NARRATOR: Gods descending to
Earth... converging on the same
hallowed ground... a holy shrine
built to mark the landing... of
a meteorite... and sacred caves
whose walls are lined with
images of strange, half-human
beings.
Allahu Akbar.
NARRATOR: Are holy sites
around the world the product of
man's reverence for God... or
are they the result of contact
with ancient space travelers?
GEORGE NOORY: There's no
question that these monuments
might have had some kind of E.T.
intervention.
They're just too immense, too
perfect to be constructed by
ancient mankind.
GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: Yes, it
was human beings who built this
place but with technology given
by extraterrestrials.
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, how did they
influence the creation of
mankind's sacred places?
It is perhaps the most sacred
site in all of humanity, the
place where three of the world's
most prominent religions...
Christianity, Judaism and
Islam... all converge.
It is the heart and soul of what
is called the Holy Land.
Temple Mount, Old City,
Jerusalem, and this 35-acre
plateau, surrounded by ancient
walls, has been considered
sacred for thousands of years.
ROBERT MULLINS, PhD: The
Temple Mount is sacred to Jews
and Christians because it's at
this spot that Abraham bound
Isaac and prepared to sacrifice
him in Genesis 22.
For Muslims this site is sacred
because it's from the Rock,
where the Dome of the Rock today
stands, that Muhammad ascended
into Heaven.
PHILIP COPPENS: What we have
on the Temple Mount really is a
mixture of three religions, and
each one of them has got an
aspect to it which makes the
place even more important, but
in origin really what we have is
a place where God touched down
on Planet Earth, and ever after,
this is the place where
communications with the
afterlife or the divine realm is
to be made.
NARRATOR: Each year millions
of pilgrims come to Temple Mount
to worship God and celebrate
holy occasions.
But why?
In the tenth century B.C., King
David and the Israelites chose
this rocky high ground to build
a great temple.
MARVIN MEYER, PhD: This was
the site that David, the great
king of Israel, had conquered,
and so it already had a kind of
a blessing about it because this
was where the people of Israel
were destined to center their
lives in this sacred kind of
place.
MICHAEL COOGAN, PhD:
According to the Bible, King
David, who had just made
Jerusalem his capital, wanted to
build in it a house for the
Lord, but for reasons that
aren't entirely clear, he didn't
do so, and it was his son
Solomon who built the First
Jewish Temple.
NARRATOR: Completed in 957
B.C. by David's son King
Solomon, the Temple was said to
house the Ark of the Covenant,
the sacred chest believed to
have contained the stone tablets
on which the Ten Commandments
were written... but according to
many ancient astronaut
theorists, the Ark also may have
contained a power source of
extraterrestrial origin.
ERICH VON DANIKEN: In the
Bible, you read about the Ark of
the Covenant.
Moses was ordered to go to the
Holy Mountain, and the Lord gave
Moses instruction to construct
the Ark of the Covenant.
As we know later, the Ark of the
Covenant was something very,
very dangerous.
COOGAN: Solomon installed it
in the Temple and it served as
the focal point of the Temple in
its innermost room, the holy of
holies, into which only the
chief priest, the high priest
could go.
MULLINS: it's in this
innermost sanctum, the holy of
holies, where God was viewed as
resident, so in a sense, the Ark
of the Covenant was God's throne
in the holy of holies and the
place where God reigned from
Jerusalem.
NARRATOR: According to the
Talmud, a central text of
Judaism, King Solomon possessed
a magic ring with a special
symbol called the Seal of
Solomon, today known as the Star
of David.
MEYER: This special ring
would allow him to accomplish
things beyond what mortals could
usually accomplish, and part of
what he could do with that ring
with the seal on it was control
the demons, and that gave him a
kind of power and an ability in
the construction of that temple
that others would never have
had.
NARRATOR: According to
Islamic text, King Solomon also
had a magic carpet of green
silk, sufficient for his throne
and all his forces to stand on.
TSOUKALOS: Now, magic
carpets... do they exist?
Of course not.
So what was it that our
ancestors tried to describe in
those stories?
