DVD Review: In Search Of Ancient Mysteries

In Search Of Ancient Mysteries is a 1973 television documentary detailing possible physical evidence that Earth has had visitors from other planets. It’s narrated by Rod Serling, who is of course known for being the creator and narrator of The Twilight Zone. And perhaps because it’s difficult to separate his voice from our memories of that show, you might not take this documentary all that seriously. At least at first.

But the film does present a lot of intriguing questions. “The Incas knew nothing of the wheel, and yet their roads are still in use today. They had no alphabet, yet they developed an engineering technology that built structures such as this. Or did they? Were they creators or inheritors, descendants or beneficiaries of a civilization and culture transplanted to the Andes from somewhere else?” And I find this particularly interesting: “In the ancient world, there were no more accomplished astronomers than the Babylonians. Their cuneiform tablets marked the phases of Venus, the four moons of Jupiter and the satellites of Saturn. None of these bodies or events can be seen without a telescope, a device invented three thousand years after the tablets were carved.”

There is some material on the Bermuda Triangle, including the story of the five fighter planes that vanished in 1945 and the search plane that went after them (and also disappeared). The film mentions the idea that perhaps a homing beacon was planted under those waters which interferes with our navigational devices. And there is an interview with NASA engineer J.F. Blumrich, who develops the idea that Ezekiel in The Bible is actually describing spacecraft, which is interesting. And there is plenty of great footage, including a lot of aerial shots of various formations that could be clues to an alien origin.

The popularity of this documentary led to television series In Search Of… (which was narrated by Leonard Nimoy after Rod Serling died in 1975). In Search Of Ancient Mysteries was written and directed by Fred Warshofsky, and is scheduled to be released on October 28, 2014 through Film Chest Media Group. The DVD contains no special features.