Original subtitles

NARRATOR: A giant missing link in human evolution.

Evidence in our DNA of genetic manipulation.

And global accounts detailing

an otherworldly hand in the creation of man.

For nearly two decades,

Ancient Aliens has traveled the globe

exploring towering megalithic structures,

mysterious artifacts

and stories of otherworldly beings

in a quest for evidence that might reveal

the truth of our extraterrestrial origins.

When you look at the rapid pace of human evolution,

it begs the question,

was our evolution manipulated in some way?

NARRATOR: Now we take a look back

through the Ancient Aliens archives

to the show's very origins

to examine the evidence that we are not alone.

We have never been alone.

♪ ♪

After more than 300 hours of content on Ancient Aliens,

for me, when I look back over the series,

one of the most intriguing topics we've covered

-is the origins of humanity. -Oh, absolutely.

And one of the biggest questions of the ancient astronaut theory

is the exploration of the missing link

in human evolution.

And it is a fact

that tens of thousands of years ago

this giant leap happened,

and it essentially defies the laws

of conventional evolution.

And that's where this episode kicks off,

with a show from season three,

where we explore the possibility that aliens influenced

the creation of humanity.

NARRATOR: South Africa.

25 miles northwest of Johannesburg

lie the Malapa Caves.

Here, in August of 2008, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger

and his nine-year-old son, Matthew,

discover several fossilized skeletal remains

of two-million-year-old early humans,

including a female adult

and male child, perhaps a mother and son.

The size and shape of the bones indicate

that the individuals walked upright

and had modern hands.

Over the past several decades,

scientists have unearthed the remains of nearly two dozen

different types of early human ancestors,

all known as hominids.

IAN TATTERSALL: We have an extremely good fossil record of ancient hominids.

And I think the picture emerging from it

is pretty clear that in earlier days

before Homo sapiens came along

there were typically many different kinds of hominids

coexisting in the world.

CRAIG STANFORD: We have a hard time getting our minds around this now

because, of course, there's just one kind of human on Earth today

and there are seven billion of us,

but at one time within the last few hundred thousand years,

you could find two or even three species of hominin

living in the same area at the same time.

NARRATOR: Most mainstream scholars tell us

hominids evolved from an ape ancestor

nearly six million years ago

through what is referred to as natural selection.

This theory of evolution was first popularized

by English anthropologist Charles Darwin

in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.

TATTERSALL: Darwin's mechanism of evolution was natural selection.

That is to say a long-term process

whereby better-adapted individuals

reproduce more successfully.

FIORELLA TERENZI: Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection

explain that organism with certain traits,

such as mutation,

turn out to be actually beneficial.

Turn out to be of advantage in the struggle for reproduction.

So mutation allow organism

to survive and to pass on

to the next generation these mutation.

Darwin speculated that over time,

hominids walking on two feet used their hands to make tools.

This, in turn, made them smarter.

Then, approximately 200,000 years ago,

hominids evolved into Homo sapiens, or modern man.

But many scholars dispute Darwin's findings.

We don't see dolphins building cars.

We don't see elephants building houses.

That might sound trite, but it's a fact

that these animals just simply haven't progressed

and advanced in the way we have.

And the big question is, why is that?

Why should that happen? Why should we be so unique?

STANFORD: Tool use doesn't really come into play

for several million years after the first earliest humans

began to walk upright.

And then brain size doesn't really begin to expand

and really mushroom in size

until the last several hundred thousand years.

So, actually, six million years of human evolution,

there are millions of years separating each of those

major features: upright posture, tool use, brain expansion.

So Darwin was wrong because he couldn't possibly

have known the chronology in his day.

In 1967, British zoologist Desmond Morris

argued against Darwin's theories on evolution

in his book The Naked Ape.

In it, Morris wrote that there was no reason

why man stood alone from other species

in terms of his nudity.

Well, of course, as Homo sapiens,

we still continue to have a coating of hair,

but that hair is very much reduced over most of our bodies,

and that reduction probably goes back

way beyond Homo sapiens in time.

It probably goes back to the time when the very first

early bipedal hominids came out of the forests,

uh, in Africa into the savannas,

where they had more sun and, uh,

more thermal radiation to... to cope with.

STANFORD: In places like Europe, Northern Europe,

why we lost body hair, it's a chicken-and-egg question.

Did we lose our body hair because we began

to wear clothing to keep us warm,

or was there some other factor at work

that caused us to lose our body hair?

Perhaps women didn't find body hair on men attractive,

and so it was lost because they didn't

choose those men as mates.

There's no way to ever answer that question.

If we were to subscribe 100%

to the idea of survival of the fittest,

isn't it illogical to think that all of a sudden

we're completely naked and we're losing all of our fur?

I mean, that makes absolutely no sense

because right after we shed our fur,

we had to wear furs to keep warm.

Had we not worn any furs, we would have frozen to death.

We would have died.

So the whole idea that we shed all of our hair

in order to survive because we were stronger

logically makes no sense.

NARRATOR: But if Darwin's theory of natural selection

cannot account for the appearance

of intelligent, hairless Homo sapiens, what can?

Might the transition of hominids to modern human beings

have been the result of an otherworldly design,

as ancient astronaut theorists believe?

Alfred Russel Wallace, a colleague of Darwin,

called it the intelligence evolution.

TATTERSALL: Darwin believed that the human brain

had been driven into existence by natural selection,

but Wallace couldn't quite see how this could be so.

What Wallace perceived was that the way that humans think,

their intellectual faculties are qualitatively different

from anything that had preceded them.

And he couldn't quite see how this enormous gap

could be bridged by natural selection.

So he invoked another explanation for the evolution,

the arrival of, uh, modern human cognitive abilities.

His choice was a spiritual explanation.

DAVID CHILDRESS: Alfred believed there was an unseen creative spirit

that was behind all life on our planet.

And he believed that this unseen creative spirit

had interceded three times in this planet.

The first was to create life from inorganic matter.

And then the second time was when animals

achieved some kind of consciousness.

And the third time was when humans

suddenly were able to have the mental abilities

that we have today.

But he felt that it wasn't just, uh, random selection

like Charles Darwin thought.

He believed that all of these changes

had a creative intelligence behind it.

The view that I have is that because the rest of nature

hasn't changed that much that arguably we shouldn't.

So that suggests to me we're seeing something

potentially that has gone against nature,

and if it's gone against nature, maybe that means

because somebody has been manipulating nature.

PHILIP IMBROGNO: There's no explanation for human beings.

They shouldn't be here on this planet.

