Megalithic Marvels - Rapa Nui Enigmas, Aztec Death Whistles & New Peru Discovery (best of episode)

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

This 'best-of-episode' features three popular segments from the Megalithic Marvels podcast. In part one I talk about the infamous Aztec "Death Whistles" and even play for you what they sound like - be prepared to freak! In part two, my friend Stepehen joins me to discuss Graham Hancock's latest theories regarding Rapa Nui. In part 3, I break down the exciting news of a recent discovery in Peru of incredible geoglyphs that were hidden near the Nazca desert. JOIN ME ON A TOUR

One of the most remarkable ancient musical instruments ever discovered is the so-called Aztec death whistle. The sound of the Aztec death whistle has perplexed scholars for years. And according to recent studies, it is so unnerving that it can literally mess up your mind. I'm actually going to play the sound of this infamous resonator for you in just a few minutes. But be warned, it might be warned. It might be one of the creepiest sounds you have ever heard. But first, let me give you some basic Aztec history to set this up. The Aztecs, who probably originated as a nomadic tribe in northern Mexico,

arrived in Mesoamerica around the beginning of the 13th century. And as the story goes, when the Aztec saw an eagle perched on a cactus on the marshy land near the southwest border of Lake Texcoco, they took it as a sign to build their settlement there. They drained the swampy land, constructed artificial islands on which they could plant gardens and established the foundations of their capital city, Tenochtitlan, in 1325 AD. From this magnificent capital city, the Aztecs emerged as the dominant force in central Mexico, developing an intricate, social, political, religious, and commercial organization that brought many of the region's city-states under their control by the 15th century. In the great cities of the Aztec Empire, magnificent temples, palaces, plazes, and statues embodied the civilization's unfailing devotion to the many Aztec gods.

However, in November of 1519, Spanish conquistador Cortez and his army arrived in Tonichita Lahn where Aztec emper montezuma and his people greeted them as honored guests according to the Aztec customs. This was partially due to the conquistador's physical resemblance to the light-skinned Quetziquado, whose return was prophesied in Aztec legend. Though the Aztecs had superior numbers, their weapons were inferior. and Cortez was able to immediately take Montezuma and his entourage of lords hostage, gaining control of Tonich Titlan. The Spaniards then murdered thousands of Aztec nobles during a ritual dance ceremony, and Montezuma died under uncertain circumstances while in custody. Now, Quatamac, Montezuma's young nephew, took over his emperor,

and the Aztecs then drove the conquistadors from the city. However, with the help of the Aztec's native rivals, Cortez mounted an offensive against Tonich-Tatlan, finally defeating Quatomac's resistance on August 13, 1521. In all, some 240,000 people were believed to have died during the city's conquest, which effectively ended the Aztec civilization. After his victory, Cortez raised Tonich-Telan and built Mexico's cities. city on its ruins, bringing an end to Mesoamerica's last great native civilization. Again, in just a few minutes, I want to play for you the horrific sound of the Aztec death

whistle. But first, let me tell you a little bit about the Aztec history of sacrifice. So when the Spanish conquistadors arrived to the Aztec capital of Tenechtatlan in 1521, they described witnessing a gruesome ceremony where Aztec priests, using sharp obsidian blades would slice open the chest of their sacrificial victims, and they would offer them with beating hearts to the gods. So the Spanish chroniclers reported that after they would take out the beating heart of these victims, they would toss the dead bodies down the steps of their temple known as the Templo Mayor in modern-day Mexico City. Later, another conquistor named Andres de Topia described two.

rounded towers that flanked the great temple of the Templar that were made entirely of human skulls. So this was not just some wall of skulls, this was two giant circular towers that filled within them were skulls from these sacrificial victims. Now many historians over the years dismissed the 16th century reports as just being wild exaggerated. The stories were believed to be nothing more than propaganda meant to justify the murder and enslavement of the Aztec population and the destruction of Tonichita Lam. Over the years, archaeologists working at this Templumio in Mexico City have discovered proof of widespread human sacrifice among the Aztecs,

and the proof was none other than the very skull towers that the conquistadors had described long before. Human sacrifice was an integral part of the Aztec religion. The Aztecs believed that their god of the sun needed constant nourishment in the form of human blood to keep the sun moving from east to west. Now, eyewitness accounts claim that anywhere between 20,000 to 80,000 people were sacrificed as part of the dedication ceremony at Templumayo in 1487. These Aztec victims of sacrifice were often slaves. sometimes they were captured prisoners. However, it is said that sometimes even Aztec citizens went willingly to the sacrificial altar for to offer your heart as a sacrifice was considered a great honor and pretty much guaranteed you a blessed afterlife. So in about one minute,

