“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” Those are the words of Carl Sagan in his novel Contact.

So yeah, the universe is big. Scratch that. The universe is so big, we can’t really understand it.

Out of the billions of stars and trillions of planets that make up the known universe, modern-day scholars argue only Earth has life.

However, in recent years we have made extraordinary progress in exploring our solar system which has led us to a number of discoveries that suggest that not only are we not alone in the universe, but alien life could exist in our solar system, in the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, or even on Mars.

One of my favorite quotes about alien life comes from a man called Giordano Bruno, born in 1548.

Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist, perhaps best-known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model.

Bruno suggested how stars we see in the night sky are nothing other than sun’s surrounded by their own alien worlds.

He was one of the first to ponder whether or not it was possible for alien life to exist on those distant exoplanets:

“In space, there are countless constellations, sun’s, and planets; we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless Earth’s circling around their sun’s…” ― Giordano Bruno, Despre infinit univers si lumi.

Bruno also suggested there was a possibility the universe was infinite and could have no celestial body at its “center”.

Because of his ‘modern thinking,’ Bruno was found guilty of heresy and he was burned at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori in 1600.

Another very interesting quote, which I felt compelled to share in this article comes from Bruno’s On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds: Five Cosmological Dialogues, where he wrote:

“The ancients observed, and we also observe, that sometimes things fall to earth, or some things leave the earth, or whatever parts we may be near…”

Go further back in time before Giordano Bruno, say 2,000—3,000 years, and you’ll arrive at a time when great ancient civilizations like the ancient Aztecs, Maya, and ancient Egyptians ruled the Earth.

These ancient civilizations, and many others across Southern America, North America, Asia, and Africa were great pioneers during their times in various fields, including engineering, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc.

Their level of advancements was huge, and the Maya, for example, were considered as one of the greatest pre-industrial civilizations of the world.

The Egyptians built some of the most impressive ancient structures on the surface of the planet, the pyramids, and managed to transport massive blocks of stone, some weighing more than 50 tons across great distances without ‘simple’ technologies such as the wheel.

Halfway around the world, pre-Inca civilizations did the same thing when they managed to quarry andesite rock and transport it across vast distances, building some of the most impressive archaeological sites on the surface of the planet.

So, how did they do it?

Was it all brute force?

Slaves?

Did they possess some sort of technology we are unaware of?

Or is it possible, as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that an otherworldly influence was at play?

Thankfully, these ancient civilizations recorded their history as best as they could and left behind a number of ancient writings, monuments, and figurines that tell an impressive story.

Here, we take a look at ten amazing ancient figurines that were created by the ancient thousands of years ago, which, according to ancient astronaut theorists around the globe, suggest ancient aliens were in contact with ancient cultures around the globe, thousands of years ago.