"NARRATOR:" "A 1,000-year-old temple built to commemorate a visitation by a god." "A coronation stone believed to be a gateway to the heavens." "And strange chants designed for communicating with otherworldly beings." "JONATHAN YOUNG:" "To enter ritual allows us to reenter a space where the gods are alive, and allows us to spend time with them." "CLIFFORD MAHOOTY:" "You are going into a frequency and harmony to actually talk directly with those beings that are supernatural." "NARRATOR:" "Throughout the world, ancient rites and rituals connect us to another dimension." "But just who or what are we communicating with?" "DAVID CHILDRESS:" "All over the world, ancient people and modern people are using rituals to connect them with gods, yet these gods may well be ancient astronauts." "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 shape our history?" "And if so, might we find the evidence in our most sacred rituals?" "The Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico." "Here among the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza stands the great pyramid of El Castillo." "Built by the pre-Colombian Maya sometime between the ninth and" "12th centuries A.D., El Castillo served as a temple to the feathered serpent god Kukulkan." "It is also believed to be the site of the Mayans' most important ritual: human sacrifice." "WILLIAM BRAMLEY:" "They would bring human victims up the stairs of their temples, they would cut out their beating hearts, and that would be the form of sacrifice the Mayans engaged in." "RICK ROSS:" "In the rituals, there was the central importance of blood sacrifice." "That by shedding blood, they could empower their desire and be granted what they wanted." "So there is a theme of blood that runs through this system of sacrifice." "That blood must be shed." "NARRATOR:" "Although ritual sacrifice is no longer practiced at El Castillo... (horn blowing) worshippers still come to celebrate a time when the Mayans say god Kukulkan descended from the heavens to bring wisdom to man." "They light fires to unite with the spiritual realm, perform sacred dances and repeat prayers in numerical sequences to enter a deep state of meditation." "But the most powerful ritual that takes place at El Castillo is a reenactment of Kukulkan's descent to Earth, a reenactment that is literally built into the pyramid itself." "JON C. LOHSE:" "El Castillo is a stepped pyramid with some outward radiating staircases." "And these staircases have big high balustrades on them." "And on the autumn and the spring equinox, the sun casts a shadow across the corner of this stepped pyramid, and you see the shadows of the steps on the staircase balustrade." "ERICH VON DANIKEN:" "This is a model of the pyramid of Chechen" "Itza in Mexico." "And every year, on March 21, when the sun goes up, directly on the stairway here is created triangles of light and shadow coming down the stairs, which represents god Kukulkan has descended to the humans." "At the end, you see the face of god Kukulkan." "On, uh, September 21, it's the opposite." "This time, when the sun rises up in the morning, god Kukulkan goes up the stairs and ends in a bright light up on the little temple, which means god Kukulkan visited the earthlings, teach them, and after a certain" "period, he disappeared again into the sky with the promise to return one day." "PHILIP COPPENS:" "What we see happening in Chichen Itza is a light phenomenon." "We really see technology being displayed here." "We see that somebody engineered this so that each equinox, people would experience a stone serpent coming alive." "There was a visual reminder of this connection to the gods." "BILL BIRNES: it could be that not only are the Mayan celebrating their extraterrestrial ancestors, but it could well be that the ancient aliens who came to Earth instructed the societies that they helped to maintain a connection with them by" "performing certain rituals, celebrations at the appearance of stars and keeping the story of the extraterrestrials alive in their legends." "NARRATOR:" "Did the Maya really conduct these elaborate and bloody rituals to honor a mythical deity?" "Or might they have been, as ancient astronaut theorists contend, commemorating an actual visitation by extraterrestrial beings?" "RICHARD RADER:" "A ritual is absolutely a way to kind of reconnect with, uh, with the gods." "So not only are you reenacting your faith in this god, right, you are actually reenacting the original moment when the god did a very specific thing." "CHILDRESS:" "All over the world, ancient people and modern people are using the rituals to connect them with gods, yet these gods may well be ancient