Megalithic Marvels - Walking Moai, Magnetic Spheres & Cannibalistic Priests of Easter Island

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

There's so much more to Easter Island's (Rapa Nui) history than we've been told...JOIN ME ON A TOUR

walking moai statues, magnetic stone spheres, and red-haired cannibalistic priests. These are just a few of the many strange mysteries regarding Easter Island, otherwise known as Rapanui, that we're going to dive into in this episode. So make sure to listen all the way to the end. You do not want to miss this because I am fresh off my recent trip to Peru and Easter Island. So we're going to cover all these fascinating topics. And this is kind of a follow up to my last two episodes. A quick reminder, please subscribe to my podcast from wherever you are watching or listening. And please give me that five-star review on Spotify and Apple.

It really helps me out. So did you know that Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island on planet Earth? It's this tiny little dot out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where you find these 1,000 or so megalithic, mysterious Moai statues on this little rock that's actually smaller than Washington, D.C., if you can imagine that. And every time I fly into Easter Island, I'm taken back by how small it actually is. And from the plain window, as you're coming in, you can see how it's pockmarked with these volcanic craters and lava flows. and the thing just seems so otherworldly. Now many of the Moai statues stand lining the coast and they face inward.

Many others, though, are seemingly placed like randomly all over as if a massive project had suddenly been brought to a halt. So it really makes you start to wonder what really happened on this island. Now the amazing thing about going on tour to these countries like I am privileged to do every year. I feel so blessed is that I'm always seeing something new. I'm always learning so many new things. In fact, I come back from countries like Easter Island, or I should say Chile, where it's located, or Peru or Egypt or Cambodia. I usually come back with more questions than even answers.

but that's what drives me to keep learning. So just a couple weeks ago on this Easter Island trip, I saw something really cool for the first time. And as we pulled up to see our very first moai at this little site that I'd never been to before, here was this moai standing all by himself. It wasn't that big. It may have been about eight feet tall.

But guess what was fascinating about it? It was the only Moai that I know of, that may exist, that has not two hands, but four hands. That's right. Of course, this statue is very ancient, which means it is very weathered. So you do have to strain your eyes a little bit, really on all of the Moai, to see their features that were once much more precision. But as you looked close, you could see the normal, two hands that were down here pointing at its navel or its belly, and then right above those

two hands were two more hands and two more arms that extended behind him. Wow, a four-handed Moai statue. Now according to the ancient legends, this name Moai basically translates as the living faces of the ancient ancestors. So this right here gets me excited because it leaves so much for you to consider who were really these ancient ancestors that the Moai statues are supposed to be depicting. If the Moai are the living faces of the ancestors and if the Moai have all these strange genetic anomalies going on with their heads, their faces, their chins, their ears, their strange bodies, these strange hands and long fingers. Yes, some people say they're just fingernails. I don't think so.

I think they're more humanoid-like finger features. The point is, with all of these strange anomalies that seem to be genetic on the moai, it makes you ask, who really were these ancestors. And again, I hope to answer some of these questions in this episode. But first, we got to talk about the lost language of Easter Island or Rappanui. Now, there was an ancient written language that has since been lost as far as being able to read it. But it was written on wooden tablets known as Rongo Rongo tablets. And these tablets we see today, they're not the original ones, they're likely just copies of copies pass down over the millennia, as the originals sadly were lost to history.

Hence, we've not been able to decipher what these strange symbols mean. However, what a lot of researchers failed to point out is that we do have some memories left from elders that were attached to some. certain symbols on the tablets and these memories and these legends have been passed down through the generations. So again, thank God for legends. Legends are often the faint memories of the ancients. So we have this mysterious lost language of Rappanoi, but we also have ancient precision mysterious roads. What do I mean by this? Well, in one of the memories, related to this Rongo Rongo tablet, there is a legend known as a pie. And this is a symbol that's attached to a legend that's been passed down as part of, again, the oral tradition. And the legend

states this, that when the island was first created and became known to our forefathers, the land was crossed with roads, beautifully paved with flat stones. The stones were laid close together so artistically that no rough edges were exposed. These were said to encompass the whole seaboard of the island and were considered to be the work of a supernatural bang. I find this legend very interesting because it basically sounds like they're describing a megalithic engineered highway or you could say large pathway. But again, the legend kind of uses the word road. So very interesting. So very interesting. And I've also read somewhere else. I can't quite remember where it might have been one of Thor Heyerdahl's books. It was some researcher that was on Easter Island. And they described

something similar where during their archaeological excavations, they found what looked like deep embedded roads that went all along the outside of the island, kind of along the seaboard. Now let's talk about manna because according to some other legend, these mysterious Moai statues could channel a sacred spiritual power from their ancestors known as manna. Now apparently this mana only starts to flow or started to flow after the Moai were set in their proper places, properly finished with their eyes installed. That's right. all the Moai once had inlaid eyes.

