DID ALIENS PLACE THE STATUES ON EASTER ISLAND? SCIENTISTS WEIGH IN.


MYSTERY STONE GIANTS


THE OF


A strange army of giants looms around the edges of a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. Or at least that’s how it might appear. The figures lining Easter Island,


MOAI HEAD


3,512km off the west coast of Chile, are actually jumbo-sized stones carved to look like hulking human figures. The statues have “guarded” the coastline for centuries. But not even the island’s inhabitants are sure how they got there. Join scientific sleuths as they investigate this history mystery...


ROW OF MOAI


The MYSTERY Nearly a thousand colossal stone figures reside on Easter Island, now a part of Chile. Called moai (MOH-eye) by the locals, the statues can weigh more than 80 tonnes — about as much as ten orcas — and some stand as tall as a three-storey building. Scientists think islanders began creating the moai some


800 years ago to honour their ancestors. Inland, archaeologists found a volcanic crater and unearthed ancient tools there used to carve figures from the volcanic rock. But the crater is far from where most of the statues now stand. And scientists know the people didn’t have wheels, cranes or animals to move the rock giants. So how did these colossal stone figures travel as far as 18km


from the crater to the island’s coasts? Some ideas are pretty wild — people have suggested that the moai walked by themselves. Others, that space aliens beamed down to lend a hand.


Chile FACTS>>


Easter Island belongs to Chile in South America. Check out these cool Chile facts...


In 1960 Chile was hit by a 9.5 magnitude earthquake — the largest ever recorded.


A volcano-shaped hotel here spews water from its top instead of lava.


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