The Mysterious Origins of Man is a pseudoarchaeological television special that originally aired on NBC on February 25, 1996. Hosted by Charlton Heston, the program presents the fringe theory that mankind has lived on the Earth for tens of millions of years, and that mainstream scientists have suppressed the fossil evidence for this. Some material included was based on Forbidden Archeology, a 1993 book written by Hindu creationists Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson about anomalous archeological finds reported mainly in early scientific journals.

The film covers topics such as The Paluxy tracks, the Zuiyo-maru carcass, the Missing Link, the Java Man, Lucy, Tiwanaku, Stonehenge, the Giza pyramids, the Piri Reis map, Atlantis, and the Pole shift hypothesis.