"NARRATOR:" "Festering disease." "MILTON WAINWRIGHT, PH.D.:" "Everything was going on okay one minute, and then all of a sudden, people are kind of rotting in front of you." "NARRATOR:" "Raging pestilence." "RICHARD RADER:" "The civilized world went out the window." "NARRATOR:" "And death of almost unspeakable agony." "GEORGE NOORY:" "Are we the laboratory of the universe?" "NARRATOR:" "But what if the source of all this very human suffering has a strangely non-human origin?" "JEFFREY GALPIN, MD:" "It would be narrow-minded to accept viruses wouldn't occur in other planets around the universe." "PHILIP COPPENS:" "Is there somebody who has the technology to actually send things to" "Earth, and are part of intergalactic warfare?" "GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:" "To suggest that ETs would come here and annihilate us in the way we see it in the movies... why go through all the trouble when all you have to do... is release a toxin into the air?" "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 could they even be the source of our deadliest epidemics?" "NARRATOR:" "Portugal." "October 13, 1917." "During what had been a bright and cloudless day... (booming thunder) ...the skies suddenly turned dark and foreboding." "For those who were there to witness it, their world was about to turn upside down." "Three children had claimed to see what they believed was the" "Virgin Mary." "She promised to give the people a sign from God." "CHRIS PITTMAN:" "Perhaps as many as 100,000 people watched as the sun seemed to change into an opaque spinning disc in the sky." "PHILIP IMBROGNO:" "During those manifestations, the children were told that God was very, very angry with the world, and that there would be punishment." "NARRATOR:" "The incident near the small village of Fatima was labeled a miracle by some, and a hoax by others." "But to ancient astronaut theorists, the event is considered an extraterrestrial encounter." "COPPENS:" "In Fatima, we see mysterious events happening." "But we do not really know whether we are dealing with a religious phenomenon, or whether we are dealing with an extraterrestrial UFO kind of phenomenon." "We know that the apparition didn't really identify herself as who she was." "It's within the context of religion that she is named the" "Virgin Mary." "The question is, if she's not the Virgin Mary, then who is she?" "NARRATOR:" "Perhaps even more bizarre is the fact that less than one year after the event, an estimated 50 million people were dead, victims of the worst plague in recorded history." "Could this deadly pandemic, known as the Spanish influenza, have been somehow connected to the incidents at Fatima?" "DAVID CHILDRESS: it's quite possible that many of the plagues really occurred because alien beings came here and brought with them microbes and bacteria and diseases." "NARRATOR:" "Disease has been responsible for more deaths than every war in human history combined." "And right from the start, we have looked for an answer... in the heavens." "ADRIENNE MAYOR, PH.D.:" "In antiquity, when pestilence or plague would strike, it was very mysterious and frightening." "(thunder rumbling)" "Of course, people did try to explain it." "The easiest way to imagine disease was like a shower coming down from the sky, perhaps sent by an angry or wrathful god." "RADER:" "In the mythological imagination, plagues were always the result of the gods being angry or upset with us." "(wind whistling)" "NARRATOR:" "Examples abound in the ancient world of diseases being linked to the gods." "In ancient Egypt, the god of disease was called Seth." "And the Hittites called their plague god lrra." "MAYOR:" "The name means "fire"" "or "burning..."" "...and this was their way of explaining raging fevers that were something like wildfires sweeping through the land." "RADER:" "There was a conception of plague as a physical ailment, something that attacks the body, but lots of physical ailments were conceived of as the result of supernatural intervention." "NARRATOR:" "The ancient Chinese also connected plagues and diseases to the supernatural, and took it one step further." "They kept meticulous records about when there were outbreaks of disease and actual celestial events." "WILLIAM BRAMLEY:" "They connected reports of unusual comets, things that we today would call UFOs, to outbreaks of plague." "So this has been universal." "It's not just been a few places." "It's not just been a few plagues." "It's actually been very consistent throughout history." "CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE," "PH.D.:" "So many different ancient cultures right across the world had this point of view that plagues were caused by things that happened in the skies." "(wind whistling)" "NARRATOR:" "Greece. 