Ancient Aliens s10e03 Episode Script
Aliens and Robots
NARRATOR: Incredible strength.
RICHARD RADER: You had the creation of a superhuman that was indestructible, invincible.
NARRATOR: Superior intelligence.
MARK DICE: The ultimate goal is to become an immortal god.
NARRATOR: And the ability to reproduce.
DAVID WILCOCK: You have a robotic consciousness that has become something we would think of as a person.
NARRATOR: But is this obsession with creating counterfeit humans really pointing the way to mankind's future or to its past? GIORGIO A.
TSOUKALOS: Another civilization has done the same thing hundreds of thousands of years before us.
NICK POPE: We may be living in a universe where the real intelligences out there are robots.
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has credited its origins to gods and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true? Did extraterrestrial beings really help to shape our history? And if so, could there be a connection between aliens and robots? Kansai Science City, Japan.
At the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Dr.
Hiroshi Ishiguro and his team are developing a series of robots.
Artificial humans that are incredibly lifelike, both in their appearance and in their facial gestures.
NARRATOR: This robot Part of the Geminoid series Is designed to look identical to its maker.
But what separates it from other robots of its type is the number of miniature motors, called actuators, used to mimic human expression.
While most use ten to 12, the latest Geminoids use over 50.
NARRATOR: The robot is programmed to mimic as closely as possible the movements a human makes while at rest.
It responds spontaneously to being touched or when asked a question.
It can also be remotely operated.
NARRATOR: While the Geminoid robots focus primarily on replicating facial expression, engineers at the University of Texas.
Human Centered Robotics Lab have developed a robot named Dreamer that can perform an equally impressive series of sophisticated body movements.
We made Dreamer more humanlike through, uh, features and-and shapes and kind of dimensions of a human.
And at the same time making the movements much more humanlike by understanding and learning from the human.
So one thing that makes unique the movement of Dreamers is what we call the whole body control.
NARRATOR: Although Dreamer's torso rests on a wheeled base, a bipedal set of robotic legs are currently being developed which will make Dreamer fully mobile within two years.
SENTIS: Ultimately, we want these machines to live 100 years unassisted.
Without any supervision whatsoever.
NARRATOR: By combining the lifelike characteristics of androids like those developed by Hiroshi Ishiguro with the mobility of robots like Dreamer, scientists believe we might soon see a time when artificial humans will be virtually identical to the real thing.
SENTIS: We're gonna be able to actually create very humanlike robotic systems to the point that they are nearly indistinguishable, both in movement and in morphology.
STEVE FULLER: You look at something like the sort of entities that were dealt with in the movie Blade Runner, the kinds of Turing tests that were done there to try to spot the androids.
I think that in principle, we could have androids passing a sophisticated version of the Turing test that would force the machine to think reflectively about its own consciousness, about its own past, about its own feelings, and I think that this should not be impossible to do, and in which case we should count these beings as human.
NARRATOR: In the 21st century, robots are being programmed to do everything from performing surgery to driving a car.
And humanoid robots are rapidly reaching a level of sophistication that was thought to exist only in science fiction.
But what are the implications of creating robots that are increasingly intelligent and independent? In March of 2015, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was quoted as saying.
"Computers are going to take over from humans the future is scary.
" Even Stephen Hawking and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk have predicted that machines may soon surpass and ultimately replace humans.
Many scientists and thinkers have postulated that ultimately machines are gonna take over the world.
Computers are getting faster and more powerful.
Ultimately, we will design machines that themselves design even better machines.
If it gets smarter than us, we'd better watch out.
NARRATOR: But while conventional scientists ponder whether or not robots are destined to take over the earth, ancient astronaut theorists are asking themselves quite a different question: Did this all happen before, perhaps thousands of years ago? Abydos, Egypt.
Seven miles west of the Nile.
Within this expansive archaeological site lies the ruins of the Osiris Hall, where thousands would gather to worship the god of the underworld.
TSOUKALOS: In comparison to many of the gods, Osiris is actually thought to have lived physically on Earth as one of Egypt's Pharaohs.
He is often depicted with a winged disc of the sun.
And while many scholars have suggested that this is nothing else but, uh, to worship the sun, that sun, as far as the Egyptians were concerned, also had wings and it descended from the sky.
So in my opinion, something else was depicted: an extraterrestrial event that in fact took place in real life.
NARRATOR: Although most ancient astronaut theorists believe that the Egyptian gods were, in reality, extraterrestrial visitors, there are many who wonder if Osiris was even made of flesh and blood.
One of the most famous stories that go hand in hand with Osiris was that he was dismembered by his jealous brother, Seth.
JONATHAN YOUNG: Seth went into a fury and tore his brother's dead body to shreds, tore it into 14 pieces, had it scattered far and wide all over the kingdom.
But Isis, the loyal wife, searched far and wide and found the pieces and pulled it together.
TSOUKALOS: Isis succeeded in resurrecting him.
Now, when I hear a story like that, that a being is dismembered and then somebody puts together those pieces and then they are able to magically resurrect him, I have to ask the question: is it possible that Osiris was not some type of biological entity, but perhaps he was some type of a machine or a robot? NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists, perhaps the strongest evidence that Osiris may have been a robot can be found in the ancient Pyramid Texts, which describe the symbol of the Djed Pillar as Osiris' spine.
WILLIAM HENRY: Osiris in his resurrected form was portrayed as a pillar that clearly resembles a modern-day Tesla coil.
The Djed Pillar was considered a power pillar.
TSOUKALOS: In this one carving at Abydos, it is as if Isis has her hand inserted into Osiris's back.
And so perhaps it illustrates how she was manipulating Osiris.
