All language subtitles for Ancient Aliens Origins - S01E11 - Alien Beacons

NARRATOR:
Massive figures

etched into the earth,

coded patterns in stone

only visible from above,

and mysterious crop formations

crafted with
extraordinary precision.

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.

We really have to ask,
what is the significance

of these geoglyphs?

Are they calling cards?

Are they signs
for those in the sky?

What are we gonna learn
from all this?

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.

♪ ♪

When we talk about
ancient mysteries,

one of the most
fascinating things to me

is why people would build,
all around the world,

things that can only be seen
from up above,

-from the sky. -GIORGIO A.
TSOUKALOS: That's right.

I mean, we have standing stones,
we have structures,

we have geoglyphs
that you really can't

make out from the ground.

So you have
to ask yourself, why?

And were they meant to be seen

by extraterrestrial visitors?

Right, I mean,
who else would see them?

The most well-known example
of this, of course,

-are the Nazca Lines in Peru.
-Mm-hmm.

And we did a whole episode

about geoglyphs
around the world back in 2013.

NARRATOR:
Southern Peru, 1927.

While hiking in the foothills
of the arid Nazca Desert,

archaeologist
Toribio Mejía Xesspe discovers

what appears to be
a large network of ancient roads

carved into the earth.

Years later, as airplane travel

to the region
becomes more frequent,

aerial flyovers reveal
nearly 100 other designs

in the nearby landscape.

Known as geoglyphs,

they depict animals, flowers,

and even a mysterious
humanlike being.

Scattered over a nearly
200-square mile area,

these lines and figures
have become collectively known

as the Nazca Lines.

NICK REDFERN:
The Nazca Lines

consist of these
massive drawings

or carvings, if you like,
on the ground.

Everything from
geometric symbols, lines,

to animals, even fish, birds,

but the intriguing thing
about them

is, you know, that number one,
they're massive.

And they can really only
be seen properly from the sky.

There are over 800
straight lines,

there are over 70
animal figures,

there are over 150
geometrical shapes.

JASON MARTELL: We have glyphs of
different figurines on the ground.

We have these intricate lines
and what appear to be runways

spread all around the desert.

Some of these actually show
mathematical diagrams

built thousands of years ago,

which really raises
the question: why?

M.J. EVANS: There's an
enormous amount of unanswered

and perhaps
unanswerable questions

that arise from the phenomena.

NARRATOR:
The largest of the figures

is nearly 1,000 feet,

or the size
of three football fields,

while the longest line
extends almost nine miles.

According to mainstream
archaeologists,

these mysterious earth drawings
were created by the Nazca,

an ancient people
that flourished in the region

between the first
and eighth century AD.

The lines were formed
by the careful removal

of the reddish
iron oxide pebbles

that make up the desert surface.

Once exposed,
the underlying dirt,

which contains
high amounts of lime,

hardened and was resistant
to erosion.

HUGH NEWMAN: The Nazca
plain is made up of layers

of light-colored
kind of rock and dirt

with dark-colored rock and dirt
just on top-- it's very simple.

And they just remove
the dark-colored stuff to reveal

these kind of white-looking
lines over the landscape.

Like a canvas
that isn't being disturbed,

that's maintained its integrity

for hundreds
or even thousands of years.

PHILIP COPPENS: The reason
why they have survived

is because
of the desert conditions.

Truly, if you make a geoglyph

at the Nazca Desert
environment today,

it will be found
hundreds of years from now.

There is hardly any rain,
hardly any wind.

Anything you make here
will last for eternity.

NARRATOR:
But why did the Nazca people

feel it necessary
to make these elaborate

and massive drawings
in the earth?

What purpose
were they intended to serve?

And why were they designed
in such a way

that they could have
only been seen

and appreciated from the sky

at a time when aircraft
didn't even exist?

The only place
you can see them above

is that somehow
you're floating in midair.

TSOUKALOS:
It has been suggested

that whoever inhabited
the Nazca plateau,

that they had access
to some type of balloon flight

so that they could appreciate

what they had created
on the ground.

If the Nazca population

had access to balloon flight,

the Spanish chroniclers
would have most certainly

recorded that in their reports.

But there is not a single word

that describes that the Nazcans
had access to hot-air balloons.

They would have
written that down,

but they didn't,
so it didn't exist.

COPPENS: By default,
we're in the bailiwick

of highly advanced
terrestrial technology.

And that is really
the anomaly of the Nazca Lines.

They really are easy to make
when you look at it,

because it is only
really removing

the top layer of a surface.

But the magnitude of the figures

is what makes this
such a complex undertaking.

CHILDRESS: Many of the lines
at Nazca go for miles,

perfectly straight
through the desert.

There are various
trapezoids and spirals

and other glyphs
that are so large

that the surveyors would need
some direction from the sky.

And this is where aliens

or some kind of people
with flight

had to be involved with
the creation of the Nazca Lines.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE: I was in
Peru for a month in 1987.

I went with a pilot
over the plains of Nazca.

The first pattern that the pilot
said, "Well, let's aim

for that long,
six-mile triangle."

And there have been
laser surveys done,

and it is remarkably accurate,
this triangle.

And it looked like
something had pressed

the whole ground down
at least 24 inches.

How would you press down
a six-mile-long

perfect triangle
into the desert of Nazca?

What kind of technology
can do that?

Not the feet of ancient people.

NARRATOR: How could the ancient
people of Nazca have created

such massive geoglyphs
without the capability of flight

or the use of advanced tools?

Might these mysterious lines
have actually been created

with the help
of otherworldly beings,

as ancient astronaut theorists
believe?

The fact that these designs
can only be seen from above,

from the sky, is an indication

that they were used
as navigational markers

for the gods
when they were actually here.

So the question
then becomes, you know,

were they drawn in this way

as navigational markers
for the gods

to actually fly
their vehicles in?

TSOUKALOS: Let's assume for a moment
that extraterrestrials sent down

some type of an unmanned craft,
like a rover

that we have on Mars right now,
that is collecting samples

and is driving around
a desert plateau.

It, of course, leaves behind
some type of tracks.

And then the natives,
just witnessed this,

would look at each other
and say, "Wow,

we were just visited by a god."

When in reality,
no such thing happened.

REDFERN: Now, could it be
the case that the gods

directed the building of them
to the people below?

Could it be that there was
some sort of

teaching process involved?

The fact that we're talking
about geometric lines

and things like this,
was it a teaching process

by somebody up there

for the so-called lesser
perceived people down below?

We're still asking questions
1,500 years later,

but, you know, to this day
they fascinate, uh, people

and just provoke
endless controversy.

NARRATOR:
Were the Nazca Lines

really navigational markers

for otherworldly beings
visiting Earth?

Or were they meant
to commemorate

an extraterrestrial encounter,

one that happened
tens of thousands of years ago?

Modern-day historians
and anthropologists

believe the Nazca people

were one of several ancestors
of the Inca civilization,

the largest empire
in pre-Columbian America.

In the 13th century,

the Inca Empire thrived
in the Andes Mountain region

of South America.

