"NARRATOR:" "Zombies rising from their graves... bloodsucking vampires damned for all eternity... and humans trapped in a life- and-death struggle between" "Heaven and hell." "For thousands of years mankind has told tales of encounters with strange soulless creatures." "But are these mere myths or are they beliefs rooted in scientific fact?" "JONATHAN YOUNG:" "They will attack, they will drink blood and disappear without ever being noticed." "RICHARD RADER:" "The blood is the thing that reconnects the world that we live in with the world of the dead." "DAVID CHILDRESSZ Avatars have the power to take dead people, bring them back to life." "What kind of powers would you have to have to do that?" "The powers of an extraterrestrial?" "NARRATOR:" "Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings." "What if it were true-- did ancient aliens really help to shape our history?" "And if SO, are there extraterrestrial origins in earthly stories of the undead?" "NARRATOR:" "Thebes, Egypt." "Along the west bank of the Nile" "River lies the Valley of the" "Kings." "Here, in 1922, archaeologist" "Howard Carter discovered the 3,000-year-old tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun." "DODSON:" "When Howard Carter opened the burial chamber of" "Tutankhamun, it was the first time anybody had seen the burial chamber of a pharaoh." "NARRATOR:" "Untouched since the pharaoh's death in 1333 BC, the tomb was full of the boy king's earthly possessions." "DODSON: it's very much the idea of having what you would have had in your house in this world with you to be there in the next world." "And part of this whole idea of the tomb as a magical machine to bring you into the next world." "NARRATOR:" "To help Tutankhamun on his journey into the afterlife... the walls and ceiling of his burial chamber were decorated with illustrations from the" "Egyptian's sacred Book of the" "Dead." "DODSON:" "The Book of the Dead was a collection of spells relating to the transition between death and rebirth." "The basic idea was to provide the dead person with what they needed, magically, to get through." "Because there were various trials and tribulations to be faced before you were reborn into the next world." "They had to encounter various demons:" "Everything from giant cockroaches to horrendous beings with knives instead of heads." "All sorts of nightmarish visions you had to get through." "And one of the things the Book of the Dead does is to explain how you deal with these various demons." "NARRATOR:" "Inside" "Tutankhamun's tomb, the archaeologist also discovered a sarcophagus with the young king's embalmed body, well preserved with vital organs removed and sealed in jars." "Like many ancient Egyptians," "King Tut was mummified based on the belief that upon entering the underworld, his body would regain its powers of movement and speech." "BAUVAL:" "There seems to have been a kind of belief that the stellar or astral aspect of the dead king maintained a contact with the tomb, and that the soul would return back to the physical body." "NARRATOR:" "The ancient" "Egyptians believed the tomb was the vessel in which the deceased's body-- attended by its visiting soul-- journeyed to the world beyond the grave." "COLLINS:" "We today see the idea of being placed in a coffin and put underground as something like simply the disposal of the dead or the burial of the dead." "For them, it was far more than this." "It was like going back to the primordial womb of a sky goddess whose name was Nuit." "And she was represented by the Milky Way." "And by doing that, you'd eventually, you'll go back to being a star." "It was believed that the soul itself could become a star." "NARRATOR:" "The practice of preserving a dead body, or embalming, did not begin with the Egyptians." "Embalmed human remains have been found in Chile and Peru dating to 5000 BC." "But what compelled ancient man to preserve their bodies after their deaths?" "Did they really believe they would return to Earth, body and soul?" "If so, what had they seen in life that would suggest that such a thing were even possible?" "CHILDRESS:" "Throughout history, mankind has consistently believed that when they died, they would go to to the stars." "The Egyptians believed that, too." "You have to ask yourself, "Where"" "did our ancestors get these ideas that on our death, we're being transported to the stars or to another" ""world?"" "Wouldn't this have come from extraterrestrials?" "TSOUKALOS:" "The techniques that were used were given to the ancient Egyptians by the gods:" "The guardians of the sky." "Who were these guardians of the sky?" "Well, according to ancient astronaut theorists, they were flesh and blood extraterrestrials." "NARRATOR:" "Tests on" "Tutankhamun's remains confirm that he was the son of" "Akhenaten; the controversial" "Egyptian pharaoh often depicted with a large misshapen skull." "Like their father, the skulls of both King Tutankhamun and his sister Meritaten also appear to have deformed shapes." "CHILDRESS:" "Archaeologists have found that in Egypt, like" "Tutankhamun or his sister, who's this statue here, Meritaten, had