I'm going to play for you the sound of the Aztec death whistle, but first let me take one minute to describe for you the discovery of this whistle. first ever Aztec death whistle was found in Mexico City in the late 1990s, in the grave of a 20-year-old male who was the victim of a sacrifice. Beheaded and with his arms crossed over his chest, the death whistle was found clutched within his skeletal hand. Many other death whistles have since been recovered, mostly from tombs dating back to the years 1250 through 1521 AD. Now, the The whistles initially attracted the attention of the archaeologists simply because of their fascinating, unique skeletal shape. But it's only been more recently that the actual sound of these instruments has been researched.

So before I share with you this groundbreaking research regarding the infamous Aztec death whistles, let me first play for you what it sounds like. But again, be warned, this may be one of the most horrifying sounds you have ever heard. There are so many words I could use to describe that sound like horrifying, creepy, unnerving, sickening, to say the least. Some have described that whistle as sounding like humans howling in pain, and one researcher stated that it sounds like the scream of 1,000 corpses.

So why did the Aztecs use this whistle? It is believed by many researchers that the Aztecs used the sound of the death whistles to assist the sacrificial victims' souls travel to the afterlife. The whistle is also theorized to have been used by Aztec warriors in battle to intimidate their enemies, where they would use over 1,000 whistles at a time as a form of psychological warfare. So let's end here with the psychological aspect of hearing the sound of the sound of. of these whistles based on this latest groundbreaking research. So when the sound from the death whistle was analyzed, it was found that the dynamics that the sound generates is so complex,

it can't be simulated with computerized mathematical models. How do such tiny artifacts make such huge, horrifying sounds? According to researchers, it's because there are different airstreams generated within the structure of these instruments, which then diametrically hits against each other, which produces the very shrill and noisy sound. In a new study published in the journal known as Communications Psychology, a team of researchers from the Cognitive and Effective Neurosciences Unit

at the University of Zurich in Switzerland decided to explore a somewhat different but related question. They were interested in learning how the human brain reacts to otherworldly, high-pitched wind-like sounds produced by these unique whistles. Information which could make it easier to figure out how these death whistles were used. For the purposes of their research, the Swiss scientists recruited volunteers who were asked to listen to the Aztec death whistles being blown while their brain activity was being monitored. On a side note, it's shocking to me that these were just volunteers.

You would have had to have paid me at least $1,000. to sit and listen to this death whistle, probably $1,000 per five minutes. The results of this research proved most enlightening, as the scientist discovered that these haunting instruments produce sounds that listeners experienced as unpleasant and even frightening. The study authors explain that, quote, skull whistle sounds attract mental attention by effectively mimicking the aversive and startling sounds produced

by nature and technology, end quote. So as the whistle was being blown, the participants in the new study experienced a heightening activity in their brain's auditory regions. At the same time, brainwave monitoring showed that the auditory cortex was put on high alert, meaning the brain was perceiving the sounds from the whistle as threatening. The study authors further explained, quote, skull whistles thus seem to be unique sound tools with specific psycho-effective effects on listeners and Aztec communities might have capitalized on the scary and scream-like nature of skull whistles, end quote. Well, in the end, regardless of the intent regarding these death whistles, they would have sent a chill up and down the spine of anyone who heard them. And 500 years later, this death whistle still has the power to unnerve anyone who hears it.

And that's including me. Ancient Apocalypse, season two, episode three starts out. And like we were talking before, Off Air, they've done this season different, or each episode overlaps with the other, right? So episode two ends with Graham and Easter Island. Episode 3 begins with Graham still on Easter Island. And Graham starts out the episode by saying, we need to re-examine the prehistory of Easter Island.

