Ancient Aliens (2009–…): Season 4, Episode 2 - The Doomsday Prophecies - full transcript
The Maya created the most sophisticated calendar systems in the ancient world, and according to many scholars their Long Count Calendar will come to an end on December 21, 2012. What does this mean for mankind?
Ancient calendars forecasting
a deadly countdown.
ED BARNHART: The Maya have
this opinion that what's
happened in the past
will happen again.
NARRATOR: A galactic alignment,
triggering a wave of natural disasters.
MICHAEL DENNIN: It's like
having a whole bunch of massive
earthquakes at the same time.
NARRATOR: Could our planet
really be headed for extinction?
LOGAN HAWKES: These changes
could be life-changing or they
could be life-ending.
NARRATOR: Or is there another
agenda, one even more profound?
PHILIP COPPENS: Each age for the
Mayans was clearly defined.
And it was defined by
the gods returning.
NARRATOR: Millions of people
around the world believe we have
been visited in the past by
extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true?
Did ancient aliens really
help to shape our history?
And if so, might evidence of
alien contact help to unlock the
mystery behind the Mayan
prophecies of doom?
Who are the real-world Illuminati ?
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NARRATOR: Mexico, the
Yucatan Peninsula.
For over 2,000 years,
rain-drenched jungles and
fertile plains served as the
home of one of the ancient
world's greatest civilizations.
The Maya.
Scholars estimate that between
250 and 900 A.D., the Mayan
population consisted of between
15 to 20 million people,
and extended as far south as
Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Archeological evidence suggests
the Maya were one of the first
ancient people to develop a
written language, use modern
mathematical methods, and build
massive, multi-story celestial
observatories.
All at a time when Europeans
were struggling through the
so-called Dark Ages.
SEAN-DAVID MORTON: The Maya
are considered one of the great
advanced civilizations with
hyper-advanced astronomy,
astronomy, trigonometry,
architecture, all of these
things while the Europeans were at
the time rolling around in the mud.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most
amazing Mayan achievement
was their system of charting the
stars and planets in the form of
a calendar.
HAWKES: The Mayans were timekeepers
above and beyond all other things.
Keeping up with time was magic,
it was power to the Mayans.
MARK VAN STONE: They were
tracking, in particular, Venus,
the phases of the moon,
eclipses, but they also tracked
precession, which is an
extraordinarily long cycle.
What it means is that every year
on, say, March 15, the Pleiades
rise for the first time in the sky.
If you wait 72 years, the day of
the rising of the Pleiades will
be one day earlier.
If you wait another 72 years,
it'll be a day earlier still.
And if you wait 26,000 years,
the Pleiades will move back to
that same day.
NARRATOR: According to scholars,
the Maya believed that
time, like the stars, moved
in repeating patterns called
calendar cycles and that these cycles
could be used to predict future events.
One of these calendar cycles,
the Mayan Long Count, lasts for
5,125 years and will end
on December 21, 2012.
But why?
Why did the Maya choose this date?
And what did they believe
would happen to our world?
Perhaps a clue can be found
in an astronomical phenomenon
located at the center of the
Milky Way Galaxy, an area where
there are no stars.
MORTON: The Mayans knew.
Not only did they know where the
center of the galaxy was, but
they understood that it was a
light-year-across black hole
that they called the Great Rift.
HAWKES: The Maya believed this
was the birth canal of the
universe, and that all things came
from the birth canal of the universe.
And on December 21, 2012, the
Earth, the sun, and this birth
canal, the Dark Rift, are
all in perfect alignment.
And this only happens
every 26,000 years.
NARRATOR: Could the fact that
the Maya Long Count calendar
ends on the same day as this
rare alignment in the Milky Way
Galaxy be a mere coincidence?
And did this advanced
understanding of celestial
cycles really come from ancient
Mayan astronomers observing the
stars with only their naked eyes?
HAWKES: The Mayans believed that
this knowledge came to them
from their gods, and their gods
then existed in the stars.
So, is it possible that these gods
could have been extraterrestrials?
The answer to that question
is yes, it's possible.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
According to the Maya
themselves, this knowledge was
not something that they came up
with, but it was given to them
as a gift from the gods.
The gift back then was
not material stuff.
It was knowledge.
Knowledge is the currency
of the universe.
NARRATOR: But even if the
information pertaining to the
Long Count calendar comes
from an otherworldly or
extraterrestrial source,
why 2012?
What is it about this date that
has a special significance?
Researchers believe a clue may
recently have been found among
the ruins of the ancient
Mayan city of Tortuguero.
One that was pieced together
from broken fragments of a panel
of hieroglyphs known as
Monument Number Six.
BARNHART: In my opinion,
the one and only clear
reference to the date in the
Long Count that arrives in 2012
is on Tortuguero Monument Six.
COPPENS: Basically, the
inscription in Tortuguero
was half destroyed, and
everybody assumed that what it
was saying was that the nine
gods would return on December
21, 2012, but because there
was some destruction on that
inscription, certain
things were implied.
NARRATOR: For years, scholars
dismissed the evidence
found at the Tortuguero monument
as a solitary anomaly without
any special significance.
But on November 24, 2011, the
Mexican National Institute of
Archeology and History revealed to the
world the existence of a
second artifact.
A sun-dried mud brick that was
discovered at the ancient Mayan
city of Comalcalco with an
inscription many believe refers
to an exact date, December 21, 2012.
BARNHART: It's one of
thousands of mud bricks that
we've found at Comalcalco.
A very few of them have
hieroglyphs on them.
One of them has a date inscribed
on it, which is very rare, and
it says Four Ahau, Three Konkin,
which is the calendar round date
that's gonna occur in 2012.
COPPENS: Well, the Comalcalco
brick is important because it is
verification of an
inscription in Tortuguero.
The brick has shown that the
people who thought that it meant
the nine gods were going
to return were right.
NARRATOR: An
extraterrestrial visitation?
One which signals the
end of the world?
For most archeologists and
researchers, the concept is not
just a little far-fetched,
they consider it to be more a
curiosity than a prophecy.
But one feature of the brick
hieroglyph is not so easy to dismiss.
The inscriptions on the brick
were apparently carved on the
inner-facing side,
hidden from view.
HAWKES: Why would they write a
date on a brick and then turn
it around so no one could see
it and put it into the wall?
We can only speculate as to why,
but we believe it's because the
ruling king or the priest
or whoever commissioned the
building site at Comalcalco didn't
want that to be public knowledge.
NARRATOR: Why would the Maya
conspire to keep this date secret?
Was it to avoid global panic?
DAVID CHILDRESS: If there is some
kind of... (loud boom)
doomsday at the end of the
Mayan calendar, it could be a
combination of...
of pole shifts... (rumbling)
of volcanoes and earthquakes...
and super tidal waves
all over the Earth.
It would be a catastrophic
event for the planet.
NARRATOR: Is it really
possible, as ancient astronaut
theorists believe, that the
Maya actually received detailed
astronomical knowledge from
ancient alien visitors?
And could this help explain why
their calendar, which accurately
predicts an extraordinary
galactic alignment, apparently
ends on December 21, 2012?
Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining the doomsday
prophecies of other
ancient cultures.
