"NARRATOR:" "Zeus..." "Surya..." "Thor..." "For thousands of years, ancient myths have described gods who came down from the heavens." "ERICH VON DÄNIKEN:" "Always you have someone who is descending from the sky." "With loud noise, with thundering, with fire." "With smoke." "JONATHAN YOUNG:" "They would have come from the most powerful and magical place possible... from the stars." "NARRATOR:" "But just who were these mystical beings that ruled the skies with supernatural powers?" "DAVID CHILDRESS:" "You could wonder if these tales of Zeus's thunderbolts, Thor's hammer, if these weren't real weapons." "NARRATOR:" "Did our ancient ancestors create the gods from their own imaginations?" "Or did they simply report events they believed to be true?" "GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS:" "Our ancestors misinterpreted extraterrestrials as gods, because that is was the only way that they could explain away what they witnessed." "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 were the gods of our ancestors actually visitors from other worlds?" "NARRATOR:" "Truva, Turkey." "For over 150 years, this small city has been the center of one of the greatest archaeological finds in modern history: the possible discovery of the legendary city of Troy." "In 1868, amateur archaeologist" "Heinrich Schliemann, set out to find what he believed was the city that served as the basis for the Trojan War, as described in one of the greatest pieces of classical literature, Homer's epic poem, the Iliad." "Written in the eighth century" "BC, Homer's Iliad tells the tale of a great war, born of feuding and jealous gods." "While most scholars believed the story of the Trojan War was a work of fiction, Schliemann was determined to prove the myth was a reality." "RICHARD RADER:" "Heinrich" "Schliemann's discoveries rocked the archaeological world." "Armed with his copy of the" "Iliad, basically, he just decided that he was gonna find" "Troy." "And so he went and just dug a big hole, and when he went, he discovered the real Troy." "NARRATOR:" "But if Homer's story of Troy was true, what would it say about other Greek stories and myths?" "Might those also be true?" "Did powerful gods and goddesses actually exist?" "And, if so, where did they come from?" "Hellas, also known as Greece." "Each day, thousands of tourists visit temples and monuments built to honor the gods of another age." "The Acropolis..." "Delphi..." "The Parthenon..." "The Temple of Apollo." "These ancient sites reflect a powerful reverence for beings that supposedly ruled the world thousands of years ago." "CHILDRESS:" "When you look at many of the mythologies around the world, they have these stories of gods coming down from the sky." "RADER:" "There's a beautiful description of the way that the gods move, like, when they kind of come down to the Earth." "You get the sense of them gliding down, but the way that they move is kind of beyond time." "It just kind of happens." "NARRATOR:" "If the ancient" "Greeks invented the stories of gods as a primitive attempt to explain their universe, how can we account for similar deities found in widely different regions and cultures around the globe?" "Was it mere coincidence?" "Or was there a common origin for these gods, who supposedly traveled to Earth from the skies?" "JASON MARTELL:" "The earliest civilization we have, 3800 BC, the Sumerians actually give us visual descriptions of these beings and speak of this time that they lived amongst their living gods." "They called their gods the" "Annunaki and that term simply meant "those who from heaven come to earth."" "RADER:" "Mythology is chock- full of these episodes of gods coming down to earth." "I mean, because mythology is so interested in the relationship between gods and humans, there is necessarily gonna be a lot of communication, and communion between the two of them." "NARRATOR:" "In his book" "Odyssey of theGods, Erich von" "Däniken argues that the world's sacred books are full of descriptions, not of gods, but of supernatural beings interacting with humans." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "Some thousands of years ago, when our forefathers were still primitive, some extraterrestrials descended to our planet." "And because of misunderstanding, like of technology, our forefathers thought that these extraterrestrials must be some gods." "NARRATOR:" "Mount Olympus." "Greece's highest mountain." "According to ancient myths, this site was the home of the gods." "(thunder crashes)" "It was here, on Mount Olympus, that Zeus sat on his throne and determined the fate of mortal men." "TSOUKALOS:" "Whenever we have references to Mount Olympus, it is described to be this magnificent palace on top of" "Mount Olympus allegedly, and the temple walls were always gleaming of gold, or gleaming with silver, and a lot of little lights that they described as jewels." "Well, if you look at that from modern perspective, what if that place..." "Mount" "Olympus... wasn't necessarily the top of a mountain, but it was, in fact, a spaceship, because it is described how sometimes there was a big rumbling with Mount" "Olympus, and the entire top lifted off." "NARRATOR:" "But