430 B.C." "Athens is at war with Sparta." "The battles are brutal and bloody." "But the war casualties pale in comparison to the scenes of horror... when plague descends on the people." "GALPIN:" "They were thirsty beyond thirst." "They turned red." "They vomited." "They had terrible diarrhea." "Their fingers, at times, turned black." "Their bodies were ravaged." "RADER:" "Graves are being stacked with 12 to 15 bodies, and when that fails, they're just simply left onto the street... dead, putrid, decomposing bodies all over the city, thousands of people." "NARRATOR:" "But was the Plague of Athens some biological consequence of the war?" "Or something else?" "Something... not of this Earth?" "(whirring)" "RADER:" "The civilized world went out the window as soon as this plague hit." "You can certainly correlate plagues, epidemics, disease with the decline and fall of various empires." "NARRATOR:" "As far as the ancient Greeks were concerned, the plague was very likely a curse from the gods." "NOORY:" "The wrath of God could very well have been the wrath of" "ETs who wanted to control us, manipulate us, change us." "And they did so in a very deliberate, evil way." "(people screaming)" "NARRATOR:" "In the middle of the sixth century, another virus nearly succeeded in wiping out most of humanity... the Justinian Plague." "GALPIN:" "There aren't really good records back then of how many millions of people died, but a significant percentage of the world died." "WAINWRIGHT:" "You know, everything was going on okay one minute, and then all of a sudden, people are kind of rotting in front of you." "Wow." "Where has this come from?" "NARRATOR:" "Like the Plague of Athens, the Justinian Plague was accompanied by multiple reports... of strange sightings in the sky." "IMBROGNO:" "People reported seeing strange objects in the sky... that they called "glowing gold shields," and visions of bronze ships in the sky and headless creatures." "TSOUKALOS:" "And whenever these events took place... in the middle of daylight, by the way... people fell ill." "And something would be witnessed again, up in the sky, and there would be another outbreak." "NARRATOR:" "According to modern-day astronomers, at the time of the Justinian Plague, there was an unusually high concentration of cosmic activity." "WICKRAMASINGHE:" "Islamic literature of the day was very clear in stating that the skies were darkened on many occasions and people were frightened by meteor storms and comets impacting the Earth." "There's also direct evidence," "I think, from a subject called dendrochronology... thicknesses of tree rings... an indication of the amount of light that we receive during the summer months." "For the period from 530 to 550, or thereabouts..." "A.D... we find that the tree-ring thicknesses almost vanish... showing that the skies were really darkened." "That's, again, consistent with comets breaking up, meteors breaking up in the sky." "So one has to then speculate if these dust particles that were darkening the skies also contained viruses and bacteria." "COPPENS:" "ls there somewhere, out there in deep space, where somebody has the technology to actually send over things to" "Earth, so that what looks to be a normal mechanism of delivery, actually becomes a very high-tech method of delivery, and we have no idea that we are part of an intergalactic warfare." "(explosion)" "NARRATOR:" "The connection between deadly plagues and phenomena in the sky appears frequently throughout ancient histories." "Most scientists today call it superstition." "3,000 years ago, they called it fact." "But might an ancient sculpture discovered in 19th century" "Egypt prove that our ancestors knew more than we give them credit for?" "NARRATOR:" "Naqada, Egypt." "1897." "A treasure trove of ancient artifacts sees the light of day after being entombed for 6,000 years." "Among the findings is this statue of what looks like a bearded man." "It is dubbed "MacGregor Man,"" "for the Reverend William" "MacGregor, in whose antiquities collection it once resided." "TSOUKALOS:" "In Egyptology, this ancient statue is referred to as "the bearded man."" "However, if you look a little bit closer, you can see that what he's wearing on his head, and what extends from his chin, is not necessarily a beard, but it looks like a skullcap." "His entire body seems to be inside some type of an overall, some type of a suit, because even where his cuffs are, there is no shirt opening." "No matter from what angle, it looks like a guy inside a hazmat