NARRATOR: Isolated in the vast
expanse of the South Pacific,
Easter Island remains
a land of mystery.
Since its discovery by
Europeans in the 18th century,
very little is still known
about the people who once
lived there or their origins.
But of all the mysteries
involving the island, otherwise
known as Rapa Nui,
the most persistent
involve the nearly
900 megalithic statues
known as moai and why they were
put here in the first place.
The moai are considered
to be no more than perhaps
a thousand years old.
However, it has been
established that some of them
penetrate down into the
ground by a great amount
of feet to reveal the
rest of the body, not
just the oversized head.
And the amount of
patination suggests
that they are infinitely
older than a thousand years
and could go back many,
many, many millennia.
When you visit
Easter Island and you
look at the sites there, the
statues, the megalithic walls,
you realize they're
much older than what,
you know, history tells us.
NARRATOR: Further clouding
the issue is a discovery
that was made in 2017.
With the help of photography
and 3D modeling programs,
archaeologists discovered that
the 13-ton stone hats known
as pukao on the
Easter Island moai
contain a wide
diversity of petroglyphs
made by what appear to be
different groups of people.
The hats that are on top
of the Easter Island moai
are a little bit of a mystery.
But recently they've
been analyzed,
and carvings have been
found on them, which
has, like, questioned,
you know, the idea
of what they really represent.
Perhaps there is something
else going on here.
It could well be that a
number of different cultures
lived on Easter Island.
One of the most fascinating
monuments on Easter Island
is the stone platform,
or ahu, known as Vinapu,
and this is a huge
megalithic construction
that is essentially a wall made
of cyclopean megalithic blocks
that all interlock
with each other.
When you look at this, you
cannot help but think of Cusco
in Peru, and there has
to be a relationship
between the two cultures.
All of these are part of
a much bigger transmission
of knowledge where the belief--
common belief was an
origin amongst the stars.