DAVID CHILDRESS: So where was
he getting these strange powers?
Was he really in contact with
extraterrestrials who had
literally given him a spacecraft
to fly around in?
NARRATOR: After studying the
intricate geometry and design of
Solomon's Temple, even Sir Isaac
Newton questioned if the king
had built the Temple with
"secret knowledge."
BILL BIRNES, JD, PhD: it was
very highly advanced
architecturally, catching
certain kinds of light, being
very precise in its astronomical
alignment, and the question for
modern scholars and architects
is, what was the level of
technology available to King
Solomon that allowed him to
design and lay out the Temple
according to these principles?
MEYER: There's a text, as a
matter of fact, called the
Testament of Solomon, that
suggests that Solomon didn't
only use mortal builders and
architects, but he brought in
demons.
He forced them to do some of the
labor because demons are
especially strong.
NARRATOR: Might an advanced
energy source within the Ark of
the Covenant have allowed King
Solomon to wield immense power,
and might that power have had an
extraterrestrial origin?
After King Solomon's Temple was
destroyed in the sixth century
B.C. by the Babylonians, a
Second Temple was built on the
same site in the first century
B.C. by King Herod the Great.
According to the New Testament,
it was this Second Temple that
played a significant role in the
life of Jesus of Nazareth
because it was here that Jesus
chased out the moneylenders, an
event which led to his
crucifixion and death at the
hands of both the Jews and the
Romans.
And it was also nearby, on the
Mount of Olives, that Jesus
reportedly rose from the dead
and ascended bodily into Heaven.
REVEREND BARRY H. DOWNING:
When we get to the story of
Jesus, we find that his
disciples believe that he
ascended into Heaven and then
someday he would return.
So this idea of the
extraterrestrial reality, of
which Jesus is part, is
something that the biblical
tradition says, "Yes, you can,
you can buy that."
NARRATOR: But might Jesus,
like King Solomon before him,
really have been connected to an
otherworldly reality, as ancient
astronaut theorists suggest?
REVEREND MICHAEL J.S. CARTER:
The topic of ascension, when
dealing with extraterrestrial
contacts, is a common one
because we have Jesus ascending
in the New Testament.
These stories give credence to
the fact that there is some type
of technology that is lifting up
human beings into a craft, into
a waiting ship.
NARRATOR: Nearly six
centuries after the Second
Hebrew Temple was destroyed by
the Romans in 70 A.D., Persian
invaders built yet another holy
shrine on the site... the Dome of
the Rock, known to Muslims as
the Noble Sanctuary.
COOGAN: This magnificent
seventh-century architectural
monument of Islam was built over
a huge outcrop of bedrock which,
according to Muslim tradition,
was the site from which Muhammad
had been taken up into Heaven by
God.
MEYER: In fact, there is a
hole in the rock showing the
exact route that Muhammad took
when he ascended into Heaven, to
Allah, to have a vision of the
divine, and to return back once
again to this very site.
So for Muslims the Dome of the
Rock is a very significant and a
very sacred place.
NARRATOR: According to the
Islamic Koran, the rock from
which Muhammad ascended is
called the Foundation Stone.
This rock is believed by
religious scholars to have also
been the very stone beneath the
Ark of the Covenant and the holy
of holies in Solomon's Temple.
COPPENS: This is where God
came down to Earth and where
certain people actually are said
to have made contact with God,
so this is a piece of rock which
is of such importance because of
the fact that something of the
divine manifested itself there.
TSOUKALOS: That stone
signifies the coming together of
the kingdoms of Heaven and
Earth.
The problem is, we've forgotten
that whoever visited us in the
past wasn't God, but it was
extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Some ancient
astronaut theorists believe that
Temple Mount was one of the
earliest intergalactic gateways.
But could space travelers really
have landed here tens of
thousands of years ago?
CHILDRESS: it seems that the
reverence for the site of
Jerusalem may stem from it early
on being some kind of a
spaceport, a gigantic landing
pad for extraterrestrials, and
that's why King Solomon built
his temple there, and then later
the Muslims built the Dome of
the Rock.
