One of the best at this is Lauren Mcgough, from, of all it blows my mind that its even real. Its like something out of lord of the rings, but you can do it. We built a camera harness to learn what its like to fly like an eagle. ticking these giant stone statues have fascinated and confounded visitors for centuries. Dutch explorers named this place almost 300 years ago when they spotted it on Easter Sunday. It has soul, it has life. Theyre alive. Absolutely. In the middle of the pacific, Easter Island is very difficult for most people to reach, until tonight. ticking its cyber monday at target. Weve got hundreds of doorbusters on target. Com. Save on tvs, toys, and so much more. Doorbusters start sunday. Dont miss out on cyber monday savings. Only at target. Thouwhich is Breast Cancer metastthat has spreadcer, to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. Ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr her2 metastatic Breast Cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. Ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. Patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. Ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. Tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. Before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. Common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. Be in your moment. Ask your doctor about ibrance. Dad Merry Christmas sweetheart show her that you know her with a pandora holiday gift set. I feel most times were high and low high and low enhance your moments. San pellegrino. Tastefully italian. Add a twist of flavor. San pellegrino essenza. Whitaker good evening. Im bill whitaker. Welcome to 60 minutes presents. Tonight, well end thanksgiving weekend, when so many people travel, with three Great Adventures of our own. Well soar with eagles high above mongolia, then cruise across the pacific to visit Easter Island. We begin our adventures with a trip below ground. Over the years at 60 minutes, we have been in more than a few tunnels. We explored mexican drug lord el chapos subterranean escape lla bu by movesuvius,ugh a roman and traveled the depths of the new york city subway. But nothing prepared us for a place called Moab Khotsong, a South African gold mine that extends nearly two miles beneath the surface. As we first reported last november, in their pursuit of gold, South Africans have dug the deepest holes on earth. The country was the worlds top gold producer for decades. Now, the gold is running out, just as these ultradeep mines have attracted a new breed of miner on a very different quest. We went along for the adventure. In the Early Morning light, tall mine shafts loom over the vaal river basin two hours southwest of johannesburg. This once was a booming gold field. Now, most mines lie abandoned. But Moab Khotsong is bustling. Long before the sun rises, thousands of miners start lining up for the tripledeck elevator called the cage. Its jammed, but more always push on. And early one morning, so did we. Its really snug in here. Were packed in as tight as sardines, the electric bells signal were ready, and the cage drops. Slowly at first, then picks up speed fast. We plunge 450 stories straight down. Its the longest elevator ride on earth. This is fast, its really fast the cage rattles and whistles as we descend. The air gets more humid the deeper we go. Our lifeline to the surface is a machine called the manwinder, massive coils of steel rope two inches thick that attach to the cage and unspool faster and faster. We dropped two miles in a couple of minutes, and emerged in an underground city. Its like Grand Central station at rush hour. To get to the gold, miners must walk miles through a vast maze of dimly lit tunnels. Sometimes youre lucky and can catch a ride, but mostly you just walk. For leroy lee, its in the blood. His father worked in the mines. Now its his turn. His family depends on his job. Leroy lee its four, six people its my kids, my wife, my fianceee, my mum and my sister. drilling whitaker the gold in these ultradeep mines is found in narrow veins, laced through the rock. Some are no wider than a pencil. Its cramped at the rock face, and we crouch alongside the miners as they work, hunched over in the dark. The noise from the drills is deafening. Massive air conditioners cool the tunnels, but it can still reach 120 degrees down here. Are you guys ready . Whitaker at the end of the shift, we had to rush not to miss the elevator back up. It doesnt wait for anyone. And heres where all that breaking rock pays off the smelter. The ore is smashed and pulverized in a grinder before being fed into a furnace. Monga kasongo, who runs the operation, told us we were the first tv crew to film the weekly ritual they call the pour. We all had to wear these special pajamas with no pockets so we couldnt steal anything. The heat was intense as the furnace reached almost 2,000 degrees. The gold turned to liquid and poured down into the molds. Monga kasongo when i saw it the first time, i was like, wow. Thats something that keeps me going. When you hear people who have never seen gold or touched it, i feel like im more privileged. Whitaker these bars will be refined again to 99. 