Ancient Aliens (2009–…): Season 12, Episode 16 - Return to Gobekli Tepe - full transcript
The ancient site of Gobekli Tepe challenges everything modern archaeologists believe about mankind's past.
ANDREW COLLINS:
Gobekli Tepe is the smoking gun
of a lost civilization
because it confirms that,
at the time of the last ice age,
there was high culture existing
in the world.
ROBERT SCHOCH: Gobekli Tepe's an
incredibly sophisticated site.
There's a very important message
they were purposefully
sending to us.
DAVID WILCOCK:
We're actually seeing
architecture
in the Cygnus star system,
just like what they paid homage
to at Gobekli Tepe.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
Only five percent
of Gobekli Tepe
has been unearthed so far.
So, what other surprises
will we find there?
COLLINS: We need to know
about our origins.
We need to know our destiny.
And all of it lies under
the surface of Gobekli Tepe.
Who are the real-world Illuminati ?
Find out @ saveanilluminati.com
NARRATOR: Sanliurfa, Turkey.
October 1994.
While plowing his field,
shepherd Savak Yildiz
spots a strangely shaped stone
protruding from the ground.
After brushing away the dirt,
he realizes that it may be
part of a much larger object.
Shortly after contacting
the local museum with his find,
he is visited by Klaus Schmidt
from the German
Archaeological Institute.
It wasn't until German
archaeologist Klaus Schmidt
visited the site
and began digging,
they realized what was
really at this site.
What he discovered
was mind-blowing.
After discovering
the first T-shaped pillar
buried at the site,
he soon found more
of these massive structures.
NARRATOR:
During the intensive dig,
Schmidt and his team
begin to unearth dozens of
additional giant stone monoliths
covered in intricate carvings,
some weighing
as much as 20 tons.
PAUL BAHN:
The site of Gobekli Tepe
is a series
of circular enclosures.
But then, in the center
of each enclosure,
you have two particularly big
T-shaped pillars of limestone
sort of facing each other.
Now, many of these pillars have
remarkable carvings on them,
wonderful carvings
and bas-reliefs of animals,
birds, insects,
all kinds of things.
So, to fashion those
and carve them and set them up
in these structures
was just absolutely amazing.
NARRATOR:
Archaeologists estimate
that it would have taken
a team of 50 men
an entire week to move just one
of the monolithic pillars
from the limestone quarry
to the top of the hill
where they stand today
and over 300 hours
to carve the bas-reliefs.
At this rate, each of the five
stone circles unearthed so far
would have required a full year
to be completed.
But why such a monumental site
was built in the first place
remains a mystery.
It's very difficult to know
what the purpose of something
like Gobekli Tepe could be.
And certainly Klaus Schmidt
had not reached any conclusions,
except that it's clearly not
a settlement.
It's not a village. There is
absolutely no domestic refuse.
Schmidt always hoped
that it was funerary
and that there would be burials
underneath the walls
or underneath some of
the pillars or so on.
But so far,
they have not yet found
any human remains at the site.
There are no domestic plants
in the site.
There are only
wild animal bones.
Inevitably, in archeology,
if we don't know
what something is for,
we think a ritual.
But, really,
it's pure speculation.
NARRATOR: Intrigued by evidence
that the structure might go back
to a Neolithic period,
Klaus Schmidt has
the sediment layers of the site
radiocarbon-dated.
The results indicated
that the stone structures could
be as much as 12,000 years old,
more than 5,000 years older
than mankind's first known
civilization in Mesopotamia.
More than that,
it would place the construction
of Gobekli Tepe
to a time
when mainstream scholars suggest
humans were roaming the Earth
as hunter-gatherers.
BAHN:
Well, the site of Gobekli Tepe
really did send shockwaves
through the whole world
of early prehistory,
because we'd never before known
or imagined even
that simple hunter-gatherers
could produce such spectacular
monumental structures.
Now, in archeology,
really since it began,
we've always assumed that
hunter-gatherers were capable
of producing wonderful
works of art...
Rock art, cave art,
and things like that.
But we never imagined
that they could come together
in sufficient numbers,
uh, to make, uh,
monumental constructions
like Gobekli Tepe.
NARRATOR: But if
the currently accepted timeline
for mankind's advancement
is correct,
is it possible that
primitive hunter-gatherers
could have built
such sophisticated
megalithic structures?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say no,
and instead suggest
that Gobekli Tepe was built by
the survivors of a lost society,
one that was
almost entirely wiped out
by a worldwide cataclysm.
And to support their claim,
they point to recent evidence
of a catastrophic event
which many mainstream scientists
believe occurred
at the very end
of the last ice age,
which is believed to have lasted
from roughly 108,000 BC
until nearly 10,000 BC.
COLLINS: Gobekli Tepe
could be the smoking gun
of a lost civilization,
because it confirms that,
at the time of the last ice age,
there was high culture
existing in the world.
This is something that had been
speculated for many years,
but there had not been
the absolute evidence.
Now we could have it.
These engineering skills,
this ordering of society
is something
that must have existed
before the end
of the last ice age.
And arguably even earlier.
DAVID CHILDRESS:
When you look at the time frame
of Gobekli Tepe, it was built
right after
these huge catastrophes
at the end of the last ice age.
And it would seem
that the builders were people
who had survived and had
the knowledge and technology
to build something like this.
NARRATOR: According to
ancient astronaut theorists,
proof of
a lost civilization exists
some 300 miles away
from Gobekli Tepe,
in the form of
a vast underground city
known as Derinkuyu.
It extends
some 13 stories underground
and had the capacity
to support 20,000 people.
Although the site has yet
to be scientifically dated,
some researchers have suggested
that it may have served
as a prehistoric refuge.
Derinkuyu is a multi-leveled city
that has existed, uh,
since time immemorial.
It was certainly used, uh,
during Christian times.
But there's also evidence that
there's prehistoric activity
going on at these places.
Archaeologists found evidence
of Stone Age tools
going back
to the Paleolithic era.
This is at the time
of the last ice age.
And so it's possible
that our ancestors escaped
the cataclysm and the ice age
deep down inside them.
NARRATOR: But if Derinkuyu
really did serve as refuge
from a catastrophic event,
how might it offer a connection
to Gobekli Tepe?
Perhaps further clues
can be found
by exploring
more recently discovered caves
and the stories suggesting that
they were built upon the orders
of otherworldly beings.
NARRATOR:
Central Anatolia, Turkey.
300 miles from the ancient site
of Gobekli Tepe.
December 28, 2014.
A local crew excavating
for an urban renovation project
stumbles across a strange series
of carved rooms and tunnels
deep underground.
