NARRATOR: A Biblical relic
with incredible powers...
the power to harm...
the power to k*ll...
even the power to talk to God.
MIKE BARA:
The Ark of the Covenant,
it's the ultimate high
technology device of its day.
ARIEL BAR TZADOK: People were terrified
of this great and awesome Ark.
(horn blowing)
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: Wherever
it showed up, people would
all of a sudden die.
NARRATOR: But is this
mysterious gold chest truly of
divine origin?
Or might its power come from
some even more otherworldly source?
JASON MARTELL: It's a type of
super w*apon that was being
controlled or guided from
an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: Millions of people
around the world believe we have
been visited in the past by
extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true?
Did ancient aliens really help
to shape our history?
And if so, might the proof be
found inside the Ark of the Covenant?
NARRATOR: The West Bank.
July, 2013.
Ten miles north of the Israeli
settlement of Beit El,
archaeologists unearth clay
pots, stoves, and a portion
of a wall dating back to
around 1300 B.C.
But the most mundane of their
findings here may also be the
most significant: holes carved
into the solid rock ground.
Based on the location and the
date of the artifacts, they
believe these holes may have
once held the wooden beams used
to support the Tabernacle at Shiloh.
If true, it is the first
physical evidence ever
discovered of the ancient
sanctuary built to house what is
perhaps the most mysterious
religious relic in the world:
the Ark of the Covenant.
TSOUKALOS: The story of the
Ark of the Covenant is one of
the most fascinating and
unexplored stories of the Bible.
The Ark of the Covenant had
some very mysterious powers.
GRAHAM HANCOCK: The Ark of the
Covenant was what took me
out of mainstream journalism.
I began to wonder, what...
what could this thing have been?
NARRATOR: Reproductions of
the Ark of the Covenant can be
found in churches, synagogues, and
Masonic temples throughout the world.
It has even been featured
in popular culture.
But just what is the
Ark of the Covenant?
Mount Sinai.
The 15th century BC.
According to the Bible's Book of
Exodus, after the Israelites
were released from Egypt, God
summoned Moses to the peak of
this holy mountain and gave him
two stone tablets, carved with
the Ten Commandments.
He also gave him specific
instructions for building the
Ark of the Covenant.
HANCOCK: It was the box that
was constructed to contain
the two tablets of the Ten
Commandments, which were
irradiated with divine power
because they had been touched by
the finger of God.
BARRY DOWNING: The covenant
itself was a contract between
God and the Israelites: "I will
be your God and protect you,
provided you keep
my "commandments."
Israel's end of the deal, then, was
going to be kept in the box,
which is the Ark itself.
NARRATOR: But the Ark of the
Covenant didn't only carry the
Ten Commandments.
It was also said to be the
throne of God himself.
ED FEINSTEIN: In the Book of
Exodus, in the 25th chapter,
the verse is very clear.
God says to Moses,
"V'Asu li mikdash
v'shachanti b'tocham."
"Have them make me a holy place"
and I, God, I will
dwell among "them."
And wherever the Ark went, that
power of God went with them.
TZADOK: The Ark is built in a
reflection of what's called
a "heavenly ark."
It was built two-and-a-half
cubits by one-and-a-half cubits
by one-and-a-half cubits.
So, the Ark would have been
somewhere in the ballpark of
about a three by five
foot rectangular box.
DOWNING: It was going to be
covered with gold, on the
outside and the inside.
And it was to have two gold
rings in each of the four corners.
And it was carried with poles
that were run through the rings.
And the orders were that, uh,
the poles should never be
removed from the rings.
And the lid was to be made out
of gold, and on each end of the
lid were to be, uh, cherubim or
guardian angels, basically,
with wings.
NARRATOR: But why was it so
important that the Ark be
constructed to such exact
specifications?
And why would God, a spiritual
being, require a physical throne
here on Earth?
Perhaps there is an answer in
the Bible's description of Moses
after he returned from Mount Sinai.
TZADOK: After Moses came down
from Mount Sinai, he was
glowing, the Bible says, that he
had to wear a scarf over his face.
TSOUKALOS: I am fascinated
with the idea that Moses...
all of a sudden, his
appearance changed.
And so, the idea that Moses, all
of a sudden, looked different...
we have to ask ourselves why.