99 purity before theyre sold for coins and jewelry. The mine used to process about 60 tons of gold a year. Now its just a quarter of that. Still, the day we watched the pour, there was a pretty good haul. Wow, this is quite heavy. Kasongo yes, it is. Whitaker how much is this . Kasongo 11 million rand. Whitaker in u. S. Dollars, were talking 7. 5 to 8 million u. S. Dollars for what you poured today . Kasongo yes, definitely. Whitaker that sounds like a good day . Kasongo its a good business. laughs whitaker its one thing to come here for the gold, but now this harsh environment has attracted others scientists hunting for what they call extreme life. Tullis onstott weve found water thats a billion years old. Whitaker a billion years old . Onstott a billion years old. Whitaker in these caves . Onstott right. Whitaker an International Team led by princeton geoscientist Tullis Onstott and belgian biologist Gaetan Borgonie are pioneers in the search for life buried in the rock, where no one thought it could survive. Borgonie says his colleagues thought he was crazy when he took a sabbatical to try to prove there was life deep underground. Gaetan borgonie oh, come on, they said. Youre going to go to south africa for a year, youre going to go look for something that does not exist there . Whitaker theyve lost count of the number of trips to the bottom of the mines searching for life hidden in the ancient water, seeping through the rock. Borgonie this is a completely different world down there. There are different rules. Whitaker how so . Borgonie the temperature is different; the pressure is different. I mean, its a tough world down there for life. Whitaker the next day, we went along with them to the deepest level of the mine. For them, it was just another day at the office. For us, it was an eyeopener. This feels like that movie journey to the center of the earth. With just the light from our headlamps, we waded through a tunnel that had been flooded with cold water to cool it down. Then we grabbed a chairlift cut through a channel of rock except this one went down. This is like the best disney ride ever picture five of new yorks World Trade Centers stacked on top of each other. Thats how deep in the earth we are. Now weve stopped for a second. alarms i hope its a second. We have to get off . When the chairlift stopped suddenly, we had to hike down the last 50 yards to the bottom. Then, at the end of an abandoned tunnel, our scientists found something amazing. Onstott ive been looking for 20 years for a salty water deposit like this. Never found it till now. Whitaker white patches on the wall turned out to be salt. Is that edible . Borgonie i dont know. Hes tried it. Whitaker this is ancient salt . Onstott thats the question. Has to be has to be ancient salt. Whitaker very salty. Salty salt. And the source . This dripping salt water. What does that tell you . Onstott it tells me this water is extremely old. Because in these rock formations, they were formed three billion years ago. There werent salt deposits back then. Whitaker they believe this water could be all thats left of an ancient ocean. And where theres water, there can be life. Onstott we could be looking at something which has never seen the life that has evolved on the surface of the planet. Whitaker all from this cave two miles down in south africa . Onstott all from gold mines in south africa, exactly. Whitaker in 2011, they found what no one thought possible these tiny worms living in a pocket of water 5,000 years old. What youre seeing is magnified. These worms are no bigger than a human hair. It was a species neverbefore seen. It survives without sunlight, deep in the hot underworld, so they called it mephisto, or the devil. Borgonie thats where my worms live. They eat bacteria. Whitaker the first worm you found was in Something Like that . Borgonie yeah. Whitaker using an endoscope camera, they were the first to film this deep inside the earths crust. This is the devil worms home. Before this, no one thought animal life could exist this deep. Youve made a big discovery. Borgonie for me, it is big, because for me personally, i had to fight quite a lot of people to be able to do this. On a personal level, that was the biggest victory for me. In the total grand scheme of things, its just a worm. Whitaker its just a worm . Borgonie its just a worm. Whitaker they were surprised to find other living creatures too. So many, they called them a zoo. A