseminating humans...

Ancient DNA banks... Could such ideas really help our

understanding of the Bible? And is it possible that

extraterrestrials have influenced the development of

mankind? There are many who claim that

the proof can be found in some astonishing places.

>> NARRATOR: For those who believe that close encounters

with alien beings have helped shape Earth's history, it is

important to remember that it isn't only ancient history that

has been so influenced. There have been literally

hundreds of credible accounts of strange creatures, UFO

sightings and otherworldly phenomena that took place, even

in the so‐called Dark Ages.

>> BIRNES: There have been sightings all over the world

throughout the Middle Ages. There are stories going from

Scotland to England to Italy to the Crusades.

Remember the Crusades took place over hundreds of years.

And at certain points in the battle, in some cases over

Turkey, in some cases over Jerusalem, there are images

captured in writing by various chroniclers talking about

"a strange cloud in the sky that glowed red.

A strange image coming out of a cloud in the sky."

Why would we say this is a UFO? Because, traditionally, UFOs

mask themselves by forming a cloud around themselves.

And it's a cloud that's going through the sky‐‐ that's their

invisibility cloak.

>> NARRATOR: In his 13th century historical work titled Otto

Imperialia, Gervase of Tilbury wrote about an aerial craft

over the city of Bristol, England, which caught an anchor

in a church steeple.

>> BIRNES: He uses specifically the term "anchor."

Now, we don't know what kind of anchor that is.

But a creature, a man, climbs out of this craft and tries

to free the anchor from the steeple.

And all the people in the village start stoning him,

thinking he's some sort of evil demon.

>> NARRATOR: But for ancient astronaut theorists, evidence

of an alien presence during the Middle Ages isn't only found in

literature.

>> TSOUKALOS: All throughout the Middle Ages, there are some

magnificent paintings... ...and in certain areas of the

painting, there are what looks like to be UFOs.

They're always floating up in the sky‐‐ usually above the

Virgin Mary or above Jesus on the crucifix‐‐ or somewhere we

have sceneries that depict what

looks like UFOs. One very interesting painting is

where Jesus sits up in the clouds with quote, unquote

"God," and they're holding onto the antennae of what looks like

Sputnik; and theologians say what is depicted here is nothing

else but the Earth. But why would Earth have two

antennae sticking out of it? And why would it be round?

Because the mainstream viewpoint at the time was that the Earth

was flat.

>> LITTLETON: Here are pictures of the crucifixion dated around

1350 from Kosovo.

Here are, presumably, vehicles with people driving them in

attendance at the crucifixion. Could this be a crude‐‐

an attempt on the part of the artist drawing on a tradition‐‐

obviously, he wasn't there‐‐ drawing on a tradition?

Could he be reflecting the folklore? Possibly.

>> BETTY ANN BROWN: The people of the Middle Ages depicted

devils and angels frequently, in their art.

They did not depict what we today consider aliens,

specifically. But angels are heavenly

creatures that come from outside of our sphere, aren't they?

>> NARRATOR: Did the medieval artists include strange

creatures and flying spacecraft in their paintings because they

had seen them in real life? Or were they trying to

communicate their belief that the miraculous events of the

New Testament had otherworldly origins?

>> MAXIMILLIEN DE LAFAYETTE: The most famous painting that

resolved any doubt in my mind depict a UFO with its laser

beam, was made by Crivelli in

1486‐‐ The Annunciation to Mary.

>> BIRNES: In medieval art, in The Annunciation, when Mary is

told that she will have a child, but she will still be a virgin,

and the angels tell her this, over Mary's head is a space

capsule. But what's a UFO, or a space

capsule, doing over Mary? Maybe the artist saw it and he's

putting it in the painting to bring together his own vision of

a UFO, the annunciation from the Bible, and the mystery of

salvation that there could be a virgin birth.

>> NARRATOR: According to ancient astronaut theorists,

the UFO‐shaped objects found in medieval paintings aren't the

only evidence of an alien presence during the era.

In his book, The Gods of Eden, author William Bramley cites

private journals and other publications throughout

Europe which contain accounts of cigar‐shaped flying objects

emitting noxious mists. The first reports of this kind

began during the mid‐14th century, closely corresponding

to the outbreak of the worst health epidemic in human

history‐‐ the Black Plague.

>> GEORGE NOORY: The Black Plague, back in the 1300s, many

have said was caused by a virus from a rodent‐‐ bitten by fleas.

This disease that wiped out 75‐plus million people on the

planet at the time. But there's another theory by

a fellow by the name of William Bramley who says that the Black

Plague was created by ETs, that they wanted to eradicate human

beings, for whatever horrible reason.

>> WILLIAM BRAMLEY: We know that plague can be spread by rodents.

But there weren't that many rodent infestations being

reported back then, at least not enough to account for all of the

breakouts that we had. So what you find in the

literature from that time are numerous reports of bright

lights moving through the sky, emitting gas, or what they call

"mists." And we find them in China, you

find them in Europe. There are similar reports

from the Justinian plague from earlier in history, and even

later plagues, the cholera epidemics.

