Several years ago, a TV history channel featured Micronesia’s obscure archaeological wonder, Nan Madol, in a series called Ancient Aliens. The show wheeled out a string of historians – more Indiana Jones than Lucy Worsley – who speculated how uncertainty surrounding the floating city’s origins in the western Pacific Ocean might suggest builders from another planet.
It’s a tempting theory considering Nan Madol’s hard-to-reach location. This large and sophisticated ceremonial complex is constructed on a coral reef wrapping the tiny Temwen Island, which lies off
