Ancient Aliens s05e06 Episode Script
Secrets of the Tombs
Strange burial rituals What we're talking about is some kind of other-dimensional travel for the soul to undertake.
Elaborate chambers filled with mysterious objects The fact that these boats existed inside tombs leads me to think that they tried to reach some type of extraterrestrial realms.
And bizarre burial mounds found across the globe.
When you start looking at a structure inside the celestial alignments, you start to wonder, was there contact between some of these areas? Were the tombs of our ancient ancestors actually gateways to the afterlife? Or were they really meant to connect modern man with our alien ancestors? You have to ask yourself if they are perhaps maps to guide the dead back to the star systems, where they originally came from.
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 if so, might the secrets of the ancient tombs reveal an otherworldly plan for mankind? Deafdude The Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
The Taj Mahal, Agra, India.
And King Pakal's Tomb, Palenque, Mexico.
Spectacular burial sites that date back thousands of years are found across the world.
According to mainstream researchers, these locations are the final resting places for ancient leaders.
But might they also serve a more profound, perhaps extraterrestrial purpose? Why do we have the most massive of constructions of these tombs in the far and distant past? Well, according to the ancient texts and the ancient traditions, this knowledge was given to our ancestors by the gods.
If the sole function of tombs was to house the dead, then why are virtually all of them connected to notions of spiritual energy, images of astronomy, and a strong belief in the existence of other, arguably more spiritual, worlds? All cultures share this notion of somehow opening a doorway, opening a stargate, opening a gateway to another dimension so the soul can return.
We know that it is meant because the soul is gonna go on a voyage to the afterlife.
In the ancient world, there was a view that this life that we have, this physical life, is our opportunity to prepare ourselves for a vast destiny that lies beyond this life.
Could ancient tombs really have served another, more extraterrestrial purpose, perhaps as portals to reunite the deceased with celestial beings? Many ancient astronaut theorists believe the answers can be found by taking a closer look at the mysterious texts of ancient Egypt.
Saqqara situated on the west bank of the Nile River, this archaeological site is one of the oldest and largest burial grounds in all of Egypt.
Egyptologists called these monuments tombs.
But to the Egyptians, they were not tombs, they were gateways to the afterworld.
It is through these structures that the king will begin a journey into the underworld, in order to face obstacles, dangers, and threats.
And if he will overcome these threats, he will be given passage into the afterlife kingdom of Osiris.
Overlooking the immense necropolis lies the Pyramid of King Teti, the first ruler of Egypt's sixth dynasty.
Teti built his pyramid and an adjoining mortuary temple during his reign, more than I'm walking on what's left of the ancient causeway of King Teti I that's his pyramid and here is his very-much-ruined mortuary temple.
Now, this pyramid is very important, it contains the oldest, richest writing in the world, the Pyramid Texts.
According to archaeologists, the Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious writings that date back to 2400 BC.
They contain passages about Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife, and descriptions of how to prepare the pharaoh's remains during his ascent to the heavens after death.
The Pyramid Texts are all about the stars.
It's all about the king becoming a star.
It's all about the king ascending to the sky and joining Osiris-Orion in the sky.
But according to ancient astronaut theorists, the Pyramid Texts didn't only guide the pharaoh to an afterlife, they actually provided instruction on how the pharaoh could travel to other worlds.
What is important to realize is that the ancient Egyptians say that about 25,000 years ago, the gods lived amongst them.
Then they disappeared again.
What the Pyramid Texts are saying is that we the ancient Egyptians specifically, of course are able to reach the gods again.
For this we have to die, but once we're dead, we're able to join the gods once again.
What we're talking about is some kind of other-dimensional travel for the soul to undertake.
Buried in the desert sands for centuries, the ruins of Saqqara are home to another ancient mystery just one half-mile away from the Pyramid of King Teti.
In 1850, French archaeologist Auguste Mariette made an astonishing discovery.
He unearthed a massive underground bunker.
This is a most strange and mysterious place.
It feels like being in the bowels of the underworld.
It's hard to describe it's like being in another world, the world of the dead.
The Serapeum contains enormous sarcophagi made from granite that was believed to have been transported from the city of Aswan, nearly 600 miles away.
This is just one of the many sarcophagus that are here, dozens and dozens of them.
And they weigh about 70 tons apiece.
They're made from a solid block of granite.
But the real mystery is how they cut them so sharply Swiss watch precision, mirror smooth.
When you look at the inside of the boxes, you see the underside of the lid is perfectly square with the vertical surface of the inside of the box.
Directly opposite, you have the same condition, which means that those two surfaces, opposing each other, must have been perfectly parallel.
It's really amazing.
Ancient astronaut theorists question just how the ancient Egtians could have moved these gigantic stones for miles and then wedge them into the underground labyrinth.
And to what purpose? So we have one big problem.
Imagine, in ancient Egypt, they dig out of the rock kilometers and kilometers of subterranean tunnels.
Right and left, they make niches.
Then they go to two day's Aswan.
In Aswan, they cut out of the rock the hardest granite which exists, and they bring it, in a complicated way we don't know, into these subterranean tunnels.
Archaeologists still, today, cannot figure out how these giant basalt sarcophagi were made.
They're perfectly made.
And how they would even move them into these catacombs that are underground.
It's like they would have had to levitate and put these 70-ton boxes by some magical means, like anti-gravity.
Most scholars believe the Serapeum and its massive sarcophagi were constructed to house the mummified remains of the Apis bulls.
The Egyptians believed that these Apis bulls were descended from the sky, and they would have elaborate ceremonies with these bulls.
But when Mariette opened the sarcophagi, they were empty, apart from some bones.
Only one Apis bull mummy was discovered at the site.
Some ancient astronaut theorists believe the sacred bul may have been the creation of extraterrestrials, and that these creatures were feared, not worshipped, by the ancient Egyptians.
The humans are afraid of these monster, because they were created by the gods.
They are holy animals.
