The Magic Fountain of Ollantaytambo

My first reaction was

Another enigma exists in how the Incas and pre-Incas captured natural forces in their buildings and landmarks, giving the appearance of magic. In the 2 minute video shown below (taped by the present writer at Ollyantaytambo, Peru, in 2002) we catch a glimpse of this magic, which marks evidence of a high technology unknown today. As you can see, the mere touch of a finger inexplicably stops the water’s flow, an impossibility that is unaddressed by Western scholars, most of whom are even completely unaware of it!

Source

As you can see in the two videos the flow of the water can be stopped, started and controlled with the touch of a finger! The tour guides themselves claim not to know how this happens, only that it happens everytime. After a quick search there doesn't seem to be much online about it either.

Can anyone shed any light on this amazing "magic?"

Hi,

I feel stupid, but I cant see the magic (:

I can only see that the water is in the "bowl" and then when she touches the water the bowl is filling up enough to compensate for the "lost" water she removes with here finger?

Thanks,

reply to post by LiveForever8


That is amazing!

Off to do some more reading on this. It really has me baffled!

I found another video that shows just flicking water will "re-active" the stream too. Really amazing!


Thanks for the thread!
OiO

Can I say this without sounding retarded hmm...Oh well here goes.

It's got to be just one of water's properties. I do this in my shower. Water sits on the ledge and will spill off and when you run your finger across it slows it down then when you touch it in the middle and break the boundary you put it spills back over.

I don't know exactly what causes it, but if it happens in my shower it's definitely not Incan magic.

reply to post by geraldcole


Hi,

Ha ha ha my 2 cents excactly. Hilourius how things can be made to something large in a humans mind.

Thanks,

reply to post by OneisOne


Thanks for posting your vid. It seems that there are different ways of re-activating the flow. In the vids posted by the OP, touching the rim seemed necessary, but in yours, not so.

I'll be checking back to see if anyone posts anything like an explanation. It does seem to be more than meets the eye. But usually, I like to think that there are good explanations.

Originally posted by JR MacBeth
reply to post by OneisOne

 

Thanks for posting your vid. It seems that there are different ways of re-activating the flow. In the vids posted by the OP, touching the rim seemed necessary, but in yours, not so.

I'll be checking back to see if anyone posts anything like an explanation. It does seem to be more than meets the eye. But usually, I like to think that there are good explanations.

Hi, Nice to meet you Mister JR MacBeth

I will look forward to the follow up posts so the debugging can start.

Thanks,

This is a first.

I've never watched that video before.
Very cool find....all of them.

My best guess is that there are chambers of air and chambers of water that can work together as "valves" in a sense. The pockets of air allow the water to stop, when sliding your finger over the top you are interrupting the flow and putting a different amount of pressure on the system.
But it's so miniscule that a mere flick of water will activate the flow again by disturbing the pressure.
Like a switch to a valve.
I bet the level of water has to be perfect all the time for this to work.

It would be amazing to see behind the rocks.

Kind of hard to explain, but I think I have an idea how it would work.

I wish I had one in my backyard!

reply to post by LiveForever8
Aliens did it! Yikes, all my anti-alien posting history destroyed. Thanks a bunch

I reckon there's a shim (slate, crock etc) in the outlet channel and the incoming pressure of water is enough to be temporarily withheld by it blocking the flow. Surface tension will go some way to putting it in context. For example, if you slowly fill a glass with water, eventually it will 'hump' above the rim of the glass without spilling over. If you add too much, or break the surface tension, it spills over.

In this case, the flow increases as she speaks which shows the balance between input/output is finely balanced in favour of output. Whatever force (eg shim), temporarily withholds the water,it can only do so for moments before the level rises too high and breaks the tension.

Of course, there could be some guy out the back turning off the tap at a pre-arranged signal and interrupting his Call of Duty camping session.

No offance op but this is stupid, really stupid... magic?.... YOU HAVE STICKING WATER!! WATER STICKS!!!!! you can do what just happened there in your drive way, sink, HOES, you can see how water sticks with a cup fill it till it should be overflowing but its not, cause water STICKSSSSSS , try it in your shower, next time your having a bath, wow MAGIC LOL!O!LO!O!LO!

lol i can't believe this is listed as magic


should be listed as junk video, like there is notting here, did you guys not play with water as kids like holy crap

reply to post by havok


..... are you serious?...... have you played xbox all your life and thats why you come up with some waky theory lol this is soo sad... i can make this in my shower :|

Originally posted by WanderingThe3rd
did you guys not play with water as kids like holy crap

Well, I did play with water as a kid. But I certainly didn't play with it "like holy crap."

What is holy crap?

Is that something the Pope gave you? Or should that be the Poop?

reply to post by WanderingThe3rd


You can make it in your shower but thats what happens. Its called surface tension. What did you think was the cause? Do you really need to play Xbox to learn about water? Thats sad.

From havok:

y best guess is that there are chambers of air and chambers of water that can work together as "valves" in a sense. The pockets of air allow the water to stop, when sliding your finger over the top you are interrupting the flow and putting a different amount of pressure on the system. But it's so miniscule that a mere flick of water will activate the flow again by disturbing the pressure. Like a switch to a valve. I bet the level of water has to be perfect all the time for this to work.

thats exactly what happens

Originally posted by KatieVA

Originally posted by WanderingThe3rd
did you guys not play with water as kids like holy crap

Well, I did play with water as a kid. But I certainly didn't play with it "like holy crap."

What is holy crap?

Is that something the Pope gave you? Or should that be the Poop?

(This was actually posted by Liveforever8, but he didn't realise he was logged in as me )

Thanks for the informative replies people

If it is that simple why do the guides claim that they (and nobody else) truly knows how the fountain works?

Artistic licence perhaps?

Still, a simple explaination doesn't take away from how cool it looks

What's so impressive is that they had an understanding of surface tension and were able to engineer a use for it!

Good find +S&F OP

I'm still not sure "surface tension" accounts for what I'm seeing.

Clearly, there is an exquisitely balanced system involved here, by all appearances, but surface tension has never been so quickly restored, from anything I've seen. By nature, it is an extremely delicate thing, and these demonstrators have been anything but, on every vid.

Still waiting for something better. Come on ATS scientists!

JR

reply to post by LiveForever8


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Sir Arthur C. Clark)
Never seen that!
S&F.

So far, no one has said anything about the grooves in the stone near the edge that appear to be about 1 and 2" apart. Perhaps there are holes at the edge of those grooves that drain the water down another path that are easily opened and closed. It might still be surface tension but of a kind where I would say the oil of your hand will activate it. Sheer speculation mind you so maybe there is a valve that we haven't thought of yet in our engineering of valves. I do believe that some kind of science, greater than what we have now, was possible to have existed in Earth's distant past with some archeological artifacts to support these claims being right in front of us in Egypt, South America and elsewhere.