The tomb or crypt in which the mummies were found is one of the largest of the chambers, the walls slanting back at an angle of about 35 degrees. On these are tiers of mummies, each one occupying a separate hewn shelf. At the head of each is a small bench, one of which is found copper cups and pieces of broken swords. Some of the mummies are covered with clay, and all are wrapped in a dark fabric. The urns or cups on the lower tiers are crude, while as the higher shelves are reached the urns are finer in design, showing a later stage of civilization. It is worthy of note that all the mummies examined so far have proved to be male, no children or females being buried here. This leads to the belief that this exterior section was the warriors’ barracks.
Among the discoveries no bones of animals have been found, no skins, no clothing, no bedding. Many of the rooms are bare but for water vessels. One room, about 40 by 700 feet, was probably the main dining hall, for cooking utensils are found here. What these people lived on is a problem though it is presumed that they came south in the winter and farmed in the valleys, going back north in the summer. Upwards of 50,000 people could have lived in the caverns comfortably. One theory is that the present Indian tribes found in Arizona are descendants of the serfs or slaves of the people which inhabited the cave. Undoubtedly a good many thousands of years before the Christian era a people lived here which reached a high stage of civilization. The chronology of human history is full of gaps. Professor Jordan is much enthused over the discoveries and believes that the find will prove of incalculable value in archaeological work.
One thing I have not spoken of, may be of interest. There is one chamber the passageway to which is not ventilated, and when we approached it a deadly, snaky smell struck us. Our lights would not penetrate the gloom, and until stronger ones are available we will not know what the chamber contains. Some say snakes, but others boo-hoo this idea and think it may contain a deadly gas or chemicals used by the ancients. No sounds are heard, but it smells snaky just the same. The whole underground installation gives one of shaky nerves the creeps. The gloom is like a weight on one’s shoulders, and our flashlights and candles only make the darkness blacker. Imagination can revel in conjectures and ungodly day-dreams back through the ages that have elapsed till the mind reels dizzily in space.”
In connection with this story, it is notable that among the Hopi Indians the tradition is told that their ancestors once lived in an underworld in the Grand Canyon till dissension arose between the good and the bad, the people of one heart and the people of two hearts. Machetto, who was their chief, counseled them to leave the underworld, but there was no way out. The chief then caused a tree to grow up and pierce the roof of the underworld, and then the people of one heart climbed out. They tarried by Paisisvai (Red River), which is the Colorado, and grew grain and corn. They sent out a message to the Temple of the Sun, asking the blessing of peace, good will and rain for the people of one heart. That messenger never returned, but today at the Hopi villages at sundown can be seen the old men of the tribe out on the housetops gazing toward the sun, looking for the messenger. When he returns, their lands and ancient dwelling place will be restored to them. That is the tradition. Among the engravings of animals in the cave is seen the image of a heart over the spot where it is located. The legend was learned by W.E. Rollins, the artist, during a year spent with the Hopi Indians. There are two theories of the origin of the Egyptians. One is that they came from Asia; another that the racial cradle was in the upper Nile region. Heeren, an Egyptologist, believed in the Indian origin of the Egyptians. The discoveries in the Grand Canyon may throw further light on human evolution and prehistoric ages.349
There are a number of very important points to note about this article:1. Note the sheer amount of detail provided about the alleged discovery;
2. Note the alleged involvement of the Smithsonian Institution;
3. Note the alleged involvement of the cavern’s discoverer, G.E. Kinkaid, with the Smithsonian; and finally,
4. Note the alleged chief of the Smithsonian archaeological team, Professor S.A. Jordan.
These details have become the heart of what has been something of a minor controversy over the story ever since its first appearance. Was the story true? Or was it an elaborate hoax?
David Hatcher Childress certainly belongs to the class of those who think it’s true, but with reservations. As Childress quips at the beginning of his article, “It was like the plot out of a fantasy Western movie...”350 But there were questions:What became of the artifacts? What became of Jordan? Did he return to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and disappear with all the records of his discovery? Has there been some archeological cover-up reminiscent of the last scene in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Ark of the Covenant is placed inside a crate in a giant warehouse never to be seen again?
It has also been suggested that while the discovery was real, the archeologists working for the Smithsonian were not. These men may not have been working for the Smithsonian Institute [sic] out of Washington D.C. at all, but merely claiming to be doing so. This may have been a cover-up for an illegal archeological dig that was raiding the ancient site and claiming legitimacy from a very distant institution. It could have been very difficult indeed, in 1909, to check on the credentials of the archeologists. These men may well have disappeared shortly after the article appeared, but not to Washington D.C. as we might suppose, but rather to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Denver.351
April 5, 1909 Phoenix Gazette Article
While Childress offers no source for his speculations that the so-called archaeologists might not have been from the Smithsonian at all, nor any source for the speculation that the “archaeologists” went to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Denver, the real questions Childress raises nonetheless remain: were the discoveries in fact real? If so, what happened to them? In order to answer those questions, one must determine whether or not the article was genuine, or a hoax.