So they wait until the monsters die of a natural way.
And now the animal is dead, they smash, crash the bones of the monster.
They put it into the sarcophagi.
In ancient Egypt, every single living creature, after its death, was mummified.
So the fact that we can find boxes in which we have hacked-up bones, you have to ask yourself, why? So they made sure that, after death, they would hack up the bodies, and then put a 35-ton lid on top of that so that those creatures would never return in the future.
Could the sarcophagi have been constructed as a kind of prison to prevent the return of the bulls after death? Or could they have served a different, even more profound, purpose? Egyptologists are baffled, and they don't know what the purpose of these things were.
Also, why are some of them empty? And you have to wonder, too, if these boxes had some other purpose originally.
Are these really some kind of interdimensional stargates, and then extraterrestrials are able to come and go from this planet using that? Were the Serapeum sarcophagi actually a teleportation system, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe? Could they be a series of chambers used to convey ancient humans, and perhaps, alien visitors, to other planets? Perhaps another underground tomb complex halfway around the globe can provide further clues.
Northern Peru.
Archaeologist Walter Alva uncovers the lost tomb of the Lord of Sipan.
Intact and untouched by thieves, this burial place is considered one of the richest in the world.
The Lord of Sipan was a Moche king, up in the Lambayeque region of Peru, along the coast.
They found gold and silver and all these incredibly beautiful artifacts and textiles and art.
Peruvian archaeologists they sometimes call it the King Tut's Tomb of South America.
And the objects that they found in these tombs were unusual.
The burial chamber was filled with artifacts that included ceramic pots, gold, copper and silver utensils, and feather ornaments some researchers believe were intended to accompany and protect the Lord of Sipan in the afterlife.
Some archaeologists suggest that several of his servants, wives and consorts were sacrificed, and their bodies were placed inside to accompany him into the afterlife.
We see that Lord Sipan is not buried in isolation.
We see that he is buried with some other people, and so when we extrapolate from this and when we realize that other cultures have been doing the same kind of schematic, what we're seeing is that these people believed that the afterlife was very much a physical place.
It was believed that he would have needed some of these helpers.
It is believed that he would probably want to be reunited, if not united, with his most immediate family and some of his most trusted advisors.
Among the incredible treasures buried with the Lord of Sipan were strange statues that some researchers believe are evidence of extraterrestrial beings.
As well as servants and all the artifacts, they even found these strange, kind of weird anthropomorphized figurines that some people say resemble beings from other worlds.
They show bug-eyed people who do not look like a normal human.
So you have, at Sipan, really, a tomb that seems to show extraterrestrial beings, anthropomorphic beings that are half-animal, half-human, and people who don't look like a normal human being that look like extraterrestrials.
Lord of Sipan's tomb has some very interesting relics that were found within his burial.
Were these beings that were gonna help him go into the afterlife, possibly back into space, or into the heavens? The Lord of Sipan's disciples believed that he was not a mere mortal, but actually half-god and half-man.
But specifically what is of interest is that he has a face mask, which is made of gold, and his body largely is dressed with copper shielding.
So, all of a sudden, we see somebody whose dead body is meant to resemble clearly a shining one.
The divine being, which he was once believed to be, but also, which in death, he was believed to once again become.
Was the Lord of Sipan really half-man, half-god, as his followers believed? And might the figurines found in his grave really represent the ancient ruler's extraterrestrial origin? If so, is it possible that this tomb, like the ones found in Egypt, really served as a portal to the stars? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and believe more evidence can be found by looking at the boat-shaped coffins and strange burial rituals of the ancient Torajan people.
South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Here can be found the cave tombs of Tana Toraja, the site of a complex funeral ritual that dates back to 3000 BC.
The Torajan people believe death is a gradual process toward the afterlife.
Many cultures believe in an afterlife, something that goes on beyond the physical bodies.
The Toraja people in Indonesia are very interesting and unusual, because among the most elaborate rituals they have are not rituals of life, but for death.
They have incredible ceremonies when people die, they have huge feasts, and they have these incredible celebrations for the dead.
The Torajan people put the dead into these special coffins, which are also like a model of a spaceship.
And then they inter them up on these cliffs.
And their beliefs, too, are that ultimately the dead are returning to the stars, and that they as a people will also return to the stars, as well.
As translated, the name "Toraja" means "the people from above," and Torajans believe their ancestors descended from the stars in sky ships.
Their elaborate coffins are built in the form of a boat, and thought to resemble the sky ships that carried their ancestors to Earth.
A wooden effigy called a tau tau is carved in the likeness of the dead person and placed in the balcony to represent the deceased and watch over their remains.
The effigies are a beautiful illustration with which they wanted to show us that, once somebody is deceased, they can still look down upon you, because being dead doesn't mean that it's over.
Dead just means that you go on to the next level of existence.
And it's an idea that has been with us not just in our culture but in every ancient culture and modern culture as well.
The Torajan people, they believe in sky gods who descended from the sky, who left them a body of knowledge and then who disappeared.
And they very much believed that by doing what our ancestors did when these creatures were here that they will therefore also be able to join these divine beings which were once here.
And specifically, that upon death, they will be able to join them in the home of these deities.
That is very much on par with what we see throughout the world.
Is it possible, as some researchers believe, that ancient astronauts visited Earth thousands of years ago, and inspired our ancestors to build boat-shaped coffins that emulated their space vehicles? If so, could the presence of boat coffins mean that our ancestors were preparing to make a journey to the stars? Some believe the ultimate proof can be found in a mysterious burial mound in Ireland one with star maps that give clues, not just to where the ancient visitors came from, but where the dead may have, in fact, chosen to return.
Oldcastle, Ireland.
Amid the ruins of a Stone Age cemetery lies a 5,000-year-old tomb, nearly 120 feet in diameter.
It is named after the mythical poet-king, Ollahm Fodhla.
With Ollahm Fodhla's tomb, what we see is this connection between the Earth and the sky.
