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Few places in the world have been so battered by the "lunatic fringe". Easter Island's past has been misrepresented by publications featuring fables and half-truths, romantic theories, and 'unsolved mysteries'. This small dot of land has been called the Lost Continent of Mu, with statues made by ancient Lemurians. All kinds of speculations have been championed - from lost Egyptians, American Indians, Basque sailors and little men from Outer Space. The most infamous of these is by Erich Von Däniken , who suggests that a small group of "intelligent beings" were stranded here and taught the natives to make 'robot-like' statues. His main thrust is that the stone from which the statues are made is not found on the island- a complete fabrication.
Wild theories range from 'ancient secrets' of liquefying stone to levitation as a means of moving statues. One of the most bizarre suggestions as to how the statues were moved comes from a psychologist, Werner Wolff (Island of Death, Hacker Art Books, N.Y., 1948) who theorizes that the statues were carved in the volcano so that when it exploded, they would be blown across the island onto their Ahu (platforms).
What many theorists overlook is the fact that the ancient Easter Islanders did not need help from outer space or from South American cultures to construct their shrines and build their statues- they had a long tradition of stone working that stretches back across the many island groups of Polynesia and into Southeast Asia. Polynesians were (and are) creative, intelligent peoples who built extraordinary sailing canoes, massive stone structures, and had a vital art tradition. Over the centuries they gradually populated the scattered islands of the Pacific and, on the last far eastern outpost- alone in the vast seas of the South Pacific Ocean - they created a remarkable civilization on the small island of Rapa Nui.
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-(Easter Island Foundation)