Nuclear annihilation...
This would have been an
absolutely devastating event.
...mysterious pyramids...
There are, apparently, these
unusual structures there.
and evidence of life
billions of years ago.
Researchers found
objects that looked
extremely similar to
microorganisms here on Earth.
Throughout human history,
the planet Mars has
captured our imagination.
But is it simply because of its
striking red color and
prominence in the night sky?
Or might we have a more profound
extraterrestrial connection?
NASA knows there is life on Mars,
but for some reason, it does not
want that information out.
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 they have
come from the red planet of Mars?
Cape Canaveral,
Florida, August 20, 1975.
Ignition, we have liftoff!
The United States launches
a Titan rocket carrying
the Viking spacecraft.
Viking is embarking on a
420-million-mile journey to one
of the most prominent sights in
the night sky...
Mars.
If all goes well, in 11 months,
the unmanned probe will
touch down on the Martian surface
and search for evidence of life.
Mainstream scientists say Mars
is most likely a dead planet
because of its incredible
temperature swings and high
levels of solar radiation.
So why is NASA spending a
billion dollars to explore it?
The night sky is an
astounding thing.
And to the naked eye, the red
planet could be seen with its
special color.
After all, it's the
biggest thing you see up there
past the moon.
So it's been a special object
of fascination and reverence
because religious systems
often were associated
with the planets and the
stars, the sky in general.
Speculations about what's
there, is intelligent life
there, are the gods there?
That's gone on for a long time.
Our dream for
life on Mars probably
goes back to the ancient times
when we were just doing
naked eye observation.
It's the planet that really
stands out, that we now know is
very close to Earth in terms of
physical conditions.
Even though Venus is much more
like Earth in size and gravity,
it's a hellhole in
the solar system.
But Mars, Mars is out there
within our grasp.
Among the first to
record this fiery red ball in
the night sky were ancient
Egyptian astronomers.
In 1534 BC, they placed Mars
on humanity's first chart of the
the Senenmut star map.
Two and a half centuries later,
the Egyptians painted the planet
Mars on the ceiling of the tomb
of Seti I.
But while the Egyptians honored
Mars, many other ancient
cultures feared it because they
associated the red planet with
death, destruction, and w*r.
According to some
anthropologists, this is because
the planet glows red like the
color of blood spilled on
the b*ttlefield.
The association of the
red planet with the gods of w*r
goes way back.
In ancient Babylon, Mars was
named after Nergal, the god of
fire, death, and destruction,
essentially a god of w*r.
The Greeks named Mars after
Ares, their god of w*r.
The Romans, "Mars," that
is their god of w*r.
Rome was a warrior culture,
so this martial emphasis, all
connected to the red planet, is
accounting for the great armies
that conquered the known world;
a very successful story and very
much aligned with
the planet Mars.
In 42 BC, the Roman forces
of Augustus waged the
Battle of Philippi against
Marcus Brutus, as Augustus tried
to avenge the assassination of
his adopted father, Julius Caesar.
Augustus pledged
to the god of w*r, Mars, that if
he won this battle, he would
build a great temple for him.
So he won the battle, became
Caesar Augustus, one of the
greatest of the Roman
emperors, and he created the
temple of Mars, and whenever
Rome would declare w*r,
the temple doors would
be thrown open.
It was called the temple
to Mars the Avenger.
Famously, we say the "gates
of" "w*r" nowadays, right?
And it was the gates of Mars'
temple that were opened or
closed depending upon whether
there was a w*r going on.
From India to Rome, all
of the ancient societies had
a reverence for Mars, a
great closeness to Mars.
Very important in their
pantheon, very important in the
imagination of the people that
some kind of connection with
that red planet be maintained.
But while many ancient
societies felt a bond
with Mars, most did not identify
it as a planet like Earth.
The ancients thought planets were
as uninhabitable as the Sun.
They saw them as
wandering stars.
In fact, the word "planet" means in
Greek "wandering star," planeta.
You have the fixed stars, the
constellations, but then you
have these stars wandering about.
They seem to follow the sun
because they appear to move
against the background of the
fixed stars the same
way the Sun does.
It wasn't until the 17th
and 18th centuries, when
astronomers finally had
telescopes powerful enough to
make out features on the surface
of Mars, that we started to
imagine life on the red
planet as a real possibility.
By the 1860s, an Italian
astronomer by the
name of Angelo Secchi thought
he saw straight lines
crisscrossing the surface of our
little ruddy buddy up there, Mars.
And he called them "canali."