According to legend,

the mysterious Incan
creator god Viracocha

commissioned the Nazca Lines
and glyphs in the remote past.

NEWMAN: And these were
said to be created

by the Viracocha himself,

who was the great
teacher god of the Andes.

And so where he came from
is still a mystery.

He could have been from Sumeria.

He could have been
connected somehow

with the Anunnaki,
no one really knows.

But the same legends,

and the same stories
of these great gods

appear throughout the world,

especially all the way
through the Americas.

COPPENS:
We know that they are part

of a creation mythology
in which some of the figurines,

which are depicted here,
are said to be deities,

are said to be part
of the creation mythology

as to how the people
who lived in that area

and who made
these geoglyphs came about.

They are messages
to be seen from above

to basically say
that the people on the ground

still live in accordance
with the rules established

by the deities
who came from above

to teach the people
on the ground

about civilization and various
other aspects of culture.

NARRATOR: Could the lines
and glyphs of Nazca

really have been the work
of the Inca god Viracocha,

as their legends suggest?

If so, what was the purpose

of carving these strange
geoglyphs into the earth?

Perhaps the answers can be found
by taking a closer look

at one of Nazca's
most mysterious figures,

one that has become
known as el astronauto.

NARRATOR:
Switzerland, 1968.

Researcher and writer
Erich von Däniken

publishes his first book,
Chariots of the Gods?

In it, he introduces
the revolutionary notion

that the Nazca Lines were
created by the Nazca people

after witnessing
extraterrestrials

using advanced technology

and a sophisticated
knowledge of mathematics.

Erich von Däniken was
one of the first

to actually do aerial flyovers
of the Nazca region,

and was one
of the first researchers

to not only look at the diagrams
on the plain floor

but also in the hills of Nazca.

We find intricate
mathematical diagrams

that have never
been documented before.

When you fly over the desert,
you see down gigantic lines.

Seen from the air,

they give you
the imagination of air strips.

Because they start abruptly,
end abruptly.

Sometimes they cross.

They look like airstrips.

COPPENS:
When Erich drew the comparison

as to how this looks
like a network of runways,

it is to draw
a visual comparison

to what they look like
from above.

They are not runways.

They would not support weight

of anything physically
landing there.

KEN STORCH: Some theorize
that they were runways.

Uh, I don't believe
that for a moment.

Hell, I was in the Air Force
for six years

and none of the aircraft
that we had would be capable

of landing on that as a runway.

I think it's more
of a attention getter.

You can see them from space.

So I think
that it's a, uh, a signal.

NARRATOR:
In the more than four decades

since the publication
of Chariots of the Gods?,

Erich von Däniken's
controversial theories

concerning the Nazca Lines

have continued to spark
widespread study.

Some scholars, after
discovering curious patterns

in the numerous designs,

suggest that the Nazca Lines
might actually be

one of the earliest known
examples of applied geometry.

MICHAEL DENNIN: They were
interesting geometric figures.

They could draw a figure

and then they could envision
making it even bigger.

You're making angles,

you're approximating distances

and that innate skill of us
to deal with geometry,

I think translates
to our earliest art forms.

BARA:
It's interesting as you look

at these designs
on the plains of Nazca,

some of them have very,
very interesting relationships

to the skies overhead.

There's a very famous
glyph of a spider

with one leg
that extends way, way out

and if you take that

and flip it into sort
of a mirror situation

what you can plainly see
is that the spider

is meant to represent
the constellation of Orion.

And the spider's leg,
the extension,

is meant to represent
the star Sirius.

So whoever put these designs
on the plains of Nazca

understood the same thing

that all of the other ancient
cultures before them understood,

which is that there's
some critical importance

to understanding
Orion and Sirius

and their relationship
to the Earth.

NARRATOR:
But could the Nazca figures

really have had
a more profound purpose?

Some ancient astronaut theorists
believe they were created

as a means of communicating
messages to the gods.

Messages that may have
also included

a plea for them to return.

Ancient astronaut
theorists believed

the mysterious figure
known as el astronauto

could hold a clue
to the Nazca mystery.

CHILDRESS:
They call him the spaceman.

And he appears
to have a space helmet

or something on his head,

and he's got one arm up
and he's waving.

And it-it would seem
this is one of the sky gods.

Or if he's not one
of the sky gods himself,

he's one of the Nazca people

who's waving to the sky gods

and saying, "Hi, we're here.

"Come and land.

We know you came here
before, come back."

TSOUKALOS: You have a figure
that looks like E.T.,

with the big eyes,
and the big head.

And one hand is
pointing to the sky

and the other is
pointing to Earth,

as if it was some type
of a message:

"Hey, something happened here.

We were visited
by beings from above."

NARRATOR: Is the mysterious figure
known as el astronauto evidence

of an extraterrestrial
visitation in the distant past,

as some researchers believe?

And, if so,

might this suggest a reason
why extraterrestrial visitors

may have landed at Nazca
in the first place?

VON DÄNIKEN:
We send scientists

from the University
of Dresden to Nazca.

They measured the magnetic field
and they found a change

in the magnetic field
under some of the lines.

And also,
we measured the conduction,

electricity along the lines
and right next to it,

the ability
to conduct currency was

8,000 time higher on the lines.

And they found that eight feet
below one of these lines,

the magnetic field
definitely changes.

So we have the result,

there is something in the ground
but we don't know what it is.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Is it really possible

that something in the Earth
might have attracted

an otherworldly species
to Nazca?

Could it have been an outpost

for a mining operation
of precious metals?

Or perhaps minerals
needed for rocket fuel?

MARTELL: It's been said that
if any extraterrestrial wanted

to come to Earth, Nazca would be
a great place for them to land.

Nitrates
and various things that we use

in our modern propulsion are
found in abundance.

Maybe it's possible
that extraterrestrials were

aware of this location
as an energy source,

and ancient man left
these depictions and runways

as a way to entice
those beings to come back.

We find that the Nazca
civilization was placed

in nitrate-rich environments.

They had no purpose
for these nitrates.

The question might be
whether nitrate was indeed

of importance to the people
who came to this area,

maybe in prehistoric times.

Maybe
an extraterrestrial civilization

somehow had a purpose
for this nitrate.

Because nitrate is used
in an awful lot

of interesting technological
applications today.

Such applications
as space travel.

NARRATOR: But might the
extraterrestrial contact at Nazca

have been designed to support
an even greater presence

that we have yet to recognize?

And could Nazca have,
in time, served its purpose...

only to be abandoned?

With any visit,
or with any project,

the time arrives
when something is finished.

And that is why

some of these contacts
had ended,

because the extraterrestrials
went on to different places.

When we talk about formations

that pretty much
can only be seen from the air,

then one of my favorites is
right here in the United States,

and that's Serpent Mound
in Ohio.

Yeah, and what's so interesting
is it's a giant Native American

effigy mound,
which are burial sites,

but there's no burials
at Serpent Mound.

Yeah, and it's right on the edge
of this enormous crater

where there's all kinds
of magnetic anomalies,

so you have to wonder if they're
not marking this location

for alien visitors.

