Ancient Aliens - Top Ten Alien Artifacts

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

An ancient figurine of a modern-day airplane. A primitive statue of a man in a spacesuit. Mysterious crystal skulls whose origins are entirely unknown. For more than a decade on Ancient Aliens, we’ve traveled the globe and investigated strange objects found on every continent on Earth. We’re counting down the top ten alien artifacts. Objects that could provide evidence that extraterrestrials once walked among us.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An ancient figurine of a modern-day airplane, a primitive statue of a man in a space suit, mysterious crystal skulls whose origins are entirely unknown. For more than a decade, on ancient aliens, we've traveled the globe and investigated strange objects found on every continent on Earth. I'm counting down what I consider to be the top 10 alien artifacts. Artifacts that in my opinion provide strong evidence that in the distant past, extraterrestrials walked among us.

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. Here is ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Suclos. Ancient artifacts offer us a fascinating glimpse of how our ancestors lived.

And for ancient astronaut theorists like me, some artifacts provide critical evidence to support the notion that extraterrestrials visited Earth in the remote past. One compelling example is a group of precisely carved objects that are not only surrounded in controversy, but may possess a technology far more advanced than our own. Number 10 on my countdown of the top alien artifacts, the Crystal Skulls. Lubontune, Belize, Central America. Here in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula lie the ruins of an ancient pre-enuals. Colombian city that thrived in the 8th century AD.

In 1924, explorer Frederick Albert Mitchell Hedges and his daughter Anna discover a human-sized skull made of clear quartz crystal. William Henry is an author and investigative mythologist. Mitchell Hedges was told by the Mayans that his skull was over 3,600 years old. This is fascinating because this would predate Mayan civilization. Mitchell Hedges and his daughter kept the skull under lock and key for almost four decades before allowing it to be studied. Philip Coppins is the author of The Ancient Alien Question.

When it comes to the Mitchell Hedges crystal skull, it has been analyzed on a number of occasions. Frank Dorland in the 1960s did it as a private individual. Eulet Packer did it as well, and the British Museum did a very short analysis in 1980 as well. So this skull has been subjected to a number of detailed scientific analyses. In all of those occasions, what was found was that it was almost impossible for a human being to make this. The Mitchell Hedges skull was milled or worked in a way that went counterclockwise to the creation of the creation of the crystal. Crystal grows in a certain direction.

And if you don't mill or work the crystal in that particular direction, it'll shatter. So how was it done? David Childress is the author of Technology of the Gods. Quartz crystal is extremely hard. And almost any object that's made out of carved quartz crystal would probably have to be created using power tools.

Although hundreds of people have claimed to be in possession of ancient crystal skulls, a curious legend can be found in multiple cultures that says there are exactly 13 crystal skulls located around the planet that are of otherworldly origin. Among them are the Senergy skull, discovered in the Melanesian Islands of the South Pacific. The Amar skull of Tibet, the Einstein skull found in Mexico, and the Mitchell Hedges skull. Researchers suggest that not only were these 13 skulls constructed using advanced technology, but that they may contain ancient knowledge, hidden from mankind, for thousands of years. What we know as a fact is that crystal is able to store information.

So what we need to ask ourselves is why the crystal skulls were made out of crystal because our ancestors wanted to put information in them. Well, we might not have a means of extracting it. I think we really require it for ourselves to try and make an effort to see what kind of information might be present within these crystal skulls. The moment you lay eyes on a crystal skull, you know you're looking at something extraordinary. But the next artifact on my countdown could be described as a simple wooden toy, that is, until you take a closer look and see that this bird-shaped object is more like a modern-day glider.