Could it be that the story of Osiris is something completely different than what we have thought? NARRATOR: Is it possible that our ancestors encountered highly sophisticated extraterrestrial robots in the ancient past? And if so, might there be some tangible evidence? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe the evidence was recovered deep beneath the sea and dates back more than 2,000 years.
NARRATOR: The Aegean Sea.
April, 1900.
Just 230 feet off the coast of the small island of Antikythera, sponge divers discover an ancient shipwreck Over the next two years, artifacts are recovered from the wreckage and among them are the remains of a coral-encrusted metal box that dates back to the second century BC.
It is the oldest mechanical computer ever found, predating artifacts of similar complexity by 1,500 years.
So you have this small little box with dozens of cogwheels on the inside, and it has been determined that that analog computer was used to predict astronomical events.
And so it was the first computer that has ever been created by mankind.
CHILDRESS: The American scientists who were studying the Antikythera device actually said that discovering the Antikythera device was like finding a jet plane in the tomb of King Tut.
It was so amazing to them.
They had never, ever conceived that the ancient Greeks, at 200 BC, would have had the knowledge of mechanical devices like this.
That's completely changed the way we perceive ancient history.
NARRATOR: While excavation teams have still not determined for certain the origin of the ship on which the Antikythera mechanism was found, the leading candidate is the island of Rhodes.
According to some contemporary accounts, Rhodes was once home to what, by today's standards, would be considered high technology.
In the fifth century BC, the poet Pindar wrote that Rhodes was once adorned with statues that came to life like living, moving creatures.
TSOUKALOS: He wrote that they all of a sudden became alive, and so the question then arises: well, if you have a lifeless object first and then all of a sudden somebody breathes life into something, could it be that we have references to some type of machines? Where did the people of Rhodes get the knowledge of how to create these moving statues 2,500 years ago? I believe that it is just what Pindar said, which is, they got it from the gods.
Well, who are these gods? The gods are real people, they're extraterrestrials who had this technology, shared it with humanity.
And now when we see the Antikythera mechanism, there's something you can put your hands on that shows that they had the capability to do advanced machine work.
It's 1,500 years too early, at least.
The point is, that technology really exists, and from a technology like that, going to robotics is not too much further.
And extraterrestrials would very well have had that capability for the time.
If you believe what this legend says on face value.
NARRATOR: Could the Antikythera mechanism be proof that the ancient Greeks had technology far in advance of the times in which they lived? And might this be evidence that there really were functioning robots on the island of Rhodes? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and claim there is also evidence that advanced robots existed on another Greek island: Lemnos.
Here lie the ruins of Hephaistia, one of the most important cities in Greece.
It is named for the Greek god of metallurgy, Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen here from the sky and actually existed on Earth alongside humans.
RADER: He's described in his workshop as being surrounded by automated robots.
He flips on the machines and they bustle around, doing all the sort of the hard busywork for him.
NARRATOR: One of Hephaestus' most famous and amazing creations was Talos, a giant man made of bronze who protected the island of Crete.
Talos was able to observe all of the ships approaching Crete and hurl stones at those ships.
And he was able to release this heat, and thus incinerating any boat or anything that would come close to him.
So is it possible that Talos was some type of a machine or a robot? NARRATOR: Greece isn't the only place where ancient stories can be found about inanimate objects that appear to come to life.
The Jewish Talmud describes a clay figure called the Golem that could be brought to life by inserting a spell into its mouth.
In India, an ancient Sanskrit text called the Lokapannatti tells of spirit movement machines as far back as the fifth century BC.
And the Chinese text the Liezi describes a humanoid robot being presented to King Mu as far back as 3,000 years ago.
YOUNG: There are stories from many cultures from all over the planet of people who have either created other humans or machines that were very much like humans.
NARRATOR: But if sophisticated robots really did exist in the ancient world, what function did they serve? Who built them? And perhaps more importantly, what happened to them? On March 24, 2015, the Mars rover called Opportunity reaches the west rim of the It is searching for minerals and other evidence that might prove that life once existed here.
It is one of several remote-controlled robots that, for more than a decade, have provided NASA with invaluable information about our closest alien planet.
Well, NASA has successfully controlled robots over, you know, crazy distances.
They would execute the plan here on the ground, then they would upload those instructions to the robot on Mars.
NARRATOR: Another NASA robot The humanoid Robonaut 2 Works on the International Space Station.
And in development is the so-called super robot, Valkyrie, which is designed to set up habitats and pave the way for humans on other planets.
When humans go out into space, uh, it's very difficult and dangerous and time-consuming.
It's far easier to send robots, and if that's what we do, that's sure as heck what extraterrestrials are gonna be doing.
NARRATOR: But just as we are employing robots today to gather information and minimize risk to human life, could similar cybernetic technologies have existed in the ancient past? Could stories like that of Osiris, Talos, and the Golem be true? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe that the proof can not only be found in the past, but right here in the present.
NARRATOR: Norway.
November, 2014.
Scientists from the University of Oslo work on a new breakthrough in robotics, creating robots that are able to adapt and continue functioning even after losing a limb.
The robots also know how to create new limbs with the use of a 3-D printer and reapply them, effectively repairing themselves without the aid of a human being.
This new technology is the first step in achieving what Hungarian scientist John Von Neumann envisioned back in the 1940s: self-replicating robots.
John Von Neumann was, uh, a mathematician that had an idea about self-replicating machines, where you send out a seed machine and that machine will seek out raw materials to construct a copy of itself, and then that will then send that machine out to replicate itself.
POPE: So one become two, two become four, and eventually these things would be able to explore the entire cosmos.
Now, one theory is that extraterrestrial civilizations would build space probes like that, and that would be the quickest way to explore the entire universe.
