 Although the Olmec culture has been historically established as having flourished within the now dense jungles of Guatemala, there also exists many pre-Olmec ruins and artifacts that are still baffling researchers and historians alike. The great head of Guatemala being one of the most controversial of all. This enormous stone face indicates that not only the Olmecs or indeed native Hispanic race once called Guatemala home. A gigantic, masterfully carved stone head with a face of fine features, thin lips and large nose once engulfed in millennia of vegetation, directed to the sky as if in eternal prayer. The discovery unsurprisingly attracted a lot of attention, yet just as predictably due to its unquestioned controversy quickly slipped into the pages of forgotten history. The initial discovery first emerged when Dr. Oscar Raphael Padilla Lara, a doctor of philosophy, lawyer and notary, received a photograph of the head in 1987 along with a vague description. It stated that the photograph was taken in the 1950s by the owner of the land and that it was located, quote, somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala. The site was later established to have been 10 kilometers from a small village in the south of Guatemala. However, when Dr. Padilla managed to travel to the site, a short while after the discovery had been widely circulated throughout the country, he found that the site, along with the Caucasian featured stone face, had been obliterated. He stated, quote, it was destroyed by revolutionaries about 10 years ago. We had located the statue too late. It was used as target practice by rebels. This totally disfigured it, sort of like the way the Sphinx in Egypt had its nose shot off by the Turks. Only worse, the eyes, nose and mouth had been completely destroyed, end quote. Padilla was able to measure its height, as having been between 4 and 6 meters. Although predictably, the stone head had been destroyed due to its controversial nature, it may still shine light on who was flourishing in the jungles, far before any Olmec had ever stepped foot there. Additionally, and fortunately, the stone head is not the only pre-Olemic statue ever found. Named the Fat Boys, these other artifacts are another set of statues that, although not as racially controversial, possess characteristics even more so for the scientific world. These statues, retrieved and displayed, were discovered many years later to actually contain magnetic elements, which along with a number of anthropomorphic artworks from the same suspected civilization have magnetic characteristics positioned at specific locations. On the Fat Boys, it is found at the naval, although the animal statues seemingly contain them around the faces. So the question is obvious. How did an ancient culture located so far back within history not only know about this magnetism, but managed to create such artworks? Why did they create them? Were they attempting to tell their distant ancestors something? Regardless of the controversy surrounding their creators, they are undoubtedly highly compelling. Honduras, Central America. Within the deep and dark jungles of this region, large expanses have remained untouched by humans for thousands of years. Practically impenetrable, the native plants alone can grow up to 70 meters in size. Whatever it is that lay in this place, it has remained out of reach from countless astute adventurers who have ventured into these unknown forests in search of the legendary treasure which the trees have protected for millennia. The ancient city was first recorded by Hernón Cortes in 1526. Less than five years after vanquishing the Aztecs, he came to the colonial town of Trudillo on the north coast of Honduras to look for the mythical city of gold. Cortes' search for this Central American elder Arado marks the beginning of the known hunt for Sardad Blanca. In 1939, American researcher Theodore Maud claimed he found evidence of large ruins deep in the jungles. He also told of an ancient legend told to him by payer guides. A story of immense temples with large stone staircases leading to their entrances and of a giant gold statue of a monkey god in the center of the city. The oral legends of the Peck Indians who inhabited the territory of Honduras 2,500 years before Christopher Columbus corroborates this report. The heart of the temple was a huge level stone platform on which was the statue of the monkey god himself. The steps of this platform were said to have been flanked by a colossal image of a frog on one side and the crocodile on the other. All accounts agree that the city was stacked full of gold, whoever they were, they were clearly a very wealthy people. The white city was also said to have been the birthplace of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. According to the ancestors of the indigenous Peck people whose exact genealogical origin is still a complete mystery, he built a white city of immense proportions. The city was a sacred place of great beauty and was stuffed to the brim with gold. Many have claimed to have found it in the past, yet they have all lack proof of their discovery. Many began to believe it was just a myth. However, for a very long time, visitors to the jungle have become lost, those lucky enough to escape its clutches have reported stumbling across this large city lost deep within the dense jungle. And along the Platano River, many mysterious ancient petroglyphs have been discovered carved into the rocks by an as yet unknown ancient jungle civilization. These are now suspected to be marker stones leading to the city. These reports led a team of explorers into these deep forests in search of this amazing place. And they have actually managed to locate prehistoric foundations and ancient mounds, which are indeed linked to the fabled city of Asadad Blanka. Using lidar technology, they were able to locate a complex of mounds, ancient ruins, canals, roads, and terraces all leading into an impenetrable section of jungle, all suddenly becoming visible from laser reflections