Upon further exploration,
they find the subterranean
network spans several miles
and extends hundreds of feet
below the surface of the Earth,
much like the nearby caves
of Derinkuyu.
COLLINS: What they discovered
was that these caves extended
for a distance of 370 feet
down into the rock.
NARRATOR:
Archaeologists estimate
that more than five million
square feet of rock,
the volume of over 370
Olympic-size swimming pools,
was removed to carve out
this subterranean city.
Yet there is no evidence of the
extracted material in the area.
This mysterious cave system
is still under excavation
and closed to the public.
But in June 2017,
author and researcher
Andrew Collins
was granted access to the site.
The sheer size of some of these
rooms is absolutely amazing.
I mean, this one that we're in
now is 120 feet in length.
And yet it's just one of
hundreds of similar rooms
that we find inside
this great hill.
These tunnels that you see
seem to go on and on.
And yet what's incredible
is that not only were
they full of people,
but there was also livestock
down here.
And we are told that
as many as 20,000 people,
perhaps even as much as 60,000,
could've lived here
at any one time.
NARRATOR:
Not only is there evidence
that these caves once housed
thousands of people,
but archaeologists have found
air vents and water wells
that would have made it possible
to live underground
for years at a time.
These were cut deeply
into the rock,
sometimes for hundreds
of yards in depth.
And at the base of them
were wells
that provided water to these
underground populations.
This is what is known
as a self-sealing door.
And they're in fact
huge great stone wheels
made of a volcanic rock
known as basalt.
And their function was
that they would be wheeled
into position
so that they would lock,
so that nobody was able to get
inside the underground cities.
NARRATOR:
When it was discovered,
historians recovered artifacts
that suggest
the cave system was used
by the early Christians
to escape persecution.
So they dated the site to be
approximately 1,500 years old.
But based on new evidence,
the caves might be much older.
COLLINS: A few years ago,
I interviewed an archaeologist
by the name of Omer Demir.
And he found within it
Paleolithic tools,
tools that went back
at least 10,000 to 12,000 years,
and arguably even earlier still.
NARRATOR:
If these caves can be dated
to at least 12,000 years ago...
Around the same time
archaeologists believe
the nearby site of Gobekli Tepe
was constructed...
Just who built them?
And what drove the builders
underground?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest clues can be found
not embedded in stone,
but in the pages of
ancient Persian religious texts.
Zoroastrianism
is one of the world's
oldest monotheistic religions,
founded by the prophet Zoroaster
in ancient Iran
approximately 3,500 years ago.
The central figure
of the religion
was a powerful god
named Ahura Mazda,
who is often depicted
seated inside a winged disk.
According to the story,
recorded in a text
known as the Vendidad,
he sent a powerful warning
to a young priest named Yima
about a coming cataclysm.
Ahura Mazda told
the great early king Yima
that there would be
a terrible disaster.
A giant serpent would descend
from the heavens to the Earth.
Well, that sounds like a comet
or a large meteorite
falling to Earth.
Then a winter would come
such as has never been known.
NARRATOR: Prior to the event,
Yima is given
very specific instructions
to build an underground shelter
in order to survive
the coming "giant freeze."
Ahura Mazda instructs Yima
to build a Vara.
This is a huge structure,
two miles long, two miles wide,
an underground hall of sorts
where things can be protected
from the terrible winter.
Yima was to hide
a remnant of the people,
and an extensive seed bank,
also a pair of each
of the animal species.
Once Yima is finished
building the Vara,
he takes 2,000 people in,
a representation of mankind.
They are there for 150 years,
but when the winter is over
and they come out,
it is a barren world.
They will have to rebuild
civilization from scratch.
CHILDRESS: The Vara is
supposed to be a huge enclosure
that not only houses
a large number of people,
but also animals and seeds.
It's a storehouse
just like Noah's Ark.
So you've got this same story,
and it would seem
that this is a very real thing
that ancient people
knew about and wrote about.
NARRATOR: Could it be
that the story of Noah's Ark
and the Vara of Zoroastrianism
are one in the same?
And the reference to an ark
was later misunderstood
to be a large ship?
But if these accounts
are in fact true,
how is it that mankind
had enough advance warning
to build such sophisticated
places of refuge?
The ancient texts are very clear
that the gods,
they always warned people
that this catastrophe would
happen so that they would save
a select group
of that population.
So how was that possible?
Either they had access to
sophisticated technologies
with which to predict
the weather,
or what's the other option?
And if you combine that with the
fact that Ahura Mazda was known
to have descended from the sky
in a vehicle with fixed wings...
It looks like some type
of flying device...
That would suggest
that he was in fact
an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: According to
ancient astronaut theorists,
the Vara described
in the ancient Zoroastrian texts
is strikingly similar
to the recently discovered
subterranean town
in Central Anatolia.
HENRY:
The underground caves in Turkey
sound exactly like the Vara
that was made by Yima
in Zoroastrian mythology.
Is it possible
that this cave system
supplies the evidence
that tells us
that the Zoroastrian mythology
is in fact a real, true story?
NARRATOR:
If these caves provide evidence
that the account recorded
in the ancient Zoroastrian texts
is factual,
did the inhabitants
of the Vara emerge
to find a barren wasteland
where they were
to rebuild civilization?
Might they be responsible
for the construction
of Gobekli Tepe,
located only 300 miles away?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,
and suggest
that this very connection
could help explain some of the
mysterious figures immortalized
in the stone carvings.
NARRATOR: Gobekli Tepe, 2017.
To date,
69 massive stone pillars
have been unearthed
at the ancient site,
after more than two decades
of excavation.
More than one-third
of the statues
contain elaborate carvings
of animals,
including various mammals,
reptiles, insects and birds.
But also included
are depictions of species
not indigenous to the area,
like geese, armadillos
and wild boar.
There are such an incredible
range of animals and birds
and insects depicted
at Gobekli Tepe,
the like of which
we have never seen
at that period or anywhere else
in the world.
And to have a whole bunch of
them together is interesting.
You can speculate
till the cows come home
as to what it might represent.
We have not the faintest idea.
HENRY:
In the story of Noah's Ark,
we're told that
after the deluge,
Noah's Ark lands at Mount Ararat
in eastern Turkey,
not far from Gobekli Tepe,
and we see some very strange
animals portrayed
on the pillars at Gobekli Tepe,
almost as if it's a record
of Noah's Ark itself.
Perhaps Gobekli Tepe
is the place where Noah
and his descendants disembarked
and recreated civilization
after the flood.