If we were evolved and changed

by an extraterrestrial source

from our early primate ancestors,

that's the only way, really, you can account

for the human species--

unless you, of course, put God in the equation.

And who knows who the gods may have been?

GEORGE NOORY: Charles Darwin might be rolling over in his grave right now,

but it's very possible that mankind came about

because of extraterrestrial intervention.

NARRATOR: Did the evolution of modern humans

really receive a jump start by extraterrestrial beings,

as ancient astronaut theorists believe?

And if so, might there be tangible evidence?

Some scientists believe proof can be found

inside the human brain.

NARRATOR: Chicago, Illinois.

December 2004.

Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

of the University of Chicago

publish the results of a study that claims

the sophistication of the human brain

was the result of a so-called special event.

They said mankind's intelligence

was not only the result of evolution

and that around 50,000 years ago the genes of ancient humans

went through an intense amount of change

in a relatively short amount of time,

what some refer to as the big bang of the brain.

IMBROGNO: No one really knows how

human beings developed so fast in such a short period of time.

I don't believe it was done naturally.

TATTERSALL: It's very clear that fully modern intellectual function

is a very recent acquisition in our lineage.

It's not an improvement upon what was there before.

It's a new kind of manipulation of information in the mind.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE: There's no other animal creature on the planet

that has such a comparative point,

and that's why they call it the Big Brain Event.

REDFERN: People talk about the missing link.

Where is the link between

going from apes, monkeys, gorillas, et cetera,

to being able to develop atomic weaponry and fly in space?

PHILIP COPPENS: When we're looking at the origins of man,

we realize that 50,000 years ago

we really went where no creature on Earth had ever gone before.

We have become human.

NARRATOR: But what was the spark that spurred human intelligence?

Was it a genetic mutation brought about

by the natural selection process of evolution,

as many mainstream scientists contend?

Or could it have been a genetic modification

produced by extraterrestrial beings,

as ancient astronaut theorists believe?

STANFORD: There is the idea that there was a gene or genes

that popped up sometime in our ancestors randomly

that may have given us the ability to symbolically

represent objects in our environment or be abstract.

Those are things that-that, for instance,

chimpanzees have a great deal of trouble with

even when they're taught language.

TATTERSALL: Homo sapiens emerging from Africa

started to behave symbolically.

They started to manipulate information in their mind

in a way in which their predecessors

had never done before.

They disassembled the world around them

into a vocabulary of, uh, discreet symbols

and recombined them so they could imagine

new kinds of worlds.

ERICH VON DÄNIKEN: Long, long time ago,

extraterrestrials arrived on this planet.

They realized that the planet was full of life,

and one of them was the most advanced form,

was one of our ancestors.

They took the DNA out,

and they changed the basic information

in the DNA.

This is what our genetics are doing every day.

Now the cell was changed.

The product you plant into the womb

of a female of the same species.

This female will give birth to a child

approximately after nine months.

But because of this artificial mutation,

that's different because it was made artificially

by the extraterrestrials.

BILL BIRNES: What if, as part of the genetic updates

human beings were getting from extraterrestrials,

one of those genetic updates

involved a software download, a biological download

to differentiate the different hemispheres of the brain

to allow human society-- toolmaking, fire,

social organization-- to be created,

and from that, that particular species of hominid

became the human being we are today?

LYLE ARMSTRONG: If alien species out there

could fly across interstellar space,

then in all probability, they would have

similar DNA recombinant technology.

Of course, it would depend

on their own genetic composition being similar to ours.

But if they understood sufficient chemistry

and physical principles from their own experience of...

of the physical world model, then in all probability,

manipulating our DNA would be simple.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But if alien beings created humans

by genetically altering our primitive ancestors,

might various versions of hominids have been the result

of experiments at creating intelligent life on Earth,

as ancient astronaut theorists contend?

COPPENS: This is one of the greatest unanswered questions.

The ancient records do not say that we are part

of a social experiment.

The ancient records say

that we were bestowed upon this gift.

The gods gave us the gift of intellect,

and it is for us to use it.

So yes, we might actually be part of an experiment,

but it might be an experiment in intelligence.

It might actually be a game,

a kind of the greatest reality TV show

whereby the entire human species is watched by ancient aliens

who have been watching the show for maybe 50,000 years.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: FOXP2 is a gene that was found in our nucleotides,

and it is something that sets us completely apart

from any other animal.

And scientists have suggested that that gene alone

is responsible for language.

And there is absolutely no evidence of origin

or that this thing somehow mutated

from the animal kingdom towards us.

So this gene exists out of nowhere without any origin.

So my question is, is it possible

that this gene was given to us or grafted into us

by extraterrestrials in the remote past?

And the answer is yes.

Was it the same nonhuman ancient aliens

of so many ancient settlements on this planet

deciding that they wanted humans

to be able to communicate at a more sophisticated level?

I think that's the fundamental angst today

among people trying to understand,

who we are in relationship to extraterrestrials

that may have been manipulating DNA on this planet

for thousands of years?

NARRATOR: Might the evidence of our alien origins

really have been passed down to us

implanted in our genetic code,

as ancient astronaut theorists believe?

Perhaps further evidence can be found

not by scientists but by religious scholars

that claim Adam and Eve really did exist.

When you look at the rapid pace of human evolution

and you consider what's being called

the big bang of the brain, it begs the question:

Was our evolution manipulated in some way?

Well, yeah, because that is what the great majority

of creation stories talk about.

That long ago, these beings descended from the sky

and created human beings.

And so, to me, this idea is not as far-fetched as it might seem.

Not at all. I mean, when we look across cultures,

we can go into ancient Greece

and see Prometheus creating humans.

Go over to Egypt, we have the gods

Ptah and Khnum creating humans.

And even in the Bible, obviously,

it all starts with Adam and Eve.

NARRATOR: The Hebrew Bible.

In it, the Book of Genesis describes how God created

the first two humans, Adam and Eve,

in the Garden of Eden and told them

to go forth and multiply.

For centuries, scientists and theologians

have debated whether this story of the creation of man

was mere myth or historical fact.

JONATHAN YOUNG: The Torah mentions that humanity

is made out of the dust of the Earth

and that God breathed life into this to make us animated.

Here is the breath of soul and the breath of vitality,

the divine breath which suggests that the spark,

the life force that makes a human body tick,

is divine in its nature.

NARRATOR: In 1987, scholarly disagreements

over the origin of man intensified

with the discovery that the genetic lineage

of every living person could be traced back

to a single woman who once lived in Africa.