astronauts." "NARRATOR:" "The Hill of" "Uisneach, Ireland." "Each year, on the first day of" "May, local citizens celebrate the sacred festival of" "Beltane, similar to the one first performed by the ancient" "Celts more than 2,000 years ago." "Like the ceremony at Chichen" "Itza, it is designed to connect and communicate with beings from outside our world." "JOSEPH NAGY:" "This day was the day when you would set fires, bonfires." "And then you would walk your cattle between the fires, as a way to protect them for the coming spring and summer." "And these Mayday fires were a magical way of calling down protection upon animals and human beings." "NARRATOR:" "But why fire?" "What was it about this most basic of elements that made it so important to the ancient" "Celts?" "NAGY:" "The association of hills and fire with Beltane suggest that this is a time when extra vision, extra knowledge is available." "And what the Celtic peoples were most interested in knowing about was in fact the otherworld." "There is this notion that at" "Beltane, there is a greater opportunity for actually perhaps meeting people from the other- world or of seeing into their world." "Years ago." "We have some stories from medieval Irish tradition where a hero happens to come near a sidhe... one of those otherworldly dwellings which is in a hill." "And the sidhe is open, and what he sees inside it is a fire." "Now, the fire inside the otherworldly dwelling makes it possible to look into the otherworldly dwelling and to see some of the details, including the people there and what they look like." "NARRATOR:" "But might the fire rituals of the Beltane Festival have been started by the early" "Celts as an attempt to recreate the strange lights and ignitions they saw from an alien spacecraft?" "Although no written records exist to explain the event's true origins, there are those who believe that such an incredible idea is possible." "And to prove it, they point to a similar ceremony practiced each year by the Kayapo people of Brazil." "GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:" "A long time ago, Bep Kororoti appeared descending from the sky, and when he landed, there was a lot of wind." "The Earth was shaking and trembling." "There was a lot of noise." "The appearance of Bep Kororoti has been preserved to this day." "In fact, it's a medicine man wearing a straw suit." "And that straw suit looks eerily similar to a modern-day astronaut suit." "GISELA ERMEL (translated):" "The Kayapo remember the very special suit this man or alien wore, which essentially completely enclosed the body." "And what's more interesting is what a neighboring tribe said, namely the Bakairi... they already had such a thing hanging in a hut in the 19th century." "NARRATOR:" "But for the Kayapo, the Bep Kororati Festival is only one of the ways they honor an ancient visitation by an extraterrestrial being." "They also recount his visitation in their everyday lives by wearing symbolic headdresses made of feathers." "ERMEL (translated):" "There is this feather headdress that has a row of feathers, and when it's worn, it looks like a halo." "And these feathers represent no more and no less than outer space." "The Kayapo see outer space as being a flat disk, spreading out into infinity." "The band that holds these feathers together is a symbol for the rope that the Kayapos' ancestors used to climb down to" "Earth from a celestial world." "NARRATOR:" "Could the Kayapo rituals of Brazil really have been inspired by an extraterrestrial visitation?" "Perhaps the answer can be found by examining a somewhat more traditional ceremony... one still performed to this day, and to an audience of millions around the world." "NARRATOR:" "Edinburgh Castle," "Scotland." "In the Crown Room lies a 336-pound oblong stone block." "Known as the Stone of Destiny, and also as the Stone of Scone, it has been present at the coronation of nearly every" "English and Scottish monarch for more than 800 years." "Its purpose... to unite the new ruler with God." "And there are those who believe it is part of a meteor that fell to Earth more than 3,000" "CHILDRESS:" "In England today, all the kings and queens are crowned on what's known as the" "Stone of Destiny." "And this stone, according to legend, goes back to the biblical story of Jacob, who had rested his head on this stone." "COPPENS:" "Jacob, in the Bible, has a dream." "He falls asleep on a stone, and he sees a place nearby from which angels ascend to" "Heaven, but also angels descend to Earth." "And when he wakes up, he says," ""This is a gateway to Heaven,"" "where earthly things can go to" "Heaven and heavenly things can come to Earth." "ANDREW COLLINS:" "The