For if the Maya were attempting
to warn us of a future
cataclysm, could there be other
evidence that they were not alone?
NARRATOR: December 21, 2012.
According to some researchers
and scholars, this is the day
when the Mayan calendar suggests
the world will come to an end.
(loud boom)
But there is another equally
curious aspect to the Mayan
calendar...not when it ends,
but when it begins:
More than 3,000 years before the
Mayan civilization even existed.
BARNHART: The origin of the
Long Count Calendar... why they
created day one to be August 13,
3114 BC, is still a mystery.
It's obviously back-dated.
There were no Maya back then, so
why did they backward project
3,000 years into the past?
Based on the things we have
learned about the Maya, it
should be something astronomical.
HUGH NEWMAN: One of the ideas
about why they back-dated it to
3114 BC is because some kind
of cataclysm happened then.
Recent research has discovered
an asteroid or multiple
asteroids did hit an area
around Austria in Europe.
(loud booming)
And that could have caused a
blackout of the sky for several
years, and this is, then,
when the calendar began.
MORTON: Scientists at Harvard
and Princeton have said that
this massive global worldwide catastrophe...
a mass glaciation
of the planet, occurred when this
age of the Mayan calendar begins.
This happened not within tens of
thousands of years or hundreds
of years, but within weeks,
within days, literally.
This took everyone by surprise.
CHILDRESS: According to the
Mayans, we are coming to the end
of the fifth age.
There have been four
catastrophes before us.
Each one ended up with a
destruction of the Earth.
And now we are just coming to
the end of the fifth age of the
Mayans, which will end
now in December of 2012.
According to the Mayan
predictions, this will also end
in a giant catastrophe.
(loud booming)
BARNHART: The Western view
of time is very linear.
When we think about... life...
we see it as this linear projection
heading out into the future.
For the Maya, they viewed
life very cyclically.
NARRATOR: Is it possible the
Mayan calendar ends on December
21, 2012 because they expected
that the fifth age of man will
end much in the same
way as it began?
Were they privy to some ancient
knowledge that has been lost in time?
And if so, can proof be found
by examining similar doomsday
predictions from other
ancient cultures?
MORTON: Egyptian time-coding in
the Great Pyramid of Giza is
telling us that there will
be a series of water-based
catastrophes between late 2004
through about 2006, and look
what happened.
We have the Asian tsunami, which
kills about 250,000 people.
We have Hurricane Katrina.
(thunder crashes)
And then there's actually this
trough called the "River of
Fire" which is warning us of
some massive cosmic event, maybe
a solar flare or what have you, that
then washes humanity back
into this pit.
NARRATOR: In addition to the
eerie similarity between the
Mayan and Egyptian prophecies,
researchers have also noticed
a connection in the doomsday
predictions of the Hopi Indians
of the American Southwest.
YOUNG: The Hopi people of the
Native American nations believe
that we are in the fifth age of
man and that this is an age of
purification and that it
is near the end time.
MORTON: The Hopi believe that
unless all the people of the
Earth can come down and live
more in harmony with themselves
and with the planet, that
there's going to be a great
destruction coming.
(rumbling)
NARRATOR: In India, the
ancient Buddhist and Hindu
astronomical manuscript, Surya...
Siddhanta, predicts that
mankind will soon reach the end of
the Kali Yuga, the final age of man.
YOUNG: The male divinity, Kali,
that is referred to in the
End of Days of the Mahabharata,
refers to a time of great chaos
and discord, and, depending on
how you read the dating in the
script, we are well into it.
NARRATOR: Even the Christian
Bible predicts, in great detail,
a horrific, fiery apocalypse.
YOUNG: The Christian writers
on the end of time focus on
certain things: that the Jewish
people return to the Holy Land
and reclaim it, which happened
some years ago; that the nation
thereby established would
finally claim Jerusalem, which
has happened some years ago;
That there would be a great
expansion of the territory until
it was a very large nation.
Finally, it is the claiming of
the temple, which is on Temple
Mount, which is holy in Islam.
But it must be taken and restored
to its original condition.
It is that place that the
Messiah will actually come to
rule the Earth before the End of Days.
COPPENS: The idea that we are
living in end times, not
necessarily the end of the world
but the end of a world,
is quite global.
NARRATOR: While most ancient
doomsday prophecies only broadly
suggest the timing of the
so-called End of Days...
the Maya prediction boldly
points to an exact date.
Their Long Count Calendar comes
to a decisive end on Friday,
December 21, 2012, a date that
many scientists and astronomers
agree will coincide with an
extremely rare alignment of
celestial bodies in
the Milky Way Galaxy.
But how could the Mayan
calendar be so accurate?
BARNHART: It is a true thing to
say about the Maya that they
created the most elaborate calendar
system of any culture in the world.
They had a solar calendar, but
before that, they had the
sacred calendar.
When you look at the ratio
between those two, you get
365.2422 days for an actual year.
The atomic clock says that it's
365.2420, but they admit that
at the fourth decimal point,
they could be plus or minus
five wrong.
So we're not sure
who's more accurate.
Is it the Maya, or is
it the atomic clock?
NEWMAN: The sophisticated way
the Maya track time is...
is incredible, even
by today's standards.
It's almost like they had
sophisticated computer technologies
or programs that could
somehow run it.
And even today, we're just
catching up and trying to
understand how they managed to
do such an amazing job way back
in prehistory.
NARRATOR: The third Maya
calendar, known as the Long
Count, measured time in cycles
of 394 years or 144,000 days.
GERARDO ALDANA: The Long
Count is really just like an
odometer in your car.
It just ticks off days.
It counts one, two, three, all
the way up to 144,000, which we
call bak'tuns.
NARRATOR: The Maya Long Count
calendar also measured time in a
series of 13 bak'tun cycles,
totaling 5,125 years.
According to scholars, the dates
stretch from August 11, 3114 BC
to December 21, 2012.
And there, inexplicably, it stops.
Why were the Maya tracking
celestial events in cycles of
over thousands of years?
Was it simply, as some scholars
suggest, because they could?
Or did they, as ancient
astronaut theorists believe,
create the calendar as a way of
marking time until the return of
otherworldly visitors,
beings that were believed
by them to be gods?
COPPENS: Some calendar systems
from the Mayans, today,
science has no idea about what
they are based on, but we just
know that they exist
for a specific reason.
So it is clear that they were
given to them by an intelligence
who knew what these calendar
rounds represented.
And so, what we are seeing is
that the Mayans are working with
tools, technology, calendar
systems, which were specifically
engineered because they had
been told that when certain
things in the skies looked a
certain way, then the gods
would return.
GEORGE NOORY: The Mayans were
incredible at what they did.
The big question is: how
did they know this?
You have to say to yourself,
perhaps civilizations might be
much older than we think and
they passed down knowledge
for hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of years, or somebody
came down and taught them.
NARRATOR: Did the Maya create
the Long Count Calendar to warn
us of a deadly cataclysm?
Or were they simply intending to
inform us of the day which will
signal the return of their gods?
But who... or what...
were these gods?
And what is their agenda?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists, the answer can be
found in the stars.
NARRATOR: Tikal.
