NARRATOR: A mighty empire
ruled by the descendants
of gods.
A remote island where stone
giants walked the Earth.
And a fertile garden where
modern man was born.
Are the legends behind these
ancient locations really based
on fact?
If so, why did they exist?
And why have the answers been
lost for centuries?
GEORGE NOORY: How in the heck
did they make these?
How did they move them?
Nobody has the answer.
DAVID CHILDRESS: It may well
be that the Garden of Eden today
is underwater.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: These
cultures were connected by
flying machines operated 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 might we find proof by
searching for our planet's
mysterious lost worlds?
NARRATOR: Central America.
In a fertile valley between the
Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean
Sea, in what is now Honduras,
lie the monumental ruins
of Copán.
This archaeological site is
believed to have been the
cultural and political center of
the once mighty Maya
civilization that thrived
between 2000 BC and 800 AD.
PAYSON SHEETS: People have
called Copán the Paris of
Mesoamerica because it was
such a place for the arts
and humanities.
The sculpture is beautiful.
The architecture is just
magnificent.
NARRATOR: It is believed
that, at one time, Copán was
inhabited by as many as 20,000
people and covered an area of
ten square miles.
But in the ninth century, this
incredible Mayan city was
abandoned, and its people
vanished.
When Spanish conquistadors
arrived in the 16th century,
they found only a few farming
hamlets.
But why?
DAVID CHEETHAM: They
decimated their environment.
Warfare became endemic.
And it ended.
And people left.
They walked away.
PHILIP COPPENS: To some
extent, the idea that the Mayans
became a lost culture is a yes
and a no.
We know that they stopped
building, but at the very heart
of the Mayan is a belief...
it's a religion... which
continues to beat until this
very day, saying, "Please pay
attention to us because we have
this vast body of knowledge we
want to share with the world."
NARRATOR: At Copán, the Maya
had built a complex of
monuments, temples and plazas,
as well as sculptured stone
pillars depicting ancient kings.
The Maya were also one of the
earliest ancient civilizations
to create a written language.
ADRIAN GILBERT: In the last
20, 30 years, there's been a
huge advance in the decoding of
their hieroglyphs.
This is something that's
happened in our generation,
and it's still ongoing.
NARRATOR: Might a closer look
at the Mayan stone carvings
and their hieroglyphs provide
proof of contact with
extraterrestrials at Copán?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists, the answer is yes.
TSOUKALOS: Some of the large
statues at Copán are infinitely
fascinating to me because the
gear that they're wearing is
very reminiscent of something
technological.
One of the figures has a box
with tubes coming out
and buttons and just very
weird things.
These statues look like some
type of a being wearing an
astronaut suit.
And, in my opinion, that means
that we were visited by some
type of extraterrestrials who
were very similar in appearance
to us, because according to the
ancient texts, we were created
in their image.
NARRATOR: Researchers working
in Copán have also found stone
sculptures called stelae, which
have provoked controversy since
the site was discovered in 1576.
And various interpretations
of the carvings suggest the
Maya may have had knowledge
of a world far beyond their
own continent.
CHILDRESS: This is one of
the curious dragon sculptures
here at Copán, of which there
are many.
In fact, these very Oriental
statues would look right at
place in China or some other
Oriental country.
Some archaeologists believe that
there are elephants on either
side of this Copán ruler.
So why would there be, here at
Copán, such Asian motifs as
elephants and dragons in a place
in Central America that is so
far away from China and
Southeast Asia?
Is there some kind of
extraterrestrial connection
between the Mayans and the
Chinese, and an origin for both
that comes from the stars?
NARRATOR: How could the early
Maya of Central America have had
knowledge possessed by people
living in Asia... on the other
side of the Pacific Ocean?
TSOUKALOS: One of the basic
premises of the ancient
astronaut theory suggests that
there was contact between
ancient cultures way before
we give them credit.
These ancient cultures were, in
fact, connected by flying
machines, and those flying
machines were usually operated
by extraterrestrials.