these strange elongated heads." "You have to wonder, were they trying to imitate extraterrestrials who looked like this, or perhaps they, in fact, were extraterrestrials, and this is how they naturally looked." "NARRATOR:" "On the other side of the world, in the ancient city of Paracas, Peru... archaeologists uncovered hundreds of mummified remains dating to 300 BC." "Many contained elongated skulls." "FORESTER:" "What makes Paracas unique is that the elongated skulls are found in great numbers here dating at least" "3,000 years old if not older." "The only other place in the world that we find these are in" "Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten." "COLLINS:" "It would seem as if this type of skull demarked these people as different to the local community." "Probably because they believed they were descendents from original individuals that had heads that were elongated and that were serpent or viper-like in appearance." "GEORGE NOORY:" "Ancient civilizations all around this planet have always depicted some of their ancients as being strange-looking figures." "Long heads, big noses." "Creatures that could be human, but they sure didn't look human." "NARRATOR:" "If, as some researchers suggest, the practice of elongating skulls was done to mimic the head shape of highly intelligent beings ancient man came in contact with, then could the belief in preserving the body for the journey to the afterlife also" "have been based on some contact with superior beings?" "TSOUKALOS:" "I'm suggesting that mummification is based on our ancestors who watched extraterrestrials getting ready for a flight through deep space." "One possibility is to be frozen or to be put into animated sleep, where you're inside this quote end quote sarcophagus, this coffin." "And so our ancestors might have watched this type of preparation, and then they misunderstood this for the gods dying." "And so our ancestors mummified themselves in order to be ready for the return of the gods with the hopes that the gods would reanimate them from the dead in the future." "NARRATOR:" "Could ancient man really have had contact with visitors from other planets?" "If so, could they have learned from them the secrets of life and death?" "Secrets about preserving their earthly bodies, so that someday they might walk again?" "NARRATOR:" "The Democratic" "Republic of the Congo, Central" "Africa." "Stretching across this mystical land is the world's second largest rain forest." "Here, according to scholars, the world "zombie" originated around" "500 BC." "According to most archeologists and language experts, ancient" "Africans used the word "nzumbe"" "to refer to one's primary spirit." "They believed that a person has two souls-- once called the" ""great angel" and the other called the "little angel."" "SALLIE ANN GLASSMAN:" "The little good angel represents your identity, your ego self." "And upon death, the little good angel sits by the grave for a few days and then rises before" "God." "The big good angel also sits by the grave for nine days, and can be stolen, and you can be made into a zombie." "The spirits who rule over that crossroads between life and death are called the Ghédé." "JERRY GANDOLFO:" "The Ghédé spirit is not the spirit of the graveyard, nor is he the spirit of death." "He's actually the spirit of the gateway to the graveyard." "When you die, he opens up the gateway to the cemetery to let you pass from life into death." "But also he can open up the gateway to let you pass back from death into life." "That's why he is the spirit who's responsible for zombies." "TOK THOMPSON:" "In must of the traditions about zombies, zombies are called into being or called back from the grave unwillingly and it's usually under the control of a witch doctor." "The idea is that after the soul has left the body, you can still raise this person from the dead." "Therefore, your classical zombie is actually a soulless animated corpse." "MAX BROOKS:" "Most civilizations have some variety of an individual coming back from the dead." "It goes all the way back to the first civilization in" "Mesopotamia." "We have them in ancient Egypt, we have them in Mesoamerica, you have them in Central and East" "Asia." "NARRATOR:" "In 300 BC, ancient" "Chinese legends began making reference to horrific zombie- like creatures called jiang shi, a name that, when translated, literally means "stiff corpse."" "Supposedly a jiang shi rests in a coffin by day or hides in dark places such a caves." "At night these creatures hunt down family members in an effort to devour their essence." "CURRAN:" "Its skin was decayed." "It had long fingernails." "The thing was actually brain-dead, but it had an increased sense of smell and a great sense of hearing." "NARRATOR:" "In Norse mythology, a draugr was a person who lived a sinful life." "After dying, they would come back from the dead and haunt the living." "YOUNG:" "Many burial practices grew up to try to control this possibility of a zombie rising, the undead coming back." "Gravestones might have originally been to hold them down, to keep them from coming out of the ground." "Various