NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists

are concerned, evidence that there is other intelligent life

in the universe has already been found

on every corner of the globe.

They believe Earth has been visited by intelligent beings

for thousands of years, and that it

most likely began during the time

of the ancient Sumerian kings.

Khorsabad, Iraq, March 23, 1843.

While excavating for archeological treasures,

a group of men, led by French scientist Paul- mile Botta,

came upon the remains of a huge Assyrian palace,

and within it, an abundance of Sumerian

cuneiform inscriptions.

When translated, the inscriptions

told of what archaeologists believed to be the world's

oldest civilization and a group of powerful beings

called the Anunnaki.

ANDREW COLLINS: The Anunnaki was a term of the gods used

by the ancient Sumerians, but the original form of it,

it simply meant "the sky people."

It meant those that were connected with the stars.

The Anunnaki were seen to be the givers of civilization

to mortalkind.

And they are described as having the shining eyes,

and having a radiance, and an otherworldly feeling

about them.

NARRATOR: Based on 30 years of studying the Sumerian cuneiform

tablets, in 1976, author and researcher Zecharia Sitchin

published a book called "The 12th Planet," in which he

proposed that the Sumerian gods were, in fact,

refugees from another world.

According to Sitchin's interpretation of the tablets,

these alien visitors, the Anunnaki, created humankind.

JASON MARTELL: It appears to be that gods

came down and literally started a colonization project here

on Earth, creating us in their image and after their likeness.

It also might stand to reason, then, that they've infused us

with the desire to spread this colonization

project beyond Earth.

GEORGE NOORY: I think if you look at what we've been doing

in our space program, it's a blueprint

for what may have happened here a long time

ago with extraterrestrials.

But I think we're on the same path.

We're beginning to understand that the Anunnaki gods, that

were actually ETs, could be still

out throughout the universe, that we could now, as we are

starting to head out into space, be encountering

the prime intelligence that originally

had civilizations on Earth and were working

throughout this solar system.