One of the greatest modern art mysteries, the Marree Man, is still going strong in Australia according to NASA.
A pilot spotted the 2.6-mile-long geoglyph of an aboriginal hunter in 1998. This mysterious art is etched into the earth and even to this day, no one knows how it got there and who did it.
Known as the Marree Man, this mysterious art gained a new life in 2016 when a group from Marree, the figure's namesake town, plowed the lines in order to keep the man from fading because of erosion. Now, NASA is sharing the image that was taken in June 2019 to show the success of their efforts.
So far, the restoration team's belief that their preservation will last longer than the original holds to be true. They created wind grooves, that are made to trap water and encourage the growth of vegetation, according to NASA. They all hope that eventually, the man will turn green.
On-going mystery
A lot of people have tried to discover the origin of the Marree Man. In 2016, Dick Smith, the founder of Dick Smith Foods and Dick Smith Electronics, decided to figure out the mystery, and for two straight years, his team pored over all the evidence to see what they could find about the Marree Man. Smith believed it was professionally done, so in 2018 he offered a reward of 5,000 Australian dollars or $3,712 U.S dollars for anyone with information about its overall existence.
However, no one has come forward, but there were several who believed that it was made by an artist living in Alice Springs, though other clues suggest that the creator may not have been an American. Regardless, the Marree Man mystery is still not resolved.
What is the Marree Man?
Since a pilot noticed Marree Man in 1998, the whole mysterious work of earthen art has attracted a lot of international attention. It is etched into a plateau in South Australia, the artwork shows a hunter with what appears to be a boomerang or a stick in his hand.
Running along 3.5 kilometers or 2.2 miles from top to bottom, Marree Man is a geoglyph, which is a design made from earthen materials that are so large that it is best viewed from above. Nazca Lines in Peru is another example of an even larger geoglyph.
For years, Marree Man was a prominent feature in Landsat satellite images of the area, but the lines of the Maree Man faded over the years. By 2013, the Marree Man was hardly visible in the natural-color images that were acquired by the Operational Land Imager or OLI on Landsat 8.
In August 2016, numerous local business owners were concerned about the loss of what had become the town's tourist draw and they decided to restore the fading geoglyph. Using accurate GPS coordinates that they got from the original, they used a construction grader to redraw the Marree Man over a period of five days.
The Maree restoration team believes that their updated version will last longer than the original because they made wind grooves. These wind grooves are designed to trap water and to encourage the growth of vegetation. Once the lines turn green in the future, the geoglyph will be more visible and the chances of it faded will be pretty thin.
The origin of the geoglyph remains unknown, despite the recent announcement of a reward for credible information about who made it. There are signs that an artist living in Alice Springs may have created the geoglyph, though other clues suggest that the creator may not have been an American.
ALSO READ: Amazon Full Of Ancient Earthworks Resembling Stonehenge
