1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,500 Superhuman strength, supernatural powers, and the 2 00:00:08,500 --> 00:00:13,780 awesome ability to fly. Throughout history, 3 00:00:13,780 --> 00:00:19,280 mankind has told incredible tales of gods and superheroes. 4 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:23,120 But do we yearn to possess these extraordinary powers for 5 00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:29,500 another more profound reason? Implanted within our DNA is 6 00:00:29,500 --> 00:00:34,500 this desire to become godlike, to fly in the air or swim 7 00:00:34,500 --> 00:00:38,500 through the ocean or especially to ascend into the stars. 8 00:00:38,500 --> 00:00:43,000 Humans were created according to the image of God, so we are 9 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,500 part of them. If the so-called gods had incredible powers, 10 00:00:47,500 --> 00:00:53,500 we have them in us too. Could ancient stories of godlike 11 00:00:53,500 --> 00:00:58,500 kings and heroes really have otherworldly origins? 12 00:00:58,500 --> 00:01:02,500 Many of these sacred powers given to kings of the past, 13 00:01:02,500 --> 00:01:05,500 we know today were more than likely technology that ancient 14 00:01:05,500 --> 00:01:09,500 man was given from the actual gods, which we know were 15 00:01:09,500 --> 00:01:13,500 probably extraterrestrials. Millions of people around the 16 00:01:13,500 --> 00:01:16,500 world believe we have been visited in the past by 17 00:01:16,500 --> 00:01:21,500 extraterrestrial beings. What if it were true? 18 00:01:21,500 --> 00:01:26,500 Did ancient aliens really help to shape our history? 19 00:01:26,500 --> 00:01:30,500 And does it help to explain our continuing fascination with 20 00:01:30,500 --> 00:01:34,500 stories of gods and heroes? 21 00:01:56,500 --> 00:02:10,500 Music 22 00:02:10,500 --> 00:02:16,500 Greece, the island of Crete. On the Lassithi Plateau, 23 00:02:16,500 --> 00:02:22,500 over half a mile above sea level, lies the Diktion Cave. 24 00:02:22,500 --> 00:02:26,500 This sprawling complex of caverns stretches nearly one and a 25 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:31,500 half square miles. And archaeological finds have shown a 26 00:02:31,500 --> 00:02:37,500 human presence dating as far back as 6,000 years ago. 27 00:02:37,500 --> 00:02:42,500 Historians believe the first inhabitants of the area actually 28 00:02:42,500 --> 00:02:47,500 lived inside the cave. And according to legend, its many 29 00:02:47,500 --> 00:02:52,500 members were once home to an otherworldly being. 30 00:02:52,500 --> 00:02:56,500 Zeus, the Greek god of thunder. 31 00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:59,500 Music 32 00:02:59,500 --> 00:03:04,500 In Greek mythology, Zeus is the son of Cronus, the king of the 33 00:03:04,500 --> 00:03:10,500 first generation of gods known as the Titans. 34 00:03:10,500 --> 00:03:14,500 Zeus' father, Cronus, is not particularly excited about giving 35 00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:17,500 birth to a child because he's heard a prophecy that one of his 36 00:03:17,500 --> 00:03:20,500 children is going to overthrow him. So just as soon as his 37 00:03:20,500 --> 00:03:25,500 children are born, he just swallows them all down. 38 00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:29,500 Now his mother, Rhea, who is Cronus' wife, is distraught about 39 00:03:29,500 --> 00:03:32,500 this, so what she does is substitute a rock that she's wrapped 40 00:03:32,500 --> 00:03:35,500 up in swaddling clothes, gives it to Cronus, so she swallows 41 00:03:35,500 --> 00:03:39,500 down. And what she does is hide Zeus away in a cave so he grows 42 00:03:39,500 --> 00:03:41,500 up there. 43 00:03:41,500 --> 00:03:46,500 In Theogony, the 8th century BC poet Hesiod, describes the cave 44 00:03:46,500 --> 00:03:51,500 Zeus was hidden in as lying in these very mountains, and 45 00:03:51,500 --> 00:03:56,500 specifically near the city of Lictos, the location of the 46 00:03:56,500 --> 00:04:00,500 Diction Cave. But the similarities between this cave and 47 00:04:00,500 --> 00:04:06,500 the cave of Zeus described in Greek mythology go much further. 48 00:04:06,500 --> 00:04:10,500 The ancients say that when they are talking about mythology, it 49 00:04:10,500 --> 00:04:15,500 is about unrecorded events of their past. 50 00:04:15,500 --> 00:04:19,500 According to the Greek myths, the child Zeus was nourished on a 51 00:04:19,500 --> 00:04:24,500 mixture of honey and milk at the other of the goat. Now around 52 00:04:24,500 --> 00:04:29,500 1908 D, a chamber in the Diction Cave was identified by locals as 53 00:04:29,500 --> 00:04:33,500 the birthplace of Zeus. And when archaeologists went in there, 54 00:04:33,500 --> 00:04:36,500 they discovered an altar which remains of numerous religious 55 00:04:36,500 --> 00:04:41,500 offerings, amongst them honey and goat milk. These remains date 56 00:04:41,500 --> 00:04:44,500 back 4000 years to the exact period in which the ancient Greek 57 00:04:44,500 --> 00:04:48,500 stories took place. The question is, is this once again a 58 00:04:48,500 --> 00:04:52,500 coincidence that modern excavations find remains in this cave that 59 00:04:52,500 --> 00:04:56,500 match up with what's written in Greek mythology? 