NARRATOR: If there really is a
connection between Gobekli Tepe
and the biblical story
of a Great Flood,
could the carvings
found at the site
be an inventory of the animals
that were rescued?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes, but also suggest
other carvings depict a species
not of this Earth.
At the center of each of the
five megalithic ring structures
that occupy
the archaeological site,
stand two oversized
monolithic pillars.
Weighing up to 20 tons
and reaching heights
of over two stories,
they visually stand apart
from the T-shaped stonework
that surrounds them.
These pillars are
anthropomorphic;
They are human-like
in appearance.
They have low relief arms
that come round to the front
and end in these
long, spindly fingers.
They wear garments.
They have belts
with strange symbols.
There are no faces
on these stones.
The heads are represented
by T-shaped terminations
that look almost like
hammerheads, basically.
BAHN: They could be gods,
they could be ancestors,
or they could be very specific
people who are being venerated.
We really have no idea.
HENRY: The archaeologist
Schmidt himself
referred to them
as the "celestial ones,"
or the "celestial ancestors."
And we have to ask
if these are depictions
of the extraterrestrial gods
at Gobekli Tepe.
NARRATOR: As mysterious
as these statues are,
strikingly similar depictions
can be found
in other parts of the globe.
An interesting feature about
some of these T-shaped pillars
is the fact
that these arms culminate
in the front
around the navel area.
And what I find so cool
is that this type of motif
can be found elsewhere
around the world.
For example, in Easter Island,
with those giant statues,
the Moai.
There, too,
the arms go around the belly,
and they culminate
in front of the navel.
And then, at Tiahuanaco,
Bolivia, for example,
there is a statue that has
the exact same hand position
in front of the navel.
ED BARNHART:
At the city of Tiahuanaco,
in its central complex
called the Kalasasaya,
is a massive monolithic statue.
The statue is said by the Inca
to be a giant.
In the previous creation
before men,
giants roamed the Earth.
And they inhabited
the city of Tiahuanaco.
And this is actually
very similar to the mythology
of Easter Island and the stories
we hear about the Moai.
We get very similar type
of carved pillars
as Gobekli Tepe
in other parts of the world.
There is a very strong
similarity in style
which tells us
that there is almost certainly
some kind of relationship,
that Gobekli Tepe
is not in isolation,
it's part of some kind
of global culture,
the remnants
of a lost civilization
that once existed
in the prehistoric world.
NARRATOR: Could the figures
found at Gobekli Tepe
and in other parts of the globe
be a record
carved in stone
of an ancient alien race
that existed
prior to a catastrophic event?
If so, might the sites
where these extraterrestrials
are immortalized
be the places
where human survivors emerged
after the event known
as the Great Flood?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,
and suggest that more recent
discoveries at the site
provide additional proof
of this otherworldly connection.
NARRATOR: Sanliurfa, Turkey.
June 2017.
Author and researcher
Andrew Collins
travels to the Sanliurfa
Archeology and Mosaic Museum,
just ten miles
from Gobekli Tepe,
to meet with curator
Taha Ozyavuz.
Taha, I presume.
Nice to meet you.
NARRATOR: He is there
to get an up-close look
at one of the most mysterious
stone structures
unearthed at the ancient site.
COLLINS: I think this is
what we've come to see here.
Right.
COLLINS:
And the fact that we have
three different figures here,
each of different sizes,
what do you think
that represents?
Why do you think that
it was damaged or destroyed
in this way in antiquity?
COLLINS: So somebody came along
and deliberately destroyed it.
NARRATOR: If the stone column
found at Gobekli Tepe
represents a genetic lineage,
just why were two of the figures
deliberately defaced?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest that perhaps it was
an attempt to obscure the truth
about humankind's
otherworldly origins.
WILCOCK: What's curious
about this totem pole
is that there is
essentially a larger being,
perhaps an extraterrestrial,
that has its hands
around this other being
that isn't exactly human
but has human-like
characteristics.
It could be a primitive human.
This figure appears
to be giving birth,
and the baby that is emerging
from this mother's womb
is clearly a human baby
with a human face.
This suggests possibly that
a breeding experiment took place
leading to the development
of modern humans
as we now know them.
HENRY: The interesting thing
about this is that totem poles
are like a repository
for information.
It's an encyclopedia;
It's like a time capsule.
And so if we have
a genealogical record
in this pillar at Gobekli Tepe,
and we follow
the ultimate extension of it,
and we realize that what
they're possibly telling us
is that their ancestors
were non-human.
CHILDRESS: So you have to wonder
if the whole idea was
to preserve information
from our extraterrestrial past
so that future generations
would ultimately decode
the information that's there,
information possibly about
our extraterrestrial creators.
NARRATOR: Many ancient cultures
have stories of the gods
interacting with early humans
and even breeding with them.
According to The Book of Enoch,
an ancient text
that was stricken
from the Bible's Old Testament
in the 4th century AD,
there was a large-statured group
of heavenly beings
that descended to Earth
in the remote past.
ARIEL BAR TZADOK: There were
those called the "watchers."
They were to watch humanity,
not get involved.
But they violated
that principle.
They came down to Earth.
And they introduced
science and technology.
And they mingled with,
breeded with,
married human females
and sired children.
Their children,
they were known
as the "fallen ones,"
the Nephilim.
They clearly
would have been recognized today
as human beings.
The only difference was that
they might have been considered
physically of greater stature.
Some claim that they were
ten, 15 feet high.
And this was considered
a corruption,
according to divine law.
And it is taught that it is
because of this corruption
that God intervened
to remove them from the Earth,
and that's
what brought the flood.
ERICH VON DANIKEN: In the Bible,
you read that some
of the fallen angels
came down on this planet.
These angels had, simply,
sex with humans,
definitely, because the outcome
of it were giants.
So what kind of angels
are these?
Spiritual beings?
No, it was
the extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Did the builders
of Gobekli Tepe
attempt to preserve
important information
about what happened here
on Earth over 12,000 years ago?
And does this include a record
of the creation of mankind
by extraterrestrial beings?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest an even greater mystery
can be found by examining the
remaining structures at the site
that point us to the stars.
NARRATOR: Gobekli Tepe, 2003.
While using geomagnetic surveys,
archaeologists discover
that the five stone circles
unearthed at the site
only scratch the surface
of what lies buried below.
Not only do the enclosures
appear to have been built
in different layers,
one on top of the other,
but there is evidence
of 16 more identical stone rings
buried at deeper levels
in the mound.