suit." "NARRATOR:" "Other figures found at Naqada also have pointed beards that extend from the chin, but without any hood." "Adding to the mystery is the fact that Naqada was believed to be the ancestral home of" "Seth, the Egyptian god of plague." "PITTMAN:" "We don't know whether these things were depictions of some kind of realistic apparatus that was used to protect perhaps extraterrestrials from very dangerous chemicals, diseases that they were spreading across humanity." "BILL BIRNES: if you were an extraterrestrial visitor, you'd wear something to protect yourself from the bacteria and the viruses that were rampant." "That's one reason for the hazmat suits." "Another reason would be not to protect yourself, but to protect the population you were visiting." "TSOUKALOS:" "Whatever the" "Bearded Man wears around his hips, to me looks more like some type of a technological device than what Egyptology suggests." "Egyptology suggests that he is wearing a penis sheath." "Now, to me, it is clear that whatever is attached to his front of his belly is anything but a penis sheath." "Is it possible that this is a carving of a potential extraterrestrial?" "NARRATOR:" "But among antiquities, Macgregor Man is not alone." "Throughout the world, there are scores of ancient carvings and figurines that seem to depict otherworldly creatures in what some claim is astronaut-type clothing." "ERICH VON DANIKEN:" "Central" "America is full of these suits." "You really have beings chiseled in stone which have helmets on." "Out of the helmet you have something like a trunk coming up, and in some cases you see, on the shoulder of the helmet, something like a tank." "NARRATOR:" "But strange depictions of cloaked figures wearing what appear to be breathing apparatuses aren't limited to the ancient world." "In 1347, ships full of Italian sailors died suddenly... after being covered in oozing black boils filled with blood and pus." "The disease spread rapidly throughout Europe... and soon had a name... the Black Plague." "JONATHAN YOUNG:" "The Black" "Plague was widely seen as an act of God for the sinfulness of the people." "(thunder crashes)" "WAINWRIGHT:" "What you get is a slow, lingering, painful death." "And, uh, that's what... (chuckles) is nasty." "And it completely decimates populations." "NARRATOR:" "Within five years, this previously unknown disease had wiped out nearly one-third of Europe... the equivalent, in today's numbers, of more than" "300 million dead." "And just like previous epidemics, the outbreaks of plague were accompanied by sightings of strange aerial phenomena." "IMBROGNO:" "People saw strange bronze ships spreading a mist around the entire area, and shortly after that, people began to become very sick and die." "NARRATOR:" "Bronze ships, just like those reported during the Justinian Plague" "800 years earlier." "But what natural phenomenon could appear in the sky that would fit such a description?" "And what was the mysterious mist that people saw floating down from the sky?" "IMBROGNO: if you ask a historian today, they would say that they were hallucinating because of the illness." "But how do you get thousands of people hallucinating the same thing?" "NARRATOR:" "One of these supposed hallucinations featured reports of mysterious cloaked figures spraying mist on the ground." "It was this report that gave rise to rumors of a black-hooded messenger of death, later known as the Grim Reaper." "PITTMAN:" "In one case, the chronicle recounts a group of men mowing down wheat, and their scythes were making, uh, loud swishing sounds, but not actually cutting down crops." "We can imagine that maybe what was perceived in medieval times as scythes, making swishing sounds, were perhaps some kind of wand shooting some kind of aerosol into the air, that was a pathogen that made so many" "people sick." "IMBROGNO:" "People reported a number of strange beings that would spray onto the wheat, and shortly after that, the Black" "Death occurred." "And maybe our idea of the Reaper was extraterrestrial in origin." "NARRATOR:" "Mysterious plagues accompanied by extraterrestrial sightings." "And gruesome deaths preceded by ominous apparitions." "But were those strange metallic objects seen in the skies over" "Europe really misunderstood cosmic events..." "like meteors and comets... as most mainstream scientists believe?" "TSOUKALOS:" "In 1731, there were UFO sightings over England," "Ireland and Romania, and they predated the worldwide flu epidemic of 1732." "IMBROGNO:" "People saw a red object in the sky, and at times, this object generated so much heat that people had to take off their shirts." "I mean, they