Episode Guide

Pyramids of Antarctica

Satellite imagery revealing pyramid-shaped formations emerging from Antarctica's melting ice drives this episode's central question: could the frozen continent have hosted an ancient—or extraterrestrial—civilization before being encased in ice? Ancient Astronaut theorists including Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress point to several anomalies, particularly a structure discovered south of the Shackleton mountain range by satellite imagery analyst Joseph White in 2013, which he claims aligns precisely with compass coordinates. The episode weaves together multiple threads: reports of magnetic anomalies beneath the ice, alleged Nazi expeditions searching for lost civilizations, and whistleblower accounts of unusual sightings. David Wilcock even describes claims of saucers emerging from Antarctic waters and attacking ships with beam weapons. The underlying premise suggests Antarctica was ice-free in the relatively recent past and may harbor physical evidence of humanity's extraterrestrial origins.

Destination Mars

"Destination Mars" explores the idea that humanity's drive to colonize the Red Planet may be less about future survival and more about returning home. Ancient astronaut theorists including Giorgio Tsoukalos propose that structures on Mars—objects Mike Bara describes as resembling human-made sculptures—suggest a lost civilization once thrived there, and that Earth itself may have been colonized by Martian refugees in our distant past. John Brandenburg goes further, claiming that nuclear signatures detected on Mars show "weapon signature" patterns inconsistent with natural phenomena, implying the planet experienced catastrophic warfare. As NASA plans robotic construction of habitats ahead of human arrival in the 2020s, theorists suggest we may be retracing the same colonization strategy extraterrestrials once used to seed life on Earth.

The Next Humans

This episode explores whether ancient myths of gods and superhumans point to an extraterrestrial blueprint for human evolution that we're now following through transhumanism. Beginning with NASA's 1962 "Cyborg Study: Engineering Man for Space" at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, the episode tracks modern technological advances—smart drugs, nanorobots, CRISPR gene editing, and the 2015 genetic modification of human embryos at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. Ancient astronaut theorists including Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress suggest that transhumanist goals like enhanced intelligence, immunity to harsh environments, and even immortality mirror the attributes our ancestors ascribed to gods, proposing that extraterrestrials may be guiding humanity toward transcending biological limitations just as they themselves once did.

The New Evidence

"The New Evidence" surveys what Ancient Astronaut theorists describe as a mounting wave of discoveries that, in their view, strengthens the case for extraterrestrial contact in Earth's distant past. David Childress and Giorgio Tsoukalos argue that emerging technologies—ground-penetrating radar, satellite imagery, thermal scanning—are revealing artifacts and structures mainstream archaeology allegedly overlooked or cannot explain. The episode highlights three specific claims: geoglyphs in Kazakhstan resembling Peru's Nazca lines, detected by satellite; possible ancient technology remnants at Machu Picchu identified through ground-penetrating radar; and hidden chambers behind King Tut's tomb found via thermal scanning, which theorists suggest might contain remains of extraterrestrial beings. Erich von Däniken frames these as part of a cumulative pattern, linking advances in astronomy (the discovery of thousands of exoplanets), genetics, and archaeological imaging into what he sees as an interconnected revelation about humanity's origins.

The Visionaries

This episode explores whether humanity's greatest technological visionaries—from space program pioneers to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs—have been guided by extraterrestrial intelligence. Ancient astronaut theorists point to figures like Nikolai Fyodorov, the Russian "Cosmist" philosopher who believed humanity originated in outer space and influenced rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and Steve Jobs, whose revolutionary iPhone announcement in San Francisco on January 9, 2007, put supercomputers in billions of hands. The episode highlights mathematicians like Srinivasa Ramanujan, who claimed numbers appeared to him in dreams, and the pivotal meeting between John von Neumann and Alan Turing, asking whether such breakthroughs represent an alien master plan to accelerate human advancement toward cosmic interface.

