18x17 - The Shining Ones

[bunniefuu]

For more than 3,000 years

Ireland has maintained

a connection to ancient magic

and a mystical realm.

We have two parallel worlds,

the human world

and the otherworld.

The rolling landscape

is believed

to possess hidden power.

It is said that

the mounds acted as these

doorways into other realities.

And within these earthen mounds

are said to be powerful beings

known as the Shining Ones.

They are somehow able

to manipulate

their surroundings,

and have the knowledge

of the universe.

Are these Irish legends

more than fanciful mythology?

And if so, could there be

an extraterrestrial connection?

The ancient Irish

were saying that these beings

came from the sky.

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.

Ireland.

This lush, green island

in the North Atlantic

has a history of human activity

dating back

more than 33,000 years.

Numerous cultures

have called Ireland home,

from the early Beaker people

to the Celts and the Gaels,

and the island

has a rich tradition

of folklore that has spread

throughout the world.

But perhaps most notable

is that Ireland boasts

some of the oldest

structures on the planet.

Massive earthen mounds,

many of which date back

more than 5,000 years.

- These mounds are constructed.

- They're not natural hills.

These are

megalithic constructions,

um, involving, in the larger

sites, an enormous

amount of man hours and labor.

These would've been,

when they were made, just very,

very impressive sites.

These mounds were

an ancient earthwork

that had a tunnel

going through it

with stones on either side

and stones on top

and then covered with earth.

Ireland has a tremendous

amount of these mounds,

and these are

some of mankind's oldest

large structures in the world.

And they anchor

all of the land together.

Usually, if you visit one on top

of a hill, you go up,

you find one,

and you can do a line

of sight to the next one.

There was almost a network,

almost across

the entire island

of these sites.

The oldest known writing

in Ireland

dates to the 6th century A.D.,

more than 3,000 years

after the ancient mounds

are believed to have been built.

With no written record

about the mounds' construction,

archaeologists and historians

can only speculate

as to who made them

and for what purpose.

These things were built to go

inside, where, presumably,

very, very important rituals

took place.

We don't know,

but much later on,

these sites would've been

used for gatherings,

for rituals, and sort of

keeping the society together.

These were enormously

long-lived sites

of cultural importance.

It was enormously

long-lived societies

that used these as focal points.

30 miles north of Dublin

in County Meath is Ireland's

largest and oldest mound,

called Newgrange.

The ancient structure

consists of over

200,000 tons of stone

and has a passageway leading

to a central chamber

in which human bone fragments

have been found.

But archaeologists

say Newgrange also has

an undeniable connection

to the cosmos.

Spiral petroglyphs, thought

to symbolize the universe,

are found all around it,

and the passageway and chamber

form a cruciform shape

that researchers believe

is based on

the constellation Cygnus.

At the time Newgrange was built,

it was presumed to be

the largest structure that

mankind had

ever built in the world.

Now, one of the most interesting

things about Newgrange

is it's a celestial alignment.

This is still

very, very popular.

If you go at

the winter solstice,

you have the sun dagger that

it cuts tremendous distance

all the way in to brighten up

the inner chamber.

Newgrange is unique

among Ireland's mounds

in its sophistication,

and was clearly designed

for ritualistic activity.

But according

to ancient Irish texts,

the mounds serve a more profound

and mysterious purpose,

as the dwelling places

of otherworldly beings

traditionally called the sidhe.

The word "sidhe,"

it can mean "the mounds"

and also

can mean "the otherworld people,

the people of the mounds."

In Irish tradition,

it's bad luck to use

the word "sidhe"

to directly refer to these

otherworld people.

So, there are many

different names.

We have the English word

fairy folk, also elves.

Stories of fairies, elves,

and even leprechauns are rooted

in the ancient folklore of what

the Irish called the sidhe.

But for many Irish people,

the sidhe are not merely

mythological figures.

Fairies and leprechauns

and all that sort of stuff,

like, too many people kind of

laugh and joke about it

at times,

but it's knowledge that'd been

passed down for

thousands and thousands

of years.

We have the terrestrial world

and the subterrestrial world,

the human world, and the

superhuman or otherworld.

These worlds exist in parallel.

