Ancient Aliens s16e08 Episode Script

MISSION CONTROL:
Ignition sequence start.
NARRATOR:
It is humankind's
most profound achievement.
MISSION CONTROL:
Three, two, one, liftoff.
We have a liftoff.
NARRATOR:
Blasting off from planet Earth
to journey to the stars.
JERRY LINENGER: Going
to space it's incredible,
and it blows your mind
to think that people can
figure out
how to make that happen.
NARRATOR: But could
our voyages into the cosmos
be even more extraordinary
than we know?
BUZZ ALDRIN: I'm looking
out the window and I said,
"What's that?"
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut
theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos
is joined by author
David Childress
and aerospace engineer
Dr. Travis Taylor
in an attempt
to answer the question:
Is our space program
being monitored
by extraterrestrials?
And if so, are they waiting
for the human race
to fulfill its destiny
as space travelers?
TRAVIS TAYLOR: We have
to leave this solar system
if we want humanity to survive.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
I think it is wired within
all of us that
we instinctively know
that we come from the stars,
and this is why we would
like to go back.
NARRATOR: There is a
doorway in the universe.
Beyond it
is the promise of truth.
It demands
we question everything
we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is
right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
I'm excited to be here
with you guys to talk
about everything that's going on
with space exploration.
I think it's a natural
part of evolution
to actually go back
to the stars.
I deliberately say
"go back to the stars"
or "return to the stars"
because, according to
the ancient astronaut theory,
that is where we came from.
DAVID CHILDRESS:
SpaceX now has sent astronauts
to the International
Space Station,
and so we've now entered
a whole new era
of space exploration
one that's privatized.
Yeah, well, we're at a point
right now that, uh,
if you have $20 million,
the Russians will send you
on a trip in space.
You can go to
the International Space Station.
Think about this:
there are a lot
of people on this planet
that $20 million
means nothing to,
and, before long,
it'll be even cheaper than that.
Like Elon Musk and Bob Bigelow,
the next big commercial
space guy isn't gonna care.
If they want to go to Mars,
who's to stop them?
- They're gonna go to Mars.
- CHILDRESS: And they don't have to go
with some protocols or
government I mean, they can
- just do what they want. Is that what you're saying?
- TAYLOR: That's exactly right.
Long as they're not
violating some,
you know, uh,
commerce law or whatever,
but what we know
right now the treaties say
that space is the wild frontier.
It is like international
waters in the ocean.
You're at maritime law once you
get out of low Earth orbit.
Yeah, I to me,
it's very exciting.
And now with more launches,
the probability of seeing
extraterrestrials will increase.
I really think that
we are destined to explore
our own solar system
and then go beyond
because this is
part of who we are.
- I agree.
- TSOUKALOS: And this type of curiosity
is hardwired within us.
- It's in our, in our DNA. That's what you're saying.
- TSOUKALOS: In our DNA
that we have to explore.
CHILDRESS:
I think the one thing that's
that's interesting here, too,
is that the whole idea that
there is extraterrestrials
and, um, UFOs
coming here that was all part
of the Russian space program.
It's actually part of their
I wouldn't call it religion,
but their metaphysics.
The Soviet Union
promoted cosmism.
Cosmism, right.
Cosmism, uh, taught that
- Yeah, we're life on planet Earth came from space
- Came from
and-and it was our destiny
to go back into space.
NARRATOR:
At the end of the 19th century,
Russian philosophers
envisioned a radical new theory
about the origins of humanity
called "cosmism."
You can think of cosmism
almost as a Russian version
of ancient astronaut theory.
It takes as its start point
the fact that perhaps
we come from the stars
and its endpoint to
we need to go back to the stars.
This is considered to be
the-the motivating factor
behind the
Russian space program.
The Russian cosmist
point of view
proposed that
Russia's ultimate future
was to colonize space,
and that, in fact, it was
a-a spiritual prerogative
to get out into space.
NARRATOR: In May 1903,
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky,
a cosmist and mathematician
from Kaluga, Russia,
published a landmark paper
on rocket science entitled
"Exploration of Outer Space
by Means of Rocket Devices."