TATTERSALL: It's pretty well established by now,

particularly from the molecular, the DNA record,

that Homo sapiens did originate at one place in Africa

and after having become fully modern

in the sense of intellectually modern,

spread out to occupy Europe, to occupy eastern Asia

and the Old World in general.

STANFORD: It's sometimes called the Eve model,

not meaning that we're all descended from the same woman,

but it does mean that there was a woman

in that early human population migrating out of Africa

who was the only female who ultimately left her genes

in every modern person.

NARRATOR: But is it possible that mainstream science

and the Book of Genesis

are both pointing to the same moment in ancient time

when modern man first appeared on Earth?

NOORY: The myth of Adam and Eve, I think, is not a myth.

I think it's a true story.

I think Adam and Eve were on this planet.

They were the first human beings that we know of.

And they helped populate this planet.

What is the Garden of Eden?

I think it just happened to be the area

that the genetically manipulated human being, Adam and Eve,

were placed.

That's where they lived.

That's where they started to breed.

And that's where the populations of the planet started to grow.

NARRATOR: If Adam and Eve actually had existed

as described in the Hebrew Bible,

might this also mean that a serpent

really did tempt them to eat from the tree of knowledge?

And if so, might this account have been an effort to describe

the sudden awakening of the modern human mind,

when man first became an intelligent being?

(translated): In the Bible, it says that if you eat

from this tree you will be like God.

Satan, in the form of a snake, tempts Adam and Eve

and promises them that they will be like God.

The knowledge that Adam and Eve acquire,

as well as humanity in general,

gives man the ability to eventually carry out

genetic manipulations.

So, what was this tree of knowledge?

Is the tree of knowledge, in fact,

the helical DNA sequencing in our own bodies

that was genetically engineered

by extraterrestrials 50,000 years ago

so that we would have the abilities that we have today?

In my mind, it's our DNA itself that is the tree of knowledge.

But why was this suddenly a-a bad thing?

It would seem that the aliens, some of them wanted us

to have this knowledge to be like the gods.

But others said, "No, no,

man is not to have all of this knowledge."

This is also the same story of the Greek god Prometheus,

who, against the orders of the other gods,

comes down to Earth and gives mankind the knowledge of fire.

But because of this gift to mankind,

he himself, as a god, is, like Satan,

he's banished from the Earth.

And why? Because he helped mankind

to have greater knowledge.

TSOUKALOS: The whole idea or concept of Satan

is based on a misunderstood visit

by extraterrestrials in the remote past.

According to the ancient astronaut theory,

the reason why we have the idea of a Satan today

is because there might have been some type of a mutiny

between good and bad extraterrestrial factions

in the remote past.

And so the mutineers were cast out by the commander

and they became known as the evil fallen angels,

which they never were.

NARRATOR: If, as ancient astronaut theorists believe,

extraterrestrials were responsible

for providing humans with intelligence,

might they have also given man the ability to speak?

Our voice box, our larynx, is so different than the apes--

even the chimpanzee, who is our closest cousin--

that we're able to produce sounds and produce language.

To a scientist today, that's almost like it was

genetically designed so that we can say words and sing.

REDFERN: There really isn't anything

more advanced than human language.

So many different cultures,

dialects, languages around the world.

And the very fact we can communicate

on such a deep, extensive level,

that really sets us apart from all other animals.

Who invented language? Where did that come from?

Was that something instilled in us?

I think these are mysteries that, to a large degree,

science and the world of history, even in archaeology,

are still scrambling around for answers.

Maybe we shouldn't be looking down here for answers.

Maybe we should be looking up there.

COPPENS: We are told in the Bible

that we are made into the image of God.

What does that mean?

Does it mean that we were made physically in somebody's image?

And so, therefore, the question--

namely, whether we are descendants from apes

and other creatures on this planet

or whether we truly have been engineered--

can be answered by mythology.

Mythology is able to say

that we are not descending from the ape

but that something happened on this Earth

and an alien intervention came

and we were the end result of this.

VON DÄNIKEN: In my opinion, the extraterrestrials,

by an artificial mutation,

they created the intelligence of humans.

Then the extraterrestrial disappeared.

And some of our ancestors

had again sex with their ancestor,

with apelike beings.

And that was called into mythology original sin.

Then they return again, the gods.

They realized what happened.

And they decided to destroy the whole race by a great flood

and to restart the experiment again

with what we call in mythology Noah.

That's all text. That's the way it is.

CHILDRESS: It would appear that extraterrestrials came here,

used great apes, other early hominids,

created what would be Neanderthal man

or Homo erectus, somebody similar to us,

and then refined that hominid

until they came up with Homo sapien,

and then the other early hominids were destroyed.

NARRATOR: Might the Biblical account of Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark

really be the retelling of extraterrestrial events,

as ancient astronaut theorists believe?

Perhaps further evidence can be found

in the archaeological remnants and eyewitness accounts

from man's earliest known civilization.

For me, some of the most intriguing stories

of extraterrestrial influence on human evolution

comes from the Sumerians and their stories of the Anunnaki.

I mean, some of these texts actually tell us

that we were created in their image and after their likeness.

A lot of this seems to be explaining

some form of bioengineering.

Oh, absolutely.

In fact, we have many ancient Sumerian carvings

that illustrate something like this.

For example, we have this one carving

where you have these two beings

and they seem to be manipulating this double-helix structure.

Well, that to me is reminiscent of a DNA strand.

Well, one of our first discussions on Ancient Aliens

about the Sumerians and their origin story

came in season one in an episode, "The Mission."

NARRATOR: Here in what is now known as Iraq

lies what is commonly regarded by historians and archaeologists

as the cradle of civilization.

Between 3500 and 1900 BC,

the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

was the home of the Sumerian people.

TSOUKALOS: The Sumerians were one of the first cultures

that built actual cities

with streets and a street grid like...

almost like New York City, where you have, you know,

a square street grid.

They invented cobblestones.

Uh, they had a-a sewage system.

They were taught in-in agriculture.

NARRATOR: The Sumerians also invented the first known writing system

by using cuneiform script on clay tablets.

In the 19th century, archaeologists exploring

the ancient ruins of Nineveh

discovered 22,000 of these clay tablets.

When they were later translated, the texts described many stories

similar to those found in the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Virtually every story that's in Genesis--

uh, the flood story, the Adam and Eve story--

they all have precedence with the ancient Sumerians.

NARRATOR: In 1976,

author Zecharia Sitchin published his own translations

of the Sumerian texts in a series of books

called The Earth Chronicles.

