"Sourced By:" "Deafdude" "A pattern of stars repeated in monuments throughout the ancient world..." "GARY DAVID:" "It's a global phenomenon." "There might be a celestial plan." "NARRATOR:" "Coordinates for a celestial constellation mapped out 7,000 years ago in sand and stone..." "JASON MARTELL:" "The builders clearly possessed some advanced knowledge of the constellations." "NARRATOR:" "And clues that long-lost civilizations may have had contact with travelers from this cluster of stars." "PHILIP COPPENS:" "Orion is so important to all of these ancient civilizations." "Somehow this is linked to where we came from and where we're going." "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 they have left behind signs revealing mankind's ultimate destination... in the constellation...of Orion?" "January 11th, 2006." "The Hubble Space Telescope captures a never-before-seen image of the Orion Nebula... a massive star formation 1,500 light-years from Earth." "The panoramic photo reveals more than 3,000 stars in various stages of life and gives researchers new insight into the formation of celestial objects and planetary systems." "According to modern scientists, it is here, in this mysterious cloud of dust and gas, that stars and planets may have been created billions of years ago." "SETH SHOSTAK:" "Astronomers usually refer to it as M42... not such a sexy name..." "but it's a stellar nursery." "It's where stars are being born." "And so this part of Orion gets a lot of study by astronomers." "THOMAS BROPHY:" "You have this rapid star-forming region." "You have these young stars, and very likely many, many young planets that also form out of that gas and dust that collapsed to make those stars in the Orion Nebula." "COPPENS:" "Now, stars being born obviously means that certain things are happening there on a level which we simply don't really understand." "NARRATOR:" "As seen from Earth, the Orion constellation is one of the most prominent star formations in the night sky, and has been revered by ancient cultures around the globe for thousands of years." "Named after the Greek demigod" "Orion in the 8th century B.C., when connected, the stars form the head, shoulders, belt and feet of a man." "SHOSTAK:" "Orion is probably one of the most recognizable constellations in the sky, maybe only second to the Big Dipper." "It's near the equator, and in the Northern Hemisphere it's visible in the winter." "It has a lot of bright stars and a big square that's the body of Orion." "DAVID:" "The three major stars in the constellation are" "Alnilam, Alnitak, and Mintaka." "These are the belt stars of Orion." "Most people recognize the constellation by these three stars right in a row." "NARRATOR:" "According to Greek mythology, Orion was a giant born with superhuman abilities, a mighty hunter who killed animals with an unbreakable bronze club." "When the Greek hero was eventually slain, he was placed among the stars for eternity." "SHOSTAK:" "His father was, in fact, Poseidon." "So he knew a lot about oceans, and Poseidon apparently taught" "Orion how to walk on water." "RICHARD RADER:" "There's another story about him being so big that when he walks through the ocean, his head and shoulders are above the ocean, so you get a sense of his size." "All of our astronomical bodies are named after major figures from Greek mythology." "We have these wonderful texts that describe stars and how it is that they got their names." "To write about the stars, to write about the heavens, to write about the bodies in space, is essentially to be talking about the realm of the gods." "ROBERT BAUVAL:" "Now the constellation of Orion in all traditions, and particularly the Egyptian tradition, is usually regarded as a striding man." "The Greeks saw him as a hunter, and many other cultures saw him as a giant." "COPPENS:" "Sometimes we have him depicted as smiting the enemy." "Sometimes he is trampling across a serpent." "But in each case we know that Orion is depicted as a human being." "RADER:" "It is entirely possible that a character like Orion was based on an actual human being, because we have to keep in mind that, for the" "Greeks, what they call "mythology" or "myth"... the mythic past... was just older than ancient history." "NARRATOR:" "Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that Orion was named for an actual flesh-and-blood being?" "Or might there be another, more profound reason this demigod and the stars that form his body were worshipped?" "Some researchers believe the answers can be found by looking at the origin stories of a civilization that thrived in the Nile River Valley more than" "2,000 years before the Greeks." "According to Egyptian mythology, the gods descended