Decoding the Cosmic Egg

Ancient Astronaut theorists examine why the "Cosmic Egg"—a creation myth in which the universe or a primordial being emerges from a hatching egg—appears across radically different cultures from Egypt and Easter Island to Nordic, Vedic, and Chinese traditions. David Childress and others point to ancient depictions of humans emerging from eggs, questioning how early peoples could have understood human reproduction at a cellular level without advanced knowledge. The episode suggests that the egg symbol, often paired with intertwined serpents resembling the DNA double helix, may represent not just fertility but evidence of extraterrestrial genetic manipulation. William Henry proposes the Cosmic Egg points to humanity's "source of origin," while Erich von Däniken notes that stone eggs have been discovered worldwide, making it more pervasive than the cross.

The Wisdom Keepers

This episode explores whether the 60,000-year oral traditions of Australia's Aboriginal people—the world's oldest continuous culture—contain evidence of ancient extraterrestrial contact. Ancient astronaut theorists including David Childress point to the Wandjina figures found in Australian cave art, which they argue resemble Grey aliens with their large eyes and heads. Indigenous tradition keeper Gary Simon Jagamarra describes how these beings were commemorated through carving, song, dance, and painting so "when the visitors left, we didn't forget about them." The episode highlights a 2015 claim by linguists that many Aboriginal legends can be verified through geological records, arguing that if some stories are scientifically accurate, then perhaps accounts of "sky gods" arriving in "large, fire-spewing crafts" during the Dreamtime era deserve similar consideration. Damien Nott's collection of over 2,000 recent UFO images from Australian skies is presented as evidence the continent remains a hotspot for unexplained phenomena.

The Mysterious Nine

This episode investigates claims that a council of nine extraterrestrial beings has guided humanity throughout history, sparked by former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer's 2013 statement about an alien "federation" monitoring Earth. Ancient Astronaut theorists point to recurring patterns of nine-god pantheons across cultures—most prominently Egypt's Ennead—as evidence of a shared extraterrestrial influence. The episode's most unusual evidence comes from Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where CIA-affiliated scientist Andrija Puharich conducted channeling experiments in 1952 using a Faraday cage, during which a psychic allegedly contacted entities calling themselves "The Nine" who claimed to be guiding humanity from beyond. Theorists argue this Cold War-era contact, combined with the widespread appearance of nine-deity councils in ancient religions, suggests a persistent non-human presence shaping civilization.

The Hidden Empire

This episode explores claims that China's history of isolationism may conceal evidence of extraterrestrial contact spanning thousands of years to the present day. Ancient Astronaut theorists point to Sun Shili, a former Chinese Foreign Ministry official who worked under Mao Tse-tung, who stated in 2011 that the Chinese government knows extraterrestrials visit Earth and that some aliens live among us in human form. Sun describes witnessing a bright UFO in 1972 while working in Beijing's foreign affairs department. Theorists including Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress connect modern UFO sightings over Chinese cities like Foshan—where thousands reportedly witnessed a "floating city" phenomenon—to ancient Chinese legends of flying dragons, suggesting a continuous alien presence behind the Great Wall and China's modern "Great Firewall" of information control.

The Prototypes

"The Prototypes" argues that Earth may have served as an extraterrestrial laboratory where multiple intelligent human-like species were deliberately created as experimental prototypes. The episode points to discoveries like Homo naledi in South Africa's Rising Star Cave—a species with a puzzling mix of primitive and advanced traits—as evidence that different hominid species appeared suddenly in isolated regions rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor. Ancient astronaut theorists, citing the work of researcher David Jacobs on alleged modern alien abductions involving genetic procedures, suggest that extraterrestrials have been manipulating human DNA for millennia, creating various hominid "prototypes" before selecting Homo sapiens as the sole survivor. The episode invokes the "Lord of the Rings" scenario where Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other species coexisted, questioning why fossil evidence doesn't show a slow, steady progression as evolution would predict.

