Ancient Aliens: King Tut's Mummified DNA (Season 9) | History

NARRATOR: Juarez, Mexico, 2008, just eight miles

southwest of El Paso, Texas.

In this notoriously violent border town,

Dr. Alejandro Hernandez Cardenas develops

a groundbreaking new technique in forensic science.

By using a secret chemical formula,

he is able to rehydrate the flesh

of unrecognizable homicide victims,

including bodies that were mummified

after years of being dried out in the hot desert climate.

And out of sort of compassion or concern for the huge number

of unidentified bodies in Juarez,

he figured out a solution that you can

place a mummified corpse in.

The corpse becomes recognizable in terms of identifying

scars or tattoos.

NARRATOR: The naturally mummified corpses

are put in a tank that Dr. Cardenas refers

to as the jacuzzi, which holds 60

gallons of his secret formula.

Over the course of a few days, the shriveled remains

are rehydrated to look almost lifelike.

But as astounding as his formula is, it's not the first time

science has attempted to in some way restore a mummified body.

In 1968, Robert Connolly, a researcher from the University

of Liverpool, attempted to virtually regenerate the blood

of a completely mummified body, only

this mummy was 3,300 years old.

It was the mummy of Egypt's most famous

pharaoh, King Tutankhamun.

Connolly's method was to combine antigens

taken from a skin sample of King Tut with his own blood cells.

Connolly is actually type O, which

means you don't have any antigens on your blood cells.

He was actually able to put the antigens from King Tut

on his sort of clean slate of a blood cell,

so then recreating whatever blood type the mummy had.

You mix those red blood cells with different blood types.

And if it's not the correct blood type, what you get

is sort of clumping of the blood cells

because there's an immune response against them.

But if it's the correct blood type,

then you don't see any sort of immunological response.

And so in that way, they are able to figure out which

blood type King Tut possessed.

NARRATOR: Since Connolly's experiment,

scientists have gone even further

and discovered what they believe is King Tut's true DNA.

Could the next step be an actual resurrection?

Was the preservation of the body not just a ritualistic attempt

to imitate alien visitors but an actual form

of suspended animation?

But if so, how could they have foreseen

such incredible scientific advancements thousands of years

ago?

It is possible that the ancient astronauts taught

the Egyptians that mummification was

a way of preserving their genetic information in the DNA.

This makes it possible to clone ancient mummies

and, in a sense, bring them back to life.

DAVID WILCOCK: It is possible that, at some point

in the future, if your body had been successfully mummified

that these ancient extraterrestrials were well

aware that a clone of who you were before

could then be reborn many years later.

And is it possible that with the magnificence of the DNA

and with all the information that it contains that you might

also come back with the memories of what you lived

and who you were and what you knew the last time?

And that may be the purpose, which will actually

be used in the future, not yet present

but with a technology that we are very rapidly acquiring.

NARRATOR: Could our ancestors really

have been taught the process of mummification

by extraterrestrial beings?

Was it their intention that we would eventually

develop the technology to retrieve

the DNA of the ancient mummies and restore them to life?

And if we do, might we discover that these human time

capsules hold the secrets to our very origins?

Perhaps one day, we will truly be able to reanimate the dead.

And from these ancient mummies, we will learn the truth

about our alien ancestors.