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In the Nazca desert of Peru, there are very large
pictures and lines drawn on the ground. It is very difficult to tell what some
of these are, except from the air. Many people think that these could not, and
would not, have been drawn by the locals, in the ancient past, unless they did
it with the help of (and for the benefit of) "ancient astronauts."
The lines remind people of landing strips for airplanes, more evidence of
ancient astronauts.
First of all, these lines are not airplane landing strips. No airplane can ever land on the rough terrain of many of these lines. But, we are not talking about airplanes, but space ships. Then why do they need landing strips that look like airplane landing strips? And why land out in the middle of the desert? It's a little far fetched.
Well, how about pictures that nobody on the ground can view? Presumably their gods were in the sky, as many gods have been. It is no stretch of the imagination to theorize that they drew these pictures for their gods to see. That these gods might be real ancient astronauts is a lot more of a stretch.
Can you draw straight lines across mountains and valleys? I can. It's simple, actually. Anyone with any desire to do it, can easily do it. There is no way in which a spacecraft would make it any easier. The same thing applies to the pictures. It is fairly easy to do, from the ground, and nearly impossible to do from the air. Artists who do murals usually make a smaller drawing, and then measure out the points and lines on the bigger "canvas" (the desert, in this case). It's easy.
People who say that it couldn't be done by ancient Peruvian Indians (von Däniken, in Chariots of the Gods, for example), seem to have little respect for ancient Peruvian Indians (who had roughly the same intelligence as modern humans).
Addendum:
I've received a couple of emails asking me, if this is so easy, why haven't I done it (how do they know I haven't done it, by the way)? Well, I own no dessert to deface (or any crops to circle, for that matter). And, to do something on that scale, I would probably need a crew of people (dozens?) with a lot of shovels. And I might need a reason to do it, where do I find that? Maybe if I believed in ancient Peruvian gods, I might be motivated (maybe not). One of the emails pointed out that these designs were drawn before people flew in balloons or airplanes (thanks for the info).
You can draw straight lines over hills and valleys by surveying. And you don't need modern surveying equipment. For example, you can easily position rocks or stakes into a straight line just by sighting along them, and adjusting them. You can also sight on some distant landmark. You can then stretch a string between a pair of rocks (or stakes) or position intermediate rocks (or stakes). Then your workers can dig the lines, removing rocks and dirt in a rough straight line. You can do it.