The idea was picked up by an
American astronomer by the
name of Percival Lowell.
And Percival Lowell built his
own observatory down in
Flagstaff, Arizona.
He spent a lot of time looking
through a telescope at Mars.
And he wrote books about this.
He was articulate.
He was clever and he convinced a
lot of the public and some of
the scientific establishment
that there really was a
civilization on Mars busy
digging up their planet because
they needed to irrigate their crops.
But why has Mars fascinated
humankind throughout
history? Is it simply due to the
planet's proximity to Earth and
its striking red color in the
night sky?
Or is it possible... as ancient
astronaut theorists contend...
that Mars really was at one time
inhabited by intelligent life?
The Cydonia region of Mars,
July 20, 1976.
An alien spacecraft sent from Earth
touches down on the red planet.
Nav is green for touchdown.
After a ten-month journey,
Viking I has reached its destination.
Touchdown.
We have touchdown.
To NASA scientists,
it's a momentous event.
For the first time in its
history, the United States
has a probe on another planet.
Viking was the
first spacecraft to actually
attempt a soft landing on Mars,
and give us an actual feel, a
taste for what the conditions
were on the surface.
We looked out at those
pictures of the surface, and
they looked so much like the
Pacific deserts here,
like Death Valley.
We all half expected to see
a miner and his burro come
walking up over the nearest rise.
Scientists knew that finding definitive
signs of life on Mars was a long shot.
But when the Viking lander
performed four tests on the
Martian soil looking for
microbial life, it returned
surprising and controversial
results.
Dr. Gil Levin designed one of the tests
that the Viking probe performed.
Microorganisms breathe just like you
or I or anything else, and then
they give off carbon dioxide.
So we got a tiny sample, a
thimbleful of the soil, put into
a little container.
It was monitored for seven
days continuously to see
if there are any bubbles
forming in the tube.
Surprisingly, the tests came up
positive for life by the
criteria that had been
approved by NASA.
However, the result
of another important test... one
looking for organic matter on
the Martian surface...
was negative. But
Dr. Levin says the other
test wasn't nearly as
sensitive as his experiment.
It needed three million bacteria
in a thimbleful of Martian soil to
find signs of life, while Dr. Levin's
test only required 30 bacteria.
So there was a vast
discrepancy in the sensitivity
of the two experiments,
and I immediately said, "Well,
you know, they both could be"
right. We detected
life, but maybe
there aren't enough bacteria per
unit of soil for the organic
"analysis instrument to find."
But NASA was very cautious,
and they opted to say
no organic matter.
There goes the ball game.
No life.
Dr. Levin has fought
NASA for almost 40 years
on whether the Viking probe
found evidence of life on Mars.
If he was right about the
results of his test, this would
be the first proof accepted by
mainstream science that life
exists outside our planet,
but ancient astronaut theorists
say an even more profound
discovery regarding the red
planet has been uncovered right
here on Earth... mysterious
relics that may reveal an
actual visitation of beings
from Mars.
Teotihuacan,
Mexico.
In 2003, archeologists in this
ancient city made a startling
discovery. A previously
unknown tunnel lies
45 feet beneath the Temple of
the Feathered Serpent, one of
the most sacred pyramids
on the continent.
Working underground,
scientists methodically explored
the debris-filled tunnel using a
robotic probe with an infrared
scanner. After some 250 feet,
they reached a side-cave.
The tail end of the
tunnel, terminus of the
tunnel, was loaded with, um,
yellowish metallic-looking orbs,
apparently colored clay.
The orbs are
very interesting objects.
I've never seen anything like
them in any kind of other
archaeological context.
On the inside, they are clay.
On the outside, they're coated
with some sort of gold flecks,
so they look like golden balls.
What purpose these
golden balls served is unknown,
but some archeologists believe
the cavern in which they were
found was a place
of sacred ritual.
Like the clay balls, the walls
were also covered in gold
flecks, so if the cavern
illuminated it with a
torch during a ceremony, the
cavern would have shimmered with
a thousand points of light,
resembling the cosmos.
These beautiful orbs of yellow
material strongly suggests that
someone was illustrating planets.
We do know that the Mayan
calendar is heavily calibrated
to the orbital parameters of the
planets in our solar system,
specifically the inner planets.
The red planet's connection
to the Mayan calendar is
portrayed in The Dresden Codex.
This rare book from Mayan
antiquity describes the
calendar in relation to Mars'
movements across the sky.
The Dresden Codex
is one of four remaining books
that the Maya wrote.