And especially in the Mayan
carvings, we find many
references of the gods
descending from the sky in
flying serpents.
Now, do flying serpents
actually exist?
Of course not.
But it is a beautiful and very
poetic description of something
that is rooted in technology.
NARRATOR: Do the many strange
carvings found at Copán really
provide proof of contact between
the Maya and otherworldly
beings?
And if so, might that contact
have produced offspring that
could also be traced to an
extraterrestrial source?
On the west side of the main
temple at Copán stands a 63-step
structure known as the
Hieroglyphic Stairway.
It contains more than 1,200
stones carved with symbols that
record the history of the kings
of Copán.
CHILDRESS: This Hieroglyphic
Stairway is the longest Mayan
inscription in the world.
It emphasizes the divine right
of the 16 rulers of the Copán
dynasty to rule their subjects...
a power given to them by
the gods.
SHEETS: The Hieroglyphic
Stairway mentions the various
rulers of Copán and talks about
them in a semidivine sense.
So they're human, they're
mortal, but they are much more
than that.
They are royal.
They have a spirit in their
blood, and Maya called it Xuit
Lel.
A Xuit Lel is in the blood and
is the most powerful thing to
get access to the supernatural.
So a king's Xuit Lel,
when shed in a bloodletting
ceremony and burned with copal
incense, goes up into the
heavens and takes a message to
the deities, and they did things
for the Maya.
NARRATOR: Could the Maya
rulers really have been
the descendants of
extraterrestrials, as ancient
astronaut theorists believe?
Perhaps conclusive evidence can
be found in what is widely
believed to be the most advanced
celestial calendar system of
ancient times.
VON DANIKEN: The Mayas had
the most precise calendar of all
the people in antiquity, even
the Babylonians, the Sumerians.
They did not only observe our
planetary system, they observed
Orion, they observed Sirius and
other far away systems.
LOHSE: One of the things
that sets the Maya apart was
their ability to monitor the
passage of astronomical events
and to track the movements of
constellations to predict
eclipses.
They really developed some of
this knowledge and skill to a
pretty high degree.
CHEETHAM: It's remarkable.
No telescopes, no metal, yet the
ability to predict time and
events in time, in a way that
was really unprecedented in the
world.
NARRATOR: But why did the
Maya create such precise maps of
the cosmos?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists, the Mayans' knowledge
of the stars, in fact, came to
them from the stars, brought by
extraterrestrial beings.
COPPENS: When it comes to the
ancient Maya, their creation
mythology invokes these legends
which say that somewhere just
south of Orion's belt is this
place where life originated from
and came to planet Earth,
112 BC, when the ancient
Mayans said the gods came
to Earth.
VON DANIKEN: Their teachers
were the gods, and the gods were
the extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: If beings from
another star system really came
to Earth in the ancient past,
did they create the foundations
of Mayan civilization and breed
with its rulers?
Might they have also visited
other areas of our planet?
Perhaps further evidence can be
found at a desolate mountain
kingdom known to ancient priests
from the East as the magi.
NARRATOR: Southeastern
Turkey.
7,000 feet high, atop a barren
mountain called Nemrud Dagi, lie
the ruins of the lost Kingdom of
Commagene.
Here, in 62 BC, a mysterious
royal sanctuary was built by
King Antiochus I.
Colossal statues were created of
lions and eagles, and Persian
and Greek gods, as well as two
massive sculptures of the king
himself.
GILBERT: Now, what Antiochus
was trying to do was to produce
a synthesis, a new version of
the old religions.
And what he basically did was to
take the Persian gods and put
them into Greek dress.
So you've got a synthesis
happening of the Persian gods
with their Greek equivalents.
SANDERS: The reason he
built a colossal statue of
himself among the gods was,
I guess, a presumption on his
part that he would indeed
ascend to heaven and eventually
be among them.
NARRATOR: The conical peak
was the highest point in the
kingdom of King Antiochus.
Measuring 150 feet high and 500
feet wide, it is man-made with
countless small limestone rocks,
and was said to be the location
of the king's royal tomb.