Some people have suggested it might be a celestial observatory.
But I think it's much more likely that it was sort of a temple, a place of worship, that connected the sky and the earth.
According to ancient astronaut theorists, astronomical hieroglyphs carved on the interior of the stone walls may have been the work of otherworldly beings.
At Ollahm Fodhla we can find an incredibly accurate astronomical chart, and one has to wonder how those ancestors were able to do this without any knowledge of astronomy.
In fact, the legends of that part of the world tell us that they had assistance, that these topics were taught to those people by none other than the shining ones who descended from the sky.
Ollahm Fodhla has inside of it celestial charts.
So you have to ask yourself if they are perhaps maps for these extraterrestrial visitors to show them the way home, back to the stars.
Could extraterrestrials, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, have taught our ancient ancestors how to build a so-calle"celestial observatory"? And if so, might the cemetery have served as a staging area? A place for extraterrestrials to observe, predict and record stellar movements in preparation for their return to the stars? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the ancient burial structures of Japan.
Sakai, Japan.
Here, in this city located 250 miles southwest of Tokyo, lies the Daisen Kofun, one of over 40 ancient crypts within a six-mile radius.
More than twice the length of the Great Pyramid of Giza, it is one of the largest tombs in the world.
Constructed in the 5th century AD, it is believed to be the resting place of Nintoku, the 16th emperor of Japan.
But of all the various types and designs that make up the Kofun structures, perhaps the most mysterious are those in the shape of a keyhole, one that can only be seen from above.
The very fact that this was made to look like a keyhole, that this was made only to be seen from the sky, would, to me, indicate this could be a clear message to the gods to say, "Look here.
" And it was some kind of reference for the stars, for the person in the tombs.
So is this some kind of tomb for the extraterrestrial gods so that they could find and return to the stars where they had come? Were the Kofun meant to serve as markers for extraterrestrials that planned to return to Earth, as some ancient astronaut theorists contend? Perhaps more evidence can be found by examining one of the most immense archaeological finds of the 20th century the vast tomb of China's first emperor.
Shaanxi Province, China.
In 1974, farmers digging a well outside the town of Xi'an made an astonishing discovery a life-size clay soldier intricately carved and dressed for battle.
Further excavation revealed thousands of these sculptures, known as the Terra Cotta Warriors, each with remarkably realistic facial expressions.
Entombed in the earth for over part of a massive underground mausoleum built for China's first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang.
The tomb of Qin Shi Huang is quite extraordinary.
Over 8,000 terra cotta soldiers have been found there, along with 520 horses, 130 chariots, most of which are still buried.
Qin Shi Huang is literally the first emperor in China.
He established the Qin dynasty in the year 221 BC.
And he established many things that actually continued to function throughout the imperial period in China.
Qin conquered and united China, built the Great Wall, and standardized the monetary and legal system.
But Qin Shi Huang was also obsessed with finding the secret of immortality.
This is an emperor who goes in search of the islands of immortality.
This is an emperor who's obsessed with rediscovering lost knowledge.
His ambition is to become, life, like the gods.
To this end, Qin spent over three decades forcing more than 700,000 laborers to construct the four-layered subterranean city that would serve as his resting place.
At the heart of the ancient complex is one of China's greatest mysteries.
The tomb actually covers a very large area.
Only a few areas in the surrounding, the border part of the tomb complex have been excavated.
Archaeologists believe that underneath this central burial mound is the chamber containing Emperor Qin's remains.
To date, the site is still unexcavated, due to dangerously high levels of mercury.
What's thought to be inside is an exact model of the universe in miniature, with the ceiling, uh, made to look like the sky with all the stars represented by pearls.
And then the rivers in China would be on the ground, and it is the mercury that is supposed to look like the rivers.
A conductive element used in gauges, electronics, and automobiles, mercury is a liquid metal that was discovered by archaeologists in an Egyptian tomb that dates back to 1500 BC.
Some researchers believe the presence of mercury indicates the existence of modern technology in the ancient world.
The presence of mercury, also, in these tombs, is unusual.
Mercury is something which is not really very useful to us, except in very high-tech devices.
And it could have been used as part of the extraterrestrials and their technology on this planet.
Was the first emperor of China influenced by visitors from another world to create his monument, as ancient astronaut theorists propose? And could the mercury found at the tomb be proof of extraterrestrial technology at work in China thousands of years ago technology that was not intended to merely help bury the dead, but to launch otherworldly beings back into space? Perhaps more clues can be found by taking a closer look at the mysterious burial mounds found all over our world.
Gyeongju, South Korea.
Here, near the shores of the Sea of Japan, lie the ruins of Cheonmachong.
Excavated in 1973, researchers believe this mound-shaped tomb was constructed for a fifth-century ruler from the Silla dynasty, which spanned nearly a thousand years.
The main feature of this tomb is that it has what's known as a "heavenly horse" drawn onto it, and it's often called the Heavenly Horse Tomb.
And this horse has eight fiery legs that are flaming.
It's clearly not a living, naturalistic horse.
It almost looks more like a combination of a horse and a dragon flying through the air.
This may represent the journey of the spirit, the soul, or taking the soul up to the afterlife.
According to most historians, this equestrian illustration represents not only the importance of horses in ancient Korean culture, but also the king's belief in the spirit world.
But ancient astronaut theorists have another, much more profound interpretation.
They believe the painting of the winged horse symbolizes how the deceased noble would actually journey to another distant realm.
Tibetans and Mongolians also have, uh, similar legends of these flying horses.
And these horses, too, would be analogous to the vimanas, uh, in Sanskrit, which are these flying machines, the chariots of the gods that Erich von Daniken talked about.
And often they're depicted as this horse, which was the familiar vehicle that people could travel in, only these horses could fly.
They were flying vehicles.
If you look at it even more closely, it resembles more some type of a dragon.
Because, out of its feet, there's fire coming out, and the feet themselves, their legs, don't really look like legs but they look as if they are some type of wings.