60 00:04:56,500 --> 00:05:00,500 Also found in the Diction Cave were numerous artifacts dating 61 00:05:00,500 --> 00:05:04,500 back to what would have been the time of Zeus' childhood, according 62 00:05:04,500 --> 00:05:10,500 to the Greek stories. Among them was a fragmentary inscription 63 00:05:10,500 --> 00:05:16,500 bearing a hymn, a hymn dedicated specifically to Zeus. 64 00:05:16,500 --> 00:05:22,500 Could the Diction Cave really be the cave described in Theogony? 65 00:05:22,500 --> 00:05:28,500 And if actual locations from Greek mythology really do exist, 66 00:05:28,500 --> 00:05:33,500 could legendary characters and events also be based on historical 67 00:05:33,500 --> 00:05:38,500 fact? We think of mythology as something which has been invented. 68 00:05:38,500 --> 00:05:43,500 But really when we look at the ancient Greeks, they believed that the 69 00:05:43,500 --> 00:05:48,500 War of the Titans physically happened, that this was a war which 70 00:05:48,500 --> 00:05:53,500 was fought in heavens by the deities. 71 00:05:53,500 --> 00:05:59,500 In Greek mythology, the War of the Titans is a celestial battle 72 00:05:59,500 --> 00:06:04,500 waged by Zeus and his siblings, known as the Olympians, against 73 00:06:04,500 --> 00:06:09,500 their father Cronus and the Titans. 74 00:06:09,500 --> 00:06:13,500 The Olympians, who are the victors in this battle, were the gods 75 00:06:13,500 --> 00:06:18,500 worshipped by the ancient Greeks. But according to ancient 76 00:06:18,500 --> 00:06:22,500 astronaut theorists, these human-like beings may have been 77 00:06:22,500 --> 00:06:26,500 something other than divine, and this mythical war may have been 78 00:06:26,500 --> 00:06:32,500 an actual historical event. 79 00:06:32,500 --> 00:06:36,500 To support this claim, they point to the existence of similar myths 80 00:06:36,500 --> 00:06:41,500 and stories told by different cultures throughout the world. 81 00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:46,500 When it comes to warring parties of gods, Greece is not a stand-alone issue. 82 00:06:46,500 --> 00:06:51,500 We have the same thing in Ragnornaak. In Norwegian mythology, we have this 83 00:06:51,500 --> 00:06:56,500 idea that the gods fought amongst themselves as well. 84 00:06:56,500 --> 00:07:00,500 We also have stories from Sumerian Babylonian Hittite accounts, where it 85 00:07:00,500 --> 00:07:08,500 says that the wars were fought between gods. 86 00:07:08,500 --> 00:07:13,500 We see the same story of Titans being overthrown by a new set of gods. 87 00:07:13,500 --> 00:07:16,500 In the Sumerian epics of the Anunnaki coming here is the original 88 00:07:16,500 --> 00:07:21,500 culture in ancient Iraq. So these similarities tell of a warring race 89 00:07:21,500 --> 00:07:25,500 of beings that squabbled amongst themselves about the rights of 90 00:07:25,500 --> 00:07:30,500 various areas on the earth. 91 00:07:30,500 --> 00:07:34,500 What can explain the similarities of these ancient war stories that 92 00:07:34,500 --> 00:07:39,500 emerged from all over the world? Could they all be describing the same 93 00:07:39,500 --> 00:07:43,500 historical events? And if there is an historical basis for the 94 00:07:43,500 --> 00:07:47,500 legends and stories, what does that suggest about the incredible 95 00:07:47,500 --> 00:07:53,500 powers and weaponry supposedly possessed by the gods? 96 00:07:53,500 --> 00:07:56,500 It's very possible that the clash of the Titans known from the Greek 97 00:07:56,500 --> 00:08:01,500 times is actually speaking of a much earlier epoch of extraterrestrials 98 00:08:01,500 --> 00:08:05,500 having a type of battle. 99 00:08:05,500 --> 00:08:09,500 The ancient Greek gods had helmets that made them invisible. 100 00:08:09,500 --> 00:08:13,500 They had breast plates that made them impervious to their enemies' weapons. 101 00:08:13,500 --> 00:08:17,500 They had tridents that shot thunderbolts. 102 00:08:17,500 --> 00:08:22,500 They had winged sandals that gave them the power of light. 103 00:08:22,500 --> 00:08:26,500 These are all profound examples of an ancient alien technology that the 104 00:08:26,500 --> 00:08:29,500 Greek gods possessed. 105 00:08:29,500 --> 00:08:34,500 If mythical gods and monsters really did exist, were they, as ancient 106 00:08:34,500 --> 00:08:39,500 astronaut theorists believe, extraterrestrial beings? 107 00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:44,500 And could this help to explain the enormous and enduring popularity of 108 00:08:44,500 --> 00:08:51,500 gods, Titans and other so-called superheroes in today's popular culture? 109 00:08:51,500 --> 00:08:55,500 There's so many different places where the characters and superheroes come from, 110 00:08:55,500 --> 00:08:58,500 but naturally so much of it is drawn from mythology and from literature 111 00:08:58,500 --> 00:09:03,500 because those are such strong bodies of work and so familiar and they become 112 00:09:03,500 --> 00:09:06,500 drug types for all types of heroes. 113 00:09:06,500 --> 00:09:09,500 The stories exist partly because we want to dream of such powers. 114 00:09:09,500 --> 00:09:15,500 We want to imagine what might be possible if we had unlimited dominance. 