NEWMAN: One of the most
interesting things
about Gobekli Tepe is the fact
that not only did they
construct one of the most
amazing temples on the Earth
at a time when it shouldn't
have been possible to do it,
they then buried each enclosure
after probably just
a few hundred years of use.
COLLINS: 20 different enclosures
were built.
And each one,
seemingly at the end
of its useful life,
was completely covered over
with rubble and soil
before the next enclosure
was built.
They spent as much time
and energy
covering it over in the end
as they did
building it to begin with.
NARRATOR:
In 2014, author Andrew Collins
published his
groundbreaking book.
Gobekli Tepe:
Genesis of the Gods.
In it, he proposes
that the reason
for the multiple reconstructions
of the enclosures
was to precisely track
a specific celestial location.
COLLINS: The first thing
that we looked at
was Enclosure D,
which is the oldest
and the most impressive
of all the structures,
to see where exactly
these twin pillars
may have been facing
11,500 years ago.
One star came up,
and this was Deneb,
the brightest star
in the constellation of Cygnus.
So we then looked
at the twin pillars
in the other enclosures
at Gobekli Tepe.
We find that,
although they're all aligned
roughly either north-northwest
or south-southeast,
that there are
slight differences.
And what they appear to be doing
is following the same star
as it moves very gradually
along the local horizon.
SCHOCH: The stone circles
are lined according to stars
that they were looking at.
But because of precession...
The slow change in the stars
over time in the sky...
They had to realign them
periodically.
NARRATOR: Precession occurs
due to the fact
that the Earth's axis rotates
much like a spinning top,
changing the point
of observation over time
for various celestial bodies
from any fixed point
on the planet.
SCHOCH: With the stone circles
at Gobekli Tepe,
they weren't just building them
and covering them over
for ritualistic purposes,
but actually
they were doing this
for what we might call
scientific purposes.
Clearly, there was
something very important
about the constellation
of Cygnus...
Something that made these people
want to track its course
over a period of
perhaps 1,500 years.
NARRATOR: Legends of gods
descending from the stars
in the Cygnus constellation
can be found
in traditions across the globe.
In the Mandaean teachings
of ancient Persia,
the throne room of the great god
Abathur-Muzania
was said to be
the Cygnus constellation.
In the Egyptian tradition,
the goddess of the night sky,
Nuit, was said to have come
directly from Cygnus.
And in the Mayan tradition,
it was said that
the sun god, Kinich Ahau,
descended from there.
So, from traditions
as different as the Persian,
the Egyptian and the Mayan,
we have major deities
coming from
the Cygnus constellation.
TSOUKALOS:
If I were to be a visitor
from another planet
and I wanted to leave behind
a calling card
indicating where I came from,
then I would build structures
with the precise alignment
of a constellation
of my home star system.
So, perhaps the teachers
who were at Gobekli Tepe
came from Cygnus.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
the builders of Gobekli Tepe
were pointing to the place
where their extraterrestrial
teachers came from
by aligning the site
to that specific location
in the night sky?
In 2015,
NASA officials announced
a curious phenomenon
picked up
by the Kepler space telescope.
It was reported
that a mysterious
dimming and flickering
was coming from a star
in the Cygnus constellation.
And some scientists claim
this might be caused
by an alien megastructure
passing in front of it.
NASA announced that they were
tracking what they called
an "alien megastructure"
around the star of Cygnus.
And the speculation was that,
as they were viewing Cygnus
from time to time,
the star would dim by 22%.
And what they were
surmising was that
some giant structure
around the star
was occasionally blocking
our view of the star itself.
WILCOCK: This is
the most dramatic evidence
of a potential extraterrestrial
civilization
that we have ever seen,
because it's actually an object
orbiting a star that
absolutely should not be there,
according to NASA.
We're actually
seeing architecture
in the Cygnus star system.
It could be what they paid
homage to at Gobekli Tepe,
telling us,
"Look over here, guys.
'X' marks the spot."
NARRATOR:
According to NASA astronomers,
what they are observing
is nearly
1,400 light years away.
This means that,
given the time it takes
for light from Cygnus
to reach Earth,
whatever object is causing
the mysterious dimming
was orbiting the star
at least 1,400 years ago,
and perhaps much earlier.
Could this be further evidence
that Gobekli Tepe
was indeed built
to point to the home planet
of mankind's
extraterrestrial ancestors?
Perhaps further clues
can be found
by examining recent events
unfolding in the region
and efforts
to protect the secrets
that still lie buried
at the site.
NARRATOR: Kobani, Syria.
June, 2015.
The militant extremist group
known as the Islamic State,
or ISIS, violently
takes control of the city.
During their bloody rampage
through the region,
they systematically
destroy historical relics
and detonate bombs
at various archaeological sites.
A mere 60 miles away,
across the border of Turkey,
archaeologists working at
the site of Gobekli Tepe
stand terrified
as they watch the smoke
rise from the battlefield.
In an effort to protect
the 12,000-year-old
stone structures
from the threat of attack,
the Turkish government
stops all excavations
and closes the site
to the public.
They crate the stone monoliths
and relocate
the most valuable artifacts
to a museum nearby.
Over the next 20 years,
the government
will spend $15 million
to secure Gobekli Tepe
by enclosing the area,
covering the site
with a steel-enforced roof,
and installing
an extensive security system.
Considering at least
80% of Gobekli Tepe
remains hidden
beneath the earth,
archaeologists still have
much to learn about the site.
But as it becomes
dangerously close
to suffering the same fate
as other sites in the region,
could its most profound secrets
be lost forever?
Is it possible
that the Gobekli Tepe builders
were actually
sending us a message?
Yes, the stones seem to suggest
that this was the case.
Perhaps they were giving us
some kind of warning,
or it could be
that they are trying
that they knew
about celestial beings,
and perhaps even
extraterrestrials,
from the Cygnus constellation.
Gobekli Tepe goes back to
a earlier cycle of civilization
that existed at the end
of the last ice age.
They experienced
catastrophic changes.
So, I am of the opinion
that there's
a very important message
that maybe they were
purposefully sending to us,
at least they were trying
to preserve for posterity,
for future generations.
And we need to figure out
exactly what that message is.
HENRY: Gobekli Tepe points us
back to our origins,
and points directly to the stars
as the source
of where we came from.
Once we accept this,
we will be able
to answer the questions
of where we came from
and ultimately
where we're going as a species.
NARRATOR: Does proof of
mankind's extraterrestrial past
lie buried beneath
the earth at Gobekli Tepe?
Proof that
an advanced civilization
existed on this planet
more than 10,000 years ago?
Perhaps the answers
will be found
not by examining
ancient stone pillars
covered with strange carvings...
but on a star,
one that shines on us
from many light-years away.
