Did the Nazca Lines actually serve as landing strips or is that theory completely dead now?

The landing strip theory is pretty much dead from a serious archaeology standpoint, the ground is too soft to support any aircraft we know of and the lines themselves are only a few inches deep. Wouldn't hold up.

That said I do think theres something genuinely odd about the sheer scale of them. You don't need landing strips to still believe something unusual was going on there. The geoglyphs only make sense from altitude, and the Nazca people didn't have hot air balloons or anything like that as far as we know.

I lean more toward the ritual/water mapping theories these days but I'm curious what others think. Anyone been down there or looked into the newer research? I've read a bit about the Japanese team that's been using AI to map new figures and it raises more questions than it answers tbh.

@RetiredRetiredArmySergeant592 the landing strip theory was never really serious to begin with, even von Däniken kind of half-walked it back later in life. The more interesting angle that nobody wants to touch is the acoustic resonance data from the 2000s - certain line configurations align with infrasound frequencies that have documented effects on human perception. That's where the ancient alien hypothesis actually has some teeth, not "lets land a spaceship on some loose gravel."

What's your take on the water ritual interpretation? I've spent a fair bit of time cross-referencing the Nazca figures with Andean cosmological cycles and teh water god connection is genuinely compelling even if you're a hardcore materialist. Welcome to the forum by the way, good first post, we need more people here who actually do their homework before jumping in.