were just glowing up there in the sky." "Later on, a plague broke out." "BRAMLEY:" "What people called comets back in those days, we would not call comets today, because anything that moved in the sky that was unusual, that was bright, they would call a comet." "For example, in the Chronicle of Marvels. by Conrad" "Lycosthenes, which was published in the 1500s, he talked about a comet that was seen in Arabia in the 1400s." "But when you look at the woodcut, it looks like a rocket ship." "(engines roaring)" "NARRATOR:" "But if alien invaders really have been coming to Earth and spreading disease and plague over the centuries, why?" "To kill us?" "To strengthen us?" "Or is it simply to reduce our numbers?" "NOORY:" "Why would you drop a virus down on this planet?" "Are you trying to build up our immune system?" "Are you trying to wipe us out?" "Are we the laboratory of the universe?" ""Let's see if this bug wipes out this civilization in order to protect ourselves."" "All possibilities." "NARRATOR: if extraterrestrials do have a sinister agenda, why not just attack our planet with a weapon of mass destruction?" "TSOUKALOS:" "Why go through that trouble if all you have to do is release a toxin into the air, a plague, some type of virus?" "It's way more efficient." "NARRATOR:" "But there is another theory." "One more incredible than tales of bronze spaceships and grim reapers." "Because it is a theory so simple and so potentially devastating, it has mainstream scientists scratching their heads and running for cover." "(wind whistling)" "NARRATOR: 1540." "The Rio Grande Valley." "When Francisco Coronado and the" "Spanish first explored the area that is now New Mexico, they brought with them a devastating weapon they did not even realize was part of their arsenal... disease." "Smallpox, chicken pox, and measles spread through the indigenous peoples far faster than the Conquistadores themselves could actually travel." "MICHAEL B.A. OLDSTONE, M.D.:" "Viruses and bacteria have caused severe plagues that have really changed the course of history." "So when the Conquistadores came over to the New World, they inadvertently carried smallpox." "They were immune to it, but the" "Native Americans had never seen smallpox, and they were devastated." "That led to the Conquistadores, with 900 or so soldiers, who were able to destroy the Aztec" "Empire." "COPPENS:" "Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even a million or more people, died simply because they were exposed to the viruses of the white man." "NARRATOR:" "The native populations in the American" "Northeast suffered a similar fate when the European colonists first arrived on their shores." "The islands of the South Pacific also had their populations decimated by Captain James Cook and his crew." "GALPIN:" "Are we like these other places, where if we get something we haven't seen before, could it wipe us out too quickly for us to react?" "The War of the Worlds was a beautiful story in the sense that, at the very end, the common cold killed the aliens." "Because it's too hard to believe the other thing could happen, that the alien sneezed on us, and they didn't have to do anything more than that." "Why is that any more farfetched?" "NARRATOR:" "For many ancient astronaut theorists, the possibility of alien diseases being transmitted in much the same way is a distinct possibility." "NOORY:" "My take is, if we've had diseases since the beginning of time, and we've had visitations, it's very possible that they accidentally brought these diseases to us." "NARRATOR:" "Here on Earth, viruses often thrive in new environments." "Could the same be true of viruses entering our planet from another world?" "And if extraterrestrial viruses do exist, could they survive the interstellar journey to Earth?" "Many scientists believe the answer can be found in microscopic organisms called extremophiles." "WAINWRIGHT:" "An extremophile is an organism that can survive extreme conditions... high temperatures, low temperatures, high pressure, low pressure and so on." "Now of course, the term is based on humans, what we find extreme." "But from its perspective, we are extremophiles." "You know, we live in oxygen, which is poisonous to this anaerobic organism." "So if it was studying us, it would say, "Hey, them humans are amazing extremophiles." "They can breathe oxygen."" "SARA SEAGER, PH.D.:" "Life has been found in almost every single environment on Earth." "And this is so exciting, because other planets have conditions very different from Earth's." "And it gives us hope that if life can exist on almost any single condition on Earth, that it can also live