Space Station Moon

This episode argues that the Moon may not be a natural satellite but an artificial structure placed in Earth's orbit by extraterrestrial beings, and that NASA's Apollo missions may have discovered evidence of alien presence there. Ancient astronaut theorists including Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress point to what they describe as unusual structures in NASA photographs taken near the Apollo 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility—specifically, formations resembling obelisks located roughly 300 kilometers from where the Eagle landed. The episode suggests this potential discovery could explain why crewed lunar missions ended abruptly after Apollo 17 in 1972 and why it took over four decades before space agencies announced plans to return, with NASA, China, Russia, and India all unveiling new lunar exploration programs around 2016.

Russia's Secret Files

This episode explores the claim that decades of Soviet secrecy may have concealed evidence of both modern and ancient extraterrestrial contact within Russia's vast and largely unexplored territory. Ancient astronaut theorists point to specific sites like Arkaim, a Bronze Age settlement in the southern Urals that shares astronomical alignments with Stonehenge, as potential evidence of cosmic influence on ancient Russian civilization. They also highlight mysterious tiny metal coils and springs discovered 30 feet underground in the Ural Mountains, which some interpret as remnants of advanced technology predating known human civilization. The episode argues that the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent leak of thousands of KGB files—including UFO reports smuggled out by archivist Vasiliy Mitrokhin—may finally allow researchers to examine evidence that was hidden behind the Iron Curtain for seventy years. Theorists like David Wilcock and Nick Redfern claim these files could prove extraterrestrial visitation, with some alleging the Soviets possessed remains from multiple crashed UFOs.

Beyond Roswell

The episode argues that the 1947 Roswell incident was merely the most famous of numerous UFO crash retrievals conducted by world governments in the late 1940s, with wreckage allegedly stored at secret military installations including Area 51 in Nevada, Kapustin Yar in Russia, Pine Gap in Australia, and Rudloe Manor in England. Ancient astronaut theorists point to a 1950 FBI memo to J. Edgar Hoover describing three recovered "flying saucers" in New Mexico as evidence that the initial military report of a captured flying disc was accurate before being changed to the weather balloon explanation. Richard Dolan, Linda Moulton Howe, and Giorgio Tsoukalos contend that governments have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology from these crashes for decades, with Tsoukalos visiting the original Walker Air Force Base hangar where alien bodies were purportedly stored.

The Returned

This episode examines the global phenomenon of alleged alien abductions, centering on one of the most high-profile claims ever made: in 2007, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia, publicly stated on Al Jazeera that he had been taken aboard an extraterrestrial spacecraft nearly a decade earlier. Ancient astronaut theorists suggest his story, along with hundreds of thousands of similar accounts worldwide dating back to Betty and Barney Hill's famous 1961 New Hampshire case, point to an ongoing extraterrestrial agenda. The episode explores why abductees report remarkably consistent experiences—paralysis, missing time, medical examinations—and why they are invariably returned to Earth. Proponents argue that researchers have documented physical evidence including subdermal implants, genetic anomalies, and abductees' knowledge of alleged alien languages, suggesting these experiences serve a larger purpose in secretly manipulating or monitoring humanity.

Shiva the Destroyer

This episode explores the proposition that Shiva, one of Hinduism's principal deities, may represent an extraterrestrial leader who visited Earth in ancient times. Ancient astronaut theorists including Erich von Däniken and David Wilcock point to descriptions in the Mahabharata and other Vedic texts that depict gods arriving in flying vehicles called vimanas from "cities in the firmament," wielding advanced weapons like Shiva's trident that could annihilate anything in its path. They argue that Hindu scripture describes these beings not as metaphorical figures but as physical entities—what the texts call "itihasa," meaning history—and that Shiva's dual role as both destroyer and creator may indicate an alien faction's ongoing influence over humanity's fate. The episode examines an ancient rock-cut Hindu temple as potential evidence of this advanced technological presence.