The ancient Nazca Lines are hundreds of huge ground drawings etched into the high desert of southern Peru.
Some are stylized animals and humanoid figures, while others are merely straight lines hundreds of meters long.
As the figures were made to be seen from a great height, they have been linked with the ancient astronaut hypothesis.
In the 1970s, the pseudohistorical writer Erich von Däniken popularized a notion that the Nazca lines and figures could have been made "according to instructions from aircraft" and that the longer and wider lines might be runways for spacecraft.
According to archaeologist Kenneth Feder, Von Däniken's extraterrestrial interpretation is not supported by any evidence.
Feder wrote that "the lines are interpreted by archaeologists as ceremonial pathways of the ancient Nazca people; they were used precisely in this way in the fairly recent past."

Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky was able to re-create one of the figures using only wooden stakes and string.
The ancient Nazca Lines are hundreds of huge ground drawings etched into the high desert of southern Peru. Some are stylized animals and humanoid figures, while others are merely straight lines hundreds of meters long. As the figures were made to be seen from a great height, they have been linked with the ancient astronaut hypothesis. In the 1970s, the pseudohistorical writer Erich von Däniken popularized a notion that the Nazca lines and figures could have been made "according to instructions from aircraft" and that the longer and wider lines might be runways for spacecraft. According to archaeologist Kenneth Feder, Von Däniken's extraterrestrial interpretation is not supported by any evidence. Feder wrote that "the lines are interpreted by archaeologists as ceremonial pathways of the ancient Nazca people; they were used precisely in this way in the fairly recent past."
Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky was able to re-create one of the figures using only wooden stakes and string.
Ancient astronauts