kinds of spiking to hold the body down or cutting the body up so it couldn't reanimate." "Cutting the head off or burning and distributing the ashes." "All out of a fear that this creature or this being would somehow return." "(Woman singing in foreign language)" "NARRATOR:" "Today, stories of the reanimated dead are most closely associated with the" "Haitian practice of voodoo where, beginning in the" "1500s, voodoo priests performed mysterious rituals in order to create and control zombies." "BROOK:" "The voodoo zombie is essentially harmless unless it is told to commit acts of violence." "Most importantly, the voodoo zombie is an individual." "It is controlled by a master." "It is controlled usually by some form of supernatural powers." "GLASSMAN:" "There are a couple of different kinds." "There's the zombie as the disembodied spirit, but there's also that more traditional concept of a body that has lost its soul and is just automatically enslaved and working for a zombie master." "NARRATOR:" "But where, or from whom, does this strange power over life and death come from?" "According to ancient astronaut theorists, there is evidence of strange other-worldly entities that communicate to humans through intermediaries known as priests, shamans, witch doctors or demigods." "THOMPSON:" "Many different religions have different ways of conceiving of specialists who might be able to intercede in the cosmos." "So, for instance, among the" "Native Americans we find shamans and shamanism who very often are held as people who can intercede between the spiritual realm and the mundane realm here on Earth." "ERICH VON DANIKEN:" "It is quite possible that some of the first doctors were the disciples, the students of some of the extraterrestrials." "So they had their knowledge which helped them to be higher than the rest of mankind." "NARRATOR:" "Perhaps the most famous story of an intermediary reanimating the dead appears in the New Testament of the" "Holy Bible." "According to the Gospel of St." "John, it was here at AI" "Eizariya, two miles from" "Jerusalem, that Jesus of" "Nazareth resurrected a man who had been dead for four days." "BRETT PETERSON:" "Jesus was so moved, the Bible says he wept." "As he looked at the tomb and was moved by the weeping of Mary and Martha, he decided to raise" "Lazarus from the dead." "So he approaches the entrance to the tomb and literally calls out to Lazarus to come forth from the dead." "In my opinion, there's no scientific explanation for the raising of Lazarus." "It seems that Lazarus' soul was actually reunited with his body:" "That he was just not a walking dead or the undead, but he became himself raised from the dead." "CHILDRESS:" "So here are special people who have the power to take dead people and bring them back to life." "What kind of powers would you have to have to do that?" "The powers of an extraterrestrial?" "NARRATOR:" "Could there really be an extraterrestrial connection between living humans and the world of the dead?" "Is it possible that human souls travel through space and time much as space travelers might?" "If so, would this shatter the belief in the existence of Heaven?" "Or would it be the very proof mankind has been searching for for centuries?" "NARRATOR:" "Oaxaca, Mexico." "Situated on a low mountain range rising above the central plain lie the ancient ruins of" "Monte Albén." "Here, around 100 BC, researchers believe the Zapotec" "Indians worshipped a bloodthirsty Mayan god with the body of a man and the head of a bat." "They called him Camazotz." "SKAL:" "The iconography is rather striking; the image of a half man, half bat; a man with the head of a bat and winglike cloak spread out with crosses of bones in the lining." "YOUNG:" "The Zapotec people in the Oaxaca area of Mexico believe that winged creatures, batlike creatures come in the night." "They will attack and they will drink blood and disappear without ever being noticed." "CURRAN:" "This is simply a sort of anthropomorphic bat which was worshipped by the sacrifice of libations of blood." "So what they did was they cut themselves and poured it into a bowl and offered it to the god." "ANDREW WYATT:" "Blood was a very important substance to the Mayans." "That is what gave humans life:" "Blood and breath was what the essence of life was." "That's where this k'ul-- this divine essence-- resided; in blood and in breath." "When you would die, you entered into the underworld." "It was called Xibalba." "Then, if you defeated the lords of death, you would then ascend into the heavens and become one of the revered ancestors." "RADER:" "The blood is the thing that reconnects the world that we live in with the world of the dead." "YOUNG:" "Some of the earliest archaeological evidence shows that blood rituals were present as far back as we can search." "NARRATOR:" "Legends and myths of supernatural beings with traits similar to vampires are a part of nearly every ancient culture." "In Hindu folklore, for example, the vetala was known as an evil spirit that took demonic possession of corpses." "The Indian goddess Kali was also intimately linked with blood sacrifices." "CURRAN:" "Kali