We have to remember that our ancestors were not familiar with space vehicles, so whatever they saw up in the sky could best be described as an eight-legged horse descending from the sky.
Could the so-called "heavenly horse" of Cheonmachong really be a representation of an extraterrestrial flying transport, as ancient astronaut theorists contend? And if so, would this help to prove their their theory that many ancient tombs were, in fact, portals to other extraterrestrial worlds? Perhaps more clues can be found in the mysterious drawings of another burial mound located more than 5,000 miles away.
The Boyne River Valley in Ireland.
Here, 31 miles north of Dublin, lies Newgrange, a tumulus tomb dating back to 3200 BC, and similar to the one found in South Korea.
Of the many ancient burial chambers discovered in the region, it is one of the best-preserved.
Newgrange would have been one the largest man-built structures on Earth at the time of its construction.
It dates from around 5,000 years ago, perhaps even a little bit more.
Predates the Great Pyramids.
So, this was a tremendous undertaking, by a very well-established culture, to build such a massive monument.
Newgrange's inner passage was constructed with remarkable precision.
And its design provides an accurate means of measuring the solar year.
It is astronomically aligned on the winter solstice, so that, right at the winter solstice, and only at the winter solstice a sun dagger shoots down through the central passageway into the tomb and illuminating the inner chamber of the tomb.
This inner chamber is carved with very enigmatic megalithic symbols which we still don't really understand and really displays an amazing competence of this culture on many, many levels.
We don't know exactly what it meant to those ancient peoples, but we can imagine that they gathered there at the time of the winter solstice, that there were many celebrations, and that the priests and priestesses would go into this inner chamber to witness this miracle every year.
We have essentially the death of the sun on the winter solstice.
On this day, we have the lowest point of the sun and then we have rebirth in new life.
So what better for a tomb and to talk about the journey to the afterlife than a death and a rebirth and starting the cycle again? Is it possible the celestial alignment at Newgrange was created to represent a journey to the afterlife, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe? "Spiral galaxies" is one of those terms which we use all the time.
And so the question might be: are some of the spirals somehow linked with this galactic travel? And based upon what we know from the belief of the people who built Newgrange and their belief, specifically, about the voyage of the dead, we know that this was a voyage in space.
When you look at these famous tumulus tombs that are all over the world, they are these circular mounds, so you have a shape, in a sense, of a flying saucer or a UFO.
And the whole idea of the spiral and the vortex is often used to symbolize time travel, and that is the way that extraterrestrials would be coming to Earth.
Could the hundreds of burial mounds found around the globe be linked through some otherworldly connection? And if so, is it really possible that extraterrestrials used these tumuli as portals to travel from galaxy to galaxy, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest? Perhaps such far-fetched notions aren't as hard to imagine as they seem, especially when considering that such things are happening right now, in the southwest region of North America.
Sierra County, New Mexico, 2010 Three, two, one, fire.
Aerospace company Celestis Incorporated launches one of the world's first private memorial spaceflights, providing a unique new funeral service for the deceased.
What this company does is, essentially, launch the ashes of dead people into space, including the Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, even the astronaut Gordon Cooper, who was part of the Mercury program that NASA created.
Celestis rents compartments on board conventional rockets assigned to carry satellites and other payloads into orbit.
They only do, like, seven grams of ashes that they send out there in small, tiny containers, and so, to me, this is quite an incredible thing because we now have the possibility of sending cremated remains into outer space.
We have to wonder if this is now replicating some of the ancient things that we've seen by using a boat or some type of symbology that the pharaoh or the king in the afterlife was being prepared to go back into the heavens.
But why would we want to send our dearly departed into space? Does it, in fact, fulfill some unconscious human desire to return to the stars after death? And could this, in some way, be connected to mankind's centuries-old belief in Heaven a utopian world that exists far above and beyond our own? I think it's interesting that the people who do this are the ones who have been the visionaries, the ones who really wanted to take mankind into deep space and take us on a voyage of discovery, trying to find out whether there are human beings there, and I think it's interesting that in the future we're probably going to see more and more of this, and that we're going to become more and more in tune with what our ancestors were thinking.
Maybe, at one point in the future, we will be able to physically send an entire body into deep space, on a voyage to reconnect with our ancestors.
We're all made of stars, and the whole universe is created out of the dust of stars, and so it seems natural for some people to want to have their ashes sent back into space.
In the ancient world, we were seen fundamentally as immortal souls briefly incarnated in human bodies and, and possibly reincarnating and coming back again and again.
It was understood that some aspect of the individual lived on beyond this physical life, and the tomb was, in a sense, an immortal home for that aspect of the individual.
Is it possible, as some researchers believe, that mankind has long tried to make a connection with our otherworldly origins? And, if so, might ancient tombs throughout the world have been constructed to facilitate this celestial journey, even after death? It's hard to know what our earliest ancestors were thinking when they looked up into the night sky.
Perhaps they felt dwarfed by its immensity.
Perhaps they wondered what the stars were, up in the sky.
Probably they projected their mythology or maybe invented mythology about goddesses and gods and other spiritual beings, living in a heavenly world above them.
Maybe that's why so many of their ancient temples were aligned with these heavenly bodies.
Our ancestors were building these structures so that they could be seen by the gods in the sky and by the souls on their way to the gods in the sky.
What our ancestors are saying, what our ancestors are reinforcing, is that the soul is going to go on a voyage into the stars.
All over the world, we have very similar types of ceremonies that have to do with entombing people, and you have to wonder a little bit if your body is being preserved and it's going to be used again.
And if we could do this, that's something that extraterrestrials would be able to do, too.
Tombs interconnected by design, tradition, and a desire for a peaceful passage from life to death.
Is it possible ancient burial chambers were built from knowledge passed on to our ancient ancestors by celestial beings? And if so, might we one day reunite with these beings through an otherworldly portal? Perhaps the answer will be revealed in our lifetime or, perhaps, only after we take our final breath.