115 00:09:15,500 --> 00:09:20,500 We watch endless amounts of television and movies which says that amongst us 116 00:09:20,500 --> 00:09:25,500 are a group of people who are more than just human, super-humans, 117 00:09:25,500 --> 00:09:29,500 and that somehow these people are born that way or that something happens to them 118 00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:31,500 which triggers this. 119 00:09:31,500 --> 00:09:36,500 But basically the underlying subconscious message really is that we are 120 00:09:36,500 --> 00:09:39,500 capable of becoming gods. 121 00:09:39,500 --> 00:09:45,500 Implanted within our DNA is this desire to become god-like, be it to fly in the 122 00:09:45,500 --> 00:09:52,500 air or swim through the ocean or run super-fast or especially to ascend into the stars. 123 00:09:52,500 --> 00:09:58,500 Why are human beings so drawn to stories about beings with superior abilities 124 00:09:58,500 --> 00:10:00,500 and technologies? 125 00:10:00,500 --> 00:10:05,500 Are they looking for something larger and more powerful outside of themselves 126 00:10:05,500 --> 00:10:09,500 or perhaps within? 127 00:10:09,500 --> 00:10:15,500 In Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus is often credited with creating human beings 128 00:10:15,500 --> 00:10:19,500 out of basic materials found on Earth. 129 00:10:19,500 --> 00:10:24,500 Prometheus was playing with mud and made little figurines out of it. 130 00:10:24,500 --> 00:10:28,500 Athena was fascinated with this and breathed life into them. 131 00:10:28,500 --> 00:10:32,500 The cynical read is to say, well what he wants is somebody to worship him like people 132 00:10:32,500 --> 00:10:33,500 worship Zeus. 133 00:10:33,500 --> 00:10:38,500 He created us in his image and he gave us all these skills, culture and technology 134 00:10:38,500 --> 00:10:43,500 and medicines and makes us what it means to be a human being. 135 00:10:43,500 --> 00:10:48,500 Zeus realized he couldn't uncreate these beings but what he could do is limit them 136 00:10:48,500 --> 00:10:53,500 in their capabilities and restrict them in their capacity and prevent them from becoming god-like. 137 00:10:54,500 --> 00:11:01,500 It's as if the extraterrestrials wanted to keep us from having all the same technology 138 00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:02,500 that they had. 139 00:11:02,500 --> 00:11:08,500 In another version of the story, Prometheus is said to have stolen a spark from Zeus' 140 00:11:08,500 --> 00:11:12,500 lightning bolt in order to give humans the gift of fire. 141 00:11:12,500 --> 00:11:18,500 When we are talking about a god who gives fire to man, we realize that this is not the god 142 00:11:18,500 --> 00:11:23,500 as in the supreme being, the one, but clearly somebody else, an ancient alien. 143 00:11:23,500 --> 00:11:30,500 We pursued throughout history to master the powers of the gods, but the question is where did 144 00:11:30,500 --> 00:11:36,500 all those ideas originate and the answer is very simple due to extraterrestrial contacts 145 00:11:36,500 --> 00:11:38,500 in our remote past. 146 00:11:39,500 --> 00:11:48,500 Could humans really be the creation of alien beings with extraordinary powers? 147 00:11:48,500 --> 00:11:56,500 Do we have a subconscious desire to reconnect with the so-called gods of our past by becoming 148 00:11:56,500 --> 00:11:59,500 more like them through advancements in technology? 149 00:11:59,500 --> 00:12:06,500 And could this explain the origins of ancient tales of gods and heroes who were thought to 150 00:12:06,500 --> 00:12:10,500 possess extraordinary powers? 151 00:12:10,500 --> 00:12:17,500 Perhaps the answer can be found near the Greek valley of Phosus and by examining the legend 152 00:12:17,500 --> 00:12:20,500 of the Oracle at Delphi. 153 00:12:25,500 --> 00:12:28,500 Lydia, 716 BC. 154 00:12:29,500 --> 00:12:36,500 Gaijes, a shepherd in the service of King Candalus, becomes the unlikely successor to the throne 155 00:12:36,500 --> 00:12:40,500 of this ancient kingdom in modern-day Turkey. 156 00:12:40,500 --> 00:12:48,500 But the story of how this modest servant rose from a shepherd to a king is so fantastic that many 157 00:12:48,500 --> 00:12:54,500 scholars and historians have dismissed it as mere myth. 158 00:12:54,500 --> 00:12:58,500 Gaijes is out in the field and there is a terrible earthquake. 159 00:13:02,500 --> 00:13:08,500 He sees a cave open, goes into that cave and sees a gold ring. 160 00:13:08,500 --> 00:13:14,500 He just kind of walks into like this chamber which is like a tomb where he sees a dead body 161 00:13:14,500 --> 00:13:15,500 that's got some jewelry on it. 162 00:13:15,500 --> 00:13:18,500 So he grabs this ring off of it because he's a poor man. 163 00:13:18,500 --> 00:13:22,500 He puts the ring on and discovers that it gives him the power to be invisible. 164 00:13:22,500 --> 00:13:25,500 Here he has the kind of power a god would have. 165 00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:26,500 And does he use it? 166 00:13:26,500 --> 00:13:30,500 Well, actually it's a little questionable how he uses it. 167 00:13:30,500 --> 00:13:32,500 He comes up with a plan. 168 00:13:32,500 --> 00:13:39,500 The next time he goes to visit the king, he brings that ring with him, turns himself invisible, 169 00:13:39,500 --> 00:13:46,500 seduces the queen, kills the king, takes over the palace. 170 00:13:46,500 --> 00:13:51,500 What we have here is really a multi-layered legend. 