Researchers believe the memorial
was originally built as two
large plazas.
The one on the east side was
used to celebrate the birthday
of King Antiochus.
The one on the west side was
used to commemorate the day in
62 BC when Antiochus became
the leader of a secret society.
GILBERT: I think it's meant
to symbolize Mount Olympus,
the home of the gods.
'Cause you've got the gods
seated round it and then you've
got a peak above them.
I think this is all very
symbolic.
It's a stage for carrying out
certain rituals and
performances.
SANDERS: And he also shows
himself in the relief stelae
shaking hands to all the gods,
as if the gods recognize him as
one of their own and are
welcoming him into Heaven.
NARRATOR: Mysteriously, both
the site and the kingdom were
abandoned in the first
century AD.
And, so far, the king's
legendary burial chamber has
never been found.
But another question still
remains: just why did King
Antiochus build this mysterious
and massive monumental
sanctuary?
According to researchers,
evidence found at Nemrud Dagi
suggests the king had a profound
interest in, and understanding
of, star sciences.
GILBERT: One example of the
advanced knowledge of astronomy
that they had is actually the
lion horoscope, which gives us a
very precise date.
We know that the position of the
stars on the lion's body fits
with the positions of stars of
Leo given in a book of
Eratosthenes, who was a Greek
astronomer from Alexandria who
wrote a book about the stars.
NARRATOR: The arrangement of
stars on the lion horoscope
represented the constellation of
Leo as seen in the sky in July
62 BC, a configuration that
wouldn't be visible again for
25,000 years.
Further evidence of the
exceptional knowledge of the
stars was found in a nearby
shaft that Antiochus built into
the mountain.
GILBERT: The shaft runs into
the mountainside there, at an
angle of 35 degrees to the
horizontal, and it's about
150 meters long, and there's
nothing at the bottom.
NARRATOR: Computer analysis
reveals that on two days of the
year, the sun's rays would
illuminate the bottom of the
shaft... once when in line with
the constellation of Leo and
once when in line with Orion.
GILBERT: Now, that is a very
interesting point in the sky,
because it's the path where the
sun crosses over the Milky Way,
our galaxy.
And that, to the ancient world,
was known as the Gate of Heaven.
And there were two of these...
one where they cross in the
north and the other where they
cross in the south.
There were two Gates to Heaven.
So we can understand that that
gateway would be where the soul
of the king is going back to
heaven through Heaven's Gate.
NARRATOR: Given the fact
that neither Antiochus's tomb or
remains have been found, is it
possible that the king actually
journeyed to the stars through
a heavenly gate, as ancient
astronaut theorists contend?
During his life, researchers
believe Antiochus studied with
a priestly sect of Eastern
astrologers called the magi, who
were thought to be able to
predict and even manipulate
events based on their knowledge
of the stars.
JASON MARTELL: The magi were
renowned priests from the far
Near East who had advanced
astronomical knowledge.
And it's well known that most of
the astronomers from the Near
East, specifically ancient Iraq,
Sumer, recorded series of events
happening in the heavens over
hundreds of thousands of years.
This information was kept on
stone tablets, held very
sacredly and only passed down
to the high priests.
NARRATOR: According to the
Gospel of Matthew in the
New Testament, it was three of
these magi who followed
celestial signs and stars to
the birthplace of Jesus
in Bethlehem.
A coincidence?
MARTELL: What's interesting
about this story is that the
Star of Bethlehem wasn't used
as a navigation point.
It is clearly stated as it
guided the wise men to the
place of Christ.
A star cannot guide someone.
It can only be used as a
navigation point.
So this brings up the idea that
the star was possibly a UFO.
TSOUKALOS: Today, we think
that the magi were magicians,
and that is actually why we
have the word "magic" today.
But when I hear about magical
powers, that raises a flag,
because magic, as such, does
not exist.
So were these magi, in fact, in
possession of some type of an
extraterrestrial technology?