3. Hoax or Cover-up?
One of those questioning the entire story is Philip Coppens, who notes that the story says little about Egypt, but that it points even further east:[The] account is quite factual. Idols “resemble” Buddha, rather than “are” Buddha. The worship “resembles” that of Tibet, not “is”... Kinkaid is trying to use analogies to explain his discovery. It is the anonymous author of the article who makes the connection with ancient Egypt and lets his mind float to one of the biggest discoveries of all time.352
Coppens is suggesting, in other words, that the anonymous author of the newspaper article deliberately exaggerated the story, casting a pall of suspicion over just exactly what, if anything at all, was actually discovered. The fact that the newspaper never followed up on the sensational story raises further suspicions.353
But there was a further problem: the article made three explicit claims:1. that the discoverer of the cave, G.E. Kinkaid, worked for the Smithsonian Institution;
2. that the Smithsonian Institution was thus involved in the excavation and recovery of the artifacts; and,
3. that a professor of archaeology, one S.A. Jordan, was in charge of the project.
However, as Coppens observes, when contacted in 2000 for confirmation of these allegations, the Smithsonian’s reply was unequivocal:The Smithsonian Institution has received many questions about an article in the April 5, 1909 Phoenix Gazette about G.E. Kinkaid and his discovery of a “great underground citadel” in the Grand Canyon, hewn by an ancient race of oriental origin, possibly from Egypt... The Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology has searched its files without finding any mention of a Professor Jordan, Kinkaid, or a lost Egyptian civilization in Arizona. Nevertheless, the story continues to be repeated in books and articles.354
This would seem to be the end of the story...
...but no. Coppens admits that “there is room for a cover-up, of course,”355 simply because it is a standard practice of such organizations to deliberately “look” for certain files in the wrong place. Not finding them in a
certain place does not mean that they do not exist; they merely do not exist where the search was conducted:The files do not necessarily have to be set within that department’s and the reference to the Phoenix Gazette rather than Arizona Gazette could be a simple error, or an escape valve that is so often present in official replies engineered to debunk. Stories like “the CIA Division X has no record” often means that Division Y is the one who has that record.356
It is a ploy well known to researchers using FOIA requests to pry information loose from various government departments.
So the important question remains: if the entire newspaper story was a hoax, who perpetrated it? And why?
Coppens notes that if the original story was a hoax perpetrated by the newspaper itself — in the tradition of the yellow journalism of the day — in order to generate more sales and circulation, then it is nothing less than bizarre that it never followed up the story with a sequel. Thus it is unlikely that if the story was a hoax, that the Arizona Gazette was the perpetrator, which leaves Kinkaid himself.357 A number of minor discrepancies exist in Kinkaid’s account that, while not proving that he perpetrated a hoax, at least raise questions. 358 “So where does that leave us?” Coppens asks. His answer: somewhere in the middle, between a hoax and an exaggerated truth. In Coppen’s opinion, the discovery probably had more to do with the discovery of artifacts of the ancient Anasazi American Indian culture.359
This solution, however, raises as many questions as it answers. For one thing, the Anasazi culture was known to anthropology and archaeology at the time. So why cover it up? The Smithsonian’s silence and claims of noninvolvement are equally suspicious, for it would have a natural and inherent interest in any reporting of such a story, and would inevitably have investigated. This makes its blatant denials of any involvement highly suspicious.
In an article entitled “Archaeological Coverup?” Jason Colavito makes the comment — in support of the newspaper story being a complete hoax — that the article refers to the Smithsonian Institute and not the Smithsonian Institution, and that anyone claiming to work for it would know this. Colavito also argues that the original story in the Arizona Gazette is a single-source story without any other external corroboration, and thus argues that the whole thing is a likely hoax.360
Childress, however, points out that the amount of specific detail in the article plus the fact that it ran in an otherwise ordinary newspaper argues against the story being a hoax. But for Childress the story is part of a much larger picture, one of an “archaeological cover-up” of anomalous evidence and artifacts.
Childress notes thatTo those who investigate allegations of archaeological cover-ups there are disturbing indications that the most important archaeological institute in the United States, the Smithsonian Institute [sic], an independent federal agency, has been actively suppressing some of the most interesting and important archaeological discoveries made in the Americas.361
There is an obvious fact here that is often overlooked: the U.S. government, like the Nazi Reich long afterward, and like many other governments of the major powers, established an official agency to do nothing but sponsor archaeological research. Thus, it stands to reason that like any other government agency, the Smithsonian would have its own “classified secrets.” The question is, why would such a seemingly staid and sober discipline and institution be keeping secrets?
For Childress, the answer is rather simple: the Smithsonian had an agenda to promote a particular historical and anthropological paradigm, and to suppress evidence of another:The cover-up and alleged suppression of archaeological evidence began in late 1881 when John Wesley Powell, the geologist famous for exploring the Grand Canyon, appointed Cyrus Thomas as the director of the Eastern Mound Division of the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of Ethnology.