And then he asked the question, might there be a forgotten episode in the story of this island, an earlier chapter written by survivors of the global cataclysm? And then Graham begins to investigate where the ancients might have lived on the island. Yeah, so Graham theorizes if the ancients live near the coastline and the island was much larger, this means theoretically the island could have supported a much more larger population, which might explain this massive building project they pulled off. And then he jumps into the Rappanoi legends, which I always find fascinating. I love hearing the ancient oral traditions of how their great founder, this King Ahota Matua, brought something special with him from that far off land of Heva,

which is a written language. This written language is known as the Rongul-Rongo tablets. And it's like hieroglyphs embedded on these wooden tablets. But Graham points out these are likely copies of copies passed down over the generations. And through the ages, the originals were lost to history. And therefore, the ability to read these mysterious tablets was lost. So all that's left are some memories and songs that some of the elders have that are connected to some of these symbols, but to actually read it, no one's been able to break the code.

So Graham then wonders, or he says, we should consider the possibility that the script was first brought to Easter Island in remote prehistory, not just a thousand years ago. and from the original explorers who were said to have come from a much larger land off the Pacific called Heva. Heva, yeah. So he connects the dots to if this lost language was brought by prehistory of megalithic builders, were the Moai also the product of a lost civilization. So that was fascinating. And then next he goes to this Ahu-Vanapu Megalithic wall.

What were your thoughts on that? Well, based on all of the things that we saw all across Peru, and when we popped over to Bolivia for the day, you know, that sort of wall construction, you know, still baffles, that baffles our tour guides, it baffles us, anybody that takes a closer look at some of these mortarless, you know, multi-ton stone walls. just they don't know how they were put together and and there's no and what was neat that they spoke about that graham mentioned that that the the seams between the stones were so thin that they're unable to to get any sort of organic remains in order sort of to test the the wall and I assume that that's the problem all over the world that these walls were built so so precisely that nothing else is able to fit in between them and it makes it difficult for us to be able to put a date to them. So yeah, Graham is looking at this Ahu Van Apu wall, which is made of basalt.

So that's a much stronger material than the tough, that the volcanic tough that the statues themselves are made of. That's softer. And so Graham points out that this megalithic wall called Ahou Van der. Napu is quite superior in its engineering compared to these other platforms, which look like walls. Yeah. A lot of the MoI are standing on, right? Those are archaic.

They're not mortarless. You can see it's just like big stones kind of packed together and they even have some recycled moai heads in there as stones to where this is just like you'd see in Kusko. And then it's even got the small interlocking block in the center, which is kind of like a signature of the megalithic engineers. I wanted to point out something else I found in some of my studies. Let's hear it. The first explorers to Easter Island were Dutch explorers named Jacob Rogavine.

And that was in 1722. And so he was originally on his way to find the fabled land called Terra Australia. Australia. Instead, he finds Easter Island, which he named that because his ship landed there on Easter Sunday, April 5th of 1722. Obviously, we know the Polynesian name for it is Rappanui. But it's interesting. I love reading old, undactored reports by these exceptional. explorers. So Rogavine in his in his journals, he reported seeing what he called 3,000 natives

covered in tattoos, body paint, feathers, and ears so long that they hung down as far as their shoulders. And these 3,000 natives, he said, were performing strange ritual-type worship around fire in front of the giant statues. And imagine that. scene, right? You're the first explorer to this island, and this is what you see, this strange ceremonial worship in front of these massive statues. But then there was something else that Rogavine documented, which I find very fascinating. He writes about how the giant Moai statues were served by what he called a priesthood of very large looking men who he said, quote, had remarkably white skin, long ears, and red hair. Well, the rest of the population

appeared to be of a mixed descent and did not venerate the statues as the priest did. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, what, I mean, that kind of ties into Incas, right? that had the, they were confused as conquistadors. You know, they, the conquisadors they thought were, were these, you know, bringers of civilization back. They've come back. Yeah, there was also reports I found of missionaries who were on the island in the 1800s. One of them had some writings.