At a time when most of the world
did not have automobiles
or even electricity,
Tsiolkovsky was trying
to figure out how to travel
to the stars.
One hypothesis he proposed,
called "the ideal
rocket equation,"
calculated the amount of
velocity needed to lift
an aircraft into outer space.
Amazingly, that 1903 equation
was used directly
in the launch of Sputnik 1.
So it was hugely influential,
and it worked.
NARRATOR: What led
Tsiolkovsky and other cosmists
to subscribe to such
extraordinary beliefs?
Ancient astronaut
theorists believe
the answer can be found
in Tsiolkovsky's own writings,
in which he described receiving
an extraterrestrial message
from the stars.
NARRATOR: Tsiolkovsky's
work ushered in a new era
of human exploration,
motivating the Russian
government to send cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin to space in 1961.
Could it be that the goal
of the Soviet cosmonaut program
was not only to demonstrate
technological superiority
but to connect
with extraterrestrial beings?
So do we know of any stories
that could relate
some type of a UFO encounter?
- The Russian cosmonauts have quite a few stories.
- Okay.
And a famous one happened
in 1984, when three cosmonauts
were on
the Salyut 7 space station.
NARRATOR: Orbiting 172
miles above the Earth, the Salyut 7
was Russia's scientific
research space station.
On July 12, 1984,
cosmonauts Oleg Atkov,
Leonid Kizim
and Vladimir Solovyov
were on board the spacecraft
when they witnessed
an extraordinary event.
During the Salyut 7 mission,
Soviet cosmonauts
had a bizarre encounter.
The spacecraft was surrounded
by a strange glow,
and all of a sudden,
they saw immense figures
outside in space.
The three cosmonauts saw
something at one of the windows
that looked like
they-they described it as,
like, an orange glow
that looked like human faces,
but they were huge,
like, the size of a jet plane,
and they couldn't explain
what it was.
NARRATOR: What makes this event
even more compelling to researchers
is that the cosmonauts
not only described
the same bizarre vision,
but they also
reported being overcome
with a strange feeling.
NICK POPE:
The Salyut 7 encounter
the cosmonauts felt
a sort of sense of well-being,
and that's interesting
because it's counterintuitive.
You would think that,
in that difficult and
dangerous environment of space,
when something unusual happens,
the natural instinct
would be to panic,
and yet quite the opposite
seems to have happened.
LINENGER: I was on a Russian
space station for five months
myself, two Russian cosmonauts,
spoke Russian the whole time.
And, you know, they'll tell you
stories about old Salyut 7,
uh, where they had a couple
cosmonauts that said they felt
sort of the presence of angels.
And it gave them kind of
a good, comfortable feeling.
NARRATOR:
Could the sense of well-being
experienced by
the Salyut 7 cosmonauts
indicate they were
in the presence of beings
from another world?
Is it possible that they
encountered similar entities
to the ones reported
by famous cosmist
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky?
Might they actually be the same
as what the cosmonauts saw
from Salyut 7?
And that's interesting
because this is the Russian idea
that when we do go to the stars,
we will encounter
extraterrestrials
is thus inextricably bound up
with cosmism and the whole
Russian view of space.
The Russian cosmonauts were
more open to the whole idea
that the aliens are
coming here, and there are
many curious episodes
that have happened in space,
and we're also curious
about what astronauts
see while they're up there
on the Moon or in these
space stations, on spacewalks.
TSOUKALOS: But, you
know, one of the best people
to ask these questions
would be an astronaut,
and so I have Dr. Leroy Chiao,
an actual astronaut,
waiting with a video call.
I can't wait to see that.
We actually have
Dr. Leroy Chiao,
an astronaut,
waiting for us on a Zoom call.
So let's see what
he has to say about this.
- CHILDRESS: Hi, Leroy.
- TAYLOR: Hello, Dr. Chiao.
- How are you doing? Pleasure to meet you.
- CHIAO: Hey, guys.
