Easter Island and Aliens

So, what's the deal with those giant heads on Easter Island? Do you think aliens had anything to do with them? Am I a retard for buyin' into that concept? I know that us humanoids love to explain the unexplainable by saying that aliens must have something to do with it, but I've heard all the various theories involving trees and boats and pulleys and ropes and levers and slaves and whatnot, but none of it seems to make sense and there's always some scientist that debunks it. Giants maybe? Not to get into Theology or anything, but even the Bible says there were giants on earth at one time.Could these giants actually be aliens? I know I sound like Erik von Daniken, but he makes a compelling argument, and he's not the only one putting forth this notion. What do YOU think? As for me, I'm goin' with the aliens.

I would just like to point out that the Moai also have torsos and are not just heads.

Aliens? Personally, I think not.

I think humans have way too much time for following flights of fancy.

'n' ya, maybe there are aliens out there, somewhere. It's likely, odd-wise. But to think that said aliens decided that populating Rapa Nui with stone figures would be a good idea? No, I really don't think so. Likewise, there really is enough evidence to the contrary to appease me.

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

I'm goin' with the aliens

Yeah, that's what I used to think. They have neat-o spacesuits, totally bitching music collections, and all the best intergalactic pharmaceuticals. They throw a helluva party up their on the Mother ship, but then it's probing time and everyone's looking at you.

Nope, I'm done hangin' with those guys. It's fun for a while, but then it gets really weird. Know what I mean? I'm all for advancing scientific knowledge and extra-terrestrial relations, but I gots to draw a line. For me, it's when they bring out the cow, always with the cows, those guys.

midnite

You're forgetting the theory of Lemuria/Mu, the sunken lost continent of the Pacific, and that they were supposed to have miraculous technology that could explain the Moai, Nan Madol, and Yap Island giant stone money. Also, since the islands of Polynesia would then merely be the tops of the mountains of Mu, it would explain how the Polynesians were spread across such a wide area since little brown people without metal or compasses obviously couldn't have sailed to all these places.

Well... Big Stone Head addresses this issue, or at least mentions it and rather quickly debunks it.

In a nutshell: I have personally walked, in 2000 and 2004, right up to the quarry where the ancient rapanui people carved the moai. Hundreds of them are still there, half-carved from the rocks in the side of a volcano. Unles that aliens also made some half-baked moai and left them imbedded in the stone just to fuck with us, then I think the mystery is more or less solved.

There was also no slave labor: the moai builders were a revered caste of artisians who's needs were cared for by a society who saw moai building as a top proiority.

Good points all of you. Thanks for trying to " talking me down off the ledge". I still kinda think that levitation was involved in erecting those damn things. That tiny island's resources simply couldn't support the population needed to carve, drag, then erect those monsters...Right? Maybe the indiginous peoples were just so spiritual that they mastered the lost "skill" of levitation.

Also, those stone heads look like they were put there to either beckon or ward off somebody or something. They're not just for decoration. Who or what were they trying to draw attention to? It's not like there were ships cruising around much. Perhaps it was ANOTHER kind of ship they were made for...(cue Twilight Zone theme).

On 2005-09-30 08:36, tikitortured wrote:
That tiny island's resources simply couldn't support the population needed to carve, drag, then erect those monsters...Right?

I'm sure others here can speak far more cogently on this, but if memory serves, they didn't have enough resources -- which is a large part of why things went the way they did amongst the people of Rapa Nui. Deforestation has a way of doing that.

When I was younger, I was more willing to believe that aliens or some other form of paranormal activity were involved with the figures, or some of the other wonders of the ancient world. Then I realised that I was selling our ancestors short. Those of us in the modern age are always so willing to cast those who came before us as being "primitive," and unable to achieve the amazing things they did. Makes me wonder what people will think of us in a few hundred years: will "wonders" like whatever remains of our skyscrapers and monuments be cast as having been fashioned by aliens, simply because our future selves cannot fathom people as backwards as us making such marvels?

Oh, and here's some useful, if scant, information on the Island's history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

[ Edited by: gwenners 2005-09-30 17:21 ]

.And just WHO, or WHAT terrible thing were the Moai protecting the Island from????
Combine that thought with the giant coins from Yap, and I think you're talking about "Big money for the big Monkey".

i saw one of the small moai at the Smithsonan, if i took all the time i spend on the computer or in front of the tv, and put it to chiseling and moving that hunk of stone, i could have one in my yard in a year.

nanu nanu

Do not make fun of them......they walk among us........I have seen them..............O.K. , so it was the "70s" but standing along the banks of the Sacramento Delta looking over a cornfield..........two people witnessed.....a chariot of the......I may have to delete this post in case I run for a political office......

On 2005-09-30 17:34, bongofury wrote:
Do not make fun of them......they walk among us

Welcome them.

tikitortured, I posted photos of Easter Islanders raising a Moai a month-or-so ago.

Do Not Run...........We Are Your Friends.........

Um...Me thinks too many viewings of the X--Files DVD's! Now, I have been talking to this farmer about this certain crop circle in the shape of a moai! :lol:

The one fact that kind of debunks the space aliens carving the Moai belief is that several Moai including the largest one ever carved are laying face up partially carved in a stone quarry on the island. The rock they are made from is actually quite soft when it is freshly cut, which makes it carvable by even very primative stone tools and even sticks.