if Mount" "Olympus was home to alien visitors, could Zeus have been their leader?" "According to both the Iliad and the Odyssey, Zeus was often depicted as wielding a lightning bolt." "CREMO:" "It appears to be a very powerful weapon because he could destroy whole cities with this thunderbolt weapon of his." "NARRATOR:" "Similarly, Zeus's brother Poseidon, the god of the sea, was armed with a trident." "CREMO:" "He was able to create tsunamis, tidal waves with this weapon." "The trident weapon of Poseidon seems to have been something more than just a pitchfork." "TSOUKALOS:" "So is it possible that the lightning bolt and the trident is some type of a direct energy device?" "NARRATOR:" "Arguably, one of the most important of the Greek gods was Apollo, who rode the skies in his chariot of fire." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "Apollo first was the teacher of the young" "Greeks living there." "He teach them how to make buildings on the mountain, on the hillside." "He teach them how to make roads." "He teach them in astronomy." "NARRATOR:" "Centuries later, when Rome ruled over Europe and the Mediterranean, from the first century BC until the seventh century AD, the Romans paid homage to gods similar to the Greeks." "Zeus was now known as Jupiter." "Poseidon was called Neptune." "But Apollo was known to both the Romans and the Greeks." "Coincidence?" "Or, as most ancient astronaut theorists believe, was it the historical account of powerful beings that came to Earth thousands of years ago?" "(neighing)" "MARTELL:" "We know that the extraterrestrials more than likely are the source of what they call gods." "How did they get here?" "More than likely in some type of craft." "PHILIP COPPENS:" "What we map into our myths and our legends are incredible stories, incredible events, and any extraterrestrial being, any ancient alien who has come here on Earth, will be written down into this account because it is" "such an extraordinary event that it'll be marked forever." "NARRATOR:" "But if the stories of Greek and Roman gods are true, can evidence of their existence be found in other parts of the globe?" "And, if so, where did they go?" "On the northwest coast of" "France, just south of" "Brittany, lies one of the most important prehistoric sites in" "Europe." "At the seaside village of" "Carnac, over 3,000 megalithic stones are placed in rows over two miles long." "The Carnac stones were hewn from local rock formations and erected between 4,500 to 2,500" "BC, at the end of the Stone Age." "They are the largest collection of standing stones in the world." "CHILDRESS:" "Archaeologists are baffled by the many megaliths at" "Carnac here." "It's clearly a massive construction project with blocks of granite weighing 50 to 100, to even up to 350 tons." "Legends here say that giants built Carnac, but you have to wonder, what is the real purpose of these giant megaliths, and why would prehistoric people have moved all of these massive stones and placed them in the" "many alignments here at Carnac?" "CREMO:" "Thousands of large stones have been arranged in very interesting patterns." "They're arranged in intersecting lines that form triangles that could only be visible from above the Earth." "These arrangements of stones may have been a way of communicating with extraterrestrial beings." "NARRATOR:" "The ancient Greek poet Pindar spoke of a mystical land called Hyperborea, far to the north, where the sun shined" "24 hours a day." "Legends claim that Apollo visited Hyperborea, traveling in his chariot of fire every" "20 years." "TSOUKALOS:" "Apollo would tell to the Greeks, "Okay, I've got to go see some other people." "I've got to go and teach them."" "And they're, like, "Well, where are you off to?"" "And he's, like, "Well, I'm actually going to a place that's beyond where the north wind comes." "It's the land of the" "Hyperboreans."" "NARRATOR:" "Although mainstream archaeologists speculate that the Carnac stones are most likely tomb markers, ancient astronaut theorists believe these stones are intentionally laid out in a unique geometric formation." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "Many speculations existed since centuries, and only a few years ago, in France, they started to photograph this whole French" "Brittany by helicopters." "And when they put the pictures together, all of a sudden, someone realized, hey, this is not coincidence." "The distances of the lines are always the same... 2,860 meters." "Or exactly the half of 2,860 meters." "The angles are always the same." "It's Pythagorean triangles." "It's all a gigantic geometrical pattern." "From Stone Age, which is impossible." "Our Stone Age people had no idea of Pythagoras' triangles." "Pythagoras was about 420 BC." "NARRATOR:" "Even though the geometric arrangement of the" "Carnac stones predates the" "Pythagorean theorem by more than 2,000 years, one question remains:" "Why were the stones arranged in such a precise pattern?" "CHILDRESS:" "The Carnac stones are one of the few things on the planet that can actually be seen from space." "And they're a perfect marker for any kind of aerial vehicle looking down on the Earth." "Many of the tourists