- Excellent. How are you guys? - CHILDRESS: Good.
- TSOUKALOS: Good. Thank you.
Nice Saturn V model
you have in the background.
Thanks. Thank you. [laughs]
So tell us, I mean,
not many people
have been to outer space,
and I think one of
the most basic question is:
How does it feel?
Sure. I mean, it's really
a special, uh, experience,
as you can imagine,
especially the very first time
you get actually into the
vehicle and launched into space.
More emotional than I expected.
Of course, I looked back at the
Earth once we got into orbit,
saw how beautiful
our Earth is with the colors
being so bright and
quite an emotional experience.
How many missions did you have?
I flew four missions into space.
My first three missions
were aboard space shuttles,
and my fourth flight,
I trained with the Russians,
and we launched
the International Space Station,
where I served as the commander
and NASA Science Officer
during Expedition 10, which was
a six-and-a-half-month flight.
I'm very interested in
any unexplainable events that
you might have seen
or experienced.
Have you ever seen something
that you couldn't explain?
Yes. Actually, yeah, I did.
You know, on my last spacewalk
during my space station mission,
we were in that twilight,
you know, time between
going from darkness into light.
And I saw what looked like
four or five lights
flying by in formation, and it
was like, "Whoa, what is that?"
And I called out in Russian
to my Russian crewmate,
and he was also outside with me.
I said, "Hey, did you see
those lights fly by?"
And he was facing the other way,
so he didn't see them.
CHILDRESS:
So when you see the lights
- going by you
- Yeah. Mm-hmm.
you thought
they were perhaps UFOs?
You know, at the time,
I didn't know what they were.
It wasn't until later,
after we landed,
somebody had figured out
that we were off the coast
of South America.
Said that I had seen
a line of fishing boats
using very bright lights
to attract squid.
But wouldn't you see
the lights of Buenos Aires
or Montevideo at the same time?
Because that's where
- those squid boats are.
- Normally you would. Normally you would.
But, you know, who knows?
I wasn't sure which
direction I was facing because
we were in that twilight,
and I couldn't tell
which direction was the Earth
and which direction
was deep space.
TAYLOR:
So, uh, it's really interesting.
A lot of people
don't realize this
other astronauts throughout
history have claimed
to have seen things
that were not explained.
Yeah.
TAYLOR:
Gordon Cooper claims he saw one.
John Glenn saw the fireflies
around his spacecraft.
Buzz Aldrin claimed to have
seen things near Earth
that we can't explain.
NARRATOR:
According to UFO researchers,
an extraordinary sighting
was reported during
NASA's most famous mission.
In July of 1969, while Apollo 11
was traveling towards the Moon,
Buzz Aldrin noticed
that there was something
kind of trailing them
outside one of the windows.
And he and Neil Armstrong tried
to figure out what could it be.
ALDRIN: I'm looking out
the window, and I say,
"What's that"?
There's an object that's moving
with respect to everything else.
Geez, it's not supposed
to be doing that.
I wonder how far away it is.
If it's a long ways away,
it's going mighty fast.
If it's not too far away,
it, uh, maybe isn't
going very fast.
Wonder what it is.
"Hey, Neil, look at this."
We look at it.
"God, what is that?"
"Probably the, uh,
upper stage rocket."
"Yeah, but didn't we just
watch that thing carefully
"out in front of us,
out the window,
light its engine and go"
[imitates whooshing]
Well, I guess that's not what
we're looking at, [chuckles]
'cause that's a long ways away.
What's the odds that it's
some alien or Russian
or something else?
But we were not about to cancel
the Moon mission
and putt-putt over there
to find out which one it was.
[chuckles]
POPE:
Few UFO sightings by astronauts
are as controversial than
the ones involving Buzz Aldrin.
Effectively, the believers say
that UFOs
followed him to the Moon.
Some even say that
when they got to the Moon,
they were there
already waiting for them.
CHILDRESS:
Leroy, when you were
up in space
with your fellow astronauts,
including the Russians,
did you ever talk about
extraterrestrials or UFOs?