At this quarry you can see how carving was done. An oval trench like a moat is dug into the rock. Features are carved on the front of the Moai and the trench is made deeper around it. Lastly the finished Moai is undercut near its back. Broken off and lifted out of the hole.

An almost fully completed Moai is in the quarry to this day still connected to the rock it was carved from by a spine of rock about a foot thick and two feet tall running down its back.

Pollen samples taken from Rapa Nui's lake and fruits found preserved in caves show evidence that the now extinct palm tree that used to live on the island was huge and plentiful. It's a close relative of the largest date palms known. Pollen evidence proves when the people arrived on the island they brought with them several kinds fruit bearing plants. I think it is not far fetched to think they would have brought species to make ropes from as well. The island would have supported a population much larger than was found on the island much later when the white men discovered it, after the civilization had collapsed.

To say that thousands of years after men built the great pyramids in Egypt and Central America and all the other wonders of the ancient world the people of Rapa Nui could not carve and move those stone heads with out help from extraterrestrials is just nonsence.

[ Edited by: captnkirk 2005-09-30 20:26 ]

Why do they call it Easter Island?
the Giant Wabbits?
No, seriously. Anybody know where the name came from?
(We have a Christmas Island near here, but no Happy Birthday Island.)

It was 'discovered' on easter day (I think). I should add by human explorers not aliens.

[ Edited by: TIKIZILLA 2005-10-01 02:00 ]

Actually, the Easter Island people claim that the Moai "walked" to their resting places with the aid of a witch. When the witch didn't get her lobster, she stopped all the Moai in their tracks :wink: (actully true story)

well true that this is what the easter island people believed

On 2005-10-01 01:57, TIKIZILLA wrote:
It was 'discovered' on easter day (I think). I should add by human explorers not aliens.

(text snagged from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island )

"European contact with the island began in 1722 on Easter Sunday when Dutch navigator Jakob Roggeveen found about 2,000-3,000 inhabitants on the island, although the population may have been as high as 10,000-15,000 only a century or two earlier."

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

Well, according to Polynesian mythology (and Wikipedia)Makemake was the creator of humanity and chief God of the "Bird Cult". Could it be possible that the people of Easter Island so longed for the return of their creators (Makemake) and erected these statues "made in their creators image", in hopes of their return? And could this "Bird Cult" actually be a primitive interpretation of flying vehicles? Is it such a leap in logic to suggest that the Makemake were/are Alien Beings (Gods) and that the Bird Cult were/are spaceships? When humans populate Mars or another planet with people or clones that we've made in OUR own image, will not these people consider us THEIR Gods and devise some way to hasten our return to them? Just a thought.

On 2005-10-03 15:06, tikitortured wrote:
Is it such a leap in logic to suggest that the Makemake were/are Alien Beings (Gods) and that the Bird Cult were/are spaceships?

I believe that is the definition of "leap of logic."

Instead, consider this explanation of the bird cult, snagged from
http://pvs-hawaii.com/Education/ed_rapanui_history.htm

"The importance of the fowl as the sole domesticated animal, the annual migration of the sooty tern to a near-by islet to breed, the village of Orongo with its carved rocks overlooking the course, and the development of the bird cult are all in a natural sequence that could have occurred nowhere else but on Easter Island."

Cheers,
Gwen Smith

[ Edited by: gwenners 2005-10-03 15:47 ]

Well... it could be that the natives raised them in tribute to their "gods" from space. Why did those giant "space capsules" and images get made on the plains of South America that can only be seen from high in the air? Why are Caucasians the only race that embraces technology so completely? Where did white folks come from? Why are whites the only race that can't or doesn't live in harmony with nature? I may be an alien. Jefferson Airplane may have been on to something.

Just (kinda) kidding, but it's something to think about. Hmmmm.

On 2005-10-04 06:39, foamy wrote:
Why are Caucasians the only race that embraces technology so completely?

Ever been to Tokyo? you can get underpants out of vending machines and your sushi come on a conveyor belt.

I recently finished reading "the Enigmas of Easter Island", which, although very thorough, had an extremely rational tone and went to great lengths to show that the islanders moved the statues via mechanical means, but in the end, the authors state that, "[W]e need to go back to the drawing board, because researchers have always assumed that the island’s roadbed surface was flat and the road horizontal; but ... none of the moai-moving theories or experimental methods presented so far can cope with the structure of the roads he [Love] has excavated! The cut parts of the road are not conducive to rollers or tilting a statue along, and any contraption used would have to accommodate both the flat fill surfaces and the V-shaped surfaces. So the mystery of statue transportation remains intact."