My number nine alien artifact, the Sakara Bird. Sikara Egypt, 1891. French archaeologists digging at the step pyramid of King Josar, unearthed a tomb over 2,000 years. years old. In it, they find a small wooden model of what appears to be a bird lying beside a papyrus bearing the inscription, I want to fly. The artifact was later sent to the Cairo Museum, where authorities placed it alongside several other bird figurines. But the Sakara bird was noticeably different. Dr. Ue Apell is an aerospace engineer. It's interesting because on one hand clearly it should look like a bird because it has eyes

and it has a typical nose of a bird. On the other hand, the wings are clearly not bird wings. Here is Dr. Algon-in-boom, co-author of Aircraft of the Pharaohs. To the middle of the rum, you see this is the wing a bit thicker. In this region the lift-up is that the is the highest. The whole thing becomes thinner to the end of the wings. And those wings are modeled down. And this is a very modern aerodynamic design. Then the other point is birds have no rudders. Because a bird does not need a rudder because

of its aerodynamic architecture. And so there is the idea they are not representing birds, but flying machines or aircraft. Aircraft. Could the Sakara Bird reveal that the ancient Egyptians possessed the power of flight? To find the answer, in 2006, aviation and aerodynamics expert Simon Sanderson built a scale model of the Sakara Bird, five times larger than the original, and tested its aerodynamic properties in a wind tunnel.

We're running the constant speed, slowly increasing the angle of attack and then measuring the forces which it's producing. That way we can learn about its flight characteristics. At 10 degrees we're producing four times weight in lift, so it actually would be flying now. Yeah. Tests shows the Sakara bird is a highly developed glider. And this is a design we use today. But if the Sakara bird is capable of flight, where would ancient Egyptians have acquired such technology? I think that people in ancient times were visited by beings coming not from this earth,

and they gave us culture and scientific technologies to improve our life on earth, coming from the primitive to a higher developed culture. The next artifacts on my list might be microscopic in size, but they're enormously significant. They appear to be advanced nanotechnology, and they were found so deep beneath the earth that geologists estimate them to be thousands of years old. We're potentially looking at actual remnants of alien technology. And that's why number eight on my countdown is the Russian nanotubes. Eastern Russia

1991 Geologists lead an expedition into the mineral-rich Ural Mountains in hopes of locating gold deposits For decades, people hiking in this area of the Urals near the Cozim, Nerada, and Balbany rivers

have reported witnessing unidentified craft and strange anomalies in the sky On this occasion, however, the geological team encounters something unexpected, not above the earth, but below it. While excavating at depths of over 30 feet, they discover a scattering of tiny metal coils and springs. Paul Stonehill is the author of the Soviet UFO files.

They discovered very unusual objects that were tiny springs that were always somehow curled towards the left side. Most of them could not be seen unless you use the microscope, just if you were maybe a few millimeters in size. That soil wasn't touched for hundreds of thousands or more years. The area where it was found was probably tens of kilometers around. It's as if something exploded thousands of years ago and the fragments were lying all over the place. The metal fragments were sent to the Russian Academy of Sciences in some of the were sent to the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg for analysis. They found thousands of these things.

They have to look at them through microscopes. Some of them are just one 10,000th of an inch in size. They're all kinds of spirals and tiny machined bits. When they look at it, they seem to be exactly like the kind of tiny nanoparticles and machine bits that we are creating today. Testing revealed that the fragments were composed of rare, metals and appeared to have been manufactured. But based on the depth at which they were found, geologists estimate they would date back tens of thousands of years.

So what could explain this seemingly impossible discovery? Ancient astronaut theorists suggest clues may be found by examining the materials that make up the nanospirals, like tungsten and a molybdenum, elements commonly used in NASA spacecraft. Here is astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor. Malibdenum is an additive that we use to put in steel, to make steel have various properties. And it's used in manufacturing aircraft. Could it be, as ancient astronaut theorists speculate, that the nanospirals have come from an extraterrestrial craft? Ural Mountains are a very interesting space in the paranormal history of Russia. And I've studied a lot because there have always been incredible UFO sightings in the Ural Mountains.