Was that ever a subject?
Yeah, I think there's no doubt
a lot of us astronauts have seen
some weird things, and we don't
know for sure what they are.
NARRATOR: One astronaut who
experienced something he could not explain
is Jerry Linenger,
a man who logged an incredible
50 million miles
in space travel in the 1990s
and survived the most severe
fire ever experienced
aboard an orbiting spacecraft.
So I had the privilege
of flying on a shuttle flight,
which was incredible.
And living on
the space station Mir
a Russian space station.
So people ask me,
"Have you seen a UFO?"
And, you know, I-I don't want
to take this out of context,
but unidentified
flying objects? Yes.
I think we've all seen something
that we're not exactly sure
what that is up there.
When I was on the Russian space
station, there was one time
I saw sort of a white
globular looking thing.
Kind of looked like
a misshaped snowball,
kind of off in the distance,
and I actually called one of
my cosmonaut crewmates over.
I said, you know,
"What the heck is that?"
And he says, you know,
"I don't know."
And then we kind of
scratched our heads.
Said, well, "Maybe an ice chunk
off the external tank
and it's crossing
our path again."
You know, who knows?
But it was definitely something
that neither of us
could identify.
It's not uncommon
to see these things.
I certainly, uh, wasn't shy
about talking about
the-the strange lights
I thought were flying by.
You know,
I kind of didn't really
formally report it per se,
but I-I said it in the clear
in a radio transmission
to my partner to see
if he could see them, too.
The probability of, you know,
an intelligent vehicle
coming to visit us
uh, I think that's unlikely,
but the probability's not zero.
TAYLOR:
But do you think that maybe
they saw something
like you did that
- that we just didn't figure out what the actual thing was
- Mm-hmm.
or maybe there were things
that-that we can't explain?
Well, you know, never say never.
I mean, uh, I-I for one
would never say
that I know everything,
you know,
and I can explain everything.
I firmly believe
there's intelligent life
all over the universe.
In fact, I think it's the height
of arrogance, uh, for us
here on Earth to think
that we are the only ones
in the universe
that-that are intelligent.
- TAYLOR: Well, thank you.
- CHILDRESS: Great talking to you.
Yeah. Nice talking
to you guys. Thanks.
- True pleasure. Thank you.
- Take care. Bye.
TSOUKALOS:
Wow.
I think it's great that,
you know, Leroy has
had these
interesting experiences.
He's seen things that
he couldn't explain,
although they've been
explained to him now.
But lots of astronauts
have seen unusual things
If if you subscribe to that,
but let's agree
with him and say,
"Okay. There is
a natural explanation
- for this particular example."
- Sure.
But there are countless
other encounters
that I always found fascinating.
CHILDRESS: People within
space programs keep things secret.
Within the, I think, NASA,
an American space program,
there was more of
an effort to not have
those discussions
of-of possible UFOs,
of possible extraterrestrials.
The reason the American
astronauts didn't do that
is because of the stupid
Brookings Report.
When the Brookings Report
came out in 1960
after the beginning
of the Mercury program,
the final conclusion was that
the general public
would go nuts if they were told
of any evidence
of extraterrestrial life.
Yeah, they warn they warned
against that. Yeah.
And so, and so
the astronaut program,
all up through the shuttle era,
was given that
the-the philosophy,
if not orders,
if you see something like
that, we don't talk about it.
- You call it
- And you call it a you call it a bogey.
NARRATOR:
According to UFO researchers,
one of the first incidents
involving the cover-up of an
unidentified sighting in space
took place on December 4, 1965,
shortly after
the Gemini 7 blasted off
from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
as the 12th
American spaceflight.
On board were astronauts
Frank Borman and Jim Lovell.
Just hours into their mission,
they reported
an unusual sighting from orbit.
They radio down to NASA
that they had a bogey
outside the window.
They did actually see something
that was strange in orbit,
and they didn't
immediately know what it was.
BILL BIRNES: NASA
control is furious about this.
"Don't report this.