Elaborate chambers filled with mysterious objects The fact that these boats existed inside tombs leads me to think that they tried to reach some type of extraterrestrial realms.
And bizarre burial mounds found across the globe.
When you start looking at a structure inside the celestial alignments, you start to wonder, was there contact between some of these areas? Were the tombs of our ancient ancestors actually gateways to the afterlife? Or were they really meant to connect modern man with our alien ancestors? You have to ask yourself if they are perhaps maps to guide the dead back to the star systems, where they originally came from.
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 if so, might the secrets of the ancient tombs reveal an otherworldly plan for mankind? Deafdude The Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
The Taj Mahal, Agra, India.
And King Pakal's Tomb, Palenque, Mexico.
Spectacular burial sites that date back thousands of years are found across the world.
According to mainstream researchers, these locations are the final resting places for ancient leaders.
But might they also serve a more profound, perhaps extraterrestrial purpose? Why do we have the most massive of constructions of these tombs in the far and distant past? Well, according to the ancient texts and the ancient traditions, this knowledge was given to our ancestors by the gods.
If the sole function of tombs was to house the dead, then why are virtually all of them connected to notions of spiritual energy, images of astronomy, and a strong belief in the existence of other, arguably more spiritual, worlds? All cultures share this notion of somehow opening a doorway, opening a stargate, opening a gateway to another dimension so the soul can return.
We know that it is meant because the soul is gonna go on a voyage to the afterlife.
In the ancient world, there was a view that this life that we have, this physical life, is our opportunity to prepare ourselves for a vast destiny that lies beyond this life.
Could ancient tombs really have served another, more extraterrestrial purpose, perhaps as portals to reunite the deceased with celestial beings? Many ancient astronaut theorists believe the answers can be found by taking a closer look at the mysterious texts of ancient Egypt.
Saqqara situated on the west bank of the Nile River, this archaeological site is one of the oldest and largest burial grounds in all of Egypt.
Egyptologists called these monuments tombs.
But to the Egyptians, they were not tombs, they were gateways to the afterworld.
It is through these structures that the king will begin a journey into the underworld, in order to face obstacles, dangers, and threats.
And if he will overcome these threats, he will be given passage into the afterlife kingdom of Osiris.
Overlooking the immense necropolis lies the Pyramid of King Teti, the first ruler of Egypt's sixth dynasty.
Teti built his pyramid and an adjoining mortuary temple during his reign, more than I'm walking on what's left of the ancient causeway of King Teti I that's his pyramid and here is his very-much-ruined mortuary temple.
Now, this pyramid is very important, it contains the oldest, richest writing in the world, the Pyramid Texts.
According to archaeologists, the Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious writings that date back to 2400 BC.
They contain passages about Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife, and descriptions of how to prepare the pharaoh's remains during his ascent to the heavens after death.
The Pyramid Texts are all about the stars.
It's all about the king becoming a star.
It's all about the king ascending to the sky and joining Osiris-Orion in the sky.
But according to ancient astronaut theorists, the Pyramid Texts didn't only guide the pharaoh to an afterlife, they actually provided instruction on how the pharaoh could travel to other worlds.
What is important to realize is that the ancient Egyptians say that about 25,000 years ago, the gods lived amongst them.
Then they disappeared again.
What the Pyramid Texts are saying is that we the ancient Egyptians specifically, of course are able to reach the gods again.
For this we have to die, but once we're dead, we're able to join the gods once again.
What we're talking about is some kind of other-dimensional travel for the soul to undertake.
Buried in the desert sands for centuries, the ruins of Saqqara are home to another ancient mystery just one half-mile away from the Pyramid of King Teti.
In 1850, French archaeologist Auguste Mariette made an astonishing discovery.
He unearthed a massive underground bunker.
This is a most strange and mysterious place.
It feels like being in the bowels of the underworld.
It's hard to describe it's like being in another world, the world of the dead.
The Serapeum contains enormous sarcophagi made from granite that was believed to have been transported from the city of Aswan, nearly 600 miles away.
This is just one of the many sarcophagus that are here, dozens and dozens of them.
And they weigh about 70 tons apiece.
They're made from a solid block of granite.
But the real mystery is how they cut them so sharply Swiss watch precision, mirror smooth.
When you look at the inside of the boxes, you see the underside of the lid is perfectly square with the vertical surface of the inside of the box.
Directly opposite, you have the same condition, which means that those two surfaces, opposing each other, must have been perfectly parallel.
It's really amazing.
Ancient astronaut theorists question just how the ancient Egtians could have moved these gigantic stones for miles and then wedge them into the underground labyrinth.
And to what purpose? So we have one big problem.
Imagine, in ancient Egypt, they dig out of the rock kilometers and kilometers of subterranean tunnels.
Right and left, they make niches.
Then they go to two day's Aswan.
In Aswan, they cut out of the rock the hardest granite which exists, and they bring it, in a complicated way we don't know, into these subterranean tunnels.
Archaeologists still, today, cannot figure out how these giant basalt sarcophagi were made.
They're perfectly made.
And how they would even move them into these catacombs that are underground.
It's like they would have had to levitate and put these 70-ton boxes by some magical means, like anti-gravity.
Most scholars believe the Serapeum and its massive sarcophagi were constructed to house the mummified remains of the Apis bulls.
The Egyptians believed that these Apis bulls were descended from the sky, and they would have elaborate ceremonies with these bulls.
But when Mariette opened the sarcophagi, they were empty, apart from some bones.
Only one Apis bull mummy was discovered at the site.
Some ancient astronaut theorists believe the sacred bul may have been the creation of extraterrestrials, and that these creatures were feared, not worshipped, by the ancient Egyptians.
The humans are afraid of these monster, because they were created by the gods.
They are holy animals.
So they wait until the monsters die of a natural way.
And now the animal is dead, they smash, crash the bones of the monster.