Because, according to the
ancient texts, it was the
initiates of each culture who
were in touch with
extraterrestrials.
And it was the initiates who
later became priests or magi.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
Antiochus was, in fact, a magi,
one who learned celestial
knowledge from extraterrestrial
sources?
If so, might the monumental
sanctuary at Nemrud Dagi have
been built as a place to contact
star travelers?
The answer may have been found
among the ruins of Nemrud Dagi.
GILBERT: The head of
Antiochus is placed on the
statue which is appropriate for
Mercury, and that's because
Mercury is the planet of
initiation for priests.
And he's one himself, so he
models it on himself.
And people think this is him
being boastful... sitting among
the gods.
It's not.
It's actually a code to say that
he's one with the priests.
NARRATOR: Eventually annexed
by the Romans in the first
century AD, King Antiochus and
his court became scattered
throughout the region.
Or were they?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists, they may have instead
used a heavenly gate to depart
through... to a distant realm.
An audacious idea?
Perhaps.
And there are those who believe
further evidence can be found in
one of the driest areas of the
world... in South America.
NARRATOR: Peru,
South America.
250 miles south of the capitol
of Lima lies one of the driest
places on Earth... a wasteland
that once was home to an ancient
civilization called Nazca.
Thriving between the 15th
century BC and 500 AD, the
Nazca were a deeply religious
and spiritual people who built
their ceremonial center in the
temple city of Cahuachi.
OREFICI (translated):
Cahuachi is the
largest adobe ceremonial center
in the world.
Therefore, we find groups of
temples and pyramids of
immense size.
Spirituality was the most
important thing in Cahuachi.
The people of Nazca used the
sacred spaces to elevate
themselves in order to
communicate with the deities.
BRIEN FOERSTER: The Nazca
predominantly were a farming
people, so Cahuachi was built
at the prime, when they had
all the food they needed and
they had enough resources to be
able to develop a highly evolved
religious system.
NARRATOR: But the Nazca
people and their culture
mysteriously vanished some
1,200 years ago, though not
before etching a series of
enormous geoglyphs... or ground
drawings... into the nearby
desert floor.
OREFICI (translated): The
Nazca Lines were an important
element of their religious
worship and their ceremonies.
They would walk through these
lines during their ceremonies,
breaking ceramics and offering
important elements to the
deities from their own culture.
NARRATOR: The great geoglyphs
are composed of dozens of
spirals, triangles and
trapezoids, as well as miles of
zigzagging lines.
FOERSTER: This whole flat
area, which covers several
square miles, is covered in
stones made of iron oxide,
either red or black, and that's
what gives it the darkish,
brownish red appearance.
But right underneath the surface
is clay, which is white, and all
I have to do...
...is that.
The contrast between the clay
and the iron oxide gives a
Nazca Line.
NARRATOR: Acre-sized drawings
depict a hummingbird, a spider,
a killer whale and a human
figure with owllike eyes.
FOERSTER: They would have had
to have had observation from the
sky in order to guide the
workforce on the ground as to
how to draw complicated figures
such as the spider and the
hummingbird.
NARRATOR: Preserved for
centuries by the lack of wind
and rain, the lines are best
seen from the air, and were
first spotted by aviators in
the 1930s.
But why did the Nazca create
patterns that could only
be properly seen from a
great height?
JORGE LUIS DELGADO MAMANI:
The obvious answer is because
you can see only from the sky.
Many of our ancestors would talk
about the star people.
All the sacred sites... we
consider it is for whom?
For the star people.
CHILDRESS: At Nazca and other
areas in Peru, there are legends
of sky people and gods coming
down from the sky.
NARRATOR: But might the
so-called star people referred
to in the Nazca legends really
have been extraterrestrial
beings, as ancient astronaut
theorists believe?
VON DANIKEN: In the
beginning, there was just one
line made by some robot or some
extraterrestrial spaceship,
some space shuttle, because they
were looking for raw material
for energy.
