Burrows' Cave

Useful Information

Location:	At a branch of the Little Wabash River. True location unknown.
Open:	no chance
Fee:	hah!
Classification:	Faked Underground Treasures
Light:	not necessary, fake gold shines so bright
Dimension:	much bigger
Guided tours:	I will die before I show it to you
Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:	lots
Address:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

APR-1982	cave discovered by Russell Burrows walking through the countryside.
1986	the Early Sites Research Society contacted Burrows.

Description

Burrows' Cave is named after its discoverer Russell Burrows, who discovered it in April 1982. There are two versions of the story, either he fell on a large rock that suddenly tilted sideways under his weight, almost throwing him into the cave, or he simply stumbled across the mouth of the cave. He noted the presence of numerous artifacts inside the cave. He discovered hundreds, perhaps thousands of carved stones with figures or letters in an unknown language. Burrows took some of these items, for analysis and later examination by a number of archaeologists and epigraphers.

Most scientists involved judged the stones to be fakes, other researchers (mostly non-academics) disagreed.

Some inscriptions were written in Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek, Etruscan, and other ancient languages that were never spoken in North America. If they are not faked, they are strong evidence of significant contact by numerous ancient cultures with the North American continent long before Columbus or the Scandinavians set foot here.

The story is so far complete nonsense completely mysterious. It is not clear if Burrows just made the whole story up. There is also the theory of a 19th century secret society, The Knights of the Golden Circle, making the inscribed stones for either ceremonial or fund-raising purposes.

However, Burrows was the only one who has ever seen the cave, there has been no scientific examination. The artifacts were never catalogued and never examined consequently. When an item was sold and later proved to be faked, he "admitted" that it was a replica. At last, we believe he made the whole story up, including the cave itself, for money, free meals and the attention he got. It did not work as good as he might have thought, but it worked good enough for him.