They put it into the sarcophagi.
In ancient Egypt, every single living creature, after its death, was mummified.
So the fact that we can find boxes in which we have hacked-up bones, you have to ask yourself, why? So they made sure that, after death, they would hack up the bodies, and then put a 35-ton lid on top of that so that those creatures would never return in the future.
Could the sarcophagi have been constructed as a kind of prison to prevent the return of the bulls after death? Or could they have served a different, even more profound, purpose? Egyptologists are baffled, and they don't know what the purpose of these things were.
Also, why are some of them empty? And you have to wonder, too, if these boxes had some other purpose originally.
Are these really some kind of interdimensional stargates, and then extraterrestrials are able to come and go from this planet using that? Were the Serapeum sarcophagi actually a teleportation system, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe? Could they be a series of chambers used to convey ancient humans, and perhaps, alien visitors, to other planets? Perhaps another underground tomb complex halfway around the globe can provide further clues.
Northern Peru.
Archaeologist Walter Alva uncovers the lost tomb of the Lord of Sipan.
Intact and untouched by thieves, this burial place is considered one of the richest in the world.
The Lord of Sipan was a Moche king, up in the Lambayeque region of Peru, along the coast.
They found gold and silver and all these incredibly beautiful artifacts and textiles and art.
Peruvian archaeologists they sometimes call it the King Tut's Tomb of South America.
And the objects that they found in these tombs were unusual.
The burial chamber was filled with artifacts that included ceramic pots, gold, copper and silver utensils, and feather ornaments some researchers believe were intended to accompany and protect the Lord of Sipan in the afterlife.
Some archaeologists suggest that several of his servants, wives and consorts were sacrificed, and their bodies were placed inside to accompany him into the afterlife.
We see that Lord Sipan is not buried in isolation.
We see that he is buried with some other people, and so when we extrapolate from this and when we realize that other cultures have been doing the same kind of schematic, what we're seeing is that these people believed that the afterlife was very much a physical place.
It was believed that he would have needed some of these helpers.
It is believed that he would probably want to be reunited, if not united, with his most immediate family and some of his most trusted advisors.
Among the incredible treasures buried with the Lord of Sipan were strange statues that some researchers believe are evidence of extraterrestrial beings.
As well as servants and all the artifacts, they even found these strange, kind of weird anthropomorphized figurines that some people say resemble beings from other worlds.
They show bug-eyed people who do not look like a normal human.
So you have, at Sipan, really, a tomb that seems to show extraterrestrial beings, anthropomorphic beings that are half-animal, half-human, and people who don't look like a normal human being that look like extraterrestrials.
Lord of Sipan's tomb has some very interesting relics that were found within his burial.
Were these beings that were gonna help him go into the afterlife, possibly back into space, or into the heavens? The Lord of Sipan's disciples believed that he was not a mere mortal, but actually half-god and half-man.
But specifically what is of interest is that he has a face mask, which is made of gold, and his body largely is dressed with copper shielding.
So, all of a sudden, we see somebody whose dead body is meant to resemble clearly a shining one.
The divine being, which he was once believed to be, but also, which in death, he was believed to once again become.
Was the Lord of Sipan really half-man, half-god, as his followers believed? And might the figurines found in his grave really represent the ancient ruler's extraterrestrial origin? If so, is it possible that this tomb, like the ones found in Egypt, really served as a portal to the stars? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes, and believe more evidence can be found by looking at the boat-shaped coffins and strange burial rituals of the ancient Torajan people.
South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Here can be found the cave tombs of Tana Toraja, the site of a complex funeral ritual that dates back to 3000 BC.
The Torajan people believe death is a gradual process toward the afterlife.
Many cultures believe in an afterlife, something that goes on beyond the physical bodies.
The Toraja people in Indonesia are very interesting and unusual, because among the most elaborate rituals they have are not rituals of life, but for death.
They have incredible ceremonies when people die, they have huge feasts, and they have these incredible celebrations for the dead.
The Torajan people put the dead into these special coffins, which are also like a model of a spaceship.
And then they inter them up on these cliffs.
And their beliefs, too, are that ultimately the dead are returning to the stars, and that they as a people will also return to the stars, as well.
As translated, the name "Toraja" means "the people from above," and Torajans believe their ancestors descended from the stars in sky ships.
Their elaborate coffins are built in the form of a boat, and thought to resemble the sky ships that carried their ancestors to Earth.
A wooden effigy called a tau tau is carved in the likeness of the dead person and placed in the balcony to represent the deceased and watch over their remains.
The effigies are a beautiful illustration with which they wanted to show us that, once somebody is deceased, they can still look down upon you, because being dead doesn't mean that it's over.
Dead just means that you go on to the next level of existence.
And it's an idea that has been with us not just in our culture but in every ancient culture and modern culture as well.
The Torajan people, they believe in sky gods who descended from the sky, who left them a body of knowledge and then who disappeared.
And they very much believed that by doing what our ancestors did when these creatures were here that they will therefore also be able to join these divine beings which were once here.
And specifically, that upon death, they will be able to join them in the home of these deities.
That is very much on par with what we see throughout the world.
Is it possible, as some researchers believe, that ancient astronauts visited Earth thousands of years ago, and inspired our ancestors to build boat-shaped coffins that emulated their space vehicles? If so, could the presence of boat coffins mean that our ancestors were preparing to make a journey to the stars? Some believe the ultimate proof can be found in a mysterious burial mound in Ireland one with star maps that give clues, not just to where the ancient visitors came from, but where the dead may have, in fact, chosen to return.
Oldcastle, Ireland.
Amid the ruins of a Stone Age cemetery lies a 5,000-year-old tomb, nearly 120 feet in diameter.
It is named after the mythical poet-king, Ollahm Fodhla.
With Ollahm Fodhla's tomb, what we see is this connection between the Earth and the sky.
Some people have suggested it might be a celestial observatory.