According to Sitchin, the clay tablets describe

an alien race known as the Anunnaki

who came to Earth to mine gold.

TSOUKALOS: Zecharia Sitchin has essentially suggested that the reason

why we were visited in the remote past

is because the ancient astronauts' home planet

needed gold for their atmosphere

and that their gold content in the atmosphere was depleting.

So they came to Earth in order to mine gold

and bring it back to their home planet.

NARRATOR: But why gold?

What are the unique properties of this precious metal

that might make it important and worth traveling

through the galaxy for?

NOORY: If you look at Zecharia Sitchin's theories,

that ETs came down from another planet

in our solar system, which is on a 3,600-year elliptical orbit,

that they were running out of minerals,

and gold, specifically, that they somehow needed

to line their atmosphere with.

These extraterrestrials, they just first measure our planet.

And they have the instrument to find out,

where on this planet do we find raw material?

NOORY: Through their incredible equipment,

they find a planet that has this-- it's got gold.

So they decide, we're gonna go there and we're gonna mine.

So they send some expeditions to planet Earth.

All of a sudden, they get here and the factions begin to say,

"Well, there's a lot of gold here,

"but we're not digging it out.

What are we gonna do? We need workers."

HORN: The story that came down to the Sumerians

is that the Anunnaki were mining gold on the Earth.

And, uh, the run-of-the-mill workers complained, said,

"This is really hard work and we're tired.

We don't want to do this anymore."

And so they had a big council, and they decided to create

a primitive worker called an Adamu.

So they look at what is on this planet,

and that is Homo erectus,

and they say, "Well, they're not very intelligent,

"and they're not gonna listen to us,

so we're going to genetically alter them."

The Anunnaki created, uh, humans as a slave species.

NARRATOR: According to Zecharia Sitchin,

the Adamu were the first modern humans.

They were created by the Anunnaki 450,000 years ago,

when they genetically mixed their DNA

with that of prehistoric man.

They took one cell of one of this ancestor of us.

They changed the cell by an artificial mutation.

They changed the DNA code,

what our genetics are doing every day.

It's carved in their stone.

This is not something made up.

This is part of the Sumerian history.

HORN: They believed that the gods came down

and, uh, created them

and they were their slave species.

They knew that, and they didn't have any

philosophical beliefs about the purpose of man or anything.

NOORY: If you believe Sitchin's theory that mankind was created

by ETs for slave labor, all of a sudden, it makes sense.

And then when you look at the biblical terms

of what may have happened-- Adam and Eve--

sure, they may have been two individuals

back a long time ago, the beginning of time.

But perhaps Adam and Eve were the first

of the genetically created human beings.

NARRATOR: Closer comparisons between the Hebrew Bible

and the Sumerian texts reveal many similarities

not only in their stories but also in their language.

"Adam" is Hebrew for "man."

Adamu is what the Sumerians refer to as first man,

the Anunnaki slaves.

But do the Sumerian tablets actually describe an alien race,

a race that conducted mining operations on a global scale?

Thousands of miles away, on the African continent,

ruins of ancient gold mines have recently been discovered.

The largest concentration can be found in South Africa,

where some excavations, according to scientists,

date back some 150,000 years.

They're in areas that have an abundance of gold right now.

So it's very possible that they could've mined it.

Now, the big question is, how do we know

they weren't human beings that simply did that?

Why the ET theory?

CHILDRESS: Some ancient mines in Southern Africa

are thought to be 100,000 years old or older.

If humans weren't doing that mining

100,000 years ago and making metals,

then we would have to assume

it would be extraterrestrials doing it.

NARRATOR: Alien slave mines?

Genetically engineered humans?

To believers of ancient astronaut theory,

these notions are not far-fetched fantasies

or fairy tales but facts.

And they suggest that further proof can be found

by examining the mysterious remains

of an ancient Sumerian queen.

NARRATOR: 1927. Southeast Iraq.

During advanced excavations

at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur,

British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovers

the remains of Queen Puabi.

According to reports, the queen is found

with an unusually large skull, similar to that possessed

by some Egyptian pharaohs and mummies in Peru.

For many ancient astronaut theorists,

the queen's skull provides further evidence

of mankind's extraterrestrial origins.

The description of the queen was highly unusual.

A head that was huge.

She was not a normal human.

She may not have been full Anunnaki.

She could have been a hybrid.

There is an effort underway to try to get

genetic analysis of the bones.

There are characteristics that allude to Anunnaki genes.

CHILDRESS: This is what the Anunnaki supposedly looked like,

with these cone-head-type skulls.

So we would naturally think that she is

one of the original Anunnaki

or certainly an extraterrestrial-human hybrid.

COPPENS: What's of interest of Queen Puabi is that

she's a first-dynasty queen and/or priestess.

So the fact that she's first dynasty means

that she's very close to the reign of the Anunnaki.

This puts her in a very unique position

because she really holds the key.

She might be the evidence to suggest

whether or not the ancient Anunnaki were physically real

and that specifically the Anunnaki interbred.

NARRATOR: But if the unusual skulls found in Mesopotamia and elsewhere

are really evidence of the Anunnaki's reign on Earth,

might the legends about them descending from the sky

also be true?

And if so, might the same be said

for other legends that describe similar beings,

found in ancient texts all over the world?

Angels.

The flying serpents of Central America.

The Star People of the Anasazi.

The notion that otherworldly beings

came to Earth from the heavens is one of the most common themes

in ancient mythology and religion.

Could the stories really have a basis in truth?

REDFERN: If we go back and look into ancient history,

we find stories that sound very, very similar.

They're sort of all-powerful, magical superior entities,

and they come from above.

HOWE: When you go into mythology,

when you go into the Star People tales,

when you go into the Anunnaki,

it is the sameness,

the similarity around the planet,

that makes you say something has to be responsible

for the same dreams, the same mythology,

the same idea that life came from the stars.

WILLIAM HENRY: All across the world, we find stories

of otherworldly or extraterrestrial beings

coming to Earth and influencing humanity.

This raises a question:

Are there different races of beings

coming from the stars and influencing all these cultures?

Or is it possible that, in fact,

it's one race of beings, the Anunnaki,

who influenced all of these cultures

and they told the story of the same beings?

NARRATOR: Do worldwide legends of so-called gods

really help to prove that ancient man

was actually in contact with extraterrestrial beings?

And if so, is it possible that religious tales

of otherworldly beings interbreeding with humans

support the notion that the stories of the Anunnaki

are based on historical fact?