stone, it was seen as an axis mundi, the connection point between Heaven and Earth." "It was almost like the English strengthened their own belief that Westminster Abbey was the axis mundi." "They placed it within a throne right in front of the Cosmati pavement, and within this" "Cosmati pavement are circles and swirls and lines that represent the universe as a whole." "And the monarch becomes what's known as a cosmocrator, looking over not just what was going on on the Earth, but the stars, the heavens as a whole, by sitting on the throne." "NARRATOR:" "Is this ancient stone merely a symbol of divine rite?" "Or might it at one time have held some strange, unknown power?" "Throughout recorded history, coronation rituals have incorporated devices like the Stone of Destiny as a way of linking the new ruler with superior beings beyond our world." "COLLINS:" "What is coronation in the first place?" "Well, it's the idea that the monarch can embody some kind of cosmic consciousness... something that is divine." "And this is actually best seen through the eyes of the old traditions relating to the" "Japanese mikados." "They would have to sit upon the throne, which would be considered to be at the point of creation of the world." "BIRNES:" "There is a notion called the divine right of kings that, um, certain British kings had that somehow the sovereign is God's representative on" "Planet Earth." "But for the ancients, it went steps further." "NARRATOR:" "But if some otherworldly power is actually being handed down, who or what is the source of that power?" "GEORGE NOORY: if you were an extraterrestrial and you came down to this planet, one of the first things you'd try to do would be to mingle with leadership." "And I think the pharaohs believed that they might have been gods themselves." "ANDREW WYATT:" "The king was considered a deity." "Did he go back into his room and sit and talk with the gods?" "Uh, we don't know... we weren't exact... we weren't there." "But he certainly did communicate with the deities through these rituals." "NARRATOR:" "In addition to the" "Stone of Destiny, another ritualistic symbol which features in most coronation ceremonies is that of the scepter." "The scepter is a symbol of divinely granted authority, and in ancient times, it often took the form of a staff or a golden wand." "According to historians, its use dates back to ancient Egypt, and there are those who believe it is connected symbolically to the" "Egyptian ankh." "COPPENS:" "When it comes to the ankh in ancient Egypt, we find that it is intimately familiar with Isis." "Isis symbolizes the Ankh because she is the one who was able to restore life." "It is the symbol of transformation, the symbol of alchemy, the symbol of ritual." "JASON MARTELL:" "The ankh is always a symbol used in" "Pharaonic times as a scepter, but an interesting play on the word "ankh" shows that it also stems from the word Anunnaki, which meant "those who from" "Heaven came to Earth."" "TSOUKALOS:" "What's fascinating to me is that the ankh, in many occasions, is also shown next to the Djed pillar, and the" "Djed pillar also is one of the earliest symbols we have in ancient Egypt, and both symbols describe a connection to the stars." "If you combine the two in some of the ancient Egyptian carvings that we see, something very technological is described or depicted." "Now, over time, the ankh symbol turned into something divine, but it never was that, because according to the ancient astronaut theory, ancient symbols are based upon something that our ancestors encountered in real life." "CHILDRESS:" "You have to wonder here if the original ankh wasn't some kind of high-tech device that the ancient astronauts used, and then was given to the kings for their use." "And with a coronation ritual and holding a scepter, suddenly, normal people become as gods." "And today all we have is a symbolic representation of this high-tech object." "NARRATOR: if the throne and the scepter are identified with a connection to otherworldly or extraterrestrial power, what about the most iconic of all coronation symbols:" "the crown itself?" "COPPENS:" "What says kingship?" "It's the crown." "It's clearly a device, whether you see a crown as a symbol, or whether you see a crown as something literal, it's clear that somehow it was very specific, something placed on your head established this" "connection." "NARRATOR:" "Some historians believe the idea for the crown may have originated with the divine image of the halo." "MARTELL:" "The Sumerians described their gods, the" "Anunnaki, as literally having a glow about them." "And this was carried into more recent times as angels with a halo over their