becomes the destroyer, and she is portrayed as a hag-like woman with a whole number of arms each carrying a sword." "She is the goddess of death and destruction." "Her eyes are red and she drips blood from her mouth." "YOUNG:" "She's known to take infants from their crib and drink their blood." "NARRATOR:" "In North America, early Cherokees believed in a bloodthirsty creature that slaughtered humans, drank their blood and ate their livers... known as the U'tlun'ta." "This demon was said to possess eternal life while feeding on the living." "CURRAN:" "The notion of the thing from the spirit world traveling through the various" "Indian nations was a great fear among not only the Cherokee but also the Sioux and Arapaho." "NARRATOR:" "But who, or what, are these mysterious creatures and where did they come from?" "Might they be, as ancient astronaut theorists believe, extraterrestrial beings abandoned here on Earth?" "In the ancient Jewish Talmud, the Genesis story set in the garden of Eden includes" "Adam and Eve, but also a woman called Lilith." "SKAL:" "In Jewish folklore," "Lilith was the first wife of" "Adam." "She was created from the same earth as Adam, not from his rib as Eve was." "But she proved to be very disobedient and uncontrollable and had to be banished." "NARRATOR:" "According to the" "Talmud, when Lilith refused to obey Adam, God sent three angels to convince her to submit to his authority." "But when Lilith refused for the final time, God condemned her to live on Earth for eternity." "In a sense, Lilith was the first vampire to wander the Earth." "She shared all of the characteristics of female vampires." "YOUNG:" "Lilith had the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a snake and the wings of a bird, which is a terrifying creature." "MICHAEL COOGAN:" "In Jewish tradition, Lilith has been a kind of night demon against whom incantations and prayers have to be offered because she will come and snatch away an infant sleeping in its crib, or at least snatch away its soul" "and cause it to die." "NARRATOR:" "But why are tales of bloodsucking creatures so prevalent throughout the ancient" "World?" "And what is it about blood-- particularly human blood-- that makes it such a vital ingredient in vampire mythology?" "THOMPSON:" "Unlike the zombie, the vampire is a soulful corpse." "A corpse where the soul sort of refused to leave the body." "Very often this is because this person who died was just so bad and so evil that they were able to not go on to the other world or to Heaven or even to hell, as the case may be." "SKAL:" "The vampire is not part of this world and is not totally part of the next world." "It is halted in its progression." "And that's why most vampire legends and stories involve the releasing of the soul of the vampire so he can complete the journey to the other side." "NARRATOR:" "Might blood and the unique chemistry of it, serve as a kind of cosmic fuel?" "One that connects the living to the dead?" "The human to the inhuman?" "The earthly to the other-worldly?" "YOUNG:" "The Mayan culture had a fascinating ritual." "The high king would slice himself in his male organ to intentionally bleed, and have a rather extensive bloodletting which, of course, would alter his brain chemistry." "This would lead to an altered state and a vision which would indicate the future path for the nation." "COLLINS:" "Certainly in a death state or an altered state, they had access to other worlds." "So there was a universal belief in contact with the stars and that something in the stars came down and made us in the first place and that one day we would go back there." "CHILDRESS:" "Blood is the life force of humans and it was very important to extraterrestrials, too." "There's something very special about our blood." "So we have to think that if these blood sacrifices aren't some distortion of what was originally just extraterrestrials showing us how important our blood was." "NARRATOR:" "Might bloodletting, both the shedding and the drinking of it, have been, as some scholars suggest, a chance to commune with the gods and a bid to obtain godlike immortality?" "Or did early humans simply create myths and stories about undead vampires and zombies as a means of communicating their ancestral connection to extraterrestrial beings?" "And if these beings actually existed, might they not return?" "NARRATOR:" "Judgment Day." "The day of reckoning." "In Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions, it is the day at the end of time, when God will return and descend upon Earth to judge the living and the dead according to the good and evil of their earthly lives." "Consistent with the most commonly held beliefs, God's return will follow a sequence of events including Armageddon and the annihilation of all creatures, the resurrection of the dead and the reuniting of all souls with their physical bodies." "PETERSON:" "The day of reckoning is when each man and woman is going to be held accountable for every word that they've said, for every action that they've done." "Where God will judge the souls of the living and the dead for anything that