The Mysterious Marree Man of South Australia

In June 1998 a local pilot flying over the remote South Australian desert discovered an enormous drawing of an Aboriginal man hunting with a throwing stick made on the desert floor, about 60 km west of the town of Marree. The figure is 4.2 km tall with a perimeter of 28 km, making it one of the single largest geoglyph in the world. The figure is so huge it can only be seen in its entirely from above 3,000 feet. Unlike many geoglyphs found around the world which were created by ancient civilizations, Marree Man is recent, carved into the landscape not more than 18 years ago. The figure was created by scraping off vegetation and soil, possibly by a GPS-assisted bulldozer, which experts estimate must have taken between four and eight weeks to complete. It was created in such secrecy that there is not one witness who could attest to its creation. Thanks to its remoteness, nobody had heard or seen anything, nor anyone has assumed responsibility for it. To this date, it remains one of the world's great unsolved modern mysteries. Photo credit: Peter Campbell/Wikimedia When it was discovered, the outline of the figure was 20-30 cm deep and up to 35 meters wide. Assuming the bulldozer was 2.5 meter wide, this would require up to 14 passes. A quick calculation reveals that the bulldozer would have covered 400 kilometers and used up more than 300 liters of fuel. It was a herculean effort. The figure is so beautifully drawn and such well-proportioned that the artist must have used a computer to superimpose the figure over an aerial or satellite photograph of the site, and adjusted to fit the geography. He (or she) must have then mapped out the latitude and longitude coordinates, and then using expert surveying skills plotted the outline over the terrain with the aid of a hand-held GPS device. Stakes could have been placed every hundred meters or so.