You find similar stories of mists that are the cause of the

Plague. We have weapons like that‐‐

biological warfare. As for the motive as to why

this happened, I can only kind of scratch my head, because in

the UFO phenomena, we see certain consistent patterns, but

we don't always understand the motive.

>> NARRATOR: Italian historian Matteo Villani, who both

chronicled the Black Death and died from it in the 14th

century, wrote of pestilential fogs reported by travelers from

Asia. He even wrote that people were

convinced they could actually see the plague coming through

the streets. But what some ancient astronaut

believers find to be even stronger evidence of alien

involvement, are the numerous reports of mysterious

black‐cloaked creatures who would appear on the outskirts

of villages just before plague broke out.

Contemporary accounts describe them as having "terrifying

faces" and "waving long, scythe‐like objects dispensing

noxious mists." It's the image we know today as

the Grim Reaper.

>> BRAMLEY: These figures in black would appear usually on

the outskirts of a town. They were carrying these long

devices that looks like scythes. These figures in black would

start sweeping in the fields as though they were cutting down

the wheat. Then immediately there would

be an outbreak of the plague.

>> NARRATOR: Although ancient astronaut theorists are divided

on Bramley's proposal that aliens were behind the plague,

his research, like the artwork of the time, has led to one

important conclusion.

>> TSOUKALOS: What is evidenced is the fact that visitations

occurred since before recorded history all the way to today.

It's not like ancient astronauts only happened thousands of years

ago, and then all of a sudden we have Roswell.

The fact alone, that these visitations have been going on

for all this time, thousands of years, that's sensational.

>> NARRATOR: Flying cylinders spreading plague from the sky?

Black‐clad aliens looking to destroy humans?

But even if possible, why? And, if true, wouldn't there

continue to be evidence of even more close encounters‐‐

encounters that would take place much closer to home?

>> NARRATOR: When Columbus and his men first set foot in what

to the Europeans was the "New World," the indigenous people

had never encountered anyone like them. Their skin was pale.

They wore strange clothes made of bright, often shiny materials.

They arrived in massive ships and had powerful weapons.

To the natives, the visitors were truly aliens from a

strange, faraway world‐‐ powerful beings who might just

as well have been sent from the heavens.

>> CHRIS PITTMAN: Columbus wrote in his journal that the

inhabitants eagerly came out to see their ships, and asked

them if they had come from the heavens.

And despite the fact that Columbus and his men indicated,

"No, we didn't come from the heavens," they called out to

the people still on the shore, "Come out and see the people

who've come from the heavens." Certainly, it seems interesting

to wonder why it is that instead of thinking that

possibly they came from some other part of the sea, that

they'd come from the sky.

>> NARRATOR: But there is more to the story.

Less well‐known is that Columbus had an alien encounter

of his own, one reported in his log just days before he

reached the shores of the New World.

At about 10:00 p. m. on the 11th of October, 1492, the anxious

explorer was on the deck of the Santa Maria when he saw a

"light glimmering at a great distance."

Columbus wrote, "The admiral, standing on the quarterdeck

saw a light. Calling to Pedro Gutierrez, he

told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he

did and saw it. The admiral again perceived it

once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle

moving up and down." Summoning another member of the

crew, the two watched as the light vanished and reappeared

repeatedly.

>> BIRNES: Seeing lights in the water isn't really an anomaly.

We all know that certain kinds of underwater life give off

lights. But this light actually traveled along with the ship.

>> LITTLETON: Columbus noted in the log a glowing object rise

out of the water, and head off into the atmosphere.

>> NARRATOR: What did Columbus see?

A phosphorescent sea creature? An hallucination?

Or was it something more? Something from out of this world?

>> BIRNES: What did Columbus' men see?

What they saw was a luminous object, that upon breaking

the water's surface, became a UFO.

>> NARRATOR: To UFO researchers like Bill Birnes, Columbus'

sighting is significant, not only because of when it

occurred, but also because the object was spotted coming

out of the sea, ruling out the possibility that what he saw

was a comet or a shooting star.

>> LITTLETON: What's intriguing is that this was in what we call

today the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle, that

area, particularly off of Bimini, the Bahamas, may in

fact be‐‐ and I'm way out on a limb here‐‐ Colony headquarters

underneath that. Your UFO goes down into the

water and then into a subterranean.

What better position would be to monitor South America,

Middle America, Egypt than the Caribbean?

>> PITTMAN: Many people believe that it's possible that UFOs

could have established bases on the seafloor.

To some extent, it's true that we know more about the

Moon or some parts of outer space than we do about the

deepest parts of our own oceans.

>> LAFAYETTE: This event is extremely important because

it is the world's first recorded event that illustrate

the appearance of UFO as object emerging from the water.

>> NARRATOR: If Columbus' sighting was so extraordinary,

why do we only find record of it in his log?

Some believe another account of this event exists in the

official records of the Spanish Inquisition.

UFO researcher Maximillien de Lafayette claims that

Columbus' shipmate, Pedro Gutierrez, reported him to the

Inquisition after hearing Columbus describe the lights in

the sky as resembling the Jewish menorah.