from the belt stars of Orion and Sirius, the brightest star in the sky." "BAUVAL:" "The ancient Egyptians believed that from Sirius and Orion came beings in the form of humans..." "Osiris and Isis... and instigated the human race." "Metaphorically, it very much matches what we know from astrophysics." "We know that we are the product of stars." "We're literally made of star stuff." "MICHAEL BARA:" "Sirius and Orion are critically important because they represent Isis and Osiris, the god and goddess from which all of Egyptian civilization and, ultimately, all of human civilization, supposedly sprang." "So to the ancient Egyptians, Osiris was Orion... that constellation actually was a literal living embodiment of the great god Osiris, who was always over our heads, always looking down upon us, and always judging us, because in the end" "he would be the guy that would decide whether we got eternal life or whether we were recycled back through the spiritual mulch and have to start all over again." "COPPENS:" "The ancient Egyptians were very clear that" "Orion was linked with creation, specifically magic creation." "And so if we accept what our ancestors were saying, mythology all of a sudden becomes more interesting, because all of a sudden we see the truth as to what Orion really stands for." "And it has all to do with creation, magical creation." "And creation in those days was linked with the gods." "ERICH VON DANIKEN:" "Orion and Osiris are the same in ancient Egypt." "The Egyptians believed that Osiris will return from Orion one day." "Every culture in antiquity had the knowledge of somebody who returns one day." "We are still expecting the return of someone." "NARRATOR:" "Are the creation stories of the Egyptians actually documentation of mankind's otherworldly origins, as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest?" "And if so, might they have left behind more evidence, perhaps written in stone?" "According to the pyramid texts..." "a collection of religious records carved into the walls of pyramids dating back to 2400 B.C.... the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Unas ruled for 30 years before making his final voyage to the star system Orion." "GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:" "Unas, who, according to the pyramid texts, apparently became great by eating the flesh of his mortal enemies and then slaying and devouring the gods themselves." "Some say that this was based on a belief in contiguous magic, whereby consuming the flesh of great people would bring inheritance of their powers." "After devouring the gods and absorbing their souls and powers, Unas journeyed through the sky to Orion." "NARRATOR:" "Might the writings in the pyramid texts actually be more than myth, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "And could the pharaoh Unas actually have traveled into space?" "If so, how?" "WILLIAM HENRY:" "When you listen to the ancient Egyptians, they clearly tell us that the purpose of the Great Pyramid was not as a tomb, but rather as a sort of a womb of transformation." "The pharaoh would enter into it as a man, and through the process of the technology that the pyramid is built for, the pharaoh is transformed into a god, so that now he is an ascended being who is capable of traveling into the stars, and" "also returning." "BAUVAL:" "They seem to have wanted to create a kind of an ancient launching pad, a sort of Cape Canaveral of the pharaohs." "The idea was to build the hardware in order to somehow get the soul of the king going to these stars." "NARRATOR:" "Is it possible that the pharaohs of ancient Egypt were able to travel back and forth to the stars of Orion by using the pyramids?" "According to ancient astronaut theorists, the proof can be found by examining an elaborate series of air shafts embedded within the Great Pyramid, air shafts that point directly to the stars of Orion and Sirius." "PATRICK FLANAGAN:" "There is definitely a lot of scientific data that has shown that the pyramid and the entire Giza" "Plateau, the alignments of the air shafts and the king's and the queen's chamber, are all pointing to Orion." "And so that may be a message to us that that's where these extraterrestrials were from." "DAVID CHILDRESS:" "The whole concept that the three pyramids at Giza are in a special alignment of Orion's Belt is very interesting." "And this would seem to indicate that Orion was the destination for the star gate that they were building at Giza." "NARRATOR:" "Why does the Great Pyramid have air shafts that point to Orion?" "Is it possible they served as a kind of intergalactic gateway between the Earth and Orion?" "And if so, might this be further proof of our extraterrestrial