crustacean, about 1 64th of an inch; an arthropod; a flatworm; and singlecell bacteria. It set off a storm of speculation about where else extreme life might exist. Perhaps even on mars. Nasa helped fund their research. Borgonie if there is life here in the deep, then you should definitely dig on mars, because if life was ever there, you will find some life form, i believe very strongly, still on mars. Whitaker so the martians we meet in the future could be these singlecell organisms youre, youre talking about. Borgonie i think that would be the that is yes, indeed. I think that would be the most likely. But be prepared to be surprised, i would say. Whitaker south africas gold mines are now so deep, they might as well be on another planet. Bernard swanepoel im not sure that we really want to send human beings much deeper. Whitaker Bernard Swanepoel started his career underground, and ended it as the c. E. O. Of harmony gold, which now owns Moab Khotsong. Swanepoel if you are in a successful mining team, it must be like a successful sports team. I mean, mining is one of those activities where, at the end of every shift, you know whether you won or lost. Whitaker gold was the lifeblood of south africa. The way its dug out has changed little since apartheid, when underpaid black miners often worked in mortal danger. At its worst, more than 800 workers a year died in mining accidents. No coincidence, the struggle that led to apartheids defeat started underground. Gold and gold mining seem to be in the d. N. A. Of south africa. Swanepoel South African gold mining especially has always been at the center of all political and other activities in our country. I mean, our bad apartheid history is intertwined with gold mining. I mean, a lot of the a lot of the legislation to dispossess black people of land was in order to create cheap labor for South African gold mines. Whitaker you grew up in a small mining town during the era of apartheid. What are your strongest memories . Swanepoel well, ultimately, im a privileged person that, because i was white and i was male, those were the two requirements at the time to become a mining engineer. Whitaker so are you the new face of south African Mining . Kasongo i will say yes. We are the new generation in the mining. Whitaker just a dozen years after apartheid ended, engineer Monga Kasongo started managing the smelter. He told us he chose to move here from the congo to work in the mines. Has that wound in south africa been healed . Kasongo not 100 healed. But there is some healing happening, there is some healing, yes, because you have a different, different people working in the mines, and the mindset has been changing. Whitaker now, safety is paramount. Youll find women underground, and blacks are senior managers. Once some of the lowestpaid laborers, they are now among the highest. But this generation of gold miners know they may be the last. Of the 11 gold mines that once flourished around here, only three still operate. The mines are now so deep, its becoming too expensive to get the gold out. The story of the ultradeep mines is nearing its final chapter. To dig the riches from such astounding depths took grit and brute force. Now, south africas resolve must be deployed to solving the next challenge what to do when the gold runs out. ticking follow me to a place i know with Endless Possibilities so you can check your list off rowbyrow. Come on look around so much in store, youll spend much less but gift much more spend less, gift better. At t. J. Maxx, marshalls, and homegoods. Spend less, gift better. 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Prolia® can cause serious side effects, like low blood calcium; serious infections which could need hospitalization; skin problems; and severe bone joint, or muscle pain. Are you ready . Ask your doctor how prolia® can help strengthen your bones. With blackyou can getings, the latest features and the lowest prices of the year. Get the right appliances and put more cheer in your season. Save instantly on top rated appliances like this ge kitchen package. The home depot. More saving. More doing. nicki hi, everyone. We just passed the one Year Anniversary of our 5g launch, so lets think about it. We were the first in the world to launch 5g mobile. We flipped the switch on 14 nfl stadiums and with 5g ultra wideband, we hit over 2 gigabits per second. And were gonna be in 30 cities by the end of this year. So thank you all. This is charlie not coughing because he took delsym 12hour. And this is charlie still not coughing while trying his hardest not to wake zeus. Delsym 12hour. Nothing lasts longer for powerful cough relief. Get new deals all day during amazons cyber monday sale. Low prices and Free Shipping on millions of items. The fun starts december 2. Freedom of the press is about your right to know. Your right