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.
