Introduction xxii largest manhunt in Arizona history. During some of his 54 days on the run, Horning hid out at Grand Canyon at the height of the search for Horning, 385 police searched GCNP. Horning was caught after robbing a bank in Winslow, Arizona. As of early 2018, Horning remained on California’s death row. On April 5, 1909, the front-page headlines of Phoenix’s Arizona Gazette announced that “Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Being Brought to Light” and claimed that “Remarkable Finds Indicate Ancient People Migrated from Orient” to Grand Canyon. The article claimed that a Smithsonian Institution explorer named G. E. Kinkaid, while on a solo boat trip through Grand Can- yon, found a branched mile-long tunnel that had been dug by humans leading to a grand chamber filled with Egyptian treasures, mummies, golden urns, a Buddha-like statue, and a 700-foot-long dining table littered with cooking utensils. According to the article, “upwards of 50,000 people could have lived in the caverns comfortably” (Berger, 2007). Another Smithsonian explorer, S. A. Jordan, examined the cave and was convinced the inhabitants had been Egyptians, and he claimed that his findings would “stagger the wildest fancy of the fictionist” (Lago, 2009). Kinkaid said the cave was 42 miles upstream from “El Tovar Crystal Canyon.” In 1962, these stories were revived, and writer David Childress claimed that GCNP and Smithsonian conspired to refuse him access to the area containing the cave. Soon thereafter, other con- spirators used elaborate calculations to link the alleged Egyptian cave at Grand Canyon with cosmic secrets of the Great Pyramid of Giza and other wonders of the world. By the 1990s, there were stories linking Grand Canyon with the Egyptian cosmic matrix, Stonehenge, the Sphinx, the star Sirius, giant mummies, and UFO sightings at Area 51. Most people believe that the story was a hoax perpetuated by Joe Mulhatton (also spelled Mulhattan), a travel- ing salesman and prospector. Regardless, no one has found the cave. In 1913, Alexander McAllan’s eccentric Ancient Chinese Account of the Grand Can- yon claimed that ancient Chinese texts described Grand Canyon and that Chinese explorers, not Columbus, had discovered America. Although these stories were soon forgotten, some were resurrected in the 1950s along with those describing the discovery of Atlantis, more space aliens at Area 51, vast governmental conspiracies, and a mummy called “The Thing” that, to this day, people pay to see in Dragoon, Arizona. Many such stories continue. For example, in 2008, the SciFi Channel aired Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon, a movie that revived tales about “lost treasures” in the canyon. Unlike the original stories from 1909, however, artifacts in this movie were Aztecan, not Egyptian, and explorers found Aztecs conducting human sacri- fices. The next year, in Michael Cole’s science fiction novel Secrets of El Tovar Can- yon, an explorer found a gold tablet at the bottom of Grand Canyon, after which she was pursued by the military and unscrupulous collectors to Phantom Ranch, where she hiked to an Egyptian cave to learn about the dangers of global warming. From the inspiring to the absurd, Grand Canyon is omnipres- ent in American life.
Document Details My Account Print multiple pages
Print
You have printed 0 times in the last 24 hours.
Your print count will reset on at .
You may print 0 more time(s) before then.
You may print a maximum of 0 pages at a time.
Help