NARRATOR:
Adam's County, Ohio.

At the end of the 1700s,
President George Washington

awarded what was then
the unchartered land

beyond the Appalachian Mountains
to Revolutionary War veterans,

in 600-acre parcels,

as payment for their service.

But when the settlers arrived,
they found much of the land

covered with thousands
of Indian burial mounds.

And one of these was
very different from the rest.

Imagine when you're pushing west
and all of a sudden you find

this gigantic effigy mound
in the form of a serpent.

What you have is
a gigantic structure,

which just sits there
in the middle

of a very interesting landscape.

Serpent Mound was
one of the amazing,

mysterious mounds, found
by, uh, the first settlers,

as they came over
the Appalachian Mountains.

There were thousands of mounds,
but Serpent Mound

must have been special.

NARRATOR:
Like the Nazca Lines in Peru,

Serpent Mound is a giant,
prehistoric structure

that looks as
though it is meant to be

viewed only from the sky.

CHILDRESS: When you see the,
the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio,

it's massively huge.

And it can't really
be appreciated

when you're standing there
looking at it.

What we have here is
meant to be seen from the sky.

It's mysterious in the fact
that it is

on an elevated plateau
and concealed

from the world.

Unless you're flying over it
in a plane.

And it's,
it's on very uneven ground.

And, really, to lay
that out and make it right,

you'd almost have to be above,
looking down, to get it right.

Which is a mystery.

NARRATOR:
This 1,330-foot-long structure

winds across the land
and depicts

a coiled snake, eating
what appears to be an egg.

It is the largest effigy mound
in the world.

And curiously, unlike
most Native American mounds,

the Great Serpent Mound was
not constructed for burials.

ROSS HAMILTON:
Serpent Mound had no burials.

It's one of those
mysterious mounds that,

that offered us no clue
as to who the builders were.

But on the property

there were burial mounds

dated from
about very early Adena period,

nearly 3,000 years ago.

NARRATOR: Another curious
aspect of Serpent Mound

is where the ancient Native
Americans chose to build it...

on the outside swell of
a five-mile-wide meteor crater.

JOHNSON:
300 million years ago,

a meteor came into this area

and struck the Earth going
about 50,000 miles an hour.

The Serpent Mound is built right
on the very edge of the crater.

And there's magnetic anomalies
and faults that go

across the Serpent Mound
and that the Native Americans

could dowse them and they
could feel the positive energy

that's coming out of the ground.

If you bring a compass
to the Great Serpent Mound,

there's certain spots
where the compass needle

just keeps going, so obviously,

we have some weird magnetic
fields there

and also
some gravitational anomalies.

The myth has it
that the Native Americans,

when they came here,
could see birds similar

to passenger pigeons,
or homing pigeons,

circling by the millions.

Because within the skull
of the pigeon is a little piece

of hematite, or magnetite,
and that's how they navigate.

And they couldn't
figure out where north was.

Can you imagine
millions of birds flying

in a circle five miles wide?

NARRATOR: In addition
to creating magnetic anomalies,

the meteor
also deposited a number

of elements
not indigenous to the area,

including one of the rarest
elements on Earth:

iridium.

When we look at the location
of the Serpent Mound,

we find not only
that there is iron,

that there is uranium,
but also iridium.

Iridium can withstand
temperatures

up to 2,000 Celsius.

It is non-corrosive.

And it's actually been
used in unmanned spacecraft

A.J. SHAKA: A lot of iridium
apparently comes

from outer space rather than
being found on the Earth.

There is a use of iridium
for thermal electric circuits.

These deep space probes
include, actually,

a radioactive source,
because it's the only thing

that can provide enough power
when you're out

beyond Jupiter
and there's no sunlight,

and there's no nothing.

We have iron,
iridium and uranium,

three substances
which definitely should

not be considered to be
of any use to Native Americans.

The question then is:
to who are they of use?

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut
theorists believe extraterrestrials

may have come to this site
to mine iridium

for their spacecraft,
and point to numerous caves

found in the crater swell
beneath the mound

as evidence of this.

Right here we can see
one of those caves.

It's pretty large.

And since this site
is believed to be many,

many millions of years old,
there's a chance

that there are many, many caves.

NARRATOR: But if alien visitors
really did come here

to mine iridium
and other elements,

might this explain
why the Serpent Mound

was built on a scale that made
its shape visible from the sky?

JOHNSON: The Serpent Mound
is a marker for space

according
to the Shawnee Indians.

They're convinced
that space travelers

are using Serpent Mound
as a marker.

NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut
theorists also point

to the placement and shape
of the Great Serpent Mound

as proof
of its extraterrestrial origins.

HAMILTON: The serpent itself
was aligned to a constellation

that had its apex at the height

of the night sky
5,000 years ago.

The constellation Draconis.

It was used to align
the Great Pyramid.

NARRATOR: In addition to lining
up with the stars of Draconis,

the coils of Serpent Mound
also align

with the solar events
of the solstice and equinox,

as well as
the 18.6-year lunar cycle.

Could these precise
astronomical alignments

suggest that
the Serpent Mound served

a greater purpose
than just acting as a marker?

Some believe that, because
of its magnetic anomalies,

this site may also have
been used to harness energy.

This magnetic anomalies,
these faults, attract lightning.

HAMILTON: The Serpent Mound
is right on the edge

of an outcropping
of pure limestone,

or dolomite,
which is even, even better

than the limestone they built
the Great Pyramid from.

And it's,
it's highly semi-conductive.

This is, uh, what, what
I call the Serpent Mound stone.

It's, uh,
an unusual feature that seems

to be made of a different kind
of dolomite

than what exists
on the outcropping

of the general serpent.

This stone could've been placed
in the center of the oval.

Therefore you wouldn't
get a lot of random strikes,

so much as you would
a lot of strikes that would

tend to come to the stone.

NARRATOR:
Was the Great Serpent Mound

really a hub of ancient
extraterrestrial visitation?

And could this
effigy mound have been

a deliberate signpost
to mark the location

of an energy source on Earth?

If so, are there others?

When it comes to things

ere s

than the Carnac Stones
in France.

Yeah, you have thousands of
these monolithic standing stones

erected in perfectly straight
lines across the countryside.

And they can only really
be appreciated from above.

Right, and you actually
went there

for one of our earliest
field segments

we ever shot for Ancient Aliens.

NARRATOR:
Few sites on Earth

are as majestic,
or as treacherous,

as the jagged region of Brittany

located on the northwest
coastline of France.

Here can be found
the legendary Carnac Stones:

a collection
of over 3,000 massive rocks,

arranged in rows
and other shapes,

and spreading across more than
two miles of French countryside.

You're talking thousands
of stones that are aligned

in straight rows,
aligned in circles,

aligned in squares
and rectangles.

Why are people doing this?

Why are they putting
so much time

and energy into something?

And the short answer, I believe,
is that we really don't know.

NARRATOR:
According to local legend,

the megaliths were originally
invading Roman soldiers,

turned to stone
by Merlin the Magician.