head." "These are the beings that from heaven came to earth." "Kingship now wants to have that same lineage of connection with the gods by placing a crown on the king's head." "BIRNES:" "That headpiece symbolized the translation of a human being heir apparent into a sovereign to deify that sovereign, to make that sovereign extraterrestrial." "GIORGIO:" "Some of the earliest cave drawings we can find in the world show these humanoid beings with haloes around their heads." "And that is very fascinating, because if you look today at modern-day astronauts, if you have the sun rising behind them, or even just with their flashlights that they have on the sides of their helmets, well, if someone who is not" "knowledgeable in technology sees this, well, it looks like their head is surrounded by this divine light, which is not divine at all." "It's a light source." "So, over time, people, our ancestors, started to imitate the gods, these extraterrestrials, by wearing crowns." "NARRATOR:" "The throne..." "The scepter..." "The crown..." "Could these symbols of coronation have been inspired, not by the imagination, or even spiritual visions, but by some sort of alien encounters?" "If so, what other ancient rituals might find their roots in a kingdom not of this world?" "NARRATOR:" "Tabasco, Mexico, 1862." "Prospectors drilling for oil unearth a colossal stone head weighing more than 20 tons." "50 years later, 16 more heads are discovered, each with a unique face, and not characteristic of the indigenous people." "These gigantic heads are believed to have been carved by a mysterious, ancient culture known as the Olmecs." "But even more mysterious, perhaps, is that each appears to be wearing some sort of helmet." "PETER FIEBAG:" "The mother-culture of America," "Central America, were the" "Olmecs." "In old images made by the" "Olmecs, we can see helmeted beings dressed in overalls ascending." "They have wings and they have microphones almost in front of their mouths." "Are these heads of rulers or priests?" "Or were they maybe aliens that they wanted to portray?" "NARRATOR:" "Could these giant" "Olmec heads be depictions of visitors from another planet?" "Some Ancient Astronaut theorists believe these colossal heads offer proof that the Olmecs communicated directly with otherworldly beings through shamans... their holy men." "LARS KRUTAK:" "A shaman is an intermediary or a messenger between the spiritual worlds and the world of humans." "Shamans can inherit their power and their knowledge." "But more often than not, they're chosen by particular spirits." "COPPENS:" "When it comes to the Olmecs, we know that they say that people were taken to become transformed into a person who was going to make the connection between our world and the other world." "KRUTAK:" "In order to enter the spiritual realm, a shaman must use particular tools to get there." "Musical instruments like drums or rattles... (man chanting) ...aid the shaman in his or her communications with that world." "NARRATOR:" "Like the Olmecs, many ancient cultures throughout the centuries have believed shamans could communicate with otherworldly beings." "But what exactly were these beings?" "Were they really gods?" "Or were they, perhaps, extraterrestrials?" "NANCY RED STAR:" "There are star ancestors, we call them the Makavians." "That's a Cherokee word." "And so, they are the ones that come from another world." "NARRATOR:" "Similar to Hindus," "Buddhists, and even the ancient" "Egyptians, many Native American tribes claim to communicate with their gods by means of telepathy." "STANDING ELK:" "Telepathy is basically one of the communications that is practiced with many spiritual people." "Feathers work as antennas." "And they bring in a message at times when it's necessary." "MAHOOTY:" "There's basically three things:" "chanting, drums, and song." "What it is, is that you are going into a frequency and harmony, to actually talk directly with those beings that are of supernatural." "NARRATOR:" "In the area of" "Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, graphic depictions called petroglyphs can be found of ancient Native American Shamans and the otherworldly creatures they claimed to communicate with." "DAVID SUCEC:" "Here we have a classic shaman, with the hourglass figure, feet pointed outward, arms which have bird's feet at the end which signifies spirituality." "And it's got the horns with the fringes coming out." "NARRATOR:" "One of these petroglyphs, called the Ghost Panel, depicts nine- foot-tall figures conducting what some believe is an actual encounter between shamans and" "Star Beings." "SUCEC: it looks like a group of figures surrounding or standing or