Northern Guatemala.
Located within the dense
tropical jungles of Central
America, this archaeological
site was once one of the great
urban centers of the
Mayan civilization.
Here, along the Grand Plaza, the
Maya built seven pyramid-shaped
temples aligned to mimic the
constellation Pleiades.
HAWKES: They called it the
Seven Sisters because it
consisted of seven bright stars.
They also believed that the
Pleiades was at the center of
all fixed stars, so when they
looked at the Pleiades, they
believed that that may have been
the center of all creation, and
they believed that they came
from the center of that
creation, or, simply put,
they came from Pleiades.
CHILDRESS: Why would the
Mayans go through such a
tremendous effort to recreate a mirror
image of the stars on the ground?
Why would they do that unless
they wanted to contact the
extraterrestrial gods who had
originally given them the information?
HAWKES: Pleiades was not
only important to the Maya;
It was also important
to Native Americans.
The Cherokee, for example,
the Hopi, believe that they
descended from star beings that came
from the Pleiades star cluster.
NARRATOR: According to
scholars, the Maya believed
that powerful gods descended to
Earth from the stars, including
a feathered serpent
known as Kukulkan.
CHILDRESS: According to Mayan
legend, Kukulkan was the winged
serpent, some serpent
god who could fly.
COPPENS: Kukulkan, by the Maya,
is depicted in a number of ways.
Sometimes he is human.
Sometimes he is a serpent.
Sometimes we see him emanating
from a serpent's head.
We know that there is no way
that a human being can emerge
from a physical serpent, so the
serpent must stand for something
else... either a
construction or a device.
Now, because we know Kukulkan is
a deity, we also definitely need
to consider that this device
is somehow a ship and Kukulkan
emerges from within the confines
of the ship to the outside world
and reveals himself as
a deity to the people.
HAWKES: Kukulkan was the
creator of all life who led the
Maya into an age of scientific
advancement, and advancement
of art and architecture.
According to ancient Maya
mythology, Kukulkan left the
people and said he would return
one day, and many scholars
believe that the ending of the
Maya calendar, on December 21
this year, will mark the
return of Kukulkan.
NARRATOR: 400 miles north of
Tikal, in the ancient Maya city
of Chichen Itza, stands a
uniquely designed pyramid, built
by the Maya to honor Kukulkan.
TSOUKALOS: Unlike most of the
pyramids all around the world,
the platform pyramid we can find
at Chichen Itza is not directed
in a north-south or east-west
direction, but it's a little bit off.
There is a specific reason for
that, and that is, during the
spring and fall equinox, a
shadow play is cast upon the
side of the pyramid signifying
the descent of Kukulkan, the
extraterrestrial descending from
the sky, staying a while on
Earth, and then ascending
towards the heavens.
What we have here is an
example of living mythology.
So my question is: what did
they mean when they talked
about this deity that
descended from the sky?
NARRATOR: Why was it so
important to the Maya to build
such an elaborate temple
to honor Kukulkan?
Did they really expect this
serpent god to ascend to the
heavens and then
descend to Earth?
Or could Kukulkan be something
even more incredible?
Something not of this world?
TSOUKALOS: If you look up in
the air today, and you watch
a plane, it leaves behind this
plume of smoke as it travels
across the sky and you've got the
snake's tail wiggling at its backside.
So if you look at it from
that perspective, that can be
described as a flying snake.
And in my opinion, that was
nothing else but a description
of some type of an
extraterrestrial craft that
descended from the sky out of
which the gods, lower case "g,"
emerged and taught them
in various disciplines.
VON DANIKEN:
The message is clear.
God Kukulkan descended
to the humans.
He was a certain time
among the humans.
He was the teacher of the humans
and then he disappeared again,
but with the promise to
return one day to the humans.
NARRATOR: Is it really
possible, as some ancient
astronaut theorists suggest,
that Kukulkan was, in fact,
a flying spacecraft,
engineered and piloted by
otherworldly visitors?
And, if so, could this explain
the frequent depictions of this
ancient Mayan god as having
a face appearing out of a
serpent's head, similar to that
of a pilot operating a vehicle?
According to researchers, clues
to the connection between the
Maya and otherworldly beings
can also be found in the Mayan
manuscript known as the Popul Vuh,
meaning "The Book of the People."
It is a collection of the only
known Maya oral histories
still surviving.
Translated and written in the
mid-16th century, this book
encompasses a range of subjects,
including Mayan creation myths.
ED BARNHART: The Popul
Vuh begins with nothing.
There's nothing there.
There's a watery surface,
but there's no sky.
There's no land.
The gods emerge out of this water.
They begin with nothing.
And the gods decide to make people.
Coming right out of one of the
most seemingly inhospitable
places for civilization to
sprout, comes this culture,
the Maya, who create this
collection of independent
city states and build pyramids.
They develop a written language
and a mathematical system.
They grow up into this forest
there, reaching populations into
the multimillions.
TSOUKALOS: In the Popol Vuh, it
clearly states that life was
brought here by the gods and
that those gods came
from outer space.
It doesn't say that they
came from inner Earth.
It also doesn't say that they
came from another continent or
another land.
But it states specifically that
they descended from the sky
and essentially brought
knowledge to planet Earth.
PHILIP COPPENS: What you have
in the Popol Vuh is very much
like a manual.
It is something that you want to
give to the people and say, this
is what we, our ancestors, have
decided together with the gods,
and this is really what you
should keep in mind for the next
few centuries up until the moment
in time when the gods return.
NARRATOR: Is it really possible...
as ancient astronaut
theorists believe...
that the Maya god Kukulkan was
an extraterrestrial entity?
One that is destined to return
one day from the stars?
And, if so, does it suggest that
there may be truth to another
Mayan legend, one that predicts
that our time on Earth may be
running out?
NARRATOR:
Monument Number Six.
On this stone tablet,
are carved a series of
ancient Mayan hieroglyphs,
that according to scholars
ominously predict a cataclysmic
event on December 21, 2012.
BARNHART: This is a long
monument that talks about the
lifetime of a particular king.
But at the end of it, it goes
forward into the future, takes
this big leap from the
600s AD up to 2012.
It definitely says Four Ahau,
Eight Konkin arriving the 13th
bak'tun or 400-year period.
But then there are only three
more glyphs and they are eroded
and broken partially.
NARRATOR: Some scholars believe
that the eroded glyphs
on Monument Six suggest Bolon Yokte...
a god similar to
Kukulkan... will return at the
end of the Mayan calendar.
VON DANIKEN: The Mayan
specialists can read it
"will descend from heaven
god Bolon Yokte."
Bolon Yokte was one of the Maya
gods who was present with the
creation of man.
So they say, "Will descend,
god Bolon Yokte."
So some gods, some extraterrestrials,
were expected to return.
And definitely, some of
the gods will return.
There is absolutely no doubt.
TSOUKALOS: Who was
this Bolon Yokte?
According to the documents that
have survived, and they're only
fragmentary, he was always
described as someone with great
powers, who had the capacity of
flight and who had incredible
knowledge about the universe.
BARNHART: The God Bolon Yokte is
not a very well understood god.
