In 1947, the balsa-wood raft Kon-Tiki, which carried Thor Heyerdahl and five companions more than 4,000 miles, crashed into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It had left Peru on 28 Apr 1947 to demonstrate his belief that the voyage was possible using materials and technology of pre-Columbian times, and that thus ancient Polynesians could have originated in South America. The Kon-Tiki raft party reported first sighting land—Pukapuka Island in the Tuamotas—on 30 Jul 1947. Kon Tiki was an old name of the Inca sun god, Viracocha.« more Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft, by Thor Heyerdahl. - book suggestion.