Moai statues, grassy hillside, Easter Island, Chile

Face facts

Roam the tiny, remote Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island) and you'll find almost a thousand of the stern stone faces called moai. Exactly how the statues were made and why are still open questions—but it's known that the many visages represent the ancestors of the Rapa Nui people, some of whose descendants still live on this isle more than 1,200 miles from any other settlement. The moai may seem older than these grassy hills and maybe even a little alien, but they were actually sculpted between 500 and 800 years ago from compacted volcanic ash that's as terrestrial as it comes.