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.
Gobekli Tepe is the smoking gun
of a lost civilization
because it confirms that,
at the time of the last ice age,
there was high culture existing
in the world.
ROBERT SCHOCH: Gobekli Tepe's an
incredibly sophisticated site.
There's a very important message
they were purposefully
sending to us.
DAVID WILCOCK:
We're actually seeing
architecture
in the Cygnus star system,
just like what they paid homage
to at Gobekli Tepe.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
Only five percent
of Gobekli Tepe
has been unearthed so far.
So, what other surprises
will we find there?
COLLINS: We need to know
about our origins.
We need to know our destiny.
And all of it lies under
the surface of Gobekli Tepe.
Who are the real-world Illuminati ?
Find out @ saveanilluminati.com
NARRATOR: Sanliurfa, Turkey.
October 1994.
While plowing his field,
shepherd Savak Yildiz
spots a strangely shaped stone
protruding from the ground.
After brushing away the dirt,
he realizes that it may be
part of a much larger object.
Shortly after contacting
the local museum with his find,
he is visited by Klaus Schmidt
from the German
Archaeological Institute.
It wasn't until German
archaeologist Klaus Schmidt
visited the site
and began digging,
they realized what was
really at this site.
What he discovered
was mind-blowing.
After discovering
the first T-shaped pillar
buried at the site,
he soon found more
of these massive structures.
NARRATOR:
During the intensive dig,
Schmidt and his team
begin to unearth dozens of
additional giant stone monoliths
covered in intricate carvings,
some weighing
as much as 20 tons.
PAUL BAHN:
The site of Gobekli Tepe
is a series
of circular enclosures.
But then, in the center
of each enclosure,
you have two particularly big
T-shaped pillars of limestone
sort of facing each other.
Now, many of these pillars have
remarkable carvings on them,
wonderful carvings
and bas-reliefs of animals,
birds, insects,
all kinds of things.
So, to fashion those
and carve them and set them up
in these structures
was just absolutely amazing.
NARRATOR:
Archaeologists estimate
that it would have taken
a team of 50 men
an entire week to move just one
of the monolithic pillars
from the limestone quarry
to the top of the hill
where they stand today
and over 300 hours
to carve the bas-reliefs.
At this rate, each of the five
stone circles unearthed so far
would have required a full year
to be completed.
But why such a monumental site
was built in the first place
remains a mystery.
It's very difficult to know
what the purpose of something
like Gobekli Tepe could be.
And certainly Klaus Schmidt
had not reached any conclusions,
except that it's clearly not
a settlement.
It's not a village. There is
absolutely no domestic refuse.
Schmidt always hoped
that it was funerary
and that there would be burials
underneath the walls
or underneath some of
the pillars or so on.
But so far,
they have not yet found
any human remains at the site.
There are no domestic plants
in the site.
There are only
wild animal bones.
Inevitably, in archeology,
if we don't know
what something is for,
we think a ritual.
But, really,
it's pure speculation.
NARRATOR: Intrigued by evidence
that the structure might go back
to a Neolithic period,
Klaus Schmidt has
the sediment layers of the site
radiocarbon-dated.
The results indicated
that the stone structures could
be as much as 12,000 years old,
more than 5,000 years older
than mankind's first known
civilization in Mesopotamia.
More than that,
it would place the construction
of Gobekli Tepe
to a time
when mainstream scholars suggest
humans were roaming the Earth
as hunter-gatherers.
BAHN:
Well, the site of Gobekli Tepe
really did send shockwaves
through the whole world
of early prehistory,
because we'd never before known
or imagined even
that simple hunter-gatherers
could produce such spectacular
monumental structures.
Now, in archeology,
really since it began,
we've always assumed that
hunter-gatherers were capable
of producing wonderful
works of art...
Rock art, cave art,
and things like that.
But we never imagined
that they could come together
in sufficient numbers,
uh, to make, uh,
monumental constructions
like Gobekli Tepe.
NARRATOR: But if
the currently accepted timeline
for mankind's advancement
is correct,
is it possible that
primitive hunter-gatherers
could have built
such sophisticated
megalithic structures?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say no,
and instead suggest
that Gobekli Tepe was built by
the survivors of a lost society,
one that was
almost entirely wiped out
by a worldwide cataclysm.
And to support their claim,
they point to recent evidence
of a catastrophic event
which many mainstream scientists
believe occurred
at the very end
of the last ice age,
which is believed to have lasted
from roughly 108,000 BC
until nearly 10,000 BC.
COLLINS: Gobekli Tepe
could be the smoking gun
of a lost civilization,
because it confirms that,
at the time of the last ice age,
there was high culture
existing in the world.
This is something that had been
speculated for many years,
but there had not been
the absolute evidence.
Now we could have it.
These engineering skills,
this ordering of society
is something
that must have existed
before the end
of the last ice age.
And arguably even earlier.
DAVID CHILDRESS:
When you look at the time frame
of Gobekli Tepe, it was built
right after
these huge catastrophes
at the end of the last ice age.
And it would seem
that the builders were people
who had survived and had
the knowledge and technology
to build something like this.
NARRATOR: According to
ancient astronaut theorists,
proof of
a lost civilization exists
some 300 miles away
from Gobekli Tepe,
in the form of
a vast underground city
known as Derinkuyu.
It extends
some 13 stories underground
and had the capacity
to support 20,000 people.
Although the site has yet
to be scientifically dated,
some researchers have suggested
that it may have served
as a prehistoric refuge.
Derinkuyu is a multi-leveled city
that has existed, uh,
since time immemorial.
It was certainly used, uh,
during Christian times.
But there's also evidence that
there's prehistoric activity
going on at these places.
Archaeologists found evidence
of Stone Age tools
going back
to the Paleolithic era.
This is at the time
of the last ice age.
And so it's possible
that our ancestors escaped
the cataclysm and the ice age
deep down inside them.
NARRATOR: But if Derinkuyu
really did serve as refuge
from a catastrophic event,
how might it offer a connection
to Gobekli Tepe?
Perhaps further clues
can be found
by exploring
more recently discovered caves
and the stories suggesting that
they were built upon the orders
of otherworldly beings.
NARRATOR:
Central Anatolia, Turkey.
300 miles from the ancient site
of Gobekli Tepe.
December 28, 2014.
A local crew excavating
for an urban renovation project
stumbles across a strange series
of carved rooms and tunnels
deep underground.
Upon further exploration,
they find the subterranean
network spans several miles
and extends hundreds of feet
below the surface of the Earth,
much like the nearby caves
of Derinkuyu.
