The Mysterious Holes of Peru

March 21, 2007 7:57 PM

The Mysterious Holes of Peru.While the world is generally familiar with Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines, another mystery has come to light through the modern science of satellite photography.
posted by Burhanistan (49 comments total)

Obviously, that's where they kept the square eggs.

(If only one person understands this comment, I will be happy).
posted by yhbc at 8:16 PM on March 21, 2007

Holey Rocks Batman!!!
posted by gergtreble at 8:20 PM on March 21, 2007

"A series oh holes", it says in the article.

A series oh holes?

Sure sounds like this was written by a reputable person.

Perhaps the writer deserves a "series oh kicks in the butt".

Sorry, I had to be negative - in other words, this link sounds like baloney.
posted by newfers at 8:40 PM on March 21, 2007

newfers - here's a Google Map of the holes.
posted by yhbc at 8:47 PM on March 21, 2007

Very strange. I would love to read more about this.
posted by nola at 8:48 PM on March 21, 2007

yhbc - you almost made me spit out my mouthful oh water. dang, you're going way back with that one. Barks would be proud.
posted by django_z at 8:53 PM on March 21, 2007

I wonder if they were for mining or maybe collecting water?
posted by SteveTheRed at 8:59 PM on March 21, 2007

They were obviously designed to create ice lenses.
posted by odinsdream at 9:01 PM on March 21, 2007

The shittiest assumption in that article is that it took "decades" to make the holes. Says who?
posted by deadfather at 9:07 PM on March 21, 2007

It looks like an attempt at a giant tattoo on the earth's skin.

The only thing is, wouldn't they have gone for a more cool ethno design? A single plain strip sounds too self-consciously hipsterish for a bunch of half-naked, painted tribal types with bones through their noses & feathers in their hair.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:09 PM on March 21, 2007

Aliens are always responsible for this kind of thing. Always.
posted by inconsequentialist at 9:15 PM on March 21, 2007

"Aliens are always responsible for this kind of thing. Always."

"Undocumented Guest Workers." Please!
posted by stenseng at 9:25 PM on March 21, 2007

(If only one person understands this comment, I will be happy).

Of course I do.
posted by Termite at 9:49 PM on March 21, 2007

Obviously a shoggoth trail.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:54 PM on March 21, 2007

This is where the bees that make the giant yellow jacket nests come from.

I thought everyone knew this?
posted by ontic at 9:55 PM on March 21, 2007

So, no one has gotten close enough to these holes to actually take a picture of one?
posted by trip and a half at 10:01 PM on March 21, 2007

(If only one person understands this comment, I will be happy).

Me too. I loved the square eggs.
posted by jouke at 10:06 PM on March 21, 2007

So, no one has gotten close enough to these holes to actually take a picture of one?

And lived? No.
No one, of course, except for Fred Ward.
posted by a bad enough dude at 10:14 PM on March 21, 2007

Es el rallador de queso de Chucque Norris.
posted by rob511 at 10:42 PM on March 21, 2007

I don't get it - you can't put square eggs in round holes.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:57 PM on March 21, 2007

According to the googlemap link, the line ends right near the bottom of the rock, where there are farmed fields. If they are real, someone is getting a close look at them fairly often and it looks like it would not be hard to get right up to them.
posted by Listener at 11:07 PM on March 21, 2007

Shoot, but something I have never noticed on googlemaps before: To the left it says, "The content overlaid onto this map is provided by a third party, and Google is not responsible for it." Hmm. ?
posted by Listener at 11:08 PM on March 21, 2007

Square eggs? Don't you mean square pegs?
posted by booksprite at 11:28 PM on March 21, 2007

These holes are so consistent, so regular, so mathmatically precise, that they must surely be the only remaining evidence of Erich Von Daniken's exploding pogo stick.
posted by maryh at 1:20 AM on March 22, 2007

The holes are there in the normal GMaps too.

Who could forget the square chickens?
posted by hoskala at 1:54 AM on March 22, 2007

From that same page--can anyone confirm the claim about these holes being a missile silo?

41 53'22.88"N 122 05'26.78"W
posted by fandango_matt at 2:52 AM on March 22, 2007

Well, if you can't put a square egg in a round hole, you sure can put a square egg in a square pig.

But I don't know nuthin' 'bout no square chickens.
posted by loquacious at 4:31 AM on March 22, 2007

Maybe it was to mark time, like in an annual or seasonal tradition. I bet you could roast a pig in one of those pits.
posted by furtive at 4:40 AM on March 22, 2007

Maybe digging a hole was meted out as punishment for certain crimes or social punishment, with the number of holes to be dug reflecting the severity of the infraction.
posted by furtive at 4:42 AM on March 22, 2007

punishment, with the number of holes to be dug reflecting the severity of the infraction.

