Some say they were created as messages to the gods, while slightly more bizarre theories suggest they were traced by aliens.

But now a scientist has claimed he has solved the mystery at least one of the 1,500-year-old Nazca lines.

Professor Clive Ruggles, of the University of Leicester, says the spiral shape traced in the Peruvian desert are likely to have been a labyrinth, created as a spiritual path.

The huge images, which include hundreds of animals and complex mazes in the Nazca desert, can only clearly be seen for the air giving rise to a number of explanations as to who they were intended for.