Ancient Aliens

Wow.

It's gigantic.

The rock itself is said to weigh about 500 tons.

Wow.

You want to just look down below here.

That's amazing.

It's hovering above the water.

This monolith is said to be

related to one of the first gods

that descended from the heavens to Japan,

and he traveled over the country on a sky ship

made out of a giant rock.

So what you're telling me is that there is

a deity flying around in the sky

with a gigantic vehicle made of stone?

Absolutely.

Tokyo, Japan.

May 2017.

The University of Tokyo reveals designs for electric vehicles

that are able to charge while driving on powered roadways,

enabling the Japanese to travel freely with unlimited mileage

throughout the country.

This same month, the Japanese government,

in cooperation with private companies,

unveils plans to unleash a countrywide drone

delivery system by 2020,

with self-driving trucks to follow in 2022.

And Inami Hiyama Laboratory brings to market

a new prosthetic device called MetaLimbs,

a pair of wearable robotic arms controlled by the legs and feet,

giving the user two additional hands to work with.

These are just a few of the scientific innovations

introduced by the Japanese in a single month.

And they, along with numerous others,

have helped accelerate mankind's technological advancement

at a breathtaking pace.

Yet, in the midst of this cutting-edge technology

are antiquated teahouses, palaces

and shrines dating back thousands of years

that create a stark contrast

between the old and the new.

Japan can be a puzzle to a Westerner.

On one hand, you have this modern culture

with trains that are going 250 miles an hour.

Robots can serve you in the home,

can help people with handicaps walk.

They can be a robotic pet.

They have parking garages in which the cars,

uh, park themselves.

So, Japan is always on the cutting edge

of technological development and innovation.

Yet, at the same time, it cherishes and looks back

at its age-old traditions,

some of them going back several millennia, in fact.

While Japan is a nation

where old world traditions

and new world technology collide,

ancient astronaut theorists suggest the two

are not as disconnected as they may seem

and that the secrets of ancient Japan

help explain why they are at the forefront of technology today,

secrets that are connected to extraterrestrial visitation.

December 18, 2007.

Ryuji Yamane of the Democratic Party of Japan,

under increasing pressure from his constituents,

publicly demands a response

from the prime minister and his cabinet

to address the surge of UFO activity over Japan,

totaling more than 300 reported sightings per month.

The cabinet's official statement

is that it "has not confirmed the existence

of unidentified flying objects from outer space."

But within a few hours, everything changes.

Just hours after this meeting,

the Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura

announced on live television

that regarding the question of extraterrestrials,

he definitely thinks they exist.

Then, a week later, the Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba

revealed that he had been carefully considering

different response scenarios for an alien invasion.

And what he said is incredible.

He said, and I quote,

"There are no grounds for us to deny

"that there are unidentified flying objects

and some life forms that controls them."

Two years later, the wife of the prime minister

came out with an extraordinary series of statements,

in which she claimed that she had been abducted by aliens,

that she had traveled on a UFO.

For the wife of the prime minister to come out

and make a statement like that was absolutely unprecedented.

I think the only reason this isn't on the front page

of every newspaper in the world is that,

certainly in the United States, we do tend to be

rather heavily focused on English-speaking countries,

and, indeed, very U.S.-centric in our outlook.

If the statements being made in Japan

were being made in America,

it would be on every major news network 24-7.

Could these profound statements

coming from top Japanese government officials reveal

that they have knowledge of alien visitation?

Ancient astronaut theorists suggest

evidence of alien contact on these islands

dates back thousands of years,

and can be found within the teachings of Shintoism.

Shintoism is the primary religion of Japan,

with over 107 million followers,

and is designed around a set of ritual practices

that connect present-day Japan

to its ancient mystical past.

At its center are celestial beings

that, according to the Japanese people,

still roam their islands to this day.

The term "Shinto" translates as "the way of the kami,"

or, uh, "the way of the gods."

It's a tradition

that has a millennia-long history in Japan.

There are over eight million kamis,

according to the Shinto tradition,

and each one of them has

its own particular personality traits, if you will.

So, in that sense, they are quite different

from the notion of monotheistic God that we have

in traditions that are most widespread in the West.

The kami are these celestial beings

that are able to inhabit basically anything,

from a human being

to an animal, and even inanimate objects.

So on the one hand, they're these multi-dimensional beings,

but then, they also describe them

as having come down from their celestial palace in the sky,

which is called Takamagahara.

The celestial kami will come into the terrestrial world,

our world, and they need a home,

so they have these major shrines for these kami

when they come into the world,

so that they can feel at home in the terrestrial world.

The Japanese archipelago is dotted with over 81,000 shrines

that are devoted to the kami gods,

and it's believed that these are houses or places

where these extraterrestrial beings come to live

when they're on Earth.

The Japanese people will visit the shrines of the kami

with the belief that they are actually praying

to an extraterrestrial being who can fulfill their blessings.

If what Shinto followers call "the kami"

really are otherworldly beings

that have been visiting Japan since ancient times,

are they still being encountered today in the form of UFOs?

Perhaps further clues can be found

by examining ancient Japanese structures

that defy explanation.

There are thousands of these statuettes

Honshu, Japan. April 2017.

Near the modern-day city of Osaka,

Giorgio Tsoukalos meets

with fellow ancient astronaut theorist Takeharu Mikami

to investigate one of the oldest and holiest sites

in the country... The Ishi-no-Hoden megalith,

a Shinto shrine said to be inhabited

by an otherworldly being.

Wow.

It's gigantic.

This is...

I had no idea.

I mean, it is massive.

The rock itself is said to weigh about 500 tons.

- 500 tons? - Yes.

Wow!

This is said to have the soul of a god,

or kami, inside it.

Okay, so to this day,

this is the belief, that some type of spirit

lives in this,

or that the rock itself has spirit.

The spirit of a god is inside,

and the stone carries a special spiritual meaning now.

Okay. That's amazing.

I want to... I need to walk around.

I mean, I had no idea how massive this is.

So, do you want to just look down below here?

It looks like it's floating over the water.

It really does.

Oh.

The name for this rock is Ame-no-kishi,

or the Floating Rock from the Heavens.

So this monolith is said to be related

to one of the first gods

that descended from the heavens to Japan,

and he is said to have traveled over the country

on a sky ship made out of a giant rock,

which was called Ama no Iwafune,

which is the Heavenly Rock Ship.

So what you're telling me is that there is

an ancient Japanese legend that speaks of a deity

flying around in the sky

with a gigantic vehicle made of stone?

Absolutely.