But I think it's much more likely that it was sort of a temple, a place of worship, that connected the sky and the earth.
According to ancient astronaut theorists, astronomical hieroglyphs carved on the interior of the stone walls may have been the work of otherworldly beings.
At Ollahm Fodhla we can find an incredibly accurate astronomical chart, and one has to wonder how those ancestors were able to do this without any knowledge of astronomy.
In fact, the legends of that part of the world tell us that they had assistance, that these topics were taught to those people by none other than the shining ones who descended from the sky.
Ollahm Fodhla has inside of it celestial charts.
So you have to ask yourself if they are perhaps maps for these extraterrestrial visitors to show them the way home, back to the stars.
Could extraterrestrials, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, have taught our ancient ancestors how to build a so-calle"celestial observatory"? And if so, might the cemetery have served as a staging area? A place for extraterrestrials to observe, predict and record stellar movements in preparation for their return to the stars? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining the ancient burial structures of Japan.
Sakai, Japan.
Here, in this city located 250 miles southwest of Tokyo, lies the Daisen Kofun, one of over 40 ancient crypts within a six-mile radius.
More than twice the length of the Great Pyramid of Giza, it is one of the largest tombs in the world.
Constructed in the 5th century AD, it is believed to be the resting place of Nintoku, the 16th emperor of Japan.
But of all the various types and designs that make up the Kofun structures, perhaps the most mysterious are those in the shape of a keyhole, one that can only be seen from above.
The very fact that this was made to look like a keyhole, that this was made only to be seen from the sky, would, to me, indicate this could be a clear message to the gods to say, "Look here.
" And it was some kind of reference for the stars, for the person in the tombs.
So is this some kind of tomb for the extraterrestrial gods so that they could find and return to the stars where they had come? Were the Kofun meant to serve as markers for extraterrestrials that planned to return to Earth, as some ancient astronaut theorists contend? Perhaps more evidence can be found by examining one of the most immense archaeological finds of the 20th century the vast tomb of China's first emperor.
Shaanxi Province, China.
In 1974, farmers digging a well outside the town of Xi'an made an astonishing discovery a life-size clay soldier intricately carved and dressed for battle.
Further excavation revealed thousands of these sculptures, known as the Terra Cotta Warriors, each with remarkably realistic facial expressions.
Entombed in the earth for over part of a massive underground mausoleum built for China's first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang.
The tomb of Qin Shi Huang is quite extraordinary.
Over 8,000 terra cotta soldiers have been found there, along with 520 horses, 130 chariots, most of which are still buried.
Qin Shi Huang is literally the first emperor in China.
He established the Qin dynasty in the year 221 BC.
And he established many things that actually continued to function throughout the imperial period in China.
Qin conquered and united China, built the Great Wall, and standardized the monetary and legal system.
But Qin Shi Huang was also obsessed with finding the secret of immortality.
This is an emperor who goes in search of the islands of immortality.
This is an emperor who's obsessed with rediscovering lost knowledge.
His ambition is to become, life, like the gods.
To this end, Qin spent over three decades forcing more than 700,000 laborers to construct the four-layered subterranean city that would serve as his resting place.
At the heart of the ancient complex is one of China's greatest mysteries.
The tomb actually covers a very large area.
Only a few areas in the surrounding, the border part of the tomb complex have been excavated.
Archaeologists believe that underneath this central burial mound is the chamber containing Emperor Qin's remains.
To date, the site is still unexcavated, due to dangerously high levels of mercury.
What's thought to be inside is an exact model of the universe in miniature, with the ceiling, uh, made to look like the sky with all the stars represented by pearls.
And then the rivers in China would be on the ground, and it is the mercury that is supposed to look like the rivers.
A conductive element used in gauges, electronics, and automobiles, mercury is a liquid metal that was discovered by archaeologists in an Egyptian tomb that dates back to 1500 BC.
Some researchers believe the presence of mercury indicates the existence of modern technology in the ancient world.
The presence of mercury, also, in these tombs, is unusual.
Mercury is something which is not really very useful to us, except in very high-tech devices.
And it could have been used as part of the extraterrestrials and their technology on this planet.
Was the first emperor of China influenced by visitors from another world to create his monument, as ancient astronaut theorists propose? And could the mercury found at the tomb be proof of extraterrestrial technology at work in China thousands of years ago technology that was not intended to merely help bury the dead, but to launch otherworldly beings back into space? Perhaps more clues can be found by taking a closer look at the mysterious burial mounds found all over our world.
Gyeongju, South Korea.
Here, near the shores of the Sea of Japan, lie the ruins of Cheonmachong.
Excavated in 1973, researchers believe this mound-shaped tomb was constructed for a fifth-century ruler from the Silla dynasty, which spanned nearly a thousand years.
The main feature of this tomb is that it has what's known as a "heavenly horse" drawn onto it, and it's often called the Heavenly Horse Tomb.
And this horse has eight fiery legs that are flaming.
It's clearly not a living, naturalistic horse.
It almost looks more like a combination of a horse and a dragon flying through the air.
This may represent the journey of the spirit, the soul, or taking the soul up to the afterlife.
According to most historians, this equestrian illustration represents not only the importance of horses in ancient Korean culture, but also the king's belief in the spirit world.
But ancient astronaut theorists have another, much more profound interpretation.
They believe the painting of the winged horse symbolizes how the deceased noble would actually journey to another distant realm.
Tibetans and Mongolians also have, uh, similar legends of these flying horses.
And these horses, too, would be analogous to the vimanas, uh, in Sanskrit, which are these flying machines, the chariots of the gods that Erich von Daniken talked about.
And often they're depicted as this horse, which was the familiar vehicle that people could travel in, only these horses could fly.
They were flying vehicles.
If you look at it even more closely, it resembles more some type of a dragon.
Because, out of its feet, there's fire coming out, and the feet themselves, their legs, don't really look like legs but they look as if they are some type of wings.