Occasionally, however,

there is communication

between the two worlds.

The mounds are often referred to

as "fairy forts,"

as are stone circles

and tree clusters

that are considered

the property of the sidhe.

This strong cultural belief

that these features

are the domain

of otherworldly beings

has kept them intact

for thousands of years.

And the Irish say that,

when they are disturbed,

bad luck always follows.

Seán Quinn was

the wealthiest man in Ireland.

He lost everything

because he moved a fairy fort.

He damaged a fairy fort, and he

moved it to another place.

DeLorean car manufacturers,

they came to Belfast, and were

making the DeLorean car

up in Northern Ireland,

and they built the factory

on the site of a fairy fort.

And it all came crashing down,

and the local people would say,

"Well, you know,

what do you expect?"

Ask any Irish person,

"Would you damage a fairy fort?

What would happen if

you damaged a fairy tree?"

If you gave me ten million bucks

and a Cadillac and a helicopter

and a beautiful house on

Sunset Boulevard and said

all I had to do was

chop down a fairy tree,

I'd be handing that money

straight back to you.

I wouldn't do it. No one

I know would do it either.

So, do we believe in

the fairies in Ireland? We do.

While modern-day

representations of fairies

often depict benevolent,

spritely creatures,

traditional Irish notions

of fairies are much different.

They are considered powerful

and sometimes dangerous beings.

You don't want to mess

with the aos sí.

They're not cute,

cuddly little fairies like

we-we typically think of today.

But these are very

extraordinarily powerful people.

Wielders of supernatural powers.

The sidhe, or fairy folk,

are often referred to as

the Shining Ones,

but do accounts

of their luminous

appearance suggest

that they are divine beings?

According to the

ancient Irish stories,

while the fairies have

supernatural abilities,

they are not immortal gods.

The inhabitant of

the sidhe is not necessarily

immortal in the narrative.

Sometimes they're-they're

k*lled or-or meet with death,

but they never grow old.

And so, if they are

k*lled or die,

they do so while young.

They're other, uh,

but somewhat humanoid.

Sometimes they're small

and green, they abduct people,

they have, uh, either advanced

technology or ancient magic.

And in many ways

this fairy tradition, uh,

reminds me very much

of the UFO tradition

that we have

in the United States.

When it comes to these dwellings

of the fairy folk,

there's lots of talk about

otherworldly beings

emerging from the mounds.

And also people getting taken

into the mounds

and, like, disappearing.

You hear stories

of lights in the sky

or even lights in the forest

and the woods that you see.

So, could it be possible

that the fairy folk

is a description of

extraterrestrials

back in the day?

There is absolutely an argument

that can make that case.

In our stories

relating to the sidhe,

the fairies,

call them what you will,

all of our stories say that

they came from the sky world.

Is it possible that

modern beliefs of fairies

and elves are based on

real otherworldly beings

that the Irish people

encountered centuries ago

and that may still

inhabit the island today?

And if so,

why are they thought to

dwell within the ancient mounds?

According to legend,

the sidhe did not always

live within the Earth,

and their story begins

with a group of shining beings

who arrived in flying craft.

In Ireland, tales of

the sidhe, or fairy folk,

have been passed down orally

for more than 3,000 years,

and in the 11th century,

many of these stories were

documented in a text called

The Book of Invasions.

According to this medieval

account of Irish history

and lore,

thousands of years ago,

a godlike race of beings called

the Tuatha Dé Danann landed

on a mountaintop in Ireland.

Often referred to

as the Shining Ones,

they are

the ancestors of the sidhe.

All of our stories relate back

to the Tuatha Dé Danann.

For 3000 years, at least,

if not more before that, all of

the stories from mythology are

all related to Tuatha Dé Danann.

They were the Shining Ones.

There is a description

in the mythological material

in the early Irish literature

of the Tuatha Dé Danann

arriving in, uh, cloud ships,

arriving in dark clouds

and landing on a mountain.

There was a long poem

about the arrival of

the Tuatha Dé Danann.

One of the lines says,

"The truth was not known

beneath the sky of stars,

whether they were

of heaven or of earth."

The Tuatha Dé Danann

are not human.