But if it wasn't magic that
created this forest of stones,

who or what did?

CHILDRESS:
Modern archaeologists would say

that people who were
one step removed from cavemen

were quarrying
these giant stones,

uh, some of them
weighing 100, 200 tons,

even up to 350 tons.

And then somehow
moving them into place.

When you first look
at the stones here at Carnac,

they seem to be
in, uh, haphazard shapes.

But on closer examination,

we can see
that most of the stones

have been cut
on one side or another.

And, in fact,
these granite megaliths

are magnetized with the Earth,

and nearly all of them
come to a point.

NARRATOR:
Stone magnets?

Is it possible that these stones

were really cut
and positioned in such a way

as to create some sort
of geomagnetic field?

But why?

Carnac as a place
is highly charged with energy.

As you walk down
these stone corridors,

you can feel this charge.

Many tourists who come here
also like to touch the stones

and feel the energy
coming off of it.

And the people
who built Carnac must've been

highly knowledgeable
of the Earth's energy fields.

NARRATOR: According to a concept
known as the World Grid Theory,

certain places on our planet

contain higher magnetic forces
than others.

MARTELL: An interesting coincidence
for all the megalithic structures

we have around the Earth
is that they're placed

at specific points
that could be harnessing

an ancient World Energy Grid.

SCHOCH: There are certain
spots around the world

which have
traditionally been "sacred,"

"hallow," "vortexes."

Energy feels different there.

The ancient stone monuments
were built

to harness that force
and that potential

to create a funnel-like vortex.

MARTELL: When we look at
things like the Giza pyramids

or Machu Picchu
or Baalbek in Lebanon,

all of these are placed
at specific geo-coded locations

which relate
to this World Energy Grid.

NARRATOR: Could Carnac be
one of these locations?

And might the combination
of geomagnetic properties

and the unique shapes
of the stones themselves

have allowed ancient builders
to actually manipulate gravity?

If so, where
did this knowledge come from?

And what ultimate purpose
did it serve?

It wasn't until we were able
to see these stones from above,

in a helicopter,
that we realized that Carnac

was meant to be seen
from the sky above us.

And that is one
of only three things

that you can see
from outer space.

That's Nazca,
Great Wall in China and Carnac.

MARTELL: Were they meant to
be seen by people in the sky?

And who could've been flying
at that time other than...

extraterrestrials?

NARRATOR: At one end of
the Carnac alignment,

aerial researchers
identified a stone circle,

similar to the one
found at Stonehenge.

At the other end,
investigators on the ground

discovered
a rectangle of stones,

one that had been
buried for centuries.

Both groupings
appeared precisely placed

to predict both the summer
and the winter solstice.

And when even more closely
examined from above,

the solstice points

and the alignment
of Carnac's many rows of stones

reveal yet another
geometric phenomenon:

the shape of a Pythagorean,
or right, triangle

covering many square miles.

But how could the builders
of Carnac have had knowledge

of a sophisticated
mathematical theorem

approximately 2,000 years
before its discovery

by the Greek mathematician
Pythagoras?

These conclusions about
the Pythagorean Theorem

doesn't come from me,
it actually comes

from quite advanced
mathematicians

who have looked
at these alignments

and made the calculations.

We're talking Stone Age time,

and they knew about A squared
plus B squared equals C squared?

They knew about it, yes,
but why?

Who told them this?

At the time, extraterrestrials
told our ancestors,

put this stone here,
put this stone there,

with the idea
that a future generation

would have to stumble across
this mathematical riddle,

that somebody would say,
"Hold on a second.

"This was erected
during the Stone Age,

"yet here we have
advanced mathematics.

How is this possible?"

VON DÄNIKEN: Now these
extraterrestrials, they ask themself,

how could we give them a sign?

And there was a suggestion made

in French Brittany,
kilometers of stone lines

in the form of a triangle.
Gigantic triangle.

So we have the sign.
We have the information.

But nobody looks at it.

It's time to change
our attitude to these things.

CHILDRESS: I think that these
stones are transmitting energy

that extraterrestrials,
or others in airships,

could pick up this energy
like a GPS system,

or some kind
of airport beacon...

...and use it for navigating
the entire planet.

NARRATOR: Gigantic
triangles made of stone.

Geomagnetic phenomenon.

The possibility of
an extraterrestrial encounter

with humans,
thousands of years ago.

But if alien visitors
did touch down at Carnac,

where else did they land?

You know, when it comes
to lines and patterns

that pretty much
can only be seen from the air,

the largest ones actually extend

for thousands of miles.

And we refer to them
as "ley lines."

And on these ley lines
are ancient cities

that are perfectly aligned.

And they cross mountains
and lakes,

and in some places,
even the ocean.

Right. And when you consider
they go on

for miles and miles,
you have to think

that maybe our ancestors
were directed

on where to build these sites,

and maybe extraterrestrials
were using them for navigation.

NARRATOR: Herefordshire,
England.

June 30, 1921.

While horseback riding
through the British countryside,

amateur archaeologist
Alfred Watkins

notices that ancient features

and structures
across the landscape

appear to be arranged
along straight lines.

Four years later, in 1925,

Watkins publishes
The Old Straight Track,

a book in which he proposes

that man's earliest
monuments and megaliths

were linked by a network
of long, straight tracks.

ANDREW COLLINS: And he
referred to them as ley lines,

but as to what these were,
he could only really say

that perhaps
they-they were lines

that were used by the ancients

to communicate
from one place to the next.

In other words, they were
simply markers on a journey.

Ley lines are, uh, mostly found
in England and France.

They're literally
geographic markings

between sacred sites.

They might be old churches,

they might be churches built
on top of megalithic ruins.

But you'll see dead straight
lines between these sites

that have been maintained.

The Michael Line in England
is a straight line

and it is measurable.

It's a magnetic field line
that you can measure

and it will be higher
than other areas

around it geographically.

NARRATOR: In his book,
Watkins further theorized

that ancient landmarks
along ley lines

were deliberately placed
by early man

for the purpose
of line-of-sight navigation.

NEWMAN: Watkins believed they
were trade routes originally.

But later it was noticed that
some of them

went over really
obscure terrain,

like mountains and bogs

and streams,
and all this kind of stuff,

so they couldn't
really have been walking.

So it seems more like they
were kind of like a survey,

or a mapping system.

NARRATOR: Some researchers
believe that ley lines

are magnetic in nature,

and delineate the lines
of Earth's unseen energy fields.

But if ley lines were useful

for overland navigation
to the ancients,

might they also have been useful
for aerial navigation

by extraterrestrial visitors,

as ancient astronaut theorists
believe?

TSOUKALOS: Something extraordinary
happened along those ley lines,

because the once
very physical and real visit

of extraterrestrial beings
has been forgotten.

NARRATOR:
Trelleborg, Denmark.

Here, along the northern reaches
of the European continent,

lie the archaeological ruins
of a Viking fortress

dating to 900 AD.

For decades,
mainstream historians

have been baffled
by the precise nature

of Trelleborg's
perfectly circular design,

with a courtyard
divided into four zones,

each with four longhouses,

and gateways open precisely

to the four
cardinal directions:

North, south, east and west.

