The Extraordinary Nazca Prehistoric Balloon | Hacker News Reader

The Extraordinary Nazca Prehistoric Balloon

nott.com

43 pointscpeterso13 comments

Title (disappointingly) suggests they have evidence that the Nazca did use hot air balloons. No such evidence is presented. This describes the creation of a proof-of-concept hot air balloon using period technology. That’s neat, but it’s pretty different from finding historical evidence.

This concept was also featured in the adventure game "The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time", where the player travels back in time to an Incan settlement that was meant to be the inspiration for El Dorado, and discovers that simple hot-air balloons were used for transport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journeyman_Project_3:_Lega...

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/167030-the-journeyma...

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/167031-the-journeyma...

They could have also built man-lifting kites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Franklin_Cody#Kites

I am pretty familiar with the Nazca geoglyphs. (flown over several times) I favour the theory of tethered kites as the are steady 25mph winds over the area, pretty much every afternoon.

While flying a local "expert" (Eddy Herran) on the area, he showed me a geoglyph resembling a basic hang glider (rogallo wing).

Flying over the Nazca lines, stands as one of the most mind-bending experiences of my life. The whole area is full of mysticism and unexplained situations.

> It is incorrect to say that the lines can not be seen from the ground. They are visible from atop the surrounding foothills

cool technology but the conclusion where made from a false assumption. it still may or may not be possible that lines where drawn in such fashion, but the theory itself as exposed sits on very shaky ground.

IMO much more likely that the lines were drawn as some kind of worship to gods believed to live in the sky, rather than for viewing by humans floating overhead in balloons.

beside plenty cultures understood how to build mega-structures to a great degree of accuracy. drawing lines is something not as common, but in the greater scope of building things larger than one can see in a single view there's plenty example.

moreover, measuring and contouring fields is likely one of the first activity tribes did when they stopped being nomadic.

I think the idea of flying to see them is not the final objective.. just a mean to see the results of your works.

Maria Reich (Principal investigator) found out a lot of correlation between some drawings and star constellations. She also found several straight lines aligned with key calendar days like harvest , summer & winter solstice and so on.

There are a few geoglyphs that can be seen from the surrounding foothills, but most are nowhere near to them. The whole area is a gigantic pampa (desertic flatland).

As A kid with my parents, I drove on pickup truck with a step ladder to try to see them but,they are so large you could not really see much.

How they built them is just one of the many mysteries.. The one that puzzles me the most is, why are there drawings of animals like monkeys and hummingbirds which do not live anywhere nearby.. (The closest would be the Amazon jungle, 200+ miles and 16'000 feet high mountains (The andes) in between !

Inspect -> delete <head>, delete #main-nav.

There, now I can read it.

Applies to most web sites these days, sadly.

> to dare to invade the territory of the Angles.

They travelled further than I thought.

Hell of a balloon ride all the way to northern Europe.

It's worth noting that the ancient Chinese used hot air balloons, as toys and signalling devices, etc.

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