They're demigods.

And not immortal,

not infallible, um,

not like the gods of

monotheistic tradition of any

of the Abrahamic religions.

The Tuatha Dé Danann

were said to be luminous

beings of large stature

who wielded magical powers.

The Tuatha Dé Danann

had an arsenal of very

technological sounding weaponry.

Lugh of the Long Arm,

for example, possessed a spear

that, when he threw it,

he could give a voice command,

and it would automatically

hit whatever target.

Then he'd give

another voice command,

and the spear would

mysteriously return to him.

We have circles of light

that they used to

travel around Ireland upon.

We have another chieftain

named Nuada

who lost an arm in a battle

against the giants,

and they were able

to replace his arm.

The Tuatha Dé Danann

were said to have

a magical cauldron.

They had a cloak

of invisibility.

They had spears

that sh*t flames out.

The ancient astronaut theory

tries to look at ancient stories

in which magic happens

from a modern perspective

and determine

if that so-called magic

really was some type

of technology.

Then one has to wonder, where

did that technology come from?

Well, uh, there's only

one answer to this,

and that is extraterrestrials.

For ancient astronaut theorists,

another intriguing aspect

of these stories

is how similar they are

to accounts of sky gods found

in other ancient cultures.

The stories of

let's call them aliens

descending from clouds

on tops of mountains

are straight across the cultural

history of, uh, human beings.

Let's start with one

of the earliest ones.

The descent on Mount Hermon

in the Golan Heights.

That's where

the Nephilim came down.

Another,

in the descent of the Anunnaki,

they came from clouds.

We have other stories

in Tibet and other places

where these gods

are coming down,

and they land

on top of a mountain.

The gods of Olympus in Greece

is another example.

The stories of the

Tuatha Dé Danann

in these whirlwinds or clouds

is something that we find

in connection

with deities

in other parts of the world.

For instance,

across the Middle East,

there is the concept of djinn.

These are supernatural beings,

very often associated

with fire and light,

that can appear in whirlwinds

and manifest into physical form.

The fact that we have

countless stories

that are not just similar,

but identical,

leads me to think that

perhaps all these ancient

cultures were visited

by the same extraterrestrials.

According to ancient

astronaut theorists,

the tradition that is most

similar to the Tuatha Dé Danann

is that of the Anunnaki,

the sky gods described

by the Sumerians,

humankind's earliest

known civilization.

What you've got with

the Sumerians is

the beginnings

of-of civilization,

people living together, but also

the beginnings of writing.

You know, it's some

of the earliest written

texts that we have

are texts by these people.

These clay tablets are

5,000 years old

and more, and they

tell of the arrival of the gods,

the Anunnaki,

the pantheon of gods.

The chief was Anu.

This is the sky god

who came along

and created everything.

The term Anunnaki means

"those who from

the heavens came,"

and it refers to beings

descending from the sky,

imparting knowledge.

In the Irish stories,

the Tuatha Dé Danann

were also responsible

for imparting knowledge

to the ancient people.

Tuatha Dé Danann

were the masters

of all of the crafts,

masters of all of the arts,

and they introduced

the knowledge

in the ways of agriculture.

Tuatha Dé Danann would always

interact with the people.

It's the same as the Anunnaki.

Ancient astronaut theorists

suggest

the iconography

of the Sumerians and Irish

provides additional evidence

that they encountered

the same otherworldly beings.

Both depicted the gods

as being of giant stature

compared to humans,

both portrayed them in scenes

with hybrid or flying animals,

and both have images of the gods

with horns or antlers

emerging from their heads.

But perhaps

most intriguing of all

is that there appears to be

a linguistic connection

between the Anunnaki

and the Tuatha Dé Danann.

According to some accounts,

the Tuatha Dé Danann's

original name

was the Tuatha Danu.

"The Tribe of Anu," or Danu.

Linguists are

very intrigued by this

because this encodes

the name of Anu,

the high god of the Anunnaki,

for whom they are formed,

and it suggests that perhaps

the Tuatha Dé Danann

are the descendants

of the Anunnaki.