>> LAFAYETTE: When they went back to Spain, Gutierrez

went directly to the infamous Inquisition.

This is the Catholic organization created by the

Vatican to persecute and kill the infidels.

The infidels means the Jews, the Muslims and Christians who

are not Catholic. The Inquisition called him

for explanation, deposition. "Did you say that you saw

menorah? Why did you say menorah? Oh, so you are a Jew."

He said, "I'm not a Jew." In the deposition, which is

lengthy, you find more details, meticulous details of what

Columbus saw above the water.

The file of the Inquisition is in the vault of the Vatican.

And good luck if you can go to the secret file of the

Vatican and try to dig for document as explosive as this

one.

>> NARRATOR: Secret files of the Spanish Inquisition?

UFOs and alien sightings in the time of Columbus?

Farfetched, perhaps. But to proponents of ancient

astronaut theory, these precolonial close encounters

are considered commonplace events.

For them, it offers additional proof that we are not alone.

>> ALEX CHIONETTI: They have several sightings of what

we would call UFOs today along the discovery of

America, during the conquest of America.

Columbus was not the only one. Also on the trip of Magellan.

Fernando de Magellan, the discoverer of the Strait,

who circumnavigate the world after Columbus.

He have also sightings.

>> NARRATOR: Seafarers often encounter strange lights both

in the sky and below the surface of the ocean.

Skeptics argue that Columbus' sighting, like many others, was

simply a natural phenomenon.

>> BRAMLEY: At night, there are all kinds of things, for

example bolides. Bolides are these very large

comets, and they're spectacular. It's just like this enormous

bright light with a trail that just arcs through the sky.

But we can tell the difference. When you have a meteor like

that or a bolide, the characteristics are very

different than the ones of genuine UFOs.

>> PITTMAN: As far back as the 19th century, people have

speculated about what that light could've been.

Explanations have centered around the possibility that it

could've been a light or a torch being carried by an

island inhabitant. They were in fact more than

35 miles away from any land, which makes that impossible.

The other possibility is that it was a meteor traveling

very close to the horizon, and that the movement

of the ship is actually what made the light appear to be

moving up and down.

>> NARRATOR: But what if conventional science is wrong

and the ancient astronaut theorists are correct?

What if Columbus, Magellan and the early explorers really did

see evidence of extraterrestrial creatures

visiting our planet? What does this say about

our past? Our history? And our future?

>> NARRATOR: Germany, April 14, 1561.

At dawn, the citizens of Nuremberg awoke to what was

described in a local news flier as "a very frightful spectacle."

Various strange objects were spotted in the sky...

engaged in what appeared to be an aerial battle.

Could they have been witnessing a close encounter?

>> BIRNES: They see this incredible sight as the sun is

coming up. They see what they describe as

cigar‐shaped objects, circles in the air, and crosses;

flying crosses. And suddenly, these shapes

begin emitting other shapes.

>> PITTMAN: The spheres and discs were seen for a long

time, as they apparently were fighting in some kind of a

battle over the city. In fact, the battle was so

evident that the people in Nuremberg were actually able to

perceive which side was winning. Some of the objects were

seen to crash into the ground and disappear in a cloud of

smoke or steam. Other objects were seen to

fly off and disappear in the direction of the sun.

>> BIRNES: This entire event becomes memorialized in

a broadsheet. Now a broadsheet in the 16th

century was literally a newspaper.

And that broadsheet exists today in Zurich, Switzerland.

>> PITTMAN: The Zurich Central Library to this day retains a

copy not only of the famous woodcut that shows the 1561

sighting over Nuremberg, but also a 1566 woodcut showing a

sighting from that year that was quite similar in Basel,

Switzerland.

>> BIRNES: What's fascinating is it's a very similar event.

People saw a bunch of circles in the air.

In fact, a proliferation of circles in the air.

They didn't necessarily interpret that as a battle in

the air, but they did interpret it as some kind of heavenly sign.

>> NARRATOR: The broadsheets that were distributed both in

Nuremberg and in Basel five years later, advised people to

"repent for their sins" and interpreted these extraordinary

events as signs from God.

>> LAFAYETTE: In old time, everything paranormal,

extra, extra‐‐ hyphen‐‐ ordinary belongs the realm of

divinity, of Gods. "God's doing this!

God is punishing us! God is blessing us! Go repent!

Go to church!"

>> PITTMAN: It's interesting to read the Nuremberg description

because it is written with religious iconography in mind.

They talk about crosses seen in the sky on the previous day

during that sighting. Now what we might think of as

a fuselage with wings, might've appeared as a cross to people

who saw religious symbolism constantly in their everyday

life. It's difficult to imagine how these things might have

appeared, but it's certainly possible that if these were to

appear in the sky today, we would describe them quite

differently.

>> NARRATOR: Could the people of Nuremberg have actually

witnessed a battle between warring alien factions; an

event eerily similar to the one written about in the Bhagavad

Gita over 3,000 years earlier? And if not, what else would

explain the vivid accounts of luminous globes and blood‐red

crosses appearing in the sky?

