The Nazca Lines

In the Nazca Desert in Peru, there are a series of gigantic geoglyphs, or images and patterns. Are they a form of ancient communication with extra terrestrial visitors?

They reside on a plateau 600m above sea level where the air is arid. The desert itself is one of the driest on earth and stays at a temperature of

25°C all year. Due to this environment there has been little errosion so the lines are mainly preserved from their original creation. Archaeologists believe they were created around 400AD by the Nazca people, by removing a layer of brown pebbles from the surface exposing the lighter coloured soil below.

There are hundreds of individual geoglyphs, spread over an area of 500km2, from basic patterns to more complex images of animals, resembling birds, spiders and monkeys. Some even resemble crop circles, which appear all over the world and are again another mystery, many people believe to be linked to alien visitors. While they’ve been known about for years, it wasn’t until the 1930s when a group of people flew over the area in a plane that they began to be studied.

Without seeing these lines from high up themselves how could the Nazca create such massive, accurate land sculptures? It is believed that they could be anything from an ancient calendar to irrigation channels. Some of the lines point towards distant mountains or points where the sun sets. One of the more surprising patterns resembles a huge runway – could this be an alien landing strip?

The Nazca lines remain a mystery, and may never be fully understood – just like with the Egyptian Pyramids, how could an ancient civilisation have created such a huge undertaking in such a remote location, with such skill and accuracy?

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