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