origins?" "There are those who believe clues can be found in the middle of the Nubian Desert, where researchers have discovered what may be the world's oldest megalithic complex pointing to Orion." "NARRATOR:" "Southern Egypt." "500 miles south of Cairo, on a desolate plain in the eastern region of the Sahara Desert, lies the mysterious archaeological site known as Nabta Playa." "Discovered by a team of scientists in 1974, researchers believe the megalithic stones scattered here were once part of a vast and complex ritual center for an ancient civilization that thrived from 6400 to 3400 B.C., just before the rise of the Egyptians." "BAUVAL:" "We knew that there were many prehistoric sites in the Sahara, in this part of the Egyptian desert." "What Nabta Playa is different is that it wasn't a settlement." "It was clearly a ceremonial site, and a very intriguing one." "And it had... strange things." "One of the centerpieces is a circle that has been called the" ""mini Stonehenge of the desert."" "NARRATOR:" "For more than three decades, this circular stone structure and its intricate alignment to the belt stars of the Orion constellation have baffled archaeologists." "MARTELL:" "The builders of Nabta Playa seem to be aware of a level of physics and understandings of mathematics that they interline into these structures which clearly say they possessed some advanced knowledge of the constellations." "NARRATOR:" "Engineer Robert Bauval and astrophysicist Thomas" "Brophy have studied the configuration of this mysterious monument for more than ten years." "In their book Black Genesis, they suggest the stone circle is a star-viewing diagram that aligns with the belt stars of" "Orion at the summer solstice." "BROPHY:" "The calendar circle is this smaller stone arrangement, and the megalithic alignments point to stars." "Now, the calendar circle, we think, represents a diagram that teaches how the sky moves long-term." "What we're looking at right here is a small mockup of the actual calendar circle of Nabta Playa." "These actual stones would come up to about your knee, and the whole circle would be about 12 feet across or so, and there are these two sets of gates on the outer parts of the circle." "And this gate is pointing towards where the summer solstice sun rises." "NARRATOR:" "According to mainstream scientists, radiocarbon dating indicates the site was constructed nearly 7,000 years ago." "Taking this time frame into account, Brophy studied the positioning of the gates and the center stones, and discovered that it was then, in 4900 B.C., when three of the center stones lined up precisely with three of" "the brightest stars in the constellation of Orion." "BROPHY:" "If we look up in the sky at that time, these three stones right here, they represent the Orion's Belt stars exactly as they were seen at that time." "So the idea is, the stones represent a map of the stars in the sky." "NARRATOR:" "Is it really possible, as some researchers believe, that the stones of Nabta Playa correspond with the alignment of Orion's Belt as observed just before the summer solstice 7,000 years ago?" "If so, why... and how..." "would ancient man have created such an advanced diagram of this constellation?" "Mysteriously, the inhabitants of Nabta Playa vanished around 3400 B.C." "Some researchers believe they migrated 60 miles east, where Egypt's Nile Valley civilizations emerged in the 4th century B.C." "BAUVAL:" "The astronomy from Nabta Playa was exactly the same astronomy of the pyramid builders." "So suddenly what we thought was origin to the pharaohs was pushed back now to these prehistoric people thousands of years before." "We call them the star people..." "we have no idea where they came from... that lived in the Sahara when it was fertile for thousands of years before the pyramid builders." "We went to try and trace their origins, and we've taken the track all the way now to the extreme southwest of Egypt." "We've actually seen those people, believe it or not." "They left us drawings in caves." "And some of them look pretty strange." "They were very tall, slender people with a very strange head." "Now, whether this is artistic representation, I don't know, but they're certainly very mysterious." "NARRATOR:" "Who are the star people, and why was the exact location of Orion so important to them?" "Were they simply another advanced ancient civilization lost to time, or could it be possible that the star people of Nabta Playa were literally visitors from another world?" "Perhaps a deeper understanding of Orion can be found here in the ruins of one of the most astrologically, astronomically advanced ancient civilizations." "Central Mexico." "Just 35 miles northeast of