Ley lines (
/leɪ laɪnz/) refer to straight alignments drawn between various historic structures and prominent landmarks. The idea was developed in early 20th-century Europe, with ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognised by ancient European societies which deliberately erected structures along them. Since the 1960s, members of the
Earth Mysteries movement and other
esoteric traditions have commonly believed that such ley lines demarcate "
earth energies" and serve as guides for alien spacecraft. Archaeologists and scientists regard ley lines as an example of
pseudo-archaeology and
pseudo-science.
The idea of "leys" as straight tracks across the landscape was put forward by the English
antiquarian Alfred Watkins in the 1920s, particularly in his book
The Old Straight Track. He argued that straight lines could be drawn between various historic structures and that these represented trade routes created by ancient British societies. Although he gained a small following, Watkins' ideas were never accepted by the British archaeological establishment, a fact that frustrated him. His critics noted that his ideas relied on drawing lines between sites established at different periods of the past. They also argued that in prehistory, as in the present, it was impractical to travel in a straight line across hilly or mountainous areas of Britain, rendering his leys unlikely as trade routes. Independently of Watkins' ideas, a similar notion—that of
Heilige Linien ('holy lines')—was raised in 1920s Germany. It was later endorsed by various
Nazis.
During the 1960s, Watkins' ideas were revived in altered form by British proponents of the
countercultural Earth Mysteries movement. In 1961, Tony Wedd put forward the belief that leys were established by prehistoric communities to guide alien spacecraft. This view was promoted to a wider audience in the books of
John Michell, particularly his 1969 work
The View Over Atlantis. Michell's publications were accompanied by the launch of the
Ley Hunter magazine and the appearance of a ley hunter community keen to identify ley lines across the British landscape. Ley hunters often combined their search for ley lines with other esoteric practices like
dowsing and
numerology and with a belief in a forthcoming
Age of Aquarius that would transform human society. Although often hostile to archaeologists, some ley hunters attempted to ascertain scientific evidence for their belief in earth energies at prehistoric sites, evidence they could not obtain. Following sustained archaeological criticism, the ley hunter community dissipated in the 1990s, with several of its key proponents abandoning the idea and moving into the study of
landscape archaeology and
folkloristics. Belief in ley lines nevertheless remains common among some esoteric religious groups, such as forms of
modern Paganism, in both Europe and North America.
Archaeologists note that there is no evidence that ley lines were a recognised phenomenon among ancient European societies and that attempts to draw them typically rely on linking together structures that were built in different historical periods. Archaeologists and statisticians have demonstrated that a random distribution of a sufficient number of points on a plane will inevitably create
alignments of random points purely by chance.
Skeptics have also stressed that the esoteric idea of earth energies running through ley lines has not been scientifically verified, remaining an article of faith for its believers.
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Ley lines have been characterised as a form of
pseudoscience. On
The Skeptic's Dictionary, the American philosopher and
skeptic Robert Todd Carroll noted that none of the claims about magnetic forces underpinning putative ley lines have been scientifically verified.
Williamson and Bellamy characterised ley lines as "one of the biggest red herrings in the history of popular thought". One criticism of Watkins' ley line theory states that given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in
Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that "connect" sites is trivial and ascribable to
coincidence. Johnson stated that "ley lines do not exist." He cited Williamson and Bellamy's work in demonstrating this, noting that their research showed how "the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites."
A study by
David George Kendall used the techniques of
shape analysis to examine the triangles formed by standing stones to deduce if these were often arranged in straight lines. The shape of a triangle can be represented as a point on the sphere, and the distribution of all shapes can be thought of as a distribution over the sphere. The sample distribution from the standing stones was compared with the theoretical distribution to show that the occurrence of straight lines was no more than average.
The archaeologist
Richard Atkinson once demonstrated this by taking the positions of
telephone boxes and pointing out the existence of "telephone box leys". This, he argued, showed that the mere existence of such lines in a set of points does not prove that the lines are deliberate artefacts, especially since it is known that telephone boxes were
not laid out in any such manner or with any such intention.
In 2004, John Bruno Hare wrote:
Watkins never attributed any supernatural significance to leys; he believed that they were simply pathways that had been used for trade or ceremonial purposes, very ancient in origin, possibly dating back to the Neolithic, certainly pre-Roman. His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in
landscape photography and love of the British countryside. He was an intensely rational person with an active intellect, and I think he would be a bit disappointed with some of the fringe aspects of ley lines today.
. We find the same configuration with the main pyramids at Gizeh and Teotihuacan.