So is this a debris field from a crashed extraterrestrial craft in the Ural Mountains? There could be crash sites all over the world that are hundreds of thousands of years old. Oftentimes, artifacts that support the ancient astronaut theory are hiding in plain sight. For example, there's an Egyptian temple carving that some scholars believe is a representation of a snake and a lotus flower. But in my opinion, what you're looking at is the depiction of modern technology. Number seven on my countdown of alien artifacts, the Dendera Lightbulb. Dendera Egypt, 370 miles south of the Giza Plateau stands the Hathor Temple. The narrow passageways of this more than 2,000-year-old monument are lined with curious images,

and one that is of particular interest to ancient astronaut theorists. Underneath this structure is the so-called lotus flower of Dendera. And there are not just a few inside the crypt, but they're in fact also on the outside wall on top. That's something that's often not discussed. So what are we looking at here? Egyptology suggests that this bulb-like thing, it essentially is the aroma of the lotus flower and that the snake in the middle illustrates fertility.

What's often not discussed is that the sermons. surrounding hieroglyphics, because you have monkey gods standing around with sharp knives. It indicates danger, death, and there are textual references that say that this has something to do with a bringer of light. Why would there be descriptions of bringers of light? Egyptologists maintain that it actually portrays the moment of creation, but it definitely resembles a light bulb or a lamp. Jason Martel is the author of Knowledge Apocalypse.

Here is a replica of the bulb that's shown in the Dendera reliefs in Egypt. What's interesting about this bulb is the fact that on the wall relief, we see the bulb is actually plugged into what appears to be a power source. So what we have here is a bulb, which very easily could have been used by the Egyptians to light the deep recesses of tombs and crypts. How did the ancient Egyptians light the insides of their structures, because some structures, not only are they deep underground,

but there's different corners and different shafts and corridors, sometimes on multiple levels, and some of these places are filled with hieroglyphics. The extraterrestrials did not let these people work in the dark. Of course they provided lighting sources. And then that was also put in stone, because otherwise nobody would believe that truth in the future.

I've read the creation stories of countless ancient cultures, and in nearly every one of them, the gods came down from the sky, usually in some type of flying craft, surrounded by smoke and fire. Now to me, these are nothing else but extraterrestrial encounters, and if you want further proof, just take a look at how the ancient people of Japan depicted their gods.

Number six on my alien artifacts countdown, the Dogu statues. On the East Asian Islands of Japan, remnants of the ancient world can still be found in the midst of a modern high-tech society. And the most incredible are not the opulent palaces and shrines, but a collection of extremely ancient clay vessels and figurines, some of which date back more than 12,000 years. They are credited to a people called the Jomone. Thomas Casullis is the author of Shinto, The Way Home. The earliest culture that we can identify in Japan is the Jomone, which is originally a Stone Age culture running roughly from 10,000 BC to 300 BC.

It is a culture that we don't know an awful lot about, because they had no writing system. All we have is art. artifacts. Here is Dominic Steyavu, Ph.D., associate professor at UC Santa Barbara. So the little that we do know about the Jomon comes from archaeological evidence and one of the most representative artifacts that is tied to the Jomon is the Dogu statue. Approximately 15,000 Dogu figurines resembling strange humanoid beings have been found at

various Jomon sites in Japan. Ancient astronaut theorists suggest these figurines represent the Kami, a group of beings the Japanese believe descended to this world in the ancient past. Shintoism is the primary religion of Japan, and they worship what they call the Kami, which are these celestial beings that are able to inhabit basically anything from a human being to an animal and even inanimate objects. Then they also describe them as having come down from their celestial palace in the sky, and these figurines look like these humanoid beings that are in some type of spacesuits.

There are thousands of these statuettes that have been recovered, and these figures have goggle-type eyes, and they have rivets all over their body, indicating that they're wearing some kind of a spacesuit or technological armor. So you have to ask yourself, Were these statues, sky beings, who came and directed the Japanese to have their civilization and culture, and that ultimately these sky gods are their ancestors? As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,

the Dogu figures were not inspired by the imagination, but depict very real visitors that the people of Japan encountered thousands of years ago, and provide a compelling record of extraterrestrial contact. We're coming up on the halfway mark in my countdown of the top 10 alien artifacts. And this next object is truly remarkable. It's an ancient figurine that was discovered in Mexico, but to me, it clearly depicts a man in a modern flight suit. The number five artifact in my top 10 countdown, the Rocket Man of Laveenta.

