The hoax began of the existence of ancient Egyptian ruins in the Grand Canyon in the U.S. state of Arizona, as the Phoenix Gazette published a story headlined “Explorations in Grand Canyon: Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Brought to Light”

It Happened on
April 4, 1909

According to the story, a professor S. A. Jordan of the “Smithsonian Institute [sic]” found a vast network of interlinking tunnels and chambers nearly a mile beneath the walls of the Canyon with room to house 50,000 people and filled with treasures and mummies. As another author would note later, “In 1909 the start of the Internet Age was still eighty-five or so years away. But the World Wide Web played a pivotal role in keeping alive a story published as fact.”

While this story is banalized as a hoax in the traditional way of: “I can only be a hoax”, there are multiple people who testify of witnessing what looks like temples and vestiges of Egypt inside the Grand Canyon. The writer of this blog believes there’s more to this story, and that the timing of the 1909 article is key. This event occurred three days after the 1,000 Year Old Frog named Rameses II hoax at the Brooklyn Zoo and just 2 months before a monument to John Wesley Powell, the explorer of the Grand Canyon, is suggested.

As of December 7, 2025, I have not found this article in newspapers.com nor is any biographical data found for both men named in the article. This is unusual