Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Cueva de los Tayos 'metal library'
In 1969 Hungarian-Argentine Juan Moricz registered a claim to a cave system in Morona Santiago, Ecuador, saying it held a library of metal plates from a lost civilisation.
1969 CE · -3.06, -78.20 · status: claim
The account
Erich von Däniken's 'The Gold of the Gods' (1972) made the story famous; Moricz then disputed von Däniken's account of having seen the plates.
The sceptical view
No metal library has ever been found; Moricz never produced it, and von Däniken later admitted he had not visited the cave.
Connections in the atlas
- Tayos expedition with Neil Armstrong
- Father Crespi's 'metal plates', Cuenca
- Ratanabá, the fake lost capital