What are you doing?
Oh, it's-it's just debris,
booster rocket debris."
But no. The astronauts
fully maintained
and this is multiple witness
these are craft flying with
the Gemini capsules.
And the whole thing is
hushed up when they land.
They watched it
and were stunned.
I mean, they-they didn't
have an explanation.
They hadn't expected it at all,
and still don't know
what they saw.
What you have is a bona fide
unexplained phenomena,
uh, looking out the window
of your spacecraft.
Edgar Mitchell
is another astronaut.
- I mean, he spent his whole post-astronaut life
- Yes.
- promoting, you know, extraterrestrial contact
- Absolutely.
and the belief in
extraterrestrials.
So here's
a NASA astronaut who's
you know, is totally
on board with this,
that, you know,
we are being visited.
NARRATOR: Astronaut Edgar
Mitchell served as the lunar module pilot
on Apollo 14.
On February 5, 1971,
he made history when he
completed the third Moon landing
and became the sixth person
to ever walk on the Moon.
Apollo 14 was the first,
uh, mission to the Moon
to begin
the science exploration.
We landed in
the Fra Mauro Highlands,
and our-our purpose there
was to set up
science, uh, instruments there,
to make a geology trek
up to the top of Cone crater
and bring back samples,
which we did.
NARRATOR:
Four over nine hours,
Mitchell and mission commander
Alan Shepard
explored the lunar surface.
But according to Mitchell,
for him, the most significant
part of their voyage
occurred as they were
returning to Earth.
After I had done all my work,
and we were on the way home,
I suddenly had
an experience, uh,
which I will describe
as ecstasy and exhilaration.
And I realized everything
is part of the same thing.
And I realized that, perhaps,
that with this experience,
maybe the story of ourselves,
as told by our science,
was incomplete
and perhaps flawed
and that maybe
what we should be doing now
is look very seriously again at:
What is our origin? What is
our place in the universe?
And that was
kind of the epiphany,
the experience I had in space.
NARRATOR: Years later,
Mitchell's life-changing experience
inspired him
to start investigating
the UFO phenomenon.
I have-have not had
any personal experience.
However, I do know virtually
all of the research people
in both Europe
and the United States
that have spent decades
working on this problem,
and I listened and investigated
all the sightings
for dozens of years,
and I'm pretty sure
it's all true.
And I've been involved in
the Disclosure Project, uh,
tr-trying to get this opened up
and reveal
what we really do know.
I still feel that, yeah, NASA,
they have secrets.
A lot of people have
said, "Well, look,
everybody in NASA would have
to be keeping some secret."
And that's wrong, too.
Uh, within these space programs,
you have compartmentalized
programs, need to know.
- Well
- People within the space program don't need to know everything.
I mean, they've got to keep
things secret. They have to.
You know,
as far as I'm concerned,
I think that the exploration
and perhaps even
the colonization of space
is what we are destined to do.
I think it is wired
within all of us
that we inherently
need to explore
where we came from, right?
I find it fascinating that there
are these stories out there
about astronauts
and alien encounters.
We have in possession today
- photographic evidence.
- Yep.
Sure, we've all seen
some odd-looking photos
from NASA astronauts,
uh, that are actually these
unidentified aerial phenomena
that we have
no idea what they are.
CHILDRESS: There are
some photos of possible UFOs,
of possible extraterrestrials.
TSOUKALOS:
Have you seen
the Skylab photo of
the two or three red lights?
I've seen the photo
you're talking about.
Well, right, and that's
what I was just gonna say.
We have very good photos of
that, and that is an anomaly.
NARRATOR:
Launched on May 25, 1973,
the Skylab was America's
first space station,
an orbital
scientific research vessel.
After roughly
four months in orbit,
an astronaut aboard Skylab
named Owen Garriott
took a photograph
of a mysterious object
outside the space station.
The crew of Skylab 3
saw something strange
at one of their windows,
and it was kind of
an oscillating red-orange
lights off in the distance.