171 00:13:51,500 --> 00:13:57,500 We have not only the story of the fact that somebody in the past had the cloak of invisibility, 172 00:13:57,500 --> 00:14:03,500 but actually that he did not invent this, but that this was a legacy from a race who had buried 173 00:14:03,500 --> 00:14:09,500 dead, dead, and that alongside these dead were artifacts which were technological. 174 00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:15,500 What kind of a magical amulet or technology are we talking about here? 175 00:14:15,500 --> 00:14:25,500 Was this the ring of the gods that's described by the ancient Samarians as the ring of cosmic sovereignty? 176 00:14:25,500 --> 00:14:31,500 According to legend, a bloody civil war erupted following the death of King Candalus. 177 00:14:31,500 --> 00:14:39,500 It ended when Gaijis obtained approval for overthrowing the throne from the Oracle of Delphi. 178 00:14:39,500 --> 00:14:47,500 A mysterious priestess whose eerily correct prophecies were said to come directly from the Greek god Apollo. 179 00:14:47,500 --> 00:14:56,500 The Oracle of Delphi, whether it's a prophet or a soothsayer, had a direct relationship to the extraterrestrial being. 180 00:14:56,500 --> 00:15:07,500 The extraterrestrial being communicated through the priest who would then interpret that into a language that the listeners could understand. 181 00:15:10,500 --> 00:15:15,500 But was it really a god who endorsed Gaijis reign? 182 00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:22,500 Or was Apollo, the son of Zeus, an extraterrestrial as ancient astronaut theorists contend? 183 00:15:22,500 --> 00:15:32,500 Was it perhaps the same extraterrestrial who led Gaijis to find the ring that enabled him to seize power in the first place? 184 00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:41,500 And if so, could this be an example of aliens endowing a human with godlike powers to carry out some earthly agenda? 185 00:15:41,500 --> 00:15:50,500 When I read stories like Gaijis of Lydia who has found this ring which gave him the capability of becoming invisible, 186 00:15:50,500 --> 00:15:56,500 then there are two things that I think of. One, is it just fantasy? 187 00:15:56,500 --> 00:16:03,500 Or do we have another reference here that describes misunderstood technology? 188 00:16:03,500 --> 00:16:11,500 Because today researchers at Duke University are trying to develop an invisibility cloak. 189 00:16:12,500 --> 00:16:21,500 Duke University engineering professor David R. Smith is the director of the Center for Metamaterial at Integrated Plasmonics. 190 00:16:21,500 --> 00:16:31,500 For the past decade, Smith and his team have been working to create metamaterials, or artificial materials that are not found in nature. 191 00:16:31,500 --> 00:16:43,500 Just as a piece of glass can control the way light bends, Smith has set out to prove that certain man-made materials can actually be constructed to render objects invisible. 192 00:16:43,500 --> 00:16:52,500 This is actually an example of a metamaterial. This is a bunch of pieces of circuit board all cut out and assembled together. 193 00:16:52,500 --> 00:16:56,500 And on the circuit boards are little pieces of copper that are tiny in circuits. 194 00:16:56,500 --> 00:17:00,500 And each circuit has a certain response to electromagnetic radiation. 195 00:17:00,500 --> 00:17:07,500 And the combination of these patterns plus the shape gives us something that we can call an invisibility cloak. 196 00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:13,500 The idea behind the cloak is that it renders something inside of it invisible and itself invisible as well. 197 00:17:14,500 --> 00:17:19,500 At present, the device only makes objects disappear at microwave frequencies. 198 00:17:19,500 --> 00:17:28,500 But Dr. Smith believes that soon this technology will also be able to make objects invisible to even the human eye. 199 00:17:28,500 --> 00:17:36,500 Just in the last year or two, there have actually been experiments showing certain night of the cloaking ideas transitioning to the visible spectrum. 200 00:17:36,500 --> 00:17:40,500 Red, green, blue, those experiments are actually being done now. 201 00:17:40,500 --> 00:17:45,500 We will have invisibility cloaks at some point that we could wear as humans. 202 00:17:45,500 --> 00:17:50,500 I definitely think we're going to get there because science and speculative science go hand in hand. 203 00:17:50,500 --> 00:17:58,500 Science creates a base point, speculative science pushes it farther into the future, and that's how technology advances. 204 00:18:00,500 --> 00:18:03,500 An actual cloak of invisibility. 205 00:18:03,500 --> 00:18:16,500 Though still in development, researchers in Japan have designed an optical camouflage system that makes special reflective material seemingly disappear, including the person wearing it. 206 00:18:16,500 --> 00:18:26,500 Thus, bringing us closer to achieving a fully functional invisibility cloak, like the one described in the story of Gaiji's. 207 00:18:27,500 --> 00:18:41,500 Could this mean that other seemingly far-fetched devices of fantasy, like flying carpets and magic wands, are also based on science? 208 00:18:41,500 --> 00:18:50,500 And if so, might they have been used in the ancient past, perhaps in the hands of extraterrestrial visitors? 