Can we get something like this for MeFi? 6 holes for a double, 4 for chatfilter, 1 for spurious pony requests in the blue, &c.
posted by sonofslim at 5:25 AM on March 22, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Jessica Simpson and I used to suffer from these same kinds of holes, then we got ProActive^TM and they went away. I love ProActive^TM.
posted by OmieWise at 5:43 AM on March 22, 2007

Those aren't holes; they're glass orbs!

Obviously, escape pods in case of climate change just like when the ancients had to leave Mars. The real question we should be asking is, "where did they go now?"
posted by pokermonk at 5:46 AM on March 22, 2007

Peru is totally awesome, and I am pretty sure that if there are real monsters that's where they live. Also, the satellite photos are stunning. Thanks!
posted by Mister_A at 6:34 AM on March 22, 2007

But are there enough holes to fill the Albert Hall?
posted by WPW at 6:58 AM on March 22, 2007

Sigh. Anyone who's done any reading at all about the Inca empire (i.e., not the creators of the endless poorly-informed "cosmic mystery" web sites) will know they did all sorts of incredibly labor-intensive projects, very often involving stone carving or excavation, dependant on the toil of armies of peasants for the glorification of hereditary absolute rulers. (I mean, it's not like this is not a common scenario repeated around the world throughout human history.)

Cutting a mile-long swath of round holes in the ground was probably child's play for folks who could routinely make perfect stone walls like these. Ironically, wild explanations for prehistoric ruins are almost always a failure of imagination, underestimating what people in ancient times were capable of -- who were after all at least as intelligent and motivated as, and usually much harder working than, contemporary people.
posted by aught at 7:23 AM on March 22, 2007

Actually, aught, I think that many people find it distasteful to think about what must have actually enabled these elaborate projects—slave labor. I think most people here recognize the beauty and ingenuity of these massive works, but there is no denying that they relied on the blood and toil of countless unfortunates, and so are monuments to cruelty. Sometimes it's more fun to pretend.
posted by Mister_A at 8:32 AM on March 22, 2007

Okay, six feet deep, two feet in diameter, nine to twelve in a row stretching for one mile. Let's say there is one foot between rows. Then we have about 17,000 holes. One day's labor per hole is let's say one person working for 46 years or ten people for less than five years. Not that impressive. As to why, those things often disappear in history. The stone mason insisted the rocks did not touch each other. People believed they could forestall death by making their own grave in advance.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:25 AM on March 22, 2007

yhbc, termite, hoskala & me; the brotherhood of the square egg
those who know don't speak, those who speak don't know.
posted by jouke at 11:22 AM on March 22, 2007

Something to do with Kevin Bacon, of course.
posted by Burhanistan at 11:46 AM on March 22, 2007

yhbc: Obviously, that's where they kept the square eggs.

(If only one person understands this comment, I will be happy).

So it seems several have, but I'm not sure if I understand it correctly. Is this some reference to the Carl Barks series where Scrooge McDuck goes to Tralla La or Cibola or Macchu Picchu, and they have chickens that lay square eggs- square everything, really?
posted by hincandenza at 12:42 PM on March 22, 2007

hincandenza - yes, but the story predated Scrooge McDuck. It was Donald Duck (and his nephews) that found the mysterious valley in the Andes where the square natives speek in a southern accent and the square chickens lay "squah aigs" in Lost in the Andes.
posted by yhbc at 1:02 PM on March 22, 2007

I think it was someone making art.
posted by luriete at 1:13 PM on March 22, 2007

Art without a pretentious statement of intent? Truly, it must have been the dark ages...
posted by 1f2frfbf at 1:23 PM on March 22, 2007

The Incas had ICBM’s? Wow.

Could be for capturing water run off.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:38 PM on March 22, 2007

Marvellously mysterious! More speculating here.
posted by nickyskye at 9:53 PM on March 22, 2007

dances_with_sneetches wrote: six feet deep, two feet in diameter [...] One day's labor per hole

Carved in rock?
posted by ryanrs at 12:04 AM on March 23, 2007

“except why would you bury anyone on a slope in rocky soil at more than a 45-degree angle?”

Why would you put a tree in your living room in the middle of winter?
posted by Smedleyman at 3:51 PM on March 23, 2007

Tiny rare owl spotted in Peru's northern jungle
posted by homunculus at 5:14 PM on March 23, 2007

So, did I miss something, or is there really not any single close-up photograph of one individual hole?
posted by trip and a half at 9:16 PM on March 23, 2007