to be informed keeps us free, as a nation. Protect press freedom. Cbs cares. Pelley falconry, the art of hunting with birds of prey, was born in the forbidding altai mountains of central asia. As we first told you last year, hunters there still loft Golden Eagles into the sky, in a partnership of man and bird that predates recorded history. We say man, but, in truth, one of the best hunters in mongolia today is a woman from oklahoma city. Lauren mcgough took us to one of Lauren Mcgough took scott pelley to one of the most remote places on earth to meet the hunters who trained her. And, before the next few minutes are through, you will know what its like to fly like an eagle. The mongolian steppe is the greatest expanse of grassland unaltered by humankind. It endures because human existence has narrow odds between the widest climate extremes on earth 104 degrees in summer, 50 below in winter. I that yield nearly all of their food, fiber, clothing, and fuel. And, one of the oldest bonds in nature is an alliance of survival among hunters, horses, and Golden Eagles. Lauren mcgough this is the most ancient form of falconry in the world. This is where it all began. Its the cradle. So, several thousand years ago we dont know precisely when a man saw an eagle catch a rabbit or a fox, and had the ingenious idea to hunt in partnership with it. It blows my mind that its even real. Its like something out of lord of the rings, but you can do it. Pelley Lauren Mcgough was in high school when she dedicated her life to raptors. She traveled with us to the place she calls the cradle. 6,000 miles led us first to the mongolian capital of ulaan bataar. This civilization conquered the known world in the 13th century. The mongols ranged from asia to europe, the largest contiguous empire of all time. From here, we flew another 800 miles to bayanoooolgii, where mongolia, russia, china and kazakhstan meet. This was the end of the road, but not the end of our journey. We crossed the open steppe, past wild bactrian camels with two humps a vanishing species, with only about 1,000 left in the world. Our destination was a camp of nomads, people who introduced Lauren Mcgough to the golden eagle. Mcgough hello laughs pelley they hadnt seen her in two years. Mcgough it feels like i never left. laughter just in a few minutes of seeing everybody. Such a magical place. Pelley now, how did a woman from oklahoma end up out here, in mongolia . Mcgough ah, well, i read a book on falconry. And its like the fire was lit. I just knew i had to do it. And, as i was researching, i went to the library, and i found this old book that had black and white photos of eagle hunters from mongolia. So, you know, this beautiful shaggy horse, and this man with a giant eagle and a fox pelt on his horse. And it just looked like the most incredible thing. And i thought, i have to see it, i have to do it. Pelley at the age of 17, her father, a former air force stealth pilot, brought her to mongolia. Lauren returned five years later, with funding from a fulbright scholarship. Then she earned a ph. D based on her work with the eagle hunters. Mcgough these are the people that can talk to animals. Because they have relationships with goats, sheep, horses, camels, eagles. They have intimate knowledge of where Snow Leopards are and foxes are. Theres no agriculture here because the lands not arable. So, theyve ingeniously learned to domesticate animals, and then build these unique relationships with wild animals. Pelley its a relationship that she learned from people who endure the life of 19th century ranchers. They are kazakhs, who make up just 4 of mongolians. They have no running water, no electricity. They survive on meat and milk, and burn dung as fuel. The nomads live in clusters of a half dozen families or so. The boys mind the flocks, while the men ride in search of foxes to make furs for subzero survival. In all the years youve been doing this, what have you learned about these animals . A hunter named chukan gave us an answer we never saw coming. As they said in the old times if the horse makes your name famous in a race, once a year; the eagle makes your name famous 100 times a year. if i gift to people many foxes, they will say it was chukan who gifted us the foxes. Eagle hunting is more about your name being spread far and wide among the people. So, if eagle hunting is about the ego of men, we wondered how they saw Lauren Mcgough. She had her mind set on learning to hunt with the eagle. Her motivation came from deep in her heart. We just couldnt say no. When lauren first came to mongolia, it took her two weeks to catch an eagle she could call her own. How do you catch a golden eagle . Mcgough yes. So, you have a dead hare that you lay out with a crow or a raven staked nearby, and you encircle it in a net. So, the eagle on migration looks down