The crew couldn't discern
exactly what it was
just the certainty that
it was tracking them
or they were tracking it,
rather, for quite a long time.
The most logical explanation
was that it was a satellite
or some kind of debris,
but the crew
did note at the time
that they had seen
other satellites in orbit,
and the satellites
looked like they do on Earth,
and this phenomenon
they'd seen, these lights,
didn't look like that at all.
Ultimately,
the public explanation was
that it was just a reflection
of the panel in the background
of the space st
- On the window?
- In the window.
Exactly. But there are
training modules
of these things where
you can actually go inside
and replicate the conditions
of how this would be,
and so, as far as
the red lights are concerned,
the panel does not
have two or three red lights.
It only has one.
So it dismisses the idea
that it was a reflection
of the instrument panel.
I find that very interesting.
Would I be correct in assuming
that these
space stations are, uh,
equipped with cameras?
TAYLOR: Well, so there is
some video from the shuttle era.
We have seen some bona fide
unexplained phenomena.
NARRATOR: As far as UFO
researchers are concerned,
some of the most compelling
video taken in outer space
was recorded during NASA mission
STS-80 in December 1996.
During the space shuttle
Columbia mission,
astronaut Story Musgrave
captured a number
of strange events on camera,
including slow-moving
circular objects.
It really seems like the footage
that we're looking at,
the video footage of STS-80
clearly show what appear to be
powered vehicles
operating in low Earth orbit,
clearly performing the way UFOs
or extraterrestrial spacecraft
are supposedly able to perform.
NARRATOR: While NASA scientists
dismiss these objects as ice particles,
the incredible images
have fascinated researchers,
including aerospace engineer
and digital imaging expert
Dr. Mark Carlotto.
After spending countless hours
studying the footage,
he has come to the conclusion
that the object in these images
were intelligently controlled.
A number of objects are seen
just after sunrise.
The conjecture by NASA,
the explanation is that these
are the result of particles
that move from
shadow into sunlight
and suddenly become illuminated
so they appear to the camera,
and then they move,
and then if there's a thruster
firing or some other action,
they change direction.
However, NASA spokespersons
do not comment
on what's seen
earlier in the video.
Here, we're looking at the Earth
about a minute or so
before the discs
and the streaks appear,
and we're looking at,
as the camera zooms,
we're looking at Puerto Rico.
That's that bright blob that
we see in
the middle of the screen.
As the camera zoom
The camera operator
is moving around
as if they're looking
for something,
and in a moment, we'll see
something suddenly appear,
almost literally out of nowhere.
If we look at
this event more closely,
it leaves a trail
or a wake behind it.
It happens very quickly.
It's very unusual.
In this particular map,
we see Puerto Rico
and the Virgin Islands,
and I will now overlay
one of the frames of the video.
See the object appearing
and moving left to right?
In one half second,
this object moves 340 miles,
which is a speed
of 680 miles per second.
This object moves as fast
as a bolt of lightning.
There are no thunderstorms
in the area.
It is unlike any natural
phenomenon that's known,
and this object has never
been mentioned by NASA
or anyone that's
talked about this video.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
NASA has already captured footage
of an extraterrestrial
presence in outer space
only to dismiss it
as natural phenomena?
Ancient astronaut theorists
believe that
as humankind continues
to venture further out
into the cosmos,
it is only a matter of time
before we record
an alien encounter
that is impossible to deny.
So what's the next step, then?
Going to Mars, I suppose.
Do you think
we'll find some answers
to a lot of our questions there?
Well, I'll tell you one answer
that I can't wait to find.
We had a race to the Moon, uh,
and now it's a race to Mars.
- But now there's a lot more players in this game, right?
- TAYLOR: Yes. Yes.
- I mean, we've got
- Right now,
you-you've got the
three governments, you know,
the Russians, the Chinese
and the Americans, are gonna
get to the Moon and Mars
from a government standpoint.
But I'm telling you,
some of these rich billionaires
are gonna get there
whether we want them to or not.
CHILDRESS:
And they can probably do it
a lot more cost effective
than these governments.