on another planet." "NARRATOR:" "Space." "2007." "A bacteria-ridden chunk of rock is strapped to the outside of the international Space Station." "After 18 months in the hostile environment of space, the rock is retrieved." "SEAGER:" "And one colony of bacteria actually survived." "And the international Space" "Station is in low Earth orbit." "It's going into orbit day and orbit night." "It has wild temperature swings." "It gets cosmic radiation, and the vacuum of space, and the life still survived." "NARRATOR:" "Though many scientists still reject the idea of microscopic forms of life existing in space, even NASA takes great precautions in protecting people from any potential alien contamination." "IMBROGNO:" "When the astronauts went to the moon, they were in two weeks of isolation, because the idea of dormant viruses on our moon's surface was taken very seriously." "BIRNES:" "In the same way that ancient aliens might have come to planet Earth in hazmat suits to protect themselves, and us, from contamination, so NASA does that very thing today." "NARRATOR:" "In 2006 and 2008, biologists on board separate space shuttle missions made a frightening discovery." "Salmonella bacteria exposed to zero gravity actually got deadlier by as much as 700%." "WICKRAMASINGHE: it's interesting that what they found was that, at zero gravity, there were mutations in the culture that led to a huge increase in virulence of the salmonella super bug." "They do the best in terms of their mission to self-replicate under zero gravity." "To me, it is another indication that bacteria are space travelers." "BRAMLEY:" "What you have is this risk that if you are bringing in viruses or elements from outer space, it could become a much more deadly form of that same germ than if it had developed on Earth." "NARRATOR:" "The ability of viruses to evolve and mutate at an incredibly rapid rate was also at the root of the deadliest pandemic in recorded history... the same one that followed the Fatima event in" "Portugal: the Spanish influenza." "GALPIN:" "We don't know where it came, why it left." "It made World War I look puny." "No weapons, cost of armaments, nobody had to raise the level for defense." "It killed with little effort." "LAN LIPKIN:" "Thinking in terms of today's numbers, the 50 to 100 million people who died during the course of that outbreak would represent perhaps" "300 to 400 million in today's terms." "WAINWRIGHT: it was a normal influenza, but it changed." "It was mutated." "We had a pandemic flu that was killing young people." "They were dropping dead like flies." "BRAMLEY:" "Scientists more recently have come up with this theory that, yeah, it must've come from space." "It opens the possibility that there is a UFO connection." "Perhaps they are managing us in a very brutal fashion." "NARRATOR:" "The Spanish influenza eventually disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived, fading away completely just a year later in" "1919." "Scientists believe it had mutated to the point it was no longer harmful to humans." "But how did this incredibly deadly virus strike simultaneously all over the globe?" "Could it have had any connection to the strange events at Fatima, and the dire predictions communicated to three children, supposedly from a heavenly, or what some would call an extraterrestrial, source?" "NARRATOR:" "September 15, 2007." "Residents of Carancas, Peru, watch in fascination as a gigantic fireball streaks across the sky." "There is a loud explosion... (explosion thunders) ...and a crash that shakes the ground violently." "Something large and mysterious has fallen to Earth, causing a crater that scatters debris for nearly a mile in every direction." "Fascination turns to fear when, just a few days later, hundreds of people become strangely and violently ill." "PITTMAN:" "An extraterrestrial fireball impacted the grounds near Carancas in Peru." "This impact sickened a great many people in that area." "CHILDRESS:" "That was never explained by authorities, who couldn't really have an answer for why a meteorite strike would cause all these people to get sick." "Meteorites are thought to be very clean and without bacteria or noxious gases." "NARRATOR:" "Does this event suggest that microbes and other living organisms, not of this" "Earth, exist elsewhere in the universe?" "GALPIN: it would be narrow-minded to accept that all of our trillions of bacteria and viruses are so unique, since they occur everywhere in every part of this world, that they wouldn't occur in other planets and other" "systems around the universe." "NARRATOR:" "The Stardust mission." "2006." "A NASA spacecraft plunges