FULLER: The interesting question is going to be the extent to which part of that self-replicationing includes the memories and the learning that the first generation of robots engage with.
So you'd want to make the robots as open to new experiences as we are but at the same time be able also to pass on the experiences from any given generation to the next generation through self-replication.
So I think that this could be a very important way, in terms of space travel, to go.
I mean, I think the more interesting question, from the standpoint of ourselves as human beings, is the extent to which we remain part of that process.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that we could create self-aware robots that are completely autonomous and send them off to explore the universe unassisted? And might these robots be able to self-replicate endlessly, using materials found on distant planets? Ancient astronaut theorists propose that extraterrestrial beings may have already achieved this technology.
It is entirely possible that an advanced civilization I'm saying far more advanced than we are on Earth Could actually develop this technology of self-replicating machines and then could send artificially intelligent robots out into space as sentinels that scan a much vaster area than that civilization itself could go to with manned probes.
It's something that probably is already very widely in use by a variety of extraterrestrial civilizations.
HENRY: The Von Neumann machines are an awesome idea that is reflected in ancient stories of extraterrestrials coming to Earth.
In the ancient Egyptian tradition, we learn of these formless light beings that emerged from what they describe as the Island of the Egg and create civilization.
It suggests that they're utilizing some kind of self-replicating robot that has the ability to utilize genetic forms, perhaps imported from the home planet, that can then be manifested on a new planet, in our case, Earth.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that evidence of self-replicating robots can be found in ancient historical and religious texts, such as those concerning ancient Egypt? And, if so, is mankind today merely tapping into knowledge that was available on Earth thousands of years ago, knowledge that might have been brought here by extraterrestrial space travelers? According to some ancient astronaut theorists, the concept that extraterrestrial life-forms may have first visited the earth as machines or robots is not only likely but logical and can even help to explain a series of alien encounters that have been reported as recently as the 20th century, encounters with robot visitors that might otherwise be referred to as the Greys.
NARRATOR: May 9, 2001.
The National Press Club, Washington, D.
C.
During a media conference for the Disclosure Project, former Army Sergeant Clifford Stone makes a stunning announcement: he claims that for more than two decades he was part of a top secret military operations unit tasked with recovering extraterrestrial technology for the United States government.
I was involved in situations where we actually did recoveries of cra of crashed saucers, for lack of a better term, debris thereof.
There were bodies that were involved with some of these crashes.
Also, some were alive.
While we were doing all this, we were telling the American public there was nothing to it.
We were telling the world there was nothing to it.
One of the things that Clifford Stone talked about was a program called Project Moon Dust.
Now, Project Moon Dust was a legitimate military program, and it was designed to recover things like Soviet space satellites.
The small number of documents on Moon Dust that have surfaced through the Freedom of Information Act talk about how it wasn't just Soviet spacecraft It was also UFOs.
Actually uses the term "UFOs" in the document.
NARRATOR: According to Stone, he was the first to respond to 12 UFO crashes.
But it wasn't until the day after the press conference, during a closed session with Stone and members of Congress, that he revealed something even more shocking about his firsthand accounts with alien entities.
I met him the very next day, on May 10, in the closed executive/VIP summary briefing for members of Congress.
One of the things that Sergeant Stone talked about was the nature of the so-called Grey extraterrestrials.
He said that there were some very strange biological anomalies about them that make them look almost as if they are some sort of biological robot.
They seem to have very few, if any, organ systems in the body.
And yet these beings appear to be able to walk around and think and function.
Sergeant Clifford Stone got so emotional about what he was talking about in front of these congressmen that he literally broke down in tears and walked off the stage.
LINDA MOULTON HOWE: I spent several different times with him at his home, looking at documents and listening to him tell his own extraordinary experience of having some sort of an encounter with something that would fall in the category, from his point of view, of being in the android or hybrid area.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the so-called Greys reported by alleged alien abductees are really robots being controlled from beyond our planet? In 2014, the online magazine Motherboard posted an article in which a handful of philosophers and astronomers speculated that the dominant life-form in the cosmos is probably superintelligent robots.
And according to ancient astronaut theorists, the notion is not as far-fetched as it seems, especially when one considers that Hiroshi Ishiguro's Geminoid robots are designed to transmit a human presence from thousands of miles away.
Similarly designed to operate from a remote distance is the Dreamer robot created by the University of Texas and also NASA's latest robotic space traveler, Valkyrie.
RADFORD: What we envision in the future is more of a supervised autonomy, where you're giving the robot high-level instructions and the robot's autonomous enough to interpret those high-level instructions and then carry out a portion of its mission.
HOWE: If you have androids, something else with great intelligence has to have made them to come here to work on this planet.
NARRATOR: But while some ancient astronaut theorists believe the Greys could be surrogates controlled by alien entities from far, far away, others suggest the truth is even more incredible.
People often describe the Greys as featureless, emotionless creatures.
Could it be that they're all effectively from the same mold? Maybe they are Von Neumann self-replicating machines themselves.
The interesting thing about this theory is that people often say that the purpose of the abductions is to harvest genetic material.
Well, if these Greys are actually self-replicating robots, what they might be doing is actually getting genetic material from humans to construct more copies of themselves.
NARRATOR: When Clifford Stone made the statement that Grey aliens might not be entirely biological entities, as part of his argument, he cited the fact that they have a cookie-cutter quality to them.
Does his testimony suggest that the extraterrestrial entities that are visiting the earth are not only part mechanical and synthetic but also part biological? Or do they really represent alien creatures that are part machine and part human? NARRATOR: September 2003.
Clemson University, South Carolina.
Dr.
Thomas Boland files the first patent for inkjet 3-D printing of viable cells.
