MILKY WAY ABOVE EASTER ISLAND: NASA APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). 887 moai or stone giants stand against the barren landscape of Easter Island, averaging 13 feet tall and weighing 14 tons. Also known as “Rapa Nui” and “Isla de Pascua”, Easter Island is one of the most remote places on earth, more than 2,000 miles from Tahiti or Chile. The juxtaposition of these enigmatic moai against the grandeur of the Milky Way, makes for a beautiful image.
Image: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120618.html
Explore: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
All I can say is WOW!!
wow.
wishing I could have been there at that moment in time, just to see and feel the cosmic energy…
Surreal. Did aliens provide the technology for lifting and placing those stone monuments? I think it’s possible.
That must have been some Secret Treaty, David Lazarus !
Thanks, Mahesh Sreekandath for this:
Forest keys and whirlwind cold
Green keys too and keys of gold
And even locks that don’t explode
When the skies become a scroll
So ladies fish and gentlemen
Here’s my angled dream
See me in my blue sky bag
And meet me by the sea
David Lazarus Don’t underestimate the potential of our own species. We’re dumb sometimes, but we can do cool things too! 🙂
This is beautiful!!! Thanks Rajini Rao :-).
Denis Falqueto , estimates on how many people it would take to move one of these are staggering, given that the early inhabitants would only have logs, rope and simple tools. For example, 1,500 people would have had to come together to move the largest stone statue into position, according to one theory!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/move/past.html
Thanks, Mary Owens 🙂
Rajini Rao thanks for the link, it’s an interesting read. I personally disagree with explanations not based on things we can reproduce, even if we don’t have any at the moment. But I don’t want to argue over such small things, specially after that amazing sky, isn’t it?
Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you! Clearly, these Easter Islanders were capable of moving these rocks, but it does make one wonder! 🙂 Amazing pix, thanks for commenting.
Watch the Ancient Aliens series on History channel. Is there some sensationalism? Yes. Are some of the ideas a bit “tin hat”? Yes. However there is enough evidence, albeit mostly circumstantial, and historical facts to make this series quite thought provoking.
Before you ask them, here are the tough questions:
1) If aliens were here, where did they go?
2) If we used alien technology, why don’t we still have it?
3) If we had advanced knowledge of astronomy and physics up to 10,000+ years ago, why aren’t we more advancied now?
Possible answers:
1) It seems that there might have been more than one species (i.e. what many view as angels and demons). The wars between them might have been too costly for either of them to maintain a presence here on Earth.
Or after many centuries, they might have acquired enough of what they needed to survive. Thus, they left.
2) An extension of the first answer. They took it with them when they left as they felt it was too advanced for us to keep without completely annihilating the human race.
3) This one is easy. We all but killed off the civilizations (Inca, Maya, Aztec, etc) that had this knowledge. Not only that. We took it a step further and destroyed 99% of their texts. Thus, the knowledge was lost.
Thank you
Hi, David Lazarus. Well, unfortunately, History Channel is sometimes pretty lame :). The truly historical shows are mostly good (some about World War II were very good, for example), but they tend do go for the easy path of this credulous explanations with aliens and other things that just can’t be corroborated by the facts. I strongly suggest you to read The Daemon-haunted World, by Carl Sagan. There are some very interesting analysis about the current trend of explaining things with extraterrestrial theories. It’s a very good read, light, but thought provoking.
Mark Bruce – All I can tell you is that stones in Egypt, Greece, a few South American countries, and other locations were cut with a precision that would rival the precision of today’s technology. Being that they, allegedtly, only had primitive tools, how could they have cut things so precisily that you cannot even fit a human hair in the seam between 2 stones?
Let’s set the cutting of the stones aside for a moment. Again, allegedly only using primitive technology, how did they both move and precisely place stones ranging in weight from a few tons to well over 100 tons? There are stones, in Denmark I believe, whose placement are so precisely north, south, east and west that it would seem as though advanced instruments and tools would have to have been used.
You can believe what you want, but I think it is quite plausible that we had assistance from aliens from pre-biblical times up through as recently as 1000 years ago or less.
there is also a theory of sound waves, ever run your finger around a glass rim?
Just watch and feel.