Mexico City lie the ruins of Teotihuacán, an ancient city that sprawled seven square miles and was once inhabited by more than 150,000 people." "Researchers believe the impressive structures here... including two large pyramids and a temple... were built by the Mayans in the second century B.C., and like the Egyptian pyramids of Giza, the monuments point directly to the three stars of Orion's Belt." "COPPENS:" "And this is not coincidental." "The layout of the pyramids of Teotihuacán are in the formation of Orion's Belt." "The Mayans are very specific about Orion's Belt." "They say it is a point of creation." "It is said that in 3114 B.C., the gods came from the heavens to Earth in a convention, and this convention occurred in Teotihuacán." "BAUVAL:" "You'll find many of these so-called Orion correlations in many countries." "Surprisingly some of these ancient structures not only form the image of Orion on the ground, but they are, ah, based on units of measurements that somehow correlate." "There seems to be some sort of link." "It's a very complex subject and it's very intriguing." "NARRATOR:" "But how could there be similar structures pointing to Orion built by civilizations located thousands of miles apart?" "Was it just a cosmic coincidence that both the Egyptians and the" "Mayans revered the same constellation, or could there really be a connection between Orion and the birth of mankind?" "DAVID:" "There might be a celestial plan developed by an ancient civilization that's long gone, and that's why we find all these Orion correlations in various spots all over the globe... because a single source at one time distributed" "this kind of mythological material all over the world." "HENRY:" "It's possible that the structures that we see on Earth that are aligned with Orion were created that way because the extraterrestrials that came from Orion directed the builders to do that." "They would do that so that we would remember the place where these beings came from and also to align ourselves with the energies coming from Orion." "NARRATOR:" "Could these monuments in Egypt and Central" "America really have been built to commemorate mankind's celestial origins, as some researchers suggest?" "Or is it possible there is an even more profound explanation for these advanced alignments..." "perhaps not only to honor our star ancestors but also to reconnect with them in the future?" "Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and that the ultimate proof can be found half a world away in an area that has become known as the cradle of civilization." "NARRATOR:" "Northern Iraq, 1849." "On the eastern bank of the Tigris River, near the city of Mosul, a team of archaeologists from the British Museum discovers thousands of clay tablets containing cuneiform script they believe to have been written by Babylonian priests in the seventh century B.C." "Among the tablets found were two mysterious relics that have become known as the Babylonian star catalogues." "According to translations of the ancient text, these tablets describe the precise movements of various celestial bodies, now known as the zodiac." "ROBERT POWELL:" "We know so much about the history of" "Babylonia because of the, the excavation and deciphering of huge numbers of these cuneiform texts." "They were steeped in a religious view of life, and intrinsic to their religion was devotion to the gods of the planets, the different constellations." "So this was what we call the cosmic religion." "NARRATOR:" "According to some researchers, these clay tablets provide proof that the ancient civilization of Babylon obtained celestial knowledge from star travelers." "MARTELL:" "The Babylonian star catalogues are an interesting collection of information with accurate mathematical equations, distance between planets, esoteric knowledge that a primitive civilization really shouldn't have." "It really starts to raise the question as to how they got this information and what they were using it for." "Was it possibly given to them by extraterrestrials that they claim were gods?" "NARRATOR:" "Like many other ancient cultures, the Babylonians describe Orion as both a constellation and a supreme being." "In their writings Orion is referred to as the "Loyal Shepherd of Heaven"" "and the "Chief God of Heavenly Realms."" "Might these records actually provide more evidence connecting ancient man to otherworldly beings?" "POWELL:" "For the Babylonians this constellation of Orion was called Sipazi Ana, which means" ""the shepherd of Anu." Usually we would translate that" ""the shepherd of Heaven" because Anu was seen as the god of Heaven." "If we go back to even further, we find an earlier depiction of Orion as in a birdlike form