NARRATOR: Just what did Moses
encounter on Mount Sinai? Was it God?
Or was it someone or something else?
TZADOK: God is clearly an
entity not of this earth,
and by definition, therefore,
an extraterrestrial.
Where does he come from?
We must recognize that when the
ancients are speaking about God,
there is no other term that we
can use to describe these experiences
other than "extraterrestrial."
NARRATOR:
After the Ark was built
and the Ten Commandments
placed within it, the Israelites
carried it with them on their
40-year exodus through the desert.
FEINSTEIN: The Ark of the
Covenant was considered powerful,
because it was the meeting
place of God and humanity.
And so, it had to be carried on
poles so that it could be
conveyed without being touched.
MICHAEL CARTER: Certain
people were allowed to carry it,
and those people were
ordained priests.
Aaron, Moses' brother, and his
sons were certainly priests.
It was a prestigious job.
But you had to know
what you were doing.
DOWNING: Now, the Ark would
be covered while they're
carrying it, with a cloth, so
that they really couldn't see
what they were carrying.
And they were given strict
orders that they should not lift
up the cloth and look at
the Ark and try to see it.
NARRATOR: But why was the
Ark considered so dangerous
that it couldn't be touched,
or even looked at?
According to the Old Testament
accounts, the Ark of the
Covenant was not only a
powerful device on its own.
It also housed a number of other
important religious relics.
In addition to the Ten
Commandments, it held Aaron's
Rod, the staff that could
miraculously turn into a serpent.
It also held a jar of manna, an
edible starch which, reportedly,
came from the sky.
WILLIAM HENRY: What we begin
to realize is that the Ark of
the Covenant was a sort of tool kit.
And once this tool kit was
assembled, we have the fully
functioning Ark of the Covenant.
TZADOK: The ark went before
them in the wilderness and made
sure the place where the
children of Israel were to go
would be safe and able to
provide for them in the desert.
Anybody who's been to the Sinai
Desert, you could hardly imagine
two-three million people having
any kind of sustenance
in a desert.
So therefore, what the Ark
must have accomplished
was profound.
NARRATOR: The Ark of the
Covenant was said to have
protected and provided for the
Israelites during the Exodus, but how?
TSOUKALOS:
What we can read in the Bible
is that they were
sustained by something
called "manna."
And the big question is where
did this manna come from?
Well, two engineers by a name of
Rodney Dale and George Sassoon
in the 1970s proposed that the
Ark of the Covenant was nothing
else but a container in which to
store what they referred to as
the Manna Machine.
The Manna Machine was a
nuclear-driven device that
dispensed food, or manna,
to the Israelites.
DAVID CHILDRESS: The Ark of the
Covenant is such a mystery.
It could actually create food,
supposedly, the-the manna that
they were eating.
It's like some kind of, uh, super
engineering, duplicating energy machine.
TSOUKALOS: We have a concise
description of it in the ancient
Jewish text of the Zohar, which
is a part of the Kabbalah where
they describe the Ancient of Days.
But in reality "the Ancient of
Days" is a mistranslation.
The correct translation is "the
transportable one with the tanks."
Since when is God transportable
and why does He need tanks?
So in the Zohar we have concise
descriptions not of God but some
type of a machine.
NARRATOR: Did the Ark of the
Covenant really house a machine
that provided food to the
Israelites during their 40 years
in the desert?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists and many religious
scholars, the answer is yes.
But that wasn't the only power
the Ark possessed.
For as the Ark could sustain
life, it could also destroy it.
NARRATOR: The Jordan River,
a 200-mile border separating the
present-day Kingdom of Jordan
from Israel and the West Bank.
In 1400 B.C., this waterway
represented one of the final
obstacles to the wandering
Israelites' long-awaited
entrance into the Promised Land.
DOWNING: The Ark of the
Covenant comes into its own
when Joshua is given the task
of, uh, leading Israel across
the Jordan River.
And the story is that the Ark
of the Covenant would go first
and be carried into the Jordan River.
The water would stop flowing.
TZADOK: Some energy came forth
from the Ark, causing the
waters to literally stop and ascend
and therefore creating dry land
for the entire children of Israel
to pass on off into the Holy Land.