Throughout the world, ancient illustrations and statues can be found that depict figures dressed in strange attire, that, as far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned, is eerily reminiscent of modern-day spacesuits. Examples include cave art in Italy, Australia, and the American Southwest, as well as sculptures like the statue of Pacha Mama in Tijuanaoconaco, Bolivia. Depictions of the Mayan god Kukukokan in Mexico, curious figures carved into the Hoy Salaswara Temple in India, and a strange sculpture found in Guatemala City. But perhaps most intriguing of all is a small figurine attributed to the Olmec, a civilization that emerged around 1400 BC in the area of modern-day Mexico. The Olmecs are one of the most mysterious ancient cultures known to the history of our planet. And in Laveenta we have carvings that show the Olmecs in very bizarre scenes.

One of them is this plumed serpent that appears to be floating in the sky and you actually see a person sitting inside this flying snake. flying snake. And so you have to wonder if somehow the Olmecs had access to aviation technology. And I personally think they did because at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, there is a old mec figurine about this tall. And you can tell that this guy is wearing some type of a flight suit. You've got the legs here like in a modern-day astronaut suit and there's also some type of a life support pack that's on his chest. There are six wings and the head is clearly enclosed by a skull cap similar to modern-day astronauts. In my opinion, it is a smoking gun of

our ancestors having aviation technology thousands of years ago. When it comes to ancient artifacts depicting advanced technology, one of the most extraordinary examples I've ever seen is a tiny gold figurine that looks remarkably similar to a modern-day airplane. In fact, it's such an important piece of evidence for the ancient astronaut theory that I wear a replica on my shirt pocket. Number four on my countdown of the top 10 alien artifacts, the gold flyer. The Southern Highlands of Columbia. In the late 19th century, tomb robbers searching along the Magdalena River stumbled upon a grave site dating back 1,500 years to a pre-Columbian civilization known as the Tolima.

Among the funerary objects found, there were hundreds of small two-to-three-inch gold figurines. So the Toligma culture placed inside tombs little tiny objects made of gold, and they found hundreds of thousands of them. in the form of different animals, birds, fish, frogs, insects. However, out of these hundreds of thousands, there were 17 that looked like modern-day airplanes. They have a triangular shape, they have an upright tail fin, stabilizers, and a fuselage. and they have nothing in common with anything similar in nature. In 1997, German aviation experts, including Al-Gund-in-boom, set out to test the Gold Flyers flight capabilities

by building a scale model replica, fully equipped with landing gear and a working engine. It was rather simple because we don't need to put much parts to this shape because this shape is perfect. Everything was already done by the native people 2,000 years ago. Once completed, the remote-controlled flyer took off down a makeshift runway and flew. When you see this thing taking off,

you really feel that this is the real deal. It was a very successful test and showed us how perfect ancient people were working out aerodynamic design. What shows you that there must be something happened. We are not quite sure how it did, but that it did. This is applied science. This isn't just thinking somewhere.

This is people going out there and making sure and proving. With I see, anybody can see this, that this is real, this is genuine. This little thing which sits on a museum could fly. could fly. In 2017, I flew to Romania with Eric von Danikin to check out one of the most remarkable artifacts we had ever heard of. An aluminum object said to be at least 40,000 years old. And even more extraordinary is that it was scientifically tested and found to have been made

from an aluminum alloy that doesn't match anything humans have ever manufactured. Number three on my countdown of the top ten alien artifacts is the wedge of Ayud. Transylvania, Romania, 1970. Workers digging a trench along the banks of the Mures River unearthed two giant bones, and with them a mysterious metal object buried 35 feet beneath the surface. This strange object, known today as the wedge of Ayurice, the wedge of Ayud, is an aluminum alloy that appears to have been made thousands of years before humans were able to smelt or fabricate metal. Anna Gruya is the curator of the National Museum

of Transylvanian History. It was 10 meters in depth associated with some bones, which they later identified as woolly mammoth bones. They were extinct 40,000 years. ago, so they must be older than that. D-Wedge was analyzed three times, to my knowledge. The main metal in its composition is aluminum. Here is physicist Michael Denon, Ph.D., from the University of California, Irvine. Tumans didn't really start working with aluminum until well into the 1800s. So when you look at this wedge and you analyze it, it really has most of the modern properties

we would associate with aluminum. For decades, government officials refused to reveal where the wedge of Ayud was being held. But its location has recently come to light. On January 18, 2017, at the National History Museum of Transylvania, Agent Astronaut theorists Georgiosuclos and Eric von Danikin were offered a rare opportunity to get a first-hand look at the wedge of Ayuz. museum curator Anna Gruia has taken it out of a storage locker where it has been deliberately hidden from the public since the early 1970s.