who come here to Carnac claim that they can actually feel the energy emanating from these granite megaliths." "How did these ancient people know about this energy?" "Is it possible that they were able to use this energy to even move and erect these giant stones?" "VON DÄNIKEN:" "I am of the opinion that they were made on purpose." "The extraterrestrials told our ancestor: do this and this." "It's not the extraterrestrials who made the stone lines." "It's the humans who made it, but by the order of the extraterrestrials." "NARRATOR:" "But were the Carnac stones a signpost for an ancient astronaut called Apollo, as he flew his spacecraft high above the land?" "CHILDRESS:" "If the Greek god" "Apollo was really some kind of ancient astronaut, it's possible that the stones here at Carnac were a directional finder pointing the way to the far north, to the Hyperborea of the ancient gods." "NARRATOR:" "Over 1,000 miles north of Carnac lies" "Scandinavia, home to an ancient people called the Norse." "The Norse were tribal Germanic people who lived in what is now known as Sweden, Denmark," "Iceland and Norway." "Norse legends record the triumphs of great warriors with advanced weaponry, sophisticated combat techniques and navigational prowess." "Like the Greeks, Norse mythology includes supernatural beings, other worlds and powerful gods." "But like the Romans, could the" "Norse myths refer not to different gods, but the same gods as those depicted by the ancient Greeks?" "CHILDRESS:" "There are a number of similarities between Greek mythology and Norse mythology." "And many of the gods are, uh, almost identical." "And they do much the same thing." "(thunder cracks, rumbles)" "NARRATOR:" "Descriptions of the" "Viking god Odin... the god of war, death and knowledge... and the Greek god Zeus, bear striking similarities." "JONATHAN YOUNG:" "Zeus and" "Odin are both sky father gods." "They travel through the skies in chariots because they are akin to the solar, uh, divinities." "The precursor to many, uh, religious beliefs is sun worship." "The ancients knew that life came from the sun." "So that is a great mystery and a source of great awe." "COPPENS:" "What you're getting there is not just some minor deity, but you really are nailing it down to one of the chief deities." "This is a very important character." "And so whoever is behind Odin or Zeus is obviously a person, or a divine entity, which is shared by these cultures." "And it's clear that whoever inspired the myth of Zeus or" "Odin is somehow somebody who had an extremely important contribution to make to both civilizations." "So this entity was definitely known throughout Europe." "NARRATOR:" "Ancient alien theorists also point to similarities between the sophisticated weapons possessed by both the Norse and the Greek gods." "Among Odin's weapons was a spear that never missed its target." "The Norse god Thor, god of storms, strength and fertility, wielded a powerful hammer." "TSOUKALOS:" "Right there we have a correlation, a connection, because not only does Zeus have the thunderbolt, but what does Odin have?" "And Thor?" "They have a hammer." "Thor has a hammer with which he can smash things, destroy things, and, you know, the hammer idea is pretty close with the description to the lightning rod that Zeus has." "CHILDRESS:" "So you have to wonder if these tales of Zeus's thunderbolts, Thor's hammer... if these weren't real weapons, just like we have today, where we have directed energy-beam weapons, or are developing some" "kind of literal thunderbolt coming out of a spacecraft." "(weapons zapping)" "(wind whistling)" "NARRATOR:" "But such similarities are not limited to the Greek and Norse myths." "In India, the ancient epic of the Mahabharata describes visitations from gods that possessed the advanced technology of space travel." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "There you can read, some thousands of years ago, gigantic cities surrounded our planet." "They used the word "cities,"" "because they had no word for" ""mother spaceship."" "And of a sudden, out of these cities, smaller spacecrafts came out." "Of course, in ancient India, they had no word like" ""spacecraft," so they called it" ""vimana."" "NARRATOR:" "The ancient texts of the Hebrew Bible also describes a prophet who traveled the skies in a sophisticated machine." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "Who is Enoch?" "He was the seventh antediluvian prophet in the Old Testament, including the Torah of the" "Jewish community." "Enoch is only described with two phrases, that's all." "And it says that the Lord took him away in a fiery chariot into the heaven." "NARRATOR:" "But technology was not the only characteristic these ancient deities had in common." "According to legends, the gods enjoyed intimate relations with humans." "But if aliens did choose human women as their sexual partners, what was their motivation?" "And just what was the outcome of these very close encounters?" "NARRATOR:" "Ancient myths are full of stories of gods descending to Earth to mate with humans." "CHILDRESS:" "According to many sources, including Norse mythology, Greek mythology and even the Bible, we have