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  • ANDREW COLLINS: Easter Island

  • is in eastern Polynesia within the Pacific Ocean.

  • And what it's most famous for is the many hundreds

  • of huge stone statues

  • of these human forms, oversized human heads

  • with bodies that are almost always partially

  • buried beneath the ground.

  • The local name of these statues is Moai.

  • And these statues would seem to represent deified ancestors.

  • They're manufactured from local volcanic rock.

  • In size, they can be as much as 30 or more feet in height.

  • And they can weigh anything up to 80 tons apiece.

  • PAUL BAHN: The Moai are enormous blocks of stone.

  • And they moved several hundred of them from the quarry

  • quite some distance to the platforms

  • around the edge of the island and there have been

  • many theories over the years as to how they were moved.

  • The first theory is thought that they must have been

  • dragged horizontally on sledges or rollers or something

  • of that kind. On the other hand, many people

  • including myself would say we think it's more likely

  • they were moved vertically. It would be very dangerous

  • to lower a standing statue down to the ground, then drag it

  • for how many miles and then have to raise it again

  • at the other end.

  • GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: The idea that the trees

  • were cut down at some point falls by the wayside

  • because wooden rollers would not be able to support

  • the weight of some of these statues.

  • So you have to wonder, how were these Moai

  • transported back in the day?

  • HUGH NEWMAN: So there were traditions

  • of something called mana on Easter Island,

  • which is a spiritual power...

  • (thunder crashes)

  • ...which was supposed to be imbued, actually,

  • into the stone Moai themselves and some of the traditions,

  • uh, describe them walking from the quarry to their platforms.

  • TSOUKALOS: So one has to wonder if mana

  • was some type of extraterrestrial technology

  • that allowed these stones to be levitated into place.

ANDREW COLLINS: Easter Island

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