NARRATOR: Might Temple Mount
really be the place where
ancient aliens first made
contact with early humans?
And might its spiritual
significance help provide proof
of its unique extraterrestrial
history?
Perhaps further evidence may be
found only a few hundred miles
away in the heart of the Muslim
world.
(whistle blows)
NARRATOR: Saudi Arabia, the
heart of the Middle East.
Allahu Akbar.
NARRATOR: In a narrow valley
50 miles inland from the Red Sea
lies Islam’s holiest city Mecca.
Here, in the year 570, Muhammad,
the founder of Islam, was born,
considered by Muslims to be a
prophet and the messenger of
God.
COOGAN: At that time, Mecca
was a prosperous commercial
center, a port from which goods
brought from India and farther
away in Asia were transported
over land north to Damascus and
by sea to Egypt.
It was in this commercial center
that the Prophet Muhammad
received his first revelation.
MEYER: if you want to
encounter Muhammad, if you want,
in a way, to meet with his
ideas, one of the greatest
places to go is to go to Mecca.
BIRNES: Muslims pray in the
direction of Mecca five times a
day, so certainly as a holy
shrine, it is the center of the
Earth, a Heaven's gate where the
opening of Heaven takes place,
and that's why it is so revered.
NARRATOR: In the center of
Mecca lies the Grand Mosque, the
largest and holiest place of
worship for Muslims... and at
the heart of the Grand Mosque is
the Kaaba, a cube-shaped granite
structure measuring 43 feet high
by 36 feet wide.
According to Islamic tradition,
the Kaaba was built
approximately in 2000 B.C. by
Abraham, a figure who serves as
patriarch to both Muslims and
Jews.
MEYER: In the Bible it is
said that Abraham had a couple
of children, and his first son
was Ishmael and his second son
was Isaac, and it is said in
Islam that Abraham and Ishmael
were in fact the two that came
to build the Kaaba.
NARRATOR: Covered by black
silk and embroidered in gold,
the Kaaba is the most sacred
structure in Islam.
Nearly three million Muslims
make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba
every year, a journey known as
the hajj.
MEYER: Every Muslim, if he or
she can do so, sometime in a
lifetime is obliged to go on a
pilgrimage, or the hajj, to
Mecca, in a way, to walk in the
footsteps of Abraham and of
Ishmael, to walk in the
footsteps of Muhammad.
MULLINS: The main ritual
performed at the Kaaba is for
pilgrims to enter into the
enclosure where the Kaaba is,
that cubicle structure, and
circumnavigate the Kaaba seven
times in a counterclockwise
direction.
MEYER: In one part of that
building there is a black stone
that is imbedded in the side of
the building, and nobody knows
exactly where it came from, but
the legend is that it came down
from the sky.
It was brought down by an angel
and found its way into this
particular location of the
shrine.
COOGAN: There's another
tradition that suggests that
this rock had been worshipped
long before Muhammad's time and
that it is in fact an ancient
meteorite... which for ancient
peoples would have been a sign
from a god or gods.
MULLINS: Now, during the
time that they're encircling the
Kaaba seven times, if they are
able, they should try to kiss
the meteorite stone, but because
of the numbers of people,
especially in recent times,
that's impossible, so the
practice is that if you're
unable to kiss the stone, you
should point towards the stone.
That shows your respect for the
stone and your veneration of it.
NOORY: People believe that,
of course, it was a meteorite
that fell from the heavens that
they have been able to keep.
Some of it is in small
fragments.
It's broken away, but they've
kept it intact with this silver
lining structure around it.
It is a magnificent artifact.
NARRATOR: Might the Black
Stone really be a meteorite, as
many scientists and scholars
believe?
If so, what does that say about
the historical... and possibly
metaphysical... origins of the
Islamic faith?
CHILDRESS: it's kind of
strange really that all the
Muslims are all praying towards
Mecca and to this black stone
that's there.
There are stories that the Kaaba
in Mecca is radiating some kind
of energy...
that it energizes people and
increases their spirituality
and health.