the stories of the sons of god, or actual gods, from Mount" "Olympus or Valhalla, and they're coming to Earth." "They find, uh, the daughters of men attractive." "TSOUKALOS:" "When all these encounters happened, and when women slept with those gods... which can be found in multiple texts all around the planet... that those women actually had sex with extraterrestrials, not with gods." "'Cause gods do not exist." "(thunder crashing, rumbling)" "NARRATOR:" "According to" "Homer's Iliad, the citizens of" "Sparta were renowned for their heroic warriors and their beautiful women." "Zeus, the Greek god of the sky, admired a human named Leda." "One afternoon, while Leda walked alone in an orchard, Zeus changed into a swan, enveloped her in his powerful wings, and made love to her." "Only later did Leda realize she had been impregnated by a god." "CHILDRESS:" "When you look at" "Greek mythology, and many of the mythologies around the world, they have these stories of gods coming down from the sky, and have sexual intercourse with these humans, and, in a sense, create a new breed of" "human." "NARRATOR:" "The offspring of these couplings were described by the ancients as demigods, or half-gods." "Experts suggest demigods were supernatural hybrid beings of human and alien origin." "Ancient Greeks believed these beings were exceptional... and destined to perform extraordinary feats." "COPPENS:" "It is a tradition in many civilizations that there were certain human children who were somehow not human, but somehow had a connection to the stars, to a realm beyond Earth." "And this specialness seems to be there from birth, and it somehow seems to involve a DNA component, which maybe science needs to look at, and needs to study." "NARRATOR:" "Some of the oldest accounts of gods and humans interbreeding can be found in ancient Hindu texts." "CREMO:" "In the ancient" "Sanskrit writings of India, we find this account:" "A Queen named Kunti mated with a celestial being, an extraterrestrial, who was known as the sun god." "The product of this mating was" "Karna, one of the heroes of the" "Indian epic, the Mahabharata." "NARRATOR:" "Perhaps the most famous demigod is the Greek hero Heracles, also known as the Roman Hercules." "Heracles was half-man/half-god, conceived in the union of Zeus and a mortal woman named" "Alcmene." "Mainstream scholars have often dismissed the tales of demigods as fantasy." "(thunder crashing)" "But ancient astronaut theorists believe they reflect actual living entities." "CREMO:" "These types of accounts in the ancient wisdom traditions have a modern equivalent in accounts of alien terrestrial hybrids, which is part of the modern UFO alien abduction type of account." "It's remarkable that we find, in these modern reports, exact equivalents in the ancient accounts." "That suggests that we're dealing with realities here." "We're not just dealing with imaginary stories." "NARRATOR:" "Ancient astronaut theorists say the term "star children" is another way to describe the offspring of humans and ancient extraterrestrials." "They claim that in the early traditions of nearly every major world religion," ""star children" correlate to supernatural beings known as" ""gods."" "TSOUKALOS: "Star child" is an often-used reference in ancient texts when a woman had a quote, unquote "divine interaction" with one of the gods, often resulting in a woman being pregnant without having slept with anyone." "You know, is such a thing even possible?" "Yes, it is." "Today, artificial insemination." "That's what happens today." "You no longer have to have sex in order to have babies." "We have the exact same description thousands of years ago, where women, without sleeping with anyone, all of a sudden became pregnant, and the question is how is that possible?" "NARRATOR:" "Did aliens that came to Earth in ancient times use advanced fertility technology?" "CHILDRESS:" "Within Greek mythology you have many strange stories of centaurs, uh... cyclops, weird genetic half human, uh, half animal creations." "And you have to speculate, at least to a point, that there's a possibility of strange genetic engineering going on here, and creating what are literal monsters in the past." "CREMO:" "In some of the writings of ancient civilizations, we see accounts of mating between extraterrestrial beings and humans, producing monsters or giants or other similar types of beings." "And why is that?" "I believe it's because it has actually happened in the past." "NARRATOR:" "Could these ancient tales of enormous creatures... half human, half beast... be rooted in truth?" "And if so, is there any evidence these giant hybrids really existed?" "NARRATOR:" "Lovelock, Nevada." "In the early 1800s, local legends passed down by the Piute" "Indians told of a race of giants who were exterminated by their tribe." "It is said this was done by trapping the giants in a cave, shooting arrows at them, and then starting a large fire at the mouth of the cave." "Evidence of the slaughter lay undisturbed until the early 20th century." "CHILDRESS:" "Lovelock Cave was first discovered by local ranchers who were looking for bat guano to use in their fields." "NARRATOR:" "In need of