Throughout the Middle Ages, visions of strange happenings

were often attributed to God or to the supernatural.

But moving into what is known as the early modern period of

the 17th century, people began to look more and more toward

science and the stars for answers.

And with the invention of the refracting telescope in 1608,

there would be more eyes trained on the stars than ever

before. Ironically, the first report of

a UFO witnessed through this new device came from colonial

America's best‐known Puritan minister, Cotton Mather.

>> BIRNES: There was an incredible sighting that the

very famous New England preacher Cotton Mather had.

Cotton Mather said that he was looking through a telescope at

the Moon, and in the telescope he saw a flying light over the

surface of the moon. Well, how did this get recorded?

By none other than NASA. And people can find it

themselves. Go to the NASA report on

lunar anomalies over 500 years, and they will find Cotton

Mather's sighting of a UFO over the surface of the Moon.

>> PITTMAN: There are a vast number of natural atmospheric

phenomena that can appear as bright lights in the night sky.

Certainly, uh, meteors are a possibility.

Even certain kinds of terrestrial phenomena do

materialize as glowing balls of light that, seen from a

distance, may appear to be a star.

And it's incredibly difficult to judge the distance of a

point source of light in the night.

So he may have thought that it was on the surface of the Moon,

or‐or hundreds of miles away, when in reality, it could've

been quite close to where he was.

>> NARRATOR: Though it is uncertain what Cotton Mather

saw, ancient astronaut theorists find it significant that a

prominent religious figure would report such a sighting not as a

vision from God, but as an astronomical event.

They see it as a sign, not only of the sighting's authenticity,

but that views on the possibility of extraterrestrial

life were starting to shift, even within the Christian church.

>> BIRNES: Cotton Mather was known as a fire and brimstone

preacher. But there's a rational part of

Cotton Mather as well... because this was the very

beginning; the dawn of the industrial revolution.

And in this context, people were thinking about science, they

were thinking about machines, and really thinking about, could

there be something in space?

>> NARRATOR: Although sightings like Cotton Mather's were still

rare in the 1700s, the increasing interest in

astronomy sparked a new debate over a centuries‐old theory

called "the plurality of worlds;" the idea that life

might exist elsewhere throughout the universe.

>> MICHAEL CROWE: By the end of the 18th century, the majority

of people, at least of educated people, were convinced that all

throughout the solar system there was intelligent life:

on Jupiter, on Mars, on Saturn. All of them had

extraterrestrials. Very possibly the Moon

would have intelligent beings on it.

I once did a tally of the leading intellectuals in the

18th century; over half of them included ideas of

extraterrestrial life in their publications.

>> NARRATOR: The premier 18th‐ century astronomer William

Herschel also supported the theory that life existed on

other planets. So did Thomas Paine, one of

America's Founding Fathers, along with many religious

leaders of the time.

>> CROWE: Preachers were preaching about

extraterrestrials as a proof of God's goodness.

That's the idea that if there is a good and beneficent

God, he would populate all the planets, all the stars.

>> NARRATOR: Though there was open debate about the existence

of extraterrestrial life in the 1700s, the discussion did not

often extend to the idea of aliens visiting Earth.

But in 1731, a series of sightings occurred across

Europe that were so compelling, the possibility could no longer

be ignored.

>> BIRNES: In modern UFO sightings, the communications

about UFOs are instant; it's on the Internet,

it's on YouTube. But what about some of these

18th‐century or Renaissance sightings?

Here's something incredible. In 1731 over Kilkenny,

Ireland, there was a sighting of a luminous object coming out

of a red cloud. That same sighting is

reported in the span of a week over the rest of Europe,

particularly over Romania in Eastern Europe.

Now, here are two countries that are not communicating with

each other. Newspapers don't go back and

forth, they don't speak the same language, there's no

radio and there's no television. Yet a UFO was spotted traveling

from the Irish Sea, across Europe all the way to Eastern

Europe and towards Asia, and is spotted in different places

as it goes. Independent observations

that don't cross‐pollinate.

>> NARRATOR: Could these nearly identical reports of a strange

object passing through the sky be mere coincidence?

And if it was an alien craft, is it possible that earlier

sightings simply weren't reported because they were

interpreted as signs from God? In colonial America, the idea

that aliens were visiting Earth was gaining ground.

And in the 1800s, this controversial theory would even

make its way to the White House.

(multiple explosions)

>> NARRATOR: The United States officially declared its

independence from Great Britain in 1776...

and just 14 years later, a report of the first UFO

sighting in American history appeared in the newly published

journals of John Winthrop, the second governor of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony. His journals, which are now

known as "A History of New England, 1630‐1649," are still

considered the preeminent record for that period in American

history. When the journals were finally published in 1790, over

140 years after Winthrop's death, they were found to

contain an alarming account of a possible close encounter over

Boston's Muddy River.

>> PITTMAN: One night in March of 1639, James Everall, who is

described as being a "sober and discreet man," and two of his

companions, boarded a little boat in the Muddy River

of Boston. As they paddled along the

river, they saw a great bright light that hovered in the sky.