COLLINS: What they discovered
was that these caves extended
for a distance of 370 feet
down into the rock.
NARRATOR:
Archaeologists estimate
that more than five million
square feet of rock,
the volume of over 370
Olympic-size swimming pools,
was removed to carve out
this subterranean city.
Yet there is no evidence of the
extracted material in the area.
This mysterious cave system
is still under excavation
and closed to the public.
But in June 2017,
author and researcher
Andrew Collins
was granted access to the site.
The sheer size of some of these
rooms is absolutely amazing.
I mean, this one that we're in
now is 120 feet in length.
And yet it's just one of
hundreds of similar rooms
that we find inside
this great hill.
These tunnels that you see
seem to go on and on.
And yet what's incredible
is that not only were
they full of people,
but there was also livestock
down here.
And we are told that
as many as 20,000 people,
perhaps even as much as 60,000,
could've lived here
at any one time.
NARRATOR:
Not only is there evidence
that these caves once housed
thousands of people,
but archaeologists have found
air vents and water wells
that would have made it possible
to live underground
for years at a time.
These were cut deeply
into the rock,
sometimes for hundreds
of yards in depth.
And at the base of them
were wells
that provided water to these
underground populations.
This is what is known
as a self-sealing door.
And they're in fact
huge great stone wheels
made of a volcanic rock
known as basalt.
And their function was
that they would be wheeled
into position
so that they would lock,
so that nobody was able to get
inside the underground cities.
NARRATOR:
When it was discovered,
historians recovered artifacts
that suggest
the cave system was used
by the early Christians
to escape persecution.
So they dated the site to be
approximately 1,500 years old.
But based on new evidence,
the caves might be much older.
COLLINS: A few years ago,
I interviewed an archaeologist
by the name of Omer Demir.
And he found within it
Paleolithic tools,
tools that went back
at least 10,000 to 12,000 years,
and arguably even earlier still.
NARRATOR:
If these caves can be dated
to at least 12,000 years ago...
Around the same time
archaeologists believe
the nearby site of Gobekli Tepe
was constructed...
Just who built them?
And what drove the builders
underground?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest clues can be found
not embedded in stone,
but in the pages of
ancient Persian religious texts.
Zoroastrianism
is one of the world's
oldest monotheistic religions,
founded by the prophet Zoroaster
in ancient Iran
approximately 3,500 years ago.
The central figure
of the religion
was a powerful god
named Ahura Mazda,
who is often depicted
seated inside a winged disk.
According to the story,
recorded in a text
known as the Vendidad,
he sent a powerful warning
to a young priest named Yima
about a coming cataclysm.
Ahura Mazda told
the great early king Yima
that there would be
a terrible disaster.
A giant serpent would descend
from the heavens to the Earth.
Well, that sounds like a comet
or a large meteorite
falling to Earth.
Then a winter would come
such as has never been known.
NARRATOR: Prior to the event,
Yima is given
very specific instructions
to build an underground shelter
in order to survive
the coming "giant freeze."
Ahura Mazda instructs Yima
to build a Vara.
This is a huge structure,
two miles long, two miles wide,
an underground hall of sorts
where things can be protected
from the terrible winter.
Yima was to hide
a remnant of the people,
and an extensive seed bank,
also a pair of each
of the animal species.
Once Yima is finished
building the Vara,
he takes 2,000 people in,
a representation of mankind.
They are there for 150 years,
but when the winter is over
and they come out,
it is a barren world.
They will have to rebuild
civilization from scratch.
CHILDRESS: The Vara is
supposed to be a huge enclosure
that not only houses
a large number of people,
but also animals and seeds.
It's a storehouse
just like Noah's Ark.
So you've got this same story,
and it would seem
that this is a very real thing
that ancient people
knew about and wrote about.
NARRATOR: Could it be
that the story of Noah's Ark
and the Vara of Zoroastrianism
are one in the same?
And the reference to an ark
was later misunderstood
to be a large ship?
But if these accounts
are in fact true,
how is it that mankind
had enough advance warning
to build such sophisticated
places of refuge?
The ancient texts are very clear
that the gods,
they always warned people
that this catastrophe would
happen so that they would save
a select group
of that population.
So how was that possible?
Either they had access to
sophisticated technologies
with which to predict
the weather,
or what's the other option?
And if you combine that with the
fact that Ahura Mazda was known
to have descended from the sky
in a vehicle with fixed wings...
It looks like some type
of flying device...
That would suggest
that he was in fact
an extraterrestrial.
NARRATOR: According to
ancient astronaut theorists,
the Vara described
in the ancient Zoroastrian texts
is strikingly similar
to the recently discovered
subterranean town
in Central Anatolia.
HENRY:
The underground caves in Turkey
sound exactly like the Vara
that was made by Yima
in Zoroastrian mythology.
Is it possible
that this cave system
supplies the evidence
that tells us
that the Zoroastrian mythology
is in fact a real, true story?
NARRATOR:
If these caves provide evidence
that the account recorded
in the ancient Zoroastrian texts
is factual,
did the inhabitants
of the Vara emerge
to find a barren wasteland
where they were
to rebuild civilization?
Might they be responsible
for the construction
of Gobekli Tepe,
located only 300 miles away?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,
and suggest
that this very connection
could help explain some of the
mysterious figures immortalized
in the stone carvings.
NARRATOR: Gobekli Tepe, 2017.
To date,
69 massive stone pillars
have been unearthed
at the ancient site,
after more than two decades
of excavation.
More than one-third
of the statues
contain elaborate carvings
of animals,
including various mammals,
reptiles, insects and birds.
But also included
are depictions of species
not indigenous to the area,
like geese, armadillos
and wild boar.
There are such an incredible
range of animals and birds
and insects depicted
at Gobekli Tepe,
the like of which
we have never seen
at that period or anywhere else
in the world.
And to have a whole bunch of
them together is interesting.
You can speculate
till the cows come home
as to what it might represent.
We have not the faintest idea.
HENRY:
In the story of Noah's Ark,
we're told that
after the deluge,
Noah's Ark lands at Mount Ararat
in eastern Turkey,
not far from Gobekli Tepe,
and we see some very strange
animals portrayed
on the pillars at Gobekli Tepe,
almost as if it's a record
of Noah's Ark itself.
Perhaps Gobekli Tepe
is the place where Noah
and his descendants disembarked
and recreated civilization
after the flood.
NARRATOR: If there really is a
connection between Gobekli Tepe
and the biblical story
of a Great Flood,
could the carvings
found at the site
be an inventory of the animals
that were rescued?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes, but also suggest
other carvings depict a species
not of this Earth.