and sees this hare that only a crow has possession of. And it thinks, ah, i can easily bully that crow out of that rabbit and have a free meal to myself. So, it comes in, and, when it tries to grab the dead rabbit, the net enfolds around the eagle. Pelley the eagle is taught to feed at the hand of the hunter. And, as long as the meals are regular, the eagles are calm, content, and come back for more. They perch on the hunters arm with a rawhide leash called a jess tied to their legs. They train the birds with a fox pelt tugged by a rope. This is what happens when the eagle zeroes in on a fox. After the bird makes the kill, the hunters ride in, strip the pelt, and give the meat to the eagle. Its a technique well over a thousand years old. We may not know exactly when it started, but you dont have to be here in mongolia very long to figure out why it began. In an area as vast as this, with game so rare, it helps to have a hunting partner that can see seven times better than a human and cover all of this at about 50 miles an hour. What is that like . The eagles were kind enough to show us. We custombuilt a soft, rubber camera harness, and learned how to fly. Golden eagles are abundant all around the northern hemisphere. In terms of survival as a species, conservationists call Golden Eagles an animal of least concern. Mcgough this is a tenpound bird. Which, dont be fooled if that doesnt sound like a lot. They have hollow bones, and theyre mostly feathers. So, ten pounds on a bird is an enormous bird. They have a sixfoot wingspan. They usually have lovely amber eyes. And the name golden eagle derives from the beautiful golden feathers on their nape. And then, the rest pelley around the neck . Mcgough yes, around the neck. Theyre incredibly effective at killing, which is what theyre built for. I mean, theyre a modernday velociraptor. A perfect product of evolution. I will never be tired of a golden eagle flying. Every time, it thrills me. Pelley the eagles talons can close on its prey with a bonecrushing force of 900 pounds per square inch a fun fact that is no fun to know. Come on, sweetheart. Mcgough perfect. Very good. And then, go ahead and stand up. And then, to secure the eagle, place your jesses between your thumb and the rest of your fingers. Pelley right here . Mcgough yes. Pelley okay. Mcgough the noise that the eagle recognizes is kah, kah. Whenever youre ready, just take off her hood. Pelley remove the hood . Mcgough yes. Kah. Kahkah. Good girl. Pelley laughs oh, god, what a feeling. Notice she said, good girl. The only eagles worthy of partnership are female. Theyre t ironic, since the human partner is traditionally male. Of all the eagle hunters youve known, how does lauren rate . How good is she . She is at the same level as men. She could compete with them. Lauren, at 32, is considered one of the best falconers in the world. She has brought the ancient ways to oklahoma, where she rehabilitates raptors and trained with her own eagle named miles. What is the career of one of these eagles . Mcgough so, an eagle is trapped the first year, second year, maybe third year, on its migration. And then, it has a time with an eagle hunter, which could be as short as a year, or as long as six, seven, eight years. Eventually, they return that eagle back to the wild. Pelley it is part of the tradition to let them go . Mcgough yes. They firmly believe that an older eagle should be in the wild. Pelley what do you say to some people who might watch this and think that the eagles are being abused . That they shouldnt be caught . Mcgough i would encourage anybody that has doubts to go out with a falconer in this country or in the United States or anywhere. We only encourage their natural instincts. The only difference is you are right there. You have a frontrow seat to see this incredibly millionyearold predatorprey relationship. Pelley do you worry that, one day, there will be no more eagle hunters . A hunter named ouni told us, no, it is an essential art that kazakhs are born with. Since kazakhs have come to the earth, they have been practicing this tradition. It will not disappear. Also, each of us has a young person that we teach, like this boy. It passes from generation to generation. Whats at stake if this tradition is lost . Mcgough this is where man first figured out that he could have a relationship with a raptor. And what a loss would it be for humanity if it was gone. We can take an individual eagle and bring it from the spectrum of wild all the way to tame, and then wild again. And we get to see what theyre capable of, up close and in person. Man, if that understanding of eagles and animals were to leave, i thats not a world i want to live in. Pelley the boy named bekka is the hope of his familys traditional world. Hes learning horsemanship and falconry, and it was with bekka that we