Evidence of the Gods (13 page)

The people thousands of years ago left their god-like messages not just in rock drawings but also on the ground and on mountain slopes. The best-known example of this is the Nazca plains in Peru. I have written a separate book about the runway-like lines in the desert sand.
¹⁵
I will therefore refrain from discussing the kilometer-long lines. Here I will present a comparative study of similar motifs worldwide. The unsolved riddle lies in the little word “worldwide.” It simply does not fit into the Stone Age.

Alongside Las Pistas, as the indigenous people of Nazca call their lines, the area in and around Nazca is teeming with figures of gods with the same attributes as in the rock art. On the brow of a brown and rocky slope, my lens alighted on a “manikin” with large eyes and two antennae. (
Image 118
) There was a similar figure slightly lower on another hill. Here are the precise coordinates for photographers: latitude 14°42’26 ”S, longitude 75°6’38”W. The “antenna beings” cannot be overlooked. One figure is wearing a hat-like form with a wide brim and feelers sticking out of the headdress. The arms are spread wide in a dance-like gesture and the figure is grasping something with both hands which is not clearly defined. (
Image 119
) The object reminds me of similar things in the hands of the “dancers” of Val Camonica in South Tyrol. (Compare
Images 96
and
112
. Other ray beings are stuck on various mountain walls around Nazca,
Image 120
) They make more of an impression than any rock drawing and include some with an “antenna head” and rectangular body. (
Image 121
)

Then there are two very curious drawings next to one another. To the left in
Image 122
, the figure is wearing a flower-like decoration on its head. The whorl-covered body turns into strips with indecipherable symbols. A robot figure is right next to it (
Image 123
) from whose head straight “antennae” extend in every direction. The lower body widens like a skirt or wing. This depiction occupies a special place in my collection, because there is a copy of it in Chile.

There the air force general Eduardo Jensen discovered the picture on a dry mountain slope above the Tarapaca desert in northern Chile. It is called the Atacama Giant. That’s right! The figure is a full 121 meters high. (
Images 124
and
125
) The region of Tarapaca is part of the larger Atacama desert and the territory lies on a Chilean air force firing range. In years past, pilots used the Atacama Giant for target practice. That has in the meantime ceased. Like his double in Nazca, the head of the giant is equipped with “antennae” on both sides. The rectangular body is concluded at its lower end with a transverse beam. Be it in Nazca or Chile, the arms are angled in both cases and end in rough, plier-like grippers. Such duplication should really give archeologists cause for reflection, because the linear distance between Nazca and the firing range is 1,300 kilometers. But archeologists undertake their research in isolation and rarely transnationally. Their field of work is narrow and rarely intercontinental.

I have heard the objection that the Atacama Giant had been created in our time by ground personnel to make a fun target for the pilots. Total humbug! General Eduardo Jensen’s discovery in August 1967 was a pure accident. He had flown along the steep coast in the early morning light and at first thought that he had seen an optical illusion. It required another two flights to confirm the find, which only becomes visible on the brown hillside under certain light conditions.

Another objection from amateurs, even if they are in possession of an archeological title, is beguiling but just as wrong: the Stone Age people of Nazca and Chile had copied their figures from old ceramic vessels. There are undoubtedly individual vessels with similar depictions as on the hillsides. What came first? The ceramics or the large depictions? If the ceramics came first, in which school did the motifs on them originate? And what means did the native people use to transform the small pictures on the vessels into the giants on the mountain sides? And why? The same applies with regard to textiles.

The Atacama desert in Chile (northwest of Antofagasta near the town of San Pedro de Atacama) might just as well be on Mars: dried up without a drop of water anywhere. There the mountain slopes are decorated with curious drawings that all stare up at the sky. For the native peoples, it must have been torture to create the figures in the burning heat. There are two squares with an arrow in the middle. It is pointing toward the earth with rungs like a ladder. (
Image 126
) Right next to it are symbols which, at first glance, look like writing. A message for the heavenly arrivals? Descend to us? (
Images 127
and
128
)

Or what about the “winged god with wheel” consisting of a wheel with spokes and below it two wings pointing down toward the earth? (
Image 129
) In between, there are rectangles, squares, animals…and they are not at all puny, but with side lengths of up to 20 meters. (
Images 130
and
131
) The two squares next to one another consisting of 12 smaller squares are also difficult to understand. A dual arrow runs down toward the earth from the right square. (
Image 132
) What was this message, which is only recognizable from the air, supposed to indicate? You will find us in the direction of the arrow? The question also applies with regard to the curved line that runs up a mountain slope and ends in a circle at its tip. (
Image 133
) Nothing but meaningless symbols to us—but they did mean something to those who created these messages. And these artistic minds were—and here we come to the crux of the matter—in similar mode worldwide. These symbols pointing toward the heavens are present in the desert soil of Majes and Sihuas in the Peruvian region of Arequipa, as much as in the Chilean region of Antofagasta. All made for the eyes of the gods. The same applies in the north in the extensive lava fields of the Mexican Sonora desert. There, too, we have the messages pointing upward. Farther north still, at the border between Mexico and California in the desert landscape of Macahui, some bushes manage to grow; that is also the reason why the symbols on the ground were not discovered immediately. The area extends northward from the Tijuana-to-Mexicali road—at a point 25 kilometers from Mexicali heading toward Tijuana. (I am deliberately describing the geographical location in the hope that the younger generation will start searching for the clues. Nothing can be seen on Google Earth because of the bushes.) There, in an area that comprises at least 400 km
²
, there are symbols on the ground which defy any explanation. There are circles, one next to the other, as far as the eye can see, as well as rectangles, half moons, wheels with several spokes, intertwined rings, and beings with radiating haloes. The diameters of the individual markings can reach up to 40 meters. But a warning for future researchers: the area lies on both sides of the border between the United States and Mexico. Permission must be sought at least from the U.S. border authorities. And there are dangerous poisonous snakes under the hot stones.