As they watched, the light flared up and then contracted

into what they described as the figure of a swine.

It's difficult to imagine anybody seriously reporting a

sighting of a glowing, flying pig. Looking at the sighting, one

can't help but wonder if they were struggling to describe an

oval‐shaped fuselage and four short, what we might now call

landing struts or landing gear, in a way that made sense in the

17th century.

>> NARRATOR: Winthrop's account states that the object moved

swift as an arrow, jetting back and forth as well as

up and down for two to three hours. And when it finally

disappeared, the three passengers in the boat, who had

been drifting downstream the entire time, were astonished to

find themselves back at the point where they began

their trip.

>> PITTMAN: What Winthrop describes in his journal is

really difficult to explain. Certainly, it seems hard to

fathom that, for two or three hours, three men in a boat

watched a bright light moving around in the sky over the city

of Boston. And it seems almost inconceivable that their boat

could've been drawn back against the tide without their

noticing it. These type of strange and

inexplicable phenomenon are now associated with the phenomena

that's called "alien abduction."

>> LINDA HOWE: As abduction cases evolved, you heard people

say all of a sudden everything around them was slowing way,

way down.

And they associate the slowing way, way down with whatever

this event is that we call the "human abduction syndrome."

>> NARRATOR: Could this event at Muddy River be not only North

America's first documented UFO sighting, but also the first

account of an alien abduction? Those who believe the account

in Winthrop's journals was an actual alien encounter point to

the last line of his report which states, "other credible

persons saw the same light." By the time Winthrop's history

was published in 1790, the debate over the possibility of

extraterrestrial life was more heated than ever before.

In fact, the question of whether life existed on other

planets had become so hotly contested, it caused one of

America's Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine, to be

unofficially exiled to Europe.

>> CROWE: Thomas Paine enters the extraterrestrial life

debate in a very dramatic way. He was an Englishman, but

famous American patriot. 1793: Thomas Paine publishes a

book called The Age of Reason. And in The Age of Reason, he

makes one of the most vigorous attacks on Christianity ever

made. The bottom line on it is, he

says, you must believe in extraterrestrials if you

know any modern astronomy. The idea of God made the

entire universe going from planet to planet redeeming

people is just impossible to believe.

(angry shouting)

That creates a sensation. Thousands of copies of the

book were sold.

>> NARRATOR: In December of 1793, Thomas Paine was arrested

in France as a result of supporting a political party

that was no longer in power. When the American ambassador

refused to speak on his behalf, Paine believed that George

Washington had abandoned him because of his writings

supporting the idea of extraterrestrial life and

refuting traditional Christianity.

In 1802, he was invited back to America by the third president,

Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, an intellectual, was

considered a genius by many in his time, both for his skill

as a statesman and his scientific aptitude.

And some believe he was also a proponent, like his

contemporaries Ben Franklin and John Adams, in the concept of

the plurality of worlds.

>> PITTMAN: The concept of a plurality of worlds was a very

widely accepted concept in the 18th century.

People like John Adams and Thomas Paine didn't view

extraterrestrial life as a possibility but rather as

matter of fact that everybody knew to be true.

The new rationality in science changed the way that

these Founding Fathers talked about religion.

>> CROWE: 1825: Thomas Jefferson is hiring faculty for the

University of Virginia. And John Adams writes to him

and gives him advice on how to do that hiring.

He says, "Do not hire any European professors.

If you hire a European professor, they are liable to

believe in Christianity, and that is a very dangerous

doctrine that we should stay far away from."

>> PITTMAN: Other Founding Fathers also agreed with this

view, which included a belief in the existence of life on

other planets. Benjamin Franklin wondered if

there were different gods for every sun that harbored

intelligent life. Many of them felt it was clear

that there were intelligent beings conceivably through

the whole universe, and that the notion that God came

to this planet as a person who was spit on and persecuted,

simply was ridiculous. And they rejected that long‐

held traditional belief, which was a very radical thing

at the time.

>> NARRATOR: America's Founding Fathers defending the concept

of extraterrestrial life against Christianity?

A revolutionary idea to be certain...

but perhaps not so revolutionary to the country's

earliest inhabitants, who long before claimed to have met

visitors from the sky.

>> NARRATOR: In northwestern New Mexico lies a vast

concentration of ancient ruins known today as Chaco Canyon.

Built from sandstone blocks and timber between 900 and 1150

A.D., the 15 major complexes of Chaco Canyon contained

four‐story structures with hundreds of rooms that required

thousands of man‐hours to construct.

Until the 19th century, they were the largest buildings

in North America.

>> CLIFFORD MAHOOTY: Chaco Canyon was a center of activity

for a lot of different Indian tribes, Pueblo tribes.

Archeologists, anthropologists have a lot of theories about

what that was. But what I have studied and

what I can tell by just some of the chants from our own tribe,

and other Pueblo tribes, is that this would've been a

big center of activity for technological‐spiritual

activities. There's a lot of places on there

that has direct bearings up into the universe.

>> NARRATOR: When archeologists first excavated these ruins in

1896, they marveled at their architectural precision.