His name was Father Gaspar'd Zoom bomb. And he documented that, and this was in the 1800s, that in the former times, these high priests, so he wrote about these high priests as well. He said the high priest, eight children in the name of their God, make, make. And then excavations on the landward side of Ahu, Nanao, reveal the charred human bones from cannibalistic rituals.

My point in sharing this is, based on some of these reports from Rogavine and these missionaries, We have multiple accounts of this class of priests who are almost described, again, as different than the main population. And again, Rogavian describes them as very large with white skin, long ears, and red hair. And they appear to be cannibalistic. So pretty crazy history about Rappanui. and I think there's so much more here than we've been told. Steve, and anything else you want to say about Easter Island before we leave and go to where Graham traveled next?

No, but I think it's cool that you're diving deep and finding these firsthand accounts. I would write the truth, you know, if I was out in a deserted, you know, ship coming across these strange islands, you know, I would document it as well as, well as I can. Just like when I journal, I'm not rattling off, you know, lies throughout my journal. I'm telling it how it is. And so I assume the same thing's going on for them. You're not rattling off lies hoping that whoever finds this journal in 300 years will be fooled. So next, Graham travels from Easter Island to the Peruvian coast to see the giant geoglyph known as the Candle Abra. And I got to see this back in 2017 for the first time. It is an incredible sight to

behold. And it literally is massive. I can't remember exactly how tall and wide, but in a boat from the coast, you see this thing in the distance. It's this massive trident. And as Graham points out, it's almost like an enormous beacon saying, come here. And it's said to have been inspired by Viracocha, who we can talk about, who's one of the most famous Incan deities. According to Incan lore, you know, this Viracocha emerged from Lake Titicaca, where he taught his followers and the survivors of what Graham believes is the great apocalypse, the secrets of farming, advanced skills, stonework, and how to track the heavens. Stephen, anything you want to share about Vera Cocho or anything you learned like that on our

Peru trip? Along the same lines as the, no pun intended, but the Nazca lines, right, where you have just these massive images embedded into the ground. In this instance, you can see it because it's on the side of a mountain. But it kind of follows the same. I don't know if it's a communication style or if it's, but it kind of just adds to that mystery of them making giant pictures in the grounds. Graham then made a, I thought was a great point. He said, knowledge is passed on in the form of myths. Myths of humanity are the memory bank of our species.

And so Graham wonders out loud if these great teachers like Viracocha could be among the few survivors of a civil you know, that was survived the ancient apocalypse. I thought that was a very interesting thought to consider. And I wanted to then bring up something I've been learning on the last couple of Peru trips about the three tiers of Viracocha. So let me start by saying the Inca called, you know, him Veracocha. The Mayans called him Quetzakota. but they believed Veracoccia, the Inca, was, you know, created all living things.

His name translates a seafone. And again, he's thought to have emerged from Lake Titicaca. But the plumed serpent deities, which Veraccia was, were not just worshipped as distant gods, but they were, again, credited with the founding of their civilizations, giving secret knowledge, living among the people before they departed over the sea. And it's crazy. And some reports, these deities like Veracocha literally manifested as white skin, light skin, tall guys with blue eyes. And so let me just break down real quick the three tiers of the Veracotchas. So the first tier is, you know, you've got this vera coacha we're talking about, which is like the supreme creator deity that the Inko worshipped. And their legends also say he destroyed evil giants with a flood. But then during the epoch after this great cataclysm that obliterated the old world, the survivors were living in darkness. And this is when number two comes, the Vera coaches arrived.

So again, the tier one is like this creator god, tier two is like actual these manifested guys who show up with white skin, beards, cloaks, and staffs in their hands. their leaders often called Contiki Veracocha. And again, some accounts say they have blue eyes, but they went throughout the Andes to the survivors and began civilizing them before they disappeared over the sea and said they would one day return. And then you've got the third tier, which is there are some Quechuan legends that state that there are still Veracoches living underneath the Andes. and they even report sometimes encountering these viricoches who appear to them.