TSOUKALOS: After a while, the
local population would see all
those tracks on the ground, and
they would say that these tracks
were just left behind by these
divine beings, by the gods, and
then they would wonder, "And
what can we do for those gods
to return?"
NARRATOR: According to
ancient astronaut theory,
the earliest of the Nazca Lines
were made in imitation of the
trails left by the first
space visitors.
Later generations added more
elaborate lines, and then
shapes and figures, all in an
attempt to signal the star gods
to return.
But they never did.
OREFICI (translated): And
this caused the population to
doubt the deities, because it
was mainly a psychological
problem they had with their
deities that brought about the
abandonment and collapse of the
Nazca culture.
NARRATOR: But could there be
other evidence of alien contact
with the ancient people of Peru
that is even more astounding
than the Nazca Lines?
CHILDRESS: Some of the skulls
that we find today, because it's
a very dry desert and they're
well preserved, are some of the
most astonishing, elongated
skulls that you'll ever see.
And they look like
extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: According to Nazca
legends, the gods had elongated
heads, much like the distended
skulls of the controversial
Egyptian pharaoh King
Tutankhamen and his sister
Meretaten.
FORRESTER: I honestly believe
that the largest of the
elongated skulls represent
hybrid human beings dating
back thousands of years,
who lived here very peacefully
and could very well be the
ancestors of the Inca.
And that could be the reason why
the Inca suddenly were these
people of incredible
sophistication who came from
seemingly nowhere.
It's possible that they're
descendants from star beings.
CHILDRESS: Were they trying
to imitate people they had
already seen, gods from
outer space?
NARRATOR: Is it possible
the ancient Nazca altered their
bodies and their lands in order
to communicate with or emulate
something their ancestors may
have witnessed, something out of
this world?
Perhaps further clues to
mankind's extraterrestrial
connection can be found in the
most remote place on planet
Earth: in the South Pacific.
NARRATOR: The South
Pacific Ocean.
2,300 miles west of South
America, in one of the most
remote places on Earth, giant
stone figures stand with their
backs to the sea.
Called moai by the native
inhabitants, they are the silent
sentinels of Easter island.
STEVENSON: The moais are
scattered throughout the island,
and they're positioned on top of
platforms, for the most part.
A moai is a stone sculpture of a
deceased ancestor.
They were once living
individuals who ruled the
society or led the society.
They were chiefs.
And then, upon their death, we
believe that they've become
represented in stone.
NARRATOR: Nearly 900 moai
were carved between the 12th
and 18th centuries.
Hewn with stone tools from
volcanic rock, the tallest
stands a towering 33 feet high
and weighs a staggering 75 tons.
STEVENSON: They were probably
even more unique-looking in
the past.
They may have been painted.
And they also had large white
coral eyes with obsidian pupils.
So it's a very effective way of
kind of telling people, not
verbally but symbolically, that
someone's watching you and you
should toe the line.
You should do what you're
supposed to do.
NARRATOR: The people who
created the moai called
themselves the Rapa Nui,
and mainstream historians
believe their Polynesian
ancestors came to the island in
canoes from across the vast
Pacific Ocean between 700 and
1100 AD.
But over several centuries, for
reasons that are still unclear,
what was once an island paradise
withered into a treeless desert,
stalked by famine, violence and
some say cannibalism.
When the first Europeans arrived
in 1722, the Rapa Nui culture
had already been nearly
wiped out...
and few could imagine how such
primitive people could have
created the moai.
NOORY: How in the heck did
they make these?
Where did they come from?
And how did they move them?
Nobody has the answer.
NARRATOR: Modern scientists
have tried, and so far have
failed, to duplicate the feats
of the ancient Rapa Nui.
In 1987, anthropologist Charles
Love used rollers to move a
nine-ton moai replica at Western
Wyoming Community College.
Ready?
On three.
One, two, three.
Come on, Rick.
Come on.
Good.
Thank you.
Whoa.
Only able to budge it about half
an inch.
NARRATOR: Other researchers
have tried pulling moai with
sleds.
But there is a unique problem
with the idea of moving moai
with sleds or rollers.