Sometimes he's associated with
texts that talk about the
beginning of creation
back in 3114 BC.
And we see him in some context
that seemed to be connected with war.
TSOUKALOS: Bolon Yokte was
also described as being very
tall and very shiny, glowing.
Is it possible that what we have here
is a description of an ancient alien?
And the answer is yes.
NARRATOR: But while there is
much mystery surrounding the
legend of Bolon Yokte,
researchers say the ancient
Maya believed this entity
had visited their ancestors
before thousands of years in the past.
TSOUKALOS: There is another
reference to Bolon Yokte
at Palenque in Temple 14, where
it is clearly stated that
Bolon Yokte appeared on Earth
over 900,000 years ago.
Why would anyone in their right
mind record a date that goes
back over 900,000 years ago?
Well, something happened.
Something very significant.
And according to the ancient
texts, that is when Bolon Yokte
descended to Earth from the sky.
NARRATOR: Similar stories
suggesting that the Maya were,
in some way, connected to
otherworldly beings can be
found in an ancient Maya text
known as the Chilam Balam...
a collection of oral histories
passed down through the ages.
VON DANIKEN: The Chilam Balam
books were written between
the 16th and the 18th centuries,
when the Spanish conquerors
were already there.
First, the Spanish arrived.
They found hundreds of Maya writings.
They destroyed them all.
But then some of the priests
escaped and they start to write
up their old knowledge.
That's the reason how the Chilam
Balam books came to existence.
BARNHART: The name Chilam Balam
is actually the name for
a priesthood who were kind of
the historians of communities
in the Yucatan.
But we have this collection of books
that we call the Chilam Balams.
These are the books in which we
find this information about how
the Maya believe that what's
happened before will happen again.
In the opinion of the people
that write the Chilam Balams,
they believe them to be very accurate.
The Chilam Balam talks about
these 20-year periods.
"In this 20-year period, you"
could see it was a bad time for us.
We can expect negative
things "to befall us."
And of course, one of the most
negative and bad-luck times they
have is the arrival of the Spanish.
And they point to that as, "See?
Clearly in the cycles of time,
we could almost predict that
this calamity was bound to
"happen to us at this time."
NARRATOR: In the Chilam Bilam
it states that the god Bolon
Yokte will someday return and
battle the deities of heaven in
an epic war of good versus evil.
COPPENS: Each age for the
Mayans was clearly defined, and
it was defined by the gods returning.
And so what we have today, or in
the near future, is the imminent
arrival according to the Mayan
tradition of these deities.
NARRATOR: This prediction of
a final apocalyptic battle
between good and evil as
described in the Chilam Bilam,
can also be found in the Christian
Bible's book of Revelation.
MORTON: It is interesting
that if you look at the last
book of the Bible, it talks
about some great war in heaven
between the Archangel Michael
and the great dragon.
Is there some last great war
in heaven that occurs at
this final age?
NARRATOR: If the Maya
prophecy about the return of
Bolon Yokte is true, might there
really be a so-called battle
between good and evil?
One that will result in the
annihilation of all mankind?
But how?
NARRATOR: Planet Earth.
Although there are many theories
about its age and origin, one
fact is certain: our planet
is billions of years old.
And mankind's existence on its
surface is relatively recent...
and fragile.
Throughout history, the
biggest threat to mankind has
come in the form of natural disasters.
But does that mean the world
will end on December 21, 2012?
Recent evidence has shown that
the ancient Mayans possessed
knowledge about the universe
and its fate that we are only
just beginning to understand.
CHILDRESS: According to the
Mayans, the world has already
ended four times before
this coming cataclysm.
It ended before in, in fire
and in ice and in water.
This next cataclysm could be
a combination of all that or
even something
completely different.
MORTON: Not only did the
Mayans know our place in the
universe, but they also knew
how old the universe was.
The Mayans put the date of the
universe at 16.4 billion years.
Modern science today puts it at
about 14 and a half, maybe 15.
And yet the better our
technology gets the more we
begin to realize that the
Mayans were correct.
NARRATOR: Is it possible then,
as the Mayans predicted,
that the Earth and sun will
align with a black hole on
December 21, 2012?
And if so, will such a cosmic event
have dire consequences
for our world?
MORTON: The Tibetans believe
that the sun is a lens...
that it activates and amplifies
things behind it or things
coming in front of it.
If that's the case, on December
21, you have an energy that's
coming from the center of
the galaxy that comes from
the dark rift that comes
comes from the womb of the
galaxy, if you will, that is now
gonna be amplified by the sun,
that is going to have some
kind of effect on humanity.
NOORY: I think the Mayans
had an understanding of
celestial mechanics.
They understood that the sun
was going through change.
And so my belief is that something
will happen with the sun.
HAWKES: Well, we know from
past experience that solar
flares can interfere with
electronic equipment.
We could see the power
grid go down, for example.
We could see major things
change in modern society that
pretty much would cripple us.
But if we're talking about
losing that ability for an
extended period of time, I
daresay we'd be talking about a
scenario that would result
in major changes, and quite
possibly some very ill effects.
NARRATOR: Some researchers
speculate that the galactic
alignment might change or even
reverse how the Earth spins on
its axis by altering
its magnetic field.
MICHAEL DENNIN: A sign of the
magnetic field changing quickly
would mean something has to
happen dramatically to the
angular momentum of the stuff
inside the Earth, which might
also mean something happens
drastically to the spin of the
Earth itself.
And once you change the rotation
of the Earth, you do have a
chance of causing huge effects.
It's like having a whole bunch
of massive earthquakes at the same time.
HAWKES: We talk about a
magnitude seven or a magnitude
eight or a magnitude nine
earthquake as being destructive
beyond imagination.
But what would a magnitude 12 or
a magnitude 20 earthquake do?
Could it replace the land with the
sea and the sea with the land?
We're talking about events that
we've never experienced before.
So some of these changes that
people are talking about that
could occur could be life
changing or they could be
life-ending.
NARRATOR: Will the Earth
really be affected by some
strange, powerful
astronomical alignment?
One that will have profound
consequences for all of us?
And if so, might those
consequences come in the form of
death and destruction?
Or might there be another,
perhaps more positive outcome?
CHILDRESS: The end of the Mayan
Long Count could mean some
doomsday for planet Earth.
Or on the other hand, perhaps
it is the return of the
extraterrestrial gods
as the Mayans believed.
It's hard to know the future,
what's gonna happen at
the end of 2012.
But it seems that perhaps the
Mayans had some glimpse into the
future that we have yet to find out.
COPPENS: We are living in a
time, specifically a culture,
which really doesn't address the
ancient alien theory that we
are not alone.
It is indeed gonna come for a
global village as a complete
revelation that we are not alone.
And that is really, I think, a
gift from the Mayans when it
comes to 2012.
TSOUKALOS: It is absolutely
correct that a calendar round
is about to end, but that does not
signify the end of the world.
In fact, the only thing it
signifies is the beginning of
another calendar round of
another period in time.
NARRATOR: Could the Mayan doomsday
prophesies really come true?
Will December 21, 2012 signal
the end of civilization
as we know it?
Or are the dire predictions
nothing more than a myth?
A misinterpretation of
an even greater truth?
