Easter Island remains a land of mystery.

Since its discovery by Europeans in the 18th century,

very little is still known about the people who once

lived there or their origins.

But of all the mysteries involving the island, otherwise

known as Rapa Nui, the most persistent

involve the nearly 900 megalithic statues

known as moai and why they were put here in the first place.

The moai are considered to be no more than perhaps

a thousand years old.

However, it has been established that some of them

penetrate down into the ground by a great amount

of feet to reveal the rest of the body, not

just the oversized head.

And the amount of patination suggests

that they are infinitely older than a thousand years

and could go back many, many, many millennia.

When you visit Easter Island and you

look at the sites there, the statues, the megalithic walls,

you realize they're much older than what,

you know, history tells us.

NARRATOR: Further clouding the issue is a discovery

that was made in 2017.

With the help of photography and 3D modeling programs,

archaeologists discovered that the 13-ton stone hats known

as pukao on the Easter Island moai

contain a wide diversity of petroglyphs

made by what appear to be different groups of people.

The hats that are on top of the Easter Island moai

are a little bit of a mystery.

But recently they've been analyzed,

and carvings have been found on them, which

has, like, questioned, you know, the idea

of what they really represent.

Perhaps there is something else going on here.

It could well be that a number of different cultures

lived on Easter Island.

One of the most fascinating monuments on Easter Island

is the stone platform, or ahu, known as Vinapu,

and this is a huge megalithic construction

that is essentially a wall made of cyclopean megalithic blocks

that all interlock with each other.

When you look at this, you cannot help but think of Cusco

in Peru, and there has to be a relationship

between the two cultures.

All of these are part of a much bigger transmission

of knowledge where the belief--

common belief was an origin amongst the stars.