At the center of each of the
five megalithic ring structures
that occupy
the archaeological site,
stand two oversized
monolithic pillars.
Weighing up to 20 tons
and reaching heights
of over two stories,
they visually stand apart
from the T-shaped stonework
that surrounds them.
These pillars are
anthropomorphic;
They are human-like
in appearance.
They have low relief arms
that come round to the front
and end in these
long, spindly fingers.
They wear garments.
They have belts
with strange symbols.
There are no faces
on these stones.
The heads are represented
by T-shaped terminations
that look almost like
hammerheads, basically.
BAHN: They could be gods,
they could be ancestors,
or they could be very specific
people who are being venerated.
We really have no idea.
HENRY: The archaeologist
Schmidt himself
referred to them
as the "celestial ones,"
or the "celestial ancestors."
And we have to ask
if these are depictions
of the extraterrestrial gods
at Gobekli Tepe.
NARRATOR: As mysterious
as these statues are,
strikingly similar depictions
can be found
in other parts of the globe.
An interesting feature about
some of these T-shaped pillars
is the fact
that these arms culminate
in the front
around the navel area.
And what I find so cool
is that this type of motif
can be found elsewhere
around the world.
For example, in Easter Island,
with those giant statues,
the Moai.
There, too,
the arms go around the belly,
and they culminate
in front of the navel.
And then, at Tiahuanaco,
Bolivia, for example,
there is a statue that has
the exact same hand position
in front of the navel.
ED BARNHART:
At the city of Tiahuanaco,
in its central complex
called the Kalasasaya,
is a massive monolithic statue.
The statue is said by the Inca
to be a giant.
In the previous creation
before men,
giants roamed the Earth.
And they inhabited
the city of Tiahuanaco.
And this is actually
very similar to the mythology
of Easter Island and the stories
we hear about the Moai.
We get very similar type
of carved pillars
as Gobekli Tepe
in other parts of the world.
There is a very strong
similarity in style
which tells us
that there is almost certainly
some kind of relationship,
that Gobekli Tepe
is not in isolation,
it's part of some kind
of global culture,
the remnants
of a lost civilization
that once existed
in the prehistoric world.
NARRATOR: Could the figures
found at Gobekli Tepe
and in other parts of the globe
be a record
carved in stone
of an ancient alien race
that existed
prior to a catastrophic event?
If so, might the sites
where these extraterrestrials
are immortalized
be the places
where human survivors emerged
after the event known
as the Great Flood?
Ancient astronaut theorists
say yes,
and suggest that more recent
discoveries at the site
provide additional proof
of this otherworldly connection.
NARRATOR: Sanliurfa, Turkey.
June 2017.
Author and researcher
Andrew Collins
travels to the Sanliurfa
Archeology and Mosaic Museum,
just ten miles
from Gobekli Tepe,
to meet with curator
Taha Ozyavuz.
Taha, I presume.
Nice to meet you.
NARRATOR: He is there
to get an up-close look
at one of the most mysterious
stone structures
unearthed at the ancient site.
COLLINS: I think this is
what we've come to see here.
Right.
COLLINS:
And the fact that we have
three different figures here,
each of different sizes,
what do you think
that represents?
Why do you think that
it was damaged or destroyed
in this way in antiquity?
COLLINS: So somebody came along
and deliberately destroyed it.
NARRATOR: If the stone column
found at Gobekli Tepe
represents a genetic lineage,
just why were two of the figures
deliberately defaced?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest that perhaps it was
an attempt to obscure the truth
about humankind's
otherworldly origins.
WILCOCK: What's curious
about this totem pole
is that there is
essentially a larger being,
perhaps an extraterrestrial,
that has its hands
around this other being
that isn't exactly human
but has human-like
characteristics.
It could be a primitive human.
This figure appears
to be giving birth,
and the baby that is emerging
from this mother's womb
is clearly a human baby
with a human face.
This suggests possibly that
a breeding experiment took place
leading to the development
of modern humans
as we now know them.
HENRY: The interesting thing
about this is that totem poles
are like a repository
for information.
It's an encyclopedia;
It's like a time capsule.
And so if we have
a genealogical record
in this pillar at Gobekli Tepe,
and we follow
the ultimate extension of it,
and we realize that what
they're possibly telling us
is that their ancestors
were non-human.
CHILDRESS: So you have to wonder
if the whole idea was
to preserve information
from our extraterrestrial past
so that future generations
would ultimately decode
the information that's there,
information possibly about
our extraterrestrial creators.
NARRATOR: Many ancient cultures
have stories of the gods
interacting with early humans
and even breeding with them.
According to The Book of Enoch,
an ancient text
that was stricken
from the Bible's Old Testament
in the 4th century AD,
there was a large-statured group
of heavenly beings
that descended to Earth
in the remote past.
ARIEL BAR TZADOK: There were
those called the "watchers."
They were to watch humanity,
not get involved.
But they violated
that principle.
They came down to Earth.
And they introduced
science and technology.
And they mingled with,
breeded with,
married human females
and sired children.
Their children,
they were known
as the "fallen ones,"
the Nephilim.
They clearly
would have been recognized today
as human beings.
The only difference was that
they might have been considered
physically of greater stature.
Some claim that they were
ten, 15 feet high.
And this was considered
a corruption,
according to divine law.
And it is taught that it is
because of this corruption
that God intervened
to remove them from the Earth,
and that's
what brought the flood.
ERICH VON DANIKEN: In the Bible,
you read that some
of the fallen angels
came down on this planet.
These angels had, simply,
sex with humans,
definitely, because the outcome
of it were giants.
So what kind of angels
are these?
Spiritual beings?
No, it was
the extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: Did the builders
of Gobekli Tepe
attempt to preserve
important information
about what happened here
on Earth over 12,000 years ago?
And does this include a record
of the creation of mankind
by extraterrestrial beings?
Ancient astronaut theorists
suggest an even greater mystery
can be found by examining the
remaining structures at the site
that point us to the stars.
NARRATOR: Gobekli Tepe, 2003.
While using geomagnetic surveys,
archaeologists discover
that the five stone circles
unearthed at the site
only scratch the surface
of what lies buried below.
Not only do the enclosures
appear to have been built
in different layers,
one on top of the other,
but there is evidence
of 16 more identical stone rings
buried at deeper levels
in the mound.
NEWMAN: One of the most
interesting things
about Gobekli Tepe is the fact
that not only did they
construct one of the most
amazing temples on the Earth
at a time when it shouldn't
have been possible to do it,
they then buried each enclosure
after probably just
a few hundred years of use.
