is in eastern Polynesia within the Pacific Ocean.

And what it's most famous for is the many hundreds

of huge stone statues

of these human forms, oversized human heads

with bodies that are almost always partially

buried beneath the ground.

The local name of these statues is Moai.

And these statues would seem to represent deified ancestors.

They're manufactured from local volcanic rock.

In size, they can be as much as 30 or more feet in height.

And they can weigh anything up to 80 tons apiece.

PAUL BAHN: The Moai are enormous blocks of stone.

And they moved several hundred of them from the quarry

quite some distance to the platforms

around the edge of the island and there have been

many theories over the years as to how they were moved.

The first theory is thought that they must have been

dragged horizontally on sledges or rollers or something

of that kind. On the other hand, many people

including myself would say we think it's more likely

they were moved vertically. It would be very dangerous

to lower a standing statue down to the ground, then drag it

for how many miles and then have to raise it again

at the other end.

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: The idea that the trees

were cut down at some point falls by the wayside

because wooden rollers would not be able to support

the weight of some of these statues.

So you have to wonder, how were these Moai

transported back in the day?

HUGH NEWMAN: So there were traditions

of something called mana on Easter Island,

which is a spiritual power...

(thunder crashes)

...which was supposed to be imbued, actually,

into the stone Moai themselves and some of the traditions,

uh, describe them walking from the quarry to their platforms.

TSOUKALOS: So one has to wonder if mana

was some type of extraterrestrial technology

that allowed these stones to be levitated into place.