Already a multibillion dollar industry, this process involves placing biological materials into modified ink cartridges and printing onto bio paper made of soy and collagen.
What we see is little petri dishes with a culture medium like agar in them.
And then you have a little nozzle that comes over and spray-paints these little hexagons onto the agar.
And within only a few minutes, they start growing cells, and they become these brown spots, which are the beginnings of human livers.
RADFORD: Dr.
Boland has some very interesting research looking at printing cell tissue.
I think that opens up some very interesting ideas, um, about how to bio-manufacture things.
At some point, it'll have application in the field of robotics, especially as we start combining devices, uh, with the human body.
NARRATOR: Many believe this is the first step in constructing engineered human organs.
Ultimately, the goal is to do the same for every other part of the human body.
But there is a movement to go much further in merging biology with technology.
It is called transhumanism.
The ultimate goal of the transhumanists is to become an immortal god.
And, literally, these people believe that they will merge with technology and become cyborgs.
They believe that they will unlock the immortality anti-aging systems encoded into the human race and that that will be the supposed final evolution of human beings as they ascend into godhood.
Transhumanists generally acknowledge that human beings are the products of biological evolution but we've now reached a stage in our development where there's an open question about where we should go.
On the one hand, our biological background could be taken as a kind of platform to go forward, manipulating genes in various ways.
But on the other hand, we might think about ourselves merging more directly with silicon-based technologies.
DICE: We see the rollout of these head-mounted displays like Google Glass, where people are now wearing a computer on their head.
The Apple Watch now is sort of merging man with machine, and, instead of sitting down at a computer now, people are just wearing their computer.
Uh, we see artificial hearts, we see, uh, pacemakers.
These are sort of the early precursors to this transhumanist transformation.
There certainly is a merging between technology and biology, and we are experiencing it right now.
NARRATOR: Some experts believe that by the year 2050, scientists and engineers will have unlocked the secrets of immortality through the production of artificial organs and silicone-based structures.
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that considering the fact that we are experimenting with transhumanism today, it is very possible a more advanced extraterrestrial race has already achieved similar technological advancements.
A civilization millions of years older than us could have actually evolved much beyond the baby steps that we're taking right now.
TSOUKALOS: If we are doing this, is it possible that another civilization has done the same thing but perhaps thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years before us? When we look at some of these ancient texts that we have, we're always talking about ancient astronauts that came to visit us.
But what if we were visited by machines? And so the idea then arises: will we ourselves be able to become cyborgs? WILCOCK: It's possible that other civilizations may have decided they would be able to essentially live indefinitely this way.
And the more that we look at the way in which technology and biology are fusing together, the more that we can confront the notion that, with the advancements of computer power, we could have sentient beings that are significantly more advanced.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that extraterrestrials have not merely sent intelligent robots to Earth in their place but that they themselves have actually evolved beyond biological bodies? And, if so, what might this mean for the future of the human race? NARRATOR: February 8, 1957.
Washington, D.
C.
At Walter Reed General Hospital, Hungarian scientist John Von Neumann, the man who came up with the idea for self-replicating robots, dies at the age of 53.
At the time of his death, he was working on a manuscript titled The Computer and the Brain.
At only 82 pages, the text was far from finished, but some have proposed that Von Neumann was exploring the possibility of reproducing a human mind entirely on a computer.
For transhumanists, this opens the door for what many consider one of the most radical innovations, mind uploading.
DICE: Companies have actually built what are called neural interfaces, where they have wired computers into people's brains.
They believe that they can map the entire human brain and all of the data that's stored in it and then replicate it into an artificial intelligent silicone-based system, where it can then be stored and essentially never die.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that an entirely nonbiological being could have sentience? And if extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, might it be more likely that they are actually fully robotic beings? POPE: Biological entities may actually be a rarity in the cosmos.
We may be largely living in a universe where the real intelligences out there And perhaps coming down here Are robots.
WILCOCK: There are some who believe that machines may have already achieved a level of intelligence vastly in excess of our own and that they may be giving us a trail of bread crumbs to help us rebuild the technology that would get us to become enough like them that we could eventually be merged into their society in some fashion.
NARRATOR: Could extraterrestrials who have been observing mankind for thousands of years have led us to this point because they desire not just that we achieve advanced technology but that we actually become the technology? And if humans are the creation of extraterrestrials, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, might they have initially created us as biological entities in order to limit our lifespan until we are ready to become like them? There are very interesting things about how similar to a machine the body is.
If you injure certain parts of the brain, the body breaks down, like a machine.
You can injure a tendon or a joint, and then that part of the machine doesn't function anymore.
So we have to look at the possibility that life is not necessarily what we've considered it to be.
There is a possibility that if we create computers with enough complexity that consciousness could actually breathe life into that inanimate substance and you have a robotic consciousness that has become something we would think of as a person.
HENRY: In ancient story after ancient story, we see references of extraterrestrials seeking to influence the human body, to augment it, especially with technology.
With today's transhuman movement, you have to ask, is this possibly part of an extraterrestrial agenda to influence humankind through the implantation of technology with the human body? And, if so, what is the purpose? Is it to accelerate our abilities or is it an effort to control humanity? Ultimately, time will tell the answer to those questions.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that otherworldly beings are leading mankind not only to evolve on Earth but ultimately to a destiny of joining them in the stars as nonbiological entities? And could it be that our increased reliance on computers, cell phones, the Internet, and even synthetic body parts is part of a vast extraterrestrial plan, one that will see humans become more and more assimilated into the very technology we have grown so dependent upon? Perhaps mankind's destiny is not to have a close encounter with its ancestor but with our future selves.
And perhaps when that day comes, human beings as we now know them will be thought of as little more than obsolete operating systems.
