NARRATOR: Man dreamed of one day
making the ultimate journey-- flight, the journey
to the heavens. Early pioneers from China
and Renaissance Europe developed extraordinary
flying machines. But according to
history, flight itself remained only a distant fantasy
until the Wright brothers in 1903. Now new evidence is threatening
to completely rewrite the story of how mankind learned to fly. [music playing] All across South America,
from the desert plains of Peru to the jungle kingdoms
of the Amazon, the native South Americans have
depicted nature for centuries. We discover the secrets
of their culture through stunning murals,
pottery, and artifacts. In 1965, deep in the dense
Colombian rainforest, a team of explorers made
an intriguing discovery. Almost a thousand years
ago, an ancient people known as the Quimbayan forged
these beautiful brooches from gold and copper alloy. At first glance, they
appear to be the models of small, winged insects. But a second look reveals
that there is something highly unusual about these objects. Their design carries
anomalies found in no air-breathing creatures
in the natural world. Normally, you'll find
it only with fishes, but no animal anywhere
has vertical fins. They actually have wings but, of
course, not on the lower edge. All these models have, on
the low edge, these wings. All birds have, of course,
the wings on the upper sides, and we have it here on the
arms or something like that. NARRATOR: As we
investigate further, we discover new, unexplained
puzzles in the model's design. While all insects have
their wings located on the top of their
body, this ancient brooch has them at the
bottom, a feature found only in modern jet aeroplanes. But there's more. Just like these
jets, the brooches have delta-shaped wings. There is a rudder
clearly shown and, quite astonishingly, ailerons. All of these features are
found on modern aircraft, like the space shuttle. This golden model has thus
left a fascinating mystery. Could this be a model of an
aircraft that actually existed? Did the ancient
Quimbayans understand how to fly over one thousand
years before the first recorded flight? In the Temple of
Osiris in Egypt, a stunning-- some say
chilling-- discovery was made that has
ignited controversy in the scientific world. Inside the temple, the walls
are encoded with hieroglyphics over 2,000 years old. Cut with incredible precision
into the ancient rock, these images record the secrets
of how generations of pharaohs lived and died. While Egyptologist
Dr. Ruth Hover was photographing one
of the wall panels, she made a startling discovery. RUTH HOVER: There was a
lot of rubble at my feet, and it looked to me
like it had fallen off. And incised in the stone
itself of this oldest temple along the Nile
were these figures. I think the images are
of ancient technology. They appear to duplicate
technology that we now have. NARRATOR: At the
bottom appears to be a depiction of an aircraft
with a clearly defined rudder. At the top is a shape
clearly identified as a modern-day helicopter. To the right of this
is a streamlined water vessel, below which is what
appears to be a submarine. These simple images have
ignited a fierce debate among Egyptologists and
researchers, a debate that challenges all
we thought we knew about the ancient Egyptians. [non-english speech] INTERPRETER: There is
something unexplainable and mysterious in this place. Some of the theories say
that people came from space to teach the ancient Egyptians. Especially, they say these
shapes look like a helicopter. NARRATOR: Yet, could
we just be projecting onto these ancient
symbols images that are familiar to
our own civilization? RUTH HOVER: I research
the anomalous, things that other people aren't
willing to look at because they can't figure them out. I'm more than happy
to look at them. NARRATOR: But there's more. Piecing together other
clues from the walls of this sacred
tomb, Dr. Ruth Hover believes that she has deciphered
an ancient code containing a message left 2,000 years ago,
a message that the Egyptians planned to stay hidden until
the day our society was ready to unravel it. RUTH HOVER: Down in the
corner of that famous picture, there are a series of symbols. And the numbers are nine. They come out to
nine, and nine is also the number of the planet Mars. Did we come from Mars? Or was Mars a stopping place? Or was this a symbol that
we were just arriving at the ability to get to Mars? We're still uncovering
the mysteries of Egypt. It's very exciting. NARRATOR: Yet, there
is a further twist to the riddle of the ancient
Egyptians and flight. 100 years ago, in the
oldest-known pyramid in all of Egypt, explorers
uncovered a cache of artifacts in an ancient tomb. Their findings were left