Well, now that
we're getting close to Mars,
do you think we'll find
some answers
to a lot of our questions there?
Well, I'll tell you one answer
that I can't wait to find.
Uh, there's a-a photograph
that you can still find it
in, uh, the database from
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
And it shows, like,
a little pool of water
and an iceberg and a cloud,
uh, all in the same picture.
So I think we're certainly
gonna find water,
and if we're gonna find water
and we know it gets 67 degrees
- in the summer
- We find life.
- Absolutely, that's what we're gonna find.
- TSOUKALOS: See,
but here's the thing
that, you know, to me
- The life I am looking for
- Yeah.
looks like you and me.
It is humanoid in-in form.
Uh, if we find
bacteria life, okay.
And, in my opinion,
I'm gonna say it:
- big whoop.
- TAYLOR: That's what most people, I think,
will say, Giorgio. I-I agree.
Let me tell you this, though.
It's possible that Mars
was the blue-green planet
here, you know,
a billion years ago
instead of Earth,
and when,
whatever happened to Mars,
they migrated
from there to here.
NARRATOR:
Migration from Mars to Earth?
Some ancient astronaut theorists
have proposed
the incredible notion that
the human race did, in fact,
originate on Earth's
closest neighboring planet,
and it is their belief
that all of humankind's journeys
into space have been
leading towards a return
to this ancestral homeland.
While it may sound like
the premise of a sci-fi movie,
some scientists
have proposed that,
based on what we've learned
about the Red Planet,
this is not such a far-fetched
notion after all.
Mars at one time in its past
looked more like the Earth.
It was a blue ocean world
with a significant
amount of water.
We know for a fact that
billions of years ago,
when we were first getting
started here on Earth,
Mars was a much more
clement place,
a more clement world in its own.
We know that
it had thick atmosphere
to shield
and blanket the planet,
and it would have
had organic molecules,
the building blocks
of all life as we know it.
So it stands to reason
that maybe Mars had its own
genesis, its own origin of life.
NARRATOR: If Mars was
once an Earth-like planet,
could it have supported
human life?
Curiously, researchers
have found a remarkable link
between human physiology
and conditions on Mars.
When astronauts
actually go into space,
their circadian rhythms,
their body clocks,
change from 24-hour days
to a 24.9-hour day,
and that happens to be
the exact rotational period
of a single day
on the planet Mars.
Given the fact that
our body clocks are tuned
to the planet Mars,
not to the planet Earth,
that indicates to me that we
actually came here from there.
NARRATOR:
Could we, in fact, be Martians?
And might this be
why we are so compelled
to explore beyond Earth?
In April 2020,
NASA announced
that three private companies
Blue Origin,
Dynetics and SpaceX,
will compete to design America's
new human landing system,
or HLS.
Its ultimate purpose:
to send astronauts
to Mars.
POPE:
I think the next few years
are going to be
absolutely pivotal
in Mars research.
We are seeing mission
after mission after mission
going to Mars, and, again,
one might wonder why.
Is it because,
when humanity expands out
into the cosmos,
we are going to have to have
a planetary base and Mars
is a good place for that?
Or is it because
scientists know or suspect
that there's something there?
We don't know what's on Mars
right now, but we can speculate.
There are some photos.
There are books that speculate
there are structures on Mars.
I like to think that there are
structures on Mars and there was
an ancient civilization there
that-that perhaps is dead.
And you have also
this curious monolith
- on the Martian moon Phobos.
- TSOUKALOS: Phobos. - Oh, Phobos. Yeah.
TSOUKALOS:
What's interesting, too,
for example, the Cydonia region.
That is where allegedly
the pyramids are.
- Absolutely.
- CHILDRESS: What is that doing there?
Is that a natural formation?
I mean, this seems like
a very artificial thing.
NARRATOR: Researchers
studying NASA photographs
of the Martian surface
have identified
what appear to be
a number of
artificial structures.
MARK CARLOTTO: There's a number
of pyramidal structures called the "City."
There's a famous face on Mars.