Could the striking similarities

that exist between the stories

of the Tuatha Dé Danann

and the Anunnaki

reveal that Ireland was visited

by the same otherworldly beings

that are described by humanity's

first known civilization

roughly 3,000 miles away?

But if so,

how are they connected

to Ireland's mound dwellers,

known as the sidhe,

or fairy folk?

Perhaps further clues

can be found by examining

mysterious ancient priests

called the druids.

Kent, England

During an excavation

of an Iron Age burial site,

archaeologists uncover

the skeleton of a man

who lived around

the third century BC

and who was wearing

a unique headdress.

Based on the design

of this bronze crown,

many researchers believe

these are the first remains

ever discovered of a druid.

According to Irish legend,

the druids were a class

of ancient Celtic priests

who were in close contact

with the Shining Ones,

the Tuatha Dé Danann.

The word for "druid" in Irish

is draíocht,

which literally means "magic."

So there is, uh,

an interconnection

between the Tuatha Dé Danann

and their magic

and the practice of druidry.

The Tuatha Dé Danann

were said to have been

the founders of druidism.

And the druids were said

to have all kinds

of special powers themselves.

And so, it would seem

that the Tuatha Dé Danann

had shown some of their

extraterrestrial technology

to the druids who then

were able to use it themselves.

The druidic religion originated

with the Tuatha Dé Danann,

but they were never allowed

to write down

any of the druidic knowledge.

It was taboo,

because it was so-called

sacred knowledge.

The druids spent

decades in training

to perform

their priestly functions.

These are members

of the inner circle,

as we're told.

The inner circle refers,

ultimately,

to the innermost knowledge

of the Tuatha Dé Danann,

the Shining Ones.

They know their secrets and

they can wield their technology.

Portrayals of druids

as mysterious,

shaman-like figures

with mystical powers

has led some scholars

to question

if they truly existed or were

purely mythological figures.

But according to the earliest

accounts of them,

the druids were an integral

part of Celtic society

throughout the British Isles.

There are certain things

we know about the druids,

but of course there's a lot

we don't know,

and this vacuum incited

a lot of romantic speculation

in the 19th century.

And so, we're still carrying

that baggage a little bit.

The swirling robes and so on.

But in Celtic society,

in Gaelic society,

the druids exercised authority

and played

an important role, uh,

in the life of the tribe

and the society.

The druids were the holders

of knowledge.

They held and perpetuated

the knowledge

which was important

to the survival of the tribe.

They held and perpetuated

judiciary knowledge

and things sacred and spiritual.

The druid was

a very special figure,

a priest, perhaps,

a historian, perhaps,

uh, a magician, uh, perhaps,

uh, and many, many things.

These were the learned people

of Celtic society.

They-they formed

a special class.

According to Caesar,

the druids in Gall

had to study 20 years

to become a druid.

And they had many, many roles

to play,

including acting as, uh, jurist

and judges, advisers to kings.

And so, druidism, and the magic

that they were able to employ,

um, is really a-a foundational

part of early Celtic society.

And druids

are not necessarily men.

Uh, we also have a lot

of accounts of female druidry.

And it does seem

to be associated heavily

with the Tuatha Dé Danann.

They didn't just

teach things like astronomy

and, you know,

harmony in nature,

they were working with geomancy,

the placement of ancient sites

across the landscape

called geodesy.

And also

working with Earth energies

and even plant medicines.

So they had a high understanding

of these different

arts and sciences.

The druids were known

to travel far and wide,

seeking out the knowledge

of other cultures.

But they were also said

to interact directly

with the Tuatha Dé Danann,

who shared the secrets of their

so-called magical abilities.

Pliny the Elder, who was

one of the most famous

of the Roman writers

and historians,

he claimed that at a full moon,

druids would meet at a mound,

and they would trace a design

that looked something

like a dragon

on top of the mound,

and this would summon

some sort of lightning

or some phenomenon

that happened in the sky.

I don't think he saw it himself.

He was taking what he knew

from Roman soldiers

that witnessed it.

But apparently,

it frightened a lot of them.

They saw lights in the sky

once the druids

did this dragon ritual,

as it became known.

So it would seem

that the druids knew

of the power

of certain special places.

And perhaps, this is something

that would summon

the Tuatha Dé Danann.

