"NARRATOR:" "Highly advanced humans living thousands of years ago... unidentified DNA in the human genome... and ancient chronicles describing heavenly interventions on Earth." "Did humans really evolve from apes?" "Or is our intelligence the result of an otherworldly design?" "LINDA MOULTON HOWE:" "What are humans made of?" "Why do we evolve the way we do, grow the way we do, think the way we do?" "PHIL IMBROGNO:" "There's no explanation for human beings." "They shouldn't be here on this planet." "NICK REDFERN:" "Science and the world of history, even in archeology, is still scrambling around for answers." "GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:" "We should finally come to grips with the idea that extraterrestrials had something to do with our development." "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, might evidence of alien contact help to unlock the mystery behind the creation of man?" "NARRATOR:" "South Africa." "25 miles northwest of" "Johannesburg lie the" "Malapa Caves." "Here, in August of 2008, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and his nine-year-old son" "Mathew discover several fossilized skeletal remains of two-million-year-old early humans, including a female adult and male child, perhaps a mother and son." "The size and shape of the bones indicate that the individuals walked upright and had modern hands." "Over the past several decades, scientists have unearthed the remains of nearly two dozen different types of early human ancestors, all known as hominids." "LAN TATTERSALL:" "We have an extremely good fossil record of ancient hominids, and" "I think the picture emerging from it is pretty clear that in earlier days, before Homo sapiens came along, there were typically many different kinds of hominids coexisting in the world." "CRAIG STANFORD:" "We have a hard time getting our minds around this now because, of course, there's just one kind of human on Earth today and there's seven billion of us, but at one time, within the last few" "hundred-thousand years, you could find two or even three species of hominid living in the same area at the same time." "NARRATOR:" "Most mainstream scholars tell us hominids evolved from an ape ancestor nearly six million years ago through what is referred to as natural selection." "This theory of evolution was first popularized by English anthropologist Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species." "TATTERSALL:" "Darwin's mechanism of evolution was natural selection." "That is to say a long-term process whereby better-adapted individuals reproduce more successfully." "FIORELLA TERENZI:" "Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection explain that organism with certain traits, such as mutation, turn out to be actually beneficial, turn out to be of advantage in the struggle for reproduction." "So mutation allow organism to survive and to pass on to the next generation these mutation." "NARRATOR:" "Darwin speculated that over time, hominids walking on two feet used their hands to make tools." "This, in turn, made them smarter." "Then, approximately 200,000 years ago, hominids evolved into" "Homo sapiens... or modern man." "But many scholars dispute" "Darwin's findings." "REDFERN:" "We don't see dolphins building cars." "We don't see elephants building houses." "That might sound trite, but it's a fact that these animals just simply haven't progressed and advanced in the way we have." "And the big question is, why is that?" "Why should that happen?" "Why should we be so unique?" "STANFORD:" "Tool use doesn't really come into play for several million years after the first earliest humans began to walk upright." "And then brain size doesn't really begin to expand and really mushroom in size until the last several hundred thousand years." "So, actually six million years of human evolution, there are millions of years separating each of those major features:" "upright posture, tool use, brain expansion." "So Darwin was wrong because he couldn't possibly have known the chronology in his day." "NARRATOR:" "In 1967, British zoologist Desmond Morris argued against Darwin's theories on evolution in his book" "The Naked Ape." "In it, Morris wrote that there was no reason why man stood alone from other species in terms of his nudity." "TATTERSALL:" "Well, of course, as Homo sapiens we still continue to have a coating of hair, but that hair is very much reduced over most of our bodies, and that reduction probably goes back way beyond" "Homo sapiens in time." "It probably goes back to the time when the very first early bipedal hominids came out of the forests in Africa into the savannahs where they had more sun and more thermal radiation to cope with." "STANFORD:" "In places like" "Europe, Northern Europe, why we lost body hair is the chicken and egg question." "Did we lose our body hair because we began to wear clothing to keep us warm or was there some other factor at work that caused us to lose our body hair?" "Perhaps women didn't find body hair on men attractive, and so it was lost because they didn't choose those men as mates." "There's no way to ever answer that question." "TSOUKALOS: if we were to subscribe 100% to the idea of survival of the fittest, isn't it illogical to think that all of a sudden we're completely naked and we're losing all of our fur?" "I mean, that makes absolutely no sense because right after we shed our fur, we had to wear furs to keep warm." "Had we not worn any furs, we