and was referred to as a messenger." "TSOUKALOS:" "The figure of a bird was located on the stones behind the figure of the shepard." "His position may indicate that he was bringing messages back and forth from Earth to Orion." "Now the real question is, how did he do this?" "Is this all meant to be taken symbolically?" "Is it possible that what we have here is a very rudimentary description of a type of interstellar communication device?" "Are the Babylonian star catalogues potentially even documenting an ancient extraterrestrial space station orbiting the earth, inhabited by ancient aliens who came from Orion?" "NARRATOR:" "Is it possible the Babylonian gods were actually extraterrestrial messengers from Orion?" "And if so, might these otherworldly visitors have created mankind here, in the Fertile Crescent, where civilization historically started more than 5,000 years ago." "FATHER WILLIAM J. FULCO:" "The Babylonians had a strong tradition of the origin of human beings, and it had some variations, but the basic principle that you find amongst the Babylonians is, the gods wanted to sleep a lot, and they" "wanted to eat a lot, and they got tired of doing the farming themselves and preparing the food." "And so they created a group of lesser beings...human beings is what it was...to do the farming and so on for them." "BILL BIRNES:" "On the edge of Mesopotamia, the dawn of civilization, this was one of the first spots where ancient aliens came to begin to seed civilization on the planet." "Civilization that grew into the civilization of Sumer and Babylonia." "If you look at the Sumerian hieroglyphs, the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the stories of the Maya, if you look at all these cultures, what you'll see is the same story told in different ways in different languages." "Those who came from the stars came here, and they started human civilization." "NARRATOR:" "Are the origin stories of Babylon located in the cradle of civilization the ultimate proof of our divine connection to the Orion constellation?" "And if so, might there be a profound reason the stars of Orion's Belt are located above the navel... the place on the body symbolically linked with the origin of humans, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?" "MARTELL:" "Many ancient cultures point to Orion's Belt as the gateway for life." "The Mayans, the Egyptians, all of these various cultures seem to reference the beginnings of life and the endings of life transferring or passing through Orion's Belt." "Is this somehow some type of seeding of life that's taking place here on Earth and a connection with the Orion's constellation?" "POWELL:" "It would seem that there was some awareness for the ancient peoples, that they had a sense for Orion being at the heart of our galaxy." "COPPENS:" "And I think the next question which we need to begin to answer is this." "Is it possible that somehow this birthing place of stars also allows us to make a connection with other creatures with intelligences somewhere out there in the universe?" "NARRATOR:" "Considering the Orion Nebula is a nursery of stars, is it possible the belt stars of Orion literally mark the spot in the galaxy where all life on Earth began?" "And if we came from Orion, as some ancient cultures suggest, might there be a way to summon the return of our otherworldly creators?" "Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and point to evidence in an epic alignment to the stars of" "Orion, located in the American Southwest." "NARRATOR:" "Black Mesa." "Northeastern Arizona." "The Native American Hopi tribe has called these peaks of the" "Colorado plateau home for more than 1,000 years." "High above the Arizona desert, their reservation, encompassing more than 1.5 million acres, consists of 12 villages." "Ancient astronaut theorists have studied these mysterious sites for years, discovering what they consider to be countless pieces of evidence of extraterrestrial contact in the ancient past." "According to their research, both the Hopi landscape and the tribe's mythology are centered on Orion." "DAVID:" "The Hopi migrated all over the Southwest." "After a series of building villages and abandoning these villages, they came to these three primary mesas in Northern Arizona." "They call them first, second and third mesas." "COPPENS:" "The Hopi mesas shape Orion's Belt's image." "And it is said that the Hopi specifically came here because of the shape." "So we know that the Hopi are extremely interested in Orion's Belt." "This is the center of their universe." "They say it is a place where they can make contact with the gods." "NARRATOR:" "According to some researchers, not only do the three mesas represent the