These shining people

who came from the sky.

One of the many magical powers

the druids were said to possess

was the ability

to levitate massive stones,

which they used

to construct some

of the megalithic structures

found throughout

the British Isles.

The most famous of the druids,

of course, was Merlin.

Merlin was said to have

created Stonehenge by taking

an existing stone circle

from Ireland

and bringing it to Salisbury

Plain in Southern England.

And there, using magic powers,

he was able to raise

the stones into position

in the manner

that we see them today.

What is interesting

is that the stones

that built Stonehenge

did come from a long way away.

About 135 miles

away in South Wales.

Somehow, they were moved

to central England,

and the ancients

believed it was Merlin

who was responsible for that.

There are stories that say

that some of those big,

gigantic blocks at Stonehenge

were levitated into place

through magical incantations.

Well, what magical incantations?

Because I don't think

that levitation

can happen just by words.

There has to be some type

of technology behind it.

The idea is that, basically,

this was extraterrestrial

knowledge imparted

by the Tuatha Dé Danann.

When the Romans were here,

they say that the druids

had this power

to build stone circles

of which there were thousands

throughout the British Isles.

Stonehenge, Avebury, Newgrange.

These places, we find

legends attached to the druids

that they were able to float

the stones through the air.

Is it possible

that a secret society

of Celtic priests

who lived more

than 2,000 years ago

had access

to otherworldly technology?

According

to the ancient accounts,

while the druids

were the disciples

of the Tuatha Dé Danann,

it would ultimately be a druid

who brought their reign

in Ireland to an end

and drove them underground.

County Kerry, 1700 B.C.

A fleet of ships arrives on

the southern shores of Ireland,

carrying invaders

from the south.

According to early

Irish accounts,

they are aided by a druid

named Amergin

in their conquest of Ireland.

Amergin was seeking revenge

for his great uncle,

who had been k*lled by the three

kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

These were the sons of Míl,

better known as the Milesians.

The Milesians came out

of the Mediterranean,

probably from Greece or Crete

or Anatolia, modern day Turkey.

And they arrived in Ireland,

and huge battles took place

between the Tuatha Dé Danann

and the Milesians.

Many stories have been

written about these battles,

but according to the most

trusted sources,

the Tuatha Dé Danann

agreed to a truce

to save their beloved Ireland.

They did not come

to the Earth to do warfare.

They came to heal the Earth

and to work with the Earth

and work with Mother Earth

and all of the good energies.

What was agreed upon that, um,

this country will be shared,

there was room enough

for everyone in this country.

And it was agreed

that the Milesians

would live on the ground,

on the earth itself,

but that the Tuatha Dé Danann

would go beneath the earth,

inside mounds of earth

that were known as sidhe.

These acted as these doorways

into a realm

where, forever after,

the Tuatha Dé Danann would live.

It's said that they all

turned sideways into the light

and just disappeared

underground.

The Milesians then took control

of the surface of Ireland.

Modern-day Irish people

are thought to be descendants

of the Milesians.

Legend states that after

the Tuatha Dé Danann

descended below ground,

a mysterious evolution

took place.

Once the Tuatha

went underground,

they evolved over many years

into something known

as the aos sí.

That's better known in later

mythology as the elfen folk.

Elves.

After the Tuatha Dé Danann

entered into the earthen mounds,

or sidhe,

they became beings

that could appear

in physical form

but could equally vanish.

Humans were able

to interact with them,

often when they would see

some kind of light

that would be emanating

from these earthen mounds.

They would go towards them.

And when they were able

to look into these lights,

they could see the Tuatha Dé

Danann, the sidhe, the fairies.

People would be able

to join them in this realm.

Reports of elves and fairies

and little people have been

around in Ireland

as long as people

have lived there.

People saw something.

They saw some types of beings.

People still see

these beings even today.

One location in Ireland

where sightings

of fairies are often reported

is at the Hill of Tara,

which is home to numerous

ancient mounds

as well as a monolith

called Lia Fáil.

Legend states that this monolith

was a gift

from the Shining Ones.

The Lia Fáil

means the "Stone of Destiny,"

and it refers

to a standing stone,

about five feet tall

in County Meath, Ireland.