It could be evidence
of, perhaps,
of a prehistoric civilization
on Mars.
POPE: It's only a matter
of time before we find
absolutely definitive evidence
of microbes on Mars.
Maybe, and this would be the
absolute Holy Grail, of course,
maybe we will find
the fingerprints
of an ancient civilization.
NARRATOR: When the
first astronauts reach Mars,
will they discover evidence
that the Red Planet
has been visited before
or perhaps something
even more profound?
You know, for decades, we've had
these questions about Mars.
And now that we are at
the beginning of actually
soon being able to go there,
we will have these answers
and possibly
within our own lifetimes.
And we live
in such exciting times.
TAYLOR:
NASA plans to
make their first
manned Mars mission
within the 2030s.
So that means
we're only ten-ish years
away from that, and
so we should get to see that.
If there was
a civilization there,
it's likely that
they're gonna land close
to where it might have been.
- Yeah.
- And, eventually,
- somebody's gonna stumble across it.
- CHILDRESS: Maybe when
we go to Mars,
we'll be returning to Mars,
having actually come there
originally ourselves.
- And you have to have an open mind to the possibility.
- Yeah.
TAYLOR: But there's
more to it in our evolution.
We can't just stay here.
Sooner or later,
something will happen that would
be an extinction-level event
to the Earth.
We have to leave Earth
if we want humanity to survive.
Right.
This is, uh has been
such an incredible
and fascinating conversation
that, you know,
we live in the most exciting
of times right now
because with the privatization
of space travel,
we are destined
to go back into space
and explore our own solar system
and then go beyond,
because this is
part of who we are.
TAYLOR: I think, in less
than a hundred years,
we're going to advance
physics knowledge enough
that we will be able
to travel at speeds
that are arbitrarily fast,
meaning like warp speeds
and things like that.
We have an understanding
within our theoretical
physics to do it.
- It's the engineering pieces that's next.
- Right.
- CHILDRESS: Right, okay.
- So, and here's the thing.
- We're a fairly young species.
- Right.
TAYLOR: Sooner or
later, something will happen
that would be
an extinction-level event
to the Earth.
It may be
a billion years from now,
maybe a million years,
maybe next week.
We have to go to the Moon
and put people there.
We have to go to Mars
and make it livable.
And so we have
to leave this Earth
if we want humanity to survive.
And who's to say that that's not
what has happened already
- Of course.
- and that we are part of that survival process?
There's so many stars out there,
and there had to be other
civilizations that occurred.
They had to go and explore,
and they had
to spread themselves
across the universe.
The Russian cosmists believe
that we-we came from the stars
and that we're destined
to go back to the stars.
And, uh, that's pretty much
what we're doing now, aren't we?
Uh, returning to the stars,
in many ways, as explorers.
I think you're
absolutely right there.
You know, this makes me think
of, uh, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Even before the golden era
of-of what we would call
science fiction in the '30s,
John Carter of Mars
Chessmen of Mars, yeah,
Princess of Mars.
- The Barsoomian adventures
- Yeah.
was that somebody,
John Carter,
left Earth some way,
ends up on Mars,
and there's
a whole civilization there.
Science fiction drives
that sort of imagination.
It's dr-driven me since I was
a kid, watching Star Trek
and reading Robert Heinlein
and Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke,
and all these things, right?
They're telling us
- what the future might be.
- TSOUKALOS: Science fiction
has become, in many cases,
science fact.
And technology
has accelerated exponentially.
Can you imagine where
we'll be 20 years from now?
TAYLOR:
You know, I want to know
all of these
ancient astronaut theories.
I want to go out there
and find Thor and Zeus
and these guys, and I want to,
I want to ask,
"Where did y'all go?" Right?
- Maybe they're waiting for us right now to get there, right?
- Yeah.
- You know, "We've been waiting. What-what took you so long?"
- Right?
I really think that we are
destined to explore space
and perhaps also colonize space,
and if we do that,
sooner or later,
we will come across
our actual alien ancestors.
And I'm really excited
to see what the future holds.
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