LOVE: When you go to Easter
island, you don't get the
impression they had enough wood
to have rollers.
And in fact, in the 1700s, the
first four expeditions to Easter
island never really saw a tree.
And so that's the real mystery
of Easter island.
How can you move a multi-ton
statue if you have no trees for
rollers?
NARRATOR: According to the
oral history of the Rapa Nui,
the moai were moved in a very
unusual way.
LOVE: They all reply
basically the same thing.
The moai walked to the ahu, and
that's the only explanation that
they give.
NARRATOR: But who or what had
the power to make multi-ton moai
appear to walk to their ahu,
or stone platforms?
In 1919, British archaeologist
Katherine Routledge, who lived
on Easter island for a year,
recorded the legends and
testimony of an old woman who
said the moai were moved with
a mystical energy called mana.
And according to the oral
histories of the Rapa Nui, mana
came from the gods.
TSOUKALOS: Mana was a direct
gift of the gods given to the
Easter islanders.
Was this mana really a type of
magical force?
Of course not.
It was some type of
misunderstood technology, some
type of a device, an
extraterrestrial tool with which
you could move those massive
Easter island heads rather
easily.
NARRATOR: Did early
inhabitants of Easter island
really know how to unlock
the secrets of gravity using
mana?
And if so, where might such
power over the physical world
have come from?
Researchers believe there are
clues hidden within mysterious
written texts called
rongorongo, inscribed on pieces
of wood, discovered on the
island in the 19th century.
LOVE: This is a
rongorongo board.
And it's a replica of ones of
old.
About 25 of them are known.
We have had about six or eight
different attempts at
translating these things, with
six or eight different results.
CHILDRESS: You have to ask
yourself: how could the Easter
islanders have invented their
own writing without some other
cultural influence coming there?
Would it have been ancient
seafarers coming to Easter
island or perhaps even space
visitors?
NARRATOR: Further evidence of
early contact with otherworldly
beings can be found in numerous
strange stone carvings... called
petroglyphs.
LOVE: What we see in the
petroglyph art of the island are
these figures of bird men, these
tangata manus, carved in bas
relief on the rocks on the very
edge of the precipice.
NARRATOR: In the myths of
Easter island's Rapa Nui, the
bird man represents Makemake,
the chief god and creator of
humanity.
COPPENS: Did at some point in
the past a creature come, which
was bird man who flew in from
somewhere.
Did he arrive on this
island and did he indeed
live very much like a pariah?
Did he die or did he take off
again, and is this what the
locals keep this legend of this
creature who came to them alive
through myth, legend and
ritual.
NARRATOR: Walking stone
giants, petroglyphs of flying
beings...
might the ancient inhabitants
of Easter island have been
familiar with antigravity
levitation and spaceflight?
If so, might these astounding
abilities... forever lost to
time, have been made possible
by extraterrestrial visitors?
Perhaps more evidence can be
found in the most famous and
alluring of all lost worlds...
the Garden of Eden.
NARRATOR: The Middle East.
For centuries, archaeologists,
theologians and scholars have
debated the location... and even
the existence of the ultimate
of all lost worlds... the
biblical "Garden of Eden."
it was here, according to the
Hebrew Book of Genesis, that
a paradise once existed...
a paradise where the first human
beings, Adam and Eve, were
actually created by God.
But could such a paradise, now
shrouded in myth and legend,
have actually been a real place?
COPPENS: When we're looking
at the Garden of Eden, we know
that actually there is a
physical description as to where
it was.
It is said that four very
specific rivers came from it or
were near it.
So we can actually go in search
of this.
MULLINS: Two of these rivers,
the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers,
are well known, and actually run
through what is Iraq today.
The other two rivers that are
described are not very clear.
NARRATOR: Researchers now
believe the third river, known
as the Karun River, runs through
Iran and joins the Euphrates
just north of the Persian Gulf.
Then, in 2010, satellite imagery
revealed a fossil river, or dry
riverbed, called the Wadi Baton,
that once flowed through
northern Arabia and also joined
with the Euphrates.