According to some researchers, the answers may lie

in the Hebrew Bible's story of the Nephilim.

FATHER WILLIAM FULCO: The Nephilim are mentioned

in the sixth Chapter of Genesis,

where we have the, uh... the sons of the gods

mating with the... the daughters of men

and producing, therefore, superhuman folk.

SCOTT ROBERTS: The Nephilim are described

in some translations as being giants.

The relationship between the Anunnaki and the Nephilim

is really a story of two cultures

but are related.

The Anunnaki was the god caste

who created primordial man to enslave them,

while the Nephilim were the offspring of those

who came down and intermingled with humans.

HENRY: Now, these beings could be giant in stature,

but we're also told that the Nephilim

possessed extraordinary supernatural knowledge

that they shared with certain portions of humanity.

NARRATOR: In Greek mythology, Zeus, the ruler of the gods,

is said to have fathered two hybrid sons,

Hercules and Perseus, both with earthly women.

And the apocryphal Book of Enoch describes beings

known as the Watchers,

angels who fell from heaven and procreated with humans.

Could these tales actually have their origins

in the ancient stories of the Anunnaki?

The story of the Anunnaki might seem like

something right out of sci-fi.

But when we compare the fact

that every culture around the world--

from the Hindus to the Greeks, the Romans, Egyptians, Mayas--

all around the world, we have a similar description

of these beings coming to Earth from the heavens,

having offspring that were then one half divine, one half human.

NARRATOR: But if legends of gods, angels and giants

coming to Earth and breeding with human females

are to be believed,

might there need to be some evidence?

Ancient astronaut theorists say the answer is yes

and believe that evidence exists in the countless depictions

of the Anunnaki as winged, giant creatures.

Evidence found all throughout the region

formerly known as Mesopotamia.

The Anunnaki, we can also see them

on different carvings or on cylinder seals

where they are depicted as having wings.

Sometimes they have faces like birds with beaks.

But they're also very humanlike,

giant beings with muscular bodies

wearing things that look like wristwatches.

Now, is this an exact replica of what people saw?

Clearly, the evidence that we have

here in the Sumerian culture of wall descriptions,

the artwork, the esoteric cuneiform script,

they went to great lengths to record

this very momentous information.

We have to start to look at this in a fresh new light

and stop thinking of it as just mythology.

Looking into the Sumerian accounts,

what we are finding is that the Anunnaki

are described as special.

Their age spans are far longer than anything

a human being can have.

And afterwards, whether they disappeared

into complete oblivion or whether they somehow remained

here on planet Earth remains a question mark.

NARRATOR: Might the similar images and descriptions

of gods who descended from the heavens to rule on Earth

be something of a smoking gun,

proof that the Anunnaki were actual beings

who came to Earth from another world?

But if so, why has very little evidence

of their time on Earth survived?

Why are they virtually forgotten?

Ancient astronaut theorists believe that the answers

can be found in the ancient stories of a great flood.

(thunder crashes)

One of the best-known stories in the Old Testament

is the great flood.

In a way, this, too, is an origin story,

but maybe it's actually more of a reboot story,

because you have, essentially, the Earth being

wiped clean of the old order

and then a chosen figure being tasked with starting anew

and repopulating the world.

Yeah, and it's fascinating that this story isn't

localized to just the Bible.

You find it in countries around the world.

Hindu writings, even the story of Gilgamesh,

the Epic of Gilgamesh in the Sumerian writings.

Right, and this is exactly why this story holds

such great importance for the ancient astronaut theory.

Because, essentially, the flood illustrates the end

of a time period when those so-called Watchers

or those visitors were interacting

with our ancestors in physical form.

NARRATOR: Qumran, Palestine. 1946.

In the desert, ten miles east of Jerusalem,

a Bedouin shepherd leaves his flock of sheep and goats

to look for a stray.

Walking along the cliffs,

the shepherd spots a cave in the distance.

ROBERT MULLINS: He threw a stone into a cave,

and he heard the crack of breaking pottery.

So he went in to investigate and found jars

that contained ancient manuscripts.

The Bedouin shepherd's find led to a discovery

of 11 caves that contained the most extraordinary cache

of literature, arguably in human history,

the Dead Sea Scrolls.

There are 800 pieces of literature

found in these 11 caves, and it tells us

so much about the ancient world.

One of the amazing revelations is a story about Noah

that we don't see in the Old Testament.

And the story is that when Noah is born

he's an extraordinary baby with a strange complexion

and the ability to light up the room with his eyes.

What's interesting is that you actually have

Noah's father, Lamech, questioning whether or not

Noah is his son.

And this is due to the fact that we have this story

about these fallen angels

that came down and had sex with women.

Lamech confronts his wife, Batenosh:

"Is it my son, or is it... is it one of theirs?"

TSOUKALOS: Noah's exterior is described as very foreign.

His eyes are described to be glowing like sunbeams.

His skin is glowing, as well.

Now, that's a very bizarre description.

And so one has to ask the question:

What if Noah was one of the extraterrestrials?

NARRATOR: Could it be, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,

that the Biblical figure of Noah was, in fact, an alien being?

Is this the reason he is described

as having a strange complexion and glowing eyes?

The key thing that's going on with Noah is that

he is pure in God's sight, and so is his family.

And this purity seems to be genetic

as much as what you might call spiritual.

And so, when God makes plans to wipe out

the rest of humanity, what he's wiping out

is the extraterrestrial dimension of humanity

that has come about through the pollution of human genetics.

NARRATOR: Could extraterrestrials have sent the great flood

to cleanse the Earth of genetic mistakes

and make Noah the father of a new version of humankind?

According to ancient stories,

the world that Noah's descendants were born into

was very different from the one that existed in pre-flood times,

when gods, giants, fairies and other creatures

were said to share the planet with humans.

The flood does seem to serve as a demarcation point.

(thunder crashing)

In the Bible, we read about how, before the flood,

people had longer lives,

but then after the flood, shorter lives.

We see the same thing in Mesopotamian tradition

with the Sumerian King List where, before the flood,

we have kings that ruled in Mesopotamia

with extraordinarily long lives.

After the flood, the lengths of reigns

of these kings becomes much shorter.

The other thing that happened before this great demarcation

is that the gods were present among us.

There was a close interaction

between the human and the sacred.

The gods would guide us, and they would be tempted.

There would be interaction-- the god might marry a mortal,

and then there would be descendants of the gods.

Now the gods seem so far away.

So there are these theories that this was

the big shifting point in human history.

It is really interesting to note that the interaction

with these higher beings seems to only be located in the past.