off the tree canopies in the Moskvisha region of the Honduras rainforests. With plant life 70 meters in height and with foliage many centuries old, the team has barely scratched the surface of this immense place and have not yet been able to penetrate the forest sufficiently to enter the central city ruins. What amazing treasures could be laying in this place? Could it really be stacked full of ancient gold? All stories attributed to this mystical place have so far been confirmed as true, so there is no reason to doubt the other information, meaning that there is a very high possibility of a mountain of ancient gold cast by an as yet unknown civilization resting in the Central American jungle, just waiting to be found. Really compelling. If one were to mention the incredible feats of engineering undertaken by our now lost ancient ancestors, in particular, gigantic walls, some may lean towards the impressive sheer enormity of the megalithic stones within the wall of Gornaya Shoria, or more commonly, the Great Wall of China is the more popular choice or the more obscure, lesser known Great Wall of India. Undoubtedly, the Great Wall of China was a feat of monstrous proportions, having been built to such a scale it's visible from space, yet what many more are unaware of is an ancient kingdom once located in Southwestern Nigeria. Known as the Walls of Benin, they dwarf the Walls of China, a series of defensively constructed earthworks called Aya in Edo. They consist of 9.3 miles of inner-city walls and an estimated 9,900 miles of outer wall. The walls of Benin City were described as, quote, the world's largest earthwork carried out prior to the mechanical era, end quote, by the Guinness Book of Records. The Benin City Walls have been known of by Westerners since around the 1500s. Portuguese explorer Duarte Pacheco Pereira briefly described the walls during his travels. Another description was given around 1600 by the Dutch explorer Derrick Reiders. Reiders' account of the walls is as follows, quote, at the gate where I entered on horseback, I saw very high, very thick walls of earth with a very deep broad ditch around. They were dry and full of high trees. Who built these walls? Or indeed, how did they accomplish such a mind-boggling feat? Traditional accounts suggested that assuming a 10-hour workday with a labor force of some 5,000 men, it could have been completed within just 97 days. However, these estimates have been criticized over the years in many ways, one in particular being a lack of account for the time it would have taken to extract earth from ever-deepening holes. Yet, regardless of these discrepancies in opinion, regarding the challenge in its creation, or indeed their age or origin, we find these walls highly compelling. We have, on many occasions, covered the many astonishing ancient rock-cut structures which can be found virtually all over the world. Megalithic creations, often carved from a single piece of stone or dry build, constructed out of impossibly huge stones. And recently, we have touched upon the more impressive stone sites to be found, such as the horseshoe-shaped piece of granite, decided upon by someone, or something, as the base rock for what many perceive to be the most impressive artistic wonder on earth. A structure named after a mountain, we also suspect, has witnessed extreme excavation work in the past, as did the Giza Plateau. Indeed, although little known, acres of solid natural stone were excavated from the Giza Plateau as the foundation bed for the most incredibly elaborate pyramid found anywhere. Who could have accomplished such gargantuan tasks over 3,000 years ago? But I digress. Our topic of this video is a wonderful gem hidden upon our earth. In fact, the largest and seemingly most impressive of them all, so impressive, in fact, a number of individuals, specialists, tasked with the investigation of this astonishing structure and the construction thereof. Some for over 12 years of extensive investigation have been resigned to the conclusion alien influences could have only been responsible for the completion of the structure at such an ancient time in our history. Known as the Lost City of Angkor, this due to its extended duration hidden beneath several thousand highly established tree roots, it was once the capital city of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. However, a similar theory can be applied regarding the Khmer Empire's success to the ancient Egyptian civilization's notorious longevity. It is, of course, a possibility that we have covered regarding Giza before, that these ancient cultures partook in probably the earliest form of graffiti, presumably ordered by the current rulers to add their own deity depictions to these already ancient and astonishing structures. It would be a logical decision for a successful leader of an ancient group of people, namely self-declared Hindu monarch, Jayavarman too, who also declared himself a universal monarch and a god king to make the decision to claim such mastery as their own creation. When visitors entered the area, they would immediately assume that your group had constructed this awe-inspiring temple, undoubtedly intimidating, and additionally giving incredible security to your people as the temple even possessed an impressive moat, an instant advantage over all surrounding tribes, not hewn from a single rock, but created using no less impressive techniques, undoubtedly requiring the same perfection in artistic ability as Kailash Temple. Five million blank stone blocks were perfectly laid upon one another, slowly forming a template. These stones were then individually and perfectly carved into the astonishing wonder we see before us today. As the blocks were pre-laid, this means whoever the sculptors were had only one chance to get the carvings right, a feat they seemingly accomplished. Who built the lost city of Angkor? Kailash, the pyramids, Baalbeck, et cetera, et cetera? The list of utterly perplexing sites grows every day, but thankfully, so does our knowledge.