In the legends of Lia Fáil,

we have the Tuatha Dé Danann

bringing the energy

of this stone

down with them

to this powerful place.

This place of extraordinary

energy and current

because it can interact

with the energy in the land.

The power of the land itself

is the reason

that the Danann come to this

location, the Hill of Tara.

It was said that when

the rightful king of Ireland

came in contact with Lia Fáil,

it would scream out to announce

that this was the rightful

king of all Ireland.

It would then imbue the king

with qualities of strength

and longevity and health,

in order that he might

reign over Ireland

for a very long time.

To this day, ceremonies

take place on the Hill of Tara.

The ancient Irish

associated this stone

with the elven folk

and the fairies,

and people continue

to see them today,

and probably,

we will continue to see them

in the future as well.

If otherworldly beings

called the Tuatha Dé Danann

truly existed

in ancient Ireland,

is it possible that

they are still present today,

now known as the sidhe,

or fairy folk,

who inhabit the thousands

of earthen mounds

found throughout the country?

Ancient astronaut theorists

say yes,

and suggest that they may occupy

a parallel dimension.

Today, organizations exist

throughout the world

that investigate

potential encounters

with extraterrestrials

visiting Earth.

But long before

these groups existed,

the people of the British Isles

were examining another

type of otherworldly phenomenon.

In the 1920s, something very

strange happened in Ireland.

There were suddenly

mass sightings of fairies.

So much so that a captain,

Quintin Craufurd,

formed what he called

the Society for

the Investigation of Fairies,

which was a very scientific

and serious approach

at collecting data

about these fairy sightings.

Like a modern UFO group today,

their mission was

to study elves,

figure elves out,

what they were doing there,

try to communicate with elves.

And they absolutely believed

that fairies and elves

were real and existed

throughout the British Isles.

People from all walks of life

contacted the organization

reporting encounters with beings

they believed were fairies.

Witnesses described fairies

leading them to buried relics,

walking through solid walls,

and even transforming

into orbs of light.

This society did

important research

up until World w*r II, when

their records were destroyed.

And then in 1949,

they began doing research again.

Hundreds of members joined

the society in the 1950s,

including Walt Disney.

Now, what's amazing about this

is that in order to become

a member of the society,

you had to declare

an absolute belief

in the existence of fairies.

And who other than Walt Disney

in the modern world

is more closely connected

to fairies?

The idea that you would

actually have

a very serious society

that was looking into fairies,

shows that in the British Isles

and in Ireland,

the whole concept of elven folk

and fairies and leprechauns

is very real

and continues to this day.

In 1969,

French astronomer Jacques Vallée

published a groundbreaking book

on unexplained phenomena

called Passport to Magonia:

From Folklore to Flying Saucers.

In it, he proposed that

historical accounts of fairies

and other strange beings

could be the same phenomenon

that today is interpreted

as extraterrestrial.

Jacques did what I think is one

of the most important books

about the UFO phenomena,

trying to understand,

of all the things

in the sky and on the ground

through history that have either

been painted, photographed,

caught on radar,

what are they and why are they?

Every culture speaks

of the "others,"

whether it be the wee people,

the leprechauns,

or the fairies

or the angels or the demons.

Our brothers in Islam

know them very well,

and they're called the djinn.

And the one thing

that is taught about the djinn

is essentially,

they are energetic beings,

and their place of residence is

in the domains of inner earth.

And this leads us

to ask the question,

if the domains of inner earth

are actually physical

within this dimension

or possibly

in a parallel dimension.

According to Vallée,

the strange beings that humans

have reported encountering

for thousands of years may,

in fact, be interdimensional.

Vallée believes that

from the time of the Big Bang,

if it created one universe,

why couldn't it create

a multitude of universes?

Might there be connections

between the different

universes where elements

from the other universe

cross into our universe,

and where elements of

our universe cross into theirs?

That would explain how people

coming upon the sidhe

might not just see an

underground civilization,

but they might see an

interdimensional civilization.

Could it be that sightings

of fairies

and similar figures described

in other ancient traditions

are encounters with beings

that occupy parallel dimensions?

