It would be nice if someone would do this area in Flight Simulator. FSX would be the best option for photo scenery to really see the scope and size of these very strange and mysterious landmarks. I personally can't imagine an indigenous civilization having the need to make runway style lines in one of the most inhospitable areas of Peru's desert for any reason. On top of that just south of the lines a space man the size of the Empire State Building drawn on the side of a mountain the waving up at the sky as if to say, 'Have A Nice Trip'. It's very interesting to see this in Google Earth and calls to reason how impossible something like this would be for mire mortals with little more than sticks and stones. The shapes of the lines aren't anything any indigenous culture would draw outside of the various animals drawn between the lines. The actual line patterns is nothing short of other worldly especially if one looks at Inca/Aztec writing of the time. It's amazing to look at and the shire size would really be something to see if we had this scenery in FS. The only thing that comes close is the freeware add-on of Edwards Airforce Base with the lines drawn in the desert. Look at how long it took man to do that...For the record I'm not one of those people who believes in the whole UFO hysteria unless it's flat out obvious. Flying Frisbees on video tap is not my thing but just the same I'm open minded when things are so amazing it defies all logic. I wasn't really interested in the NASCA lines and thought it was somewhat bogus until tonight I said, 'what the heck' and navigated to the place. I thought it was all hype until I actually looked at the area and saw the real deal. I guess now I'll concede and say I believe we have been visited as there's no other way to explain it. If you looked at the lines from ground level (so they say) you can't make out anything, it looks like hollowed out indentions that lead no ware. It's not until 2,000ft and above you see precision and markings so foreign to anything man has ever produced that it seems something really different went on there some 2,000 years ago (or whatever date stamp it was). The Pyramids are one thing as rulers can get slaves or whoever to do just about anything for the right price or pain (unfortunately) but it' virtually impossible to accomplish what happened in NASCA without modern equipment, I don't care what anyone says. We're talking GPS precision here done only from the sky looking down to check your work.Well I'm off my soap box so now back to simming. I just thought I'd share this as my travels in Google Earth left me in Peru for awhile. Now I'm off to do a KMIA/SPIM flight thanks to this eye opening discovery tonight... :(

HI, Les!There are still quite many unexplained mysteries of the past. Many will never be solved as people and sometimes whole civilizations responsible for them have been dead for a long time. This is one of the examples. The fact we have no 100% evidence on how and why such structures were made leaves room for various speculations. Some of them sometimes seem even more bizzare than the relics themselves!In this case, like in most, that probably had religious background. People have done very strange things for their beliefs. Until now we can say.Geoglyphs (that's how they're called) are found in many parts of the world, including Europe and northern Africa.And it's Nazca, by the way. :(

It would be nice if someone would do this area in Flight Simulator. FSX would be the best option for photo scenery to really see the scope and size of these very strange and mysterious landmarks. I personally can't imagine an indigenous civilization having the need to make runway style lines in one of the most inhospitable areas of Peru's desert for any reason. On top of that just south of the lines a space man the size of the Empire State Building drawn on the side of a mountain the waving up at the sky as if to say, 'Have A Nice Trip'. It's very interesting to see this in Google Earth and calls to reason how impossible something like this would be for mire mortals with little more than sticks and stones. The shapes of the lines aren't anything any indigenous culture would draw outside of the various animals drawn between the lines. The actual line patterns is nothing short of other worldly especially if one looks at Inca/Aztec writing of the time. It's amazing to look at and the shire size would really be something to see if we had this scenery in FS. The only thing that comes close is the freeware add-on of Edwards Airforce Base with the lines drawn in the desert. Look at how long it took man to do that...For the record I'm not one of those people who believes in the whole UFO hysteria unless it's flat out obvious. Flying Frisbees on video tap is not my thing but just the same I'm open minded when things are so amazing it defies all logic. I wasn't really interested in the NASCA lines and thought it was somewhat bogus until tonight I said, 'what the heck' and navigated to the place. I thought it was all hype until I actually looked at the area and saw the real deal. I guess now I'll concede and say I believe we have been visited as there's no other way to explain it. If you looked at the lines from ground level (so they say) you can't make out anything, it looks like hollowed out indentions that lead no ware. It's not until 2,000ft and above you see precision and markings so foreign to anything man has ever produced that it seems something really different went on there some 2,000 years ago (or whatever date stamp it was). The Pyramids are one thing as rulers can get slaves or whoever to do just about anything for the right price or pain (unfortunately) but it' virtually impossible to accomplish what happened in NASCA without modern equipment, I don't care what anyone says. We're talking GPS precision here done only from the sky looking down to check your work.Well I'm off my soap box so now back to simming. I just thought I'd share this as my travels in Google Earth left me in Peru for awhile. Now I'm off to do a KMIA/SPIM flight thanks to this eye opening discovery tonight... :(