would have frozen to death, we would have died." "So the whole idea that we shed all of our hair in order to survive because we were stronger, logically makes no sense." "NARRATOR:" "But if Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot account for the appearance of intelligent hairless Homo sapiens, what can?" "Might the transition of hominids to modern human beings have been the result of an otherworldly design, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "Alfred Russel Wallace, a colleague of Darwin, called it the intelligence evolution." "TATTERSALL:" "Darwin believed that the human brain had been driven into existence by natural selection, but Wallace couldn't quite see how this could be so." "What Wallace perceived was that the way that humans think, their intellectual faculties are qualitatively different from anything that had preceded them, and he couldn't quite see how this enormous gap could be bridged by natural selection." "So he invoked another explanation for the evolution, the arrival of modern human cognitive abilities." "His choice was a spiritual explanation." "DAVID CHILDRESS:" "Alfred believed there was an unseen creative spirit that was behind all life on our planet." "And he believed that this unseen creative spirit had interceded three times in this planet." "The first was to create life from inorganic matter." "And then the second time was when animals achieved some kind of consciousness." "And the third time was when humans suddenly were able to have the mental abilities that we have today." "But he felt that it wasn't just random selection like Charles" "Darwin thought." "He believed that all of these changes had a creative intelligence behind it." "REDFERN:" "The view that I have is that because the rest of nature hasn't changed that much, that arguably, we shouldn't." "So that suggests to me we're seeing something potentially that has gone against nature, and if it's gone against nature, maybe that means because somebody has been manipulating nature." "IMBROGNO:" "There's no explanation for human beings." "They shouldn't be here on this planet." "If we were evolved and changed by an extraterrestrial source from our early primate ancestors, that's the only way really you can account for the human species, unless you of course, put God in the equation." "And who knows who the gods may have been." "GEORGE NOORY:" "Charles Darwin might be rolling over in his grave right now, but it's very possible that mankind came about because of extraterrestrial intervention." "NARRATOR:" "Did the evolution of modern humans really receive a jump start by extraterrestrial beings, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "And, if so, might there be tangible evidence?" "Some scientists believe proof can be found... inside the human brain." "NARRATOR:" "Chicago, Illinois." "December 2004." "Researchers at the Howard Hughes" "Medical institute of the" "University of Chicago publish the results of a study that claims the sophistication of the human brain was the result of a so-called special event." "They said mankind's intelligence was not only the result of evolution, and that around" "50,000 years ago, the genes of ancient humans went through an intense amount of change in a relatively short amount of time... what some refer to as the big bang of the brain." "IMBROGNO:" "No one really knows how human beings developed so fast in such a short period of time." "I don't believe it was done naturally." "TATTERSALL: it's very clear that fully modern intellectual function is a very recent acquisition in our lineage." "It's not an improvement upon what was there before." "It's a new kind of manipulation of information in the mind." "HOWE:" "There's no other animal creature on the planet that has such a comparative point, and that's why they call it the" "Big Brain Event." "REDFERN:" "People talk about the missing link." "Where is the link between going from apes, monkeys, gorillas, etcetera, to being able to develop atomic weaponry and fly in space?" "PHILIP COPPENS:" "When we're looking at the origins of man, we realize that 50,000 years ago, we really went where no creature on Earth had gone before." "We have become human." "NARRATOR:" "But what was the spark that spurred human intelligence?" "Was it a genetic mutation brought about by the natural selection process of evolution, as many mainstream scientists contend?" "Or could it have been a genetic modification produced by extraterrestrial beings, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "STANFORD:" "There is the idea that there was a gene or genes that popped up sometime in our ancestors randomly, that may have given us the ability to symbolically represent objects in our environment or be abstract." "Those are things that, for instance, chimpanzees have a great deal of trouble with, even when they're taught language." "TATTERSALL:" "Homo sapiens emerging from Africa started to behave symbolically." "They started to manipulate information in their mind in a way in which their predecessors had never done before." "They disassembled the world around them into a vocabulary of discreet symbols, and recombined them so they could imagine new kinds of worlds." "ERICH VON DANIKEN:" "Long, long time ago, extraterrestrials arrived on this planet." "They realized that the planet was full of life, and one of them was the most advanced form, was one of our ancestors." "They took the DNA out, and then, changed the basic