NARRATOR: But if this
biblical story is true, what
kind of power could the Ark of
the Covenant have possessed that
would cause a raging
river to stand still?
DAVID WILCOCK: What if the
people who wrote these stories
were simply reporting on what
they were actually seeing?
If that's true, then the Ark of
the Covenant clearly represents
a technology that is more advanced
than anything we have now.
MICHAEL DENNIN: If you want to
part water, maybe a good way
to do it would be with
high-speed winds.
'Cause if you blow enough air,
you can get the water out of the
way and you can actually maybe even
form those two walls of water.
CHILDRESS: There's some kind of
technology that they're using
and it's so that they can
accomplish their goals and
continue on their journey,
and they're able to use this
extraterrestrial technology to do it.
NARRATOR: According to the
Bible's Book of Joshua, the Ark
of the Covenant once again
proved a powerful ally when
the Israelites arrived on the
western banks of the Jordan
River, set on conquering the seemingly
impenetrable walled city of Jericho.
TZADOK: The reputation of the
Israelites preceded them.
People were terrified.
They have heard the rumors of
the power of this great and
awesome ark.
They now come to the city of
Jericho.
The people were commanded by
God, march around the city walls.
DOWNING: They march around
the city once on the first day.
The next day, they do
the very same thing.
The third, fourth, fifth and the
sixth day is the same thing.
On the seventh day, they march
around and then they blow the
trumpets and all the people shout.
TZADOK: Between the marching
of the feet, the sounding of the
rams' horns, the shofar, and
with some power not described
from the Ark, enabled the big
stone mighty walls of the city
of Jericho to somehow be
vibrated with a earthquake-type
force which caused them to collapse.
TSOUKALOS: When I hear that
they had to walk around Jericho
seven times and then the
trumpets were the ones that
allowed for those walls to
crumble, one would have to ask
yourselves, "Was there
something else to it?"
DENNIN: Knocking something
down like a wall with pressure
is not inconceivable.
So you could imagine trying
to do this.
Now, when you look at things,
think of standard examples
that we experience.
Wget the sonic boom, and you can
feel it rattling the walls and
you can actually hear it.
That's far away.
Imagine getting a sonic boom
closer to the object.
You might be able to do
significant damage to the wall.
(rumbling)
NARRATOR: Could the
Israelites actually have
witnessed an advanced
technology, beyond even our own
modern capabilities, a machine
that could instantly part waters
and bring down stone walls?
Some ancient astronaut theorists
believe the best evidence that
the Ark of the Covenant may have
held alien technology can be
found by studying events that
took place 300 years after the
sacking of Jericho, when the
Ark was stolen.
According to the Book of Samuel,
when the Israelites went to
battle with the mighty
Philistine army around 1100
B.C., they brought out the Ark
of the Covenant to
aid them once again.
But God had not given them
instructions to do so.
(thunder rumbling)
Angered by their presumption
that they could use the Ark as a
w*apon without His orders,
He awarded victory to the Philistines,
who captured it as a trophy.
TZADOK: The Bible records very strange
things then started to happen.
Death, sickness broke out
amongst the Philistines.
Now, in ancient times, they had
no understanding of energy or
what we would maybe consider
something similar to a
radioactive sickness.
They considered this to be
displeasure of the god.
CARTER: They placed the ark
next to a statue of one
of their gods, Dagon.
And they leave and when they
come back, they see that
Dagon's head has been
decapitated and his hands have
been taken off. So they say,
"We've got to get rid of this thing."
DOWNING: And so they loaded
the ark of the covenant on a cart.
And sent it off in the
direction of an Israeli village
called Beth Shemish.
Of course everyone ran up to
look at the Ark.
And as a result, the Bible says
70 men died when they
looked at the ark.
For those who have been fans of
Raiders of the Lost Ark, and
remember the last scene when
Indy is shouting "Don't look,
don't look, don't look."
That's where that story comes from.
NARRATOR: The old testament
contains numerous other examples
of the ark's devastating powers.
And ultimately depicts it as a
deadly device capable of
striking down anyone who does
not follow God's rules.
TZADOK: When Aaron, who was
the high priest, his two sons
approached to give an offering,
it's stated that literally two
beams of fire came forth from
the Ark and went up their
nostrils and burnt them from the
inside, leaving their entire
outsides intact.