Some believe such a strict
geometric design

would have required
extensive knowledge

of advanced engineering.

The mystery deepened in 1982,

when pilot Preben Hansson

discovered a direct
line of flight

from Trelleborg to
three other Viking fortresses,

all constructed
with a similar design.

(speaking German)

(translated): Trelleborg was
the starting point.

40 miles farther,
another fort appeared.

Then he found others
so that there was a line

of four forts in Denmark.

BARA: Given that the Vikings
were basically seafaring people,

and these sites
are spread out so far over land

at great distances,
it implies that maybe

they had some other way of
getting to these places.

Perhaps they even
were able to fly.

Now, how they would fly,
what the technology was,

it's a good question.

But it seems unlikely
that they would be able

to find all these spots,
survey them, and place monuments

and structures there if they
were simply a seafaring race.

VON DÄNIKEN: These Viking fortresses
are all on one straight line.

You continue the one line
straight ahead,

over the Alps, for thousands
and thousands of kilometer,

and under the line,
always holy places

from antiquity, from Stone Age.

And the line points
directly to Delphi,

Delphi in Greece.

Delphi was the place
of the god Apollo.

And, uh, mythology
about Apollo says every year,

two times, Apollo
took his heavenly chariot,

disappeared in
a faraway land in the north.

Apollo flies on
one straight line.

At several points,
he makes a stop.

Wherever he makes a stop,
the Stone Age people

start to create a holy place
of it, because here was a god.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that
the ley lines that connected

early civilizations
were actually flight paths,

as ancient astronaut
theorists believe?

And might such flight paths

have been used
by extraterrestrial spacecraft?

VON DÄNIKEN: The extraterrestrials
in the past knew exactly

that the future generations
would develop technology,

they would fly,
they would measure,

they would photograph
their own land.

So, by photographing their land,
they would realize

something is strange here
on the ground.

BIRNES: How could a straight
line link ancient Egypt,

the pyramids,
the Oracle of Delphi in Greece,

and Viking fortresses

that would've been established
thousands of years later?

It made no sense.

But it does make sense

if these installations
are along straight lines

across the Earth's grid,

and if somehow,
those straight lines

marked navigation routes

for ancient extraterrestrials

that use them as markers

to navigate the globe

from society to society.

TSOUKALOS: Is it possible
that these ancient sites

along ley lines
were nothing else

but refueling stations
for ancient astronaut craft?

And the answer is yes,

because just like today,

a plane goes in straight lines.

And if a plane needs to refuel,

it lands at an airport
that's on its course,

and not, you know,
a thousand miles to the east

or a thousand miles to the west.
A plane flies straight.

COLLINS: It was suggested that
UFOs may be connected in some way,

because it could well be
that they are following

the paths of geomagnetic fields,
the different variations,

the different strengths
that exist.

It was often seen that UFOs

seemed to either appear
or descend or rise

in connection with where
the ley lines seem to intersect.

And this has been seen
time and time again

around the world,
at different UFO hot spots.

NARRATOR: Might the sacred sites
along ancient flight paths

really have been landing points,

or perhaps fueling stations

for extraterrestrial
space vehicles?

Perhaps further evidence
can be found

by examining
the ancient civilizations

that are connected from
opposite sides of the globe.

NARRATOR:
Cuzco, Peru.

Here lie the impressive
ruins of the ancient capital

of the Inca Empire...

...that thrived from
the 13th to 15th century.

Long suspected by
ancient astronaut theorists

to have been a place visited
by extraterrestrial beings

in the distant past,

Cuzco is considered
to be an axis mundi,

which in religion or mythology

means the "center"
or "navel of the world."

They are very important sites,

and quite often, when you
start looking into some sites,

like Cuzco, Cuzco literally
means "navel of the world."

It was the navel of
the empire of the Inca.

So, Cuzco isn't unique.

We really find
navel sites everywhere,

and the navel sites
are quite often the most

important sites of a culture.

Jerusalem is one,
the Giza Plateau is another.

BIRNES:
World navels,

because they lie along

the Earth's magnetic grid,
were places

where the ancients created
what could only be called

heaven's gates, altars,
places where human beings

could communicate
with otherworldly entities.

NARRATOR: Evidence can also
be found connecting Cuzco

with another world navel
over 2,000 miles away

in the South Pacific:
Easter Island.

Although mainstream historians
and archaeologists believe

the two places were never
in contact in ancient times,

Cuzco and Easter Island

feature strikingly similar
styles of stonework,

with colossal,
multi-sided stones

precisely fitted as if each
joint was welded together.

TSOUKALOS:
The walls at Cuzco are identical

to the walls we can find
in the base foundations

of some of the Moais
on Easter Island.

And those two places
are so far apart,

I wonder how was it done?

Either the builders traveled
from one place to the other,

or the builders in each culture

were visited
by the same teachers,

the teachers from the stars,
extraterrestrials.

(Fiebag speaking German)

(translated): These navels of the world
might have been geodesic points,

which you could use
to navigate from the air.

There are interesting
accounts about this.

For example, from Apollonius,

who lived in Rome in 4 AD,

that he descended
with thunderbirds,

that he had visited
the city of the gods.

There, he was given a talisman,

which he was supposed to bury.

There is a similar
legend from Cuzco.

There, the children
of the sun god

are supposed to have
plunged a rod into the earth.

And there are similar
legends on Easter Island.

NARRATOR:
But if Cuzco and Easter Island

were linked in ancient times
by space travelers,

what might this say about
other "centers of the world"?

Strangely,
some ancient civilizations

are located on the exact
opposite sides of the planet.

A line drawn from Easter Island,
through the center of the Earth,

points to
Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan,

a once-great empire believed
by ancient astronaut theorists

to have been destroyed
by a nuclear blast

thousands of years ago.

And from Nazca, Peru,

a line through the Earth points
to Angkor Wat, Cambodia,

a site of great
religious significance,

known in ancient myths
to have been built

as a landing zone
for sky beings.

And astonishingly,
these four sites

lie on one circle
around the globe,

a circle that also
includes the location

of the great pyramids of Egypt.

COPPENS: This is really the
underlying mystery, I think,

which is, not necessarily
why were these monuments built,

for what purpose?

But also why were they built
on those specific places?

Because really, what
we are beginning to understand

is that all of these
monuments from the past

were not just built haphazardly
on the surface of the Earth,

but were built in
very specific locations.

MARTELL:
It appears that ancient people

either mapped the Earth
in some esoteric way

that we can't comprehend yet,

or it was sacred knowledge

handed down over
thousands of years.

NARRATOR: Might such connections
between ancient sites around the world

suggest that there was
some sort of strategic link

between these civilizations,

as ancient astronaut
theorists believe?

And if so,
what could this mean?

Before the advent
of satellite-guided

global positioning systems,

the science of geodesy

was used to determine
the exact position

of geographic points
on the globe.

One of the oldest
of earth sciences,

the use of geodesy
dates back thousands of years.