stars in Orion's Belt, but when connected to other Hopi landmarks throughout the Southwest, the collective sites map the entire body of the Orion constellation." "DAVID:" "Every major star of the constellation... it corresponds to a ruin site or a village that the Hopi are currently living in." "For instance, the left shoulder of Orion is a place called Wupatki." "It's north of Flagstaff, Arizona." "And they built this ruin about 1,120 A.D." "They lived there for a century or so." "And then they abandoned this place." "There's another place called Homolovi Ruin." "It's by Winslow, Arizona." "And this corresponds to the right shoulder of Orion and the star Betelgeuse." "The Hopi also settled up north of the mesas." "This corresponds to the star Rigel." "And there's a whole complex of villages that corresponds to the right foot of Orion." "The star is Saiph." "So you have the star mirror... as above, so below." "That's what the Hopi were trying to achieve when they built this pattern, which took about three centuries to construct." "NARRATOR:" "But how did the" "Hopi ancestors know to align their homes and sacred places so perfectly with the Orion constellation?" "Is it possible that they received help from star travelers, as some researchers believe?" "According to Hopi myth, the creator god, Masau'u, directed the tribe over hundreds of years as they migrated to the Three Mesas, the place Masau'u instructed them to wait for his return." "DAVID:" "The god Masau'u was there at the beginning, waiting for the Hopi." "This is a very spooky-looking god." "This god has large, round eyes and a round mouth, and a big, bulbous head." "He taught the Hopi agricultural ways." "He's frequently seen with a staff in his right hand, like the constellation Orion." "Masau'u told the people where to build their villages." "There was also tales about a certain star that the Hopi would follow." "Now a star that moves across a sky and stops when the Hopi are supposed to stop and build their village." "That, that sounds like some sort of extraterrestrial craft that were guiding the Hopi across the desert." "TSOUKALOS:" "This is Fajada Butte where, according to ancient Hopi legends, their god Masau'u descended from the sky." "At night, the Orion constellation would basically hang in the sky right above this butte." "And the story goes that Masau'u landed on top of this platform." "So my question is, did some type of an extraterrestrial visitor land on top of this butte right here, in some type of a craft?" "And the answer is yes." "Someone or something from the cosmos descended." "NARRATOR:" "Could the Hopi god of creation, Masau'u, actually been an extraterrestrial traveler from Orion, as ancient astronaut theorists contend?" "And if so, why did this god instruct the Hopi to migrate around the Southwest in the pattern of this constellation?" "HENRY:" "Is it merely coincidence that the Hopi aligned their cities with Orion just as the ancient Egyptians did?" "I don't think so." "I think this is clear evidence that they were instructed to do so." "DAVID:" "The Hopi people were trying to pay homage to their star ancestors, the ancestors that came from the constellation Orion and gave them this information about the constellation and the place that they came from." "And that's why they built this pattern on the Arizona desert." "It's more or less a way that the Hopi could memorialize the origin of their celestial ancestors that came from Orion." "COPPENS:" "The Hopis are saying that at each point of creation, each cycle of time, Masau'u makes contact with them, and quite often tells them that an end of a cycle is going to happen." "And then he safeguards them from destruction." "It is felt that this creator deity is intricately linked with" "Orion and somehow only allows communication when somehow the geographical layout resembles Orion's Belt." "So what they're hoping for now is really the return of Masau'u." "NARRATOR:" "Is it possible, as ancient astronaut theorists believe, that ancient Hopi legends of the creator god" "Masau'u provide further proof of contact with our extraterrestrial ancestors from Orion?" "And if so, might the Hopi have been signaling for the return of these otherworldly beings through their epic alignment to the constellation?" "Or could there be a more profound reason their landscape points to the stars of Orion, perhaps one that will ultimately guide mankind back to our celestial birthplace?" "NARRATOR:" "Giza." "Teotihuacán." "Nabta Playa." "Black Mesa." "Could these ancient monuments, all aligned to the stars of Orion, really be linked to each other, providing clues to our celestial beginnings?" "Or is there perhaps another, even more profound connection