fertilizer for their crops, the ranchers removed nearly ten feet of guano-enriched soil from the surface of the cave." "CHILDRESS:" "And then they began finding human remains." "They found up to 40 or 50 people inside this cave." "One was allegedly seven feet, seven inches tall." "They all had long, red hair and were literal giants." "NARRATOR:" "If these skeletons were the remains of the legendary red-haired giants, were they visitors from distant continents?" "CHILDRESS:" "Throughout the 19th century, many giant skeletons were allegedly discovered in the Midwest, also in parts of California and around Death Valley." "And the skeletons here, found at" "Lovelock, are one of the few that were really excavated by an accredited university." "NARRATOR:" "Archaeologists from the Nevada Historical Society and the University of" "California believe the cave was occupied from approximately" "1500 BC until a few hundred years before white men appeared in the Nevada territory." "75 miles from the cave site, a local museum has preserved several skulls that some believe are recovered remains of the giants." "CHILDRESS:" "Inside this cabinet here, are three skulls from the Lovelock caves." "When you first see these skulls, they seem to be pretty much normal-looking skulls." "However, it's when we really start to compare the jawbones with this modern dental impression of a normal adult male, that we see that these jawbones are unusually large." "And these are, really, the skulls of giant people who were perhaps seven, even eight feet tall." "One of the odd things with these skulls is that they're not actually put on display here at the museum." "And they're kept hidden in this cabinet." "Now, we don't know if that's really, uh, just out of, um, respect for, uh, Native" "Americans, or whether there's really something unusual about these giant skulls that they don't want them to display." "NARRATOR:" "Are the Nevada bones evidence of a race of giants that existed all through early human history?" "If so, could the giants be the descendants of extraterrestrials?" "According to the Hebrew" "Testament, one such giant appeared in the valley of Elah" "2,500 years ago." "Each morning, for 40 days, a" "Philistine giant over nine feet tall challenged the Israelites to a fight." "His name was Goliath." "COPPENS:" "David and Goliath is one of those episodes in the Bible where you wonder what is going on." "Is it just a metaphor or are we dealing with a fundamental interpretation?" "And in that sense, Goliath has to be a giant creature." "The question then is: "He cannot be human." "What is he?"" "NARRATOR:" "David's stunning triumph over Goliath was considered a mere fable, until archaeologists turned up evidence that suggests this confrontation really did happen." "On the outskirts of" "Tell Es-Safi, Israel, scientists discovered a moat that may have once protected the Philistine fortress." "Nearby, they found shards of pottery inscribed with the name" "Goliath." "Tests indicate the pottery is from the same time period as described in the Bible." "Ancient astronaut theorists claim this is unmistakable evidence of extraterrestrial giants in biblical times." "And they say there is much more." "The most common megalithic construction known is the dolmen." "Believed to be burial chambers, they are found throughout" "Europe, the Middle East, South" "America, and Asia." "Could these mega structures be the ruins of giants?" "COPPENS:" "Archaeology likes to use the word "dolmen," but they were formerly known in folklore as "giants' graves."" "FATHER WILLIAM FULCO:" "A dolmen is shaped like the Greek letter "pi" with the top on it." "And they're made of enormous blocks of limestone." "And even today, it's..." "We are marveled that anyone could construct those things, and wonder how they got the top on top of the uprights." "And those were built during the" "Middle Bronze Period, which is roughly 2000 to 1500 before the common era." "So seeing things like that, people questioned, those must've been made by giants." "I mean, ordinary people could not have done that." "COPPENS:" "Are we dealing with metaphors or are we dealing with hard evidence?" "Are these physical creatures which somehow roamed the earth?" "And I think, on volume, we have to accept that some of these were real." "The question, then, is how did these genetic freaks come about?" "TSOUKALOS:" "One of the main tenets of ancient astronaut theory suggests that a long time ago, extraterrestrials changed our genetic makeup through a targeted mutation of our genes, essentially in the lab." "So they took a couple of human beings, altered their DNA, then reinserted those people back into the population, so through procreation, those people would pass on those new genetic alterations to the entire population." "NARRATOR:" "Ancient astronaut theorists suggest the evidence points to one conclusion, that aliens changed the genetics of early human DNA." "COPPENS:" "For an alien being to work with DNA is so easy that just creating a new type is not at all that difficult." "Even today, we have the capability to create new types of animals." "The question is, were we created as such, as well?" "NARRATOR:" "But what