Could these two rivers have been
the location of the Pishon
and Gihon rivers... the lost
rivers mentioned in the Bible...
that point to the actual
location of the Garden of Eden?
JURIS ZARINS: When you read
the account in Genesis, it says
that the four rivers formed one
river.
So very careful reading
indicates that the two rivers,
which are today in Iraq... the
Tigris and Euphrates... and the
one river, which is in Iran,
the Karun, and the fossil
river in Arabia, when you join
them up, and form one river,
it's at the approximate location
of northern Persian Gulf.
NARRATOR: And according to
the Bible, that one river flowed
through the Garden of Eden.
ZARINS: And so, based upon
Landsat images and a close
reading of the Hebrew text, I
think that the location of the
Garden of Eden is under the
waters of the Persian Gulf and
not on land.
NARRATOR: Scientists believe
that during the last ice age,
the polar ice caps were two
miles high and ocean levels were
170 feet lower than they are
today.
Recent studies suggest the area
of the Persian Gulf would have
been a dry, fertile plain the
size of Great Britain, providing
an ideal refuge to some of the
earliest humans outside Africa
nearly 75,000 years ago.
But as the ice caps melted over
the course of thousands of
years, the waters of what is now
the Indian Ocean flooded the
land and formed the Persian
Gulf.
GRAHAM HANCOCK: During that
long period, there were at
least three episodes of very,
very major flooding, when you
would be looking at 30 or 40
foot rises in sea level,
virtually overnight.
NARRATOR: Might a great
flood... perhaps the one
described in the biblical story
of Noah's Ark, really be
responsible for the
disappearance of the so-called
"Garden of Eden"?
Ancient astronaut theorists
believe it is not only possible,
but that the proof can be found
by studying ancient Sumerian
texts.
The earliest known civilization
of Sumer dates to 5,000 BC,
and their first settlement in
southern Mesopotamia was called
Eridu.
ZARINS: The ancient Sumerians
have a wonderful story.
They believe that they had lived
in an area that was probably to
the south of what is today
Sumer.
And the reason we know that is
because they said they came out
of the sea.
NARRATOR: Ancient cuneiform
writings that have survived on
clay tablets suggest the
Sumerians had been brought to
Eridu by their god Enki.
The cuneiform texts also
describe an alien race named the
Anunnaki who came to Earth and
created the first modern human
beings.
ZARINS: "Adam" in Sumerian,
or a very early form of
Sumerian, means "a small rural
settlement."
"Eve," however, isn't Sumerian.
"Eve" in Arabic and the Semitic
languages means "one who
gives birth."
The word "Eden" is a
pre-Sumerian word and it means
"plain."
NARRATOR: But, according to
ancient astronaut theory, the
Sumerian accounts may actually
refer to a more ancient time,
and to a distant fertile plain
now lost under the waters of the
Persian Gulf.
COPPENS: Now the question is
this, was the Garden of Eden
really some kind of laboratory
where certain things were
created by the ancient
scientists of their day?
Well, if mankind was created in
a Garden of Eden, then clearly
whoever was creating this
wasn't a human being, it was
somebody else.
TSOUKALOS: So is it possible
that the Garden of Eden was
located here on planet Earth?
Yes, but was it a specific
geographic location?
I'm not sure.
Personally, I'm leaning more
towards the idea that the Garden
of Eden was some type of a
closed environment somewhere in
nature, but it definitely was
some type of a laboratory from
where modern man originated.
NARRATOR: Is it really
possible that the first humans
were created by extraterrestrial
beings in what is referred to in
the Bible as a "Garden of Eden"?
If so, has the evidence existed
all along, on the cuneiform
tablets of the ancient
Sumerians?
Ancient astronaut theorists
believe the answer is a
definite yes.
And there are those who believe
that such an incredible notion
is not only possible, but that
the proof lies in the further
investigation of lost
civilizations and ancient
worlds... an investigation that
will not only uncover our past,
but reveal our future.
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