Cueva de los Tayos — the metal library that never was

OVERVIEW

Cueva de los Tayos, the cave of the oilbirds, is in the rainforest on the eastern Andes of Morona-Santiago. A 65-metre shaft leads to 4.6 km of passages and a chamber 90 by 240 metres; it is the longest cave in Ecuador. The Shuar descend each spring on vine ladders to collect young oilbirds and guide explorers.

HISTORY

The Hungarian János (Juan) Móricz claimed in the 1960s to have found a "golden library" of metal books inscribed in hieroglyphs, and that four aliens had spoken to him telepathically there; he never gave a location and asked for money to verify it. A 1968 Mormon expedition he was meant to guide concluded he had never been to the caves. Erich von Däniken popularised the story in The Gold of the Gods (1973). In 1976 Stan Hall organised one of the largest cave expeditions ever mounted — over a hundred people, British and Ecuadorian military, eight British cavers who mapped the cave, and Neil Armstrong. They found burial sites dating to 1500 BCE and no library.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The archaeological consensus is that the golden library is a hoax. The entry carries vetted = false for that claim, and is on the map because the claim still circulates as genuine — Móricz's own source later said the expedition had simply searched the wrong cave, and the story was the subject of a 2018 television hunt.

VISITING

Only with Shuar permission and guides, arranged through the Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar in Sucúa, with a fee to the communities. A vertical descent — technical caving.