Perhaps what awaits us is
not the end of our world,
but a new beginning.
One that will reveal the
celestial origins of man.
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a deadly countdown.
ED BARNHART: The Maya have
this opinion that what's
happened in the past
will happen again.
NARRATOR: A galactic alignment,
triggering a wave of natural disasters.
MICHAEL DENNIN: It's like
having a whole bunch of massive
earthquakes at the same time.
NARRATOR: Could our planet
really be headed for extinction?
LOGAN HAWKES: These changes
could be life-changing or they
could be life-ending.
NARRATOR: Or is there another
agenda, one even more profound?
PHILIP COPPENS: Each age for the
Mayans was clearly defined.
And it was defined by
the gods returning.
NARRATOR: Millions of people
around the world believe we have
been visited in the past by
extraterrestrial beings.
What if it were true?
Did ancient aliens really
help to shape our history?
And if so, might evidence of
alien contact help to unlock the
mystery behind the Mayan
prophecies of doom?
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NARRATOR: Mexico, the
Yucatan Peninsula.
For over 2,000 years,
rain-drenched jungles and
fertile plains served as the
home of one of the ancient
world's greatest civilizations.
The Maya.
Scholars estimate that between
250 and 900 A.D., the Mayan
population consisted of between
15 to 20 million people,
and extended as far south as
Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Archeological evidence suggests
the Maya were one of the first
ancient people to develop a
written language, use modern
mathematical methods, and build
massive, multi-story celestial
observatories.
All at a time when Europeans
were struggling through the
so-called Dark Ages.
SEAN-DAVID MORTON: The Maya
are considered one of the great
advanced civilizations with
hyper-advanced astronomy,
astronomy, trigonometry,
architecture, all of these
things while the Europeans were at
the time rolling around in the mud.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most
amazing Mayan achievement
was their system of charting the
stars and planets in the form of
a calendar.
HAWKES: The Mayans were timekeepers
above and beyond all other things.
Keeping up with time was magic,
it was power to the Mayans.
MARK VAN STONE: They were
tracking, in particular, Venus,
the phases of the moon,
eclipses, but they also tracked
precession, which is an
extraordinarily long cycle.
What it means is that every year
on, say, March 15, the Pleiades
rise for the first time in the sky.
If you wait 72 years, the day of
the rising of the Pleiades will
be one day earlier.
If you wait another 72 years,
it'll be a day earlier still.
And if you wait 26,000 years,
the Pleiades will move back to
that same day.
NARRATOR: According to scholars,
the Maya believed that
time, like the stars, moved
in repeating patterns called
calendar cycles and that these cycles
could be used to predict future events.
One of these calendar cycles,
the Mayan Long Count, lasts for
5,125 years and will end
on December 21, 2012.
But why?
Why did the Maya choose this date?
And what did they believe
would happen to our world?
Perhaps a clue can be found
in an astronomical phenomenon
located at the center of the
Milky Way Galaxy, an area where
there are no stars.
MORTON: The Mayans knew.
Not only did they know where the
center of the galaxy was, but
they understood that it was a
light-year-across black hole
that they called the Great Rift.
HAWKES: The Maya believed this
was the birth canal of the
universe, and that all things came
from the birth canal of the universe.
And on December 21, 2012, the
Earth, the sun, and this birth
canal, the Dark Rift, are
all in perfect alignment.
And this only happens
every 26,000 years.
NARRATOR: Could the fact that
the Maya Long Count calendar
ends on the same day as this
rare alignment in the Milky Way
Galaxy be a mere coincidence?
And did this advanced
understanding of celestial
cycles really come from ancient
Mayan astronomers observing the
stars with only their naked eyes?
HAWKES: The Mayans believed that
this knowledge came to them
from their gods, and their gods
then existed in the stars.
So, is it possible that these gods
could have been extraterrestrials?
The answer to that question
is yes, it's possible.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS:
According to the Maya
themselves, this knowledge was
not something that they came up
with, but it was given to them
as a gift from the gods.
The gift back then was
not material stuff.
It was knowledge.
Knowledge is the currency
of the universe.
NARRATOR: But even if the
information pertaining to the
Long Count calendar comes
from an otherworldly or
extraterrestrial source,
why 2012?
What is it about this date that
has a special significance?
Researchers believe a clue may
recently have been found among
the ruins of the ancient
Mayan city of Tortuguero.
One that was pieced together
from broken fragments of a panel
of hieroglyphs known as
Monument Number Six.
BARNHART: In my opinion,
the one and only clear
reference to the date in the
Long Count that arrives in 2012
is on Tortuguero Monument Six.
COPPENS: Basically, the
inscription in Tortuguero
was half destroyed, and
everybody assumed that what it
was saying was that the nine
gods would return on December
21, 2012, but because there
was some destruction on that
inscription, certain
things were implied.
NARRATOR: For years, scholars
dismissed the evidence
found at the Tortuguero monument
as a solitary anomaly without
any special significance.
But on November 24, 2011, the
Mexican National Institute of
Archeology and History revealed to the
world the existence of a
second artifact.
A sun-dried mud brick that was
discovered at the ancient Mayan
city of Comalcalco with an
inscription many believe refers
to an exact date, December 21, 2012.
BARNHART: It's one of
thousands of mud bricks that
we've found at Comalcalco.
A very few of them have
hieroglyphs on them.
One of them has a date inscribed
on it, which is very rare, and
it says Four Ahau, Three Konkin,
which is the calendar round date
that's gonna occur in 2012.
COPPENS: Well, the Comalcalco
brick is important because it is
verification of an
inscription in Tortuguero.
The brick has shown that the
people who thought that it meant
the nine gods were going
to return were right.
NARRATOR: An
extraterrestrial visitation?
One which signals the
end of the world?
For most archeologists and
researchers, the concept is not
just a little far-fetched,
they consider it to be more a
curiosity than a prophecy.
But one feature of the brick
hieroglyph is not so easy to dismiss.
The inscriptions on the brick
were apparently carved on the
inner-facing side,
hidden from view.
HAWKES: Why would they write a
date on a brick and then turn
it around so no one could see
it and put it into the wall?
We can only speculate as to why,
but we believe it's because the
ruling king or the priest
or whoever commissioned the
building site at Comalcalco didn't
want that to be public knowledge.
NARRATOR: Why would the Maya
conspire to keep this date secret?
Was it to avoid global panic?
DAVID CHILDRESS: If there is some
kind of... (loud boom)
doomsday at the end of the
Mayan calendar, it could be a
combination of...
of pole shifts... (rumbling)
of volcanoes and earthquakes...
and super tidal waves
all over the Earth.
It would be a catastrophic
event for the planet.
NARRATOR: Is it really
possible, as ancient astronaut
theorists believe, that the
Maya actually received detailed
astronomical knowledge from
ancient alien visitors?
And could this help explain why
their calendar, which accurately
predicts an extraordinary
galactic alignment, apparently
ends on December 21, 2012?
Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining the doomsday
prophecies of other
ancient cultures.
For if the Maya were attempting
to warn us of a future
cataclysm, could there be other
evidence that they were not alone?
NARRATOR: December 21, 2012.
