Chile has an incredible rate of UFO sightings, among the highest in the world. Today, some call the country’s coastline “Alien Alley.” 

A recent UFO video from Chile is the subject of Ancient Aliens, Season 15, Episode 3, “Destination Chile.” We’ll review the episode and the compelling evidence that connects an ancient petroglyph with a bizarre and remarkable modern UFO sighting.

First, the show delves into the amazing history and geoglyphs in Chile, including the Atacama Desert.

The Atacama Desert, a Landscape with Lifeforms Like Mars?

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the dryest place on the planet, even though it runs along the west coast of South America. Conditions in the desert have long been compared to the Red Planet, Mars. Thus, NASA has carried out testing in the Atacama, drawing comparisons to probable conditions on Mars.

In 2013, a NASA rover found many microbes living beneath the parched sand in the Chilean desert, traveling by wind. The study results from 2019 determined “that microbial life can efficiently move across the driest, and most UV irradiated desert on Earth.” The authors speculated that similar microbes might spread across the Martian landscape, 140 million miles away.

Could life be similar in Chile and on Mars? Ancient Astronaut theorist David Childress believes there’s much more in common than microbes. Citing geoglyphs similar to those found at Nazca, Peru, Childress notes they are meant to be seen from the air. Although the Nazca lines are famous, there are five times as many geoglyphs in the Atacama Desert.

The Atacama Giant and El Enladrillado

For example, the “Atacama Giant” is a massive alien-looking creature with points extending from its head. Amazingly, the figure stands 30 feet longer than a football field at 390 feet tall. On the ground, it’s nearly invisible but easily spotted from the air. Ancient Astronaut theorists believe they were meant to signal extraterrestrial visitors similar to marks or on a runway.

Today, UFO sightings are more frequent in the area of the Atacama. So much so, that Rodrigo Fuenzalida, Director of Aion Chile, says “…Chile is honestly like a kind of arrival point.” 

“There’s a huge wave, a large quantity of UFO sightings. Quite simply, there is not one family in Chile whose member has not had a UFO experience,” Fuenzalida explains.

In San Clemente, Chile, in 2008, a national UFO trail was created that leads to an impressive formation known as El Enladrillado. There, 233 massive megaliths weighing ten tons apiece were erected like a giant platform in ancient times. Author Erich von Däniken believes the remote location could have once served as a spaceport. Today, tourists can visit and see for themselves.

The Selk’nam Tribe and Bizarre Rituals to Sky Gods

In 1919 in Tierra Del Fuego at the southern tip of Chile, a German anthropologist, Martin Gusinde, visited the native tribe called the Selk’nam, also known as the Ona people. Unfortunately, the tribe was wiped out by English explorers.

As radio host Victor Hidalgo points out, some tribe members were taken back to be shown in “human zoos,” and the tribe was subject to genocide.

Before being wiped out, Gusinde published a book about the Selk’nam called, “The Lost Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego.” There, you can see the tribal rituals of painting their bodies in bright red with white lines. Their heads are elongated and immediately seem alien.

“These creator gods of the Selk’nam actually descended from the sky and gave knowledge to the local population,” said Giorgio A. Tsoukalos.

In once case, a costume had strange antennae protruding from both sides of the head. Immediately, one thinks of the Atacama Giant, with the peculiar points emanating from the head.

Modern UFO Sightings in Chile

The Selk’nam tribe had a deep belief in otherwordly visitors, and today, it appears visitations may still be taking place. Fuenzalida confirms the area where the tribe once lived is a hotspot for UFO activity today.

On August 17, 1985, in Santiago, Chile, the longest-running variety show on television broadcast reported a UFO moving for 40 minutes along half of Chile’s coastline. The path moved along the Atacama down to Tierra Del Fuego. Today, nobody knows what the object was.

In 1977 in Pampa Lluscuma, Chile, just below the Atacama, a military unit witnessed two shining violet UFOs land. Corporel Armando Valdés recounted disappearing into the light, appearing again to find that five days had passed. His beard had grown, and his watch showed the date from five days in the future. However, his men only witnessed the lapse of a few minutes. 

Encounters like this one are one of the hundreds reported over centuries and possibly going back thousands of years. However, unlike in the United States, the Chilean government is openly looking for answers. 

Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena

In 1990, Augusto Pinochet stepped down, ushering in reforms that led to more transparent attitudes, including toward UFOs. By 1997, the government created CEFAA, the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena. Pilots were regularly reporting UFOs, some of which came dangerously close to government aircraft. 

