So Supernatural - CONSPIRACY: The Grand Canyon

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

The Grand Canyon draws five million tourists a year. What most visitors don't know is that the canyon is underexplored and far more mysterious than we imagine. Rumors talk of unexplained magnetic anomalies, ghostly figures seen by hikers, constant UFO sightings, and hidden caves sealed off by the government. The Grand Canyon is one of the world's seven natural wonders, but it may also be one of its greatest secrets. For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/conspiracy-the-grand-canyon Did you know you can listen to So Supernatural ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies. So Supernatural is an Audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social! Instagram: @sosupernaturalpod Twitter: @_sosupernatural Facebook: /sosupernaturalpod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If there's one thing we've learned from doing this show, it's that our planet is full of surprises. Many of them shaped by Mother Nature herself. Think about the natural wonders of the world. The Aurora Borealis lighting up the sky with impossible magical colors. The Great Barrier Reef bursting with life just beneath the surface. Or Mount Everest towering above everything else on Earth. Places so extraordinary, they almost. don't feel real. But today, we want to focus on one of the most mysterious wonders on Earth,

the Grand Canyon. This place is a major tourist attraction, drawing an average of 5 million visitors a year. Most people go for the unbelievable views, the sweeping cliffs, the layered red rock, and the way the light shifts at sunrise and sunset. But from what I understand, a pair of Apparently, that's only a tiny piece of the picture. Just below them, the canyon drops over a mile deep, carved over five million years by the Colorado River. But most people don't think about what's down there hidden in the shadows. According to rumor, the Grand Canyon holds more than just rock and river. There's stories of hidden tunnels and whispers of lost civilizations buried deep beneath the surface. Some say the land itself carries a strange energy, something incredibly

powerful and unpredictable, which might explain why these stories aren't talked about more, because if they were, it would change the way we see the Grand Canyon and perhaps our own history entirely. I'm Yvette Gentile. And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecourero. This is so supernatural. Just imagine you're standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. The sun is warm, you get a cool breeze that keeps you comfortable, you hear the distant babbling of a creek, birds chirping in unison, echoing off the stones.

But your main focus is this majestic view. The earth is split wide open beneath you, and at its deepest point, it plummetes. It's downward 6,000 feet, more than a mile, and the canyon walls are striped with rows of orange, red, and brown sediment. These are layers of limestone, sandstone, and shale that are hundreds of millions of years old. It's these views that the Grand Canyon is most famous for, and why it's considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. So Rasha and I have never been to the Grand Canyon. It is definitely

on our bucket list to go. And one of the reasons, like I really want to go is there was a movie done in the 1990s called Grand Canyon, and it stars Alfry Woodard and Danny Glover, who are dear friends of ours. And this movie is such a deep spiritual movie, and I'm not going to tell you the end of it, but it centers obviously around the Grand Canyon. And for those of you who might think, you know, why do these girls always bring up movies or television or documentaries? Or people we know. Or people we know, because the entertainment world is so deep in our DNA. You know, as you know, our mother, you know, spent her whole life trying to create a movie. So come to find out all these years later when we finally found out who our real mother,

father was, his profession was in the Hollywood entertainment industry as a caterer. One of the reasons that the Grand Canyon has always been so fascinating to me is because we grew up going to Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai. And as mystical and magical as Waimia Canyon is, it's actually just a fraction of the size of the Grand Canyon. Geologists say the Colorado River carved a deep trench through the area that's now Arizona over the course of a millennia. There are numerous trails from the top rim down to the bottom. Depending on which one you choose and how experienced of a hiker you are,

it can take at least 11 hours to make the full round trip around the Grand Canyon. And as you can probably imagine, the trails can be grueling. there's no access to fresh food or drinking water, so you have to carry all of your supplies with you. In some places, the paths are incredibly narrow and very steep. All to say, the Grand Canyon trails are not ideal for a beginner, so Yvette and I aren't going to be doing that anytime soon. What do you mean? Your sister is a hiker. You can do it. I will follow closely. I will try my best. Even if you've been to the Grand Canyon before, you might be surprised.

