NARRATOR: The Indus
Valley, Pakistan, 1922.
The Indian Archaeological
Survey discovers the remnants
of what is the largest ancient
city of the Indus Valley
civilizations, Mohenjo-daro.
The artifacts and architecture
cataloged at the site
indicate a metropolis prospered
here nearly 4,600 years ago.
But the skeletal remains
found among the ruins
tell a puzzling story.
I understand that they found
a lot of radioactive ash there,
and they found
radioactive people there.
And so the assumption
is that there must
have been some radiation event.
And so it is possible
that there was
some kind of nuclear explosion
there a long time ago.
The problem is that in order
to do that, in order for that
to be the case, you
would have to have
some very advanced technology.
ANCIENT ALIEN THEORIST:
What we may be seeing
is the residue of one of
the ancient power plants
used by extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: But if, as ancient
astronaut theorists believe,
Mohenjo-daro was wiped
out in a nuclear meltdown,
where is the power
plant that might have
caused such mass devastation?
Mount Kailash, Western Tibet.
At an elevation of
nearly 22,000 feet,
this mountain is one of the most
distinctive peaks in the world.
PHILIP COPPENS: This
is a very interesting
shape for a mountain.
It is cone-shaped from one
side and pyramid-shaped
from another.
And this is precisely the
shape we see elsewhere
in ancient Sumeria,
ancient Egypt,
various other ancient
civilizations, whereby
this pyramid-shaped
object really
is said to have some form of
power, some kind of connection
with the deity.
NARRATOR: In the Eastern
world, Mount Kailash
is regarded as the
spiritual center
of the universe and
the birthplace of four
of the world's religions--
Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism, and Taoism.
For thousands of years,
religious pilgrims
have trekked here to
perform the holy ritual
of walking a 32-mile
circular path carved
along the mountain's base.
PHILIP COPPENS: Everybody at
one point in their lifetime
had to go to this place
to connect with the gods.
And this is really the
interesting aspect,
because what is it about
this mountain which sets
it apart from other mountains?
There are several possibilities.
One of them is that the gods
really took residence here.
NARRATOR: They say the true
significance of this mountain
can be found detailed in an
ancient Chinese drawing--
the Mogao Caves, Western China.
Between 500 BC and
1500 AD, Buddhist monks
stored thousands of scrolls
and manuscripts inside a series
of painted temples and
shrines dug into a hillside
approximately 600 miles
north of Mount Kailash.
Here, in 1907, Hungarian-born
British explorer Aurel Stein
discovered a sealed-off
room containing
nearly 50,000 manuscripts
in various languages.
WILLIAM HENRY: Aurel Stein finds
this incredible place called
the Cave of the
Thousand Buddhas,
which is sort of like a
Buddhist hall of records.
It's a cache of
thousands upon thousands
of ancient Buddhist texts.
Included within this
is the Diamond Sutra,
which is the oldest
printed manuscript
known to human history.
NARRATOR: The collection
of ancient texts and relics
also included a second
century AD Buddhist diagram
of a cosmic mountain
called Mount Meru,
a sacred site believed
to be a stairway
connecting Heaven and Earth.
For nearly 100 years,
the ancient illustration
drew little notice.
But recently, the diagram caught
the attention of a scientist
from Northrop Grumman
who specializes
in the development of advanced
weapons for the military.
WILLIAM HENRY: He said, I
design particle beam weapons for
a living for the government.
Do you realize that
that's a blueprint
for a particle accelerator?
I went and compared the
diagram of Mount Meru
with an illustration of what's
called a cyclotron, an atom
smasher which was used in
the development of the A bomb
for the Manhattan Project.
They're a perfect
match for one another.
NARRATOR: Might the nearly
2,000-year-old Buddhist diagram
of Mount Meru actually
depict a device that today
would run on nuclear power?
Mongolian myth says that
these celestial beings
dwelled around Meru
because of the energy
that was emitted from it.
It was a transmitter
of this cosmic power
that fed these celestial
beings, or kept them alive.
And I think that power might
have come from Mount Kailash.
This wasn't a
place that actually
put out spiritual energy,
but what we're talking about
is a place that produced raw
energy, technological energy.
Potentially, we're talking
about a power plant.