209 00:18:51,500 --> 00:18:59,500 Just because we are working on these technologies today does not mean that we are the first. 210 00:19:01,500 --> 00:19:13,500 Because we find multiple references in ancient texts that describe devices with which you were able to go invisible. 211 00:19:14,500 --> 00:19:22,500 So much of our storytelling deals with the fact that what we deem to be magic can really be science at a different time. 212 00:19:23,500 --> 00:19:34,500 If legendary tales like the story of King Gaiji's could be proven to be real, what does it suggest about other fantastic stories of gods and titans? 213 00:19:35,500 --> 00:19:40,500 Hisserlik, Turkey 214 00:19:41,500 --> 00:19:57,500 Within this archaeological site lie the ruins of Troy, a place once thought by mainstream scientists to be no more than myth, until Heinrich Schleeman unearthed its remains in 1871. 215 00:19:58,500 --> 00:20:08,500 Here, in the 12th century BC, the ancient Greek city was the center of the Trojan War, a Greek battle described in Homer's Iliad. 216 00:20:10,500 --> 00:20:21,500 According to the epic poem, the goddess Athena gives King Diomedes the power of divine vision during the war, so that he could see like the gods. 217 00:20:22,500 --> 00:20:27,500 Athena comes down and she wants to help the Greeks, so she finds Diomedes, she says, I'm going to help you out here. 218 00:20:27,500 --> 00:20:31,500 So what I'm going to do is strip away this mist that's over your eyes. 219 00:20:31,500 --> 00:20:35,500 You as a human being, you don't really know what's going on, you just see battle. 220 00:20:35,500 --> 00:20:42,500 But once I strip away this mist, you're going to be able to see what's really going on, which is that in addition to a battle going on, there are gods fighting. 221 00:20:43,500 --> 00:20:56,500 King Diomedes sees that Aries, the god of war, is fighting alongside his enemy Hector, and he was not to use this site to attack the gods, but that is exactly what he uses it for. 222 00:20:57,500 --> 00:21:05,500 The side aspect of this is this. It's a question, did the gods really have this? Were they superhuman, like we want to become? 223 00:21:05,500 --> 00:21:10,500 Or did they have technology, which enabled them to do these kind of things? 224 00:21:12,500 --> 00:21:25,500 Diomedes and the gods power of super eyesight may seem like pure fantasy, but enhanced vision is also becoming a reality thanks to advancements in spectrometer technology. 225 00:21:27,500 --> 00:21:36,500 Spectrometers are devices used to measure properties of light over a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum than is visible with the human eye. 226 00:21:36,500 --> 00:21:45,500 And today, just as we are developing cloaking devices, we are also developing technology to see through those devices. 227 00:21:47,500 --> 00:22:02,500 Technology is driven by society's needs more than anything else, but myths have a way of inspiring us and they represent a part of the imagination which we need to even envision the next generation of technologies. 228 00:22:03,500 --> 00:22:16,500 If I dream I could go to another galaxy, I will sooner or later go to another galaxy. We are the offsprings of the gods and all these things are in our brains. 229 00:22:16,500 --> 00:22:26,500 We think we are very powerful. In practice, we are not, but we have technology to develop the power because we are the sons of the gods. 230 00:22:27,500 --> 00:22:43,500 Might technology be our way of reconnecting with the gods? Or did the so-called gods deliberately deny us their superpowers as a way of motivating our imaginations and technological achievements? 231 00:22:44,500 --> 00:22:56,500 Perhaps further evidence can be found in the heavens at a Mexican ceremony that commemorates real life close encounters with alien visitors. 232 00:23:03,500 --> 00:23:04,500 Vera Cruz, Mexico. 233 00:23:05,500 --> 00:23:19,500 Five men in ceremonial dress ascend a 100-foot pole. Once at the top, one of the men performs a sacred dance while playing a flute and drum atop a platform. 234 00:23:19,500 --> 00:23:31,500 The other four men launch themselves off. It is a ritual known as la danza de los voladores, or the dance of the flyers. 235 00:23:32,500 --> 00:23:45,500 The ritual has the leader stand on the top of the pole, a tiny little platform, and the four flyers wrap a cable around that pole and then branch out and fly around in a pyramid shape in perfect synchronous order. 236 00:23:45,500 --> 00:23:57,500 It is a stunning and daring thing to do. They are representing the birds, they are representing the four cardinal directions, they are representing the elements, heavily symbolic and mythic. It is a powerful ritual. 237 00:24:02,500 --> 00:24:13,500 The Totonic people who practice this ceremony today claim it is a dance that was invented 500 years ago as a plea to the gods to end a severe drought. 238 00:24:13,500 --> 00:24:19,500 But could this ancient ritual have different, perhaps, otherworldly origins? 239 00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:38,500 What we have here with the voladores is 100% living mythology, something that describes and illustrates in front of our living eye the descent of the gods from a long time ago. 240 00:24:38,500 --> 00:24:56,500 The motif of the gods descending from the sky is one of the most ancient stories. If you go back to the Old Testament, you have the story of the sons of gods descending from the sky and they see the daughters of men and they create a race of giants. 