information in the DNA." "This is what our genetics are doing every day." "Now the cell was changed." "The product you plant into the womb of a female of the same species." "This female will give birth to a child approximately after nine months, but because of this artificial mutation, that's different, because it was made artificially by the extraterrestrials." "BILL BIRNES:" "What if, as part of the genetic updates human beings were getting from extraterrestrials, one of those genetic updates involved a software download, a biological download to differentiate the different hemispheres of the brain to allow human society" "toolmaking, fire, social organization to be created, and from that, that particular species of hominid became the human being we are today?" "DR. LYLE ARMSTRONG: if alien species out there could fly across interstellar space, then in all probability, they would have similar DNA recombinant technology." "Of course, it would depend on their own genetic composition being similar to ours." "But if they understood sufficient chemistry and physical principles from their own experience of the physical world model, then in all probability, manipulating our" "DNA would be simple." "NARRATOR:" "But if alien beings created humans by genetically altering our primitive ancestors, might various versions of hominids have been the result of experiments at creating intelligent life on" "Earth, as ancient astronaut theorists contend?" "COPPENS:" "This is one of the greatest unanswered questions." "The ancient records do not say that we are part of a social experiment." "The ancient records say that we were bestowed upon this gift." "The gods gave us the gift of intellect." "And it is for us to use it." "So yes, we might actually be part of an experiment, but it might be an experiment in intelligence." "It might actually be a game, a kind of the greatest reality TV show, whereby the entire human species is watched by ancient aliens who have been watching the show for maybe 50,000 years." "TSOUKALOS:" "Fox P2 is a gene that was found in our nucleotides, and it is something that sets us completely apart from any other animal." "And scientists have suggested that that gene alone is responsible for language." "And there is absolutely no evidence of origin or that this thing somehow mutated from the animal kingdom towards us." "So this gene exists out of nowhere without any origin." "So my question is, is it possible that this gene was given to us, or grafted into us, by extraterrestrials in the remote past?" "And the answer is yes." "HOWE:" "Was it the same nonhuman ancient aliens of so many ancient settlements on this planet deciding that they wanted humans to be able to communicate at a more sophisticated level?" "I think that's the fundamental angst today among people trying to understand who are we in relationship to extraterrestrials that may have been manipulating DNA on this planet for thousands of years." "NARRATOR:" "Might the evidence of our alien origins really have been passed down to us implanted in our genetic code, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "Perhaps further evidence can be found, not by scientists, but by religious scholars, that claim Adam and Eve really did exist." "NARRATOR:" "The Hebrew Bible." "In it, the Book of Genesis describes how God created the first two humans, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden and told them to "go forth and multiply."" "For centuries, scientists and theologians have debated whether this story of the Creation of" "Man was mere myth or historical fact." "JONATHAN YOUNG:" "The Torah mentions that humanity is made out of the dust of the Earth, and that God breathed life into this to make us animated." "Here is the breath of soul, the breath of vitality, the divine breath, which suggests that the spark, the life force that makes a human body tick is divine in its nature." "NARRATOR:" "In 1987, scholarly disagreements over the Origin of" "Man intensified with the discovery that the genetic lineage of every living person could be traced back to a single woman who once lived in Africa." "TATTERSALL: it is pretty well established by now, particularly from the molecular, the DNA record, that Homo sapiens did originate at one place in Africa and after having become fully modern in the sense of intellectually modern, spread" "out to occupy Europe, to occupy eastern Asia and the old world in general." "STANFORD: it's sometimes called the Eve model, not meaning that we're all descended from the same woman, but it does mean that there was a woman in that early human population migrating out of Africa, who was" "the only female who ultimately left her genes in every modern person." "NARRATOR:" "But is it possible that mainstream science, and the Book of Genesis, are both pointing to the same moment in ancient time, when modern man first appeared on Earth?" "NOORY:" "The myth of Adam and" "Eve, I think, is not a myth." "I think it's a true story." "I think Adam and Eve were on this planet." "They were the first human beings that we know of." "And they helped populate this planet." "What is the Garden of Eden?" "I think it just happened to be the area that the genetically manipulated human being, Adam and Eve, were placed." "That's where they lived." "That's where they started to breed." "And that's where the populations of the planet started to grow." "NARRATOR: if Adam and Eve actually had existed, as described in the Hebrew