The river of denial

Snopes-ing the Egyptian-Grand Canyon myth

by Jonathan Romeo

It’s a tale you might have heard repeated around a campfire – remnants of a massive Egyptian civilization found deep within the caves of the Grand Canyon, littered with artifacts, hieroglyphs, an underground citadel and even mummified remains that date back to 1250 BC.

But it doesn’t end there. After the site’s discovery, the story goes, there ensued a decades-long cover-up. It was headed by “radical” groups – National Park Service and Smithsonian Institution – to hide this revolutionary piece of history from the fragile public.

“This hoax has haunted us for decades and no doubt will for many more years to come,” Ellen Brennan, the Grand Canyon National Park’s Cultural and Resources Program Manager, said.

Exactly what someone who wanted to hide the existence of this ancient civilization would say, right?

Joking aside, it’s relatively easy to track the origins of the urban legend of the ancient Egyptian civilization in the Grand Canyon, as well as debunk it. Yet it’s a tale that continues to be perpetuated by the public, vexing the NPS as well as Grand Canyon guides.

“Every time I hear about it, it legitimately upsets me,” Haley Johnson, President of the Grand Canyon Historical Society, said. “I lead about four guided tours a week in the Grand, and I’ll get a question (about the Egyptian civilization) on at least one of those.”

So how did such a far-fetched tale start? How did it continue to live on in the imaginations of people through all these years? And why, oh why, does the human condition continue to fall for and believe in some of the most fantastical lies on the planet?

We probably won’t be able to answer that last one, but here we go.

Read all about it

Within about, oh, 30 seconds of Googling, you can easily find the genesis of the Egyptian civilization myth. On April 5, 1909, a newspaper called the Arizona Gazette published a story titled “Explorations in the Grand Canyon” with wild claims of the discovery.

The cracks in the story, however, are seemingly endless. For starters, the Arizona Gazette was known for outlandish yellow journalism created only to get a rise out of the public and sell papers (Hey, sounds like some publications today!)

Also of note, no other paper at the time picked up the story – kinda weird for such an Earth-shattering discovery, no?

What’s more, the Arizona Gazette’s story was penned by an anonymous author and only cites one source: an alleged Smithsonian-funded explorer, G.E. Kinkaid, who supposedly conducted a solo expedition of the canyon with the guidance of a professor named S.A. Jordan.

In the Arizona Gazette story, Kinkaid claims he saw in a cliff 2,000 feet above the Colorado River a cave with an elaborate system of tunnels and chambers, as well as hundreds of rooms. Within the cave were artifacts, hieroglyphs, mummies and a Buddha-like statue.

Kinkaid continued that the artifacts featured inscribed tablets; gold urns; weapons; sophisticated copper tools; and granaries made out of cement. Also, a 700-foot-long dining hall was found with cooking utensils still on it. In all, it was estimated that these chambers were home to some 50,000 people.

Interestingly (or perhaps not interestingly), the Arizona Gazette never published another story about such a wild find.

Down the rabbit hole

The myth of the Egyptian civilization had its moment in the sun, inciting the imaginations of readers for a time after the publication of the Arizona Gazette story. But then it appeared to fall into the annals of stupid stories told over time, until it was resurrected in the 1990s in a pseudoscience book that explored the occult.

Now, with social media and true crime stories galore warping our society’s collective minds, this urban legend has new life. So much so that agencies like the NPS and Smithsonian continually send out messaging to debunk the fabricated tale.

When asked multiple times for comment on this story, a representative with the Smithsonian wrote back in an email: “We haven’t heard of that urban legend, and, unfortunately, we do not have anyone that can speak on this.”

Oof – not great for the whole “not a cover-up” crowd.

On a serious note, though, the Smithsonian’s own website has a section dedicated to discrediting the myth. What’s more, in 2000, the institution did a deep dive of its archives and found no record of a G.E. Kinkaid or S.A. Jordan on its staff, or any evidence of a commissioned exploration of the Grand Canyon within the timeframe cited in the Arizona Gazette story.

“Nevertheless, the story continues to be repeated in books and articles,” Smithsonian staff wrote in a 2000 email in response to an inquiry about the myth.

Flagstaff-based rafting legend Tom Martin, whose detailed river maps are considered the gold standard in the boating community, said he has fielded multiple inquiries about the Egyptian civilization hoax over the years.

“Tall tales are nothing new; everyone loves a good yarn,” Martin said. “Of course, we live in an age of cover up and ‘fake news,’ but we also need to realize some things don’t pass the sniff test. I mean, who would sit on such an amazing find and not tell anyone?”

Egypt-gate?

Well, these days, the agency that gets accused the most of a cover-up is the NPS. Oh yes, totally reputable sources like Reddit and the “Joe Rogan Experience” are rife with claims that the NPS has closed off areas and caves that contain the ancient ruins.

The reality of the thing doesn’t sound as cool.

“All of the caves in the park are offlimits to the public,” a spokesperson with the Grand Canyon National park said in an email. “The primary concern is public safety (injury and/or disease from bats), and the secondary concern is preserving and protecting the natural and historical resources.”

And the same goes for off-trail exploring, the spokesperson said.

Yet, the NPS to this day fields requests for information, the most recent in February, in which a man said he had the key that would open a pyramid (there was never any mention of a pyramid in the Arizona Gazette story) and prove the existence of the find.

“I have an artifact that proves the ancient egyptians or even older civilization was in california,” the man wrote in a FOIA request. “It is a very curious artifact I believe to made by the egyptian god Thoth. I believe it is a key to open a door in the grand canyon pyramid (sic).” Wow.

Kool-Aid,

anyone?

So, you may be wondering (like me), why would all these agencies cover up such a monumental find? Well, not sur- prisingly, it’s hard to find a concrete answer on that point, other than vague notions of a deep state or whatever.

Perhaps the most recurring theory is that the “system” and the “man” want to keep the status quo that Europeans were the first to reach the Americas and that any non-White civilization would in no way be able to create technology that would be able to sail to the New World.

And this notion isn’t particularly wrong. Europeans have a long history of downplaying the technological accomplishments of Indigenous peoples and portraying them as “savages.” Case in point: established history maintained Polynesians in no way could have sailed to Hawaii. So, in the 1970s, Native residents reconstructed an ancient Polynesian canoe, sailing it with traditional navigation tools 5,500 miles from Tahiti to Hawaii and back, to prove their ancestors were capable of the voyage.

But ancient Egyptians sailing to the

Americas and creating one of the grandest civilizations deep within the walls of the Grand Canyon? Then, not one person, other than an anonymous explorer in a sensationalist newspaper in the 1900s, writing about it or finding evidence? Yeah, time to put away the tinfoil hats, folks.

In fact, the theory actually overshadows the accomplishments of the first true inhabitants of the region – the Paleo-Indians – who thrived in the canyon as far back as 13,000 years ago and whose culture continues to this day in the Havasupai, Hopi, Diné and other Indigenous descendants.

Yet, here we are, in a day and age where it’s a constant battle to fight misinformation (looking at you Qanon-ers!).

“I think our society is at a point where, when we hear something fantastical, we want to believe it’s true,” Johnson said. “But I’ve hiked so much in the Grand Canyon, and when you see those archaeological sites from (Native Americans), that’s what’s so beautiful and sacred.”■