Episode Guide

The Divine Number

This episode explores whether the recurring appearance of the number twelve across ancient cultures, sacred texts, and modern science points to a deliberate extraterrestrial code. Ancient astronaut theorists note that twelve appears in the Bible's twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles, in the twelve massive stones arranged around two monoliths at Göbekli Tepe, and in the twelve signs of the zodiac adopted from Mesopotamian lunar cycles. The episode highlights child prodigy William Sidis, who used a base-12 mathematical system and predicted black holes in 1920, and physicist Burkhard Heim's 12-dimensional unified theory. Proponents suggest that twelve's mathematical elegance—its easy divisibility compared to base-10 systems—and its appearance in planetary grid theory's twelve global "vortex points" like the Bermuda Triangle indicate it may be a cosmic key left by advanced beings.

The Lost Kingdom

This episode investigates whether Tibet—particularly the region surrounding Mount Everest and the Himalayas—serves as a gateway to Shambhala, a hidden realm described in ancient Tibetan texts as the "abode of the gods." Ancient astronaut theorists including Giorgio Tsoukalos propose that Tibet's status as a spiritual center stems from extraterrestrial contact, pointing to the region's numerous UFO sightings, reports of vanishing phenomena, and accounts of yetis that allegedly appear and disappear at will. The episode examines how the Zhangzhung people's Bon religion (circa 500 BC) and later Tibetan Buddhism incorporated beliefs about powerful sacred sites and dimensional access, suggesting these traditions may preserve knowledge of otherworldly contact. Theorists argue that Tibet's extreme elevation and isolation made it an ideal extraterrestrial outpost, with the Dalai Lama lineage potentially connected to this alien legacy.

The Galactic Keyhole

This episode explores the recurring keyhole shape found in ancient monuments, sacred texts, and artwork across unrelated cultures, asking whether it represents a message left by extraterrestrial visitors. The investigation begins when Cydonia Institute researcher George Haas identifies a symmetrical keyhole-shaped formation on Mars in 2013 imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, prompting ancient astronaut theorists to compare it with earthly structures. The most striking example is Japan's Daisen Kofun in Sakai, a fifth-century megalithic tomb stretching 1,600 feet long and covering five million square acres, encircled by three moats—one of over 160,000 similar kofun tombs built across Japan between 300 and 600 AD. Giorgio Tsoukalos, David Childress, and Andrew Collins suggest the keyhole's global recurrence and aerial-only visibility indicate a deliberate extraterrestrial communication, with the shape appearing in contexts from the Seal of Solomon to structures whose form can only be appreciated from above.

Giants of the Mediterranean

This episode explores whether widespread Mediterranean legends of enormous beings descending from the sky point to a lost race of giants who once inhabited the region. Ancient astronaut theorists argue that so-called "cyclopean architecture"—massive stone structures like those found throughout Greece and Italy—required superhuman strength to construct, with individual blocks sometimes weighing 30 tons or more. Timothy Alberino claims to have personally measured tombs in the Mediterranean that could accommodate beings nine to twelve feet tall, while Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok cites Midrashic teachings describing the Adamic race as approximately 100 feet tall. The episode draws connections between Greek accounts of the Gigantomachy (a mythical war between Olympian gods and giants), Roman historian Dio Cassius's claims that giants roamed before Vesuvius erupted, and similar giant legends from cultures worldwide, including Native American and Celtic traditions.

The Forbidden Bible

This episode explores whether the Book of Enoch, an ancient text included in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible but excluded from most Christian canons, contains evidence of humanity's extraterrestrial origins. Ancient astronaut theorists point to Enoch's account of being taken up to heaven at age twelve by two physical beings, where he witnessed Earth from above and received cosmic knowledge from angels described not as spiritual entities but as physical beings directing human affairs. The episode examines the Garima Gospels at Ethiopia's Abba Garima Monastery, one of the oldest complete Bibles on Earth dating to the 6th century AD, and asks whether church authorities deemed Enoch's writings too dangerous because they documented actual contact with otherworldly visitors. Theorists suggest Enoch's prophecy that his writings would be discovered "in the far future" and his promise to return indicate knowledge beyond normal human understanding.

