Word: nazca
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...committee has also protested similar tactics in the In Search of... and The Outer Space Connection programs aired by NBC. Though also broadcast as entertainment, one 'show clearly supported the idea that the huge drawings on Peru's Nazca plains could have been made only with the help of ancient visitors from outer space. It stressed that no one has figured out how else the figures could have been created, though German Mathematician Maria Reiche has demonstrated that the Nazcans would have needed no outside help. Still another program showed pictures made by a process called Kirlian photography...
...eyes scored at 3 ft. Von Däniken's notions make use of ancient artifacts that he feels are proof of an extraterrestrial influence in history: the massive Easter Island statues, for instance, and the mysterious lines extending for miles on the Peruvian coastal plain at Nazca that he argues were landing strips for celestial spaceships. Story easily demonstrates that Von Däniken's use of details and overstretched imaginings are on a par with those of children seeing camels and puppies in cloud formations...
...Nazca ceramic pot seems to represent a hot-air bag. The researchers also found a significant clue in documents at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. These papers revealed that in 1709 a Brazilian-born Jesuit missionary named Bartholomeu de Gusmao went to Lisbon and demonstrated (74 years before France's Montgolfier brothers flew their balloon over Paris) a model of a balloon believed to have been used by the Indians. Filled with smoke and buoyed by hot air from glowing coals in a clay pot, the replica rose from Gusmao's hand and floated toward the palace...
Delayed Lift-Off. To support its theory, the I.E.S. decided to build and fly its own version of a Nazca balloon. The result was an odd contraption called Condor I, with an 88-ft.-high envelope made from fabric that closely resembles materials recovered from Nazca gravesites. The balloon's lines and fastenings were made from native fibers; the boat-shaped gondola was woven from totora reeds picked by Indians from Peru's 2.4-mile-high Lake Titicaca...
...flight of the Condor may also have accomplished another goal of the I.E.S. Until recently, Peruvian authorities have shown little interest in protecting the Nazca drawings, some of which have already been partially obscured by footprints and tire tracks. Now, inspired by Condor, the mayors of nearby towns have joined in an effort to protect the drawings. Also, the government is looking into the construction of a 30-passenger dirigible to carry tourists who want to view the drawings...