RICHARD RADER: You had the creation of a superhuman that was indestructible, invincible.
NARRATOR: Superior intelligence.
MARK DICE: The ultimate goal is to become an immortal god.
NARRATOR: And the ability to reproduce.
DAVID WILCOCK: You have a robotic consciousness that has become something we would think of as a person.
NARRATOR: But is this obsession with creating counterfeit humans really pointing the way to mankind's future or to its past? GIORGIO A.
TSOUKALOS: Another civilization has done the same thing hundreds of thousands of years before us.
NICK POPE: We may be living in a universe where the real intelligences out there are robots.
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has credited its origins to gods and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true? Did extraterrestrial beings really help to shape our history? And if so, could there be a connection between aliens and robots? Kansai Science City, Japan.
At the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Dr.
Hiroshi Ishiguro and his team are developing a series of robots.
Artificial humans that are incredibly lifelike, both in their appearance and in their facial gestures.
NARRATOR: This robot Part of the Geminoid series Is designed to look identical to its maker.
But what separates it from other robots of its type is the number of miniature motors, called actuators, used to mimic human expression.
While most use ten to 12, the latest Geminoids use over 50.
NARRATOR: The robot is programmed to mimic as closely as possible the movements a human makes while at rest.
It responds spontaneously to being touched or when asked a question.
It can also be remotely operated.
NARRATOR: While the Geminoid robots focus primarily on replicating facial expression, engineers at the University of Texas.
Human Centered Robotics Lab have developed a robot named Dreamer that can perform an equally impressive series of sophisticated body movements.
We made Dreamer more humanlike through, uh, features and-and shapes and kind of dimensions of a human.
And at the same time making the movements much more humanlike by understanding and learning from the human.
So one thing that makes unique the movement of Dreamers is what we call the whole body control.
NARRATOR: Although Dreamer's torso rests on a wheeled base, a bipedal set of robotic legs are currently being developed which will make Dreamer fully mobile within two years.
SENTIS: Ultimately, we want these machines to live 100 years unassisted.
Without any supervision whatsoever.
NARRATOR: By combining the lifelike characteristics of androids like those developed by Hiroshi Ishiguro with the mobility of robots like Dreamer, scientists believe we might soon see a time when artificial humans will be virtually identical to the real thing.
SENTIS: We're gonna be able to actually create very humanlike robotic systems to the point that they are nearly indistinguishable, both in movement and in morphology.
STEVE FULLER: You look at something like the sort of entities that were dealt with in the movie Blade Runner, the kinds of Turing tests that were done there to try to spot the androids.
I think that in principle, we could have androids passing a sophisticated version of the Turing test that would force the machine to think reflectively about its own consciousness, about its own past, about its own feelings, and I think that this should not be impossible to do, and in which case we should count these beings as human.
NARRATOR: In the 21st century, robots are being programmed to do everything from performing surgery to driving a car.
And humanoid robots are rapidly reaching a level of sophistication that was thought to exist only in science fiction.
But what are the implications of creating robots that are increasingly intelligent and independent? In March of 2015, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was quoted as saying.
"Computers are going to take over from humans the future is scary.
" Even Stephen Hawking and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk have predicted that machines may soon surpass and ultimately replace humans.
Many scientists and thinkers have postulated that ultimately machines are gonna take over the world.
Computers are getting faster and more powerful.
Ultimately, we will design machines that themselves design even better machines.
If it gets smarter than us, we'd better watch out.
NARRATOR: But while conventional scientists ponder whether or not robots are destined to take over the earth, ancient astronaut theorists are asking themselves quite a different question: Did this all happen before, perhaps thousands of years ago? Abydos, Egypt.
Seven miles west of the Nile.
Within this expansive archaeological site lies the ruins of the Osiris Hall, where thousands would gather to worship the god of the underworld.
TSOUKALOS: In comparison to many of the gods, Osiris is actually thought to have lived physically on Earth as one of Egypt's Pharaohs.
He is often depicted with a winged disc of the sun.
And while many scholars have suggested that this is nothing else but, uh, to worship the sun, that sun, as far as the Egyptians were concerned, also had wings and it descended from the sky.
So in my opinion, something else was depicted: an extraterrestrial event that in fact took place in real life.
NARRATOR: Although most ancient astronaut theorists believe that the Egyptian gods were, in reality, extraterrestrial visitors, there are many who wonder if Osiris was even made of flesh and blood.
One of the most famous stories that go hand in hand with Osiris was that he was dismembered by his jealous brother, Seth.
JONATHAN YOUNG: Seth went into a fury and tore his brother's dead body to shreds, tore it into 14 pieces, had it scattered far and wide all over the kingdom.
But Isis, the loyal wife, searched far and wide and found the pieces and pulled it together.
TSOUKALOS: Isis succeeded in resurrecting him.
Now, when I hear a story like that, that a being is dismembered and then somebody puts together those pieces and then they are able to magically resurrect him, I have to ask the question: is it possible that Osiris was not some type of biological entity, but perhaps he was some type of a machine or a robot? NARRATOR: For ancient astronaut theorists, perhaps the strongest evidence that Osiris may have been a robot can be found in the ancient Pyramid Texts, which describe the symbol of the Djed Pillar as Osiris' spine.
WILLIAM HENRY: Osiris in his resurrected form was portrayed as a pillar that clearly resembles a modern-day Tesla coil.
The Djed Pillar was considered a power pillar.
TSOUKALOS: In this one carving at Abydos, it is as if Isis has her hand inserted into Osiris's back.
And so perhaps it illustrates how she was manipulating Osiris.