by what secrets the canyon holds. Take the village of Supai, for example. It's a small town that's literally inside the canyon. As of 2018, it had a population of 208 people, all members of the Havasupai Native American tribe. This has been their ancestral home for over a thousand years, and they still thrive there today, even though their town is incredibly,

remote. There's no way to drive to Supai. I mean, if you want to visit, you have to hike 16 miles round trip, and luckily, there's a hotel so visitors don't have to get there and turn around and go back in the same day. But even the mail is delivered by mule, and it takes the delivery person eight hours a day every day just to make the trip. I mean, y'all talk about a long shift. But the Sioux Pie is just one of the wonders hidden within the canyon walls. There are also hidden waterfalls, archaeological dig sites, even an old nuclear bunker the federal government built during the Cold War. What I found really heartbreaking was that roughly 150 years ago, the canyon was almost completely destroyed. When the first European settlers arrived in the mid-1800s,

they didn't see a breathtaking natural formation that deserved protection. They saw dollar signs, trees around the top rim that could be cut down for lumber, caves that could be mined for valuable minerals, and a deep pit where they could dump their garbage. So right off the bat, prospectors began exploiting the land in and around the canyon for her natural resources. They didn't care what they destroyed along the way. But in the early 1900s, thankfully, conservationists began speaking up. They begged the government to pass laws that protected the region.

They succeeded. And in 1919, the Grand Canyon National Park was established, and logging and mining operations were ordered to stop. And that was a huge victory, especially for the 11 different indigenous communities that lived in or near the Grand Canyon. These included the Hopi, the piute, the Navajo, and so many more. The ruling also helped preserve artifacts for archaeologists to study. And we know a long-gone community. Ancestors to the Pueblo used to live in caverns in the canyon walls. Now, that region

was going to be protected, and that meant their histories would also be preserved for later study. But some think, during that process, another ancient ruin was saved, one that was supposedly discovered 11 years before the National Park was established. Sometime around late 1908, an explorer named G.E. Kincaid was boating from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other. According to an interview he later gave to the Arizona Gazette, Kincade was on a solo scouting trip looking for minerals that could be mined. But to do so, he had to illegally sneak into a part of the canyon that was closed to the public. He was about 40 miles away from the nearest settlement and in a very remote part of the canyon, which was hard to get to.

Kincaid had a lot of experience with rough waters and foraging for food, so he was prepared for the journey. Then, somewhere along the way, he saw markings on the stone walls. Kincaid called them stains, and above them were stairs carved into the rock leading to a cave. Now, Kincaid wasn't an archaeologist, but he was used to finding ancient ruins and artifacts on all of his expeditions. And he had a general sense of what to look for. He could tell these stairs were man-made, they were not a natural formation. They'd been carved with some kind of ancient chisel.

So Kincaid was curious about who could have made these stairs. He figured the only way to find the answers was to take a look inside. The stairs were steep and tall, but when he finally got there, huffing and puffing, Kincaid saw that it opened into a very deep tunnel. He ended up lighting a flashlight and then walked several hundred feet. And there, toward the back of the cave, he found something he never would have expected to see in the Grand Canyon. Mommies.

Kincaid had no idea how they had ended up there, but he took a photo of one of them and collected a few artifacts that were lying around. Unfortunately, in his interview, he didn't specify what those exact artifacts were. The point was, he supposedly had proof of what he had discovered. And when his expedition ended, Kincaid mailed. those artifacts and the photo to some acquaintances who worked at the Smithsonian Museum. He knew that they would be intrigued and he was right. Soon afterward, representatives from the Smithsonian agreed to sponsor an expedition back to the

Grand Canyon and they hired a team of scientists to accompany Kincaid. And it's a good thing that they did because on the second trip, Kincaid realized the tunnel went much deeper than he had originally explored. Behind the mummies was an entrance to another passage, and it branched off into other rooms, and I'm talking hundreds of them. Each chamber had an oval-shaped entrance that was too smooth and symmetrical to be made naturally.