Hugo Camus, the CEFAA director, explains that the agency takes reports from residents all over Chile. Rather than hide the evidence from the public, the government is committed to transparency. Camus encourages other governments like our own to follow suit.

El Bosque Air Force Base UFO Footage

Thanks to CEFAA, there is more video evidence of UFO phenomena. For example, a video from the El Bosque Air Force Base in Santiago in 2010 showed UFOs zipping by squadrons of fighter jets flying in an acrobatic air-show. The jets were part of a celebration to commemorate a change in Air Force command.

Following analysis of the video, the UFO was estimated to be flying at an astonishing 4,000 mph. CEFAA found the object on seven separate videotape pieces, indicating it was not an aberration in the film.

Infrared Video of Strange UFO Discharging a Plume

On November 11, 2014, near Santiago, Chilean Navy officers testing an infrared FLIR camera aboard a helicopter captured an object flying beside them at 4,500 feet altitude. After tracking it for a few minutes, the craft discharged a plume behind it. Although not visible with the naked eye or radar, the infrared camera caught it all on tape for nine minutes. Then the government released the footage in 2017.

In 2019, Image analyst Michael Bradbury and astrophysicist Travis Taylor sat down to review this UFO footage. After reviewing the footage from 2014, they noticed the object appeared to be two diamond-shaped objects. Bradbury concludes the objects must be large since the footage was filmed from 35 miles away.

Using filters, Bradbury isolates the image to show a heat signature. Taylor notices a circle of cold air around the craft, which baffles him since there is a thin hot layer immediately around the craft.

“This thing – it is hot, and then instantly, it’s cold, and in nature, that’s not how things work,” notes Taylor. “There is a different temperature bubble around the vehicle than there is around normal vehicles, which suggests some type of field,” he concludes. “From a physics standpoint, we can’t really explain what’s causing that,” says Taylor.

Examining the video showing the plume that comes out, the experts note that the plume is hot but not made up of particulates as in normal aircraft.

“I’ve never seen any earthly vehicle that is explained this way. What on Earth could this thing be?” asks Taylor.

Remarkable Similarity to an Ancient Geoglyph in the Same Area

After concluding the footage does seem to show a vehicle with otherworldly features, Bradbury shows Taylor something compelling. It’s a photo of a Chilean geoglyph that bears a striking resemblance to the UFO footage. 

The geoglyph shows two diamond-shaped objects with a plume-like object dissected by a line. However, the geoglyph is of undetermined age and could be hundreds or even thousands of years old.

“That’s really exciting,” says Taylor. “That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life!”

“It is truly amazing,” Bradbury concurs. 

“These are the cases where I think there really is something to the Ancient Astronaut theory,” says Taylor. 

“I agree too,” says Bradbury.

Thus, we have a modern UFO which closely resembles what ancient people depicted long ago. However, it remains a total mystery how they could have seen such a craft as we only see it through infrared technology. How is this possible? Did humans create the geoglyph, or was it made or instructed by extraterrestrials? Decide for yourself.

Watch “Destination Chile” for yourself on the History Channel.

Featured images: Screenshots via YouTube

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The game of chess has been around for a very long time, both fascinating and frustrating players of every age for 1,500 years. Now, one of the oldest chess pieces in history may have been found by archaeologists in the Middle East.

Chess can trace its origins to India in the 6th century around 500 AD when it was commonly known as chaturaṅga during the Gupta Empire, considered by historians to have been the Golden Age of India.

From there, the game was taken westward by traders along the Silk Road, reaching the Middle East and then Europe where the rules would evolve over time and the name would change until the word “chess” was derived from the Persian word “shah” or king.

Up until now, the oldest chess pieces in the world were ivory pieces that had been excavated in Uzbekistan dating back to around 760 AD.

But University of Victoria-British Columbia archaeologist John Oleson believes a find made in 1991 at a site in Jordan should have the title of the oldest chess piece in the world.

The single sandstone piece looks exactly like an ancient rook in the same style in which they would have been carved based on rooks dating back to later centuries.

“A small sandstone object found in an Early Islamic context at Humayma (southern Jordan) in 1991 appears to be the earliest known archaeologically documented chess piece,” Oleson wrote in an abstract presentation of the piece to the American Schools of Oriental Research. “Although the shape, rectangular in section with splayed, horn-like projections at the top, resembles a Nabataean altar or betyl, parallels with Early Islamic chess pieces are far more convincing.”

Indeed, surviving Early Islamic chess pieces share the same two horns at the top and served as rooks, which is also derived from a Persian word. Early Rooks represented chariots instead of castles like they do today, which makes a little more sense if you think of a chessboard as a battlefield.