You can still see the eyes on one of the Moai on the island. All the others have sadly lost their eyeballs. So keep this legend of the mana in your back pocket and how it apparently gave the Moai spiritual power because it dovetails with what I'm going to tell you next. And that is the mysterious transportation of the Moai. because concerning the technical problem of getting these stone giants from the quarries, especially the ones at the big volcanic crater on the far end of the island,

to their distant Ahoo platforms, seems to be this major problem. But we do have this oral tradition that comes from the locals that states this. Quote, the great chief at that time who was omnipotent, like his predecessors, had commanded them to walk. On his command, they had all begun to move while choosing sights to the best of their own liking, end quote. Now I know some people might laugh at this idea of a legend where the Moai were commanded to walk and somehow magically walked to a location of their liking. But is there shreds of truth to this legend, is it pointing at some kind of ancient technology, whether it was resonance, or

I'm talking levitation, something that could allow them to almost float above the surface of the ground to their final resting places. Now, you might think that sounds crazy, but check this out. There was a French missionary named Father Roussel who lived on the island in the 1860s. And during his time on the island, this missionary examined the surfaces of the statues that he found abandoned in transit along the roads. And if you go to Easter Island with me someday on one of my tours, you're going to know exactly what I'm describing here because you'll just be walking or driving along and you'll just see moai in random places, just fallen over. Again, like some massive project had come to a quick halt. But this missionary,

Father Roussel, guess what he found? When he examined closely all of these statues that seemed to be abandoned in transit, guess what he found? He said, according to his own writings, all the surfaces of these statues were found to be polished and undamaged by friction. Okay, which would be impossible if these things were walked by ropes like you've seen on YouTube, or as the mainstream narrative tells us, or they were dragged. You would think that there would be scars of transportation. You would certainly not think that the edges of these moai would be polished and undamaged by friction. Very interesting.

Now, when we look further into some of these other legends of the Moai on Easter Island, these legends continue to speak that the statues walked or were moved by the use of manna. Remember, I told you to remember about the legend of the manna. And according to one legend, use was made of, guess what, a finely crafted stone sphere known as the golden navel. or the navel of light to focus the energy or the power of the mana. Now, again, this might sound really fantastical to some, but what if I told you that on Arapanui, one of the most revered, sacred, honored objects or artifacts,

is a strange magnetic stone sphere. And they often refer to it as the T-Petocura, I'm pronouncing that right, which again means navel of light. And it's literally on the edge of the site near the ocean. It's a beautiful walk down from the road. And there you see this magnetic stone sphere. It's about one meter in diameter. Looks like this giant oval egg,

perfectly shaped into kind of an egg sphere. So it's not perfectly around, but it's more a little bit long. made a basalt, and this sphere possesses strange magnetic properties that will literally cause compasses to spin in circles. I've seen videos of this on YouTube. Now, sadly, on my last couple tours, we couldn't test this out because they have since closed the sphere off in this stone wall and nobody is allowed to get within a few feet of it, let alone touch it, because of some idiot a few years ago who jumped up to it and spray painted it, if you can imagine that. People are insane. Now, there was an explorer by the name of William J. Thompson who visited Easter Island in the 1800s.

He wrote a book about his travels. It's actually on my list to purchase so I can read this book. But William J. Thompson wrote that when he saw this stone sphere, the islanders told him that King Hottamatua brought it to the island. And they told him it was supernatural and it was the source of the manna. Okay, so I'm going to tell you about this mysterious figure, Hottamatua, in a second. But I just got to stop here for a second. because first we have the legends of this manna which the moai could channel for power. And we have legends of the moai floating or walking by themselves to their locations. And then we have literally this stone sphere with magnetic properties that makes compasses spin.

Is it just me or is there anybody else that thinks there might be something to these? legends again that's really speaking of technology of magnetic laylines and the geology of this stone sphere and how somehow they were channeling energy that could even move or levitate massive megaliths. Now it's very interesting that when you're getting up close to some of these moai, especially the ones in the quarry that are buried up to their necks in earth that goes down like 20 or 30 feet. These things are standing upright under the earth. So they're standing upright, not toppled over on their sides like you would think if some tsunamis were hitting them over the ages. So what really happened here? This is one of the other great mysteries. How were

these moai perfectly buried up to their necks? Some of them standing perfectly vertically, vertically upright. Now, mainstream archaeologists will tell us that the last of the moai were made not that long ago, I think about four or five hundred years ago, but this seems very unlikely on such a small island that such a massive amount of sediment could have accumulated around them to bury them up to their necks in just four or five hundred years. And from what I can tell and what I've researched, none of the more I really show evidence of intentional burial. So is there another explanation?