Kincaid and his team believed ancient people had actually carved these doorways out of stone. Then when Kincaid went into one of the rooms, he found weapons and shields, like someone had stored them there after a war. Another room was filled to the brim with grain, as though it was being stashed for the winter. Another chamber was loaded with pots and pans and everything you'd need to cook for a big group. To them, this was a sign that ancient civilization had lived in these tunnels. there was a massive underground city. An estimate said these chambers could have held roughly 50,000 people.

The further Kincaid walked, the more storage areas, workshops, and homes he found, but they all paled in comparison to what he saw at the end of his journey. It was a massive chamber, which he called the Cross Hall or the Shrine. and it had other tunnels branching off of it, Kincaid compared the layout to a wheel with a shrine in the center. Inside of it was a huge statue on the ground as though it was meant to be worshipped. And it looked almost exactly like a Buddha.

Which seemed impossible. The archaeologist with Kincaid said the statue appeared to be very ancient and predated the Europeans' arrival in the Americas. How would the indigenous locals even know about Buddha? And yet, the figure was holding a plant, which resembled a lotus flower or a lily. In religious art, the Buddha is often depicted holding either of these flowers. Initially, Kincaid figured this was just a coincidence, until he saw what else was inside. The statue was surrounded by other artifacts, vases, urns, small statues, and coins.

Some of them were made of copper or gold, but Kincaid also saw several items made of a strange gray metal he didn't recognize. Even the researchers with him couldn't identify it, as though it was an undiscovered compound. Even more shocking was what was written on these artifacts and walls. When his companions examined these markings, they all agreed. Somehow they'd stumbled upon,

Egyptian hieroglyphics. When G.E. Kincade found hieroglyphics in the Grand Canyon in 1909, they seemed almost as impossible as the Buddha statue. But Kincade had a theory about how this may have happened. In his interview with the Arizona Gazette, Kincaid said he believed the indigenous people of the American Southwest were originally from Egypt. Their ancestors may have wandered across Europe and Asia

and made their way to the Americas. After they settled in Arizona, they built a huge tunnel right into the wall of the Grand Canyon. Now, Kincaid admitted that this was just a theory. He didn't have any proof yet, but he did have help. After that expedition, the Smithsonian's experts took 40 truckloads of relics from the cave and began studying them in their labs. A professor named S.A. Jordan,

said to be overseeing the work. And according to Kincaid, this was just the beginning. The Smithsonian was planning to fund even more expeditions to the caves in the future, so he hoped he'd get more answers on his theories very soon. Well, after his interview was published in the Arizona Gazette on April 5, 1909, a bunch of people contacted the Smithsonian wanting to learn more. This included professional archaeologists, journalists, and ordinary people who were excited about the discovery. But no matter who wrote letters, visited in person, or sent telegrams, the answer was always the same. Smithsonian employees said they didn't know what anyone was talking about. They didn't know anyone named GE Kincaid.

They hadn't hired him to explore the Grand Canyon. They'd never heard of a secret cave there. and they didn't work with the professor named S.A. Jordan. So basically, in other words, they denied every single part of Kincaid's story. Some people suggested maybe Kincaid got the facts wrong, or he was just confused during his interview. Perhaps he misspoke when he said he was working with a Smithsonian and some other group was funding the expedition.

That doesn't make any sense. makes no sense to me whatsoever. Except, strange things started happening in and around the Grand Canyon after Kincaid's interview was published. Numerous visitors noticed armed security guards suddenly patrolling the area. No one remembered seeing these guards before the article came out, and a bunch of trails were now closed off to visitors.

It was almost like someone was hiding something in the canyon. So rumors began flying that maybe the Smithsonian had been involved after all. And maybe they were covering the expedition up because Kincaid's discovery would have changed the way we understand all of American history. You see, many researchers believe the Grand Canyon has been inhabited for about 12,000 years, maybe longer. A few recent discoveries suggest the first settlers may have arrived. arrived 21,000 years ago. But G.E. Kincaid's discovery in 1909 threw that entire theory into question. Because according to his team, all of the artifacts, mummies, and hieroglyphics in the cave came from a specific era of Egyptian history. The reign of Farrell Ramsey's the Second. He ruled from

1279 to 1213 BCE. However, if people left Egypt in the 1200s BCE, that means that they arrived in the Grand Canyon much later than historians say. I'm talking roughly 8,000 years later. In other words, Kincaid's discovery meant researchers might have to throw out all of their findings, re-evaluate all of their conclusions. And this could be very embarrassing for historians, archaeologists, and researchers. No one likes to admit that they were wrong about everything they discovered. So, with the help of the Smithsonian, Kincaid's big discovery might have been covered up. Exactly.