There's clear records
that geodesy

was used by the Sumerians
in ancient times.

Several of the landing spots
used by the gods...

...were actually triangulation
points to the landing corridor.

Things like Baalbek in Lebanon,
or Jerusalem,

were actually extensive
megalithic monuments

or platforms that were used
to launch spacecraft.

And ancient man recorded stories
around these locations

of seeing great smoke,
fire and loud noise

as these ships ascended or
descended from these locations.

DENNIN: It's probably highly
reasonable that the ancients

had systems of navigation.

I mean, we know the Romans
did effectively that.

And that was why
they were so efficient

at getting around their empire,

in addition to their roads
and keeping track of things.

CHILDRESS: In the early
era of our own flight,

pilots used markers,

which would be
church steeples or mountains,

and obvious, uh,
physical monuments

that they could see.

Just like that,
the ancient aliens,

they were able
to also use this world grid

and the pyramids and obelisks
and other monuments

that were built at these special
power places to navigate.

NEWMAN: It's almost like the
ancients were building these sites

and they were mapping
the planet in-in vast antiquity,

possibly up to 10,000
or more years ago.

BIRNES:
Because of the interaction

between ancient civilization
and ancient aliens,

these ancient societies,

recognizing the importance
of these spots

and the presence
of ancient aliens,

place these monuments as a map

for the star people,
for the ancient aliens to follow

and to direct them
to the civilizations

they might well have started
by themselves as colonies.

NARRATOR:
Is it really possible

that many of the world's
most famous ancient sites

were part of
an interconnected network

whose placement on the globe

was planned tens
of thousands of years ago

by visitors from other galaxies,

as ancient astronaut theorists
contend?

Perhaps further evidence
can be found

by analyzing
striking similarities

in geometric patterns
that can only been seen

from above.

When we're thinking about
alien beacons,

it's interesting to note

that the form
that some of these take

is in abstract,

-geometric symbols.
-TSOUKALOS: Right,

and that makes you think that
they might contain messages,

either for other visitors
or for us to decipher.

Right, like the Sun, Star
and Cross glyph at Nazca,

which looks like a mandala.

But what's a Hindu mandala
doing in Peru?

We investigated this
on Ancient Aliens in 2014.

(bell tolls)

NARRATOR:
London, England, 1971.

After years of studying
ancient philosophical teachings

relating to the Egyptian
Mystery Schools,

author John Michell unearths
evidence of an ancient code.

A numerical and geometric code
seemingly embedded

not only in the sacred
structures of ancient Egypt

but also in the Hebrew world
and in the plans

for the Heavenly City
of New Jerusalem.

KATHLEEN McGOWAN: John Michell
was a scholar, he was a mystic,

he was a genius and a very,
very prolific author.

He had an incredible
understanding

of earth geometry and geography.

But what John Michell
is most famous for

is the New Jerusalem diagram.

NARRATOR:
By carefully examining

the physical description
of New Jerusalem

in Revelation 21,

Michell uncovered
a sacred design.

At the core of Michell's diagram
is the squaring of the circle,

and the division of the circle
into equal sectors--

a zodiac wheel--

and the positioning of 12 gates
to the Heavenly City,

three on each side of the square

representing the 12 tribes
of Israel.

CHILDRESS:
This is also a geometric figure,

and John Michell claimed
that this would be, uh,

how the New Jerusalem was
to be built in the future.

And that all this
was encoded in Revelations

in a mathematical,
geometric way.

NARRATOR: In his book The
Dimensions of Paradise,

Michell proposed
that this sacred geometry

represented the order
of the universe.

Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest

that this exact same
geometrical concept can be found

halfway around the world,
in Nazca, Peru.

NARRATOR:
Here in the desert,

among the many plant
and animal glyphs,

is a geometric design
that looks much different

from the rest
of the Nazca Lines.

It is called
the Sun, Star and Cross.

CHILDRESS:
The Nazca Sun, Star Glyph

is one of the most interesting
glyphs to be seen at Nazca.

And, in fact,
because it's in a remote area,

the Palpa valley, it's not
actually seen by many tourists.

But it is, by far, uh,
the strangest

and most mathematically precise

of all of the-the diagrams
at Nazca.

NARRATOR:
The Sun, Star and Cross glyph

is a precisely formed
star polygon

made of two squares
surrounding a perfect circle,

all sharing the same center
and diameter.

Inside the grid
are wheels within wheels

and squares within squares.

The design mirrors not only
New Jerusalem's sacred geometry

but also offers up
yet another connection.

When you look at it,
it's very obviously

what is called a mandala.

Or a yantra,
in ancient India or-or Tibet.

What a mandala/yantra glyph
is doing

in remote desert of Peru
is very interesting.

TSOUKALOS:
It's a very sacred symbol.

It's this idea
of being connected

with the realm of the gods.

And then we have
to once again ask ourselves,

"Well, what was
the realm of the gods?"

It's very interesting to note

that, seen from the sky,

it is very similar--

not identical but very
similar to, for example,

the layout
of the temples at Borobudur.

NARRATOR:
The Buddhist temple of Borobudur

lies over 11,000 miles
west of Nazca, in Indonesia,

and is laid out with
a series of precise circles

within a platform
of perfect squares.

TSOUKALOS: One has to wonder if,
somehow, all these sites are connected,

because that is what the ancient
astronaut theory excels in,

that people in our ancient past
were not isolated.

They had contact
with each other.

In the end, there is
an extraterrestrial connection.

COLLINS: Is this something that
was taught by the ancients

from one culture to the rest,

and they incorporated
these divine cities,

these New Jerusalems?

Or is this something
that may have been given to us

by some divine intelligence?

NARRATOR: Is it possible that
the New Jerusalem design,

the Sun, Star and Cross
of Nazca,

the Temple of Borobudur

and other geometric structures
around the world

are encoded
with similar mathematic

and geometric principles?

And if so, are they part
of an alien message?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,

and suggest there's evidence

that the communication
continues.

NARRATOR:
90 miles west of London,

in the county of Wiltshire,

the English countryside
remains pretty much as it has

for thousands of years.

Small farms, stone walls
and rolling green hills

provide inhabitants
with an environment

of peace and stability.

This historic region
is also home

to a large number
of ancient, sacred sites,

many built
thousands of years ago.

It's an ancient,
sacred landscape

where most of them occur.

There are monuments
that you know about--

Stonehenge,

Avebury,

Silbury Hill--
this is one small area

that seems to be
a manipulated landscape

that was done
thousands of years ago,

where sacred rituals
have taken place.

NARRATOR: But in 1978,
Wiltshire's tranquil landscape

became the focus
of a controversy

that persists to this day.

REPORTER: Today, alongside the
tracks of farm machinery,

a new set of circles were found.

No human tracks
lead to the markings.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: There, carved
in fields of wheat,

barley and rye were
elaborate geometric patterns.

Even more curious was the fact

that, much like the famed
Nazca lines of Peru,

the designs were only
visible from the air.

TAYLOR: When you see
it for the first time,

you go "What in the world
is that doing there?"

