On Sunday February 25th 1996, NBC broadcast "The Mysterious Origins of Man", narrated in part by Charlton Heston, purporting to be a documentary about scientific evidence that would overturn currently accepted views of human history and evolution.
Although Mysterious Origins was anti-evolutionary, it was not advocating scientific creationism, even though some of the "experts" and arguments are familiar to readers of scientific creationist literature. Instead, just as scientific creationism is an attempt to use science to support fundamentalist Christianity, Mysterious Origins is apparently an attempt to use science to support Hinduism. Much of the material in the program is based on the contents of two books, Forbidden Archeology and The Hidden History of the Human Race by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, both of whom appeared on the show and are members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, a branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Both books are published by Govardhan Hill Publishing.
Other material for Mysterious Origins came from Graham Hancock's book Fingerprints of the Gods, Rand and Rose Flem-Ath's book When the Sky Fell, and Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert's book The Orion Mystery.