241 00:24:57,500 --> 00:25:14,500 In the book of Genesis, Jacob sees a ladder ascending into the heavens with angels ascending and descending upon this ladder. Jesus in the book of John describes the heavens opening and beings descending upon the son of man. 242 00:25:15,500 --> 00:25:28,500 According to ancient astronaut theorists, the voladores ritual is a reenactment of a close encounter with alien visitors in the distant past. 243 00:25:29,500 --> 00:25:43,500 They believe extraterrestrials descended upon the flat mountain tops of the Palpa region in Peru around 500 A.D., dropping from their aircraft and gliding down to earth in spiraling circles. 244 00:25:44,500 --> 00:25:59,500 The voladores ritual was very technological as in these beings descending from the sky in the circle signifying a rival of the gods. 245 00:26:00,500 --> 00:26:05,500 Where does that flying or descending gods motif originate? 246 00:26:06,500 --> 00:26:25,500 Our ancestors saw something because why would you hurl yourself from a 100-foot pole out of nothing to imitate a bird? Birds are not that important. Something very significant happened. 247 00:26:26,500 --> 00:26:41,500 Could an alien encounter really be the inspiration for the voladores ritual? And could the Totonic people who created the ceremony really have been trying to mimic the ancient gods' power of flight? 248 00:26:42,500 --> 00:26:59,500 As further evidence that early humans may have encountered alien visitors equipped with the power of flight, ancient astronaut theorists point to various artifacts and statues depicting ancient gods. 249 00:27:00,500 --> 00:27:07,500 One such example is the Mayan god, a mousenkab, also known as the flying bee god. 250 00:27:08,500 --> 00:27:15,500 Another is the most prominent god of early Mesoamerican culture, the winged deity, Quetzalcoatl. 251 00:27:18,500 --> 00:27:31,500 The Mesoamericans believed in the plume serpent or Quatzicotl, which came from the sky, bringing wisdom, powered the wind, and also influenced everything that happened in the daily life of the Mayans. 252 00:27:32,500 --> 00:27:43,500 In fact, they looked to the sky for all their answers, from everything as simplest, when to plant corn to when to go to war. They believed all answers in the universe came from the sky and trying to relate that to their daily lives. 253 00:27:44,500 --> 00:27:55,500 The ancient record are loaded with fantastic examples of the gods flying around. These are the ancient aliens and humans are being shown the ultimate capability of these gods. 254 00:27:56,500 --> 00:28:15,500 In my eyes, because we are the sons of the gods, we are the offspring of the gods, whatever humans can dream, whatever humans think was once reality in the past or will be reality in the future. 255 00:28:16,500 --> 00:28:33,500 July 31, 2003, the English Channel. Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to cross this 22-mile-wide body of water in freefall, using a specially made fiber wing. 256 00:28:34,500 --> 00:28:41,500 But the Austrian daredevil is just one of many who have used wingsuits to simulate flying by means of a freefall. 257 00:28:46,500 --> 00:28:58,500 A wingsuit is basically a jumpsuit that you put on under your rig and it's designed to actually make you fly when you exit the plane. 258 00:28:58,500 --> 00:29:08,500 The material inflates underneath your arms, in between your legs, and creates basically an airfoil that you glide on through the air. 259 00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:19,500 It's an amazing feeling because you're actually the pilot and the plane. It is total freedom. You feel as though you're flying. 260 00:29:22,500 --> 00:29:31,500 Though you are falling, you're using the air to maneuver your body and the wingsuit helps you cover a lot of ground as you're descending. 261 00:29:32,500 --> 00:29:44,500 Some people have been exceeding 2-1 glide ratio. For example, 3-1 would mean for every foot you descend, you're traveling 3 feet forward. 262 00:29:45,500 --> 00:29:57,500 We got these flying guys that have these wings attached to their backs and they hurl themselves out of planes and some even have rocket engines attached to them. 263 00:29:57,500 --> 00:30:02,500 And so they essentially themselves become airplanes. 264 00:30:03,500 --> 00:30:18,500 Now imagine showing that to someone from 100 years ago. That person would be in complete awe of what they're witnessing, not understanding that there is technology involved with this. 265 00:30:19,500 --> 00:30:30,500 Just using our own body we cannot fly. We have no wings. But of course we have the fantasy and we have the technology to develop wings that we can fly. 266 00:30:30,500 --> 00:30:47,500 The pursuit of flight has been one of the most sought after quests in all of mankind's history. Why? Because with flight you could reach conceivably the realm of the gods. 267 00:30:47,500 --> 00:31:08,500 From the ancient Greek myth of Icarus, fashioning wings of feathers and wax, to modern daredevils like Felix Baumgartner, human beings have been fascinated with and often frustrated by their desire to fly. 268 00:31:09,500 --> 00:31:18,500 But have birds really serve as mankind's inspiration or something else, something extraterrestrial? 