But, I mean, I have to say, I have a hard time thinking that that was actually the case. because it's pretty common for scientists to change their beliefs and their theories or even update their research to fit with new findings. There's nothing inherently embarrassing about saying, okay, we thought one thing was true, but we found new evidence and now we think, you know, it's something else. Like, that's what scientists do. You're always collecting data and finding out more information, new information. Right. So to me, it's hard to imagine people pulling off. a century-long cover-up just to make some researchers feel better about their mistakes,

unless there's more to the story, because big stretches of the Grand Canyon are still off limits now. And to this day, nobody knows where the rumored cave actually is. The Smithsonian still hasn't admitted that they hired Kincaid to even explore it, and nobody has published, its exact location, and it's apparently so well hidden or so well guarded that nobody has ever stumbled on it during an expedition. So the Smithsonian could be guarding it for, I don't know, other reasons. Maybe the caves hold something dangerous. Some people believe there's something in the cavern that even Kincaid didn't know about. In his interview with the Arizona Gazette, he said there was one tunnel he and his team weren't able to explore. When they stepped

into it, they smelled something suspicious. And it was extremely dark in the cave. Even when they lit torches and flashlights, Kincaid and the others couldn't see further than just a few inches in front of them. It was like some entity was blocking the light. The explorers were worried about it being poisonous gas or even chemical fumes. So they explored the rest of the cave, but left that particular passageway untouched. And since there's no public record of any later expeditions, we have no way of knowing if anyone else ever made it back. If later explorers did go into that tunnel, they never told anyone what they found. But some believe it had something to do with real ancient magic. There are very old legends that support that idea.

I mean, take this story, which comes from the Hopi people, who have lived near the Grand Canyon for over 2,000 years. According to their beliefs, every plant, animal, and person used to live in a place called the first world. It was known as an endless space because it had no boundaries or limits. It was like it stretched across the entire universe and into other realms of existence. including the underworld. Everyone and everything that lived in the first world had incredible powers,

like the ability to read each other's minds and speak telepathically, and at first, everyone in everything lived in peace and harmony. People and animals got along and worked together to take care of the world, but as time went on, conflicts arose. People turned on one another, they became greedy,

And eventually the gods became angry at their creation. And they chose to destroy the first world. But a few people, those who had pure hearts and good intentions, received early warning. Before their universe could be destroyed, they took shelter in an ant hill, which was deep underground. Then fire rained down from the sky, huge earthquakes, and volcanic explosions ripped the continents apart. Everything on the surface of the earth died, but the people in the ant hill survived. Afterward, the survivors came back to the land and built a new society, called the second world. But sadly, history repeated itself again.

People became corrupt, and then the god selected a small handful of pure-hearted individuals to spare, and then told them to hide in that same ant-hill, and everyone else was killed in another apocalypse. Those survivors established the third world, and you may know where this is going. Once again, people became greedy, selfish, and didn't take care of their resources. This time, when the gods decided to destroy the world,

the Hopi people who survived found themselves in our reality, inside the Grand Canyon and what they called the Fourth World. So the Grand Canyon is sacred to the Hopi people because they say every living being on Earth now, people, plants, and animals descended from those survivors who arrived there. Perhaps that gateway from the third world to the fourth was in Kincaid's Cave. Maybe in that passage he and his companions couldn't enter because of the smell and darkness. Maybe whoever is part of this cover-up is also aware of that.