NARRATOR Beams of fire?
Burning people from inside?
Why would an instrument of God
contain such deadly powers?
If the Ark of the Covenant was
truly divine, why would it
strike down two people who were
simply trying to make an offering?
TSOUKALOS: Wherever it showed up,
people would all of a sudden die.
In my opinion it was a storage
container that housed some type
of a nuclear device.
And having a nuclear device in
the hands of a technologically
primitive society would result
in people dying left and right.
Naturally, people would refer to
that as the wrath of God, when
in reality it's nothing else but
the wrath of atomic power.
NARRATOR: Is it possible,
as ancient astronaut theorists
suggest, that the Ark of the
Covenant actually contained a
nuclear device?
One that was brought to Earth...
not by God... but by visitors
from another planet?
MARTELL: It's possible that the
Ark of the Covenant was some
type of super w*apon that was
being controlled or guided from
an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: Was the Ark of
the Covenant actually a
sophisticated, high-tech device
ancient Israelites were unable
to control it?
Perhaps.
But of all the Ark's alleged
powers, there was one that was
the most incredible...
(thunder crashing)
its ability to communicate
directly with God.
NARRATOR: Petra, Jordan.
At the summit of Jebel Haroun,
a small white dome marks the tomb
of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
According to the Hebrew Bible,
Aaron was chosen by God to be
the first high priest of the
Israelites... a title that came
FEINSTEIN: Aaron, Moses's brother,
served as priest of the people.
And then following Aaron, the line of
the priests followed his genealogy.
They were the ones designated
to carry the Ark...
and they were the ones permitted
to come close to it in worship.
CARTER: The attire of the
priests was beautiful, but it
was also there for their protection.
They had to wear a miter.
They wore breastplate.
They had to wear a long robe.
They had to keep certain areas
of the body protected: the head,
the lungs, the heart, the genital area.
TZADOK: The high priest would have
to have these on to approach the Ark.
And when he approached the Ark,
he had to have a rope tied
around his leg.
Why?
So if and when something ever
went wrong and the Ark struck
him or he died...
no one would be allowed to go
in to retrieve his body, 'cause
they would suffer the same fate.
FEINSTEIN: On top of the Ark
were the figures of two angels.
And it was said in the Bible
that God's presence came to rest
in the tiny space between them.
That was the place where
Heaven and Earth touched.
NARRATOR: The space between
the angels on the lid of the Ark
was known as the Mercy Seat,
upon which the image of God
would allegedly sit when
communicating with a Levite priest.
But did the Israelites really
witness an otherworldly presence
between the two angels?
And if so, was it literally the
image of God...
or something else?
Based on the numerous accounts
of the Ark's awesome power, some
ancient astronaut theorists have
proposed that it may have been
an electrical capacitor, a device used
for storing and transmitting energy.
MARTELL: Some of the stories
that have come out of history
about the Ark of the Covenant,
that it erupted in sparks and
flames and people would touch it
and die instantly, or that it
leveled cities.
And many people have theorized
that this is some type of actual
large energy capacitor.
DENNIN: "Capacitor" is exactly
the right word to use.
It relies on static electricity.
It's the simplest device.
You just need two conductors
with an insulator between them.
You've got the outer gold, a
very nice conductor, and then if
you open this up and look to the
inside, you'll see a second electrode.
So what that's gonna look like...
Okay, you have the outer
side of your Ark.
That's gonna, say,
charge positive.
Then you have your inner wall
of the Ark coated in gold.
And then you have an
insulator in between...
that's just the wood you
make the Ark out of.
Now what you got to do is
get negative charges...
here on the inner side.
And the question is: how do I
get my positive and negative
charges onto my Ark?
This is where the cherubs come in.
You have one sitting on top
here... that's attached to the
outer side, and you can put
charge on it and get your
positive charge.
The other cherub is going to be
sitting here... it won't be
connected to the outer layer,
but it'll come in from a rod and
connect to the inner side...
and this is where we'll
put our negative charge.
So what that looks like over
here at the Ark, is this cherub
will not actually be attached
to the outer conductor.
There'll be an insulator there.
It'll sit on it, and then it can
have a rod that goes through and
attaches to the inner conductor.