We have to remember that our ancestors were not familiar with space vehicles, so whatever they saw up in the sky could best be described as an eight-legged horse descending from the sky.
Could the so-called "heavenly horse" of Cheonmachong really be a representation of an extraterrestrial flying transport, as ancient astronaut theorists contend? And if so, would this help to prove their their theory that many ancient tombs were, in fact, portals to other extraterrestrial worlds? Perhaps more clues can be found in the mysterious drawings of another burial mound located more than 5,000 miles away.
The Boyne River Valley in Ireland.
Here, 31 miles north of Dublin, lies Newgrange, a tumulus tomb dating back to 3200 BC, and similar to the one found in South Korea.
Of the many ancient burial chambers discovered in the region, it is one of the best-preserved.
Newgrange would have been one the largest man-built structures on Earth at the time of its construction.
It dates from around 5,000 years ago, perhaps even a little bit more.
Predates the Great Pyramids.
So, this was a tremendous undertaking, by a very well-established culture, to build such a massive monument.
Newgrange's inner passage was constructed with remarkable precision.
And its design provides an accurate means of measuring the solar year.
It is astronomically aligned on the winter solstice, so that, right at the winter solstice, and only at the winter solstice a sun dagger shoots down through the central passageway into the tomb and illuminating the inner chamber of the tomb.
This inner chamber is carved with very enigmatic megalithic symbols which we still don't really understand and really displays an amazing competence of this culture on many, many levels.
We don't know exactly what it meant to those ancient peoples, but we can imagine that they gathered there at the time of the winter solstice, that there were many celebrations, and that the priests and priestesses would go into this inner chamber to witness this miracle every year.
We have essentially the death of the sun on the winter solstice.
On this day, we have the lowest point of the sun and then we have rebirth in new life.
So what better for a tomb and to talk about the journey to the afterlife than a death and a rebirth and starting the cycle again? Is it possible the celestial alignment at Newgrange was created to represent a journey to the afterlife, as some ancient astronaut theorists believe? "Spiral galaxies" is one of those terms which we use all the time.
And so the question might be: are some of the spirals somehow linked with this galactic travel? And based upon what we know from the belief of the people who built Newgrange and their belief, specifically, about the voyage of the dead, we know that this was a voyage in space.
When you look at these famous tumulus tombs that are all over the world, they are these circular mounds, so you have a shape, in a sense, of a flying saucer or a UFO.
And the whole idea of the spiral and the vortex is often used to symbolize time travel, and that is the way that extraterrestrials would be coming to Earth.
Could the hundreds of burial mounds found around the globe be linked through some otherworldly connection? And if so, is it really possible that extraterrestrials used these tumuli as portals to travel from galaxy to galaxy, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest? Perhaps such far-fetched notions aren't as hard to imagine as they seem, especially when considering that such things are happening right now, in the southwest region of North America.
Sierra County, New Mexico, 2010 Three, two, one, fire.
Aerospace company Celestis Incorporated launches one of the world's first private memorial spaceflights, providing a unique new funeral service for the deceased.
What this company does is, essentially, launch the ashes of dead people into space, including the Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, even the astronaut Gordon Cooper, who was part of the Mercury program that NASA created.
Celestis rents compartments on board conventional rockets assigned to carry satellites and other payloads into orbit.
They only do, like, seven grams of ashes that they send out there in small, tiny containers, and so, to me, this is quite an incredible thing because we now have the possibility of sending cremated remains into outer space.
We have to wonder if this is now replicating some of the ancient things that we've seen by using a boat or some type of symbology that the pharaoh or the king in the afterlife was being prepared to go back into the heavens.
But why would we want to send our dearly departed into space? Does it, in fact, fulfill some unconscious human desire to return to the stars after death? And could this, in some way, be connected to mankind's centuries-old belief in Heaven a utopian world that exists far above and beyond our own? I think it's interesting that the people who do this are the ones who have been the visionaries, the ones who really wanted to take mankind into deep space and take us on a voyage of discovery, trying to find out whether there are human beings there, and I think it's interesting that in the future we're probably going to see more and more of this, and that we're going to become more and more in tune with what our ancestors were thinking.
Maybe, at one point in the future, we will be able to physically send an entire body into deep space, on a voyage to reconnect with our ancestors.
We're all made of stars, and the whole universe is created out of the dust of stars, and so it seems natural for some people to want to have their ashes sent back into space.
In the ancient world, we were seen fundamentally as immortal souls briefly incarnated in human bodies and, and possibly reincarnating and coming back again and again.
It was understood that some aspect of the individual lived on beyond this physical life, and the tomb was, in a sense, an immortal home for that aspect of the individual.
Is it possible, as some researchers believe, that mankind has long tried to make a connection with our otherworldly origins? And, if so, might ancient tombs throughout the world have been constructed to facilitate this celestial journey, even after death? It's hard to know what our earliest ancestors were thinking when they looked up into the night sky.
Perhaps they felt dwarfed by its immensity.
Perhaps they wondered what the stars were, up in the sky.
Probably they projected their mythology or maybe invented mythology about goddesses and gods and other spiritual beings, living in a heavenly world above them.
Maybe that's why so many of their ancient temples were aligned with these heavenly bodies.
Our ancestors were building these structures so that they could be seen by the gods in the sky and by the souls on their way to the gods in the sky.
What our ancestors are saying, what our ancestors are reinforcing, is that the soul is going to go on a voyage into the stars.
All over the world, we have very similar types of ceremonies that have to do with entombing people, and you have to wonder a little bit if your body is being preserved and it's going to be used again.
And if we could do this, that's something that extraterrestrials would be able to do, too.
Tombs interconnected by design, tradition, and a desire for a peaceful passage from life to death.
Is it possible ancient burial chambers were built from knowledge passed on to our ancient ancestors by celestial beings? And if so, might we one day reunite with these beings through an otherworldly portal? Perhaps the answer will be revealed in our lifetime or, perhaps, only after we take our final breath.