So what? Now you believe in ghosts?LOL. this is no different than the crop circles. Perhaps you need to spend a few bucks and secure the NatGeo channel. You might learn how these things originate.Mitch

Yes the Nazca 'lines' are different . . . . , we don't have any night vision video of modern day people creating them like the hoaxed crop circles. Ancient mysteries are a wonderful part of our worlds heritage. Even if we can figure out how or why some of these things where done it still leaves us mystified because we as a current civilization can not see things through their minds eye. So unless we can time travel back and be standing in the desert or where ever as someone points a stick and says, " construct 'this' here, . . . because we or I need it, and here is how we will do it." we will never know the real answers.Maybe, just maybe, some of these ancient civilizations were the supreme pranksters the likes of which we have yet to imagine. Like: Let's all go out and smoke and drink some stuff, then we'll pile up a bunch of rocks in really odd shapes and designs then we'll pack up and move to some other part of the world, this will be great, Thousands of years from now it'll leave those smart asses scratching their heads 'til they go balled just trying to figure this one out! They say, " :( "Regards,Mel

"but it' virtually impossible to accomplish what happened in NASCA without modern equipment, I don't care what anyone says. We're talking GPS precision here done only from the sky looking down to check your work."Ever heard of drawing a picture, then applying that to the real world......you don't nn GPS to make precise measurements. We, man, have been building for 1000's of years, and like those of the past, given enough practice and time, anyone will learn a method for producing something, (string, slide rule, computer, GPS). Why these things exists like so many other in the world is always going to be a question once time has set in. Don't count out the human imagination or brain when it comes to doing anything. I don't care how old or new it is.....What do you think will be said of us a 1000, 2000 or 3000 years from now, give that some thought! Maybe before buying into the entertainment aspects of the unexplained we may all be better served by doing some more research as already mentioned in a prior thread. Ancient Astronauts was/ and is a entertaining book and for those who have never done much research on their own could well be taken in with this stuff and believing it. Same as those who think the moon landings were faked and had all kinds of "evidence" to persude the uninformed and those with minds with much less than those who actually went. These things are fun to speculate on until hard science/truth like the "true" story for a Hollywood movie are studied in depth. When the "true story" is reveiled, the movie becomes just that, a movie with more often than not, lacking in the the real truth of the story being told. We can't all be Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong but we should all strive to be more like them instead of someone who understands the ignorance of most people, and makes a living taking advantage of this ignorance. Sorry to say, I fall into this category at times but try not to make it public...ha ha, well one of my favorite shows is about to start, Monster Quest, and it really is one of my favorite shows. Go figure! :(