reason could extraterrestrial visitors have had for populating the" "Earth with mixed species and monstrous hybrids?" "Were they the result of some kind of scientific experiment gone terribly wrong?" "Did ancient aliens have some reason to experiment with human" "DNA?" "NARRATOR:" "The Galapagos" "Islands, off the coast of South" "America, are known for their unique biodiversity." "In 1832, a naturalist named" "Charles Darwin came to these islands to observe and record several species of animals not seen before." "The result of his studies formed the basis for his controversial book, The Origin of Species." "In it, Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, which held that all life evolved over time, through a process of natural selection." "But even Darwin's theories could not explain the developmental gap between apes and man." "There was, it was believed, a transitional species that had to exist, one which became referred to as, "the missing link."" "TSOUKALOS:" "Homo sapiens have been around for 300,000 years." "And only in a few thousand years, our brain size essentially tripled." "Now, that does not jive with ordinary evolution." "You need time." "A very long time." "However, today, biologists cannot quite put a finger on how our brain volume tripled in a very short time period." "That is still a mystery." "NARRATOR:" "Could it be, as many ancient astronaut theorists believe, that ancient aliens had a hand in jump-starting human evolution on our planet?" "COPPENS:" "Science has been unable to find the missing link, and maybe that's simply because" "Earth is unable to offer that missing link." "Maybe the missing link is not of this Earth." "Maybe the missing link is somewhere outside, extraterrestrial." "NARRATOR:" "In 1996, medical science took a giant step forward when geneticists successfully cloned a sheep." "This revolutionary technology marked a significant advancement in our understanding of DNA." "But could extraterrestrial visitors have also possessed knowledge of genetics?" "MARTELL:" "In the Sumerian records of mythology, they explain how they genetically engineered the first human being." "And so, it's very possible that extraterrestrials did genetically engineer us." "COPPENS:" "More and more creatures are being discovered, as science goes along, in little caves, or on little islands, whereby DNA evidence clearly shows that something else has been happening." "We're probably gonna get to hard scientific fact that something interbred with humans, on certain occasions, certain moments in time." "NARRATOR:" "Could the giants and monsters described in the ancient myths be examples of genetic mutations?" "And if so, what purpose might they have served?" "CREMO:" "There are actually accounts in the ancient" "Sanskrit writings of India of how, in their original attempts to produce... living things in the universe, the gods, or the extraterrestrial beings, made mistakes and produced different types of monsters and giants and things like that." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "Why should the so-called "gods" first make such mixed creatures?" "What's the purpose of it?" "Did they observe a lion, and they say to themself, "Why don't we mix the strongness of the muscle of the one animal with the heat expellant, uh, skin of the other animal, to use it at" "some other planet, which is different to Earth?"" "So they start to make breedings." "They start to make mixed creatures." "NARRATOR:" "Scholars and archaeologists generally agree that sometime around 3000 BC, during the Megalithic Era, mankind took a quantum leap forward with regard to civilization and use of technology." "According to myths and legends, human beings gave credit to their gods for giving them this knowledge." "But if the gods were, in fact, alien visitors, might mankind's quantum leap forward have had a more intergalactic origin?" "COPPENS:" "It is clear that something affected multiple continents on this planet around 3000 BC." "The pyramids began to be built at that moment in time." "Why?" "What was that imperative?" "Was it a global imperative?" "Yes." "Was it an imperative which came from outside of this world?" "Yes." "NARRATOR:" "If aliens intervened to speed the advancement of human beings, is it also possible that they have influenced mankind at other critical junctures in history?" "And, if so, could they have continued to monitor us, even today?" "MARTELL:" "It's very possible that, if there was some type of genetic intervention, by an extraterrestrial race, on humanity, they would be very interested to see their experiment progress." "VON DÄNIKEN:" "I am often asked the question, "Is it not ridiculous to believe that extraterrestrials should, in a way or other, look similar to us, or even think similar to us?"" "No." "The question is wrong." "They are not, by coincidence, similar to us, but we are similar to them, because we are the product." "NARRATOR:" "But if alien beings did interbreed with humans, why?" "Was it to save their own species?" "Or, perhaps, hide the genetic traces of their presence here on Earth?" "Could there even be aliens living among us?" "Captioning sponsored by" "AE TELEVISION NETWORKS"