Perhaps it's coming from this
meteorite, this black stone of
extraterrestrial origin.
NARRATOR: Today, because of
its intense spiritual
significance in the Islamic
world...
any forensic examination of the
Black Stone is strictly
forbidden.
As far as Muslims are concerned,
the Black Stone simply
"descended from paradise."
VON DANIKEN: Archangel
Michael descended from the sky,
and Michael gave Abraham an
information in a written form...
and this information was sealed
into a stone, and this stone
is today's Kaaba.
It is said it is a stone from
Heaven.
NOORY: The ancients possessed
an ability to look toward the
heavens in order to get their
divine guidance.
This could very well be another
one of those cases.
NARRATOR: According to
researchers, the position of the
Kaaba is precisely aligned with
the rising of the star Canopus,
the cycles of the moon, and the
summer and winter solstices.
But just how... and where... did
the ancients obtain such an
advanced knowledge of astronomy?
MARTELL: Just as the planets
are revolving around the sun,
the knowledge of traveling
around the Kaaba was a symbolic
reference for knowledge of
astronomical alignments taking
place at that time.
TSOUKALOS: In Islam, we have
stories of winged angels that
have descended with lots of
light and a lot of wind and the
earth trembling.
So what was described there
wasn't necessarily a
quote-unquote "divine
encounter," but a
flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial
encounter.
NARRATOR: Might the Kaaba's
interplanetary alignment suggest
that ancient Muslims may have
possessed secret knowledge?
(people singing)
And might their veneration for
the Black Stone really serve to
commemorate an ancient encounter
with extraterrestrial beings?
As far as ancient astronaut
theorists are concerned, the
answer to both these questions
is a resounding yes.
And they point to further proof
in a series of caves located
halfway around the world.
NARRATOR: Western India.
April 28, 1819.
While hunting tigers just
outside the village of Ajanta,
British officer John Smith
discovers 29 elaborate cave
temples carved into the side of
a rocky cliff overlooking the
Waghora River.
Believed to have been
constructed in 200 B.C., the
caves' architecture and artwork
reveal new insights into the
origins of India’s mysterious
sacred past.
ALMOHAMMADI: Ajanta is unique
in the sense that these are the
most ancient Buddhist caves of
India.
Here they started the work from
200 B.C., and this work
continued till the end of 6th
century A.D.
CHILDRESS: As you walk in
to the Ajanta Caves you see all
kinds of temples carved out of
solid rock, niches and alcoves,
even statues.
But it's all been carved out of
one giant block of rock.
NARRATOR: Visited yearly by
thousands of Buddhist
worshipers, the caves are
considered sacred even to
this day.
Built as holy shrines and
temples by devoted monks, they
contain numerous places of
worship... complete with
paintings and sculptures
depicting the life and times of
the Supreme Buddha, often
referred to as the Enlightened
One.
EFURD: There are many
different sculpted subjects
at Ajanta.
Many of the sculptures are of
the Buddha.
In addition to those sculptures,
there are various depictions of
other mythological beings.
These are called Jatakas.
These Jatakas show these
previous lives, and these lives
could be related to, say, the
Buddha being born as an animal,
being born as a deity, or being
born as a human.
NARRATOR: Even today,
modern engineers are baffled
as to how the caves could have
been cut from the 70-foot-high
granite cliffs more than
2,000 ago.
EFURD: These caves were
created through the removal of
stone, literally tunneling into
the surface of the rock.
Rock was removed, it was
chiseled away, taken out, and
any interior space that you see
at the caves today, were created
through this removal of stone.
Any architectural details that
one finds at the site, any
sculptures, they're actually
carved from the same piece of
stone, which is the mountainside
itself.
NARRATOR: According to
researchers, the Ajanta complex
is significant because of the
deliberate positioning of the
caves around the cliffs...
an arrangement that reveals an
unusually advanced understanding
of celestial activity.
EFURD: The caves are carved
into this horseshoe bend, and
are oriented in various
directions.
Some are oriented towards the
west, others to the south, and
some are oriented to the east so
that they are oriented towards
the rising sun.