According to some researchers
and scholars, this is the day
when the Mayan calendar suggests
the world will come to an end.
(loud boom)
But there is another equally
curious aspect to the Mayan
calendar...not when it ends,
but when it begins:
More than 3,000 years before the
Mayan civilization even existed.
BARNHART: The origin of the
Long Count Calendar... why they
created day one to be August 13,
3114 BC, is still a mystery.
It's obviously back-dated.
There were no Maya back then, so
why did they backward project
3,000 years into the past?
Based on the things we have
learned about the Maya, it
should be something astronomical.
HUGH NEWMAN: One of the ideas
about why they back-dated it to
3114 BC is because some kind
of cataclysm happened then.
Recent research has discovered
an asteroid or multiple
asteroids did hit an area
around Austria in Europe.
(loud booming)
And that could have caused a
blackout of the sky for several
years, and this is, then,
when the calendar began.
MORTON: Scientists at Harvard
and Princeton have said that
this massive global worldwide catastrophe...
a mass glaciation
of the planet, occurred when this
age of the Mayan calendar begins.
This happened not within tens of
thousands of years or hundreds
of years, but within weeks,
within days, literally.
This took everyone by surprise.
CHILDRESS: According to the
Mayans, we are coming to the end
of the fifth age.
There have been four
catastrophes before us.
Each one ended up with a
destruction of the Earth.
And now we are just coming to
the end of the fifth age of the
Mayans, which will end
now in December of 2012.
According to the Mayan
predictions, this will also end
in a giant catastrophe.
(loud booming)
BARNHART: The Western view
of time is very linear.
When we think about... life...
we see it as this linear projection
heading out into the future.
For the Maya, they viewed
life very cyclically.
NARRATOR: Is it possible the
Mayan calendar ends on December
21, 2012 because they expected
that the fifth age of man will
end much in the same
way as it began?
Were they privy to some ancient
knowledge that has been lost in time?
And if so, can proof be found
by examining similar doomsday
predictions from other
ancient cultures?
MORTON: Egyptian time-coding in
the Great Pyramid of Giza is
telling us that there will
be a series of water-based
catastrophes between late 2004
through about 2006, and look
what happened.
We have the Asian tsunami, which
kills about 250,000 people.
We have Hurricane Katrina.
(thunder crashes)
And then there's actually this
trough called the "River of
Fire" which is warning us of
some massive cosmic event, maybe
a solar flare or what have you, that
then washes humanity back
into this pit.
NARRATOR: In addition to the
eerie similarity between the
Mayan and Egyptian prophecies,
researchers have also noticed
a connection in the doomsday
predictions of the Hopi Indians
of the American Southwest.
YOUNG: The Hopi people of the
Native American nations believe
that we are in the fifth age of
man and that this is an age of
purification and that it
is near the end time.
MORTON: The Hopi believe that
unless all the people of the
Earth can come down and live
more in harmony with themselves
and with the planet, that
there's going to be a great
destruction coming.
(rumbling)
NARRATOR: In India, the
ancient Buddhist and Hindu
astronomical manuscript, Surya...
Siddhanta, predicts that
mankind will soon reach the end of
the Kali Yuga, the final age of man.
YOUNG: The male divinity, Kali,
that is referred to in the
End of Days of the Mahabharata,
refers to a time of great chaos
and discord, and, depending on
how you read the dating in the
script, we are well into it.
NARRATOR: Even the Christian
Bible predicts, in great detail,
a horrific, fiery apocalypse.
YOUNG: The Christian writers
on the end of time focus on
certain things: that the Jewish
people return to the Holy Land
and reclaim it, which happened
some years ago; that the nation
thereby established would
finally claim Jerusalem, which
has happened some years ago;
That there would be a great
expansion of the territory until
it was a very large nation.
Finally, it is the claiming of
the temple, which is on Temple
Mount, which is holy in Islam.
But it must be taken and restored
to its original condition.
It is that place that the
Messiah will actually come to
rule the Earth before the End of Days.
COPPENS: The idea that we are
living in end times, not
necessarily the end of the world
but the end of a world,
is quite global.
NARRATOR: While most ancient
doomsday prophecies only broadly
suggest the timing of the
so-called End of Days...
the Maya prediction boldly
points to an exact date.
Their Long Count Calendar comes
to a decisive end on Friday,
December 21, 2012, a date that
many scientists and astronomers
agree will coincide with an
extremely rare alignment of
celestial bodies in
the Milky Way Galaxy.
But how could the Mayan
calendar be so accurate?
BARNHART: It is a true thing to
say about the Maya that they
created the most elaborate calendar
system of any culture in the world.
They had a solar calendar, but
before that, they had the
sacred calendar.
When you look at the ratio
between those two, you get
365.2422 days for an actual year.
The atomic clock says that it's
365.2420, but they admit that
at the fourth decimal point,
they could be plus or minus
five wrong.
So we're not sure
who's more accurate.
Is it the Maya, or is
it the atomic clock?
NEWMAN: The sophisticated way
the Maya track time is...
is incredible, even
by today's standards.
It's almost like they had
sophisticated computer technologies
or programs that could
somehow run it.
And even today, we're just
catching up and trying to
understand how they managed to
do such an amazing job way back
in prehistory.
NARRATOR: The third Maya
calendar, known as the Long
Count, measured time in cycles
of 394 years or 144,000 days.
GERARDO ALDANA: The Long
Count is really just like an
odometer in your car.
It just ticks off days.
It counts one, two, three, all
the way up to 144,000, which we
call bak'tuns.
NARRATOR: The Maya Long Count
calendar also measured time in a
series of 13 bak'tun cycles,
totaling 5,125 years.
According to scholars, the dates
stretch from August 11, 3114 BC
to December 21, 2012.
And there, inexplicably, it stops.
Why were the Maya tracking
celestial events in cycles of
over thousands of years?
Was it simply, as some scholars
suggest, because they could?
Or did they, as ancient
astronaut theorists believe,
create the calendar as a way of
marking time until the return of
otherworldly visitors,
beings that were believed
by them to be gods?
COPPENS: Some calendar systems
from the Mayans, today,
science has no idea about what
they are based on, but we just
know that they exist
for a specific reason.
So it is clear that they were
given to them by an intelligence
who knew what these calendar
rounds represented.
And so, what we are seeing is
that the Mayans are working with
tools, technology, calendar
systems, which were specifically
engineered because they had
been told that when certain
things in the skies looked a
certain way, then the gods
would return.
GEORGE NOORY: The Mayans were
incredible at what they did.
The big question is: how
did they know this?
You have to say to yourself,
perhaps civilizations might be
much older than we think and
they passed down knowledge
for hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of years, or somebody
came down and taught them.
NARRATOR: Did the Maya create
the Long Count Calendar to warn
us of a deadly cataclysm?
Or were they simply intending to
inform us of the day which will
signal the return of their gods?
But who... or what...
were these gods?
And what is their agenda?
According to ancient astronaut
theorists, the answer can be
found in the stars.
NARRATOR: Tikal.
Northern Guatemala.
Located within the dense
tropical jungles of Central
America, this archaeological
site was once one of the great
urban centers of the
Mayan civilization.
