- The Nazca lines are a series of designs and pictographs carved into the ground in the Nazca Desert, a dry plateau located in Peru
- They cover an area of some 50 miles, and were supposedly created between 200 BC and 700 AD by the Nazca Indians
- The area of the Peruvian desert in which the Nazca Lines were drawn is called the Pampa Colorada. It is 15 miles wide and runs some 37 miles parallel to the Andes and the Pacific Ocean.
- They designed them by scraping away the copper colored rocks of the desert floor to expose the lighter-colored earth beneath
- The lines have managed to remain intact for hundreds of years thanks to the region’s arid climate, which sees it receive little rain or wind throughout the year
- Some of the lines span distances of 600 feet, and they depict everything from simple designs and shapes to characterizations of plants, insects, and animals
- Scientists know who made the Nazca Lines and how they did it, but they still don’t know why?
- The most popular and reasonable hypothesis is that the lines must have figured in the Nazca people’s religious beliefs, and that they made the designs as offerings to the gods, who would’ve been able to see them from the heavens
- Other scientists argue that the lines are evidence of massive looms that the Nazcas used to make textiles
- one investigator has even made the preposterous claim that they are the remnants of ancient airfields used by a vanished, technologically advanced society
- Astronomer Robin Edgar presented the theory that Nazca lines particularly the ones that feature animals, fish and humans were created in order respond to the "Eye of God" which would be a feasable explanation as during the Nazca line period it co-insides with a large amount of solar eclipses took place over the southern Peru area
- Robin Edgar believed this as a solar eclipse would resemble the pupil and iris looking down on the people below, therefore it is believed that the lines were created in order for the eye in the sky to view the Nazca lines
- The Nazca lines are featured in the book "Chariots of the Gods" by Erich Von Daniken that discusses his belief that the Nazca lines were created by aliens and used as landing strips
- Erich Von Daniken felt that the designs were to complex and covered such a large distance that they could not have been created by humans due to the size of the lines, lack of tools plus they had no ability to view the lines from the air