But even more astonishing was the fact that many of these

ancient structures‐‐ like those found in Egypt, England and

South America‐‐ suggested the inhabitants had a sophisticated

knowledge of astronomy. A number of devices designed

for tracking solar events were found.

And at Fajada Butte, which sits at the entrance of the canyon,

three giant slabs of rock are positioned near two spiral

petroglyphs etched on a cliff wall.

During the solstice and the equinox, these rocks catch the

sun in such a way as to shine daggers of light on different

areas of the petroglyphs. But why would early Native

Americans spend so much time building the structures at

Chaco Canyon along such precise astronomical alignments?

And why build them in such a desolate area of the country?

>> COPPENS: It is one of those sites which has been posing so

many questions, and which science is only slowly

beginning to explain. But really, there are more

questions than answers at this moment in time about

Chaco Canyon.

>> NARRATOR: In his 2006 book The Orion Zone,

archaeo‐astronomer Gary David proposed that the geographical

layout of Hopi ruins in the American Southwest precisely

mirrors the star patterns of a number of constellations.

>> COPPENS: When you look at where the ancestral Pueblan

major ceremonial sites are actually located, Gary David

has identified that when you just map these, you actually

find that they depict constellations, specifically,

Orion is very important.

>> NARRATOR: Orion's Belt points to the brightest star in the

sky‐‐ Sirius. If one looks at the Hopi mesas

as the stars of Orion's Belt, they also point to an important

location‐‐ Chaco Canyon. But why Orion?

And could it be merely a coincidence that this

constellation pattern has been found at other important sites

around the world, and always with the belt pointing

towards a place of significance? Ancient astronaut theorists

have discovered the constellation of Orion lining

up with the Mayan complexes along The Street of the Dead in

Mexico City. And here, Orion's Belt points

to Cholula, the largest pyramid in the world.

They also find it at the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, with the

belt pointing toward the city of Heliopolis; a place of

worship for ancient Egyptians.

>> COPPENS: The one thing we know about Orion's Belt is that

this is a theme which is recurring in Mayan mythology.

It's also actually a theme which is occurring in Egyptian

mythology. Orion's Belt, and the stars

around it, were seen as the heart of creation; it is where

everything began. And it's probably not

coincidental that the Hopis see the place where they are

living as the heart of the world.

>> BIRNES: These are ancient people.

All they had to go by were the stars. And so, they believed‐‐ as

astrologists believe today‐‐ that the stars have certain

powers over what goes on on planet Earth.

>> NARRATOR: According to their legends, the Hopi believe there

were three worlds that preceded the one we are in today.

Each of those worlds was wiped out when guardians of the sky

called to the Creator to tell him that his finest creation,

humans, were no longer living according to his plan.

And they called to him by setting off a warning through

the Earth's axis, a vibration strong enough to shift the

balance of the planet. Is it possible the structures

at Chaco Canyon were built along precise celestial alignments so

that the Hopi could predict the periods of Earth's devastation

and renewal? Could the guardians of the sky

have led them here so they could monitor the position of the sun?

>> THOMAS O. MILLS: Why in the world people settled at that

location wasn't... wasn't something that they did on their

own. There's no running water there.

There was no reason to live there. There's no good soil.

They did that because their guardian told them to live there.

>> NARRATOR: During the times of the summer and winter solstices,

as well as the spring and fall equinoxes, the people at Chaco

Canyon could gauge the Earth's balance by watching the path of

the sun daggers at Fajada Butte. If the daggers did not pierce

the petroglyphs at the same points as the previous year,

they would know that the Earth was out of balance.

And since the Earth fell out of balance at the end of the

previous three worlds, this could mean the end was coming

once again.

(deep, rumbling boom)

Scientists from NASA determined the earthquake that hit Chile

on February 27, 2010 shifted the Earth's axis by three inches.

Would the ancestral Pueblo people have seen this as a sign

from the guardians above?

>> MILLS: Well, do you think that's going to show up at Chaco

Canyon on that dagger stick that comes down at the time of the

solstice? Do you think the Indians were

watching that?

>> NANCY RED STAR: It's what the Hopi call koyaanisqatsi.

We are living in koyaanisqatsi right now.

We are living in a life that's out of balance.

>> NARRATOR: Could these Native American legends be more than

just myth? Is it possible that these

stories, along with the ancient texts of India and the stories

of the Bible, are all describing alien visitations?

For ancient astronaut theorists, the answer is yes, and the proof

may lie on a small, uninhabited island in Nova Scotia, Canada.

>> NARRATOR: In 1795, three Nova Scotia farm boys set out to

explore nearby Oak Island after witnessing strange green lights

coming from its shore in the middle of the night.

>> TSOUKALOS: As they came to the island, they saw that there

was one little, you know, pit that they thought, "Well, this

is very odd," so they started to dig in that particular spot.

They came across different platforms made out of wood,

especially out of oak, and the deeper they dug, they also came

across a mat made of coconut fiber, and they came across a

stone slab that had very bizarre writing on it.