Bible, might this also mean that a serpent really did tempt them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge?" "And, if so, might this account have been an effort to describe the sudden awakening of the modern human mind, when man first became an intelligent being?" "PETER FIEBAG (translated):" "In the Bible it says that if you eat from this tree you will be like God." "Satan, in the form of a snake, tempts Adam and Eve and promises them that they will be like God." "The knowledge that Adam and Eve acquire, as well as humanity in general, gives man the ability to eventually carry out genetic manipulations." "CHILDRESS:" "So what was this" "Tree of Knowledge?" "Is the Tree of Knowledge in fact the helical DNA sequencing in our own bodies... that was genetically engineered by extraterrestrials 50,000 years ago, so that we would have the abilities that we have today?" "In my mind, it's our DNA itself that is the Tree of Knowledge." "But why was this suddenly a bad thing?" "It would seem that the aliens... some of them wanted us to have this knowledge, to be like the gods, but others said no, no." "Man is not to have all of this knowledge." "This is also the same story of the Greek god Prometheus, who, against the orders of the other gods, comes down to Earth and gives mankind the knowledge of fire." "But because of this gift to mankind, he himself, as a god, is, like Satan, he's banished from the Earth." "And why?" "Because he helped mankind to have greater knowledge." "TSOUKALOS:" "The whole idea or concept of Satan is based on a misunderstood visit by extraterrestrials in the remote past." "According to the ancient astronaut theory, the reason why we have the idea of a Satan today is because there might have been some type of a mutiny between good and bad extraterrestrial factions in the remote past." "And so the mutineers were cast out by the commander and they became known as the evil fallen angels, which they never were." "NARRATOR: if, as ancient astronaut theorists believe, extraterrestrials were responsible for providing humans with intelligence, might they have also given man the ability to speak?" "IMBROGNO:" "Our voice box, our larynx is so different than the apes... even the chimpanzee who's our closest cousin... that we're able to produce sounds and produce language." "To a scientist today that's almost like it was genetically designed so that we can say words and sing." "REDFERN:" "There really isn't anything more advanced than the human language... so many different cultures, dialects, languages around the world." "And the very fact that we can communicate on such a deep, extensive level... that really sets us apart from all other animals." "Who invented language?" "Where did that come from?" "Was that something instilled in us?" "I think these are mysteries that, to a large degree, science and the world of history, even in archeology, are still scrambling around for answers." "Maybe we shouldn't be looking down here for answers." "Maybe we should be looking up there." "COPPENS:" "We are told, in the" "Bible, that we are made into the image of God." "What does that mean?" "Does it mean that we were made physically in somebody's image?" "And so therefore, the question namely whether we are descended from apes and other creatures on this planet, or whether we truly have been engineered, can be answered by mythology." "Mythology is able to say that we are not descending from the ape, but that something happened on this Earth and an alien intervention came and we were the end result of this." "ERICH VON DANIKEN:" "In my opinion, the extraterrestrials, by an artificial mutation, they created the intelligence of humans." "Then the extraterrestrial disappeared." "And some of our ancestors had, again, sex with their ancestor, with ape-like beings." "And that was called into mythology, "original sin."" "Then they return again, the gods, they realized what happened... (thunder booming) ...and they decided to destroy the whole race by a great flood, and to restart the experiment again with what we call" "in mythology, Noah." "That's all text." "That's the way it is." "CHILDRESS: it would appear that extraterrestrials came here, used great apes, other early hominids, created what would be Neanderthal man, or" "Homo erectus, somebody similar to us, and then refined that hominid until they came up with" "Homo sapien... and then the other early hominids were destroyed." "NARRATOR:" "Might the biblical account of Adam and Eve and" "Noah's Ark really be the retelling of extraterrestrial events, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "Perhaps further evidence can be found in the archeological remnants and eyewitness accounts from man's earliest known civilization." "NARRATOR:" "Northern Iraq." "Along the east bank of the" "Tigris River, opposite the city of Mosul, lie the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh, a place originally inhabited by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia." "Here, in 1842, British archaeologist Austen Henry" "Layard unearthed the ruins of the great library of" "Assurbanipal, a royal archive containing thousands of clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions." "Dating to 3000 BC, the messages carved into stone are considered to be the world's first written accounts." "IMBROGNO:" "Sumerian tablets are probably one of the oldest form of a written record that we have." "They've been translated, and they tell exciting