MARTELL: Now, the Israelites
claimed to have actually been
able to see the presence of God
between the two cherubs...
a representation of God.
Now, if they weren't actually
seeing a representation of God,
could this arc of energy have
been some type of other energy
device that they were seeing?
DENNIN: So, when we're
thinking about the Israelites
seeing the image of God between
the two cherub wings, one of the
things to keep in mind, I think,
is how the image of God was
often described.
We have smoke, fire...
there's very rarely an actual,
like, visual picture of a person.
And so if you picture what arcs
of electricity will be doing,
there'll probably be a little
bit of smoke, um, there will be
the really bright light,
there'll be a crackling noise.
That could certainly be
something that would be
interpreted as an image of God.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
accounts of God's presence atop
the Ark were actually describing
electrical discharge?
(crackling, zapping)
And if so, might someone...
or something... have been sending
electrical signals through
the Ark of the Covenant to
communicate with the Israelites?
Ancient astronaut theorists
believe such a notion is not
only possible, but all the more
plausible, given the biblical
descriptions of a device known
as "the Breastplate
of Judgment."
According to the Book of Exodus,
it was worn by the priests when
entering the Tabernacle, and
was adorned with 12 sacred
gemstones called "the Stones of
Fire," which represented the 12
tribes of Israel.
And according to detailed
accounts from sacred texts known
as the Talmud, these gemstones
played an important role when
communicating with God through the Ark.
TZADOK: Somehow there would be
a pulsating sound emanating from
on top of the cherubim.
And these pulsating,
high-pitched sounds would cause
a vibration in the stones
on his breastplate.
The stones would actually
start to light up.
KATHLEEN MCGOWAN: There seems
to be a very complex, but very
specific code happening here that
God is communicating through.
CHILDRESS: It was like some
extraterrestrial Morse code that
was being received from
the Ark of the Covenant.
NARRATOR: Jerusalem.
995 BC.
Nearly a century after the
Philistines returned the Ark to
Judah, King David transports it
to the capital city with plans
to build an enormous temple
in order to house it.
FEINSTEIN: It's Solomon,
David's son, who built the
Temple of Jerusalem and
installed the Ark in the inner
sanctum, the Holy of Holies.
NARRATOR: Once installed
in the temple in 955 BC,
the mysterious ark continued to
serve the Israelites for another
three-and-a-half centuries...
until, suddenly...
it vanishes from history.
FEINSTEIN: The Book of Kings
describes the destruction of the
city of Jerusalem, says
nothing about the ark.
It disappears from the literary
history in the same way that it
disappeared from material
history.
NARRATOR: But what happened to it?
Was it stolen? Destroyed?
Or was it deliberately hidden?
There are those who believe they
know the answer, and that not
only does the Ark still exist,
but they are confident it will return.
NARRATOR: Mount Tsurugi, Japan.
Every year, Shinto worshippers
ascend this mountain...
6,000 miles from
the Jewish Holy Land.
They carry an elaborate,
gold-clad chest that, like the
Ark of the Covenant, is believed
to contain the spirit of God.
ALEXANDER BAY: Scholars in Japan
look at the Old Testament.
They also look at the kind of
mythical foundational texts of
Japan, like the Kojiki, and
see certain similarities.
And they like to think that
these similarities are not just
coincidences, but actually
suggest ancient connections.
Part of this theory is that
these lost tribes of Israel
brought the Ark to Japan, and it
ended up at a sacred peak, Mount
Tsurugi, and it lays hidden in the
limestone caves underneath it.
NARRATOR: Could the Ark of the
Covenant really be hidden in Japan?
And might this explain why
Shinto worshippers perform a
ritual that's eerily reminiscent
of the ancient Israelites carrying
the Ark through the desert?
One Japanese historian named
Takane Masanori was so confident
that the Ark of the Covenant was
hidden in Mount Tsurugi, he
actually performed excavations
of the mountain in the 1930s.
JONATHAN YOUNG: Excavations
were started in 1936 on the
peak, or near the peak of Mount
Tsurugi, and this research went
on for some decades, and then,
it was all shut down, and the
area is now a national park, so,
further research is banned for
environmental reasons,
so we won't know.
