Every good American mystery has a dateline. This one starts in April 1909.
According to a century-old story in the Arizona Gazette, an explorer named G.E. Kincaid supposedly found a high-wall cave in the Grand Canyon stuffed with impossibilities. Egyptian-looking statues. Hieroglyphic marks. Copper blades. Even mummies.
In Donovan Dread’s documentary-style video, he recaps the basics with the tone of a campfire tale told by someone who did their homework. The article named a Smithsonian figure, “Professor S.A. Jordan,” and then… silence.
No follow-ups.
No museum ledger entries.
No official proof.
The Smithsonian, Donovan notes, has denied the entire thing for decades. Most historians roll their eyes and file it under “paper-selling hoaxes” from a wilder era of newspapers.
But the directions in the old story were oddly specific – miles upriver from a known landmark.
People have searched ever since, and some insist they’ve found hints.
Nothing verified. Nothing with a chain of custody in a glass case.
And then comes the new wrinkle.
A Ranger’s Story From the Edge
Donovan Dread introduces an anonymous National Park ranger with a claim that lands like a dropped flashlight in a deep tunnel. On patrol in Marble Canyon, the ranger says, a setting sun revealed a clean, geometric opening halfway up a wall he’d passed “hundreds” of times.
Not a crack.
An oval.
He climbs. The air wafting from the mouth is too cold for a shallow pocket, he says, and the first chamber gives way to smooth, carved walls – etched with deliberate, ancient-looking lines.
He steps deeper.
A larger room appears, and there – this is where his voice would lower if we were around a fire – are statues with faces that look distinctly un-Western to him. Cobra headdresses. Lotus-like staffs. Features that feel closer to Egypt than to the Colorado Plateau.
And on stone platforms below them, the ranger says, lay mummified forms wrapped in decayed cloth. He keeps going.
Another chamber opens, broader still, with pillars carved from the natural rock. Shelves and alcoves hold urns, tools, and green-aged copper.
Against the back wall stands a twelve-foot colossus that he says looks neither Native nor Egyptian – hardly human at all. At its feet, a crowd of smaller figures kneel in carved devotion.
Then comes the detail that would bother any caver or physicist. In the center is a perfect, circular shaft.
Cold air rises. He drops stones.
No echo. No end.
He tries again. Silence swallows each rock.
It feels wrong to him – like gravity forgot to send a receipt. He retreats, shaken, and returns at first light to mark the site.
The opening is gone. Just bare wall.
He keeps looking on later patrols, under different light and weather. Nothing.
Donovan Dread doesn’t present the ranger as a crusader. He presents him as a working professional who knows what telling this story could cost.
If true, the ranger’s account reads like the 1909 article brought into 4K. If false, it’s still the kind of narrative that keeps the Grand Canyon’s rumor mill turning.
Rogan’s “Forbidden Zone” Puzzle
On The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan and guest A.J. Gentile kick the same hornet’s nest from a different angle. Rogan says parts of the canyon are simply off-limits – no hiking, no flying under the rim – and that “black helicopters” have appeared when some filmmakers or explorers tried to nosy in.
He’s shown footage in past episodes, he says. To him, it feels like more than safety signage.
Gentile lays out the Kincaid storyline the way an investigative producer would, right down to the “Buddha-like” statue the 1909 account described and the sudden vanishing of the explorer before a promised follow-up expedition.
No photographs. No artifacts in public view. Just a single newspaper piece and a trail that goes cold.
Then they get to the money question: why would anyone hide a find like that – especially in the early 1900s? Rogan floats a simple motive: treasure and control.
He points out that the Smithsonian holds vast amounts of material the public never sees and claims the institution enjoys carve-outs from certain repatriation requirements that bind other holders of Native American burial items.
Whether you agree with Rogan’s policy read or not, the thrust is clear: he doesn’t trust gatekeepers, and “for your safety” zones make him suspicious.
They also talk about people who allegedly pushed into those restricted areas and got arrested. Gentile mentions on-the-ground oddities – like anchored metal loops sunk into rock, as if someone once rappelled down the face above a suspected entrance.
Debunkers, Gentile adds, wave a familiar flag – pareidolia. The human brain loves to see patterns in rock and shadow.
True.
But the “forbidden zone” fact remains, they argue, and it sits uncomfortably close to where the original newspaper story placed the cave.
Who’s “They,” and Why Hide Anything?
Rogan asks the question most people arrive at eventually: Who is “they”? If not the president or Congress, then which apparatus says no?
Is it about safety and liability?
Sacred sites?
Endangered habitats?
Or is it, as Rogan wonders aloud, about installations, artifacts, or something that would rewrite a chunk of the story we tell about the continent?
Gentile’s take is pragmatic. If a cache of valuable objects existed in 1909, someone could have quietly removed it and sent it to vaults that almost no one sees.
It’s not an outlandish scenario. It’s also not evidence.
Which is the rub at the center of this whole debate. The canyon is big, the records are sparse, and the rumors are evergreen.
Between Geology and Myth
There are three possibilities that fit the facts we actually have.
One: the 1909 article was sensational fiction, and later claims are echoes in a very photogenic canyon. This explains the lack of verifiable artifacts, the shifting spellings of names, and the absence of a paper trail.
Two: something unusual was indeed found and then quietly removed, miscataloged, or locked away. That would make the silence less mysterious and the modern “nothing to see here” stance more strategic.
Three: a blend of misidentifications, weathering, light, and human storytelling created a legend that occasionally gets a fresh coat of paint – like the ranger tale Donovan Dread reports.
And yes, the ranger could be telling the truth about what he experienced while still being wrong about what it was.
Personally, the endless-shaft detail sticks with me. Caves echo. Shafts talk back. If multiple rocks made no sound, that suggests a curve, a soft landing, or a trick of acoustics in a configuration that swallowed the return.
But “no echo” also narrates well. It’s the kind of moment that turns an odd cave into a portal.
On the policy side, I can also see why certain walls are off-limits. The canyon is deadly, fragile, and sacred to multiple tribes; “forbidden” sometimes protects lives, objects, and stories that aren’t ours to plunder.
That said, Rogan’s instinct – to ask why, and ask again – is healthy.
Blank spaces breed legends. Transparent rules reduce them.
What Would Proof Even Look Like?
If this mystery is ever to graduate from great yarn to documented history, it needs three things.
First, location data that can be independently verified.
Not just “near X,” but coordinates and repeatable conditions.
Second, authenticated objects with a clear chain of custody.
Not a photo from a phone in low light, but an artifact that can survive scrutiny by skeptical experts, including tribal authorities.
Third, context that doesn’t bulldoze over Native histories.
If a chamber exists, the first question is not “Egypt?” but “Which peoples here would have made or used this – and what do their elders say?”
That’s where I land after listening to all three sources. Donovan Dread gives the story bones and atmosphere. Joe Rogan pushes on the locked doors. A.J. Gentile reconstructs the paper trail and the modern pushbacks.
Could there be a hidden chamber in the Grand Canyon? Absolutely. The geology alone delivers surprises.
Could there be a hoard of “Egyptian-like” artifacts tucked behind a vanishing doorway?
It’s a claim that would overturn a lot – and that’s exactly why it deserves either the daylight of proof or the humility of a good mystery well told.
Until then, the canyon keeps its counsel. Sometimes for safety. Sometimes for sanctity. And sometimes, maybe, because it can.
If the ranger really did find something and watched it wink out by morning, he won’t be the last to go looking. Legends make stubborn trail markers.
And the Grand Canyon is very good at hiding in plain sight.
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Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.