stories about how gods intermingled with human beings and actually had a hand in the creation of human beings." "Whether or not it's just mythology or if it's fact, no one really knows." "NARRATOR:" "According to interpretations of the Sumerian tablets, the gods were called the Anunnaki." "JASON MARTELL:" "What we're looking at here is a Sumerian tablet that actually shows the" "Tree of Life flanked by divine beings." "You can see here the Anunnaki on each side." "We also see the winged disc, a symbolic reference that the" "Anunnaki had the power of flight." "They actually had necklaces with astronomical references... a moon, a star, various symbols, which even could be symbolized as a wristwatch... technology being used 6,000 years ago." "NARRATOR:" "The written accounts etched into stone suggest the Annunaki were giant beings, standing eight feet tall, who came to Earth in search of gold for their home planet." "MARTELL:" "When the Sumerian gods, the Anunnaki, realized the toll it was taking to mine the gold themselves, they decided to fashion a worker being, a slave to mine the gold for them." "And they explain in the Sumerian creation tales that this was an arduous process." "So it's very possible that our genetic evolution was a process done by the Anunnaki to create us in their image and after their likeness." "NOORY:" "They created man according to the Sumerian texts." "They created Adam and Eve." "How interesting that the Bible will echo the story... but talk about it in terms of God." "REDFERN: it's almost like these highly advanced creatures were acting as teachers." "And certainly, Sumerian culture and mythology is full of stories of, you know, receiving visitations from these mysterious higher entities that, you know, bestowed wisdom, and fantastic ideas and concepts." "And, you know, you have to wonder... is this just down to myth, or was somebody coming down and really trying to give us a push, if you like?" "NARRATOR:" "Ancient chronicles of sky beings creating human life are common in early cultures found all over the world." "But while mainstream scholars often dismiss this evidence, might such tangible historical accounts provide proof of alien intervention in man's evolution, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "TSOUKALOS:" "The Sumerians are not the only culture that talks about this." "Also in the Koran, it says that language was given to us by" "Allah, or God." "The Maya Popol Vuh says that language was given to us by the gods." "The ancient Egyptian texts are saying the exact same thing." "It doesn't matter what ancient culture we look at, they all say the same, that language was a gift from the gods." "We should finally come to grips with the idea that extraterrestrials had something to do with our development." "NARRATOR:" "Prior to the use of early systems of writing, ancient people carved symbolic communication into stone." "Called petroglyphs, the oldest date to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago." "According to ancient astronaut theorists, petroglyphs located in the American Southwest link the prehistoric ancestors of the" "Zuni and Hopi tribes with star beings." "FIEBAG (translated):" "The first graphic expressions by humans were petroglyphs." "That means symbols or figures scratched into stone." "The Hopi Indians, for example, scratched petroglyphs into their rock faces that show people with radiating wreaths, gods that descend from the sky." "The Hopi Indians say that these beings are Kachinas... beings from space who came to" "Earth in aircraft, who were not gods, but who brought them knowledge from another planet." "We have the same phenomenon in" "Europe, in Valcamonica." "We have it in Asia." "We have it in Brazil." "REDFERN:" "When we look at the fact that all around the world we hear similar legends of people from the stars coming down and having a profound impact on the people of this country or that particular culture, all embroiled in" "similar time frames, you know, we're seeing a pattern developing, and it's difficult to dismiss that that pattern is suggestive." "In our ancient past, creatures came down, interacted with us, and maybe manipulated us to become the people we are today." "NOORY:" "Why are so many past civilizations all saying similar things?" "I think the simple answer is, is that the same thing happened and they know the story." "And the story is that extraterrestrials came to this planet, genetically made and manipulated whatever creatures were here at the time, and helped jump-start society." "The bottom line is, every civilization talks about the existence of man through the eyes of a god, and if you think of the eyes of the god as" "ETs, it all makes sense." "REDFERN:" "Back then, this was the way they communicated events that were significant to them." "And so when we have this imagery of the so-called star people on petroglyphs and things like that, they're clearly chronicling something real, to my mind at least, that occurred in their history." "The big question is, what?" "NARRATOR:" "But while the evidence of contact between alien beings and early humans is compelling, what if life did not begin here on Earth, but arrived from somewhere else?" "NARRATOR:" "Huntsville," "Alabama." "NASA's Marshall Space Flight" "Center." "Here, in March of 2011, astrobiologist Richard Hoover reports the extraordinary news that he found microfossil organisms... or ancient bacteria... inside rare meteorites that are