It is, in many regards,
an astronomical almanac.
There are many different
sections of the book that talk
about different astronomical
phenomena.
One of them is the planet Mars.
There is an almanac
near the end of the book,
that breaks up days into ten groups
of 78 days equaling 780 days,
which is the cyanotic period of
Mars, in other words, the time
in which it takes Mars to get
back to the same place on the
horizon from a human
perspective.
Scholars believe Mars
played an important role in
the Maya astrology that's
described in The Dresden Codex.
Above that almanac
is a sky band shown
with various aspects of
celestial symbols we recognize
out of hieroglyphs,
and hanging off of it is this
interesting
dragon-like creature.
at dragon-like creature is
recognized as the face of Mars.
Why did the planet Mars
feature so prominently in
Maya astronomy?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest the answer may be
found in a little-known myth
surrounding the story of the
feathered serpent god,
whose temple sits above the
secret tunnel that contains
the golden orbs.
In the Mayan tradition,
their great god,
often pictured as a feathered
serpent, was said to have been
responsible for the death of the
god of Mars, flayed him to death.
That's stripping off the skin.
It's a horrific ritual that was
actually done in other ways in
that culture, but the idea is
death by that means absorbs
the power of the enemy.
But the name of their god also
is associated with the comets.
There are certain drawings
that show comets that
look like they have feathers
coming off the back.
The flames are
depicted as feathers.
And some scholars believe
there's a connection between the
look of the flying feathered
serpent and these comets.
Is it possible that the
Mayan myth of the feathered
serpent describes an actual
event, a cataclysmic comet
strike that destroyed the
Martian atmosphere?
After studying the red planet
for decades, mainstream
scientists admit it's entirely
possible this impact occurred on
Mars in the distant past.
If you look at the
Martian landscape, it is
heavily cratered
compared to Earth.
Mars is next to the
asteroid belt.
In fact, in some ways, it
defines the inner edge of the
asteroid belt.
So Mars is constantly being
hammered by asteroids
relative to earth.
You always have the risk,
and of course we've seen
it here on Earth, of having
large asteroids or comets hit
the planet and cause
tremendous ecological damage.
The most famous example of that
is the Chicxulub asteroid that
may or may not have been the
final nail in the dinosaurs' coffin.
And certainly that could've
happened at Mars because
it doesn't have a large moon to
help shield the planet and
possibly deflect asteroids.
In his book, Life and
Death on Mars, physicist
John Brandenburg describes an
impact crater in the Lyot region
of Mars that's more than 125
miles in diameter.
He believes this comet strike
may have caused a profound
disruption to Mars'
planetary system.
It's a large double-ring crater.
This happened to a planet
that only gets half the sunlight
of earth and has one quarter of
the surface area, so this would
have been an absolutely
devastating planet
climate-changing event.
There may have been
a very dramatic event where
some other leftover piece from
the birth of the solar system,
some big asteroid, sort of
made a close fly-by, sort of
a fender-bender collision with
Mars and just stripped off a
lot of the atmosphere.
That's a very popular way to look at
what may have gone wrong with Mars.
But if Mars fostered
life long ago, before
losing its atmosphere, could
intelligent life, and perhaps
even civilization, have existed
and even flourished
on the red planet?
And if so, where would the
inhabitants have gone
after the cataclysm?
Some say the answers to these
questions can be found in the
origin story of Earth's
first civilization.
Mosul, Iraq,
1849.
During an excavation of the
Biblical city of Nineveh, a team
led by the eminent British
archeologist Austen Henry
Layard, discovers the ruins of
the ancient Assyrian library
of Ashurbanipal.
Among the priceless relics
Layard recovered from the
library is a series of cuneiform
tablets called the En?ma Eli?,
also known as "The Seven Tablets"
of Creation."
The tablets are,
essentially, text in
columnar style, no more than
eight to ten inches tall,
uh, six to seven inches wide,
which were made of clay.
And while the clay was just
in the process of setting,
a stylus would be used by a
trained scribe to etch
the stories of our
existence on this planet.
The Seven Tablets of Creation
tell a story about a
group of gods called the
Anunnaki who came from heaven to
give birth to the human race,
but some ancient astronaut
theorists believe the original
translations, completed in the
19th century by some of the best
scholars of the day, are flawed.
The professors'
certainly brilliant
brains had no idea of space
travel, not to speak of
extraterrestrials.
So they all, without exception,
made the translations in the
belief that the stories had to
do with the Almighty God.
In the old texts, we have, for
example, a word like "heaven."
