Easter Island: Land
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Of The Mysterious
Tin-Can Image
When the first tourists reached ;mote, isolated Easter Island in pril (see p. 53), eager to see the lysterious stone images tor which ie island has long been renowned, icy were somewhat dismayed to nd the sites of the historic ruins ttered with heaps of Coke, ginger le and other soft drink cans.
The explanation, it turned out, ras that the United States Air Force as had a 100-man unit on the land for the past couple of years. \ is there for meterological and pace-tracking purposes, and is sup lied by a monthly C-130 airdrop rom Panama.
A reporter from Washington's wiation Dally, who was the only on-Chilean journalist to go to aster Island on the inaugural ight said the USAF had "left its in-can image pretty well all over he island", and that this "con rasted strangely (and not very avourably) with the images carved iy the primitive islanders".