through the tail of comet" "81P-Wild... collecting comet particles on blocks of a sticky material called aerogel." "The findings stun even the most cynical scientists." "SEAGER:" "The Stardust detector came back to Earth, the particles collected were studied in detail, and many organic compounds were found, including the amino acid glycine, which is a building block for life." "NARRATOR:" "Might asteroids and meteors really be the delivery system for alien microbes and other extraterrestrial life-forms?" "Could strange germs and deadly diseases be the result of biological hitchhikers in space?" "WICKRAMASINGHE: if you look at the historical records... plagues come suddenly, from almost nowhere." "So I think comets are the natural carriers that one could look to as being the source of these epidemics." "Comets were feared by almost all ancient civilizations... as bringers of pestilence and death." "But were they really primitive superstitions?" "NARRATOR:" "In the 1960's," "Nobel Laureate Harold Urey developed a new field of science called cosmochemistry." "He theorized that meteorites contained the fossilized remains of space bacteria." "WICKRAMASINGHE: it was dismissed almost instantly by a huge establishment of American meteoritic scientists." "There's no way, they argued, that life could be inside a comet, and so it was sort of... essentially swept under the rug." "NARRATOR:" "In 1996, NASA researchers, led by David McKay of the Johnson Space Center, announced that another space rock found in Antarctica... meteorite ALH84001... contained the fossilized remains of life on Mars." "PRESIDENT CLINTON: it must be confirmed by other scientists, but clearly, the fact that something of this magnitude is being explored is another vindication of America's space program and our continuing support for it, even in these" "tough financial times." "NARRATOR:" "Even as recently as March of 2011, NASA scientist" "Richard Hoover published evidence of life found in meteorites." "WICKRAMASINGHE:" "Richard" "Hoover found really stunning images of microscopic organisms resembling modern organisms." "This was published in March of 2011 in the Journal of" "Cosmology, and it's caused the biggest rumpus in science that I recall in my entire career." "High officials of NASA were livid, because here was this guy at Marshall Space Flight Center trying to overturn a paradigm." "BIRNES: if alien bacteria has entered the Earth's atmosphere, could it have been sent here deliberately?" "Well, the answer is yes." "If they were trying to invade a planet, they would do it by putting their own bacteria on pieces of rock and making sure that landed on planet Earth, and in so doing, create a series of violent epidemics that would" "wipe out the planet's population." "NARRATOR:" "Kerala, India." "2001." "A cosmic bang... a massive explosion in the atmosphere, and then... (thunder cracks) ...a downpour of red rain." "It is eerily reminiscent of ancient myths and stories about blood coming down from the sky." "Homer writes in The Iliad about a blood rain foreshadowing slaughter in battle." "Gregory of Tours witnessed a blood rain before the outbreak of the Justinian Plague." "And in 14th century Germany, a shower of blood reportedly preceded the Black Death." "RADER: it is like the human world seeing the effect of the immortal world." "The gods are so affected by our lives that they are willing to change the laws of the physical world so that something we experience as rain, in fact, comes down as blood." "NARRATOR:" "After the incident in Kerala, biologist Dr. Godfrey" "Louis is able to collect samples of the strange red liquid." "WICKRAMASINGHE:" "He collected the rain as clean as possible, and it was discovered that they contained cells that looked like living cells." "WAINWRIGHT:" "So it's some kind of organism." "Now where's it come from?" "Does it come from space or does it come from Earth?" "This is the big question." "Because, of course, the meteorite bang immediately puts it into the realms of mystery, space." "NARRATOR:" "To date, there have been no verifiable reports of illness connected with the blood rain in Kerala... but if meteors and other falling objects from space really do contain deadly bacteria, is it simply an accident... or is it possible that what" "we think of as natural phenomena are really part of another, perhaps more insidious plan?" "NARRATOR:" "In 2001, Mary" "Leitao, a former hospital lab technician in Boston, discovers red, blue, black, and white fibers in sores under her two-year-old son's lip." "Eight different doctors are unable to find any disease, allergy, or anything unusual that might be causing