All these depictions of "there were giants upon the Earth"

or a time when man interacted with the gods.

Where are the gods today?

We only seem to have subtle interactions.

ROB SIMONE: It's curious to think why that might have been.

What was it about this great flood,

this dividing line in history,

that caused the separation of god and man?

It could be that our evolution

depended upon a natural upbringing,

an upbringing that was not contaminated

by this notion that we're not alone in the universe.

It could be a necessary part of the human development.

NARRATOR: Could it be that the great flood

removed not only most living creatures from the planet

but also the alien beings that lived alongside humanity?

And if Noah represented a new breed of human,

as ancient astronaut theorists suggest,

might his lineage and our own

really have origins beyond Earth?

NARRATOR: Tell al-Uhaymir, Iraq.

Here in what was once the ancient Sumerian city of Kish,

archaeologists unearthed

the world's oldest written document.

The Kish tablet dates to 3500 BC

and is believed to predate both the Sumerian cuneiform

and Egyptian hieroglyphic writing

by nearly a hundred years.

Developing the ability to express thoughts

through written language is one of the first ways in which man

separated itself from the rest of the animal kingdom.

In the 5,000 years since,

humans have harnessed electricity,

split the atom, developed computers

and placed a man on the Moon.

No other species on Earth can claim

such unique achievements in such a short span of time.

In comparison to other animals, our evolution is pretty brief.

Um, it's been a fairly short time--

only a couple million years, probably--

since the first hominids.

WARD: One of the great scientific questions is:

Why is it our species uniquely arose

into this truly advanced

technological intelligence that we have?

Clearly, there's nothing else on planet Earth that is like us.

There are many intelligences,

but nothing is wielding technology

to the extent that we do.

PAUL DAVIES: If we just had to sort of go back to the jungle,

the proverbial jungle, and just survive,

most of us wouldn't really live for very long.

Human beings, apart from their intelligence,

uh, really are not very well suited to occupying

a wide range of environments.

(crying)

NARRATOR: In addition to our incredible intelligence,

biologists have also noted contrasts

between human physiology and other animals.

KIRSTEN FISHER: Compared to other animals, I think we're a little odd.

A baby horse is born, for instance,

and it's able to walk around

and-and do its own thing, like, immediately.

The same is certainly not true of a... of a human infant.

We are pretty helpless.

We're born before we're quite neurologically cooked.

There are many vulnerabilities which go alongside

our, uh, much vaunted intelligence.

We became bipeds, and that freed up our forelimbs

to be able to manipulate objects,

make tools and so on, but it comes at a price

because we've got these back problems.

WILLIAM R. LEONARD: Lower back pain is something

that is virtually unknown in other primate species,

whereas it's something that is very common

in contemporary humans.

NARRATOR: In 2013, ecologist Dr. Ellis Silver

set forth in his book Humans Are Not from Earth

a possible theory to explain why humans seem

so evolutionarily unsuited to the planet.

Dr. Ellis Silver developed an idea that perhaps

the human race did not actually naturally evolve

here on the Earth but somewhere else.

WILCOCK: Silver's book raises a lot

of very provocative and intriguing questions.

For example, why is it that we get

cataracts from the Sun?

Why is it that the Sun seems to hurt us

if we go out for too long?

So Dr. Silver suggests that we might have come

from a planet with different solar exposure.

We also have 223 genes that appear in human DNA

that do not appear in any other species on Earth,

suggesting again that there's something unusual about us.

MIKE BARA: They've discovered that astronauts,

when they're in space, their circadian rhythms

actually change from 24 hours,

like we have when we're here on Earth,

to 24.9 hours, which is the exact circadian rhythm

or the exact length of a Martian day,

not an Earth day.

NOORY: The patterns of who we are as human beings

doesn't fit into some of the other creatures

that are on this planet.

Dr. Silver, his theory was that

we were either brought here or seeded here

but clearly of an extraterrestrial origin.

CHILDRESS: We are, in a sense, transplanted here

from some other solar system.

And Neanderthals were already here,

and we are a crossbred

part alien race that's part Neanderthal

and part extraterrestrial.

NARRATOR: Might Dr. Silver's observations of human physiology

be proof that we are a hybrid species,

one whose origin comes from a celestial place?

Ancient astronaut theorists say yes

and claim further evidence can be found

in the narratives of numerous religions.

Brigham Young, one of the most important

leaders of the Mormon religion,

proposed that the biblical Adam was not created on Earth

but was born to parents on another world

and then was brought to our planet.

In the Zohar, the primary text of Jewish mysticism,

a similar story is told.

Adam actually had parents--

a mother and a father--

and that God took Adam

from whatever place that he came from.

We don't understand what that is.

Another dimension, another world-- we don't know.

We are half physical, and we are half

something much greater.

Celestial, extraterrestrial, divine.

TSOUKALOS: According to the ancient astronaut theory,

we were created in the image of the gods,

and those stories are reflected in all of our ancient legends.

For example, the Native American culture clearly states

that our entire planet was seeded.

LOGAN HAWKES: In the ancient American world,

part of their core belief system is that

they may not have originated on Earth.

We know that the Hopi, for example, believed

that they, uh, were brought to the Earth

by Star People from the Orion system.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that these ancient accounts

reveal the truth behind human genesis?

And if so, do humanity's origins lie beyond Earth?

Perhaps further clues can be found by examining

a strange anomaly in our blood.

It's fascinating to think about--

we're just not really built to survive this planet.

But because of our high intelligence,

we are at the top of the food chain.

Other animals don't have the ability to do things

like build rocket ships to send them to Mars.

Well, you have to wonder, of all the millions

of species on this planet, why are we the only one

that's evolved to build cities and travel beyond Earth?

TSOUKALOS: Right.

And I think that there are markers that point towards

a potential ET intervention in our own human species.

For example, the Rh-negative blood type.

Everybody agrees that it's very rare, number one.

Number two, even scientists agree that it is an anomaly.

And what's even more fascinating is that the great majority

of modern-day alien abductees,

they have exactly that Rh-negative blood type.

NARRATOR: Located between the border

of Spain and France is the Pyrenees mountain range.

The people that occupy this isolated region

are known as the Basque,

and they have long confounded anthropologists and historians.

The language spoken by the enclave is not related

to any other in that part of the world.

And the population also has the highest concentration

of Rh-negative blood type in the world.

Up to 35% of Basque people have Rh-negative blood.

And Rh-negative blood is one of the most unusual blood types.

And it's the one blood type that is least likely

to mutate or interact with other blood types.