Could it be that the story of Osiris is something completely different than what we have thought? NARRATOR: Is it possible that our ancestors encountered highly sophisticated extraterrestrial robots in the ancient past? And if so, might there be some tangible evidence? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe the evidence was recovered deep beneath the sea and dates back more than 2,000 years.
NARRATOR: The Aegean Sea.
April, 1900.
Just 230 feet off the coast of the small island of Antikythera, sponge divers discover an ancient shipwreck Over the next two years, artifacts are recovered from the wreckage and among them are the remains of a coral-encrusted metal box that dates back to the second century BC.
It is the oldest mechanical computer ever found, predating artifacts of similar complexity by 1,500 years.
So you have this small little box with dozens of cogwheels on the inside, and it has been determined that that analog computer was used to predict astronomical events.
And so it was the first computer that has ever been created by mankind.
CHILDRESS: The American scientists who were studying the Antikythera device actually said that discovering the Antikythera device was like finding a jet plane in the tomb of King Tut.
It was so amazing to them.
They had never, ever conceived that the ancient Greeks, at 200 BC, would have had the knowledge of mechanical devices like this.
That's completely changed the way we perceive ancient history.
NARRATOR: While excavation teams have still not determined for certain the origin of the ship on which the Antikythera mechanism was found, the leading candidate is the island of Rhodes.
According to some contemporary accounts, Rhodes was once home to what, by today's standards, would be considered high technology.
In the fifth century BC, the poet Pindar wrote that Rhodes was once adorned with statues that came to life like living, moving creatures.
TSOUKALOS: He wrote that they all of a sudden became alive, and so the question then arises: well, if you have a lifeless object first and then all of a sudden somebody breathes life into something, could it be that we have references to some type of machines? Where did the people of Rhodes get the knowledge of how to create these moving statues 2,500 years ago? I believe that it is just what Pindar said, which is, they got it from the gods.
Well, who are these gods? The gods are real people, they're extraterrestrials who had this technology, shared it with humanity.
And now when we see the Antikythera mechanism, there's something you can put your hands on that shows that they had the capability to do advanced machine work.
It's 1,500 years too early, at least.
The point is, that technology really exists, and from a technology like that, going to robotics is not too much further.
And extraterrestrials would very well have had that capability for the time.
If you believe what this legend says on face value.
NARRATOR: Could the Antikythera mechanism be proof that the ancient Greeks had technology far in advance of the times in which they lived? And might this be evidence that there really were functioning robots on the island of Rhodes? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and claim there is also evidence that advanced robots existed on another Greek island: Lemnos.
Here lie the ruins of Hephaistia, one of the most important cities in Greece.
It is named for the Greek god of metallurgy, Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen here from the sky and actually existed on Earth alongside humans.
RADER: He's described in his workshop as being surrounded by automated robots.
He flips on the machines and they bustle around, doing all the sort of the hard busywork for him.
NARRATOR: One of Hephaestus' most famous and amazing creations was Talos, a giant man made of bronze who protected the island of Crete.
Talos was able to observe all of the ships approaching Crete and hurl stones at those ships.
And he was able to release this heat, and thus incinerating any boat or anything that would come close to him.
So is it possible that Talos was some type of a machine or a robot? NARRATOR: Greece isn't the only place where ancient stories can be found about inanimate objects that appear to come to life.
The Jewish Talmud describes a clay figure called the Golem that could be brought to life by inserting a spell into its mouth.
In India, an ancient Sanskrit text called the Lokapannatti tells of spirit movement machines as far back as the fifth century BC.
And the Chinese text the Liezi describes a humanoid robot being presented to King Mu as far back as 3,000 years ago.
YOUNG: There are stories from many cultures from all over the planet of people who have either created other humans or machines that were very much like humans.
NARRATOR: But if sophisticated robots really did exist in the ancient world, what function did they serve? Who built them? And perhaps more importantly, what happened to them? On March 24, 2015, the Mars rover called Opportunity reaches the west rim of the It is searching for minerals and other evidence that might prove that life once existed here.
It is one of several remote-controlled robots that, for more than a decade, have provided NASA with invaluable information about our closest alien planet.
Well, NASA has successfully controlled robots over, you know, crazy distances.
They would execute the plan here on the ground, then they would upload those instructions to the robot on Mars.
NARRATOR: Another NASA robot The humanoid Robonaut 2 Works on the International Space Station.
And in development is the so-called super robot, Valkyrie, which is designed to set up habitats and pave the way for humans on other planets.
When humans go out into space, uh, it's very difficult and dangerous and time-consuming.
It's far easier to send robots, and if that's what we do, that's sure as heck what extraterrestrials are gonna be doing.
NARRATOR: But just as we are employing robots today to gather information and minimize risk to human life, could similar cybernetic technologies have existed in the ancient past? Could stories like that of Osiris, Talos, and the Golem be true? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and believe that the proof can not only be found in the past, but right here in the present.
NARRATOR: Norway.
November, 2014.
Scientists from the University of Oslo work on a new breakthrough in robotics, creating robots that are able to adapt and continue functioning even after losing a limb.
The robots also know how to create new limbs with the use of a 3-D printer and reapply them, effectively repairing themselves without the aid of a human being.
This new technology is the first step in achieving what Hungarian scientist John Von Neumann envisioned back in the 1940s: self-replicating robots.
John Von Neumann was, uh, a mathematician that had an idea about self-replicating machines, where you send out a seed machine and that machine will seek out raw materials to construct a copy of itself, and then that will then send that machine out to replicate itself.
POPE: So one become two, two become four, and eventually these things would be able to explore the entire cosmos.
Now, one theory is that extraterrestrial civilizations would build space probes like that, and that would be the quickest way to explore the entire universe.