(wind whistling)
The Ark of the Covenant has not
been found in Japan, but the
legend continues.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
a lost tribe of Israel made
their way thousands of miles
across the Asian continent and
brought the Ark to Japan?
It is just one theory out of many.
Some biblical scholars suggest
that Israel's high priests,
anticipating the destruction of
the city, stashed the Ark deep
in a cave under Jerusalem's
Temple Mount for protection.
It is also believed that,
centuries later, the Ark was
discovered in its hiding place,
and was taken away to safety by
a group known as the Knights
PHILLIPS: The Knights Templar
were monks who were trained to
fight as soldiers in the Holy
Land during the Crusades, from
the 1100s up until the 1300s.
They discovered a great treasure.
They themselves describe it
as a great biblical treasure.
McGOWAN: There are certainly
legends throughout Europe, and
specifically France, of where the
Ark of the Covenant ended up.
Some say it was buried beneath
Chartres Cathedral in the crypt.
Some say it was buried in the Languedoc
region near Rennes-le-Chateau.
And we know that the Nazis
excavated in depth in these
mountains, looking for
the Ark of the Covenant.
NARRATOR: But some believe the
Ark's journey didn't end in
France, and that, eventually, it was
taken even further to the north.
BARA: There's been a rumor
for years that the Templar
Treasure was actually taken
through France by the Templars.
And the story goes that it was
then taken to Rosslyn Chapel in
Scotland for safekeeping.
NARRATOR: Could the Ark of
the Covenant still be hidden
somewhere in Rosslyn Chapel?
Or might it have been, as some
ancient astronaut theorists
suggest, taken far away to North
America, where it was hidden
deep underground, and still lies
buried?
Perhaps.
But there are those who believe
that the Ark isn't hidden at all.
They claim its
whereabouts have been
well-known and well-guarded
for hundreds of years.
Aksum, Ethiopia.
The Church of St. Mary of Zion.
A solitary monk, who is not
allowed to leave the grounds,
is charged with guarding the
church's holiest relic.
It is a job he has devoted his life to,
and one he will keep until his death.
HANCOCK: There's a cathedral
there called the Cathedral of
St. Mary of Zion.
And I started talking to the
monk who guarded the chapel.
And he told me that lying in
that chapel was the true,
the original, Ark of the Covenant.
Now, at first, it seemed to me
like an incredibly tall story.
But as I began to look into it,
I realized that there was
something to the Ethiopian claim.
For example, why was there an ancient
Jewish population in Ethiopia?
It was like they were frozen in
amber from an earlier time and
caught in Ethiopia.
And I got to know a succession of
three different guardians of the Ark.
Once appointed as guardian, they
have a very short life span.
They die very quickly.
And one of them in particular
pointed to the issue of his eyes
to me in the way that the cataracts
were creeping over his eyes.
And I said, "What
is causing that?"
And he said, "It's the Ark of the
Covenant that's causing "that."
He said the Ark is a thing of fire.
And there was such truth and power
in his words that I began to feel
very strongly that the Ethiopians
could indeed have this object.
NARRATOR:
Could the Ark of the Covenant
really reside in a
church in Ethiopia,
in a location so publicly known
and so modestly protected?
If so, why has there been no proof?
Is it an elaborate hoax?
Or is there perhaps another
reason?
And could that reason be based
on one of the other audacious
theories concerning the Ark,
that there are more than one of them?
TZADOK: The Torah speaks that
there were actually two arks.
There was one ark, which was
built by Moses when he first
came down from Mount Sinai.
And only later do we find in the
Book of Exodus was the
commandment given for a ark to
be built by Bezalel.
That was the ark that
stayed in the Tabernacle.
NARRATOR: If the Ark really
was a technological device, as
ancient astronaut theorists
believe, might there really have
been more than one of them?
And, if so, might the various
myths and legends about the Ark
and its whereabouts all be
plausible?
Perhaps.
But whether there is one ark or
many, two other important
questions remain: what was the
Ark's true purpose?
And what would happen
if it ever returned?
NARRATOR: The Dome of the
Rock, Jerusalem.
This Islamic shrine sits atop
the Temple Mount, once the site
of King Solomon's Temple and
the last known location of the
Ark of the Covenant.