her son's condition." "Today this condition has a name..." "Morgellons disease... and according to the Morgellons" "Research Foundation, it has affected more than 12,000 families from all 50 states and" "15 other countries." "CLIFF MICKELSON:" "No one knows what Morgellons is." "It appears to be a brand-new arrival on the medical scene." "To have Morgellons disease is to live a waking nightmare without end." "RANDY WYMORE:" "To the best of my knowledge there have been no cures of Morgellons, and I think partly that's because we don't know what the cause is." "A physician who's trying to treat a patient with Morgellons is pretty much just shooting in the dark." "NARRATOR:" "Sufferers of the mysterious disease complain of neurological problems similar to multiple sclerosis and massive oozing skin rashes that seem to have a life of their own." "MICKELSON:" "The overt dermatological symptoms would be open sores on the skin... usually round, volcanic, almost, looking in nature." "WYMORE:" "Most people with" "Morgellons have crawling sensations in their skin." "Sometimes they describe it as almost as though something is inside there, biting or stinging." "NARRATOR: inside the lesions, sufferers have discovered colored fibers, like those found on Mary Leitao's son." "WYMORE:" "You wouldn't believe how many dermatologists I've gotten phone calls and e-mails from, saying, "Sorry, humans don't grow red and blue fibers."" "Well, as a physiologist, I'm quite aware of that fact, but it doesn't change the fact that these fibers are present, and this mystery is, well, where are the fibers coming from?" "Is there a microorganism that is producing these fibers?" "We have absolutely no idea." "MICKELSON:" "The university forwarded a number of samples to the Tulsa Crime Lab, who ran them through their database, the" "FBI database, were unable to find any match." "WYMORE:" "The Earth is being bombarded by tons of debris from outer space every year, and so, is it possible that an organism that we wouldn't recognize came down with that debris, and that's the cause of Morgellons?" "Well, I just try and stay open- minded." "We can't really say yes, we can't say no." "NARRATOR:" "But what is the cause of Morgellons disease?" "Is it simply an Earth-based mutation of a known virus?" "Or does it have other, perhaps interplanetary, origins?" "GALPIN: if we look at something that came from a distant planet, so different that it can do anything from make us better, make us the same, or in the long run, create a new disease, or maybe it" "doesn't produce disease... because diseases don't just produce fever, headache... they may change our thought process, our reality, how we move, how we think, how long we live, even our emotions." "NARRATOR:" "Living microbes in outer space." "Bacteria capable of mutating and becoming more powerful in zero gravity." "Comets carrying deadly, alien life-forms." "Could humankind be at the mercy of extraterrestrial forces that are invisible to the naked eye?" "LIPKIN:" "The best estimates that I've heard of the number of bacteria in the world is somewhere in the range of five followed by 30 zeros." "It's a staggering number." "We're discovering more and more all the time." "GALPIN:" "The real question exists, who's really leading the world... us or the trillions and trillions of viruses that we walk upon and may be playing much more of an intimate part of our lives than we had ever" "thought?" "COPPENS:" "Is it possible that we are somehow being prepared for something, which is going to affect Earth as a global civilization?" "Is, somehow, it very important that we are strong enough so that we will be able to cope with something which might be coming our way?" "GALPIN:" "The more you know all the details, the more frightening the thoughts are about what's coming next." "The clock begins when the disease hits, and we don't know how much time the clock is giving us." "That's the fear of the future." "NARRATOR:" "For thousands of years, we have wondered if we are alone in the universe, but could alien life-forms have been among us all along?" "If countless strains of deadly bacteria are coming to Earth from other worlds, is this the proof we need that there is life on other planets?" "Could it be only by coincidence that these life-forms have made contact with us in the form of plagues and epidemics, or is there another, perhaps alien, intelligence at work... an intelligence which seeks to reduce our numbers or maybe" "prepare us for something?" "If so, what and when?" "Captioning sponsored by" "AE TELEVISION NETWORKS" "Captioned by" "Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org"