ignored and forgotten in the vaults of the
Cairo Museum for decades. Among them, this
small, wooden carving. LUCIA GAHLIN: It
looks like a bird. It's got a beak marked on. It's got an eye marked on. It's got markings on the tail. It probably was painted
with further detail. NARRATOR: At first glance,
this 2,000-year-old model may seem insignificant. Yet, the more the
Saqqara Bird is studied, the deeper the mystery
surrounding it becomes. Maybe it's was a toy. Maybe it was a weather vane. Maybe it's a model of
something that actually flew. We don't know. NARRATOR: Found in a vast
burial site near Egypt's oldest step pyramid, this
simple carving is known as the Saqqara Bird. It is believed to hold the
key to an incredible enigma. What is surprising
about the Saqqara Bird is its aerodynamic precision. The shape of the
wing and the fuselage seem to have similarities
to modern-day aircraft engineering. Could the ancient
Egyptians really have possessed the technology
of flight over 2,000 years ago? Man's always seen the birds
and he's wanted to fly himself. And I think the Egyptians
thought that flying was a god-like property. And maybe this was their
transcending to become gods. One of the ways they would do
it would be through flight. NARRATOR: Simon Sanderson
is an aerodynamics expert who has long been fascinated
by the Saqqara Bird. He plans to use the latest
scientific techniques to unravel whether the ancient
Egyptians developed a model for a full-size flying machine. Using cutting-edge technology
developed by the University of Liverpool in
England, he will conduct the ultimate flying test. SIMON SANDERSON:
We're actually going to make a model of the Saqqara
Bird, which is five times bigger than the original was. The original was very small. The Saqqara Bird is
definitely the first step on the way to the
understanding of aerodynamics. We're running the glider
at a 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. NARRATOR: The results
are promising. Simon's findings suggest
that over 2,000 years ago, the Saqqara Bird may have soared
high above the Egyptian desert. Yet, there remains one
potentially fatal flaw-- stability. When an aircraft
is flying along, if it's disturbed by the wind
or if you're controlling it in any way, you need
the tail to keep it on the straight and level. I mean, if you pitch
up, and there's nothing to stop you or
bring you back down, you're just going to keep going
up and up and up and stall. Without a tailplane,
it makes it very, very difficult for aircraft to fly. NARRATOR: But what if
the Saqqara Bird did, in fact, have a tailplane at the
time of the ancient Egyptians? At the rear of the
carving, a segment has broken away at
precisely the point that a tail plane
might have been fitted. Simon and his engineers
make the crucial adjustments to the model. With the tailplane
added, the revamped Saqqara Bird
produces a completely new set of aerodynamic data. But no one knows if
the modifications will be enough to
save the Saqqara Bird from crashing down to Earth. Feeding this new data
into the flight simulator, Simon will carry
out the final test flight of the Saqqara Bird. These last few minutes will
determine whether his mission ends in success or in failure. As the pilot takes the
controls, the model begins to climb towards the heavens. The Saqqara Bird
glides effortlessly high above the Egyptian
plateau, riding the airstreams like an eagle. Over 2,000 years after the
ancient Egyptians carved this mysterious bird,
modern technology has proved beyond doubt
that it could have flown. SIMON SANDERSON:
It was incredible, and the Egyptians had
very sophisticated knowledge in other areas. So why not in
aerodynamics, as well? NARRATOR: Yet, there remains
an unanswered question. Could the Egyptians have
stumbled unwittingly into a brilliant
design, never realizing its incredible
aerodynamic properties? SIMON SANDERSON: If the ancient
Egyptians had this model and held it out in the
wind, which is probably their equivalent of a
modern-day wind tunnel, they would have felt
that it had lift. And they'd have
definitely looked as to why it produced lift. They probably
wouldn't have come up with the modern
understanding of lift, but they would have definitely
understood something about the properties
of the wing. NARRATOR: Our discoveries of
the ancient world's secrets have forever transformed
our understanding of how planes, trains,
and automobiles first came into being. Do we take too much
credit for pushing the boundaries of engineering? Or are we merely reinventing
the work of the ancients? If we are just at the
tip of the iceberg of how the ancient world
really worked, what new inventions remain
hidden, ready to rewrite the history books?