According to this website: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/easter2.htm#e2

The islanders have a legend that the statues were moved to the platforms and raised upright by the use of mana, or mind power. Either the god Makemake, or priests or chiefs commanded them to walk or to float through the air, and according to one legend, use was made of a finely crafted stone sphere, 75 cm (2.5 ft) in diameter, called te pito kura (‘the golden navel’ or ‘the navel of light’), to focus the mana. Legends about the use of levitation in the construction of megalithic monuments are found all over the world.1

in the words of Larry the Cable Guy, "I believe" that:

*humans are spiritual beings,
*our ancestors were very attuned to the spirit world,
*modern western society has to have a rational, tangible explanation for everything,
*and, that although i believe that life is abundant throughout the universe, the ancients didn't need aliens to do their work for them; they were far more advanced in the areas of mental and spiritual 'technology' than we are today.

I've always read that even with todays modern construction equipment and cranes we'd have a hard time moving those things. Some are as heavy as 82 tons! Most average 10 tons. At it's peak population of 11,000 people, I still don't believe that it would be possible to move 82 tons of cumbersome mass from one end of the island to the other, at least 7 miles. On palm tree trunks as rollers! On uneven, rocky, dirt "roads" no less! It's a neat theory of human acheivement, but I aint buyin' it. There's too many unanswered questions and flaws in EVERY scientific explanation about this. It may not be aliens but it certainly has something to do with some kind of "power" apparently lost or unknown to modern man.

On 2005-10-04 06:39, foamy wrote:
Well... it could be that the natives raised them in tribute to their "gods" from space. Why did those giant "space capsules" and images get made on the plains of South America that can only be seen from high in the air? Why are Caucasians the only race that embraces technology so completely? Where did white folks come from? Why are whites the only race that can't or doesn't live in harmony with nature? I may be an alien. Jefferson Airplane may have been on to something.

Just (kinda) kidding, but it's something to think about. Hmmmm.

Is that the same reasoning that is used when we talk about the Jewish people winning more Nobel Prizes than any other group, disproportionate to their numbers, and why they call themselves "Gods Chosen People"?

the pukao that have been replaced on the ahu statues have been placed by using a crane. Islanders did raise a Moai into place using the rope method (as seen in Hanford's photo post), but that process also left gouges in the statues from the ropes... Gouges that are not visible in the existing moai, therefore casting potential doubt on that as the actual method of raising the Moai.

Ever been to Tokyo? you can get underpants out of vending machines

How did I get them in there?

and your sushi come on a conveyor belt.

Not on a first date they don't, least not with nice respectable sushi. Like Sue Sue Sushi, just ask Fee.

It is a battle of wits and my gun ain't loaded. That's ok, it's not armed robbery, not when your footsstuck so far in your mouth. Well, let's not even mention the cranium displacement, then.

I like happy endings,
wise midnite

holy crap. i saw this topic, and i remembered something i saw on television a while back. about...1996? the real adventures of johnny quest had an episode titled "the secret of the moai." they found this spaceship buried on easter island...and inside there were alien skeletons. they had the heads of moai, so the sculptures wer built as a tribute to these aliens. anyway, the bad guy shows up with some kind of space age tuning fork, starts abnging on these moai and the moai skulls, and everyone de evolves into monkeys and cavemen.

i should take a tuning fork to easter island.

...a tuning fork AND a shovel! To dig up that spaceship that's buried there. I knew that Hadji was all knowing...

this must be the story that inspired The Coneheads.

I watched Chariots of the Gods again today and it brought up some good points:

1. There are no drag marks anywhere to be found on the Island. Even if they used the existing palm trees as rollers there would still be some detectable marks left in the ground.

2. At the height of the islands population, some say 4,000 some say 11,000, you must consider that some were children, some were women, some were elderly, and some were handicapped. That leaves a relitively small population to carve, transport and raise those giant things.

3. After WWII, the primitive inhabitants of a tiny island in the South Pacific used by America as an airfield, made straw replicas of airplanes to lure the "Gods" back to the island.

4. The native Easter Islanders tell a tale of a flying race of "people" that visited their island, long, long ago.

I submit that extra-terrestrial beings had something to do with the giant heads on Easter Island, as well as some of the other mysteries around the world.

[ Edited by: tikitortured 2005-10-09 21:08 ]

"One night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know".....Captain Spauling, the African Explorer

Yes. Strange things can happen.

I would just like to comment on the "no drag marks argument" the reason the Moai mostly appear as heads is the soil has moved that much since the were built and buried them up to their necks. The scrape marks on the dirt made when they were moved would also be buried up to 20 feet.

To my knowledge nobody has tried to dig around a Moai and find them.

There are no marks on the ground around the wooden tikis I have seen in Hawaii and elsewhere, did aliens carve them too?
There are no drag marks around the empire state building did aliens build that too?

Captnkirk, I'm sensing your sarcasm (I hope so, cuz you're layin' it on pretty thick). But the flaw in your argument is this:
Yes, it's true that MOST of the Moai are buried and therefore we cannot see any drag OR roll marks, however, these gigantic things were dragged OR rolled from as far as 12 miles away! Up and down hills, with no roads. Surely there would be some kind of permanent scarring of the ground. Also, unless the TIKIs you've seen in Hawaii or elsewhere wheigh up to 82 tons and were dragged OR rolled up to 12 miles, your analogy to the Moai doesn't work. And of course, the Empire State Bldg. was constructed on site and not up to 12 miles away and dragged OR rolled into place.