NARRATOR: Human blood types are grouped into four distinct designations

that include O, A, B and AB.

Additionally, there is another variance

between blood types known as the Rh factor,

or Rhesus factor, which is a measure

of rhesus-based antigens in the blood.

The name comes from a monkey from India

and other parts of Asia, which is the rhesus macaque.

And this monkey was used in experiments

looking at blood transfusions.

How blood was received from recipients varied.

And it was discovered that the Rhesus factor

could be positive or negative.

Most humans in the world are Rhesus-positive.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: 85% of humans in the world

are Rh-positive and have no issues

receiving blood from positive or negative donors.

But for the Rh-negative population,

receiving Rh-positive blood may be fatal,

as the body will try to destroy the foreign antigens.

And for women that are Rh-negative,

mating with an Rh-positive partner

could be detrimental to the fetus.

If a Rhesus-positive and a Rhesus-negative, uh, parents

were to have an offspring,

there is a potential danger to the offspring,

because these two blood types can't interbreed, basically.

Medical intervention is needed.

It's why, actually, in the past, people had to have a blood test

before they were allowed to get married.

REDFERN: The very fact that an Rh-negative mother,

her body would actually try to kill an Rh-positive baby,

generates bizarre scenarios.

How on earth could this happen?

It suggests somewhere in our lineage

that the Rh-negatives and the Rh-positives

are perceived as being profoundly different.

And also, studies of Rh-negatives suggest

that they have lower than normal blood pressure,

lower than normal pulse.

In a number of cases, they have an extra vertebra in their back.

WILL HART: Rh-negative is very rare.

Most of the world didn't have it

until colonization started in the 15th century.

Rh-negative didn't exist in the Americas,

and it didn't exist in Southern Africa.

It didn't exist in Asia.

It was only in Europe.

So it spread out from there.

Out of Africa, that theory has it

that all human beings originated

in Africa, Southern Africa, sub-Sahara--

they're all Rh-positive.

They don't have any Rh-negative.

Where did Rh-negative evolve, then?

NOORY: 15% of the humans have Rh-negative blood-- 15%.

And scientists have no idea where it came from.

What they do believe is that if you have that,

you may have been evolved

from a different kind of species on this planet.

Now, was that species put here, genetically altered,

or was it just a natural formation of the planet

in its evolutionary stage?

Who knows? But the fact is that Rh-negative people--

and again, there's 15% of them on this planet--

may have come from outside sources.

NARRATOR: Could the Rh-negative blood type

offer evidence of a vastly different prehuman evolution

than what we are led to believe in our history books?

Might it offer indisputable proof

of extraterrestrial intervention in the remote past?

But if so, is the experimentation

with intelligent hominin over,

or is it still taking place?

You can't have a discussion about the possible

extraterrestrial influence on human evolution

without discussing the highly intelligent kids

being born today, known as the Star Children.

Right, and not only are they highly intelligent

but some of them seem to have some sort

of extrasensory capabilities.

Like, for example, telekinesis, which allows you

to move objects without even touching them.

Or other psychic abilities.

And here is the thing.

Some of these cases are documented.

I remember we talked about the Star Children

in season six of Ancient Aliens.

Do you remember what the title of that show was?

-"The Star Children." -MARTELL: Of course.

-Go figure. -Figures.

NARRATOR: Throughout the world,

there are children who possess astonishing abilities.

In 2002, Sho Yano graduated summa cum laude

from Loyola University Chicago at the age of 12.

Six years later, he received a PhD

in molecular genetics and cell biology.

In 2006, six-year-old

Ainan Celeste Cawley of Singapore,

who spoke his first words at two weeks old,

gave a science lecture about acid and alkaloids.

And in 2013, Adam Kirby became

the youngest member of British Mensa

at just two years old,

scoring 141 on an IQ test

and reading books by the age of ten months.

Highly gifted children often know things

that they shouldn't know.

They often surprise us

with the things they're able to understand at very young ages.

And they're able to bring together

disparate pieces of information from history,

scientific discovery and their own experiences

and heightened intuitive sense.

NARRATOR: Throughout human history,

there have been children who stand out

for their advanced knowledge and incredible abilities.

But are these uniquely talented and intelligent children

simply the product of good genetics?

Or could there be another explanation

for why some children display abilities

far beyond their years?

Some ancient astronaut theorists

believe there are children born here on Earth

who have a connection to beings from beyond our world.

They call them Star Children.

When we see these Star Children, these children who are gifted

with extraordinary human function...

...born seeming to know things already,

show that there is some sort of interaction going on

with a nonphysical intelligence.

DAVID WEATHERLY: The concept is that children are being born

with a higher level of awareness.

These kids, many people believe,

are being born in order to help

usher in a true new age,

a time of peace,

a time of a greater consciousness

and greater prosperity for the planet.

What is commonly termed the Star Children

has always been with the American Indian people

throughout the ages.

And, uh, these are special children.

They're the ones that can heal with their hands.

These Star Children are said to have lots of special qualities.

Their psychic abilities are quite enhanced.

And so these Star Children, in a way, are some new race

that's living amongst us right now.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that some of the world's most gifted children

really have an otherworldly connection?

A connection that endows them with special gifts

and the power to transform society?

Today there is evidence

that a higher number of unusually gifted children

are being born than ever before.

WILCOCK: There is genetic evidence

to prove that humans are evolving

at a rapid rate of speed.

For example, an anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin

named Professor John Hawks studied human DNA,

and what he found was that in the past 5,000 years alone

human DNA has evolved by seven percent

in its overall genetic structure.

That is a staggering amount.

Every decade, we're getting smarter and smarter and smarter.

NARRATOR: But those who have studied the Star Children phenomenon

say that these unusually gifted children

display more than just superior intelligence.

RICHARD BOYLAN: Star Kids are advanced in several departments.

These kids are much brighter

than the old-school child of a previous generation.

They are very sensitive.

They are compassionate.

They have a mission sense.

They're using, uh, special gifts they have as advanced Star Kids.

For example, in the area of telepathy.

They can pick up on things

that somebody else is thinking or sensing.

Parents of Star Children

know that their children are different.

Maybe their child is psychic and talking about

seeing things that other people can't see.

Or hearing things other people can't hear,

or knowing things that other people don't know.

Some of the Star Children have very high energy.

They can go long periods without sleeping, without eating.

It's just not your normal, typical child.

NARRATOR: According to Nikki Pattillo,

her daughter Maddy has told her that her home is in the sky

and has displayed numerous astonishing abilities

like telekinesis and psychic visions.

