According to our conventional view of history, humans have only walked the Earth in our present form for some 200,000 years. Much of the mechanical ingenuity we know of in modern times began to develop only a couple hundred years ago, during the Industrial Revolution. However, evidence suggests advanced civilizations existed as long as several thousand years ago—or possibly even earlier.

"Oopart"—or "out-of-place artifact"—is the term given to numerous prehistoric objects found in various places across the world today that show a level of technological sophistication incongruous with our present paradigm.

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According to our conventional view of history, humans have only walked the Earth in our present form for some 200,000 years. Much of the mechanical ingenuity we know of in modern times began to develop only a couple hundred years ago, during the Industrial Revolution. However, evidence today alludes to advanced civilizations existing as long as several thousand years ago—or possibly even earlier.

"Oopart"—or "out-of-place artifact"—is the term given to numerous prehistoric objects found in various places across the world today that show a level of technological sophistication incongruous with our present paradigm.

Many scientists attempt to explain these ooparts away as natural phenomena. Yet others say that such dismissive explanations only whitewash over the mounting evidence: that prehistoric civilizations had advanced knowledge, and this knowledge was lost over the ages only to be developed anew in modern times.

We will look at a variety of ooparts here, ranging from millions to hundreds of years old in purported age, but all supposedly demonstrating advancement well beyond their time.

Whether these are fact or merely fiction we cannot say. We can only offer a glimpse at what's known, supposed, or hypothesized regarding these phenomena, in the spirit of being open-minded and geared toward real scientific discovery.