NARRATOR: While visiting the ancient site of Nan Madol,
ancient astronaut theorists Giorgio Tsoukalos and David
Childress, along with their guide, Gus Kohler,
and structural engineer Dr. Henry Burton,
have traveled to the site of Nan Dowas,
the royal mortuary said to belong to Nan
Madol's original builders.
This is supposed to be the biggest stone here.
This cornerstone right here?
This thing, it's supposed to be the biggest
of all the stones here.
Henry, do you think you can calculate the weight of this?
Yeah, we can certainly estimate it.
I have a measuring tape.
We can estimate the volume, and we know the density.
So that can give us the mass.
All right.
Let's do that.
Yeah, so this is about 4 meters.
All right.
Here's the far corner here.
NARRATOR: Using the dimensions and the density
of one of the basalt stone blocks,
Dr. Burton calculates its weight.
250, 2 meters 50.
All right.
So based on the measurements, you're looking
at a weight of about 54 tons.
54 tons?
So 50 tons, give or take.
And you have 1, 2, 3, 4 of those monoliths
essentially stacked on top of each other
at a height of 40 feet.
So Gus, what is, then, the oral history of moving
this stone on the island?
Well, according to the legends,
the stones were flown up there.
NARRATOR: For generations, the people of Pompeii
have told the story that Nan Madol was
constructed by strange visitors through a process
of levitation.
It is this legend that has suggested to ancient astronaut
theorists that Nan Madol is not only
an ancient megalithic structure.
It is also an extraterrestrial one.
So we have in the oral traditions
a story about two brothers, Olosopha and Olisihpa.
NARRATOR: According to legend, the twin sorcerers
who created Nan Madol were of giant proportions,
much like the legends of Easter Island, where it is
said that giants magically floated the stone
Moai statues into place.
Similar stories involving levitation
are associated with numerous other megalithic sites,
like Stonehenge in England, the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt,
the Uxmal Pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula,
and Puma Punku in Bolivia.
There are other stories around the world
that say the exact same thing--
how gigantic stones were moved into place as if by magic.
And you have to ask yourself, is there a connection?
Did all of our ancestors receive the same knowledge
from the extraterrestrials?
And the answer to that is a resounding yes.
They don't know--
I think they don't know where it came from.
But it's not from here, right?
So yeah, 60% of the stones, they don't
know where they came from.
That's incredible that the 60% is essentially still a mystery.
Yes?
Huh.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: For decades, mainstream archaeologists
have been frustrated by their failure
to identify the source for much of the basalt used
in the construction of Nan Madol.
But recently, a growing number of scientists
have become convinced that it came
from a volcanic outcropping located
25 miles northeast of Nan Madol called Pwisehn Malek.
The unusual formation extends over 400 feet into the air.
And incredibly, the rock used to construct Nan Madol
appears to have been extracted from the least accessible
part of the mountain--
the very top.
But how?
According to the oral history of Pompeii,
the basalt was taken by what the natives
referred to as a giant bird.
There's one story that says that at some point,
there were these giant roosters that
lived on top of that mountain.
And this rooster took these basalt blocks and flew
them over to Nan Modal.
Now, monster roosters do not exist.
So my mind always goes to misunderstood technology,
machines that were provided by the extraterrestrials.
DAVID CHILDRESS: I believe that the islanders are correct when
they say all those stones were flown through the air,
because I can't see how it was done in any other way.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists
are concerned, the local legends,
along with hard evidence, that basalt appears
to have been excavated from the top of Pwisehn Malek
add credence to the idea that advanced
alien technology was used in the construction of Nan Madol.