Nazca Lines
The account
Giant drawings visible only from above would be landing strips or signals for spacecraft.
What investigators found
Made by the Nazca culture by removing stones from the surface. Most likely ritual paths linked to water. In 2024, AI helped find 303 new figures.
The story
In the Nazca desert, in southern Peru, hundreds of giant drawings cover the ground: straight lines kilometers long, triangles, spirals and animal figures, such as a hummingbird, a monkey and a spider. From the ground you can see almost nothing. From above, everything appears.
They were made by the Nazca culture, between about 500 BC and 500 AD, by clearing away the dark surface stones to reveal the lighter soil beneath. With no rain, the lines have lasted 2,000 years. In 1968, Erich von Däniken popularized the idea that they were runways for spacecraft, and one figure with large eyes earned the nickname "the astronaut."
The mathematician Maria Reiche spent 40 years studying and protecting the lines. Today the most widely accepted hypothesis points to ritual paths linked to water. In 2024, with the help of artificial intelligence, Japanese researchers found 303 new figures.