So this is it? Oh, okay. This is strange. And here this is where they took the sample out and here to make the analysis. And here you see two pieces that are broken off sort of. So maybe it was attached or something. But very strange. So what does the museum have to say about this?

This is a very strange piece. It is a strange piece for us as well. As historians, we do not consider it a historical object that we're used to. We don't know what it was used for, and we acknowledge these uncertainties about its dating and its composition as well. So we have a real mystery here. But you see this patina? this patina over this whole object, and this creates another problem.

Yes. And because you cannot fake a patina. It's impossible to artificially create a patina. The patina is a thin coating of various metal compounds that forms on the surface of the metal during exposure to atmospheric elements. The older the object, the thicker the patina layer will be. It takes hundreds if it's

if not thousands of years for a thick layer of patina, as this apparently is, for it to develop. So we still have a mystery here. In all of your adventures, how does this compare to some of the other things that are inexplicable? I am helpless. I have no idea.

That says it all right there. Very bizarre. Dizar. Could the wedge of Ayud be a physical remnant of an extraterrestrial visitation that occurred thousands of years ago. Ancient astronaut theorists say, yes, and suggest that even more compelling evidence of alien contact exists on the other side of the world,

hidden deep within an ancient tomb. When it comes to finding proof that extraterrestrials visited Earth, the evidence is not always obvious, but sometimes it's a very obvious. But sometimes it can be crystal clear if you know what to look for. To me, this next artifact irrefutably depicts an astronaut in the cockpit of a rocket ship. Number two on my list of the top ten alien artifacts, the sarcophagus lid of King Pakal. Palenke Mexico, 1952.

Archaeologist Alberto Ruse-Louisé discovers the pyramid tomb of King Pakal, who ruled over the ancient Mayan city from 615 to 683 AD. This is the famous temple of the inscriptions behind me, perhaps the most famous pyramid in all of the Mayan world. The French Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruil began his excavations at the top. It took him four years to slowly

excavate step by step down the pyramid until he finally came to the tomb of Lord Pakal and the giant sarcophagus and lid that the pyramid were built around. Arguably, the most remarkable Mayan artifact ever found, the stone sarcophagus lid of King Pakal, has produced considerable controversy. Mainstream scholars, believe the depiction is of King Pekal on a journey to Gibalba, the land of the dead. But ancient astronaut theorists believe the king is portrayed seated at the controls of a spacecraft. You see a man bending forward,

almost like a rising motorcyclist. He has his nose on some kind of oxygen mask. He uses his upper hand to manipulate a knot. You see he's his nose. lower hand, he manipulates some controls. He's sitting on a kind of chair in a sort of capsule. Now what's amazing about this is that through modern eyes, we can readily identify that it appears as if Pecall is riding in some kind of a spaceship.

In 2011, the strange carving on King Pecall's sarcophagus lid was translated into a 3D replica by model maker Paul Francis. When I saw this, I instantly said, there's a guy in a space capsule. You know, it doesn't need to be spelled out for me. I don't have to find anything. It was already there. I think this is absolutely extraordinary

because for the longest time, we have said that what is on this pakal lid is not something symbolic. It was something that the artist saw or was told about, and then he or she tried to recreate this on a slab. I also love the detail that you have underneath his right foot where his foot is resting on a pedestal. And that is exactly what we can see on the Palenke slab and how his hands are manipulating some controls. And also this kind of breathing apparatus that's going on in front of his nose.

The breathing apparatus is actually a very neat piece. It's called the Giver of Life. the soul transfers through this. And a giver of life to me would be air. I mean, we breathe air. This is a guy who needs this mass to survive. Because where is he? Outer space.

