Were We Really the First Space Travelers? (S1) | Ancient Aliens

Video: "Were We Really the First Space Travelers? (S1) | Ancient Aliens" (History Channel)

Full auto-transcript: On July 20th, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission reached its destination. And two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, actually walked on the moon. >> They've got the flag [music] up now, and you can see the stars and stripes from the lunar Beautiful, just beautiful. >> It was the first time in history that beings left their home and traveled through [music] space to an alien planet. Or was it? Were we really the first creatures in the universe capable [music] of traveling to another world? Given the vastness of the universe and the billions of years that it took to create our galaxy, [music] is it so hard to imagine that such a thing might have happened before? Perhaps thousands of times and over the course of millions of years. >> The ancient alien astronaut theory presupposes that thousands and thousands of years ago, even before recorded history, Earth was visited [music] by astronauts from another world. >> But if alien beings did in fact [music] travel to Earth, why? Did they come [music] to explore? To plunder? To study? To hunt? Or to breed? When Armstrong and [music] Aldrin explored their incredible surroundings, they found the moon a barren landscape. It seemed to offer little more than a lifeless oasis of rocks and dust. But in 1986, further testing determined that the lunar landscape [music] actually contains a high amount of helium-3, an extremely powerful, non-polluting, non-radioactive fuel source. Experts estimate that a single space shuttle filled with this material could satisfy all the energy needs in the United [music] States for an entire year. Think of it. Armadas of spaceships mining the moon and other planets for natural resources. Could this help explain [music] why Earth might have served as a destination for travelers from other worlds? >> We'd go out there with robot mining crews and eventually human mining crews, mine those planets, extract the ore, ships would come, they'd take the ore and bring them back. Well, if we would do it, why wouldn't extraterrestrials? >> But if alien [music] excavators did come to Earth, perhaps thousands of years ago, wouldn't there be [music] evidence? Here, in what is now known as Iraq, lies what is commonly regarded by historians [music] and archaeologists as the cradle of civilization. Between 3500 and 1900 [music] BC, the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was the home of the Sumerian people. The Sumerians were one of the first >> cultures that built actual cities with streets and a a street grid, [music] like almost like New York City where you have, you know, a square street grid. They invented cobblestones. Uh they had a a sewage system. They were taught in in agriculture. >> The Sumerians also invented the first known writing system by using cuneiform script [music] on clay tablets. In the 19th century, archaeologists exploring [music] the ancient ruins of Nineveh discovered 22,000 of these clay tablets. When they were later translated, the texts [music] described many stories similar to those found in the Judeo-Christian Bible. >> Virtually every story that's in Genesis, the flood story, Adam and Eve story, they all have precedence with the ancient Sumerians. >> In 1976, author Zecharia Sitchin published his own translations [music] of the Sumerian texts in a series of books called The Earth Chronicles. According to Sitchin, the clay [music] tablets describe an alien race known as the Anunnaki who came to Earth to mine gold. >> Zecharia Sitchin has essentially suggested that the reason why we were visited in the remote past is because the ancient astronauts' home planet needed gold for their atmosphere and that their gold content [music] in the atmosphere was depleting. So, they came to Earth in order to mine gold >> [music] >> and bring it back to their home planet. >> But, why gold? What are the unique properties [music] of this precious metal that might make it important and worth traveling through the galaxy for? >> I think for extraterrestrials, gold would be an important resource just like it is for us. If it's at all like our society, [music] one of the major things that's going to be built on is electricity. And gold really is one of the top conductors >> [music] >> and its malleability and its ability to make it into wires, use it in really small forms as nanoparticles is going to make it an incredible technological resource for any [music] sort of life forms that reach that level of dealing with electricity and technology as we do. One of the exciting [music] directions is possibly as an energy source through properties called thermoelectric effects where it can take heat [music] and turn it directly into electricity. This would be obviously a very nice clean energy source. >> With its capacity [music] to create energy and conduct heat, some scientists believe gold may also be an invaluable asset in the construction of spaceships. >> Gold actually reflects infrared [music] light. Infrared is basically light that's not quite red. And so you don't see it, but we interact with it as heat. Um the radiation will interact with your molecules and make them vibrate faster and you'll feel that as heat. So it makes a great [music] heat shield. Partly because it's so malleable you can make it very thin, it's easy to work with and it has great properties for reflecting and heat protection.