more than four billion years old, dating back to the birth of our solar" "system." "Until recently, scientists did not believe life could survive the rigors of space travel." "But Hoover's finding suggests that live bacteria made it to" "Earth and may have even taken root here." "TERENZI:" "Microorganism trapped inside comets can survive the travel through interplanetary space and interstellar space." "And the reason is that the microorganism are trapped in the rocky core." "Around, you have a thick shield of icy material." "And on top, you have a stratification of dust." "Dust is highly effective in shielding the microorganism from ultraviolet light." "So comet are an excellent vehicle to transport microorganism, single-cell life, amino acid in the vastness of space." "REDFERN: instead of aliens coming to the Earth in UFOs in classic Hollywood terms, a microbial piece of life comes to the Earth, say on a meteorite, survives entry into our atmosphere, crashes on the planet and begins to thrive." "NARRATOR:" "The theory that life on Earth began with alien organisms landing here from other parts of the universe is controversial." "Called panspermia, one of the most vocal proponents of this theory was Sir Francis Crick, a" "British scientist who codiscovered DNA in 1953." "FIEBAG (translated):" "Francis" "Crick, codiscoverer of the double helix in cells, said that all this can't happen by chance, but has to have been engineered." "One of his arguments is that the rotation of the DNA is in the same direction for all living things." "Had DNA developed on Earth, it would probably have had a 50-50 distribution, and that's exactly what we don't have." "NOORY:" "One of the reasons why" "I think the theory of panspermia is so incredible is that it tells you that there's life throughout the universe." "If panspermia is correct, life came here on comets or meteorites, and we're being seeded, not only on this planet, but other planets as well." "And it could be part of the great design." "BIRNES: it is the intentional... the deliberate... colonization of other planets, other worlds, by an intelligent race of beings using not flying saucers landing in the desert somewhere or in the middle of a city, but the best way to" "colonize a planet... you colonize it with your own DNA and let the" "DNA sprout into your own species." "REDFERN:" "In terms of our science and technology today, we have the ability to extract cells and DNA at a genetic level and save them." "That's how we have so-called test tube babies for couples who can't have babies." "We preserve the materials for when they need it." "And the day may well come when we send into outer space the equivalent of, like, Noah's Ark, but instead of sending literal animals, we send their essence... their DNA, their genetic makeup." "I don't rule out the idea that we could seed a whole new world." "NARRATOR:" "Today, scientists know that only about five percent of the DNA contained in our genes is used to reproduce human beings." "The remainder is an undecipherable code, once referred to as junk DNA." "But is it really possible that so much of our DNA is unnecessary?" "Or might the majority of our DNA be decoded sometime in the future?" "And when it is, what might our" "DNA reveal about the origin of modern man?" "TSOUKALOS:" "Just because we cannot decipher 95% of our genetic material doesn't necessarily mean that that 95% is, in fact, useless." "Nature is extremely efficient." "DNA is the most powerful storage device in the universe." "Not even with all the supercomputers combined in the world could we store as much information as we could store on DNA." "So I'm suggesting that the ultimate proof of extraterrestrial life will not be found in a crashed spaceship or in a text, but it will be found within our own genes." "CHILDRESS:" "We have so much to learn from studying our own DNA." "We're only just now beginning to decode the human DNA sequence." "And as we do that, what we may discover is that extraterrestrial DNA is built into our own genetics." "NOORY:" "Whatever is out there created the universe, this planet, and other planets and life." "And I strongly believe that this tie-in with whether gods and ETs were one of the same might very well be the case." "It does not take away from the fact that there's a god, that there's a higher power, that there's some creation out there that made the ETs, but I think that layer between God and man" "is right in the middle, and that's extraterrestrials from other planets." "VON DANIKEN:" "We have to learn that most of our knowledge in religion is wrong, except one thing: there is creation." "There is what we call God in all respect." "And we have to learn by religion we are very teeny, little beings in this gigantic universe and why God is absolutely unexpressible." "It's so gigantic." "It's so wonderful." "So we would never lose God when we continue to think of extraterrestrials." "God becomes bigger." "NARRATOR:" "Is it really possible that humans evolved from bacteria growing in some sort of primordial ooze?" "Or were we intelligently designed by a higher power... of extraterrestrial origin... as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "Perhaps the answer lies within the very essence of what makes us human." "And with this knowledge, we may yet discover our rightful place in the universe." "Captioning sponsored by" "AE TELEVISION NETWORKS" "Captioned by" "Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org"