Here, along the Grand Plaza, the
Maya built seven pyramid-shaped
temples aligned to mimic the
constellation Pleiades.
HAWKES: They called it the
Seven Sisters because it
consisted of seven bright stars.
They also believed that the
Pleiades was at the center of
all fixed stars, so when they
looked at the Pleiades, they
believed that that may have been
the center of all creation, and
they believed that they came
from the center of that
creation, or, simply put,
they came from Pleiades.
CHILDRESS: Why would the
Mayans go through such a
tremendous effort to recreate a mirror
image of the stars on the ground?
Why would they do that unless
they wanted to contact the
extraterrestrial gods who had
originally given them the information?
HAWKES: Pleiades was not
only important to the Maya;
It was also important
to Native Americans.
The Cherokee, for example,
the Hopi, believe that they
descended from star beings that came
from the Pleiades star cluster.
NARRATOR: According to
scholars, the Maya believed
that powerful gods descended to
Earth from the stars, including
a feathered serpent
known as Kukulkan.
CHILDRESS: According to Mayan
legend, Kukulkan was the winged
serpent, some serpent
god who could fly.
COPPENS: Kukulkan, by the Maya,
is depicted in a number of ways.
Sometimes he is human.
Sometimes he is a serpent.
Sometimes we see him emanating
from a serpent's head.
We know that there is no way
that a human being can emerge
from a physical serpent, so the
serpent must stand for something
else... either a
construction or a device.
Now, because we know Kukulkan is
a deity, we also definitely need
to consider that this device
is somehow a ship and Kukulkan
emerges from within the confines
of the ship to the outside world
and reveals himself as
a deity to the people.
HAWKES: Kukulkan was the
creator of all life who led the
Maya into an age of scientific
advancement, and advancement
of art and architecture.
According to ancient Maya
mythology, Kukulkan left the
people and said he would return
one day, and many scholars
believe that the ending of the
Maya calendar, on December 21
this year, will mark the
return of Kukulkan.
NARRATOR: 400 miles north of
Tikal, in the ancient Maya city
of Chichen Itza, stands a
uniquely designed pyramid, built
by the Maya to honor Kukulkan.
TSOUKALOS: Unlike most of the
pyramids all around the world,
the platform pyramid we can find
at Chichen Itza is not directed
in a north-south or east-west
direction, but it's a little bit off.
There is a specific reason for
that, and that is, during the
spring and fall equinox, a
shadow play is cast upon the
side of the pyramid signifying
the descent of Kukulkan, the
extraterrestrial descending from
the sky, staying a while on
Earth, and then ascending
towards the heavens.
What we have here is an
example of living mythology.
So my question is: what did
they mean when they talked
about this deity that
descended from the sky?
NARRATOR: Why was it so
important to the Maya to build
such an elaborate temple
to honor Kukulkan?
Did they really expect this
serpent god to ascend to the
heavens and then
descend to Earth?
Or could Kukulkan be something
even more incredible?
Something not of this world?
TSOUKALOS: If you look up in
the air today, and you watch
a plane, it leaves behind this
plume of smoke as it travels
across the sky and you've got the
snake's tail wiggling at its backside.
So if you look at it from
that perspective, that can be
described as a flying snake.
And in my opinion, that was
nothing else but a description
of some type of an
extraterrestrial craft that
descended from the sky out of
which the gods, lower case "g,"
emerged and taught them
in various disciplines.
VON DANIKEN:
The message is clear.
God Kukulkan descended
to the humans.
He was a certain time
among the humans.
He was the teacher of the humans
and then he disappeared again,
but with the promise to
return one day to the humans.
NARRATOR: Is it really
possible, as some ancient
astronaut theorists suggest,
that Kukulkan was, in fact,
a flying spacecraft,
engineered and piloted by
otherworldly visitors?
And, if so, could this explain
the frequent depictions of this
ancient Mayan god as having
a face appearing out of a
serpent's head, similar to that
of a pilot operating a vehicle?
According to researchers, clues
to the connection between the
Maya and otherworldly beings
can also be found in the Mayan
manuscript known as the Popul Vuh,
meaning "The Book of the People."
It is a collection of the only
known Maya oral histories
still surviving.
Translated and written in the
mid-16th century, this book
encompasses a range of subjects,
including Mayan creation myths.
ED BARNHART: The Popul
Vuh begins with nothing.
There's nothing there.
There's a watery surface,
but there's no sky.
There's no land.
The gods emerge out of this water.
They begin with nothing.
And the gods decide to make people.
Coming right out of one of the
most seemingly inhospitable
places for civilization to
sprout, comes this culture,
the Maya, who create this
collection of independent
city states and build pyramids.
They develop a written language
and a mathematical system.
They grow up into this forest
there, reaching populations into
the multimillions.
TSOUKALOS: In the Popol Vuh, it
clearly states that life was
brought here by the gods and
that those gods came
from outer space.
It doesn't say that they
came from inner Earth.
It also doesn't say that they
came from another continent or
another land.
But it states specifically that
they descended from the sky
and essentially brought
knowledge to planet Earth.
PHILIP COPPENS: What you have
in the Popol Vuh is very much
like a manual.
It is something that you want to
give to the people and say, this
is what we, our ancestors, have
decided together with the gods,
and this is really what you
should keep in mind for the next
few centuries up until the moment
in time when the gods return.
NARRATOR: Is it really possible...
as ancient astronaut
theorists believe...
that the Maya god Kukulkan was
an extraterrestrial entity?
One that is destined to return
one day from the stars?
And, if so, does it suggest that
there may be truth to another
Mayan legend, one that predicts
that our time on Earth may be
running out?
NARRATOR:
Monument Number Six.
On this stone tablet,
are carved a series of
ancient Mayan hieroglyphs,
that according to scholars
ominously predict a cataclysmic
event on December 21, 2012.
BARNHART: This is a long
monument that talks about the
lifetime of a particular king.
But at the end of it, it goes
forward into the future, takes
this big leap from the
600s AD up to 2012.
It definitely says Four Ahau,
Eight Konkin arriving the 13th
bak'tun or 400-year period.
But then there are only three
more glyphs and they are eroded
and broken partially.
NARRATOR: Some scholars believe
that the eroded glyphs
on Monument Six suggest Bolon Yokte...
a god similar to
Kukulkan... will return at the
end of the Mayan calendar.
VON DANIKEN: The Mayan
specialists can read it
"will descend from heaven
god Bolon Yokte."
Bolon Yokte was one of the Maya
gods who was present with the
creation of man.
So they say, "Will descend,
god Bolon Yokte."
So some gods, some extraterrestrials,
were expected to return.
And definitely, some of
the gods will return.
There is absolutely no doubt.
TSOUKALOS: Who was
this Bolon Yokte?
According to the documents that
have survived, and they're only
fragmentary, he was always
described as someone with great
powers, who had the capacity of
flight and who had incredible
knowledge about the universe.
BARNHART: The God Bolon Yokte is
not a very well understood god.
Sometimes he's associated with
texts that talk about the
beginning of creation
back in 3114 BC.
And we see him in some context
that seemed to be connected with war.
