17 Structures from History that some People claim Ancient Aliens are Responsible for

17. Machu Picchu was NOT an alien city built in the Peruvian mountains

Machu Picchu is an Inca citadel located on a mountain ridge in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru. Constructed around 1450 CE, the site was abandoned only a century later during the Spanish Conquest due to wider Native population decline as a result of war and disease. Situated on the precipice, the mountain, with 1500 foot vertical drops on three sides, the site encompasses a 325.9 km² area and at its peak is estimated to have been occupied by just 750 residents.

According to ancient astronaut “expert” Giorgio Tsoukalos, the positioning of the stones are evidence of alien involvement in the construction of Machu Picchu. Claiming the larger rocks at the bottom of the site are significantly older than the smaller stones used for the upper layers, Tsoukalos contends it makes “no sense” without alien assistance for the supposedly primitive Inca civilization to have chosen to use the more cumbersome ones to begin with. Ancient astronaut theorists equally point to the small population of the city as evidence of selection, with only a chosen few permitted to enter the residence of extraterrestrial overlords.

Despite these claims, the buildings of Machu Picchu are not distinct from the widely exemplified classical Inca architectural style, using a technique known as “ashlar” in which blocks of polished dry-stone are cut to fit tightly without mortar; this technique was particularly necessary for Machu Picchu, as the location and frequent seismic activity rendered mortar ineffective as a building method. Furthermore, there is a consensus among archeologists and historians that Machu Picchu was built under the orders of the Inca ruler Pachacuti, the founder of the Inca Empire, to serve as a royal palace; being merely a palace rather than a fully-fledged city more rationally explains the low population than alien segregation.

Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“The Lost City of the Incas”, Hiram Bingham, Phoenix (2003)

“Machu Picchu: A Citadel of the Incas”, Hiram Bingham, Hacker Art Books (1979)

“A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany”, Aubrey Burl, Yale University Press (1995)

“Fuerte de Samaipata–UNESCO World Heritage Centre, UNESCO World Heritage Site

“The Ancient Kingdoms of Mexico”, Nigel Davies, Penguin (1982)

“The Aztecs, Maya, and ther Predecessors: Archeology of Mesoamerica”, Muriel Porter Weaver, San Diego Academic Press (1993)

“Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?”, Andrew Curry, Smithsonian Magazine (2008)

“7,000 years older than Stonehenge: the site that stunned archeologists”, Nicholas Birch, The Guardian (2008)

“The History of the Conquest of Peru”, W.H. Prescott, Digireads Publishing (2011)

“Myths and Mythology of Ancient Egypt” Lucia Gahlin, Southwater Publishing (2003)

“The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World”, Chirs Scarre, Thames and Hudson (1999)