One thing is crystal clear: Canada does not have any

coconut trees, so the mat made of coconut fiber‐‐ where did it

come from? That's a very intriguing

question‐‐ how all these different levels were made.

>> NARRATOR: The initial excavation stopped at a depth of

30 feet. But since that time, over a

dozen professional excavations have been attempted and funded

by everyone from actors John Wayne and Errol Flynn to

Franklin D. Roosevelt.

>> TSOUKALOS: Mining and excavation companies have dug

multiple shafts surrounding the whole Money Pit with the hopes

of achieving or reaching whatever is buried down there.

They've even tried to dig in sideways, and even that didn't

work.

>> NARRATOR: Based on the findings from numerous

excavations, the Money Pit contains a series of oak

platforms starting at a depth of ten feet and recurring every ten

feet thereafter, going at least 200 feet down.

In between these platforms are slabs of flagstone‐‐ not

indigenous to the island‐‐ and layers of puddle clay.

Efforts to reach the bottom of the pit have proven so

dangerous, six people have died in the attempt.

(Peter Fiebag speaking German)

>> PETER FIEBAG (translated): Its underground is covered with

canals‐‐ flooding canals that lead seawater into the system.

Each time there seemed to be a progress, underground floods in

the canals would make further searches impossible.

So, this is what we know: many centuries ago, someone

constructed a giant hydraulic system under this island.

It couldn't have been pirates. It had to be someone with great

expertise for architecture and hydraulics.

>> TSOUKALOS: We still haven't been able to access whatever is

down there because of the incredible flooding system.

These treasure hunters poured red paint into one of these

shafts, and not only did it come out on one side of the island,

but also on the other side. Up to three shafts have been

discovered. I mean, it's ingenious.

>> NARRATOR: But who‐‐ or what‐‐ constructed this elaborately

booby‐trapped pit? And, perhaps more importantly,

what‐‐ if anything‐‐ lies hidden at the bottom?

Some have speculated that it might be the crown jewels of

England, pirate treasure, Viking hoards and even the original

manuscripts of Shakespeare. But perhaps the most audacious

theory of all is that the Money Pit is the hiding place for one

of the most sacred objects in the world.

>> TSOUKALOS: There is a possibility that the Ark of the

Covenant, with its contents, has been hidden on Oak Island.

>> NARRATOR: The Ark of the Covenant?

The most sacred object in all of Judeo‐Christianity?

The gold chest that is supposed to contain the tablets on which

the Hebrew God wrote the Ten Commandments?

Why would this religious relic be placed at the bottom of an

elaborately booby‐trapped pit in Northeastern Canada?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe the Ark may have been

hidden because of the powers it held‐‐ powers from out of this

world.

>> TSOUKALOS: According to the ancient astronaut hypothesis,

the Ark of the Covenant housed an extraterrestrial device which

was given to the Israelites during their 40‐year wandering

through the desert.

>> GRAHAM HANCOCK: When you go back to the biblical

descriptions, it becomes a weapon. It rises up into the air.

It rushes towards the enemies of Israel.

When the Philistines briefly capture it, um, they make the

mistake of opening it and filing past it.

Suddenly, thousands of people start to die.

The biblical account states quite clearly that the cause of

death was cancerous tumors. This is a very mysterious and

puzzling thing. What kind of object could have

these almost machinelike attributes and cause deaths that

sound like radiation sickness?

>> NARRATOR: What powers the Ark held is the subject of wide

speculation, but an even bigger mystery is what happened to the

Ark and where it might be located today.

One legend says that it was taken during the Crusades by an

elite band of monk‐like warriors known as the Knights Templar.

>> HANCOCK: The cover story‐‐ and it feels like a cover

story‐‐ is that they were to protect pilgrims on the route

between the coast and Jerusalem in the Holy Land.

But they don't ever seem to have done any of that.

Um, right soon after they were founded, they took possession

of the Temple Mount, uh, in Jerusalem.

And, uh, for the best part of 80 or 90 years, they devoted

themselves to what looked like an archaeological expedition on

the Temple Mount. And I'm pretty certain they were

looking for the Ark of the Covenant.

>> NARRATOR: The legend tells of the Knights taking the Ark to

Scotland, where they formed an alliance with the powerful

Sinclair family. Some historians believe William

Sinclair may have taken the Ark to Oak Island in Nova Scotia in

the 1400s to protect it from English invasion.

Here, Sinclair and his men could have built what might be the

most impenetrable vault ever made‐‐ the notorious Money Pit.

But, if so, where is the evidence?

(speaking German)

>> FIEBAG (translated): In the 1990s, some scientists were able

to send cameras down into one of the shafts.

There, they discovered strange objects that had a rounded,

tubular shape. Their C‐14 values were diverse

and their radiometric age ranged from very old to

futuristic. Now, that is basically

impossible. However, there is some chance

that that effect could be caused by some kind of

radioactivity. That's why we suspect that a

nuclear reactor may have been taken there and hidden inside

this ingenious hydraulic system... ...so that it would be

kept safe forever.

>> NARRATOR: What would it mean if the Ark of the Covenant

really was discovered at the bottom of the Money Pit?