Rajini Rao Denis Falqueto You can consider “Great Pyramid of Giza”.
may be we should also consider ourself (Human history) with aliens, because we still don’t know our complete history, so there is chance for us also 🙂
Well, the truth normally is not so warmth and cozy as we would like it to be. And calling the Egyptians primitive is so far from the truth. They were much more advanced technically than what we think they were. They had methods to know the sex of a child before the birth, by using the urine of the mother to grow some specific plants. if one kind of plant grew up, than it would be a girl, if other plant grew, it would be a boy. This is the kind of thing that just a scientific method can deliver. Experimentation and error, refining the methods, etc, etc, just as we do today.
Anyway, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a flame war. I even kind of regret having commented the first time. I wish all a good day (or night…).
That’s what i was trying to say Denis Falqueto agree.
This is epic! Awesome shot 😀
Hi,Rajini. ATP was the power of the people who built the stone sculptures?
Alfonso Ramirez ATP= Power of the People, I like that! ATP powers everything from protozoa to Polynesians, so yes, you are correct 🙂
I don’t know how aliens are powered, though.
Just looking up at a star field is enough for me. I used to lie on my back in a meadow at night as a kid on my uncle’s farm and look up for hours. The blackness, the vastness, the unfathomable numbers involved, and the beauty of it. Still does it for me.
On the alien thing; I just wonder why cutting up stones would be on their agenda. It’d be like Armstrong and Aldrin going to the moon and making sand castles.
Feisal Kamil – This clashes dreadfully with my theory that aliens are us in the future.
Feisal Kamil – indeed, but in my rather brilliant vision of the future, we humans must leave earth, and centuries of deep-space travel sees our bodies shrink, and the pigment fade away. Our eyes enlarge as the primary sense.
We also realise that we must overcome our violent capacity, so we genetically modify ourselves to be emotionless. We take this opportunity to genetically engineer hairless bodies, not needing hair anyway, and deeply resenting the chore of shaving/waxing in a weightless environment. In short (no pun intended), we become short, grey, large-headed, bald hominoids with big, bug eyes. You no doubt see where this one is going.
Anyway, we invent time travel, travel back to the 1950s and begin cross-breeding with 20th Century humans to recover some of the emotional quality we lost.
However, nowhere do I see a motivation to teach stone cutting in this rich and insightful narrative.
Ah, Paul Melrose , that accounts for all the short, large-headed bald guys around. So they are really an advanced species with whom I should mate? 😉
Rajini Rao – you’ll have to weight up the pros and cons. You’ll have access to some serious tech, but they’ll be forever trying to get you to give up your research and learn how to cut stones properly.
Back to Stonehenge? I’ll pass on the protuberant eyes in favor of more hirsute pursuits 🙂
You’re missing out on leaving your mark on the wall, Feisal Kamil ! One for posterity to admire (check my last post).
How many out there are looking this way with similar awe?
Isolation juxtapose to isolation!
Certainly worth taking a look at. We must answer many questions in order to prepare for the impending. ie. intergalactic collisions.
Amazing 30 second demo of how a moai could have “walked” to place. Very atmospheric, do watch: Scientists Make Easter Island Statue Walk
Paul Melrose – That is a theory that Chuck Croll subscribes to. I cannot say that I disagree. It is certainly possible. Inter/Extra-dimensional beings (as opposed to extraterrestrial) is another theory. I definitely believe in their existence. As to whether it was I/ED’s, ET’s or humans from the distant future that were here between pre-biblical times and 800-1000 years ago remains to be seen.
Rajini Rao – Interesting moai video. However, the average moai weighs nearly 3 times more than the 5 ton one in the video at 13 tons. There are many on the island that weigh roughly 80 tons (16 times the one on video). I suppose “walking some of them might have still been possible.
Still, that’s just Easter Island. What about the dozens, if not hundreds of other stone structures (as opposed to sculptures) that were both cut and placed with very high degrees of precision? As I said before, precision that would rival such only capable with today’s technology.
Feisal Kamil – 15 to 20 thousand years ago qualifies as pre-biblical.
“Just a quick jaunt from there to there”!
To borrow from Peter Hammill . . .
Humans are like goldfish swimming in a mental sphere.
It’s not an exact quote, but it reflects the notion of his song Evidently Goldfish.
David Lazarus There are good and well documented reasons why the various civilisations you mention died out, such as climate change.
Stonehenge required pretty good skills, too, just moving those huge stones the great distances required. Aliens again?
For Easter Island, the sad thing is that their religion totally squandered all their resources on putting up these statues and ruined the place. We don’t need to invent aliens to engineer our own downfall.