TSOUKALOS: Bolon Yokte was
also described as being very
tall and very shiny, glowing.
Is it possible that what we have here
is a description of an ancient alien?
And the answer is yes.
NARRATOR: But while there is
much mystery surrounding the
legend of Bolon Yokte,
researchers say the ancient
Maya believed this entity
had visited their ancestors
before thousands of years in the past.
TSOUKALOS: There is another
reference to Bolon Yokte
at Palenque in Temple 14, where
it is clearly stated that
Bolon Yokte appeared on Earth
over 900,000 years ago.
Why would anyone in their right
mind record a date that goes
back over 900,000 years ago?
Well, something happened.
Something very significant.
And according to the ancient
texts, that is when Bolon Yokte
descended to Earth from the sky.
NARRATOR: Similar stories
suggesting that the Maya were,
in some way, connected to
otherworldly beings can be
found in an ancient Maya text
known as the Chilam Balam...
a collection of oral histories
passed down through the ages.
VON DANIKEN: The Chilam Balam
books were written between
the 16th and the 18th centuries,
when the Spanish conquerors
were already there.
First, the Spanish arrived.
They found hundreds of Maya writings.
They destroyed them all.
But then some of the priests
escaped and they start to write
up their old knowledge.
That's the reason how the Chilam
Balam books came to existence.
BARNHART: The name Chilam Balam
is actually the name for
a priesthood who were kind of
the historians of communities
in the Yucatan.
But we have this collection of books
that we call the Chilam Balams.
These are the books in which we
find this information about how
the Maya believe that what's
happened before will happen again.
In the opinion of the people
that write the Chilam Balams,
they believe them to be very accurate.
The Chilam Balam talks about
these 20-year periods.
"In this 20-year period, you"
could see it was a bad time for us.
We can expect negative
things "to befall us."
And of course, one of the most
negative and bad-luck times they
have is the arrival of the Spanish.
And they point to that as, "See?
Clearly in the cycles of time,
we could almost predict that
this calamity was bound to
"happen to us at this time."
NARRATOR: In the Chilam Bilam
it states that the god Bolon
Yokte will someday return and
battle the deities of heaven in
an epic war of good versus evil.
COPPENS: Each age for the
Mayans was clearly defined, and
it was defined by the gods returning.
And so what we have today, or in
the near future, is the imminent
arrival according to the Mayan
tradition of these deities.
NARRATOR: This prediction of
a final apocalyptic battle
between good and evil as
described in the Chilam Bilam,
can also be found in the Christian
Bible's book of Revelation.
MORTON: It is interesting
that if you look at the last
book of the Bible, it talks
about some great war in heaven
between the Archangel Michael
and the great dragon.
Is there some last great war
in heaven that occurs at
this final age?
NARRATOR: If the Maya
prophecy about the return of
Bolon Yokte is true, might there
really be a so-called battle
between good and evil?
One that will result in the
annihilation of all mankind?
But how?
NARRATOR: Planet Earth.
Although there are many theories
about its age and origin, one
fact is certain: our planet
is billions of years old.
And mankind's existence on its
surface is relatively recent...
and fragile.
Throughout history, the
biggest threat to mankind has
come in the form of natural disasters.
But does that mean the world
will end on December 21, 2012?
Recent evidence has shown that
the ancient Mayans possessed
knowledge about the universe
and its fate that we are only
just beginning to understand.
CHILDRESS: According to the
Mayans, the world has already
ended four times before
this coming cataclysm.
It ended before in, in fire
and in ice and in water.
This next cataclysm could be
a combination of all that or
even something
completely different.
MORTON: Not only did the
Mayans know our place in the
universe, but they also knew
how old the universe was.
The Mayans put the date of the
universe at 16.4 billion years.
Modern science today puts it at
about 14 and a half, maybe 15.
And yet the better our
technology gets the more we
begin to realize that the
Mayans were correct.
NARRATOR: Is it possible then,
as the Mayans predicted,
that the Earth and sun will
align with a black hole on
December 21, 2012?
And if so, will such a cosmic event
have dire consequences
for our world?
MORTON: The Tibetans believe
that the sun is a lens...
that it activates and amplifies
things behind it or things
coming in front of it.
If that's the case, on December
21, you have an energy that's
coming from the center of
the galaxy that comes from
the dark rift that comes
comes from the womb of the
galaxy, if you will, that is now
gonna be amplified by the sun,
that is going to have some
kind of effect on humanity.
NOORY: I think the Mayans
had an understanding of
celestial mechanics.
They understood that the sun
was going through change.
And so my belief is that something
will happen with the sun.
HAWKES: Well, we know from
past experience that solar
flares can interfere with
electronic equipment.
We could see the power
grid go down, for example.
We could see major things
change in modern society that
pretty much would cripple us.
But if we're talking about
losing that ability for an
extended period of time, I
daresay we'd be talking about a
scenario that would result
in major changes, and quite
possibly some very ill effects.
NARRATOR: Some researchers
speculate that the galactic
alignment might change or even
reverse how the Earth spins on
its axis by altering
its magnetic field.
MICHAEL DENNIN: A sign of the
magnetic field changing quickly
would mean something has to
happen dramatically to the
angular momentum of the stuff
inside the Earth, which might
also mean something happens
drastically to the spin of the
Earth itself.
And once you change the rotation
of the Earth, you do have a
chance of causing huge effects.
It's like having a whole bunch
of massive earthquakes at the same time.
HAWKES: We talk about a
magnitude seven or a magnitude
eight or a magnitude nine
earthquake as being destructive
beyond imagination.
But what would a magnitude 12 or
a magnitude 20 earthquake do?
Could it replace the land with the
sea and the sea with the land?
We're talking about events that
we've never experienced before.
So some of these changes that
people are talking about that
could occur could be life
changing or they could be
life-ending.
NARRATOR: Will the Earth
really be affected by some
strange, powerful
astronomical alignment?
One that will have profound
consequences for all of us?
And if so, might those
consequences come in the form of
death and destruction?
Or might there be another,
perhaps more positive outcome?
CHILDRESS: The end of the Mayan
Long Count could mean some
doomsday for planet Earth.
Or on the other hand, perhaps
it is the return of the
extraterrestrial gods
as the Mayans believed.
It's hard to know the future,
what's gonna happen at
the end of 2012.
But it seems that perhaps the
Mayans had some glimpse into the
future that we have yet to find out.
COPPENS: We are living in a
time, specifically a culture,
which really doesn't address the
ancient alien theory that we
are not alone.
It is indeed gonna come for a
global village as a complete
revelation that we are not alone.
And that is really, I think, a
gift from the Mayans when it
comes to 2012.
TSOUKALOS: It is absolutely
correct that a calendar round
is about to end, but that does not
signify the end of the world.
In fact, the only thing it
signifies is the beginning of
another calendar round of
another period in time.
NARRATOR: Could the Mayan doomsday
prophesies really come true?
Will December 21, 2012 signal
the end of civilization
as we know it?
Or are the dire predictions
nothing more than a myth?
A misinterpretation of
an even greater truth?
Perhaps what awaits us is
not the end of our world,
but a new beginning.
One that will reveal the
celestial origins of man.
Sync and corrections by bellows
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