And they've chosen to hide the entrance so the truth about our entire universe doesn't fall into the wrong hands. But they may not have hidden it as well as they planned. Because according to several reports, the Grand Canyon still radiates a powerful energy. One so strong it might have claimed a few lives. Many southwestern indigenous communities consider the Grand Canyon a sacred place, and countless reports say it's a source of a powerful spiritual energy, the kind that can even attract supernatural entities, like spirits or even aliens. To this day, the Grand Canyon is considered a hotspot for ghosts and UFO sightings.

Many tourists say they've had encounters with specters, strange flying craft, or both. Take this story from a man named Doug Bray. He lived in Arizona not too far from the Grand Canyon. He was trying to get healthier like so many of us are. So he started a new workout routine that involved hiking in and around the local trails. On the morning of June 10, 2015, he hiked through the Grand Canyon following a trail towards the bottom. Doug rested and stopped to eat lunch. Then he started back up again towards the top. He didn't want to be on the trail when the sun set, but unfortunately, Doug misjudged how long it would take him to get there. The trail ran along the side of the canyon with a sheer drop on one side. So the darker it got, the more dangerous the walk back became.

It would have been very easy for Doug to fall to his death if he couldn't see where he was going. To make matters worse, his flashlight was missing and his phone battery was drained, so he couldn't use that either. But then, Doug saw a light shining in the darkness. It appeared to be a flashlight further up the trail, as though someone was hiking down towards him. So he yelled that he was there and that he needed help. No one said anything in response, but the light got closer and closer until finally Doug could see who was holding it.

It was a woman, and she wasn't dressed for hiking. It was like she didn't even belong on the trail. Doug explained what had happened, and the woman assured him that the trail only went a little bit further. He would get to the top very soon. Doug admitted that he didn't feel comfortable walking in the dark alone and asked if she would go the rest of the way with him, but she declined. She said she had to go back to her people. Doug had no idea what people she was talking about or what that meant. Instead, she gave Doug a headlamp. She also handed over fresh batteries in case he needed to change them during his hike. Then, without another word, she just turned and walked away. Within seconds, she disappeared into the darkness,

and Doug had no clue where she had gone. However, he followed her instructions and followed the trail all the way to the end. Or what he thought was the end. Somehow, he'd gotten turned around in the dark. He'd hiked back to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for a second time. By this point, Doug felt the safest thing to do was just to stop and get some sleep. So around 3 a.m., Doug got up and headed back. towards the top. But as he was walking, he noticed these strange lights in the sky. They looked

like glowing orbs, and they seemed to be following him and buzzing up above. Doug had never seen anything like it before, but he didn't spend the time trying to analyze it. He just wanted to get home, safe and sound. And he almost made it. Doug collapsed near the end of the trail. Luckily, some other hikers saw him, got him to the top, and made sure he got medical treatment. Doug eventually made a full recovery. But for years afterward, he found himself wondering about those strange encounters in the Grand Canyon. Like, was the woman who gave him the headlamp an ordinary hiker? Or was she some kind of guardian spirit?

And were those orbs or a ghost, or was it a UFO? or was he just hallucinating because he had been hiking for so long? All we can say for sure is that Doug was lucky to come through the situation without any permanent damage because not everyone can say the same about their time in and around the canyon. Take this story from June 30, 1956. That day, a passenger plane loaded with travelers took off from Los Angeles at 9.01 a.m. It was running a little late because the plane needed some unscheduled maintenance. But the pilot, Jack S. Gandy, was hoping to make up the time in the air.

At 9.21 a.m., he was flying over rural Arizona when he hit some turbulence. Captain Gandy radioed ground control saying he wanted to go higher and avoid the strong winds. But ground control told him no. There was another plane right above him, and if he saw too high, they could. could collide. Gandhi asked if it would be okay to go just a little bit higher. That way, he'd be out of the turbulence, but there would still be a buffer between him and the other plane. Ground control approved his request, and he ascended. A few minutes later, Captain Gandhi called ground control yet again, but this time there was a lot of static on the line and it was

impossible to hear what he was saying. The technicians on the ground hung up and called Gandhi right hoping they'd have a better connection the second time around, but he didn't pick up. Even more disturbing, the other plane also wasn't answering the radio. Aviation officials feared the worst. They immediately sent search and rescue teams to scour the ground under their last known location. Later that same day, a tipster reported that they had seen lots of black smoke coming out of the Grand Canyon. Sure enough, teams went to the site and found the wreckage of two downed airplanes.