So, for example, Abraham
was taken up to heaven
and brought back to Earth.
So we should change the word
"heaven" into the word
"space" so it makes sense.
Using what they say is a
more accurate translation
of this origin myth, ancient
astronaut theorists believe the
tablets tell a story about the
Anunnaki coming from space to
colonize both Mars and Earth.
According to some
researchers, the Sumerians
had a number of myths about
Mars, including that the
Anunnaki used Mars as a supply
base to come here to Earth.
And subsequently the Anunnaki
then ruled the earth as these
extraterrestrial god-kings, while
humans began to create the
many civilizations
on our planet.
And eventually the Anunnaki left
to go back to their own planet.
Or did they?
Is it possible that
the Anunnaki gods in our ancient
origin stories were actually
extraterrestrial beings and that
they created the structures that
some believe they see on Mars? And if
so, did they then journey to Earth?
We see multiple references
in the cuneiform
tablets that are allegedly
the records of the Anunnaki.
That, in fact, they did
originate from Mars,
that this is not a dead,
isolated, rocky world
with nothing on it,
but there was life.
But according to
the modern translation of
Sumerian and Babylonian origin
myths, a cataclysmic event
occurred on Mars, an event
that sounds remarkably
similar to ancient Mesoamerican
myths about a feathered serpent
flaying the red planet.
While the Anunnaki were using
Mars as a supply base
for earth, at some
point there was a catastrophe.
There was some asteroid or comet
strike on Mars.
It ripped the atmosphere
from Mars.
It changed the climate, and Mars
couldn't be used as a habitable
space base for the
Anunnaki anymore.
And so therefore, as we explore
Mars more and more, we may find
structures, pyramids, ziggurats,
even giant statues
carved into rock on Mars,
which are really relics of
the Anunnaki and the time when
they occupied that planet.
Some have suggested
that Mars may
have had an atmosphere, and it
got annihilated about
65 million years ago.
What some have suggested is
that before this annihilation
occurred, that that
civilization was able to
escape to Earth.
Now, according to this view, we
might, in fact, be the Martians.
Some scientists say
they've found powerful evidence
of this lost civilization.
They believe they may have
discovered a nuclear signature
in the Martian atmosphere that
matches Earth's after a nuclear test.
During the height
of the Cold w*r, we
were detonating very large
hydrogen bombs in the open air,
and it produces a lot of
a gas called xenon 129.
On Mars, we've also found
a lot of xenon 129.
The only process we know to
produce this xenon 129 is a
nuclear expl*si*n.
So apparently, a very large
nuclear w*apon or weapons
was detonated on Mars.
If we look at the Sumerian
cuneiform tablets there
are very clear references to a
variety of advanced forms of
technology.
And it would seem
pretty clear that if we were
able to get a nuclear b*mb,
then why couldn't a civilization
that was superior to our own
have developed the same
technology?
There is a Sumerian
myth concerning the
planet Mars having to do with
some colossal battle of the
gods, so there is elements in
mythology that look very much
like descriptions of
nuclear w*r.
Signs of a possible
nuclear blast,
myths of a comet flaying
the planet...
and a controversial NASA
experiment that may have
found life. Could these
really be traces of
an ancient alien
civilization on Mars?
And if so, is it possible there
are artificial structures buried
beneath the surface
even to this day?
The Ares Vallis region
of Mars, July 4, 1997.
NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft
lands on the red planet.
The first probe to reach the
Martian surface since Viking,
Pathfinder will look
for signs of water.
Since the Viking missions in the
1970s, mainstream scientists
have come to the conclusion that
the planet may have once boasted
oceans full of water and
complex life.
Billions of years
ago, earlier in the
history of the solar system,
Mars probably looked, in many
ways, the way the Earth did.
It did build up an
atmosphere and oceans.
The atmosphere probably
would have been equivalent to
Earth's atmosphere at that time.
Life could well have
formed in the oceans.
One day after the
Pathfinder touched down,
the Sojourner rover began exploring
the Martian surface for signs of
these ancient life-forms using
an X-ray spectrometer
and a high-powered camera.
What they discovered
was, yes, Mars, in certain
places, looks like the high
desert on Earth.
And maybe there are areas
which do seem to be
dried-out riverbeds.
Maybe there's water
under the surface.
The thing we've learned
from the rovers that's
most interesting, I think, is the fact
that Mars once had a wet past.
And if there was liquid
water on the surface of
Mars long enough, not just for a
couple of weeks, a couple of
years, a couple of thousand
years, but for millions of
years, hundreds of millions of
years, maybe something cooked up
in that liquid, maybe life.