COLLINS: 20 different enclosures
were built.
And each one,
seemingly at the end
of its useful life,
was completely covered over
with rubble and soil
before the next enclosure
was built.
They spent as much time
and energy
covering it over in the end
as they did
building it to begin with.
NARRATOR:
In 2014, author Andrew Collins
published his
groundbreaking book.
Gobekli Tepe:
Genesis of the Gods.
In it, he proposes
that the reason
for the multiple reconstructions
of the enclosures
was to precisely track
a specific celestial location.
COLLINS: The first thing
that we looked at
was Enclosure D,
which is the oldest
and the most impressive
of all the structures,
to see where exactly
these twin pillars
may have been facing
11,500 years ago.
One star came up,
and this was Deneb,
the brightest star
in the constellation of Cygnus.
So we then looked
at the twin pillars
in the other enclosures
at Gobekli Tepe.
We find that,
although they're all aligned
roughly either north-northwest
or south-southeast,
that there are
slight differences.
And what they appear to be doing
is following the same star
as it moves very gradually
along the local horizon.
SCHOCH: The stone circles
are lined according to stars
that they were looking at.
But because of precession...
The slow change in the stars
over time in the sky...
They had to realign them
periodically.
NARRATOR: Precession occurs
due to the fact
that the Earth's axis rotates
much like a spinning top,
changing the point
of observation over time
for various celestial bodies
from any fixed point
on the planet.
SCHOCH: With the stone circles
at Gobekli Tepe,
they weren't just building them
and covering them over
for ritualistic purposes,
but actually
they were doing this
for what we might call
scientific purposes.
Clearly, there was
something very important
about the constellation
of Cygnus...
Something that made these people
want to track its course
over a period of
perhaps 1,500 years.
NARRATOR: Legends of gods
descending from the stars
in the Cygnus constellation
can be found
in traditions across the globe.
In the Mandaean teachings
of ancient Persia,
the throne room of the great god
Abathur-Muzania
was said to be
the Cygnus constellation.
In the Egyptian tradition,
the goddess of the night sky,
Nuit, was said to have come
directly from Cygnus.
And in the Mayan tradition,
it was said that
the sun god, Kinich Ahau,
descended from there.
So, from traditions
as different as the Persian,
the Egyptian and the Mayan,
we have major deities
coming from
the Cygnus constellation.
TSOUKALOS:
If I were to be a visitor
from another planet
and I wanted to leave behind
a calling card
indicating where I came from,
then I would build structures
with the precise alignment
of a constellation
of my home star system.
So, perhaps the teachers
who were at Gobekli Tepe
came from Cygnus.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
the builders of Gobekli Tepe
were pointing to the place
where their extraterrestrial
teachers came from
by aligning the site
to that specific location
in the night sky?
In 2015,
NASA officials announced
a curious phenomenon
picked up
by the Kepler space telescope.
It was reported
that a mysterious
dimming and flickering
was coming from a star
in the Cygnus constellation.
And some scientists claim
this might be caused
by an alien megastructure
passing in front of it.
NASA announced that they were
tracking what they called
an "alien megastructure"
around the star of Cygnus.
And the speculation was that,
as they were viewing Cygnus
from time to time,
the star would dim by 22%.
And what they were
surmising was that
some giant structure
around the star
was occasionally blocking
our view of the star itself.
WILCOCK: This is
the most dramatic evidence
of a potential extraterrestrial
civilization
that we have ever seen,
because it's actually an object
orbiting a star that
absolutely should not be there,
according to NASA.
We're actually
seeing architecture
in the Cygnus star system.
It could be what they paid
homage to at Gobekli Tepe,
telling us,
"Look over here, guys.
'X' marks the spot."
NARRATOR:
According to NASA astronomers,
what they are observing
is nearly
1,400 light years away.
This means that,
given the time it takes
for light from Cygnus
to reach Earth,
whatever object is causing
the mysterious dimming
was orbiting the star
at least 1,400 years ago,
and perhaps much earlier.
Could this be further evidence
that Gobekli Tepe
was indeed built
to point to the home planet
of mankind's
extraterrestrial ancestors?
Perhaps further clues
can be found
by examining recent events
unfolding in the region
and efforts
to protect the secrets
that still lie buried
at the site.
NARRATOR: Kobani, Syria.
June, 2015.
The militant extremist group
known as the Islamic State,
or ISIS, violently
takes control of the city.
During their bloody rampage
through the region,
they systematically
destroy historical relics
and detonate bombs
at various archaeological sites.
A mere 60 miles away,
across the border of Turkey,
archaeologists working at
the site of Gobekli Tepe
stand terrified
as they watch the smoke
rise from the battlefield.
In an effort to protect
the 12,000-year-old
stone structures
from the threat of attack,
the Turkish government
stops all excavations
and closes the site
to the public.
They crate the stone monoliths
and relocate
the most valuable artifacts
to a museum nearby.
Over the next 20 years,
the government
will spend $15 million
to secure Gobekli Tepe
by enclosing the area,
covering the site
with a steel-enforced roof,
and installing
an extensive security system.
Considering at least
80% of Gobekli Tepe
remains hidden
beneath the earth,
archaeologists still have
much to learn about the site.
But as it becomes
dangerously close
to suffering the same fate
as other sites in the region,
could its most profound secrets
be lost forever?
Is it possible
that the Gobekli Tepe builders
were actually
sending us a message?
Yes, the stones seem to suggest
that this was the case.
Perhaps they were giving us
some kind of warning,
or it could be
that they are trying
that they knew
about celestial beings,
and perhaps even
extraterrestrials,
from the Cygnus constellation.
Gobekli Tepe goes back to
a earlier cycle of civilization
that existed at the end
of the last ice age.
They experienced
catastrophic changes.
So, I am of the opinion
that there's
a very important message
that maybe they were
purposefully sending to us,
at least they were trying
to preserve for posterity,
for future generations.
And we need to figure out
exactly what that message is.
HENRY: Gobekli Tepe points us
back to our origins,
and points directly to the stars
as the source
of where we came from.
Once we accept this,
we will be able
to answer the questions
of where we came from
and ultimately
where we're going as a species.
NARRATOR: Does proof of
mankind's extraterrestrial past
lie buried beneath
the earth at Gobekli Tepe?
Proof that
an advanced civilization
existed on this planet
more than 10,000 years ago?
Perhaps the answers
will be found
not by examining
ancient stone pillars
covered with strange carvings...
but on a star,
one that shines on us
from many light-years away.
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.