In 1981, a small team of Israeli
workmen secretly tunneled under
this hotly disputed site.
Rabbi Yehuda Getz, the
preeminent Rabbi of the Western
Wall, supervised the highly
prohibited and politically
inflammatory excavation.
WILCOCK: There was a pretty
big problem with this because
that is the number one sacred
site for the Muslims as well,
and these men believed strongly
enough that the Ark of the
Covenant had been located there
that they were willing to take
such great risks to try to locate
the Ark of the Covenant themselves.
NARRATOR: When Arabs on the
Mount heard noises from the
cistern below, they confronted
the work crew in what became a
dramatic subterranean standoff.
Police separated the two sides
and ordered the tunnel to be resealed.
To his dying day, Rabbi Getz
believed he was just 40 feet
away from finding the original
Ark of the Covenant.
But could such an audacious
claim be true?
Might the Ark really still be
located where it was thousands
of years ago, at the site of
the Jews' most sacred temple,
one of the holiest places on Earth?
For ancient astronaut theorists,
the answer may very well be yes,
and for proof they point to
reports of strange sightings
over the Mount in recent years.
CHILDRESS: In 2011, there was a
very sensational UFO sighting
over the Dome of the
Rock in Jerusalem.
TZADOK: Many will call it a fraud.
Many will say it was not real.
But it was witnessed that a ball
of light came down over the
Temple Mount...
(man speaks over video)
and just hovered there.
And then all of a sudden a pulsating
light went out from it, poof!
MAN: Whoa!
TZADOK:
And then it ascended back up.
(man chuckles)
CHILDRESS: Some speculate
that this UFO sighting may have
been energizing the Ark of the
Covenant, which is still
there in Jerusalem.
NARRATOR: Could it be a mere
coincidence that the UFO
sightings occurred over this
particular site?
Or could it be, as some ancient
astronaut theorists claim,
merely the first in a series of
events concerning the Ark that
are in fact the fulfillment of
an ancient prophecy?
TZADOK: There's a very
interesting prophecy in the Book
of Zechariah that states that
there's gonna be a tremendous
earthquake in Jerusalem.
The Mount of Olives is to split.
It is said that this earthquake
is to be caused by some type of
sonic vibration created from
under the earth and that the
powers from under the earth are
then gonna arise out of this
chasm with the Ark.
This is then considered to be,
"A," the return of the Ark and,
"B," the famous, of course,
coming of the Messiah.
HENRY: All three of the big
three religions have prophecies
about the end-time arrival
of a messianic figure.
And what we're told is that
angels will help bring the Ark
of the Covenant back to Earth.
NARRATOR: Could the lights
seen over the Temple Mount
indicate that some sort of
extraterrestrial reactivation of
the Ark was taking place?
And, if so, might we be close
to finally rediscovering this
ancient relic and finding the
source of its incredible power?
TSOUKALOS: If that device were
ever to be found, then that
will forever change the
course of human history.
Because if we look at our past,
it already has changed the
course of human history.
BARA: If the Ark could be
found and if it could be
retrieved, the possibility
exists that its technology could
be understood and exploited and
possibly even used to reconnect
with whoever created it.
If they were in fact
extraterrestrial beings, then
the reality is we might have a
direct phone line to the E.T.s.
CARTER: We, as a culture, as a
species, we seem to use most
of our technology for w*r.
And so it would be like giving
a three-year-old a loaded g*n.
We can barely deal with the
technology that we have now, so
maybe it's good that,
for now, it's hidden.
NARRATOR: Could the Ark of
the Covenant, perhaps the most
coveted of the world's lost
relics, really be the ultimate
proof of an ancient
extraterrestrial encounter?
If so, what was it?
A sophisticated w*apon?
A communication device?
A nuclear power source?
Or was it something else entirely?
Something beyond our
comprehension?
And if it is found, will it lead
to mankind's destruction or to
a reunion with our alien ancestors?
One thing is certain: the search
for the Ark will continue.
And there are those who believe it will
be found much sooner than we think.
06x10 - Aliens and the Lost Ark
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Explores the pseudoscientific hypothesis of ancient astronauts in a non-critical, documentary format.
Explores the pseudoscientific hypothesis of ancient astronauts in a non-critical, documentary format.