As the Pathfinder
rover snapped photographs of the
Martian surface, it captured
images of something that
puzzled some scientists...
a mountain range
they nicknamed The Twin Peaks.
In his book, Life and Death on
Mars, Dr. John Brandenburg says
that because Mars has limited
volcanic and tectonic activity,
it's an open question as to how
these mountains were formed.
This interesting formation
is the tallest thing
for hundreds of miles.
Most of the volcanic activity on Mars
is concentrated in the Tharsis region.
How many miles away is
that approximately?
Oh, it's, like 2,000
miles away, to the west.
All right, so, this
area is not known for any
volcanoes or anything like that?
No, no. And because we
now know so much more
about the climate of Mars than
we did 20 years ago,
it had an ocean.
It had long periods,
apparently, of liquid water
flowing on its surface, so all
of this causes us to look at
everything on Mars with new eyes.
Mm-hmm.
And so we have these two
interesting objects.
They're conjoined.
Not only are they the tallest
things for 200 miles but
they're linked to each other.
And this reminds me of what we
have found on planet Earth.
Now, there's alignment.
Mm-hmm.
And what's interesting,
this is the Giza
Plateau from Egypt.
And it is near Cairo, which,
name in Arabic derives from the
name in Arabic... Al-Qahirah,
which means Camp of Mars,
Place of Mars.
- Very interesting.
- Fascinating.
Huh.
And we also have found
out recently that at one
time, the Sphinx was
covered with red paint.
So, imagine we are looking at the
Giza complex and the Sphinx.
And a million years of
erosion has happened.
Wouldn't these things all look kind
of rounded and mounded like this?
It's conjectural.
Mm-hmm.
Now I notice over here,
because it's the Giza
Plateau, we have the Sphinx.
Has something similar been
discovered on Mars, specifically
around the Twin Peaks area?
Well, we have
this strange object which is
nearby, and we see that from
space and also in the picture.
And look at this.
At this alignment.
Here is the Sphinx on Earth.
Here is the pyramid.
Here is this object.
And there is what looks
like a mound of stuff.
Who knows if it is
degraded archeology?
We must look at everything on
Mars now with new eyes.
In fact, when the Sphinx
was originally found in
modern times, it was buried up
to its neck in rubble
- and had to be excavated.
- So something
similar could be
going on right here.
There could be a much larger
structure buried beneath.
Could the Twin Peaks
be evidence that an
ancient civilization may have
once existed on Mars?
A civilization whose structures
appear to resemble those on Earth?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes, and that evidence
for this startling
conclusion has been accumulating
for four decades.
When Viking orbiters
originally started
taking pictures of
the surface of Mars,
they took pictures of very intriguing
features on the plain of Cydonia.
On July 25, 1976,
they took a picture of
something that looked for all
the world like a human face.
The whole thing kind of blew up
when a NASA project scientist
named Toby Owen put a magnifying
glass over a frame number named
"35A72," and said,
"Hey, look at this."
NASA actually held a press
conference the next day, where
Owen and Gerald Soffen, who was
the chief Viking project
scientist said, "You know, isn't
it peculiar what tricks of light"
and shadow can do?
The whole thing kind of went
"away a couple hours later when
we took another picture."
The problem with that is that a
couple hours later, the Viking
orbiter was nowhere near Cydonia
and it was dark, so there's no
way that picture could
have ever existed.
Some believe they found
not only a human
face carved into Martian rock,
but also a pyramid, a cliff.
In fact, an entire city buried
by thousands of years of sand
and soil. By the late 1980s, one
researcher had even discovered
what he thought were
mathematical relationships among
the features of Cydonia.
A cartographer and
satellite imagery expert from
the Defense Mapping Agency
named Erol Torun took a look at
the pyramid and concluded that
it was what he called the
Rosetta Stone of Mars.
He found a bunch of mathematical
relationships that pointed to
other objects in the area that
he thought were artificial-
looking.
They included the face, an
object called the cliff, which
is a straight line that goes on
for hundreds of meters, a
rounded mound called the tholos
which appears to have a pathway
that goes up to the top.
More than 20 years after
the Viking mission, NASA
rephotographed the Cydonia region
in 1998 and again in 2001.
The face no longer looked
human, but some scientists
believe that was because of when
and how NASA took the newer pictures.
They shot it from the side.
They shot it at morning.
It was as much a different
viewing geometry and lighting
geometry as possible from
the original pictures.