they have done on this planet." "YOUNG:" "The Jewish belief is that, except for a pristine few, most souls will go into a period of review, about a year, in which they go through their lives and see the things they've done wrong, learn a thing or two" "and then go on to the world to come." "PETERSON:" "Now the Muslims, or" "Islam, everyone dies and God raises them all back to life and there is nothing but judgment and the good Muslims will be taken to paradise and the bad ones will be thrown into outer darkness." "NARRATOR:" "Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of" "God, and that he will return to" "Earth on the day of reckoning to pass judgment on all souls, both living and dead." "It is also the reason why" "Christians believe the human body should be buried and not cremated after death." "But could the tombs and graves of the world really open one day and the dead rise again?" "MICHAEL COOGAN:" "According to traditional Christian belief," "God creates a human being at the moment of conception... by infusing into the newly formed embryo an immortal soul." "And that fusion of raw material and soul is what makes the human person." "That's why at the day of reckoning there has to be the resurrection of the dead, so that humans are restored to their original unity as body as soul combined." "PETERSON:" "This day of reckoning, we will find the souls of the departed will be reunited with their physical body which will be raised from the dead and reconstructed, probably genetically, by God himself." "NARRATOR:" "Ancient cultures throughout time also believed in the return of their gods and a day of reckoning." "In ancient Mesoamerica, the" "Aztecs believed in feathered serpent gods that created the universe, who would return one day to destroy evil and bring peace." "COLLINS:" "In Central America," "Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent was this wisdom bringer." "Sometimes said to have come down from the sky world to spread this heavenly knowledge and wisdom and to bring salvation to the world." "NARRATOR:" "Dating to 150 BC, the Dead Sea Scrolls prophesize that the Sons of Darkness will be destroyed and the Sons of" "Light will live in peace for all eternity." "And the concept of an omnipotent god who will return on Judgment" "Day also appears in one of the so-called lost books of the" "Bible-- the Book of Enoch." "PETERSON:" "The Book of Enoch talks about this great judgment for the unrighteous." "That they will be judged with fire." "That the Son of man will come with 10,000 fiery angels and they will judge mankind." "After the final judgment, the" "Bible says the new Heaven is created, the new Earth is created and the New Jerusalem descends from Heaven onto the new Earth." "The New Jerusalem is this cubical city 1,500 miles long, wide and high, made of translucent gold." "Many people would theorize that maybe it's some sort of spaceship, some sort of UFO." "NARRATOR:" "But could there be an alien, or extraterrestrial, origin to the biblical stories of final judgment?" "Might it be, as ancient astronaut theorists contend, the day when we are once again visited by alien beings or perhaps alien ancestors?" "VON DANIKEN:" "Some thousands of years ago extraterrestrials were here." "They created first mankind by an artificial mutation." "And now when they... they return and, of course, the judgment will be, "Have you done what we" ""were expecting for you?"" "And the ones who understand what happened in the past, they will not be shocked, because they knew and they expected all the time what will happen." "CHILDRESS:" "In my mind, it's when the extraterrestrials genuinely return to our planet and announce themselves, and at that point, the humans who have achieved enlightenment will join with their brothers-- the extraterrestrials, ancient astronauts who created" "us-- and we'll all return to the stars." "NARRATOR:" "Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists propose, that in the end we are destined to encounter our alien origins, and if so, is there really truth to the notion that our existence does not end with" "death?" "And is there a world between life and death?" "One which leads to another, perhaps, extraterrestrial plane?" "NARRATOR:" "April, 1983, Carmel" "California." "Along a scenic coastal highway 27-year-old Jessica Haynes was sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car as they headed north toward San Francisco." "JESSICA HAYNES:" "So we got to" "Scenic Drive, and the last thing" "I remember was, "Watch this."" "NARRATOR:" "Suddenly the driver lost control and slammed into a tree." "(Loud crash)" "Jessica's friend sustained only minor injuries, but Jessica's body was severely injured." "HAYNES:" "The next thing I remember is that I was in an ambulance." "I could feel there was something very wrong." "NARRATOR:" "Nearly dead," "Jessica was rushed into surgery where she had an extraordinary experience." "HAYNES:" "In the evening, I felt a presence enter the room." "It was a very loving presence." "There was a sense that I could shift into a different dimension." "And in telepathy, the voice said, "if