hovering around a central ghost-like figure, which is called the Holy Ghost." "If you look at the head of the Holy Ghost, you'll see his two eyes in the front of his face." "But if you look to the left, you'll see the side of his head." "This is a device which you do not see in any prehistoric art, and this motif is one of the reasons why I feel that this represents a... an event." "NARRATOR:" "Does the Ghost" "Panel really depict an actual visitation by extraterrestrial beings?" "And, if so, could the horns coming from the shaman's head... similar to the feathers found in the Native American headdress... really represent some sort of antennae?" "A device for giving and receiving information or energy... perhaps from another world?" "NARRATOR:" "And is this energy at all connected to ritualized chants and prayers employed by the shaman in their effort to communicate with Star Beings?" "In the early 1980s, using a device for measuring electric charge called an electroscope, biochemist Dr. Boguslaw" "Lipinski claims to have successfully measured the amount of energy created through rituals of prayer." "BOGUSLAW LIPINSKI:" "The instrument called the electroscope, measures the flow of current between two oppositely charged plates." "Electrons are the purest form of energy." "And this form of energy now is being explained by physicists in terms of vibrations." "NARRATOR:" "In 1985, Dr." "Lipinski took his electroscope to the shrine of Medjugorje in" "Yugoslavia to measure what if any energy is created by large-scale group prayer." "For decades, thousands of people have gathered here, claiming to see an apparition of the Virgin" "Mary floating in the sky above." "LIPINSKI:" "I found out that during the times of apparitions, particularly when the groups of people pray, I got the readings on my electroscope." "This graph shows measurements of the energy." "When people start praying, the energy comes very quickly up." "(man chanting)" "NARRATOR:" "Somewhat similar to" "Dr. Lipinski's contention that the ritual of prayer generates energy is a scientific concept called "quantum entanglement."" "This theory supports the idea that human beings might be able to communicate telepathically." "COLLINS:" "The idea of quantum entanglement is that a single particle can split and become two individual particles." "And they still somehow retain a link between each other." "They can communicate with each other." "It's not only real, but it can explain the idea of telepathy and remote viewing." "And if we assume that extraterrestrials do exist, then it becomes the most obvious form of communication that we can use between us." "Maybe this is already occurring." "Just maybe this has been going on for tens of thousands of years." "And this can easily be induced through the use of sound, tones and notes." "(man chanting)" "NARRATOR:" "Could the provocative implications of quantum entanglement help to explain why so many cultures claim to communicate with otherworldly beings telepathically?" "And could elaborate headdresses like those worn by Native" "Americans... and even the crowns of ancient kings... be linked to some sort of ancient technology for communicating with alien beings?" "Perhaps the answer can be found by examining more contemporary examples:" "the types of rites and rituals still practiced by billions of people around the world." "NARRATOR:" "The Giza Plateau," "May 26, 1954." "Egyptian archeologist" "Kamal-el-Mallakh is lowered into a long narrow pit he discovered on the south side of the Great" "Pyramid of Khufu." "With the use of a torch and a mirror, he catches sight of a large oar." "The oar belongs to a 143-foot-long ship that has been buried beneath the earth." "The ship was constructed for" "King Khufu, the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, who reigned from around 2589 to 2566" "BC, and is generally accepted as the builder of the Great" "Pyramid." "It is what Egyptologists call a solar barge:, a funerary boat that was built for the sole purpose of carrying him across the heavens." "AIDAN DODSON:" "The significance of boats in the... in funerary context, are intended for a posthumous pilgrimage to the city of" "Abydos." "Abydos was the sacred city of" "Osiris, the god of the dead." "ROBERT BAUVAL:" "The word" ""god," according to the ancient" "Egyptian, is "neteru."" "it means "a being that came from the cosmos."" "The word "religion" doesn't exist in ancient Egyptian." "They truly believed, they were very adamant about this, that their origins is in the sky." "COPPENS:" "In the case of King" "Khufu, we find that there is a literal boat, said to be a boat of a million years." "Even though this might appear to be a