{"id":84,"date":"2009-01-13T10:20:10","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T18:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelastdaysoftolemac.com\/prophecy\/?p=84"},"modified":"2025-12-05T14:52:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T22:52:54","slug":"the-cave-of-the-oilbirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelastdaysoftolemac.com\/prophecy\/the-cave-of-the-oilbirds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cave of the Oilbirds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/malcolmnicholson.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/09\/gold-of-the-gods-1.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"Erich von Daniken, The Tayos Cave Scandal and the Crespi Collection Forgeries \u2013 Malcolm Nicholson\" width=\"254\" height=\"410\" \/>When Erich von D\u00e4niken published his book \u201c<em>The Gold of the<\/em> <em>Gods<\/em>\u201d in 1972, it quickly became an international best seller. By far the most sensational and controversial chapter in the book was his description of his visit to an underground cavern in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, in which he claimed to have seen a vast collection of golden artifacts that were considered to be the products of some long forgotten civilization that had once existed in the area.<\/p>\n<p>In his book von D\u00e4niken described how he had been guided to the location of this underground chamber by a man who had lived for many years in Guayaquil in Ecuador. He not only identified the man who claimed to have discovered these subterranean tunnels as Juan Moricz, but gave detailed instructions on how he could be traced.<\/p>\n<p>Juan Moricz was a reclusive man who had always shunned publicity. Now, as a result of the publication of von D\u00e4niken\u2019s book, he found that he was the object of a world wide search to discover the location of this collection of golden artifacts, and the Metal Library that von D\u00e4niken had described. Not surprisingly, Moricz now told a different tale.<\/p>\n<p>When reporters of Europe\u2019s most influential weekly magazine \u201c<em>Der Spiegel<\/em>\u201d tracked him down, Moricz denied having ever taken von D\u00e4niken to an underground cavern. When these comments were subsequently published, this retraction by Moricz served to undermine von D\u00e4niken\u2019s credibility, and implied that his entire story was a fraud.<\/p>\n<p>The ensuing uproar led one man to undertake a scientific expedition to Ecuador to try to establish the truth of the story, and to find this elusive library of metal plates. This man was a Scottish engineer by the name of Stanley Hall. Hall had read von D\u00e4niken\u2019s book and he traveled to Ecuador to meet with Juan Moricz.<\/p>\n<p>Moricz finally admitted to Hall that he had in fact met with von D\u00e4niken in 1972, and had taken the Swiss author from Guayaquil to Cuenca to meet with Padre Crespi to see his collection of golden artifacts. He also confirmed that he had taken von D\u00e4niken to visit a nearby cave system called \u201c<em>Cueva de los Tayos<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRBmgbrrSl-iLRPDVErR1CgMl_ayIVM6pTTcomNJt4d8S75anc0&amp;s\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" \/>&#8220;<em>Cueva de los Tayos<\/em>&#8220;, or to give it its English translation, means &#8220;<em>Cave of the Oilbirds<\/em>&#8220;. This subterranean cave system takes its name from the numerous buzzard-like birds that make their homes in these caverns, and fly in and out of the ventilation shafts.<\/p>\n<p>It was to this system of underground caves that Juan Moricz agreed to guide Stan Hall and his scientific expedition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Erich von D\u00e4niken published his book \u201cThe Gold of the Gods\u201d in 1972, it quickly became an international best seller. By far the most sensational and controversial chapter in the book was his description of his visit to an underground cavern in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, in which he claimed to have seen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-tunnels-of-the-andes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Cave of the Oilbirds - The Last Days Of Tolemac<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thelastdaysoftolemac.com\/prophecy\/the-cave-of-the-oilbirds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cave of the Oilbirds - The Last Days Of Tolemac\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Erich von D\u00e4niken published his book \u201cThe Gold of the Gods\u201d in 1972, it quickly became an international best seller. 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