discovered the most endangered species on the steppe the nomads themselves. There may be only 300 eagle hunters left, a rare breed of human still speaking the language of the wild. ticking how did the 60 minutes team get these shots . You know, i had a knee brace, i and i had some ideas. Go to 60minutesovertime. Com when we see you enter through our doors, we dont see who youre against, or for, whether tomorrow will be light or dark, all we see in you, is a spark we see your spark in each nod, each smile, we see sparks in every aisle. We see you find a hidden gem, and buying diapers at 3am. We see your kindness and humanity. The strength of each community. Weve seen more sparks than we can say. About 20 million just yesterday. The more we look the more we find, the sparks that make america shine. Of millions of americans during the recession. So, my wife kat and i took action. We started a Nonprofit Community bank with a simple theory give people a fair deal and real economic power. Invest in the community, in businesses owned by women and people of color, in affordable housing. The difference between words and actions matters. Thats a lesson politicians in washington could use right now. Im tom steyer, and i approve this message. [narrator] forget about vacuuming for up to a month. Shark iq robot deepcleans and empties itself into a base you can empty once a month. And unlike standard robots that bounce around, it cleans row by row. If its not a shark, its just a robot. ticking whitaker now we take you on a journey to Easter Island. Its one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. Far into the pacific, 2,200 miles due west from the coast of chile. Dutch explorers gave it its name after they spotted it on Easter Sunday in 1722. What they found has fascinated and confounded the world ever since giant stone statues that tower over the islands landscape. Theyre called moai, and as Anderson Cooper first reported last spring, there is noting quite like them anywhere in the world. Cooper when dawn breaks on Easter Island, it is the moai that first feel the sun. These 15 moai at a site called tongariki are perhaps the most famous. Carved out of volcanic rock, theyre placed on a stone platform, called an ahu. The tallest is nearly 30 feet. They stand, strange silent sentinels, facing away from the sea, watching over the land and its people. At least 1,000 moai can be found scattered across this island, which is about the size of washington, d. C. Many more moai remain buried underground. To the descendants of those who built them, these are more than statues made of stone. They are immortal branches of an ancient family tree. Pedro edmunds paoa the moai represent an ancestor. And we believe in ancestor that goes beyond this life but is helping us, guiding you. Cooper is a moai a distinct individual ancestor . Or can it also be the family line of that ancestor . Paoa both. Cooper Pedro Edmunds paoa is the longtime mayor of the only town on Easter Island. So when you see the moai today, its not just something from the past. Its something that is alive, that has power right now . Paoa yes. We Indigenous People from this island believe in that. Cooper the Indigenous People here believe their ancestors and family lines are represented by specific groups of moai. Mayor edmunds paoa says his are at a site called tahai. Paoa my genealogy traces to, all the way to that site, 85 times. Cooper it goes back that far . Paoa yes. More than 1,000 years. Cooper that is entirely possible. No one knows for sure the exact date the first people came here, but its believed to have been somewhere around 800 to 1,200 years ago. Archaeological evidence indicates they sailed from an Unknown Island in polynesia, a dangerous journey across more than 1,000 miles of open ocean. Those first settlers brought with them their tradition of carving, but they made much smaller statues. They also brought a belief in a mystical force called mana. How do you describe mana . What is mana . Paoa mana is, is, is, is beyond description. If we were to describe it of todays language, is knowledge. Cooper knowledge . Paoa could be interpret as wisdom, as an energy that gives you strength. Cooper do the moai still have mana . Paoa sure. It has soul. It has life. Cooper theyre alive . Paoa absolutely. Cooper according to legend, when important islanders died, their mana flowed out of their bodies into the moai. Paoa the mana is here. The mana is here. Cooper its a hard concept for my small mind to imagine. Paoa for human like you guys from the city, you dont understand these things, because you worry about working, like, disciplined animals. Cooper those who believe in mana say its not just in the moai, it can be found in everything here in the waves that constantly crash ashore, in the rocky soil, and in the green grass that blankets