As Graham Hancock points out in ancient apocalypse, season two, I believe, could it be that we're looking here at the end result of a process of sedimentation that would have taken not hundreds of years, but thousands of years? because at the peak of the last ice age, sea levels were more than 400 feet lower than they are today, so it would have been a much larger island. So might the builders have chose to live under the coastline, which is now underwater? So is there so much more that we just haven't seen? We would really have to go back to the last ice age to find a cataclysm that could submerge an entire. land. So let's talk about King Hota Matua. So according to the legends, he was a powerful chief who had ruled in a distant land that had been ravaged by like great wars. And there was also like

news of impending cataclysm coming. So Hota Matua and his people were determined to flee. So he sent out spies or researchers and they found Easter Island so determined to flee Hottamatua embarked with like 300 chosen followers on these two ships and after like 120 days at sea

they find the island and they land shortly after Hottamatua's queen gives birth to a boy for which they named the island T-Pito Tukura I believe the naval of the world

however it's important to know it there are whispers and oral traditions that state Hottamatua himself reported that when they landed at Akhena Beach they saw a graveyard of tombs and I believe some legends even say these tombs were very very large like fit for giants so if these legends are true this would mean what Hota Matua and his people had discovered an island that had already been settled. I point that out because the mainstream narrative basically says that Hota Matua was the first Polynesians and they came over and discovered the island and built the Moai and that's really it. Yes, I believe the Polynesians came and did amazing things on the island,

but I emphatically believe a lost civilization predated them on Easter Island. So one of the big questions here is, did this King Hottomatua come from the West, Polynesia, and represent the later period short-eared inhabitants? And I don't have a whole lot of time to go into this in this episode. I will soon in a future episode. I plan to do a whole series or a really long video on the Forbidden. history of Easter Island. But on the island, there's different variations of moai. There's the colossal long-eared moai. There's smaller basalt moai, which are more precision because basalt's harder and

it holds up longer. Yet there are also some short-eared moai statues with more rounded heads. And there's one that's got a goatee and he's crouched in a kneeling position with legs. And I believe he's is representing the first Polynesians who came, and I believe this was a statue that was made much later than the original long-yeared Moai statues. But if Hottamatua was the first Polynesian to come to the island, I think it's possible that he might have received some of the ancient legends and knowledge concerning like this mysterious Rongo-Rongo tablets before the long years were destroyed. And when I say long years, I'm talking about the prehistoric lost civilization that once ruled the island in whom I believe these biggest long-yeared statues actually depict.

Now again, mainstream history basically tells us that the Polynesians first settled Rappanui about 500 AD, or somewhere between like 300 and 800 AD. However, there is a.m.m. However, there's a Dr. Sonia Cardinali, who was on the island researching for a while, and guess what she discovered? Bananas on the island dated from 3,000 years ago. Why are bananas significant? Because she states the bananas had been planted by other human beings. Therefore, there was an earlier epoch that probably arrived. and she says this pushes therefore the date back of people arriving to the island at least

3,215 years ago. That's much further back than the 300 to 800 AD dates that the mainstream gives us. So look how far the timeline is already changing just by the discovery of bananas. Now, the great explorer Thor Heyerdahl, he stated that the most important discovery made by he and his team during their entire expedition, and this was in the 60s, if I'm remembering right, was not that the Moai had bodies. I believe he's the one who broke that iconic photograph of the Moai being unearthed, and he and his team are standing in the ground, subterranean all the way down. you would have thought that discovering that the Moai had complete bodies would be his greatest discovery. It wasn't. Hiredall stated that the most important discovery that he and his team made was to identify two distinctly separate cultural periods on Easter Island prior to the final period of civil war and destruction. So if you read Hiredall's books, he basically states that he believes this early period came to an end long before a middle period began and that the middle period construction appears to have begun with the structures in an advanced state of ruin, meaning the early period was a long,

long time ago in prehistory. Heardall also stated that those who carried out the repairs that he saw when he arrived did an enormous amount of work, but their techniques and masonry showed neither the technical perfection, nor the artistry of the earlier master builders. And this point also seems to be confirmed by Heardahl's team at the Arango ceremonial site where they discovered that the birdmen carvings were a feature of the later middle period when the importance of the sun and these make-make masks became less noticeable. Now, something else that may prove this point,

