Ancient Aliens: ASTEROID MINING IN OUTER SPACE (Season 14) | History

[0:00]It is widely accepted that without access to metals, both technology and civilization would not have been possible. But luckily for mankind, some 3.8 billion years ago. It is estimated that trillions of asteroids crashed into the earth and deposited a layer of heavy metals into the planet's now hardened crust. These elements weren't actually from Earth originally, all of these elements came to Earth via comets and asteroids that impacted our planet long ago and early in its history. So all the precious metals that we mine on the earth actually came from the asteroids. The bombardment of asteroids seated Earth's crust with enough metals to make possible the Bronze Age, the Iron Age. And today's technological civilization. But many metals, including rare earth elements needed for high technology, are in increasingly short supply. Because of this, many experts believe the asteroid belt may once again come to the rescue. You get a typical asteroid of 200 meters in diameter, it will have more of those rare earth elements that have been mined on Earth in all of human history. Of the more than 6,000 asteroids in NASA's database, it is estimated that even just the 10 easiest to reach and mine would yield an astonishing 1.5 trillion dollars in resources. The asteroid belt could provide for the needs of our civilization for many centuries, maybe thousands of years into the future. The natural thing to do is to build spacecraft, to go out to the asteroids, mine them. Make goods out of the asteroids and we presume that other intelligences, if there are other intelligence, would think the same way we would and so anything that seems to make sense to us could make sense to others. If other intelligent lifeforms exist on nearby exoplanets, might they too be aware of the vast resources that exist in the asteroid belt and also on planet Earth? Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and suggest that Earth is rich in another commodity that would be of great value to any advanced civilization looking to mine for precious metals, liquid water. If aliens wanted to mine the asteroid belt, they'd need a base, somewhere to regroup and refuel. As it happens, there's one pretty close, and it's called planet Earth. Why would aliens come here might well be because we're mostly water on planet Earth. They stop here because they could break down water into hydrogen and oxygen as fuel. So if you have a craft that somehow uses hydrogen power, you have all the hydrogen you'll ever need. It well could be that this is a way station for extraterrestrials.