269 00:31:19,500 --> 00:31:30,500 And if ancient visitors could fly, what other powers might they have possessed? And what abilities might early man have had and lost? 270 00:31:31,500 --> 00:31:38,500 Perhaps the answer can be found, not in the skies, but deep beneath the sea. 271 00:31:42,500 --> 00:31:55,500 Cape Sunion Greece. Perched on the headland, surrounded on three sides by the sea, lies the ruins of the temple of Poseidon, built in 440 BC. 272 00:31:55,500 --> 00:32:04,500 The second son of the Titan king Cronus. Poseidon was worshipped throughout Greece, almost as much as his younger brother Zeus. 273 00:32:06,500 --> 00:32:16,500 Poseidon was the god of the sea. He was also the god of earthquakes and strangely horses. When Poseidon was in a good mood he created new lands out of the sea. 274 00:32:16,500 --> 00:32:23,500 He gave calm waters for good voyages. When he was in a bad mood he destroyed ships and brought storms. 275 00:32:26,500 --> 00:32:34,500 Poseidon does rule over the kingdom of the sea. It is envisioned as a kind of a place where people live. 276 00:32:34,500 --> 00:32:43,500 And when he comes out of that place, yes, he rides the spectacular kind of like water chariot that is driven by dolphins and he holds on to a really big trident. 277 00:32:43,500 --> 00:32:54,500 In Greek mythology, Cronus eats all of his children, except for Zeus, who eventually rescues his siblings, including Poseidon, from the belly of his father. 278 00:32:54,500 --> 00:33:01,500 A potion is prepared that makes him heave up all the other siblings of Zeus and they become the gods of Olympus. 279 00:33:02,500 --> 00:33:10,500 But ancient astronaut theorists believe this Greek myth is actually a metaphor for an extraterrestrial event. 280 00:33:10,500 --> 00:33:21,500 They believe the notion of gods being vomited up from the belly of their father actually describes mutinous aliens being expelled from the mothership. 281 00:33:25,500 --> 00:33:35,500 Any being which is swallowed up into a living creature will not be able to survive for three days. It will die from suffocation and will begin to decay. 282 00:33:35,500 --> 00:33:45,500 What we have here is not a creature but something else. It could have been an object which was clearly of a man-made or extraterrestrial origin. 283 00:33:46,500 --> 00:33:56,500 A mutiny took place. Some of the extraterrestrials, they had sex with wonderful earthly females, women. They were not allowed to do this. 284 00:33:56,500 --> 00:34:04,500 So one of these extraterrestrials who were not allowed to go back with the mothership had the name of Poseidon. 285 00:34:05,500 --> 00:34:14,500 Poseidon felt in love with the beautiful human girl and he made her pregnant. 286 00:34:15,500 --> 00:34:26,500 Poseidon is married. He's got a child. He's got some grandchildren. There's a whole cast of sea nymphs as well. All of them presumably live in this place. 287 00:34:26,500 --> 00:34:39,500 Poseidon has the power of the deep, the unseen place. If you look out at the sea, you see a surface and you're aware there's a whole world below that suggesting power is beyond that which meet the eye. 288 00:34:40,500 --> 00:34:55,500 Among the mythical creatures associated with Poseidon are the telkines, a race of advanced fish children. These human-like beings could live both in and out of water. 289 00:34:55,500 --> 00:35:07,500 There are masters of technology and seem to match up with the fish gods of ancient Sumeria who worked for Enki, the great god of alchemy and technology in Smithcraft. 290 00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:20,500 The telkines are also kind of in the shadowy territory of god-human monster things. They're just these kind of figures who are not gods but were like human beings. 291 00:35:21,500 --> 00:35:34,500 There's one story about the Roman version of Zeus Jupiter trying to destroy them. Now we don't know whether they are actually all destroyed but it's possibly because of their relationship to the magic. 292 00:35:38,500 --> 00:35:51,500 In Greek legend, the telkines were also metallurgists. They were said to have created Poseidon's magical trident and to have cast the first bronze statues of the gods of Olympus. 293 00:35:53,500 --> 00:36:02,500 And according to some historians, the telkines may not have been creatures of myth but were beings who actually existed. 294 00:36:03,500 --> 00:36:19,500 There were people called telkines. We do actually have evidence of these beings. They were actual ancient Greeks who had specific tasks and trades like metallurgy, like smithing and so on. 295 00:36:19,500 --> 00:36:28,500 And so you could see how it is that a being like telkines, that these things could in fact not just be these mythological beings but like actual people. 296 00:36:29,500 --> 00:36:35,500 So the way that we look at the ancient Greeks and Romans would have been the way that they would have looked at the stories that are being told about the Iliad. 297 00:36:38,500 --> 00:36:47,500 We've got the stories of the telkines and they were able to survive underwater for unlimited amounts of time. 298 00:36:48,500 --> 00:36:54,500 Now how is such a thing possible unless you have access to some type of technology? 299 00:36:55,500 --> 00:37:12,500 An Israeli company is currently developing a human artificial gill system that allows humans to take oxygen from surrounding water without the need of oxygen tanks. 