Gold, Aliens, and What Lies Beneath the Tayos Caves

The Tayos caves, a subterranean maze of vaulted rock and shadowy hollows tucked beneath the Ecuadorian Amazon, have long been the site of controversy, conspiracy, and mystery. They’re steeped in ancient lore of lost treasure and civilizations with extraterrestrial ties. Spanning over three miles of underground passages and cathedral-like caverns, La Cueva de los Tayos is named after the species of nocturnal oilbirds that inhabit them. 

The Indigenous Shuar people are the guardians of the caves and the surrounding territory. For the Shuar, the caves are a powerful place of spiritual significance, home to sacred spirits.

The Tayos caves first entered popular imagination through the writings of Erich von Däniken, who wrote about ancient treasure buried in their depths in his 1972 book, Gold of the Gods. Hailed as one of the forefathers of the Ancient Astronaut theory, the idea that extraterrestrials made contact with early humans and influenced the evolution of ancient civilizations, von Däniken recounted the earlier claims of the Hungarian-Argentine explorer János “Juan” Móricz, who explored the cave in 1969.

Móricz allegedly discovered a vast underground network of tunnels extending hundreds of miles, where he claimed to have come upon unusual sculptures and a polished stone desk with large gold books inscribed with hieroglyphs, referred to as the “Golden Library.” Móricz believed that these alleged artifacts were evidence of an advanced civilization that had been lost to history.

“It could easily have come straight from the realms of science fiction if I had not seen and photographed the incredible truth in person…” Von Däniken wrote. “A gigantic system of tunnels, thousands of miles in length and built by unknown constructors at some unknown date, lies hidden deep below the South American continent.”

Captivated by this story, the late Scottish engineer and explorer Stan Hall set out to uncover the treasure, leaving his home to mount a historic expedition to the caves. The 1976 expedition rallied the support of Ecuadorian and British government officials, joint special forces, and top scientists of the time, including astronaut Neil Armstrong, who served as  Honorary President of the expedition. 

No evidence of the Golden Library has ever been found by Hall or subsequent explorers, leading many to believe that the legend is a hoax. Even so, the expedition was a success, as the extensive cave network was mapped more thoroughly than ever before. Moreover, another kind of treasure was uncovered: Explorers recorded 40 new species of bats, 100 new species of butterflies, 200 new species of beetles, and even a burial site dating as far back as 1500 BCE. 

When Hall passed away in 2008, his daughter, artist and architect, Eileen Hall Muñoz, picked up the thread of his work, embarking on her own adventure of self-discovery and treasure-seeking. As Eileen began retracing her father’s footsteps, she found herself in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where she discovered healing through establishing a deep connection with nature.

Although Eileen’s father and subsequent explorers never found the lost gold they were looking for, the caves and larger territory are under constant threat from mining and deforestation due to substantial deposits of raw gold and precious minerals in the region. In recent years, there has been an expansion of illegal mining operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon, extracting gold from protected areas of the rainforest. Even with the historic 2022 ruling, in which the Constitutional (Supreme) Court of Ecuador recognized the rights of Indigenous communities to have final say over extractive projects that impact their territories, reports from Amazon Ecuador show evidence of the industry’s continued growth.

“I have fond memories of dad doing research, reading books, and meeting with officials as he put together a project to nominate the site as a UNESCO World Heritage Site,” says Eileen. “Sadly, the government refused to go ahead with the plan because of a dispute with Peru at the time.”

In continuation of her father’s work, Eileen founded Tayos, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the historical and ecological conservation work in the caves and securing their protected future by leveraging storytelling, music, and the arts. In 2018, Eileen mounted her own expedition alongside fellow architect and artist Tamsin Cunningham into the cave, inviting a coalition of artists and scientists, including musician Jon Hopkins and psychedelic neuroscientist Mendel Kaelen, there to assess the effects of listening to music in the cave on the brain.

“I feel that the arts can play an important role in conservation, providing new ways of experiencing the world, shifting cultural narratives, and weaving stories that will help us feel into the future with more grace,” says Eileen.

Hopkins’ popular album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, a sonic journey that fuses ambient, drone, and classical music with field recordings from the caves made by Kaelen, was inspired by his time in Tayos, as well as his long-standing meditation practice and DMT experiences.

“Most of the music I write is quite abstract, and I don't generally know what it’s about until later, but this piece was a direct translation of an experience,” he explained in an interview. “The piece has a clear narrative structure. If you know what it is about, hopefully listening to it will give you a concrete feeling parallel with what it felt like to be in the cave.”

Eileen envisions such endeavors as a form of activism, hoping that the media attention will help generate support for the Tayos caves to finally receive a UNESCO World Heritage site designation, thereby ensuring the protection of the region for future generations. In contrast to earlier explorers, Eileen views the Tayos caves as an opportunity to reframe what it means to talk about treasure. Moving away from white male narratives about discovery and pushing the boundaries of the known world, Tayos offers an opportunity to become reenchanted with the magic and beauty inherent in nature —the treasure that is always under our noses, but that we often fail to see.

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