It does seem to be the case that
ancient peoples in India were
very much interested in the
universe and the relationship of
heavenly bodies.
NARRATOR: Evidence of the
cave sculptor's precise
knowledge of celestial
movements can be found in two
particular caves.
Each contains large stupas, or
dome-shaped structures featuring
Siddhartha Gautama, the
supreme Buddha and spiritual
teacher who founded Buddhism.
EFURD: Cave 19 is oriented
towards the winter solstice,
and what this means is that on
the day of the winter solstice,
the morning sunlight would
filter through this large window
on the facade and the sunlight
itself would illuminate the
stupa.
This is also true of Cave 26 at
Ajanta.
It's oriented towards the summer
solstice, and so on the day of
the summer solstice, that light
would filter and strike the
stupa within it.
CHILDRESS: Now, this would
have been very difficult to do,
itself, because you're cutting
solid rock from
inside of a cave.
So you would need some pretty
high-tech gear in order to
tunnel and build and chip away
inside of solid rock in order to
really be perfectly oriented to
the solstice.
NARRATOR: Might the Ajanta
Caves have been constructed with
the aid of advanced alien
technology, as ancient astronaut
theorists believe?
If so, might they also have been
considered sacred by the locals
because of their connection to
early extraterrestrial visitors?
MARTELL: Many ancient
astronaut theorists look at the
stupa and say it's a symbolic
reference for the power
of flight.
Many times it's symbolically
shown with a young Buddha placed
in there, and it almost looks
like he could be manipulating
some type of controls within the
stupa.
The stupas were always used as a
way for Buddha to ascend or
descend into the heavens.
And so we do see stupas in this
artwork, very possibly saying
that the Buddha was going into
space.
NOORY: There was an obsession
of ancient human beings to
depict things that they saw.
And I think they did it with
carvings on caves and
depictions and sculptures and
monuments... because that's
what they saw.
They were duplicating what they
saw.
But what they depict are very
strange things.
CHILDRESS: They depict gods
and half animal/half god type
figures.
So you have here what seems to
be some kind of special
subterranean temple that's built
for extraterrestrials or some
kind of space gods.
BIRNES: What were the
Buddhist monks seeing?
Could the Buddhist monks have
been helped by some kind of an
extraterrestrial presence?
TSOUKALOS: The ancient
astronaut theory suggests that
if we find paintings or carvings
of half man/half animals,
that that means that those
creatures at one point really
existed, because they were
genetically created by
extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: The sculptures and
wall paintings at Ajanta are
some of the oldest surviving
works of art from ancient India.
But was their elaborate
construction really the result
of early human contact with
space travelers?
If so, might there be additional
evidence of stone-carved shrines
in other regions of the world?
Evidence that might provide the
clues to our own origins.
NARRATOR: Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Hidden from view within this
mountainous African landscape
lie 11 churches carved entirely
from a single block of stone.
TSOUKALOS: if you approach
Lalibela, you don't even
see anything.
But the moment you get closer,
all of a sudden the ground opens
up... and you have these huge,
magnificent churches that have
been cut out of the bedrock.
COPPENS: So, really, rather
than building, Lalibela was cut
from the rocks...
from upstairs to downstairs.
So really what you have is an
amazing engineering feat, which
literally topples everything
we know about building
techniques.
NARRATOR: Religious ritual is
central to the life of Lalibela.
Each year nearly 21,000
Christian pilgrims come to
worship.
GERVERS: Ethiopian
Christianity is much more
directly tied to the Old
Testament than the Christianity
practiced in the Western world
today.
Christianity was introduced to
Ethiopia at about the same time
it was introduced to Western
Europe, to France, for example.
Interestingly enough, that of
all the Christian world,
Ethiopia is the only place where
they have these monolithic
churches.
NARRATOR: Mainstream
archaeologists believe the
churches were carved as early as
the 12th century.
But engineers who have studied
the design of the churches have
concluded that their
construction is scientifically
inexplicable.
CHILDRESS: When you see the
churches at Lalibela, you can
see that they're using what
would probably have to be
power tools.