They even say sometimes in like shiny discs with gold hair, they speak telepathically, they heal the sick, and then they disappear. So the UK Guardian publication and many other media outlets not too long ago broke the news of these exciting and new discoveries near the NASCAR lines. archaeologists used AI to discover 300 plus geoglyphs. And these newly discovered figures date back to at least 200 BC, and they nearly double the number of known geoglyphs in the region. And if you're watching this episode by video on Spotify or YouTube,

you're going to see some of the images of these exciting new discoveries that include these geoglyphs of zoomorphic animal figures, that include parrots, cats, monkeys, even killer whales. There's even decapitated heads, which are very strange. So it was a team of Japanese archaeologists in collaboration with what's called the IBM research team, discovered these 303 previously unknown geoglyphs of all these figures. Now, most of these new geoglyphs they discovered are smaller in size than the ones that were discovered in the 1930s that are known as the Nazca Lines. And the ones that are older, the Nazca Lines are much larger, some stretch as big as multiple

football fields. These ones are a bit smaller, but still very enigmatic. What's important about these new geoglyph discoveries is that they seem to provide a new understanding of the transition from the older Paracas. culture, many of whom had elongated skulls and whom I believe created the oldest lines near NASCAR to the transition of the later NASCAR culture who created the iconic hummingbird and monkey figures that you see when you Google the NASCAR lines. Archaeologist Masato Saki said, quote, the use of AI and research has allowed us to map out the distribution of geoglyphs,

more quickly and accurately. According to a research paper published just a couple of weeks ago by the National Academy of Sciences, they state that the use of this AI technology combined with low-flying drones has revolutionized the speed and rate at which these geoglyphs are being discovered and were just discovered.

This paper points out that while it took nearly a century to discover a total of 400 plus NASCAR lines in figures, Using the AI system they now have, and covering the entire NASCAR region, it took just six months to discover these 303 new geoglyphs. The AI model efficiently spotted many of the smaller relief type geoglyphs, which were harder to see with a naked eye. It was also able to analyze vast quantities of geospatial data generated by drones to identify areas where more geoglyphs might be found. John Isla, Peru's chief archaeologist for the NASCAR lines, said the use of drones and AI represented a quantum leap for archaeological study in the area. He stated, quote, what used to take three or four years can now be done in two or three days, end quote. He made the point also that these newly discovered geoglyphs, some of which are so small just between three to seven meters across, that they would never have been detected,

even by flyovers of the past, which discovered the giant NASCAR lines and geoglyphs. Well, this is an exciting discovery, and I guess this is one area where AI is being used for good, and that is to help us find new ancient discoveries that we might not see with our naked eyes. So when it comes to Peru, did you know that after Machu Picchu, the Nazca lines are considered the most popular? tourist attraction or ancient site that people want to see. The Nazca Lines literally draw tens of thousands of visitors every year. So like I mentioned at the outset of this episode,

being that we're talking about these new discoveries near the Nazca Lines, we've got to take some time to talk about the Nazca Lines, the infamous ones, that were discovered in the 1930s. So imagine with me for a minute that it's circa 1930. You are a pilot. You're flying your airplane over one of the most vast, dry and desolate locations on earth, the Nazca Desert of southern Peru. Time seems to stand still as you saw high above this vast, barren landscape that stretches mile after mile. Suddenly, something out of the corner of your eye catches your attention. What looks like hundreds and hundreds of thick, trapezoidal, triangular lines,

some that look like giant runways and huge geometric figures depicting animals and birds. You wonder to yourself, what am I looking at? You don't know it, but you just happen to be one of the first humans of the modern era to have discovered what has come to be known as the NASCAR lines. And that's literally how these NASCAR lines were discovered in the 1930s. Until then, in the modern era, nobody even knew they were. lying there. Now, some of these NASCAR lines have been estimated to have been created as early as 500 BC, and then some as recent as 500 AD. So they were not all created at the same time.