normal ship, it is actually something far more, and it almost represents a spaceship, because they didn't just speak about years, they spoke millions of years, and this is precisely what" "space travel is all about." "Somehow the dead body was able to go on this voyage." "NARRATOR:" "But could funerary boats, like the one found near the Giza Pyramid, have been the early Egyptians' attempt to re-create an alien spacecraft?" "BIRNES:" "What could this represent?" "Could it mean that the ancient Egyptians believed that their honored dead would then rejoin the deities in the sky, the extraterrestrials?" "NOORY:" "Ancient Egyptians were experts at mimicking what they they saw." "And let's assume that gods came down from heaven, or ETs came down from space." "The Egyptians tried to emulate what they saw." "TSOUKALOS:" "In order to mimic the idea of returning to the gods who have descended from the sky, funerary boats were created, and the idea of funerary boats came after the" "Egyptians encountered the heavenly barges which descended from the sky." "NARRATOR:" "As in most modern societies, funeral rituals are usually based upon the notion that the spirit moves on after the body dies." "For some, there is the belief that the souls or spirits of the dead reconnect with god or some sort of deity." "And for many ancient societies... like the Egyptians... death also meant a return to the stars." "BAUVAL:" "What is also interesting about the ancient" "Egyptian belief is that the final form of conversion was going back to the stars." "I always quote Carl Sagan on this: "We are star stuff."" "Some star exploded some billions of years ago, and we're it." "But we're star stuff become conscious." "Having said this, it is not impossible that we contain the knowledge of our origins literally within us, and that there's a way to retrieve that information." "It may well be that the ancient" "Egyptians had found some sort of inner route." "NARRATOR:" "The use of funerary boats during burial was not unique to ancient Egypt." "The Norse Vikings also incorporated boats into their funeral rites, sometimes burying their dead with actual boats, but more often forming the shape of a boat with large rocks above the grave." "On certain occasions, they would even create giant pyres to burn their dead within these rock formations, believing the pillar of smoke would elevate the deceased to the afterlife." "Burning the dead on a large pyre was practiced in ancient Rome as well." "And in India, most Hindus still use funeral pyres to this day." "SHIMKADA:" "The cremation ceremony is basically performed by the male members of the family, and then there are the priests who guide them on how to do it." "And they put them on, you know, the pyre, and then the eldest member of the family has to light the fire." "And then they sit there until everything is burned." "BIRNES: it purifies the soul that it could pass on to the next life." "NARRATOR:" "According to some" "Ancient Astronaut theorists, the idea of burning the dead may have been inspired by an ancient encounter with an alien spacecraft." "BIRNES:" "There's still another aspect to this." "If we look at the Vedic texts and read about the Vimana:, the ancient craft that made war upon" "Earth, these were craft that came in fire." "Could it be that the passing of the soul from one life to the next is like the appearance of the vimana?" "The appearance in flame?" "And so that flame emulates the actual craft itself?" "TSOUKALOS:" "Is it possible that when our ancestors witnessed rockets or spaceships taking off and landing with all of this fire and this smoke that they, over time, thought that by burning their dead, they would imitate what they saw in the past?" "Meaning, as the body burns and the smoke rises up to the sky, that they were ascending into the sky, becoming a god." "NARRATOR: if rituals of burial were ancient man's attempt to reconnect with gods or alien visitors, did they succeed?" "Some would answer by pointing to the billions around the world for whom death still acts as a gateway to Heaven... or somewhere else far, far away." "NARRATOR:" "Vatican City," "Italy." "Pope Benedict XVI walks down the aisle in St. Peter's" "Basilica carrying a golden crucifix." "Upon reaching the altar, he lifts the thurible, a metal vessel suspended from chains in which incense is burned for purification." "(Pope Benedict speaking Latin)" "The Pope recites the Eucharist" "Prayer, and then he and his congregation consume the consecrated bread and wine." "They are, according to the most sacred laws of the Church, eating the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ." "CHRIS CHAPPLE:" "In the Mass, the priest is