And if so,

are these the same beings

described today

as extraterrestrials?

There are possible parallels

between the sidhe

or fairies that seem

to be similar to UFO,

uh, accounts.

For example,

seeing strange lights.

Like what's known as,

in Irish and British tradition,

the will-o'-the-wisp.

Um, these fairy lights

that move,

uh, and lead people astray.

When you get

to the 20th century,

and where people were trying

to figure out human abductions,

you start hearing

from people saying,

"Well, they shape-shifted

in front of me."

"There were beams of light

that took us up and down."

"They can disappear, they

can go through windows, walls."

And those are the same verbs

and nouns that were being used

in the centuries before

in Ireland and other places

about fairies and so-called

pretend creatures.

There are stories

and personal experiences

similar to UFO accounts

that have been recorded,

of missing time

where somebody i-is taken

into the otherworld

by the fairies,

and, uh, thinks they've

been there for a few hours,

but it's been a few days

when they return.

Oftentimes, you hear stories

of missing time, of people

disappearing for weeks,

or losing their memory

for significant events,

and frankly,

that is similar to what you hear

from modern-day

UFO abduction stories.

Could it be that the folklore

of cultures all around the globe

is based on

an otherworldly presence

that people

have been encountering

since humankind's

earliest history?

Ancient astronaut theorists

say yes,

and according to the Irish,

at least once a year,

the veil is lifted

between our realm and theirs.

The Hill of Uisneach, Ireland.

Located 60 miles west of Dublin.

This site has been sacred

to the Irish for centuries.

Each year in early May,

locals gather

at this sacred site

to celebrate

the ancient festival of Beltane.

Dating back more

than 3,000 years,

Beltane and its famous bonfire

provide a link between

modern Christian Ireland

and its pagan Celtic past.

This festival is

the traditional start of summer.

The Celtic peoples

divided the year

into a dark half

and then a bright half,

marked at Beltane.

It was so important

that people understood

precise times of year

for agricultural reasons.

The people working the fields

didn't have

the knowledge of astronomy.

So the fire was a signal,

and they saw the fire.

From the highest point

on Uisneach,

20 counties are visible.

So once the main fire is lit

on Uisneach in a circle,

all of the hills around

light their fires,

and then it spreads and spreads

throughout the whole country.

And it happens instantly.

The fire is a signal

to all of the country

that now is the summertime.

But Beltane,

which is also celebrated

at other ancient sites

throughout Ireland, serves

another, more profound purpose.

Many Irish believe

that during this festival,

it is possible for humans

to peer inside the mounds

into an entirely

different reality.

There's a threshold or boundary

between worlds

that becomes thin.

And human beings can see

into the otherworld

or encounter otherworldly

beings, uh, more easily.

Beltane, or May Day,

is associated very strongly

with the sidhe,

the fairy people,

the Shining Ones.

Through festivals like Beltane,

the people of Ireland

maintain a strong connection

to the traditions of their past,

traditions of shining beings

who came down from the sky

and continue to live on

within the ancient mounds.

When I was growing

up in Ireland,

people, at least in the,

in the rural areas

and Ireland

was very rural at the time

nobody would admit

to not believing in the fairies.

The existence of the fairy folk

was not questioned.

This idea that Ireland

has had this love affair

with leprechauns and fairy folk,

I would ask the question, "Well,

what is the underlying meaning

of this?"

Because stories

of fairy folk go back

at least 3,000 years in Ireland.

In the case

of the Tuatha Dé Danann,

it's even earlier.

It's possible

that what we have here

is one of the earliest examples

of ancient astronaut teachers.

I've reached a certain age

in my life now

that it's not about believing,

it's just that

this is the way it is now.

So, do we believe in fairies

and leprechauns in Ireland?

Absolutely, 100%.

Is it possible

that beneath the idyllic

rolling countryside of Ireland,

there are entrances

to a hidden realm

that has been inhabited

by otherworldly beings

for more than 3,000 years?

Could they be the descendants

of extraterrestrials

who were responsible for

the creation of the human race?

Perhaps the whimsical legends

of Ireland

are not so whimsical after all,

but contain profound truths

about an alien presence on Earth

that is still with us today.