The NASCAR lions cover hundreds of square miles and are, again, the most mysterious geoglyphs known to man. And I think I came to the same conclusion that many others before me came to when I first saw the Nazca lines and flew over them years ago. It seemed as if these anomalous works of art were tailor-made to be viewed from thousands of feet up in the air. These geoglyphs feature over 800 straight lines, 150 geometric figures, and about 70 plant or zoomorphic shapes. However, over a thousand more geoglyphs can be found about 30 miles north of Nazca near Pazca. Palpa, Peru. And even more can be found all the way to the coast near Paracas. So we have the Nazca lines and geoglyphs. We have the palpa geoglyphs. And then we have the Paracas

geoglyphs. They're all kind of in the same area, but they're uniquely different. And the palpa and Paracus geoglyphs seem to be more three-dimensional and feature more humanoid and strange insectoid-looking figures. Now some of the largest Nazca geoglyphs are just massive. They're nearly three football fields in length, and some of the longest of the straight lines extend for many miles. The most striking of which is the six-mile-long triangle geoglyph, which appears to almost be laser accurate in shape when you look at it from the air or photos. And the crazy part is the ground underneath this one has been done. tamped down or stamped down about two feet throughout its entirety. So it's not just a line

drawn in the sand. It is stamped down. It's incredible. Scientists from the University of Dresden measured the magnetic field and found that it changes eight feet below the surface of many of the lines and also discovered that the ability to conduct electrical currency was $8,000,000. times higher on the lines. Upon close observation, it is evident that the designs were created by making shallow lines in the ground. By removing the small red iron oxide pebbles upon the surface, the white lime-enriched ground beneath became exposed and hardened, thus making it resistant to erosion. And because of its isolation and dry stable climate that receives less than one inch of rain per year, the lines have been naturally preserved for around 2,000 years.

Now, German mathematician and archaeologist Maria Risch, or Risch, can't remember how that's pronounced, studied the lines for over 50 years and believed that the NASCAR artists prepared preliminary drawings on small, six-foot square plots. And apparently some of these plots are still visible near some of the larger figures. Many researchers theorized that some of the lines were created to track the course of underground water flowing down from the Andes Mountains. One of these is Anthony F. Avini, author of The Lines of Nazca. And he affirms this and suggests that the 800 miles worth of straight lines map the direction of water sources and a highly advanced irrigation system which the NASCAR had produced.

Other researchers believe that some of the lines were created for solar and lunar alignment purposes. A senior astronomer at the Adler Planetarium named Phyllis Pitlugland performed computer-aided studies of star alignments and asserted that the giant spider figure is an anamorphic diagram of the constellation Orion. Some of the geoglyphs appear to even feature intricate mathematical diagrams. Still other researchers believe that many of the lines were created for a more ceremonial or spiritual purpose and wonder if the Nazcan lines weren't made so as to communicate with what the ancient artists believed were the gods. Now, to substantiate this theory, some researchers point to one of the strangest of all these geoglyphs,

known as El Astronado, or the astronaut whom I previously mentioned, which almost appears to be some sort of humanoid-looking figure. And it's also worth noting that ancient petroglyphs depicting three-fingered humanoids have been discovered in the Nazca Desert. So while most scholars attribute the Nazca culture alone to making the lines somewhere between 500 BC to 500, A.D., others like author and researcher Brian Forster, who has written the book, NASCA, decoding the riddle of the lines and who lives near NASCAR, believes that not all the lines and figures were made at the same time by the NASCAR culture. Brian believes and writes that the NASCA were the last

of the line in geoglyph builders, but not the first, that they were created by two cultures. One, The one, the NASCAR people, but prior to the NASCAR, as I hinted at earlier, the Paracus people, who lived in the region approximately 800 BC to 100 AD, and who possessed strange, elongated skulls. Brian has stated that the lines were made over the course of approximately 1,000 years, starting at the Pacific coast of Paracas, where we find that big Candle-Abra Geoglyph, and then going down through Palpa, and then finally here to the Nazca Plateau. I personally find it very fascinating how Brian makes the connection between the Nazca lines and the elongated skull culture of Paracas.

Now, Brian's not the first to come to this understanding. even the Inca oral tradition state in places that the supreme deity Veracocha commissioned the Nazca Lines in ages past. I personally find it a likely theory that the Nazca lines, including the geoglyphs of Palpa and Paracas and now these new 300 plus geoglyphs that have been discovered, were created by at least two or three different cultures, again spanning over a thousand years. I also see credibility with a hypothesis that there could be more than one reason for why these geoglyphs and lines were made. I do believe some were made to track the course of water, some for astronomical alignment purposes, but also, yes, 100%, I believe some were made to commemorate and even communicate with what the builders believed were their gods.