you want to let go, it"" "will be okay."" "I was aware that I would be leaving my body." "And I said, "Yes."" "I was instantly in another place." "I no longer had a body." "I was now a point of light." "After a while, as I'm experiencing this and being this, a light appeared." "And I pulled into the light like a tractor beam and merged into it." "It was filled with thousands and thousands and millions of sparkling lights." "It was just beautiful." "And I thought, "I'm home, I'm"" "home!"" "There's a sense that Earth, people, where I'd worked, things that I'd done, became more and more of an illusion." "And there are presences on either side." "Very loving presences." "Not male, not female." "It was very much all energy." "And everything was simultaneous." "So looking at my life again, I realized I want to get back." "NARRATOR:" "Like thousands of other near-death accounts," "Jessica's story featured elements that were eerily consistent." "The bright white light, the notion of a gateway or tunnel, the presence of loved ones and a feeling of peace and security." "NOORY:" "It is uncanny that these people all seem to talk about the same thing." "This tunnel, this effect, this ability to transfer from one point to the next." "And they all seem to be going down the same path." "JEFF LONG:" "The more people know about near-death experience, the more they realize the profound evidence that underlies the concept that near-death experiences are real." "NARRATOR:" "The Greek philosopher Plato documented the story of a soldier named Er, who claimed that when slain in battle, his soul went forth from his body and journeyed with many gods through a tunnel of light to a mysterious place." "Er was shown by the gods that good souls were sent up to" "Heaven and were gloriously rewarded." "But the bad souls were sent down to a realm where they were first punished, then purified and then finally resurrected." "RICHARD RADER:" "What's interesting is that he says, so not only seeing the rewards and the punishments, but seeing how it is that souls are reincarnated." "This is what's really radical about this." "It was totally new in the Greek world-- this conceiving of the soul not only as immortal, but reincarnated perpetually." "LONG:" "What's exciting is that multiple lines of evidence are pointing to the reality of a soul." "In other words, there does seem to be that spiritual, unearthly, non-physical part of us that absolutely can transcend and survive death and go on and indeed live forever." "NARRATOR:" "Might these often reported near-death experiences really be proof of an afterlife?" "Proof that there is an eternal soul?" "That virtue is ultimately rewarded and evil eternally punished?" "Or might these compelling accounts provide evidence of another, much more extraterrestrial reality?" "DOC BARHAM:" "Based upon a commonality of this white light experience, it seems like what the individual experiences is simply moving from one state to another." "And as they do that, they will move through something that could be described as like a wormhole." "NARRATOR:" "A central tenet of the Indian traditions of" "Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, is expressed in an ancient" "Tibetan text that advises the living on how to prepare for the afterworld." "The text suggests concentrating one's mind on a wormhole through which the soul can travel to a cosmic universe." "If done successfully, the soul is liberated from the cycle of life and death." "If not, the soul is reincarnated into the body of a newborn." "CHILDRESS: it's like we have an instinctual knowledge that with our death, our passing from this existence, that we are going to this other world." "COLLINS:" "At the point of death we could find ourselves at the other end of the universe." "BARHAM:" "When we die, most cultural traditions talk about traveling from this world to the next or returning to our original home." "You could look at it as the possibility that all of these places are simultaneously coexisting." "They would be different layers of different dimensions coexisting simultaneously all together at once." "NARRATOR:" "In the Law of" "Biogenesis, published in 1864, the chemist and microbiologist" "Louis Pasteur proclaimed that life evolves from preexisting life, not from inanimate material." "According to this landmark theory, life is an unbroken chain of living organisms that go all the way back to the origin of life in the universe." "If true, who, or what, is the origin for human life?" "CHILDRESS:" "All life on this planet is interconnected, and our own lives are connected back to the primordial lives at the very beginning of life on this planet." "NARRATOR:" "Could the legends and myths of life beyond death that sprung from countless civilizations over thousands of years have been mere man-made fabrications, or might the so-called legends really be truths that had been passed to our ancestors by ancient" "astronauts?" "Perhaps what awaits all humans is not death, but a profound knowledge, one that will reveal the truth of our earthly and other-worldly origins." "Captioned by" "Media Access Group at WGBH"