The Hopi Warned Them Not to Enter the Tunnels Under the Grand Canyon — In 1909 Someone Did
In the spring of 1909, a man named G.E. Kincaid entered a fissure on the eastern wall of the Grand Canyon, roughly forty miles upriver from El Tovar, and did not come out for eleven hours. When he emerged, his hands and face were coated in a reddish dust that did not wash off for two days, and he carried a bundle of objects wrapped in oilcloth that he would not let anyone else touch. He told the men from the Smithsonian Institution who had hired him four words: there is a city down there. On April fifth, the Arizona Gazette printed a detailed front-page report describing what Kincaid had found. A system of tunnels extending more than a mile into the rock. Chambers carved from stone with a precision that was difficult to attribute to hand tools. Tablets inscribed with symbols resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics. Copper instruments polished to a finish that does not occur naturally. Statues in postures belonging to no known culture of North America.