Ica Stones

Ica stones are considered by some people to be proof that there was once a technologically advanced civilization on Earth. They were reportedly discovered in a cave of unknown location near the city of Ica in Peru and popularized by Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera. Scientific testing of the more than fifteen thousand stones dates them as being from prehistoric times, but the stones are carved with images of things that would have been unfamiliar to any known prehistoric people. Contradicting both existing knowledge of Peruvian prehistory and evolution, they are considered prime examples of out-of-place artifacts. The stones are composed of andesite and vary in size from pebbles to boulders. They are shallowly engraved through their surface patina with a variety of images, purportedly depicting a variety of phenomena: For example, some of the stones seem to depict surgical equipment, blood transfusions, cesarean sections, and life support systems, as well as men using a telescope, Incan or Aztec men riding and attacking dinosaurs, extinct animals, flying machines, bestiality, star and land maps.

However, the circumstances of the stones’ discovery are clouded. A farmer originally said that he had found them in a cave revealed when the Ica River changed its course, and indeed, the stones’ composition shows that they could have come from the cave, near which archaeologists have found fossilized bones from prehistoric times. But when the Peruvian government arrested the farmer for selling some of the stones (because, under Peruvian law, as antiquities the stones would have belonged to the Peruvian government), he changed his story, saying that he had made the carvings himself.

Skeptics accept this confession as the truth, while believers say that it was a lie told to keep the farmer from going to prison. Among those who believe that the stones were carved in prehistoric times, various theories have developed regarding the individuals who might have made them.

Peruvian researcher Javier Cabrera, who now owns many of the stones, believes that they were created by a prehistoric people, whom he calls Gliptolithic man, who were part of an advanced civilization with knowledge of space travel. He theorizes that these people left Earth at a time when the planet was undergoing changes that would have made it inhospitable, such as seismic cataclysms that split whole continents into pieces. Indeed, some Ica stones depict continents on Earth that do not exist. Others seem to show spacecraft hovering over the ground.

Interestingly, the cave where the farmer claimed to have found the stones is near an area of mysterious lines scratched into the ground, the Nazca lines, which some people claim was once a landing site for extraterrestrial spacecraft. Cabrera thinks that this is the site from which Gliptolithic man left Earth. He further believes, based on some of the celestial drawings on the stones, that the Gliptolithics headed for a planet in the Pleiades star cluster.

Sources :
The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena by Patricia D. Netzley;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ica_stones

Pic Source :
http://www.crystalinks.com/icastones.html