Anytime you're cutting hard
stone, you're looking at
specialized cutting tools, you
need iron tools.
Even today we would have to use
power saws and grinding wheels
and chisels.
NARRATOR: But if, as ancient
astronaut theorists believe, the
churches of Lalibela could not
have been made without modern
technology, then who, or what,
built them?
GERVERS: Now, according
to the story, the life of King
Lalibela, which is written down
in the 15th century, the angel
Gabriel came to King Lalibela
and took him off to the heavenly
Jerusalem, where he had a
conversation with God, and God
said that he wanted him to go
back and build these churches.
So he came back and had them
constructed, he had them hewn
out of the rock.
It took years to complete the
job.
It was 24 hours a day, but
Lalibela had the help of the
angels.
BIRNES: So, according to
legend, angels came down from
Heaven and at night did the work
that the human beings could not
do because they were sleeping.
So there were actually two
shifts of workers at the rocks
of Lalibela.
One, human beings working during
the day, and the other,
extraterrestrial beings working
at night, doing the night shift.
TSOUKALOS: To me, that is a
very fascinating story, because
in my opinion, angels do
not exist.
Angels were merely a
misinterpretation of
flesh-and-blood
extraterrestrials who descended
from the sky with means of
technology.
And that is what these
quote-unquote, "angels" used.
NARRATOR: if the churches of
Lalibela were constructed with
the help of celestial
travelers, why?
Was it to worship God?
Or was it to honor some other
mystical... or extraterrestrial...
being?
According to the Kebra Nagast,
the ancient holy book
of Ethiopian Christians,
the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant...
the gold box containing the
Ten Commandments... was
transported to Ethiopia from
Jerusalem sometime in the 9th
century B.C.
GERVERS: The child of Solomon
and the Queen of Sheba was named
Menelik I, and he is attributed
with being the first king of
Ethiopia.
When he was 22 years old, he
said to his mother, the Queen of
Sheba, that he wanted to meet
his father, and so she arranged
for him to go to Jerusalem
to do that.
And he spends an extended period
of time there, and got to know
the young noblemen of his age.
And the night before they left,
they went into the temple and
they took the Ark of the
Covenant, and together Menelik
with these noble boys made their
way off back to Ethiopia.
Could the Ark of the Covenant
ever have resided in Lalibela?
There is no historical reason to
believe it could have, but in
legend you do hear that there
was a time when it was in
Lalibela.
COPPENS: Now, interestingly
enough, in Lalibela there is an
altar, which is in the exact
dimensions of the Ark of the
Covenant.
And then the question is really,
what if some of the churches in
Lalibela at some point might not
have shielded the Ark of the
Covenant as well?
NARRATOR: According to the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the
Ark no longer resides within the
churches at Lalibela but instead
lies 200 miles north in the city
of Aksum.
CHILDRESS: Even today there's
a special temple that's guarded
by the Ethiopian priests, and no
one else is allowed inside it,
and it's said that the Ark of
the Covenant is kept inside of
this church.
VON DANIKEN: And there is one
big cathedral, it's called the
Cathedral of the Holy Virgin
Mary in the city of Aksum, and
down there is a tunnel, and
under this tunnel are the
remains of the Ark of the
Covenant.
This is known, this is not a
secret.
I have been there.
NARRATOR: Is it really
possible that the Ark of the
Covenant might still be hidden
deep within the cathedral at
Aksum?
If so, why has it been concealed
for so long?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists, the extraterrestrial
source of the Ark's legendary
power will return one day to
reclaim it, and some believe the
return will happen at the same
sacred place where alien beings
first arrived.
NARRATOR: Eastern Lebanon.
The Bekaa Valley.
Here at this archaeological site
stand the ruins of Heliopolis,
built in the fourth century B.C.
by Alexander the Great to honor
Zeus.
But beneath the Corinthian
columns and remnants of both
Greek and Roman architecture lie
the ruins of a site that is
much, much older.
According to archaeologists, it
dates back nearly 9,000 years.
The ancient city of Baalbek,
named after the early Canaanite
deity Baal.
