Much more Egyptian models are known for the so-called "Colombian golden airplanes". The name is rather arbitrary, since they were found not only in Colombia, but also in Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru. And they are not made of gold, but of tombak - an alloy of gold and copper, in which there is about 30% copper, which gives them beautiful color shades.
However, this name still has some grounds, since the first of these models were discovered during one of the archaeological expeditions in the 19th century, precisely on the territory of Colombia. These findings were transferred to the Colombian State Bank, where they were listed in catalogs as "zoomorphic figurines." However, it is understandable - at that time there were no planes yet, and the models themselves looked like living creatures with eyes, teeth, scales carved into the body and other attributes of living creatures, so they were all associated with outlandish animals that could die out a few more hundreds of years ago, but not with airplanes.
Archaeologists associate the origin of these products with the local culture of Kimbaya, which arose around the 1st century AD, flourished during the 4th-7th centuries, and completely disappeared around the 10th century for unknown reasons. Although there is a version that these finds were created by representatives of another local culture - the Tolima culture, which existed at about the same time.
Today, more than three dozen such "zoomorphic figurines" are known, most of which are kept in the Gold Museum in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. All "figures" are very small - only 4 to 8 centimeters.
It is believed that they were worn on laces and used as amulets or pendants, but this is highly controversial. The fact is that, for example, most of the Kimbai gold items were found in ancient "sarcophagi" made of hollow tree trunks, that is, they represent the so-called burial utensils and have a "cult" character. In general, gold products here (as, indeed, throughout South America) were practically not used in everyday life or as jewelry, since gold was considered the metal of gods, not people, and was primarily a kind of "pass" to the afterlife.
The fate of the "zoomorphic figures" is similar to the fate of the Egyptian "birdie" - they were not noticed for a long time either. Neither those who viewed them in the Museum of Gold in Bogota, nor visitors to the traveling exhibitions "Treasures of Colombia", where these finds were exhibited, although such exhibitions were held in various countries of the world.
It was only in 1969 that the American jeweler Emanuel Staub noticed that one of the winged figures, a copy of which he had, somehow very much like an airplane. He made a cast of his figurine and forwarded it to his friend, the famous zoologist Ivan Sanderson, leader of the Society for the Study of the Unexplained, with a request to determine if it looked like any known animal. The zoologist carefully studied the cast and stated with confidence that there was nothing like it in the animal world. Then similar casts were sent to aircraft designers and engineers of that time. As one, they argued that these were not animals, but reduced copies of aircraft.
At the end of the same 1969, Ivan Sanderson published an article in the magazine "Argosy", which caused a sensation, because it indicated that aviation experts were able to see the fuselage, cockpit, wings and stabilizers on the ancient figures. It was after this article that the search for similar figurines in museums around the world began, and it turned out that their number exceeds three dozen. And Staub's "airplane" gained such popularity that it even became the emblem of the "Society of Ancient Astronauts" (AAS) - an organization of researchers in the paleocontact of Erich von Daniken.
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Around the "Colombian airplanes" serious controversy unfolded, which was fueled by the fact that far from all the figures of this type exhibit the same vivid external resemblance to the plane as the specimen examined by Sanderson. Moreover, the figurine makers clearly portrayed some kind of living creature, as evidenced by the eyes and mouth. Naturally, the classification of these objects by specialists in the ancient cultures of America has a biological connotation. Winged amulets are often associated, for example, with the "cult of insects." A similar exhibit from the Museum of Natural History in Chicago is labeled "flying fish", and its counterpart from the Museum of Primitive Art in New York is presented to the public as a "winged crocodile."
And yet, despite the difference in shape, almost all winged figures made of gold have clearly aerodynamic shapes and a schematic diagram of an aircraft, which has no exact correspondences in nature. It is easy to find the cockpit, fuselage, horizontal wings, stabilizers and vertical keel on the figurines. And stylization under animals most likely only indicates that the manufacturers of these masterpieces no longer knew what kind of designs they were, and made their own "additions" (in accordance with their simplified perception), which ultimately distorted the original appearance of the prototype …
What is stylized - an airplane or a fish?..
The disputes, which were more of a purely speculative nature, could go on indefinitely if those who prefer not to theorize, but to check everything with the help of experiment, did not get down to business. Two avid German aviamodelling enthusiasts from the small town of Lehr - medic Algund Enbom and Air Force officers Peter Belting - decided to build enlarged copies of winged figures and test them in flight.
To create the copies, they chose two figurines that most resemble an airplane - the one that became famous thanks to Sanderson's publications, and the gold amulet kept at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The models created by Enbom and Belting were 16 times larger than the miniature originals, but retained all their proportions and basic shape features. Although the models were not exact copies - we had to remove the strange cutouts on the wings, make them curved according to the rules of aerodynamics, and not flat, smooth and straighten the fuselage, get rid of interfering protrusions and the like, which could be attributed to the distortions introduced by the manufacturers of the figures …
The models were made from expanded polystyrene and balsa wood, a very light wood used in aircraft modeling. For a more similarity, the copies were covered with golden paint. And since it was impossible to determine what kind of engine could stand on them by the appearance of the Colombian airplanes, radio-controlled models were created in two versions - with a propeller and with a jet engine.
Enlarged copies of Colombian airplanes.
The first tests of the models took place in 1996. These tests were watched by a huge number of people, among whom were both scientists from various fields of science and many skeptics who did not believe that copies of the figures could fly.
The result was stunning. Radio-controlled models were even able to perform such aerobatics as kick and loop. They confidently maneuvered in the air and made a landing, despite the occasional wind. During the tests, the models showed absolutely no aerodynamic deficiencies. Even with the engine off, they were planning excellently.
After this experiment, many aircraft modelers began to create aircraft models of these or those golden figures. And in April 1998, hundreds of participants in the annual congress of the German Society for Aviation and Astronautics watched the demonstration flights of models. Scientists, aircraft designers, pilots and engineers present at the speech had no doubts after the flights they saw that the golden "airplanes" were copies of flying machines. And they all were unanimous in their opinion - the design of these aircraft is perfect!..
However, no tests helped answer the question of where the ancient Indians saw the planes …
Specialists in the archeology of pre-Columbian civilizations, far from knowledge in technical fields, did not react to the results of model tests and remained unconvinced. The plaque in the Gold Museum still says that the showcase contains "stylized birds, lizards, amphibians, fish and insects typical of the region."
A. Sklyarov