Been thinking about this one for a while actually. The landing strip theory always felt a bit too neat to me, like it was designed to satisfy people who wanted a simple answer. But I dont think its completely dead either, there's still something genuinely weird about why you'd create images only properly visible from the air if flight wasn't somehow part of the picture.
The water/ritual theory makes more sense to me on paper but then you look at some of those longer lines and it gets harder to explain away.
Does anyone here think the two ideas could overlap at all? Like could they have served multiple purposes depending on who was using them and when? I do a lot of spirit box work and I'm used to things not having one clean explanation, so maybe I'm more comfortable sitting with the ambiguity than some people are.
Curious what the general feeling is on here. Is the ancient astronaut angle totally discredited now or are there researchers still taking it seriously?