are all of the petroglyphs you find all over Easter Island. You find petroglyphs of these birdman-like figures, and you find petroglyphs of these mysterious, like, they're called make-make masks, like a mask with eyes. And according to Hyerdahl, when they went to the Orongo ceremonial site, his team discovered that the birdmen carvings were a feature of the middle period

when the importance of the sun and the earlier make-make masks became less noticeable. And they literally found these birdman reliefs on the cliffs crafted in that period, the middle period, that were carved across older, earlier, make-make masks. So what Hyerdahl is telling us is that the masks were much older and were likely made by it's lost civilization. And then the Polynesians showed up in this middle period way, way later and started to etch their birdman carvings right on top of the older masks. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about the long years before we wrap this up.

So according to other ancient legends and oral traditions, they state that the island was basically settled twice, the first time by a mysterious race. often referred to as the long years, who came from the east. Think Peru. And the second time the island was settled by the short years from the west, think Hottamatua and the Polynesians. So these long years appear to have been a power on the island at a far earlier period in history on the island. I believe these were the master builders of the basalt moai statues. The basalt moai statues, there's only a few left in the world. They're only about eight feet tall.

The most famous one can be seen in the British Museum. It was brought from Easter Island, I believe in the 1860s, and presented as a gift to Queen Victoria. I know a lot of people get mad about that, but the good news is this thing has been really great. preserved and because it's basalt that's like a seven on the moz scale so it's approaching the hardness of granite so you can still see its precision features unlike most of the moai on easter island are made of volcanic tough it's a very soft material i think like a three on the moz scale and so all of the

volcanic tough moai they're really eroded and their features worn down but on the these basalt moa or at least the one in the museum you can look at its back and it's got the most incredible precision made um petroglyphs and symbols on its back it's even got like a moai head with something coming out of its mouth almost like the back of its whole head is tattooed fascinating detail. So where was I going with that? Here it is. I believe these long years existed in the prehistoric past and that they likely fashioned the basalt moai with some kind of advanced tools or technology they had at the time. I don't believe the Polynesians could have made the basalt moai because basalt is the hardest material on the island.

So you can't take a basalt pickax and precision carve a basalt moai when they're the same strength. You need something harder, a tool harder than the basalt like diamond to precision fashion the basalt, if that makes sense. So I believe these long years likely made the basalt moai. So I think they're the oldest statues. And I also think that the long years of the prehistoric past, precision engineered the megalithic walls that can still be seen on Easter Island or Rappanui. The most famous one is at Ahu Van Apu. It's this incredible basalt, megalithic wall that looks literally just like something you would see in Kusko, Peru. And it's right there by the water.

In fact, if you're ever coming on a tour, were with me to Easter Island and you're about to land if you're sitting on the left side of the plane look out the window and you can literally see this wall right on the left side of the runway no joke and that's also why I believe these megalithic builders likely came from the east from Peru there's so many other reasons why I could tell you that'll have to cover in further episodes. But I also think that these long years likely were the ones who invented this Rongo Rongo language that has been lost. So our big question here is were the long years from the east, were they associated with the master builders of Peru and Bolivia who engineered

similar megalithic marvels? I would emphatically tell you yes. Also, were these long years who possess these strange features in ancient technology to build the megalithic earthworks were they some kind of hybrids again think of the parochus humanoids that i often talk about that have 25 to 40 percent more cranial mass on the skulls and they're missing sagittal sutures these things are not fully human were the master builders of easter island something similar and is that why the statues that supposedly depict the ancient ancestors look so strange. Now Dutch explorer Jacob Rogovin who came to Easter Island in 1722, he landed there on Easter Sunday, which is why he named it Easter Island. He recorded his observations of how, when he

got on the island that the giant Moai statues, he said they were served by a pre-year-old. priesthood, get this, of very large looking men who had remarkably white skin, long ears, and red hair. This isn't me making it up. This is the great explorer Jacob Rogavine, writing this in 1722 or shortly after. So he says he saw this a separate priest class that was different than the rest of the population. who appeared to be of a mixed descent, and he said they did not venerate the statues as the priest did. So who in the world were these, quote, very large looking men with white skin, long ears, and red hair?