“The object appears to be a “rook” (or “castle”) and has the typical abstract form for this playing piece favored in the Islamic world,” Oleson continued. “There are references to chess-playing in Islamic texts as early as A.H. 23/A.D. 643, and the game was popular throughout the Islamic world by the end of the Umayyad caliphate.”

One of the largest empires in history, the Umayyad caliphate was the second of four caliphates established after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Based in Damascus, Syria, the caliphate would usher in the Golden Age of Islam and became a center of science and philosophy, making it obvious as to why chess could so easily flourish in the region at the time.

Humayma is the modern name of the ancient trading post known as Hawara that had been founded in the 1st century by the Nabataean king Aretas III. A popular and strategic trading post, the city boasts Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic influences that can still be seen today, including Roman baths, several Byzantine churches and an Islamic palace from the Umayyad period.

We know that chess was widely played by those of different cultural, religious and economic statuses. And in a trading post like Humayma, that means Christians and Muslims likely played chess together, as did the rich and poor and people who came from different regions. It’s like how sports bring people together today despite our differences.

“Several later abstract “rooks” from Jordan and elsewhere in the Near East, carved in stone, wood, or ivory, are nearly identical to the Humayma object in design and scale,” Oleson wrote. “Since the Humayma object was found in a seventh-century context, if the identification as a chess piece is correct, it would be the earliest known physical example for the simplified, abstract design, and possibly the earliest known example of a chess piece altogether.”

A 12th-century chess set from the Middle East, for example, include rooks carved in the same shape. While rooks of that time represented chariots, there was also a king represented by a throne, a vizier in the queen position represented by a smaller throne, a bishop represented by an elephant, a knight represented by a horse and pawns represented by multi-faceted hemispheres with knobs. Of course, the makeup of chess sets varied, so pieces came in many shapes, sizes, and representations.

For instance, a 12th-century Norwegian chess set featured several intricately detailed pieces known as the Lewis Chessman, a complete medieval chess set carved out of walrus ivory and found in Scotland in 1831.

Queen’s Chess

By the 10th century, the queen would replace the vizier piece and would become the most powerful piece on the board by the 15th century, giving rise to the term “Queen’s Chess” to describe the game.

Oleson speculates that chess had made its way to the trading post by way of merchants and diplomats.

“Since the game probably was carried westward from India by the movement of merchants and diplomats, it is no surprise that early evidence for it should be found at a site on the busy Via Nova Traiana,” he noted. “While resident at Humayma, the Abbasid family had kept itself abreast of events in Syria and Iraq along this same route.”

The Via Nova Traiana was an ancient road built by the Romans, starting during the reign of Emperor Trajan and being completed under Emperor Hadrian, who also commissioned the building of Hadrian’s Wall in the United Kingdom.

The Abbasid family Oleson speaks of is the Abbasid Caliphate, the third of the Islamic caliphates that ruled the region after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate. They would rule the empire politically until around the mid-1200s and would be able to claim religious authority until the Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517.

By then, chess was well established.

If further analysis proves that this piece is a rook dating back to the 7th century, it would be the oldest chess piece in the world. And seeing as how Oleson currently stores the piece in his basement, he should strongly consider moving it to a more secure place because a Lewis Chessmen piece recently sold for over $700,000. An older piece could draw a similar amount or higher. Nevertheless, this is an extraordinary piece that helps tell the story of chess and, frankly, it belongs in a museum where all chess enthusiasts can enjoy it.

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Featured Image: Lewis chessmen by Nachosan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Today, we marvel at creatures such as crocodiles and Komodo Dragons, but they would be even more fearsome if they had giant heads. And it turns out that giant-headed reptiles once roamed the Earth.

In the aftermath of mass extinction, apex reptilian predators with disproportionately large heads inherited dominion over the planet. This family of creatures is known as Erythrosuchids. Within this family is the clan of archosauromorphs, which includes two species of Garjainia, a reptile that walked on four legs similar to the way crocodiles and Komodo Dragons walk in the present day. The two species are known as Garjainia prima, the remains of which were found in South Africa, and Vjushkovia triplicostata, the remains of which were found in Russia.

We know a lot about Garjainia prima because scientists have conducted multiple studies focusing on it, but for some reason, they largely ignored V. triplicostata. And so, Professor Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom put together a team to study the creature and made some fascinating observations. The most interesting discovery, of course, is that the species had unusually large heads that were out of proportion with the rest of their bodies.