Would it provide the proof of alien intervention‐‐ the very

proof that ancient astronaut theorists have been waiting for?

>> TSOUKALOS: If the Ark of the Covenant is found at the bottom

of the Money Pit, well... story's over.

>> NARRATOR: Perhaps. But an even greater question

persists: why? Has mankind been helped by the

intervention of beings from other worlds, as ancient

astronaut proponents contend? Or was there a more ominous

intention? Could the Ark, if discovered,

be a sort of Pandora's box that, once opened, would reveal

more about our origins than we would ever want to know?

>> NARRATOR: As the 20th century dawned, the industrial

revolution suggested that nothing conceived by man could

be impossible. We could now ride through the

countryside in horseless carriages...

(car horn honks)

(shop horn blows)

...sail the seas in huge ocean liners...

fly through the sky in airships. Even the idea of building

rockets and flying them to the Moon, Mars and beyond seemed

well within our grasp. It was the era of science

fiction writers like H. G. Wells and inventors like Einstein,

Tesla, Edison and Ford.

In 1896, there were widespread reports of strange airships

hovering over various locations in the American West.

Coincidence or consequence?

>> PITTMAN: There were sightings throughout history,

and of course, there were a large number of sightings in

the 19th century. But it wasn't until 1896 that

there were waves of sightings. Thousands of people in 1896 and

1897 in the United States saw phantom airships, the origin of

which was never explained. These reports were catalogued,

discussed in newspapers.

>> BIRNES: There were sightings in 1896, 1897, 1898.

And in fact, we kind of know, from newspaper reports from the

Southwest, that people were seeing craft with wings.

And the Wright Brothers didn't fly an airplane until 1903.

So what were these craft? Well, on the one hand, people

were flying balloons in the 19th century.

So balloons were not high technology.

What was high technology back then was affixing a gasoline

engine to the gondola of a balloon.

>> BRAMLEY: That whole airship mystery‐‐ my guess is that some

of those were just dirigibles that people were flying around.

On the other hand, during that time, we also find reports of

objects that moved really too quickly to be dirigibles.

And some were maybe too shiny really to be the types of

balloons that they were making at that time.

>> BIRNES: The prevalence of these balloons powered by

gasoline engines flying around in the late 1890s in the turn

of the century probably opened up people's minds to the

possibility that there could be literally unidentified flying

objects. People began, to put it bluntly, looking up.

So it could be said that modern UFO history began with these

mysterious airships of the 1890s.

>> PITTMAN: It certainly seems possible, if we believe that

the airship sightings were sightings of extraterrestrial

spaceships, that perhaps the aliens were interested in human

activity at the time because of the rapid increases being made

in technology.

>> BIRNES: Some people have suggested that aliens have been

interfering with the lives of human beings for thousands of

years. And because they were always

here at significant points in human history, they introduced

various kinds of technologies to spur development along a

certain line.

>> NARRATOR: Could the same alien presence that some

believe had been visiting the Earth for centuries have been

responsible for inspiring our great leap into the modern age?

Or could the increased close encounters with UFOs‐‐ which

would persist through the next century‐‐ be a sign that we

were in danger of going too far?

>> BRAMLEY: A very common idea that we have today is that, as

we develop technologically, we're going to see an increase

in UFO phenomena‐‐ that UFOs are basically monitoring us.

Decades ago, we saw a lot of UFO activity around air bases,

around atomic bases and also UFOs following airplanes and

maybe following our aircraft. I would say that certainly, as

we keep developing, we will continue to see that monitoring

aspect to the UFOs. Especially as we continue going

to space, we're going to continue seeing more UFO

activity. Whether it's for our benefit

or not, that's hard to say.

>> BIRNES: Our history, the history of human beings on

planet Earth‐‐ whether we ourselves are the aliens seeded

from another planet or that the aliens created us, as the

stories of the Anunnaki say‐‐ regardless, it may be that human

beings are being directed toward a certain end.

>> NARRATOR: In the 20th century, the inhabitants of

planet Earth were capable of blasting off and touching the

stars. We were also capable of

harnessing the atom...

>> Fire.

>> NARRATOR: ...and using it to inflict the deadliest of

devastations. We would send satellites into

orbit, land on the Moon and reach Mars.

But what would we find? A barren, empty universe of

dead planets or something else?

>> TSOUKALOS: In the 1960s, mainstream scientists were

already exploring the question of whether or not we're alone

in the universe. And there was only a handful of

scientists who actually proposed the idea that, yes,

there are other civilizations out there.

Now fast‐forward 50 years. You'd be very hard‐pressed to

find any scientist today saying that we're alone in the universe.

>> HOWE: What we're coming up to now, in the 21st century, is

going to be a redefinition. Our entire history may have to

be revised, in the context of nonhuman intelligences coming

and going. And what else is out there in

this incredible universe of which we humans are a part?

>> NARRATOR: Perhaps the dawn of the space age was a signal

to whatever or whoever was out there that, after centuries of

writing on cave walls, building temples and mapping the skies,

the inhabitants of planet Earth were at last ready.

Ready for their return.