My mind is wandering to many crazy places with this. Is Rogavine possibly describing survivors of the Ice Age who were still living in the 1700s who were from a lost civilization. Was he describing 7, 8, 9 plus foot tall entities or hybrids? Now get this. There was another missionary on the island in the 1800s known as Father Gasparred Zumbaum. And he wrote that in former times

the high priests okay so i think he's talking about the same guys that roguveen was just talking about he said the high priests ate children in the name of their god make make okay so to me this is big we're connecting some dots here remember the great explorer thor hired all discovered that the make make depictions of this mysterious god in the rocks this mask this mask He said it was older. It was of the first period on the island. It predated the carvings of the birdmen, which were likely the later Polynesians. So we've got these older depictions of this Make Make Mask.

We've got Rogavine and this Father Gaspar to Zumbome in the 1800s both talking about a strange priest class who were cannibals eating. children in the name of their God Make Make, who hired I believes, was the old, old deity worshipped in the old ages. Very, very interesting. Now, on my last day in Easter Island a few weeks ago, I was doing some shopping and I was looking for a couple books. And one of the books I was looking for was this little tiny book. It's almost a pamphlet. And it's basically called Easter Island, 1864. And it's this tiny little book that was written by another missionary, a French missionary in 1864, named Eugenio Irod, if I'm pronouncing his name right. Now, this missionary wrote this in 1864. So this is way before political correctness. What do I mean by that? Well, in the book,

he's like calling the natives that he's called to reach like, savages and how these people scared him to death when he first landed and all this stuff. But this guy was only on the island for about nine months. And basically this book is a letter he's writing to his superior, I believe, in France. And it's a fascinating read because it's basically describing, he's describing in the letter how he comes to Easter Island. and the sea is basically so stormy and rough that they have to jump off the boat kind of in the deep water because the boat can't dock without being destroyed.

And so all his stuff is just chucked into the sea and he's swimming to the shore soaking wet only to find out that the ship actually leaves him abandoned there for nine months. and most of his stuff is lost. And this guy has to pull up his bootstraps and survive. And so again, it's a fascinating read because the book basically details he eventually builds this little hut with wood. He basically builds some relationships with islanders. I mean, the guy is almost killed several times. The islanders are very dangerous.

to him, at least as he describes, they steal almost all of his stuff. There's like a chief on the island who's literally trying to control his life to where he's being driven to the point of insanity. So it's a fascinating read, but it's become invaluable because it's really the first account in 1864 where someone is describing what life was like amongst the islanders of rapid In the 1800s, and this guy has so many crazy details that I'll get into in future episodes, but I wanted to read one thing he wrote, which will hammer home this point about some of these strange figures on the island, even the 1700s and the 1800s. So this missionary writes this on page 8 of his book, and I'm literally reading from it. He says this, quote, The men were armed with a kind of spear made of a long stick

and a sharp stone fixed at one extremity. These savages are tall, strong, and well-built. Their features are more alike to the European ones than those of the other islanders throughout Oceania. The Marquesians are, out of all the Kanakas, the ones who resemble them the most. most. Their color, a bit of copper, is not very different from the European style, and some of them are entirely white. But obviously, at some distance, one does not know what to think. As everybody,

men, women, and children have their faces and their entire bodies painted in thousand ways. Furthermore, these paintings are completely bewildering. They are obtained from a kind of of grounded powder or from the juice of certain plants. Women use only red color while men use indifferently all the colors. So I find what he writes here fascinating because he is saying that the natives he saw were tall, strong, well built, and were much more like Europeans than islanders throughout Oceania. He's basically talking about Polynesians. And then again, he concludes this portion by saying that some of them are entirely white.

Okay? So that is three witnesses we have that are saying there were people or humanoids, whatever you want to call them, on the island that were tall, extremely white. All three of them said those two things, and then the previous two referred to them as priests, cannibals, and having red hair. So the point here is that there is so much more to the history of Easter Island or Rapa Nui, whatever you want to call it, there is so much more to this island's history than we have been told. It's a fascinating island.

I cannot wait to get back there again. be looking on my tour page, Megalithicmarvels.com slash tours, where I will be posting next year's Peru and Easter Island tours soon. So you can join me in Easter Island if you want. But if you want to go on an adventure even sooner, I've got my Peru and Bolivia tour coming this September. I've got my Egypt tour coming this December.

And I just announced my Cambodia tour coming in January of 20th. and I'm partnering with my friend Cassie Coppersmith on that tour. We've got some huge discounts to lock in right now for unlimited time on a couple of these tours. So again, if you're interested, go to megalithic marvels.com slash tours or click the link in the show notes below. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Reminder to subscribe. Give me that five-star review. And I will see you next time.