I mean, it's obviously
not natural.

TOM BULLARD:
There have been cases

that have been traced back
for hundreds of years,

so-called mowing devil where,

apparently, some sort of, uh,
devil supposedly mowed a field

in a single night,
but they became recognized

as a phenomenon
only when these circles

started appearing
in, uh, English wheat fields.

They were very
simple things at first.

And... but they kept

occurring year after year,
and each year they seemed to get

a little more elaborate.

One of the early theories
was that there was

some kind of whirlwind
that was making them.

But as they became
more elaborate,

they also became associated
with paranormal activity.

Particularly UFOs.

Some people said
they saw a light

in the field at night.

And some people began
to read that as a UFO presence.

This circle in a Wiltshire field
is just one of 200 such markings

to have been discovered
in the last six weeks.

To farmers and scientists,

how they're formed, or by whom,
remains a big mystery.

NARRATOR:
Not surprisingly,

the region became the focus
of intense interest

from UFO enthusiasts
and skeptics,

each offering explanations
as to who

or what was responsible
for this strange phenomenon.

But if, in fact,
alien beings from another planet

were responsible
for the crop circles,

why were they
making them in England?

Were they trying to contact us?

Or were there clues
embedded in the designs?

And was
the proximity to Stonehenge

and other ancient sites
of any particular significance?

So you have the idea
of these earth energies,

and these ancient structures,

and then the crop circles are
appearing around them.

And many of the crop circles
appear to be

some kind of signals,
ancient writing.

The crop circles are
calling us back

to a time before science
and spirit got separated,

when we were whole,
we had a sense of wholeness.

And here, they are landing
near sacred sites

that are from an ancient time,

when we did experience
those things.

When I saw
the first photographs,

I was, uh, haunted, actually.

Are these extraterrestrials
doing this?

Are we dealing
with somebody who knows

how to bend space and time?

Our entire relationship

with the universe
and quantum physics

in all of its complexities
has been pushed hard,

by crop formations alone.

CHILDRESS:
Certainly it is one theory

that extraterrestrials are
trying to communicate

in a big way
through popular media.

Cop circles do get

in the newspapers
all over the world.

Perhaps that's what they want.

These are being
carefully designed.

They're not accidental,

both in terms of the shape
and where they land.

These aren't accidents.

There's a mind behind this
that's making these decisions.

Where is that mind?
What kind of body is it in?

NARRATOR:
Scientists struggled to find

an explanation
for the phenomenon

until, in 1991,

two self-proclaimed
British pranksters--

Doug Bower and Dave Chorley--
came forward and proclaimed

that they were
the ones responsible.

They showed how they could make
crop circles in a single night

using some very simple tools.

And at the time, people said,

"Well, that must be
the explanation for it."

NARRATOR:
Nevertheless,

some researchers remain

skeptical that a single
pair of elderly men

could have created
literally hundreds of designs

in the dead of night
with little more

than a few boards and some rope.

TAYLOR:
You know, it was very effective.

You still will run into people:

"Crop circles?
Oh, forget about them.

"Those two old guys made a...
Come on! Do not be so naive.

"They-they were done by those
two old guys, years ago.

Why are you even paying
attention to them anymore?"

Very effective
piece of disinformation.

NARRATOR: During the years that followed
Bower and Chorley's confession,

crop circles continued to appear
in the English countryside

and at various locations
around the world.

Some were, inarguably, the work
of artists or jokesters.

But after studying soil samples
and grain dispersion patterns

in the disturbed farmland,

researchers concluded
that it would be impossible

for all of these designs
to be man-made.

Well, in what we would consider
to be a mysterious crop circle,

where we can't identify it
being made by people,

the lay is absolutely beautiful,
the lay of the crop.

It's like a million
carpet layers came down,

and put these
stalks of grain down,

right parallel to one another.

It's just a gorgeous
thing to behold.

When the hoaxers make them,

they tend to be
sloppy and messy,

'cause they're not, they
haven't got that same force.

They're doing
handmade manipulation,

which doesn't lay them down
quite as beautifully.

NARRATOR: In 1991, noted biophysicist Dr.
William Levengood

put forth
a startling new theory.

After spending
ten years studying

crop circle sites and samples,
he concluded that they were

created by a complex
energy system,

which he called
a spinning plasma vortex,

that comes down from somewhere
high up in the atmosphere.

HOWE: Biophysicist
Levengood has now analyzed

350 some samples

from crop formations
in his career.

Now, if Levengood were sitting
here with me, he would say,

"All I can do is,
I can take you from the ground,

"I can take you
from the crops, up.

"But I can't tell you
what sets in motion

"that spinning plasma vortex,
in the first place.

It's still a huge mystery."

The anomalous things that happen
inside crop circles are,

in fact, one of the indications

that you're in a so-called
genuine circle

because, indeed,
the weirdest things happen.

Batteries fail--
brand-new batteries--

people go in with cameras,
cell phones don't work.

There have been people
who have started reading

all kinds of messages
into these crop circles,

that they have some
kind of digital significance,

that you can read
a kind of numerology,

and there will be
a kind of message.

People are really reading
something into it.

TAYLOR: In terms of who
or what is delivering them,

we have no way to know that.

We only have science fiction

that tells us what's
coming to visit us.

So we have to just speculate

about where
this might be coming from.

We have to wait
for whatever the source is

to introduce itself to us.

Are we dealing
with time travelers?

Are we dealing
with spiritual forces

from some dimension
we don't understand?

Are we dealing
with advanced intelligences

that are not even
in this galaxy,

that are from someplace else?

And is this
a form of communication?

The conversations keep getting
more and more complicated.

Crop circles are contact.
We are being contacted.

Just because we don't have
the bodies to shake hands with,

we have the evidence
that the bodies have left us.

I'm absolutely convinced

the crop circles are
evidence of intelligent life.

There is intelligence
bombarding us, winking at us.

You know, we've been talking
about extraterrestrials

placing beacons on Earth,

but we, too, have been
sending signals out into space

hoping they'll be received
by some alien intelligence.

Yeah, I mean, we've sent out

music and images and even
messages in binary code,

and even the entire
Wikipedia library.

Right, and what's even
more incredible

is that some people claim
that some of the signals

that we've sent out
have already received

an actual response.

NARRATOR:
Arecibo Observatory.

Puerto Rico.

November 16, 1974.

Early pioneers of SETI--

the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence--

aim the world's
largest radio telescope

at a cluster of stars
25,000 light years away

to send a transmission
out into the cosmos.

The coded signal
consists of binary digits--

zeros and ones--

that form a message
designed to notify

other potentially advanced
beings of our existence.

This message into space,
it was encoded in what's called

binary code, 'cause
it's the simplest around.

Listen, we're trying to
send a message to the aliens

and because you don't know
anything about them,

you have to make this
as obvious as possible.

Now here's the message over here
that was actually sent in 1974.

And it starts off with teaching
the ABC's to the aliens.

Well, not ABC's, the 123's,
because right up here are

the numbers from 1 to 10,
but in binary,

and anybody
who has thought about binary

should be able to figure
that out, including the aliens.