the island. Jo Anne Van Tilburg these objects, in the middle of what looks like a barren landscape, they speak to you. They draw you in. They they make you want to to know more. I think that thats the power of them. And when you see how tall they really are. Cooper jo Anne Van Tilburg is a u. C. L. A. Professor of archaeology. She has been coming here for nearly 40 years, working with local researchers and artists, excavating and cataloging the statues, trying to understand the mysteries, and what she calls the magic, of the moai. Van tilburg theyre tight lipped, these statues. Cooper they dont give up their secrets easily. Van tilburg they they dont give up their secrets easily. And they dont give them up to outsiders easily. Cooper to learn the moais secrets, you have to start where nearly all of them were made. Around the vent of a dormant o,nt quarry of raar there are some 400 moai here, more than in any other spot on the island. The largest one, never raised upright, is almost 70 feet long and weighs at least 250 tons, as heavy as some passenger jets. Based on excavations, jo Anne Van Tilburg and other archaeologists have done, and analysis of soil samples and objects found around the statues, van tilburg believes the height of moai construction was around 1300 to the mid 1400s, though moai did continue to be carved until or just after the First Contact with europeans in 1722. I mean, is it not possible with carbon dating or other scientific techniques to know exactly when . Van tilburg unfortunately not. You cant date stone, this stone, in that manner. Cooper when the first Archaeological Survey was done on the island in 1914, all the moai except those in the quarry were found lying on the ground. There are several plausible theories how they got there. Certain statues may have simply fallen from neglect. Others were knocked over in earthquakes, and some were intentionally toppled during fighting between competing family groups. Today, some moai are only partially visible, just their famous faces stick out of the ground. The rest of their bodies are buried under sediment thats naturally built up over the centuries. Van tilburg this one is at least only about onethird above ground. Cooper wow. So twothirds of this are actually below ground. Van tilburg yes, yes. Cooper at first glance, the moai all look alike, but van tilburg says no two are the same. How are they different . Van tilburg well, theyre different in the line of their mouth. Theyre different in, of course, their size and shape. Theyre different in their expressions. Whether their head is tilted up, or lowered slightly, or to the side. Cooper these two moai, theyre unfinished . Van tilburg theyre unfinished. Cooper visitors here have long debated how the moai were made, given the stoneage conditions on the island when the statues were being carved. Van tilburg says, the answer is all around. There are thousands of stone carving tools scattered throughout the quarry. Van tilburg this was a handheld instrument that was used. And if you hold it, you can actually feel where people may have put their fingers. Cooper wow. Van tilburg which was actually used to rough out the sculpture. Cooper you can actually feel the sort of the the hand van tilburg yeah, you can. Cooper wow. Thats amazing. Van tilburg isnt that cool . Cooper i mean and this was literally just laying ten feet away. I mean van tilburg and you put it in your hand, and you can feel where the other persons hand was who who ac who actually used this. Cooper thats incredible. Van tilburg when you talk about mystery and magic, thats it, right there. Cooper but magic alone couldnt move the moai from the quarry to sites on the coast in some cases, more than eight miles away. That took muscle and ingenuity. Van tilburg has tested a theory she believes that moai were placed horizontally on sleds, and dragged over logs. Island legend says the statues walked, and some archaeologists have tested that theory as well, moving them upright, carefully wobbling them back and forth. You may have also heard an out ofthisworld theory about space aliens making and moving the moai. It may sound ridiculous, but its still believed by many visitors today. You must have people asking you about extraterrestrials building these. Van tilburg yes, yes, i do. Cooper so, i mean, i just have to ask, any possibility of that . You dont believe it, though. Van tilburg no, i dont believe it. Cooper Easter Island was annexed by chile in 1888. Half of the 8,000 people who now live here are chilean immigrants. The other half are modern descendants of those original polynesian settlers. They call themselves and the island rapa nui. In 2017, chile finally gave them control of the National Park where the moai and other important archaeological sites are located. The park covers more than 40 of the island. The