Our planet is full of ancient sites that modern archeology still can not satisfactorily explain.

These breathtaking and mysterious ancient buildings and structures defy our ability to explain who built them, how they were built and why. Was it ancient civilizations with technologies far more advanced than we ever imagined? Or perhaps it was ancient aliens come to Earth to share incredible wisdom and knowledge with its primitive inhabitants?

These ancient mysteries continue to confound archeologists and inspire numerous theories about how prehistoric civilizations managed to make some of the largest and most enigmatic constructions on Earth.

Let’s take a brief tour of some of the world’s most incredible ancient mysteries. Who knows, maybe you will be the one to unlock some of the secrets that have remained hidden for centuries.

Gobekli Tepe

This massive temple located in Turkey is constructed from pillars organized into enormous stone rings. Each pillar is decorated with intricate sculptures of scorpions, lions and vultures, all twisting up and down the surface.

However, these pillars are far more than just beautiful pieces of art. They were designed to support enormous stone blocks, some weighing more than 10 tons. The act of raising 10 ton stone blocks and supporting their incredible weight with these beautiful and intricate pillars is amazing enough, but what has truly baffled archeologists is that Gobekli Tepe was built more than 11,000 years ago!

It has been called the oldest known temple in the world, and no one knows how or why Gobekli Tepe was built all those millennia ago.

Pyramids of Giza

Pyramids of Giza

These enormous mountains of stone blocks still dominate the horizon of Egypt’s most populous city just as they have for thousands of years.

The modern story of these incredible structures taught in schools and universities is that the Pyramids of Giza were built using simple technologies and massive amounts of human labor as tombs for the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. However, despite the widespread acceptance of this explanation, these structures show none of the common signs that we would associate with ancient Egyptian burials.

The Pyramids of Giza demonstrate a level of knowledge that goes far beyond what we know of the ancient Egyptians who supposedly built them. The Great Pyramid is positioned precisely at the longitude and latitude lines that contain less water and more land than any other place on the planet. It is also directly in the geographical center of the Earth.

These facts among many others suggest that the builders knew a great deal more about our planet’s geography than we thought possible, and it is difficult to imagine how they could have completed these amazing structures without relying on some kind of aerial view.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Pyramids of Giza were designed for a wide range of purposes. These structures have a number of intriguing connections to the heavens above, including special shafts aimed to specific stars. The theory claims there is a correlation between the position of the three largest pyramids at Giza and the three stars comprising the belt in the constellation of Orion. The extraordinary theory was actually proved by Robert Bauval in 1983 when the stars of Orion were overlaid over an aerial view of the pyramids and they matched almost exactly.

We are only just starting to scratch the surface of discoveries within these incredible ancient buildings, and many more mysteries are waiting to be solved.

Puma Punku

The mystery of Puma Punku is perhaps one of the least well known yet compelling ancient mysteries. However, many people have never even heard of this mysterious ancient site or know where Puma Punku is located.

Puma Punku is found in modern Bolivia, and has attracted a great deal of archeological attention since its discovery. It is made up of stone blocks that were cut using incredibly precise lines and drilled with a range of different holes. One of the largest stones on this site has been estimated to weigh more than 130 tons!

The precise cutting and drilling of the stones has led many people to suggest that they are a strong proof of ancient alien visitation. The structures of Puma Punku were built without using any mortar to hold the stones together. Instead the stones that make up the walls were cut to interlock precisely with their neighbors, requiring a level of skill that would be hard to match even using today’s technology. In addition, the stones used in the construction were brought from a quarry more than 50 miles away.

Unfortunately much of Puma Punku has been damaged by weather and looters, though it still remains one of the world’s most breathtaking and mysterious ancient structures.

Moai Statues on Easter Island

Moai Statues

These multi-ton anthropomorphic statues dot the grassy mounds across Easter Island deep in the Pacific Ocean, and pose a mystery that has intrigued visitors since they were first spotted by European explorers in 1722.

The inhabitants of this eastern Polynesian island, the Rapa Nui, had been building these statues for over 5 centuries until shortly after the first European explorers arrived. Seeing these incredible structures up close leads people to wonder how these simple islanders were able to build and move these enormous stone statues, and why.

In total the Moai statues represent almost 900 human-like figures dotted along the edges of the extinct volcanoes on the island. These statues average 13 feet and weigh 14 tons, and were all chiseled directly from the volcanic stone of the island. There are also over 400 statues in various stages of quarrying, some left waiting to be transported to their final resting place.

The purpose of the Moai remains a mystery, though it is likely that they were sculpted for ritual or religious reasons. It is also unclear what happened to the Rapa Nui builders, but most theorists suggest that they eventually succumbed to an environmental disaster.