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
A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS
Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org