300 00:37:13,500 --> 00:37:19,500 You potentially can remain underwater for unlimited amounts of time. 301 00:37:24,500 --> 00:37:32,500 All the technology that we are discovering today is in fact old news. It's been around before. 302 00:37:33,500 --> 00:37:38,500 Could the ancient Greek myths really be based on actual events? 303 00:37:39,500 --> 00:37:48,500 Were the telkines early humans enabled with godlike abilities? And were these powers really misunderstood alien technology? 304 00:37:49,500 --> 00:37:55,500 Perhaps the answers can be found, not in the past but in the present. 305 00:37:56,500 --> 00:38:05,500 As modern day advances in science and technology give us perhaps our greatest evidence that we are not alone. 306 00:38:06,500 --> 00:38:17,500 The ability to fly, to thrive underwater and to travel through space and explore the universe. 307 00:38:19,500 --> 00:38:29,500 At one time these were all believed to be impossible notions dismissed as mere science fiction or myth. 308 00:38:30,500 --> 00:38:37,500 But mankind's continued advances in technology have made the word impossible almost obsolete. 309 00:38:38,500 --> 00:38:43,500 In our modern world steroids can help generate herculane muscles. 310 00:38:44,500 --> 00:38:50,500 Titanium joints can replace and even improve upon our own natural ones. 311 00:38:51,500 --> 00:38:59,500 And even prosthetic gills are being developed so human beings can breathe underwater without the use of air tanks. 312 00:39:03,500 --> 00:39:12,500 Today government contractors like Raytheon Sarkoze and Lockheed Martin develop exoskeleton machines for the US military. 313 00:39:13,500 --> 00:39:24,500 When worn they can allow soldiers to walk, run and lift hundreds of pounds with virtually no effort. 314 00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:33,500 What makes exoskeleton so cool is that it's an every man thing. Anybody can put one on, anybody can be the hero. 315 00:39:34,500 --> 00:39:39,500 You can take a person with any sort of physical weaknesses and make them greater than the person they're fighting. 316 00:39:40,500 --> 00:39:48,500 Exoskeletons would be a prime example of something coming out of comic books into mainstream reality. 317 00:39:49,500 --> 00:39:53,500 And in reality exoskeletons are becoming very popular with the military. 318 00:39:55,500 --> 00:40:00,500 A soldier can wear the Raytheon exoskeleton for example and lift 200 pounds. 319 00:40:01,500 --> 00:40:12,500 While these modern day supermen may be limited in their mobility, the development of exoskeletons represents an incredible and all the other academic fields. 320 00:40:13,500 --> 00:40:22,500 We are becoming more god-like. We are not becoming gods. We are not turning into real superheroes. 321 00:40:22,500 --> 00:40:29,500 We are only becoming god-like because of our technology. 322 00:40:30,500 --> 00:40:41,500 I think we have an innate need to push our bodies and our minds to the utmost limits and strive for super intelligence, super strength and other super powers. 323 00:40:42,500 --> 00:40:48,500 The reason is that people have long been fascinated with what could be stronger than humanity itself. 324 00:40:48,500 --> 00:40:56,500 And if it's not human then it must come from somewhere else, either a god or an extraterrestrial. 325 00:40:58,500 --> 00:41:08,500 But with all of his scientific achievements, is mankind perhaps making himself more and more vulnerable to what could be terrible consequences? 326 00:41:09,500 --> 00:41:18,500 There are many tales of ordinary mortals ascending to become rulers, to become gods, various positions of enormous power. 327 00:41:20,500 --> 00:41:31,500 Often these characters then become corrupt and the stories stick around and are retold over a long period of time, long after their sources have withered away. 328 00:41:32,500 --> 00:41:45,500 To teach us that power corrupts, to be careful what you wish for and to be very cautious if ever holding great power because of its ability to harm. 329 00:41:46,500 --> 00:41:51,500 Almost 50% of our stories are about technology running mark on the dark side of technology. 330 00:41:52,500 --> 00:41:58,500 Because when you talk about super powers, when you talk about all this transformation, everything comes at a price. 331 00:41:58,500 --> 00:42:05,500 And you always have to wait whether or not price is worthy or necessary to make for the greater good and sometimes it's not. 332 00:42:05,500 --> 00:42:09,500 Sometimes the price you pay is just too great when you lose your own self. 333 00:42:11,500 --> 00:42:17,500 Are all of mankind's scientific achievements really examples of emerging technology? 334 00:42:18,500 --> 00:42:24,500 Or is the yearning for super powers and heroic feats embedded in our collective DNA? 335 00:42:25,500 --> 00:42:32,500 Are human beings finally catching up to the abilities of beings who have been here before? 336 00:42:33,500 --> 00:42:35,500 And were they gods? 337 00:42:36,500 --> 00:42:46,500 Or is some believe alien ancestors living thousands of years ago but possessing powers and abilities thousands of years more advanced? 338 00:42:47,500 --> 00:42:53,500 Perhaps only time and further advancements in technology will tell. 339 00:42:54,500 --> 00:43:00,500 Or perhaps it will all be revealed when they return.