island of rapa nui was formed out of voic starting some three million years ago. There are now three dormant volcanoes that dominate the landscape. This one is called rano kau. No one knows exactly how many archaeological sites there are on the island, but this place is like a living museum, constantly battered by the sun, the wind and the rain. Those three elements are, over time, destroying the moai. These statues may look as though theyre solid stone, but theyre actually quite porous. Jo Anne Van Tilburg showed us a small piece of the soft volcanic rock, called tuff, that the moai are made from. Van tilburg tuff has really special qualities that where it can be carved and it can be polished quite easily. Cooper its good for sculpting because it its with a harder stone, its able to be chipped away easily. Van tilburg correct, correct. Cooper so the very material which made made these statues possible also, long term, makes them vul very vulnerable. Van tilburg exactly. Cooper rainwater and airborne seeds get into the pores of tuff, gradually breaking it apart. The wind whittles the stone away over time, and further damage is done by birds, and an organism called lichen. Some moai are in worse condition than others. Take a look at this one, called tukuturi. This photograph is from 1955, when it was unearthed. This is how tukuturi looks today. Van tilburg the stone breaks very easily. It is just not stable. Cooper essentially, i mean, theyre dissolving. Van tilburg yeah, they are. I mean, if theyre standing out in the rain, theyre melting like sugar cubes. Cooper like sugar cubes in the rain . Van tilburg exactly. Its that dramatic. Cooper in the 1990s, with help from the japanese government, the 15 moai at tongariki, which had fallen or been toppled over, were reconstructed, along with the stone platform they now stand on. The u. N. Has declared Easter Island a World Heritage site, and efforts to slow the disintegration of the statues with a chemical sealant have been underway for decades. But so far only about 20 moai have been treated. The process is expensive, money the island doesnt have. Its also not a permanent solution. The sealant only delays the inevitable. One day, these moai will likely disappear. Is there a plan . A conservation plan . An environmental plan for long term, in the future . Paoa no. Cooper theres not . Paoa none. None at all. Cooper mayor Pedro Edmunds paoa is frustrated. There is a lack of consensus among the rapa nui about how to preserve the moai. And the islands infrastructure is under pressure from all the tourists who want to come see the statues. A few decades ago, there were only two incoming flights a week. Now, there are two almost every day. Cruise ships also make regular calls, just long enough for passengers to get off the boat, grab some souvenirs, and snap a few selfies. In all 120,000 tourists visited last year. Paoa thats too much. Cooper if tourism continues to grow, is that sustainable here . Paoa no its not sustainable. Karatis a historiano earns his living training tour guides. Do you have concerns about the impact of tourism . Cristian Moreno Pakarati so in material terms, the community has never been better. But in general, its much less friendly than it was some time ago. Cooper he says, the more the island caters to tourists, the less like home it is for the people whose ancestors built the moai. Pakarati today, we are kind of forced to see the statues from far away, just like the tourists that come here. People of my generation, right, we could go there and touch the statues, and and be part of the statues, and hug the statues. How can i explain to my son, today, that my son cannot do that . Cooper despite no longer being able to touch them, he still feels the same sense of wonder hes always experienced when visiting the moai. Youve been here probably thousands of times. Pakarati 1,000 times, yeah. No, its still awesome. Its something that you you still feel awe when youre here. Cooper cristian Moreno Pakarati supports the efforts to preserve the moai, but believes it will take more than mana and money. He has his own, somewhat radical idea on how to ensure the moai keep standing. Pakarati the only way to keep them alive is to keep alive the art of making and moving statues. Cooper so you would like to see the people of rapa nui making new moai. Pakarati thats right. Because these will disappear one day. So if the art of making them is still alive, we will never lose the statues. ticking does your battery deliver extra lifextra life. Power . Extra power. Extra life. Extra power. Extra life. Power. Life. Power. Extra life. No need to argue. Vs. Coppertop, new duracell optimum delivers extra life in some devices or extra power in others. Your colds gonna make you a zombie tomorrow. Wrong. 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