AI uncovers hidden giant alien-looking figures in mysterious 2,000-year-old Nazca Lines carved into Peru desert
SCIENTISTS have discovered hundreds of mysterious giant alien-looking figures among 2,000-year-old Nazca Lines carved into Peru's desert.
The ancient drawings show abstract shapes that look like humanoid figures, decapitated human heads and a killer shark holding a knife.
In a new study published in the PNAS journal, researchers have revealed how they found the eerie-looking ancient carvings using advanced AI algorithms.
Using machine learning, they trained an AI model to detect the faint outlines of the geoglyphs in the vast stretches of land to find any shapes in the Nazca Desert.
The AI model was able to generate a list of 303 such figures with locations including one space where the Nazca lines have never been spotted before.
And with the advanced technology, scientists were able to get results 20 times quicker than humans, LiveScience reports.
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The scientific research was done between Between September 2022 and February 2023 - and experts were able to confirm they were indeed ancient drawings that were never seen before.
Incredible pictures of these eerie carvings show alien-like figures, wild animals including orcas and ancient "ceremonial scenes", the research paper reads.
Many of them are abstract figures that seem to depict distorted forms of human bodies, including a head with spiky hair and another head on a pair of legs.
Researchers have added new lines to the pictures of the figures to emphasize their original shape as some have faded over time due to natural soil erosion.
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The team of scientists who found the geoglyphs said: "It took nearly a century to discover a total of 430 figurative Nazca geoglyphs, which offer significant insights into the ancient cultures at the Nazca Pampa.
"We report the deployment of an AI system to the entire Nazca region, a UNESCO World Heritage site, leading to the discovery of 303 new figurative geoglyphs within only six months of field survey."
The huge figures in the Andean desert are thought to have been carved by an ancient Peruvian civilisation 2,000 years ago.
For decades scientists have been trying to work out why they were created.
Some anthropologists think the Nazca lines were designed to please the gods, which the ancient people thought were looking down from the Sky.
They could have been used for ceremonial purposes like the rain dance rituals that are connected to other dessert tribes.
In 2019, a team of scientists proposed that the carvings were made in honour of creatures who were thought to bring rain, as the society would have been highly dependent on rainfall to survive.
Researchers from Hokkaido University in Japan released a paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports explaining how lots of the previous Nazca Line drawings were incorrectly classified and that some of them represent exotic birds.
The researchers wrote: "The amount of rainfall in the highlands was estimated by observing the migrations of seabirds.
“When seabirds migrate to mountainous regions of the Nazca pampas during November and December, it is expected that rain will fall in the highlands. On the other hand, if migrating seabirds are not observed, water shortages are feared.”
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They concluded that the ancient Peruvian people thought the birds carried the weather with them and brought seawater to the hills and rain from the rainforests.
The carvings could therefore be signs of honouring the birds, worshipping them or hoping for them to come back.
What are the Nazca lines?
Here's some facts about the giant ancient artworks...
- The Nazca lines are famous giant patterns that have been etched into vast areas of dry land in Peru and can only be viewed properly from the air
- They were discovered in 1930 by some people crossing over the Nazca desert by plane
- Geologists think that they were designed by Nazca people in the ancient era between 400 and 600 AD
- Anthropologists think they were made to please the gods, which the Nazca people thought were looking down from the sky
- The Nazca lines make up more than 70 different designs including geometric shapes and animals like monkeys or sharks