empowered by the prayers that are said to energize the substance of the bread and substance of the wine such that it becomes transformed or transubstantiated... changed into the living presence of the" "body and the blood of Christ." "YOUNG:" "The Mass, the" "Communion, the transubstantiation of eating the... the body of God, allows us to ingest the divine energy." "This is called manna, or magical energy, and the... the almost cannibalistic aspect of the ritual is crucial for atonement, which is at-onement... to become one with the divine source." "NARRATOR:" "In the New" "Testament, the Second Letter of" "Peter states that believers in this practice "become partakers of the divine nature."" "They become united with God." "The Roman Catholic Church adheres to this interpretation of Communion so strongly that in the 16th century, the Council of" "Trent declared anyone who denied it subject to excommunication." "And during the infamous Spanish inquisition, nonbelievers were branded as heretics and were often burned at the stake... or worse." "But what does it mean to become one with the divinity?" "Most historians say the ritual of the Catholic Mass can be traced back to the Last Supper, when the act of Jesus serving bread and wine to his disciples, during what was actually a" "Passover Seder, created a powerful spiritual bond that must not be broken." "But there are others who believe the Catholic Mass stems from a ritual practiced thousands of years earlier." "YOUNG:" "Scholars have speculated that the Mass is actually inspired by" "Egyptian mythology and a similar ritual that was done for the god Osiris." "The idea is, we take the divine substance, the body of the god, into us so that we are one with that transcendent energy." "NARRATOR:" "The legend of" "Osiris tells how he was killed and dismembered by his jealous brother, then resurrected from the various parts of his body by his wife Isis." "Egyptian priests reenacted this ancient event with a ritual involving clay and wheat." "YOUNG:" "The ritual has to do with making wheat cakes that resemble the pieces of the dismembered god, which are then hidden, and a... a woman playing the... the wife, uh, goes and finds the pieces." "And then, in the end, the priests eat the pieces." "NARRATOR:" "Those who ate the sacramental wheat cakes believed they had brought the god Osiris back to life within themselves." "But where did early Egyptians get such a profound idea?" "COPPENS:" "The question, then, is, are they mimicking things which they saw?" "And it somehow involved this transformation from a dead" "Osiris to a person who was regenerated." "When we're looking at some of these rituals, really, contact with the divine is a technology, whether it's the ritual or whether it's practical or whether it's to mimic extraterrestrials." "NARRATOR:" "Could the Roman" "Catholic ceremony of eating the body and blood of Christ actually have its origins in the ancient Egyptian story of Osiris?" "And if so, does it suggest that the Catholic religion, like other ancient beliefs, has its roots in an extraterrestrial encounter?" "LOHSE:" "A ritual is a participatory performance, and the main objective of a ritual is to communicate something about an underlying belief or an idea." "BIRNES:" "These ancient rituals have coincided with the appearance of various constellations in the sky... various stars." "All across the world in ancient societies, there was a belief that human beings were placed on Planet Earth by the" "Star People." "YOUNG:" "Mythology, like legend, has real history in it." "There's a strong sense of connection to those sources when one enters into ritual." "Our deepest yearnings are for things we cannot remember." "We yearn for lost wisdom, lost possibilities." "It seems we work toward goals we do not understand." "It seems we are driven by aspirations that are truly mysterious." "RED STAR:" "The ones who come from another world, our relatives, are the ones that bring the laws and the instructions in the ceremonies and the rituals here so that people will go through this process of evolution." "NARRATOR:" "Are today's frequently practiced rituals such as prayers... funerals... and coronations... really based on early man's attempts to emulate ancient alien visitors?" "Or are they something even more profound?" "Could they provide an actual means with which humans may communicate with... or even return to... another, perhaps extraterrestrial, existence?" "If so, we may only know the truth when we ourselves make the journey." "Or perhaps... when they return." "Captioning sponsored by" "AE TELEVISION NETWORKS" "Captioned by" "Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org"