William Shatner Meets Ancient Aliens

In this two-hour roundtable special, William Shatner sits down with Giorgio Tsoukalos, Erich von Däniken, David Childress, William Henry, and other ancient astronaut theorists to explore their core claim: that ancient texts and oral traditions from civilizations worldwide describe "teachers" who descended from the sky and brought humanity agriculture, mathematics, metallurgy, and monumental architecture. The theorists argue that figures like Osiris and Viracocha were flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials misinterpreted as gods by ancestors who lacked the framework to understand advanced technology. Shatner presses the panel on their evidence, questioning the reliability of oral traditions that change over time and asking them to construct a clear timeline for when these alleged visitations occurred. The conversation centers on whether the consistency of sky-being narratives across cultures suggests a shared historical reality or simply parallel mythmaking.

Impossible Artifacts

This episode explores artifacts from around the world that ancient astronaut theorists argue shouldn't exist according to conventional timelines—including a hammer found encased in Texas sandstone supposedly 140 million years old, the striking bronze humanoid figures unearthed at Sanxingdui in China, and the Antikythera mechanism, a 2,000-year-old Greek computing device so sophisticated that researchers compared finding it to discovering a jet plane in King Tut's tomb. The episode frames these objects as potential "time capsules" left by extraterrestrial visitors, drawing a parallel to the 2019 Lunar Library mission that crashed a quartz archive of human knowledge onto the Moon, designed to last 14 billion years. Ancient astronaut theorists like Giorgio Tsoukalos argue that aliens may have employed the same strategy millennia ago, leaving behind evidence of their presence in plain sight.

The Space Travelers

This episode investigates whether humanity's push into space represents a return to our extraterrestrial origins, rather than a first-time departure from Earth. Ancient astronaut theorists Giorgio Tsoukalos, David Childress, and aerospace engineer Travis Taylor explore the idea that space exploration may be "hardwired" into human DNA because our ancestors came from the stars. They point to 19th-century Russian cosmism—a philosophical movement that proposed humanity originated in space and must return there—as evidence that this concept has deep intellectual roots, and suggest it was a motivating factor behind the Soviet space program. The team argues that the privatization of spaceflight through companies like SpaceX increases opportunities for encounters with extraterrestrials, and that our "instinctive" drive to explore beyond Earth reflects ancestral memory rather than mere curiosity.

The UFO Pioneers

This episode profiles the key figures who transformed UFO research from fringe speculation into a documented field of inquiry during the 20th century. Giorgio Tsoukalos, David Childress, and Nick Pope examine the work of pioneers including Coral Lorenzen, who encouraged public UFO reporting; Stanton Friedman, who brought the 1947 Roswell incident to widespread attention; and astronomer J. Allen Hynek, who investigated close encounters for the U.S. military. The episode traces how photography revolutionized UFO documentation, starting with an 1870 daguerreotype of a cylindrical object over Mount Washington, New Hampshire—claimed as the first UFO photograph. Ancient astronaut theorists argue that modern UFO sightings connect directly to historical accounts, pointing to medieval broadsheets from Nuremberg and Basel depicting aerial phenomena, suggesting extraterrestrial visitation spans thousands of years.

The Harmonic Code

This episode explores whether ancient cultures possessed knowledge of a "harmonic code"—specific sound frequencies that could alter consciousness, move massive stones, or communicate with extraterrestrial beings. Ancient astronaut theorists Giorgio Tsoukalos and David Childress examine acoustic properties at megalithic sites worldwide, drawing connections between sacred sounds like the Hindu "aum," biblical creation through divine speech, and the use of mandalas as visual representations of vibration patterns. The episode highlights physicist Ernst Chladni's 1787 experiments showing how sound frequencies create geometric patterns in sand—patterns that theorists suggest resemble ancient mandalas and temple designs. Contributors propose that chanting, mantras, and ritualistic sounds weren't merely spiritual practices but practical technologies for manipulating matter or accessing altered states that enabled contact with advanced beings.