Right underneath that is...

th-this funny thing here has
the numbers one, six, seven,

and so forth.

Those are the atomic numbers
of the elements

that make up our bodies:

hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen,
oxygen and phosphorus.

NARRATOR:
The coded message also contained

information about our DNA,

the figure of a human,

a graphic of the solar system,

and a graphic
of a radio telescope.

For decades,
SETI scientists wondered

if their cosmic message would
ever be received or answered.

Then, nearly 27 years later,

there appeared to be a response.

Hampshire, England. August 2001.

Next to the
Chilbolton Radio Observatory,

two crop formations
appeared in a field.

Both were unlike
any other ever found.

They were both pixelated,
meaning that,

when you're on the ground,
you couldn't perceive

what the crop circle was,
but once from the air,

you could readily
identify the pattern.

COLLINS: One of the crop formations
that appeared at Chilbolton in 2001

was a face, but the other one

was far, far more interesting
because it greatly resembled

the message
that had been sent in 1974.

There were very, very subtle
differences between the two.

Um, they looked identical,

but when you actually
looked at them,

the differences gave a key

that seemed to be, uh,
almost like an answer.

NEWMAN:
One of them was the fact

that the human being
that we sent out,

when it came back, it had
what appeared to look like

some kind of grey alien with
a large head and a small body.

It also had a different
system of planets,

which is suggesting
it's a different solar system,

and also it had a different
DNA sequence as well.

And so, just these three things

really caught my attention
because either it was, it was

a brilliant hoax
or it was actually a message

that came back
and was a response

to that original SETI message,
way back in the 1970s.

COLLINS: And all of these suggested
to the crop circle community,

um, and the media, that we
really had received a reply...

...to the Aricebo message
of 1974.

Can we see it as a reply?

Yes, indeed, it was.

But actually who created it

and their exact purpose
will remain a mystery.

NARRATOR: Could the crop
circles in Chilbolton

have been an actual
alien response to the signal

that SETI sent out
into the cosmos in 1974?

And are crop formations
the latest iteration

in an ancient system
of otherworldly signposts,

including global pictographs,

geometric patterns,
and architectural markers?

Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,

and suggest
that modern technology

is revealing this system
to be far more ancient

and widespread
than ever imagined.

You know, when the Nazca Lines
were discovered in the 1920s,

people thought that these lines,
these markings in the ground,

were a complete
and total anomaly.

But today, we know that there
thousands of other geoglyphs

all around the globe.

Yeah, that's right, and what's
so exciting is that,

with continuing advances
in technology,

we're discovering more and more
of them all the time.

Yeah, and in 2024, artificial
intelligence helped us uncover

300 new Nazca glyphs.

So, it would seem that,
you know,

technology is what we need

to uncover what was happening
in the ancient world.

NARRATOR:
Nazca, Peru.

First discovered in 1927,

the Nazca Lines consist
of hundreds of designs known

as geoglyphs that can
only be seen from above.

Scattered over 200 square miles
in southern Peru,

mainstream archaeologists
believe the figures were created

by the ancient Nazca people

sometime between the first
and eighth centuries AD.

Ancient astronaut theorists

have been studying
the Nazca Lines for years.

They maintain that
the massive and complex designs

must have been created
as signals to celestial beings

that came down from the heavens,

and they say new evidence
proves that aliens

not only visited Nazca,

but continued to return there
over the centuries.

On July 7, 2015,
a team of anthropologists

from Yamagata University
in Japan revealed they had found

new Nazca Lines that,
due to erosion,

are impossible to make out
with the naked eye.

By conducting
a three-dimensional scan

of the ground, they uncovered
a total of 24 images,

including strange-looking
humanoid figures,

a disembodied head,
and a llama 65 feet long.

According to their findings,

the new geoglyphs
date from 400 to 200 BC,

making them
hundreds of years older

than those
previously discovered.

These new finds are instrumental
in showing the duration

of which these types of
modifications were going on,

on the desert floor, for
hundreds and hundreds of years,

involving different cultures

with different motivations
and different depictions.

It would seem to be
all of the cultures

were trying to signal
some kind of sky people,

and probably over time
were trying to induce them

to come back down from the sky
and land their ships.

You have to wonder then if,

with at least four
successive cultures doing this,

that you would think
they must've had some success.

NARRATOR: Some ancient astronaut
theorists have even suggested

that the discovery of older
Nazca Lines may indicate

that the people responsible
for the later geoglyphs

were imitating
what was originally made

by the extraterrestrials
themselves.

So, the question
starts to rise is:

were various different people
coming to Nazca

to make these petroglyphs
and these large diagrams?

Or were they possibly recreating
some initial experiment

or some initial thing
that took place?

What if some of the
early cultures in Nazca

actually experienced interaction
with beings that were creating

edifices that can only be seen
from in the sky,

and the only way
to get to lure them back

was to create these ways
to communicate

from an aerial perspective?

NARRATOR: For decades, it was thought
that there was no other place

on Earth like Nazca,

but recently,
a shocking discovery was made

on the opposite side
of the globe.

Turgay, Kazakhstan.
October 2015.

Using satellite photography,
NASA captures images

of more than 260 geoglyphs
covering the ground here.

They're located in a very
rural part of Kazakhstan,

and they could only be found
thanks to modern technology.

They're much more complex
than the Nazca geoglyphs

in that they are
three-dimensional.

They are mounds and trenches,

whereas the Nazca Lines
are etchings in the sand.

We're talking here about massive
features that are constructed

from earthen mounds
and also from wood,

showing everything from rings
to squares

to crosses, and even swastikas
that are on the ground.

NARRATOR: The archaeologists
in the area have no idea

who made the geoglyphs
or what they represent.

But one fact they have
been able to determine

is that some of these glyphs
date back 8,000 years,

nearly 6,000 years older
than the Nazca Lines.

Since these can be dated
to almost 8,000 years old,

we have to wonder who they were
trying to communicate with.

Could it have been, possibly,

what a lot of these ancient
cultures refer to as gods?

I think the fact that we're
finding more and more

of these symbols simply tell us

that the humankind at that time

tried to communicate
with what they thought

were the gods from above.

This is only one small part

of a gigantic
archaeological puzzle.

Now, we today, we must
stumble over these lines,

and automatically we have
to ask questions. What is it?

How have they done it?
For what purpose?

And sooner or later,
we came up with the question,

is there maybe a message
by the extraterrestrials?

So we really have to ask,
what is the significance

of these geoglyphs?
Are they calling cards?

Are they signs
for those in the sky?

A lost language?

What are we gonna learn
from all this?

Yeah, and are they
just signaling

to the extraterrestrials,
"Hey, we're here.

You know, come on back"?

Almost like cargo cults

and their airstrips to attract
more airplanes to come.

Right. I mean,
all of these pieces

are parts of a puzzle,

and you don't necessarily
have to finish a puzzle

in order to see
the bigger picture.

There is an underlying thread

that essentially
combines it all,

that we have been visited
physically in the remote past.

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