FULLER: The interesting question is going to be the extent to which part of that self-replicationing includes the memories and the learning that the first generation of robots engage with.
So you'd want to make the robots as open to new experiences as we are but at the same time be able also to pass on the experiences from any given generation to the next generation through self-replication.
So I think that this could be a very important way, in terms of space travel, to go.
I mean, I think the more interesting question, from the standpoint of ourselves as human beings, is the extent to which we remain part of that process.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that we could create self-aware robots that are completely autonomous and send them off to explore the universe unassisted? And might these robots be able to self-replicate endlessly, using materials found on distant planets? Ancient astronaut theorists propose that extraterrestrial beings may have already achieved this technology.
It is entirely possible that an advanced civilization I'm saying far more advanced than we are on Earth Could actually develop this technology of self-replicating machines and then could send artificially intelligent robots out into space as sentinels that scan a much vaster area than that civilization itself could go to with manned probes.
It's something that probably is already very widely in use by a variety of extraterrestrial civilizations.
HENRY: The Von Neumann machines are an awesome idea that is reflected in ancient stories of extraterrestrials coming to Earth.
In the ancient Egyptian tradition, we learn of these formless light beings that emerged from what they describe as the Island of the Egg and create civilization.
It suggests that they're utilizing some kind of self-replicating robot that has the ability to utilize genetic forms, perhaps imported from the home planet, that can then be manifested on a new planet, in our case, Earth.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that evidence of self-replicating robots can be found in ancient historical and religious texts, such as those concerning ancient Egypt? And, if so, is mankind today merely tapping into knowledge that was available on Earth thousands of years ago, knowledge that might have been brought here by extraterrestrial space travelers? According to some ancient astronaut theorists, the concept that extraterrestrial life-forms may have first visited the earth as machines or robots is not only likely but logical and can even help to explain a series of alien encounters that have been reported as recently as the 20th century, encounters with robot visitors that might otherwise be referred to as the Greys.
NARRATOR: May 9, 2001.
The National Press Club, Washington, D.
C.
During a media conference for the Disclosure Project, former Army Sergeant Clifford Stone makes a stunning announcement: he claims that for more than two decades he was part of a top secret military operations unit tasked with recovering extraterrestrial technology for the United States government.
I was involved in situations where we actually did recoveries of cra of crashed saucers, for lack of a better term, debris thereof.
There were bodies that were involved with some of these crashes.
Also, some were alive.
While we were doing all this, we were telling the American public there was nothing to it.
We were telling the world there was nothing to it.
One of the things that Clifford Stone talked about was a program called Project Moon Dust.
Now, Project Moon Dust was a legitimate military program, and it was designed to recover things like Soviet space satellites.
The small number of documents on Moon Dust that have surfaced through the Freedom of Information Act talk about how it wasn't just Soviet spacecraft It was also UFOs.
Actually uses the term "UFOs" in the document.
NARRATOR: According to Stone, he was the first to respond to 12 UFO crashes.
But it wasn't until the day after the press conference, during a closed session with Stone and members of Congress, that he revealed something even more shocking about his firsthand accounts with alien entities.
I met him the very next day, on May 10, in the closed executive/VIP summary briefing for members of Congress.
One of the things that Sergeant Stone talked about was the nature of the so-called Grey extraterrestrials.
He said that there were some very strange biological anomalies about them that make them look almost as if they are some sort of biological robot.
They seem to have very few, if any, organ systems in the body.
And yet these beings appear to be able to walk around and think and function.
Sergeant Clifford Stone got so emotional about what he was talking about in front of these congressmen that he literally broke down in tears and walked off the stage.
LINDA MOULTON HOWE: I spent several different times with him at his home, looking at documents and listening to him tell his own extraordinary experience of having some sort of an encounter with something that would fall in the category, from his point of view, of being in the android or hybrid area.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the so-called Greys reported by alleged alien abductees are really robots being controlled from beyond our planet? In 2014, the online magazine Motherboard posted an article in which a handful of philosophers and astronomers speculated that the dominant life-form in the cosmos is probably superintelligent robots.
And according to ancient astronaut theorists, the notion is not as far-fetched as it seems, especially when one considers that Hiroshi Ishiguro's Geminoid robots are designed to transmit a human presence from thousands of miles away.
Similarly designed to operate from a remote distance is the Dreamer robot created by the University of Texas and also NASA's latest robotic space traveler, Valkyrie.
RADFORD: What we envision in the future is more of a supervised autonomy, where you're giving the robot high-level instructions and the robot's autonomous enough to interpret those high-level instructions and then carry out a portion of its mission.
HOWE: If you have androids, something else with great intelligence has to have made them to come here to work on this planet.
NARRATOR: But while some ancient astronaut theorists believe the Greys could be surrogates controlled by alien entities from far, far away, others suggest the truth is even more incredible.
People often describe the Greys as featureless, emotionless creatures.
Could it be that they're all effectively from the same mold? Maybe they are Von Neumann self-replicating machines themselves.
The interesting thing about this theory is that people often say that the purpose of the abductions is to harvest genetic material.
Well, if these Greys are actually self-replicating robots, what they might be doing is actually getting genetic material from humans to construct more copies of themselves.
NARRATOR: When Clifford Stone made the statement that Grey aliens might not be entirely biological entities, as part of his argument, he cited the fact that they have a cookie-cutter quality to them.
Does his testimony suggest that the extraterrestrial entities that are visiting the earth are not only part mechanical and synthetic but also part biological? Or do they really represent alien creatures that are part machine and part human? NARRATOR: September 2003.
Clemson University, South Carolina.
Dr.
Thomas Boland files the first patent for inkjet 3-D printing of viable cells.