HANAN CHARAF: Baal is the god
of life, the god of the sky, the
god of the sun.
He was the god that was
venerated on the site of Baalbek
during the Canaanite and the
Phoenician times.
MULLINS: And so, because it
was already sacred to the god
Baal, then later the Greeks and
the Romans then would build
temples on this very same spot.
NARRATOR: Archaeological
surveys have revealed that the
enormous stone foundation that
lies at the base of the site
dates back tens of thousands of
years.
CHARAF: Baalbek, as we know
from the archaeological
evidence, must have existed
during the Neolithic Period,
between 6000 to 8000 years or
even 9000 years B.C.
NARRATOR: But even more
significant to ancient astronaut
theorists is their belief that
the colossal stone platform may
once have served as a landing
pad for space travelers.
(garbled radio transmission)
CHILDRESS: We don't know why
Baalbek was chosen as this
specific site.
It may well be some kind of
special power place.
But what was originally there
before the Roman temple was this
spaceport platform that was
apparently used for
extraterrestrials coming and
going on Planet Earth.
NARRATOR: As evidence,
researchers point to the
gigantic megalithic stones
incorporated into the
foundation, each weighing
between 800 to 1,200 tons and
perfectly fitted together.
COPPENS: This is the real
mystery of Baalbek... how these
stones came to be there, why
they were placed there, and
specifically how they were
transported into place because
some of the stones are of such
magnitude that modern machinery
is incapable of putting them
there, but somehow our ancestors
were able to do this.
TSOUKALOS: Some have
suggested that this stone alone
weighs in excess of 1,200 tons.
How was it moved there?
Because obviously it's situated
on top of these stone rows that
we can find down here, which
means that this stone had to be
lifted and then set on top of
these stones down here.
CHARAF: And because these
stones were gigantic, ancient
people assumed that
extraterrestrial or unknown
forces brought them to the site
itself.
BIRNES: it is one of the
oldest, oldest megalithic sites
on the planet and it has these
huge stones laid out in a
precise geometrical shape at a
time when the prehistoric people
who would have lived there, who
would have gone to the Bekaa
Valley in Lebanon would have no
concept of how to move stones of
that nature.
NARRATOR: But if the moving,
hoisting, and setting of such
massive stones was so incredibly
difficult, then who... or what...
placed them there?
And perhaps more importantly,
why?
COPPENS: We know that the
ancients always went to power
places and Baalbek clearly is
one of them.
It is a place where the gods
were worshipped, where the gods
were said to be present, and so
when it comes to Baalbek, this
platform was built there for a
reason.
For what purpose it was used is
a question we can't answer at
this moment in time, but what we
do know is that whatever was
happening there had a great
religious significance to them
and was linked with worshipping
deities... deities which clearly
are of an otherworldly origin.
NARRATOR: Is it possible, as
ancient astronaut theorists
believe, that Baalbek had been
considered a sacred place for
tens of thousands of years
because it was where
extraterrestrial beings first
arrived on Earth?
The answer may have been found
on excavated clay tablets
inscribed with cuneiform script,
written nearly 5,000 years ago
by the earliest known human
civilization, the Sumerians of
Mesopotamia.
MARTELL: What's really
interesting about Baalbek is
it's always been known as the
landing place.
There's an actual text from
Sumerian times called "The Epic
of Gilgamesh."
Gilgamesh actually claims to
have seen rockets descend and
ascend from Baalbek, the landing
place.
NARRATOR: A comparison
between Baalbek, Lebanon and
Jerusalem's Temple Mount reveals
a striking resemblance between
their massive stone platforms.
Might they have been built for
the same purpose... to support
the weight of spacecraft?
COPPENS: Hopefully at one
point archeology will be so
open-minded that they actually
want to explore this further.
NOORY: We may never get the
answer, but at least trying to
find out what happened, I think,
is what drives all of us.
NARRATOR: Did otherworldly
forces really descend from the
heavens at the world's holiest
places?
It may be that the world's
faithful already know the truth,
or perhaps the truth will be
withheld until some day in the
future.
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Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org