Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [66]
In the late 1960s, one of my trips took me through Cuzco and up into the selva of Peru to Tingo Maria, a small jungle town where there was rumored to be a "treasure cave" that previous visitors had declared to be full of man-made wonders and auriferous treasure. I was not inclined to become a full-fledged "spelunker," but I was determined to find out just what this was, so I shouldered the right gear and, with the help of local guidance, clambered up the face of an escarpment to the almost-invisible opening of the Cueva de los Leschusas. (The leschusa) is a locally named bird similar to the guacharo, or oilbird, of Venezuela. A variety also lives in Mexico. It is the only bird known to live in caves, and only one of the rather terrifying critters that I was about to come upon.)
I will not detail the wonders I found in this cavern, except for the supposedly man-made artifacts; the three-inch-long white cockroaches, gigantic sowbugs, and vampire bats scurrying about like mice on crutches will have to await another effort. But these fascinating phenomena added greatly to the unreal atmosphere of this strange world.
It takes little imagination to invent giants from another world and claim that they lived in this Peruvian cave.
I do not wonder that others have allowed their imaginations to run rampant down these labyrinthine tunnels. One is suddenly out of touch with any semblance of the outside ecosphere, victim to all sorts of suggestions of dark and strange mysteries.
I came upon the giant "staircases" that had been described to me by others. They were the result of centuries of internal erosion by water, which was still at its tedious work as I observed the colossal structures. At the top of these "stairs" I discovered various seemingly bottomless holes going straight down, with scraps of rope and bits of lumber left by previous explorers still in evidence around the openings.For all I knew, the owners of these tools were moldering away at the bottom of the pits, and I was not inclined to look into them further.I had satisfied myself that the reported artifacts left there by the "giants" (you may read "Incas," "space aliens," or any other currently popular candidates) were in fact interesting but perfectly normal geological formations. And not a scrap of the elusive gold was to be seen, certainly no lumps that "had to be levered from the pile."
What appear at first glance to be giant stairs deep inside the cave are only natural geological formations.
Back in Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire and a city with which I am quite familiar, I had asked about the Caves of Gold, bearing up bravely under the exasperated sighs of the archaeologists with whom I spoke. I was sent to the Church of St. Dominic, which is constructed on and around the ruins of Coricancha ("Place of Gold"), the single holiest place in the Inca domain. It was called the greatest wonder of the hemisphere by the Spanish conquerors, who tried in vain to tear it down and settled for covering it up with modern stonework. Here, atop the wondrous Curved Wall, I was shown a barred window, beyond which lay the entrance to a series of caves allegedly chockful of Inca gold, taken there by the Indians when the Spaniards descended upon Cuzco. It was hard to believe that the invaders had sealed up such wealth and allowed such stories to get about.
It turned out that what I was peering into was a modern storeroom, inside of which excavation was going on to reveal concealed parts of the ancient ruins. The gold that had clad the andesite walls of Coricancha had long ago been stripped away and melted down by the invaders, along with the destruction of the culture that produced it. But tourists are still led to the spot and shown the provocative barred window.
As for Moricz, he had heard tales of hidden caves full of gold and presumably