between mankind and the constelation." "COPPENS:" "So why is it that the most important archaeological sites on our planet resemble the constellation Orion?" "I think it's not a coincidence." "And so the question is:" "where did this come from?" "Was there somehow some technology available to us somebody map, at an ancient point in time, it for them?" "Were they given this science and did they just treasure it and maintain it until a moment in time when it was clearly lost?" "CHILDRESS:" "When you look at these Orion correlations, the pyramids at Giza, the beliefs of the Mayans, what it seems to show is that Orion is where we came from, it's where the extraterrestrials came from, and if we were to go to Orion," "what we would probably find there is a planet very, very similar to that of Earth." "NARRATOR:" "Is it really possible, as some ancient astronaut theorists contend, there is a planet similar to our own in the constellation of Orion?" "And if so, what... or perhaps who..." "would we find in there?" "BROPHY:" "If we did get to the Orion constellation, or the stars that make up Orion, especially around the Orion" "Nebula star-forming region, we would find a region of the galaxy that's kind of similar to our own but more active." "More stars with planets, likely." "There's still a lot of room for opinion, because there are still unknowns." "So my own opinion is, yes, life is probably either extremely likely elsewhere, or else we don't have a clue as to what life really is." "So if we're looking for life elsewhere in the galaxy, a good place to start looking would be Orion." "NARRATOR:" "Even with today's technology, traveling to Orion would take hundreds of thousands of years." "But might there be another, more profound mechanism... perhaps from out of this world... that would make such an expansive trip in one lifetime possible?" "In 1935, 30 years after his groundbreaking Special Theory of" "Relativity, Albert Einstein published a collaborative paper called the "Einstein-Rosen Bridge."" "According to this new theory, bridges, or black holes, exist in the universe, allowing shortcuts through space and time." "Today, physicists refer to them as wormholes." "BROPHY:" "It's 1,500 light-years distant about to Orion." "If we were somehow able to use wormhole technology... then conceivably we could shorten the travel time or even make it instantaneous." "Although the theory even of how wormholes could work is still being developed." "SARA SEAGER:" "Almost anything that's possible theoretically in physics exists somewhere in our universe." "So I believe that wormholes exist somewhere... but not anywhere close to Earth." "NARRATOR:" "Might advanced extraterrestrial beings have traveled here, not in a spacecraft, but through an inter-dimensional space-time portal, as some researchers suggest?" "If so, is it possible the Egyptian pharaohs really were able to journey to Orion through their pyramids?" "And could there be a way for us to rediscover that otherworldly knowledge and return to our celestial birthplace?" "Might the Orion constellation also be mankind's ultimate destination?" "COPPENS:" "Orion is so important to all of these ancient civilizations." "We know that they were seen as points of creations." "We know that the ancient" "Egyptians used it in their passport to the afterlife." "And so we know that this is a place of origin but also a place of destination." "They tell us that somehow this is linked to where we came from and where we're going." "HENRY:" "I think the prevalence of the myths about Orion and the alignments with Orion suggest that the extraterrestrial beings who came from Orion infiltrated or instructed various civilizations throughout time and left this as evidence of their appearance." "VON DANIKEN:" "Thousands of years ago there were extraterrestrials." "We know this from tradition." "And before the extraterrestrial disappeared, they told our ancestors, yes, we will return." "The humans could not understand what this was." "They looked up to the sky, they saw the glittering, shining stars." "This is deep, this is endless." "They believed this is Heaven." "The gods are in Heaven, and they will return one day." "NARRATOR:" "Are the widespread creation tales surrounding Orion really just myth?" "Or might they be historical accounts of extraterrestrial beings that visited Earth in the distant past, as ancient astronaut theorists believe?" "And is it possible the stars of" "Orion actually represent not only the origin, but the final destination for mankind?" "If so, how will we get there?" "And what... or who... will we find when we arrive?" "Perhaps one day we'll unlock the mystery of Orion and reveal a celestial origin within ourselves."