Inca airplanes in Journeyman

On Wednesday's episode of Journeyman, time traveler Dan Vasser asks physicist Elliot Langley what he knows about the subject. As one example of possible time travel, Langley responds, "How did the Incas build perfect clay replicas of airplanes in 500 AD"?

I hadn't heard anything about that, so I looked it up. Here's what I found:

Ancient Aeroplanes

Did the Incas Build Aircraft?These golden sculptures are pre-Columbian. It is difficult to determine their exact age as gold is hard to date. However it is strongly believed that they date from around 500-800 CE. They have been found in central and also coastal regions of South America. When first found they were thought to be zoomorphic (representing animals). Well, looking at those images I can't come up with one animal looking like these artifacts below. Is it a bird, is it a plane...well it certainly looks like it from where I stand.


Comment:  I found only a couple of websites that discussed the "Incan airplanes." This is the kind of Internet posting I take with a shaker full of salt. It would be easy for someone to fake. Until I see the information in a scientific journal, or at least the National Geographic, I doubt it's real.

The page appears to have been put together by someone named Nicole Coleby. I don't claim that she's perpetuating a hoax, although she may be. It's just as likely that she's repeating rumors she's heard from a follower of Erich van Daniken. She's posted drawings by someone named Lumir G. Janko, so perhaps he's the source of the "airplanes."