Based on that evidence,
the face on Mars,
evidence of past climate on
Mars, a past ocean,
I have concluded that Mars
was apparently the home of
a civilization in the past.
Is it possible that
an alien civilization existed
on Mars in the distant past,
and built the structures that
recent Martian probes have
photographed?
If so, does the government know
more than it's telling us
about life and death
on the red planet?
Washington, D.C.,
August 7, 1996.
On the South Lawn of the White
House, 30 years after NASA
announced the Viking mission had
not found evidence of life on
Mars, President Bill Clinton
held an historic press
conference to announce some
momentous news:
microbial life may exist
on the red planet after all.
Scientists had found what they
believed to be fossilized
remains on a Martian meteorite
that crashed to Earth
12,000 years ago.
It must be confirmed
by other scientists,
but clearly the fact that
something of this magnitude
is being explored is another
vindication of America's space
program and our continuing
support for it, even in these
tough financial times.
There was enormous
excitement over this discovery.
Based on the chemical
composition of the meteorite,
we could tell that
it was from Mars.
Inside the rock, researchers
found different chemicals and,
in particular, different
physical shapes of objects that
looked extremely similar to
microorganisms here on Earth.
Soon after the president's
press conference,
scientists began to backpedal on
whether the meteorite actually
showed signs of life.
They said the original team of
experts may have been wrong.
The image certainly
looks like some kind of
a microorganism, but
the opponents said the
microorganism remains are too small
to have DNA to be inside it.
And therefore, it
can't be a fossil.
Since then, microorganisms have
been found that small, which
have DNA in them,
but it has not been resolved.
But given the
controversy surrounding the
possibility that life may have
been discovered on Mars,
starting with the Viking mission
of the 1970s and continuing to
- the present day...
- Liftoff.
some scientists say
NASA almost seems to be
avoiding the issue.
The space agency has never
retried Gil Levin's test for
signs of life on the red planet.
It is very puzzling
as to why NASA has refused to
send life detection experiments
back to Mars.
My experiment discovered
the most remarkable thing
yet known about Mars.
That there is something highly
reactive in the soil, chemical
or biological. But we
really should find out
what it is. It is
startling that NASA has
made no attempt to
determine that issue.
I truly think NASA knows
there is life on Mars,
but for some reason
unbeknownst to me, it does not
want that information out.
Has NASA found definitive
signs of life on Mars
that they're intentionally
keeping from the public?
And if so, have they found
evidence that an advanced
civilization once lived
on the red planet?
Some ancient astronaut theorists
believe they have, and as
evidence, point to a report
commissioned by NASA in 1960...
that offers advice for how to
reveal the news if the American
space program should ever find
proof of extraterrestrial life.
The so-called Brookings
Report essentially
said that in your travels
throughout the solar system,
there is a distinct possibility
that you will discover
artifacts, that you will
actually discover evidence
of an ancient alien presence on
Venus, on the moon or on Mars.
And the implications of such an
announcement, if it were made,
would be potentially devastating
to the human race.
It could be catastrophic. In fact,
it used the word "disintegrate."
I would imagine that
it would be something that
would be kept secret for awhile.
I don't think it's a bunch of
men sitting in a room and
smoking cigarettes and saying
we're gonna keep this secret.
But it is a responsibility,
and I think that they would
certainly be very, very
careful as to how to let
out this knowledge.
Is it possible that not
just microbial life, but
also intelligent beings, once
called the red planet their
home? And if so,
what would that mean
for the existence of life
elsewhere in the cosmos?
If life used to exist
on Mars, particularly if
it formed independently of Earth
life, life in the universe
is all over the place.
That means that of
the billions of planets
discovered now
similar to Earth,
through our universe,
many of them would have
life on them.
And if there is life different
from life on Earth that has
evolved, there would be every
reason to suspect such evolution
would have gone on on countless
other Earths.
And that there would be
intelligent life
out there as well.
We want there
to be life on Mars.
We want there to be life
somewhere beyond here.
We want that transcendent
connection to the heavens.
We don't want it to be invaders,
but we don't want to be alone
in the universe.
Are tales of life
on Mars, found in cultures
across the world,
simply mythology?
Or might Martians really have
visited Earth in the distant
past, as ancient astronaut
theorists suggest?
If so, could there be evidence
waiting to be discovered on the
red planet?
Perhaps with further missions to
Mars we'll find that not only
was it home to alien beings thousands
of years ago, but it still is today.
07x05 - Aliens and the Red Planet
Watch/Buy Amazon Merchandise
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.