But could ten-year-old Maddy Pattillo

really have superhuman abilities?

If so, where did they come from?

OLDHAM: Science tells us that

in addition to the two-strand double-helix DNA

there's an additional ten etheric strands of DNA

that is dormant in humans

and has been since recorded history.

It's highly possible that alien creators

have designed us this way

and certain individuals are chosen throughout time

to awaken these dormant strands

in order to help mankind advance.

NARRATOR: Are Star Children really

tapping into something inherent in our DNA?

According to geneticist David Reich

of the Harvard Medical School, there is, in fact,

something mysterious inside us that has yet to be identified.

In his study published in the fall of 2013,

Reich examined the genome of Neanderthals

and another group of ancient hominids known as Denisovans,

both of which interbred with humans.

He discovered that their DNA,

dating back more than 400,000 years,

contains an unknown ancestor.

Now, this is incredibly exciting to me

because I've always maintained

that what some geneticists currently refer to as junk DNA

might not be junk after all.

And this study proves this in part.

DNA is a code.

And just because its code hasn't been cracked yet

doesn't mean it's actually junk.

And to speculate even further,

what if this unknown species was not of earthly origin

and every human being already is part alien?

It's clear that there have been

huge leaps forward in our evolution, but then the question

always comes up: Where did it begin?

Well, there's a theory known as panspermia,

and when Ancient Aliens first premiered over 15 years ago,

most scientists dismissed it,

but many believe now that it's true.

And this is the idea that life first arrived on Earth

via a comet or a meteor.

But some go further and say this wasn't just chance;

it was aimed here deliberately

by an intelligent extraterrestrial species.

Right, so it's very possible

that that is how Homo sapiens first emerged on Earth.

And then later, the extraterrestrials visited

in order to continue their manipulation of our DNA.

Because we now know that life can survive

when traveling in space,

so this idea that it all began elsewhere

is definitely in the realm of the possible.

NARRATOR: Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Here, in March of 2011,

astrobiologist Richard Hoover reports the extraordinary news

that he found microfossil organisms--

or ancient bacteria-- inside rare meteorites

that are more than four billion years old,

dating back to the birth of our solar system.

Until recently, scientists did not believe

life could survive the rigors of space travel.

But Hoover's finding suggests

that live bacteria made it to Earth

and may have even taken root here.

♪ ♪

TERENZI: Microorganism trapped inside comets

can survive the travel

through interplanetary space

and interstellar space.

And the reason is that microorganism

are trapped in the rocky core.

Around, you have a thick shield of icy material.

And on top, you have a stratification of dust.

Dust is highly effective in shielding

the microorganism from ultraviolet light.

So comet are an excellent vehicle

to transport microorganism single-cell life,

amino acid in the vastness of space.

REDFERN: Instead of aliens coming to the Earth in UFOs

in classic Hollywood terms, a microbial piece of life

comes to the Earth on a meteorite,

survives entry into our atmosphere,

crashes on the planet and begins to thrive.

NARRATOR: The theory that life on Earth

began with alien organisms landing here

from other parts of the universe is controversial.

Called panspermia, one of the most vocal proponents

of this theory was Sir Francis Crick,

a British scientist who codiscovered DNA in 1953.

PETER FIEBAG (translated): Francis Crick, codiscoverer

of the double helix in cells,

said that all this can't happen by chance

but has to have been engineered.

One of his arguments is that the rotation of the DNA

is in the same direction for all living things.

Had DNA developed on Earth, it would probably have had

a 50-50 distribution,

and that's exactly what we don't have.

NOORY: One of the reasons why I think

the theory of panspermia is so incredible

is that it tells you that there's life

throughout the universe.

If panspermia is correct,

life came here on comets or meteorites

and we're being seeded not only on this planet

but other planets as well.

And it could be part of the great design.

BIRNES: It is the intentional...

the deliberate colonization of other planets, other worlds

by an intelligent race of beings

using not flying saucers landing in the desert somewhere

or in the middle of a city

but the best way to colonize a planet--

you colonize it with your own DNA

and let the DNA sprout into your own species.

REDFERN: In terms of our science and technology today,

we have the ability to extract cells and DNA

at a genetic level and save them.

That's how we have so-called test-tube babies

for couples who can't have babies.

We preserve the materials for when they're needed.

And the day may well come when we send into outer space

the equivalent of, like, Noah's Ark,

but instead of sending literal animals,

we send their essence, their DNA, their genetic makeup.

I don't rule out the idea

that we could seed a whole new world.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Today scientists know that only

about five percent of the DNA contained in our genes

is used to reproduce human beings.

The remainder is an undecipherable code,

once referred to as junk DNA.

But is it really possible

that so much of our DNA is unnecessary?

Or might the majority of our DNA be decoded

sometime in the future?

And when it is, what might our DNA reveal

about the origin of modern man?

TSOUKALOS: Just because we cannot decipher

95% of our genetic material

doesn't necessarily mean that that 95% is,

in fact, useless.

Nature is extremely efficient.

DNA is the most powerful storage device in the universe.

Not even with all the supercomputers

combined in the world

could we store as much information

as we could store on DNA.

So I'm suggesting that the ultimate proof

of extraterrestrial life will not be found

in a crashed spaceship or in a text,

but it will be found within our own genes.

We have so much to learn from studying our own DNA.

We're only just now beginning to decode

the human DNA sequence.

And as we do that, what we may discover

is that extraterrestrial DNA

is built into our own genetics.

NOORY: Whatever is out there created the universe,

this planet and other planets and life.

And I strongly believe that this tie-in

with whether gods and ETs were one and the same

might very well be the case.

It does not take away from the fact

that there's a god, that there's a higher power,

that there's some creation out there that made the ETs.

But I think that layer between God and man

is right in the middle,

and that's extraterrestrials from other planets.

♪ ♪

I wonder sometimes, is it possible

that we're getting periodic upgrades to our DNA

that help us make these large leaps forward?

That plays to exactly what we see unfolding in front of us.

The question is: What are we dealing with?

And if Earth, if humanity is some sort of experiment,

some sort of project, well,

you don't take your eye off your own creation.

Somebody is watching closely,

and somebody perhaps is making adjustments.

And that is exactly why our ancestors

referred to them as the Watchers--

'cause they watched.

And, you know, nobody ever said that the watching stopped.

And in my opinion, that is because

we are hybrid beings.

We are half human and half extraterrestrial.

It's loaded into us.

It's preprogrammed that our origin

is not down here but it's out there.

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