Ancient Aliens

Sacred tattoos.

These are primeval symbols that speak to something in us

that’s very deep-seated and very universal.

Severe body modifications.

The tribespeople

sharpen the edges of their teeth

to look like serpents.

Extreme adornments.

Girls in the Kayan culture stretched out their necks

with brass rings to emulate their sacred ancestor.

Could these metamorphic alterations of the flesh

represent more than mere self-expression

or even acts of religious tribute?

Might they contain a message

critical to the future of mankind?

The reason why they did this to their bodies

is in order to gain the strength of the gods

that they tried to imitate.

We now have technology

that is equal to what we see

the gods using in these ancient stories.

Maybe now we’re gonna be able to turn ourselves into a species

just like the gods.

There is a doorway

in the universe.

Beyond it is the promise of truth.

It demands we question everything

we have ever been taught.

The evidence is all around us.

The future is right before our eyes.

We are not alone.

We have never been alone.

Tattooed and pierced Italian fashion model

Cristian Mignemi makes a bold and permanent decision

to transform the sclera, or whites of his eyes,

into black.

He claims he wants to appear more otherworldly.

Cristian Mignemi

is a very forward-thinking person in fashion,

by choosing to go to the extreme

of coloring his eyes completely black,

looking almost alien-like.

This is a trend happening across the board.

Body modifications,

tattooing, piercing,

all types of adornments to change

the physical appearance of our bodies.

It’s almost as if humanity, in a fashion sense,

is gearing themselves to look more alien.

People feel liberated

by the idea that they can appear

extrahuman in some way.

They can look like something extraterrestrial

or they can look like something primeval.

There’s something self-dramatizing

and empowering about it.

Today, tattoos and piercings

account for a nearly $1 billion industry.

Trending modification practices

like ear elongation and branding the skin

are all on the rise.

But what could motivate someone to alter their body

in such a way?

The way we adorn our bodies

is essentially telling a story and sending messages.

The fact that more and more people

are expressing themselves through body art,

it tells a bigger story on a cultural level.

Now that we’re so connected through the Internet,

it’s easy to find inspiration from others

and what other people are doing in body art practices.

Symbols communicate things

that we’re not quite able to put into words.

It goes beyond just wanting to make a statement

about one’s individuality.

It demonstrates what you believe in.

While tattoos, piercings

and body modification

are modern forms of personal expression,

they also hearken back to humanity’s ancient past

and mirror the practices

of many so-called primitive tribes that exist

around the world today.

A lot of what we do finds inspiration

in ancient roots from all over the world.

These are things that we’ve seen on, say,

like, National Geographic

and books and on TV over the years.

And they’ve inspired newer forms

of body modification and body art expression.

Rites of passage,

like skin stretching,

have been seen throughout history

in different parts of the world.

The revered Buddha,

the Dayak of Borneo,

the ancient Rapa Nui of Easter Island

and the modern Fulani tribe of West Africa

all have colorful histories of ritual ear stretching.

The contemporary Mursi women of Ethiopia,

tribes of the Amazon

and the earlier Botocudo people of coastal Brazil

all share a history of skin stretching

for decorative lip plates.

But are these practices being adopted by mainstream society

simply as a fashion trend,

a bold form of self-expression?

Or could it be motivated by a profound link

to our ancient past?

When people have tattoos,

it’s something meaningful.

And so my question is not, today,

why do we tattoo ourselves?

I ask the question,

when did we first tattoo ourselves, and then why?

September 9, 1991.

11,000 feet high in the Otztal Alps.

Two German climbers near the Austrian-Italian border

happen upon a frozen corpse.

Scientists call him the Tyrolean Iceman, or Otzi,

and place his time of death

between 3400 and 3100 BC.

What we find so amazing about Otzi,

he’s very well preserved.

So well preserved

that scientists and anthropologists can even tell

that he had a lot of medical conditions.

And that leads us to Otzi’s tattoos.

In 2015,

more than two decades after the initial discovery,

scientists were able to make a more detailed scan

of the Iceman’s epidermis.

The results were extraordinary.

Under examination,

it was found that Otzi the Iceman

had, in fact, 61 different tattoos over his body,

and almost all of these took the form of parallel lines,

either two together, three together.

In one case, seven together.

These tattoos, it’s amazing.

They are actually located on acupuncture points

throughout the body.

Most of them are on the joints, the lower back,

the thoracic area, the chest.

And what that tells us is he had some knowledge of healing.

Acupuncture is a traditional form of Chinese medicine

involving the pricking of the skin with needles

along the body’s neurohormonal meridians

to alleviate pain and treat various medical conditions.

Traditional historians place the origin of acupuncture in China

at approximately 100 BC.

Acupuncture did not exist as a formal system

of therapeutic treatment in China, uh,

at the time that Otzi received his tattoos

on the other side of the globe.

So, where did Otzi get these tattoos

that were made with the knowledge

of acupuncture points on the body?

We think acupuncture’s from China,

but here’s something even older and from the Alps.

The fact that we find these tattoos

at specific meridian points tells us

that this civilization knew

of the meridians in the body,

understood how energy runs in the body,

which is quite an advanced process for that time.

So, where did this knowledge come from?

Is it possible that it came

from some kind of higher source,

downloaded into the healers of the time?

Is it possible that acupuncture

is really coming from extraterrestrials?

Could the Tyrolean Iceman

point to the possibility that tattooing originated

as a result of contact with extraterrestrial visitors?

While it may sound far-fetched,

ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that some of the most popular tattoos

found in both the ancient and modern world

contain symbolism connected to the cosmos.

Some of the earliest yearnings

of our ancient ancestors

was to recognize and connect themselves

to the cosmos, to the movement of celestial objects,

to the cycles of the seasons.

In modern tattoo art,

we’re not only seeing a proliferation

of celestial images,

whether the Sun, the stars,

the phases of the Moon, astrological symbols,

but we’re also starting to see E.T. images.

These are primeval symbols that speak to something in us

that’s very deep-seated and very universal.

Tattooing or body modification can be a way

of remembering one’s ancestors,

remembering one’s connection with the cosmos.

A yearning to connect with the cosmos

is perhaps as old as civilization itself.

And ancient astronaut theorists suggest

that tattoos represent far more than merely