History's Greatest Mysteries: ASTONISHING Secrets Behind Machu Picchu (Season 5)

- [Laurence] It's the

morning of July 24th, 1911.

Deep in the jungles of Peru,

Yale University Professor Hiram Bingham is

on a quest to find an infamous lost city.

- There's a story from 400 years ago

about the end of the Inca Empire,

when the Spanish came in and took them over,

that they took all of the king's gold

and hid it in a place that is called Vilcabamba.

And that has become a myth called

the lost city of Inca gold.

- [Laurence] Bingham and his team go on

to uncover five square miles of what are Inca ruins,

dating back several centuries.

Locals tell Bingham the site is called Machu Picchu.

- The Inca are really well known for their incredible stonework,

which is called ashlar masonry,

and the stones fit together perfectly without any mortar.

It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle.

They did not have the advanced technology

that we have today, so it's really a marvel.

- You cannot fit a dollar bill or a razor blade between them.

The technique of fitting these blocks together

baffles archeologists and engineers today.

- [Laurence] Whatever the driving force was

behind Machu Picchu's construction,

it's a testament to the ancient Inca's sophistication

as builders, engineers, and even astronomers.

But not everyone thinks the Inca created this place alone.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] It may sound like the plot of a sci-fi movie,

but there are some things about Machu Picchu's construction

that defy logic.

- A few stones in the center of Machu Picchu

are over 50 tons.

And you look at these single stones

and see how perfectly they're fit,

there's not a good explanation, to this day,

how people with rudimentary technologies

were able to do that.

It seems impossible.

- The feet of engineering does seem otherworldly at times,

because even though the ashlar technique

was used throughout the Incan Empire,

which was a way that the stones were carved

and they fit together in a sort of puzzle piece,

how do you do it at the top of a mountain?

- The ancient astronaut theory is considered by many

to be pseudoscience.

However, there is new evidence

that the history of Machu Picchu may be much, much older

than anyone has anticipated.

- [Laurence] Just a short walk from the center

of Machu Picchu in an area named after Pachamama,

the Earth Mother, stands a large granite outcrop

that's been hiding a secret for over 1,000 years.

- In 2016, one of the Machu Picchu archeologists

discovered a faint symbol that raised some new questions.

- What's found on that panel is a man, a llama,

and some black-and-white geometric shapes.

Some people think that it's an indicator

that there's a much more ancient history

to Machu Picchu we're unaware of.

- Whatever it means,

it has no specific ties to the Incan population

in the 15th or 16th centuries.

- [Laurence] Further exploration of Pachamama

reveals even more puzzling cave paintings,

estimated to have been made as early as 800 AD.

- Perhaps the greatest indication

that there was some association

with ancient aliens comes from the Incan religion itself.

- [Laurence] And there's one Inca legend in particular

that can certainly be interpreted as supernatural.

- There's a legend that the Emperor Pachacuti,

on the eve of a great battle,

went to a lake and is reflecting on what to do next.

And that in this moment, a disc fell from the sky

from which emerged a face.

And the supernatural creature tells Pachachuti

that he's going to win the upcoming battle and many more.

The story is then that these huge monolithic stones

come to life and assist Pachacuti in his battle.

And these levitating rocks

are what helped build Machu Picchu in the first place.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] Nearly 600 years after Machu Picchu was founded,

research teams aren't certain

how Machu Picchu was made, or why.

- It's estimated that potentially up to 60%

of the construction of Machu Picchu is underground,

and these deep foundations were necessary

to help with seismic movements and terrace drainage,

to make sure things would filter properly.

- To keep a place like Machu Picchu securely

on the mountaintop,

it takes under-the-earth infrastructure.

It's entirely possible

that there are subterranean chambers we've yet to contact.

In 2010, an engineer named David Crespy

came to Machu Picchu, looking specifically at those caves

under the Temple of the Three Windows,

and said that structurally, the wall that was in the back

looked like it might be hiding

an entrance into deeper chambers.

- He immediately alerts the other archeological teams

to his discovery, but gets no response.

After enough time goes by,

he reaches out to a French archeologist named Thierry Jamin

to see if he can help see what might be underground.

- [Laurence] Jamin gets approval to search the area

with ground-penetrating radar.

In April 2012, along with a team of archeologists,

he makes a stunning discovery.

- They did some geophysical investigations at the site.

And what he thinks he found

is some kind of a chamber below this door

that may have had a staircase leading into it.

- The radar also indicates a huge amount

of metal down there,

which could indicate silver and gold,

exactly the kind of riches that one would expect

to be buried with royalty.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] Like the ancient Egyptians,

the Incas mummified their great leaders,

not to memorialize their power, but to preserve it.

- They were not fancy burials, and they believed

that their ancestors did not die when they died.

They would go into the afterworld, but their spirit

would remain and would look over their descendants.

- In the chronicles that the Spanish left behind,

they describe instances of them eating

and drinking with these remains,

even building vast palaces as if they were still alive.

So the Spanish Conquistadors were horrified

with the amount of power

that these mummies had over the living.

Maybe this whole place was dedicated to the afterlife.

Hiram Bingham's crew is believed

to have excavated all of the graves on Machu Picchu,

but they perhaps missed the most important one.

- [Laurence] The Peruvian government

denies Jamin's request to excavate further,

but he has a hunch about what or who

may be lying within the chamber.

- Thierry Jamin believes that Pachacuti,

who is one of the legendary builders of Machu Picchu,

would be buried there too.

And his gold mummy was somehow interred inside this wall.

- It's possible that Pachacuti's mummified remains

were once located in the cave

underneath the Temple of the Sun

that Bingham had originally believed was a burial chamber.

- [Laurence] Pachacuti dies in 1471.

According to his wishes,

the whole of the Inca Empire mourns for a year

and then spends a month celebrating his life.

- Although his remains were originally installed

in the capital city of Cusco,

according to the Spanish chronicles,

a person of his stature

would have made regular outings, even as a mummy.

- [Laurence] But after the Spanish conquest

starting in 1532,

just when his people need him most,

Pachacuti's mummy mysteriously disappears.

- In 1559, a Spanish magistrate claims

to have collected, by order of the viceroy,

the deceased bodies of Inca kings and queens,

and then shipped them to Lima.

The bodies were deposited in a hospital

in the city of Lima,

and they were eventually buried there

where we believe they can still be found.

- [Laurence] None of those human remains

have been positively identified as Pachacuti.

- Unofficially, the question remains

were Pachacuti's mummified remains

instead brought to Machu Picchu for reburial?

Is Machu Picchu a location for the life and afterlife

of the Inca's greatest leader?

- [Laurence] Thierry Jamin and his crew are keen to know

if what they've seen on that radar

could really be Pachacuti's tomb.

For now, the truth is staying buried.