We're down to number one on my countdown of the top 10 alien artifacts. Ancient aliens has traveled to all corners of the globe investigating the most incredible objects ever uncovered. But this is a lot of the world. This final one truly gives me goosebumps. Many of these have been found all over the world, but in season 10, we were able to have one of them tested in a lab.

The results were nothing short of remarkable. Number one on my countdown of mysterious artifacts, the Paracas elongated skulls. New York City, February 2017. At New York University, Giorgio Succolos meets. with art collector Jared Collins, who is in possession of a 2,000-year-old elongated skull. Oh, wow. That is fantastic. The skull is incredibly well preserved, and Jared is having it tested at the university

to find out if it might possibly contain abnormalities that indicate it is something other than human. So this skull was found in the Paracas region of Peru. That's right. But no real modern testing has ever been done on this. Oh, this is amazing. Hundreds of strange misshapen skulls have been found on the southern coast of Peru from excavations dating back to 1927. It was at this time that archaeologist Julio Teo first excavated a massive burial complex

thought to have been built by the Prakas people who lived in the region from 800 BC to 100 BC. Mainstream archaeologists say the elongation is most likely the result of headbinding, which involves wrapping the heads of infants while their skulls are still soft in order to change the shape. But some of the paracus skulls display abnormalities that headbinding cannot explain. NYU professor of anthropology, Dr. Todd Disotel agreed to conduct a forensic evaluation of the along I've seen casts, I've never seen one in person. Okay. Wow.

That is freaky. I mean, I just can't come up with another term. I love that your first reaction is that it's freaky, because I agree with you. Look at it. It's quite bizarre. In addition to being elongated, the Paracas skull possesses an abnormally large jaw and eye sockets. Let me just move it over to the sterile bench surface. Wow.

So it's very fascinating, besides the shape. The sagittal suture looks like it has completely fused. I'm looking at it and it's just been completely obliterated. The sagittal suture is the seam where two parietal bones of the skull come together. Although the markings may be faint due to fusing over time, all human skulls are expected to have some evidence of this feature. So it is curious that this skull does not. Okay, let's move on to extracting some tooth and bone powder to get DNA out of that.

Okay, excellent. The analysis of the material will determine the sex, ancestral lineage of both the father. and the mother, and any DNA anomalies when compared with the current human genetic database. Looks pretty good. So we will pack this up and send it off. And in four to six weeks, they should have the result. Four to six weeks, okay. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your input on this. Take care, John. Thanks a lot. You got it. Two months later, in April 2017, Giorgio contacted Dr. Disotel to find out the result. of his testing.

All right, Todd, you got the results? Yeah, and they're very, very interesting. They did get a good, clean DNA profile from the maternally inherited DNA. So this particular specimen is actually not found in the new world, not found amongst Native Americans, and it's typically found amongst Europeans and Middle Easterners. In fact, the 100% match

was to a Scottish individual. This makes no sense whatsoever. Really? In a South American skull? This is all very strange. That could mean that people from Europe got to South America, you know, 1,500 years earlier than we currently understand that.

That's amazing. Unfortunately, the condition of the sample did not yield any Y chromosome, Unfortunately, we're missing that. Right. Do you think that a case can be made at all? And again, this is complete speculation that perhaps it is not necessarily human. Is that a possibility?

Well, it's possible, but still we actually don't know what this is. Since we didn't get any definitive result, obviously a scientist always wants to try to do that. This is extraordinary. It's worthy of study or opening up a new area of inquiry and some new hypotheses. An ancient skull, more than twice as long as a normal human skull with an enlarged jaw, enlarged eye sockets, no sagittal suture, and DNA that does not match the area in which the skull was found. Might additional testing reveal that this skull is not entirely human? human. So did this Paracas skull belong to someone who was part extraterrestrial?

Ancient astronaut theorists resoundingly say, yes. Well, that concludes my countdown for now. And I'm confident that as more and more mysterious artifacts come to light, the evidence of alien contact will soon become too hard to dismiss. And we will finally have undeniable proof of our extraterrestrial origins