Already a multibillion dollar industry, this process involves placing biological materials into modified ink cartridges and printing onto bio paper made of soy and collagen.
What we see is little petri dishes with a culture medium like agar in them.
And then you have a little nozzle that comes over and spray-paints these little hexagons onto the agar.
And within only a few minutes, they start growing cells, and they become these brown spots, which are the beginnings of human livers.
RADFORD: Dr.
Boland has some very interesting research looking at printing cell tissue.
I think that opens up some very interesting ideas, um, about how to bio-manufacture things.
At some point, it'll have application in the field of robotics, especially as we start combining devices, uh, with the human body.
NARRATOR: Many believe this is the first step in constructing engineered human organs.
Ultimately, the goal is to do the same for every other part of the human body.
But there is a movement to go much further in merging biology with technology.
It is called transhumanism.
The ultimate goal of the transhumanists is to become an immortal god.
And, literally, these people believe that they will merge with technology and become cyborgs.
They believe that they will unlock the immortality anti-aging systems encoded into the human race and that that will be the supposed final evolution of human beings as they ascend into godhood.
Transhumanists generally acknowledge that human beings are the products of biological evolution but we've now reached a stage in our development where there's an open question about where we should go.
On the one hand, our biological background could be taken as a kind of platform to go forward, manipulating genes in various ways.
But on the other hand, we might think about ourselves merging more directly with silicon-based technologies.
DICE: We see the rollout of these head-mounted displays like Google Glass, where people are now wearing a computer on their head.
The Apple Watch now is sort of merging man with machine, and, instead of sitting down at a computer now, people are just wearing their computer.
Uh, we see artificial hearts, we see, uh, pacemakers.
These are sort of the early precursors to this transhumanist transformation.
There certainly is a merging between technology and biology, and we are experiencing it right now.
NARRATOR: Some experts believe that by the year 2050, scientists and engineers will have unlocked the secrets of immortality through the production of artificial organs and silicone-based structures.
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that considering the fact that we are experimenting with transhumanism today, it is very possible a more advanced extraterrestrial race has already achieved similar technological advancements.
A civilization millions of years older than us could have actually evolved much beyond the baby steps that we're taking right now.
TSOUKALOS: If we are doing this, is it possible that another civilization has done the same thing but perhaps thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years before us? When we look at some of these ancient texts that we have, we're always talking about ancient astronauts that came to visit us.
But what if we were visited by machines? And so the idea then arises: will we ourselves be able to become cyborgs? WILCOCK: It's possible that other civilizations may have decided they would be able to essentially live indefinitely this way.
And the more that we look at the way in which technology and biology are fusing together, the more that we can confront the notion that, with the advancements of computer power, we could have sentient beings that are significantly more advanced.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that extraterrestrials have not merely sent intelligent robots to Earth in their place but that they themselves have actually evolved beyond biological bodies? And, if so, what might this mean for the future of the human race? NARRATOR: February 8, 1957.
Washington, D.
C.
At Walter Reed General Hospital, Hungarian scientist John Von Neumann, the man who came up with the idea for self-replicating robots, dies at the age of 53.
At the time of his death, he was working on a manuscript titled The Computer and the Brain.
At only 82 pages, the text was far from finished, but some have proposed that Von Neumann was exploring the possibility of reproducing a human mind entirely on a computer.
For transhumanists, this opens the door for what many consider one of the most radical innovations, mind uploading.
DICE: Companies have actually built what are called neural interfaces, where they have wired computers into people's brains.
They believe that they can map the entire human brain and all of the data that's stored in it and then replicate it into an artificial intelligent silicone-based system, where it can then be stored and essentially never die.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that an entirely nonbiological being could have sentience? And if extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, might it be more likely that they are actually fully robotic beings? POPE: Biological entities may actually be a rarity in the cosmos.
We may be largely living in a universe where the real intelligences out there And perhaps coming down here Are robots.
WILCOCK: There are some who believe that machines may have already achieved a level of intelligence vastly in excess of our own and that they may be giving us a trail of bread crumbs to help us rebuild the technology that would get us to become enough like them that we could eventually be merged into their society in some fashion.
NARRATOR: Could extraterrestrials who have been observing mankind for thousands of years have led us to this point because they desire not just that we achieve advanced technology but that we actually become the technology? And if humans are the creation of extraterrestrials, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, might they have initially created us as biological entities in order to limit our lifespan until we are ready to become like them? There are very interesting things about how similar to a machine the body is.
If you injure certain parts of the brain, the body breaks down, like a machine.
You can injure a tendon or a joint, and then that part of the machine doesn't function anymore.
So we have to look at the possibility that life is not necessarily what we've considered it to be.
There is a possibility that if we create computers with enough complexity that consciousness could actually breathe life into that inanimate substance and you have a robotic consciousness that has become something we would think of as a person.
HENRY: In ancient story after ancient story, we see references of extraterrestrials seeking to influence the human body, to augment it, especially with technology.
With today's transhuman movement, you have to ask, is this possibly part of an extraterrestrial agenda to influence humankind through the implantation of technology with the human body? And, if so, what is the purpose? Is it to accelerate our abilities or is it an effort to control humanity? Ultimately, time will tell the answer to those questions.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that otherworldly beings are leading mankind not only to evolve on Earth but ultimately to a destiny of joining them in the stars as nonbiological entities? And could it be that our increased reliance on computers, cell phones, the Internet, and even synthetic body parts is part of a vast extraterrestrial plan, one that will see humans become more and more assimilated into the very technology we have grown so dependent upon? Perhaps mankind's destiny is not to have a close encounter with its ancestor but with our future selves.
And perhaps when that day comes, human beings as we now know them will be thought of as little more than obsolete operating systems.