Not true, according to an article in the March 2010 issue of National Geographic. There are hills nearby from which the designs can be seen. Some of the designs are cut into the hills and can be seen from the valley floor.

[quote]maerk said: “The best explanation I heard was that they were processional. It may have been that they believe that if you walk along the lines (notice how the monkey in the photo is formed of a single, unbroken line, like a path) you could somehow gain the characteristics of the animal.”[/quote]

This is the view taken by the writer of the National Geographic article.

[quote]“From where did they get water and food? There are no farmlands near. True, it rains a lot in the Andes, but is it regular and adequate enough to support a village?”[/quote]

I have been to Machu Picchu, and hiked from there to the relatively nearby ruin of Choqueqirao, with native Quechua guides, et cetera et cetera et cetera, the whole Andean experience. I even experienced a traditional guinea pig feast in the isolated village of Yanama, but that’s beside the point. The point is, food and water wouldn’t have been a problem. There are indeed farmlands near, they just haven’t been excavated. They are terraces carved into the mountainsides. At Choquequirao some of them have been excavated, and now that I think of it so have a few at Machu Picchu. The people of Yanama still use the centuries-old terraces surrounding their village, and grow about three hundred varieties of potatoes. I would particularly recommend the little purple potatoes – they’re sweet and go nicely with guinea pig. As for water, if they did not have reservoirs to hold their rainwater, they would have been perfectly capable of running down the mountain to the river and bringing back baskets of water. The Andeans are pretty much superhuman that way: they can run incredible distances over incredible terrain, carrying incredible weights, and not get tired. I wouldn’t believe just how incredible if I hadn’t seen two of them wrap a week’s worth of victuals – not usual trekking fare but serious food, better than I eat at home, usually – in tablecloths, sling them over their backs, and run some five miles over railroad tracks. Wearing flip-flops. There is no doubt in my mind that the Incas would have been able to fetch all their water without getting it delivered via flying saucer.

There is simply too much we don’t know to go about claiming that anything we have observed is a “fact”

There are plenty of studies that show that the human mind makes patterns out of whatever it can. This being said, many things we do lend more credence to something that is able to establish a pattern (scientific theory is more solid if its able to predict a pattern based on the observed pattern, for example).

We want things to make sense. We want to feel like we know stuff. We don’t want to look stupid. We don’t want to be confused. This means that we wil make any information we find conform to our understanding of how things are. Anything radically outside this pattern causes us to dismiss those things as Conspiracy, Crazy or whatever name you’d like to give it.

We find patterns in layers of rocks containing fossils and conclude that we have discovered the ultimate timeline of history of the earth. We find patterns in decay over a decade and conclude it can measure things accurately over 1000’s, Ten thousands and even BILLIONS of years. We find patterns in all sorts of things and draw conclusion. Sometimes its the one missing peice of the pattern that completely changes everything. The final plot twist that makes a great movie.

Draw your own conclusions as to what I meant here.

ah hahahaha! the image of a bunch of dinosaurs in a rocket ship having space adventures comes to mind… priceless!

I will try to be as organized and fluid about this as possible, but I warn y’all, those are not my two strongest traits.

First, let’s start off with what we know:

In the Bible, sightings and visitations by otherworldly beings are commonplace. At the birth of The Christ, legions of cherubim were witnessed by shepherds in the fields, flying through the sky and proclaiming the Good News. (Aliens with linguistic skills?) One only needs to skim the book of Ezekiel to get a concept of a full-on, close encounter of the third kind. At the death of Jesus, an Angel was said to appear as a bolt of lightning. These are just the most memorable of several accounts. (Moses on Sinai, the Ark of the Covenent, the list goes on…)

To follow this, there are literally TONS of paintings of ancient ufos, many from around the Renaissance era (coincidence?). Many of these paintings include historical and religious figures, mostly the Virgin Mary. I’m not citing sources, because it would only take a few tries to “google up” these paintings. My thought is, I can’t help but get this nagging sensation when I can’t find any evidence that these artists were ever persecuted for their attempts at illustrating a religious encounter. Surely, putting something as silly as a flying saucer in a mural depicting the Baptism of Christ would have bought the painter a short ride on a fast train…right to the guillotine! But, these paintings, medallions, and etchings are SO NUMEROUS that I can’t help but reach these hypotheses:

If the ufos in the paintings brought about no public reaction, that means anyone looking at the painting would have seen the ufos as a religious phenomenon…. nothing provoking anything out of the ordinary. (i. e. are ufos really angels?)

Or…

Were the artists attempting to hide a subtle reference to something in their paintings? There is much evidence (not from Mr. Dan Brown, thank you very much) to support the theory that modern-day religion was intended as a cover-up for the truth. Why is it, that only after the dark ages, was it considered foolhardy to mention speaking to God or another otherworldly being? Did humanity lose a chunk of knowledge when reading and writing were banned? What was really going on there? In ancient times, it brought one HONOR and DIGNITY when visited by a dead ancestor or a God. Nowadays, it would send you to the assylum. This seems to parallel socitey’s attitude toward UFOs and alien visitations–kind of and odd and unlikely similarity, don’t you think?

So… My final big summary question… were ufos and angels really aliens, or vice versa? It seems that modern day thinking and conciousness has been encouraged to dismiss all possibility of a physical Creator. It you really read the Bible, you learn quickly that GOd is not a figment of the imagination, and is certainly a Very tangible character. What would be someone’s purpose in making all of humanity believe otherwise? Interesting how are trend has been, of late, to rely not on religion, but on ourselves, for guidance. If you want to make your hairs stand on end right now, read what the Book of Revelation says about people’s attitudes when the ENd Times are near.

These are just some random, and rather disturbing thoughts which I’m trying to assemble for research. Any responses are MORE THAN WELCOME! Thank you for reading.

Well I’d say somewhere in virginia around the year 1862. You would have to bring the picture though, and aquire the time machine.

Damn Interesting article & posts!