When Thomas came to the Bureau of Ethnology he was a “pronounced believer in the existence of a race of Mound Builders, distinct from the American Indians.” However, John Wesley Powell, the director of the Bureau of Ethnology, a very sympathetic man toward the American Indians, had lived with the peaceful Winnebago Indians of Wisconsin for many years as a youth and felt that American Indians were unfairly thought of as primitive and savage.
The Smithsonian began to promote the idea that the Native Americans... were descended from advanced civilizations and were worthy of respect and protection.
They also began a program of suppressing any archaeological evidence that lent credence to the school of thought known as Diffusionism, a school which believes that throughout history there has been widespread dispersion of culture and civilization via contact by ship and major trade routes.
The Smithsonian opted for the opposite school, known as Isolationism. Isolationism holds that most civilizations are isolated from each other and that there has been very little contact between them, especially those that are separated by bodies of water. In this intellectual war that started in the 1880s, it was held that even contact between the civilizations of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys were rare, and certainly these civilizations and did not have any contact with such advanced cultures as the Mayas, Toltecs, or Aztecs in Mexico and Central America.362
But according to Childress, in addition to suppressing evidence supporting the Diffusionism hypothesis, the Smithsonian suppressed evidence of a very different sort...
a. Destroyed and Suppressed Evidence: Curious NASA Parallels
That evidence concerned the existence of the giants mentioned in ancient texts:When the contents of many ancient mounds and pyramids of the Midwest were examined, it was shown that the history of the Mississippi River Valleys was that of an ancient and sophisticated culture that had been in contact with Europe and other areas. Not only that, the contents of many mounds revealed burials of huge men, sometimes seven or eight feet tall, in full armour with swords and sometimes huge treasures.
...
For instance, when Spiro Mound in Oklahoma was excavated in the 1930s, a tall man in full armour was discovered along with a pot of thousands of pearls and other artefacts [sic], the largest such treasure so far documented. The whereabouts of the man in armour is unknown and it is quite likely that it eventually was taken to the Smithsonian Institution.363
The discovery of large “human” remains tends to support ancient Native American Indian legends that asserted the existence of “monsters and giants” with whom the Indians had once lived, legends which we will encounter later.
At this juncture, Childress recounts a story that an anonymous researcher related to him, namely that the Smithsonian had dismissed one of its senior employees for defending the “heresy” of Diffusionism, and for attempting to blow the whistle on an operation where the Institution loaded a barge with anomalous evidence and literally sank it in the Atlantic to hide the evidence.364 While Childress offers no supporting evidence for this story, it is curious that it does fit a wider pattern of the suppression of anomalous evidence of ancient sophisticated civilizations and their artifacts uncovered by another government agency: NASA. As space anomalies researchers Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara have pointed out, NASA’s own version of the “Smithsonian barge” included such evidence-suppressing tactics as blacked-out thumbnail pictures in the NASA Apollo photograph catalogues,365 airbrushing and oth- erwise doctoring Apollo photos,366 and — incomprehensibly — orders to Apollo archivists to actually destroy priceless Apollo photo archives, an order which was fortunately disregarded by one individual.367 All of this evidence, as Hoagland and Bara observe, was strongly suggestive of the presence of a high and technologically sophisticated civilization on the Moon and Mars. NASA was, in effect, following the same paradigm as Childress suggested the Smithsonian was following: suppressing evidence of Diffusionism, only in this case, it was the ultimate in Diffusionism: the dispersal of civilization not only on planet Earth, but her neighbors as well.
If there is a common motivation here between the two government agencies, then I am bold to suggest that it lies in the com
mon factor they each share, namely that the existence of technological artifacts, of the skeletal remains of giants, and other anomalies, tended to corroborate that which ancient texts and traditions had always maintained: there once was such a sophisticated civilization, that mankind himself is its deliberately engineered creation, and there once were such things as giants. In short, anomalous evidence from space, and archaeological evidence from the Earth, that tended to corroborate such ancient myths, had to be suppressed. The question is, why? The answer will be encountered in the final chapter.
b. The Smithsonian and the Suppression of the Alaskan Giants
There is another episode recounted by Childress that loosely corroborates the allegations of the Smithsonian’s suppression of anomalous archaeological evidence:Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known zoologist and frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in the 1960s... once related a curious story about a letter he received regarding an engineer who was stationed on the Aleutian island of Shemya during World War II. While building an airstrip, his crew bulldozed a group of hills and discovered under several sedimentary layers what appeared to be human remains. The Alaskan mound was in fact a graveyard of gigantic human remains, consisting of crania and long leg bones.
The crania measure from 22 to 24 inches from base to crown. Since an adult skull normally measures about eight inches from back to front, such a large cranium would imply an immense size for a normally proportioned human. Furthermore, every skull was said to have been neatly trepanned (a process of cutting a hole in the upper portion of the skull).
Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men: The Surviving Elites of the Cosmic War and Their Hidden Agenda Page 20