According to the study as published by the Royal Society:

Erythrosuchids are often described as possessing disproportionately large heads (e.g. [6,8–10,18,34]), but this trait has never been explored quantitatively. In order to explore relative head size in erythrosuchids in more detail, we collected data on basal skull length (premaxilla to quadrate) and femur length across tetrapods, with a particular focus on early archosauromorphs. Femoral length was chosen as a proxy for overall body size, in line with many previous studies.

The team studied skull size in relation to femur size, which can tell us about how big or small an animal’s body was, just like how human femurs can be used to determine height.

And the big head trait seems to have been a key feature of most members of the Erythrosuchids family.

The erythrosuchids ‘V. triplicostata’, E. africanus and S. shansisuchus, the proterosuchid ‘Chasmatosaurus’ yuani, the pterosaurs Dimorphodon macronyx and Eudimorphodon macronyx, the proterochampsian Proterochampsa barrionuevoi, and the phytosaur Parasuchus hislopi all have skulls that are disproportionately elongate relative to the femur.

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The study concluded that giant heads may have developed to aid predators in catching and eating prey, especially larger prey.

These results provide support for the generalization that the heads of erythrosuchids are disproportionately large relative to other groups of archosauromorphs, but also suggest that this feature is not unique to erythrosuchids but characterizes a broader grouping of early archosauriforms, including proterosuchids. The enlarged heads of proterosuchids and erythrosuchids were acquired coincident with increases in overall body size, and anatomical features related to carnivorous adaptations such as serrated teeth. The evolution of large heads in erythrosuchids and other early archosauriforms might therefore be linked to these groups invading hypercarnivorous niches following the Permo-Triassic mass extinction, although further exploration of this hypothesis using functional morphological approaches is warranted.

However, Butler cautioned that this is only a hypothesis for the time being.

“We don’t know for sure why this was the case, but we hypothesize that it might have been linked to their role as the top predators in a number of Triassic ecosystems: having a big, powerful head and bite is likely to be useful in capturing prey,” he told Newsweek in an interview. “Hypercarnivores are animals with diets almost exclusively composed of meat. We hypothesize that large predators at the top of food chains might have proportionately larger and more powerful heads in order to help in capturing prey.”

These creatures had heads disproportionately bigger than even most dinosaurs. We all know that Tyrannosaurus rex had a large head and tiny arms, making it a weird reptile in its own right. But Garjainia prima and V. triplicostata had giant heads and smaller bodies overall.

“These are bizarre animals, but much about their biology remains unstudied,” Butler said. “They presumably must have had very powerful neck muscles to support such a massive head, but detailed studies of their muscles have not yet been done.”

Indeed, one would certainly hope these creatures had the muscle to support their heads. Or else they would have been sitting ducks for other predators because their heads would have weighed them down and kept them from defending themselves, making them less of a threat and not an apex predator.

That being said, Butler and his team intend on studying the anatomy to make further hypotheses about the creature.

“We’re working on the rest of the skeleton (the postcranial skeleton) at the moment, aiming to understand its anatomy and reconstruct muscles,” he said. “Longer term we’d like to understand more about the biology of these weird animals, through using approaches like computer modeling to understand how their skulls functioned.”

Learning more about these creatures will undoubtedly help us learn much more about living reptiles and how they function. Crocodiles and Komodo Dragons are about the closest this world has to dinosaurs today unless you count birds, which are not nearly as scary looking and fearsome. We certainly don’t fear being killed and eaten by a bird, even the largest of them. But crocodiles and Komodo Dragons have attacked and even eaten humans.

Komodo Dragons have sharp teeth and a poisonous bite that can kill a human in hours. These attacks are rare. The reptile weighs in at 150 pounds and can grow to 10 feet in length. They ambush and bite their prey, and then proceed to stalk it until it dies before feasting.

Crocodiles are also ambushing predators, but while Komodo Dragons are proficient hunters on land, crocodiles operate in the water, waiting for prey to come to the water’s edge before leaping out and pulling their prey under the surface, which they can easily do because they have the strongest bite on the planet.

Clearly, the ancient Triassic reptiles were more like Komodo Dragons because they hunted on lands, but they may have likely exhibited the bite strength of a crocodile, allowing them to crush and hold on to their prey, giving the creature the best traits of both.

Perhaps genetic studies can further connect the Garjainia prima and V. triplicostata to crocodiles and Komodo Dragons by revealing even more similarities and differences. But one thing is for certain. It’s a good thing giant-headed reptiles are not roaming around today because that would be terrifying.

Featured Image: Screenshot via YouTube