I'm inclined to think there is a more plausible explanation than fanciful 'spaceman' theories: that being the speculative possibility that the ancient civilisation may have dabbled with gliding flight. This is not as far-fetched as it seems when we consider that there are clearly very many things from ancient history that are not documented. It is especially interesting to speculate upon as a notion when we consider what is documented; it is known that the Chinese had flyable kites well over 400 years ago, and people were coming up with flying machine concepts long before Lilienthal and the Wright Brothers got into the air, for example, George Cayley was flying model gliders in in the early 1800s and even wrote a book about aerial navigation at that time, and we know Leonardo DaVinci was keen on coming up with aircraft concepts way back in the 15th Century.It's certainly not as much of a stretch of the imagination as the 'Chariots of the Gods' concept to think that these ancient people might have observed Condors in flight and sussed out how wings work, which is after all exactly what we have done in modern times - they had brains and they could make stuff, and like us, they probably liked the idea of flying purely for the fun of it, which is really all that is required for the desire to create a flying craft. If they had enough engineering skill to knock up pyramids and such, then I don't think knocking up a simple glider from a wooden frame with some stretched animal membrane over it for a lifting surface would have been beyond the realms of possibility for them. Such a craft might have been flown like a kite in strong winds in much the same way as a parascender 'chutes are towed behind pleasure craft these days; all you need is a decent stiff breeze in lieu of some vehicle to tow the thing.What is more, I'm willing to bet those vast rock plains where the drawings on the Earth's surface are depicted can kick off some pretty mean thermals on a sunny day.Al

One misconception that more than a few people believe in, is that our ancestors were not intelligent enough to accomplish some of things that history demonstrates were done. Not true, for to many reason to go into here. Suffice it to say that they invented nearly every thing that has become the foundation our current world is built on. Attributing their deeds to aliens is simply a effort to deny them the credit due and thereby elevated ourselves somehow. Now if some person were to excavate a ancient site and dig up a 3d highly detailed topographical model of one of Saturn's moons I might think "hmmmm" but until then it should be credit where credit is due.Al I also believe the kite idea is plausible. And just for the sake of the discussion, I read somewhere ( sorry I can't recall the source ) that a primitive sort of hot air balloon(s) may have been employed. Would knowing the answer for sure really be any better than the mystery?Cheers,Mel

I fully agree with most that was said here. Most, as in, those that dispute the aliens and give other explanations get my approval. As was said, many, many civilizations have made structures that are simply mind boggling, and they did it with crude tools. Think of some of the burials in Egypt. There has been one female pharao, but she has left us an amazing structure: a huge temple to honor herself, and a magnificent underground grave. These structures by themselves are already great, but the best part of the story si that the entrances to the grave and temple are in a straight line from each other. I think the deflection was only 1.2 degrees. Can you imagine? Such a small deflection between two entrances to structures probably 50-100 km apart. Man has been good at building for at least 4000 years (The Ancient Mesopotamians should not be forgotten!). The Nazca lines are just one more example of a great history.

For me the whole Nazca thing is simple. Let's look at what we know. They had mathematics. So they knew angles. They had string, sticks, digging implements, a way to measure angles and lots of labor. With a little bit of skull sweat, they had everything they needed to make the Nazca drawings without ever having to go into the air.Make a stylized stick figure drawing on a piece of paper. Measure all the lengths and angles and simply upsize all your measurements onto the ground. Easy Peasy.Scott

Actually, we don't know they had mathematics in the sense we understand them. The Nazca geoglyphs were created between 200 BCE and 700 CE, and the Indian mathematician Aryabhata lived between 476

Certainly. I highly doubt that they had mathematics as we know it. However, it doesn't take much advanced math to mark angles and lengths with arbitrary units and scale up from some sort of design drawing. I don't know much about the "cosmic significance" of the Nazca Drawings. All I'm saying is that constructing them was well within the scope of their available technology.Scott

Yup, I don't dispute that they could certainly have constructed them, I just think it is fun to speculate on why they actually did so. The most plausible explanation is that they were drawings intended for view by their Gods, assuming that like many civilisations, they imagined god to be above them in the heavens.Al

All these posts assume that the ancient civilizations were earthlings. But were they?My wife says that after living with me for nearly 55 years, she is inclined to think that I am from outer space!If me, why not others?Alex Reid

I am from outer space!

Outer, inner, what's the difference? :( We're all spacemen anyway...

My wife is definitely from another planet and I'm sure it isn't Venus! :( Forty years of trying to learn an alien language and customs and I still have trouble communicating with her. I stay off of dark and remote roads late at night for fear 'they' will come back for her and worse yet, . . . . . make me go with her! :( Cheers to all,Mel