Sadly, there were no survivors. Between passengers and crew, a total of 128 people had died in the crash. After an investigation, officials said the planes had hit each other because supposedly neither pilot was paying close enough attention to what he was doing. allegedly both Gandhi and the other pilot may have flown a bit off course maybe to show their passengers the views of the Grand Canyon. And by the time they realized what was happening, they were on a collision course and it was too late. But according to reports, the crash site is extremely haunted to this day. People who wander close to the area see unexplainable lights and strange glowing orbs.

Visitors have also seen people standing in the case. canyon and they're wearing fancy clothes that look like they're from the 50s. The crash site is completely off limits to the public even to this day. There are a lot of other parts of the canyon that are also said to be haunted. For example, legend says sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s, a family visited the region and stayed in a hotel on the North Rim. One day, the father and his son went out hiking only to get caught in a sudden rainstorm. Rain turned the trails into slippery mud and Wynn tugged at them with every step that they took. They tried to be cautious as they made their way back to the hotel. But sadly, it wasn't enough. They slipped and plummeted

to their deaths. When the mother learned what had happened to her husband and son, of course she was heartbroken. She sat in her room screaming and crying with grief and refused to be comforted. According to the legend, she died by suicide in the hotel. But her spirit remained. For years after her death, guests said doors would frequently close and open on their own, or they heard the sound of sobbing, echoing through the hallways. That is, until the hotel burned down. in a mysterious fire on September 1st, 1932. But when firefighters went to put out the blaze, they saw something incredibly strange.

In the middle of the flames, there appeared to be a face, a face of a distraught, crying woman, as though the widow's spirit had started the fire. Even though the hotel is gone, people still spot the grieving woman's spirit, wandering on trails near the area where it used to be. She wears a white dress with a blue scarf.

And even if you don't see her, you can usually hear her cries. Her ghost isn't the only one. Even the rocks and plants in the Grand Canyon are supposedly haunted. There are countless stories of tourists picking up stones, leaves or animal bones, that they spot on their hike and then taking them. them home as souvenirs. After that, strange things start happening in their homes, doors slamming, unfamiliar voices, and strings of bad luck. The incidents don't stop until people actually send the objects back to the Grand Canyon, and oftentimes they'll drop them at the visitor centers with notes

apologizing for taking the items in the first place. Just a rule of thumb, you know, for us growing up, in Hawaii, you know better than to take any rock, any shell. Like, you just don't take it. You don't take it out of the island. You don't do it. You don't do it. You just have to remember that as a rule of thumb. Do not take what isn't yours, and if it belongs to the land, it's not yours.

But we do have to say there are a lot of people who think all of the stories we just told about lost Egyptian cities, ghosts, and UFOs are hoaxes. A lot of these conspiracy theories were kicked off by G.E. Kincaid's alleged interview with the Arizona Gazette. But outside of that publication, there's no record that he ever even existed. He's never spoken to any other members of the press. He's never published findings from any of his other expeditions. There's no legal documentation of his birth, his death, or his employment. So some skeptics think the Arizona Gazette made up the story about King Cade's River Expedition,

the cave full of mummies and hieroglyphics, just to sell more papers. Which would explain why the Smithsonian denied any knowledge of the discoveries, because maybe it wasn't a cover-up, it was just a hoax. Still, we cannot deny that there's something. so special about the Grand Canyon. Even if GE Concade wasn't real, there are indigenous legends about the region's powerful energy going back thousands and thousands of years.

Yes, Russia, there is no denying the Grand Canyon holds some kind of magic. Even if the legends aren't all true, Indigenous traditions have long described the land as mystical, sacred, alive in its own way. And when you're there, we've been told you can't help but feel that. It's no surprise the Grand Canyon is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It pulls you in. It seems to quiet everything else around you.

And then it transports you back into another dimension and time. So to me, that's the real power of it all. This is So Supernatural, an audio chuck original produced by Crimehouse. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website as sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode. I think Chuck would approve.