What do you think about this?
On the southern edge of Mexico City, swallowed by a field of black volcanic rock, sits a pyramid that almost no one talks about, and it may be the oldest in all of Mesoamerica. Cuicuilco was built around 2,700 years ago, long before the Aztecs, long before even the great city of Teotihuacan. And unlike the famous step pyramids, this one is round, a series of stacked stone rings rising from the plain.
Then the mountain came for it. A volcano called Xitle erupted and sent a river of lava across the entire site, burying the temple and the city around it under as much as seven metres of solid rock. In places the stone lies more than thirty feet deep. For most of the structure, excavation is simply impossible. We have only uncovered the top.
So we are left guessing. How old is it really, when the lava sealed away the lower layers and the foundations we would need to date it? Who built a round pyramid here, and why, before the cultures we credit with inventing them? The survivors of that eruption are thought to have walked north and helped build Teotihuacan, carrying whatever they knew with them.
Makes you wonder how much older our history runs than the parts we are able to dig up.
A forgotten first chapter of Mesoamerican civilization, or just an early experiment frozen in lava? What do you think is still buried under Cuicuilco?
What do you think about this? On January 20, 1996, three young women in Varginha, Brazil, saw a four foot creature with oily skin and red eyes crouched by a wall. The army was in town that morning. A policeman said to have handled it died a month later. Cover story, or Brazil’s Roswell?
What do you think about this? In 1800 settlers at Conneaut, Ohio, opened a four acre burial ground in rows and reported skeletons over seven feet, jaws that fit over a man’s face, double rows of teeth. The graves were plowed under within a generation. Tall tale, or a people buried twice?
What do you think about this? The Iron Pillar of Delhi is six tons of forged iron from around 400 AD. It has stood outside through 1,600 years of monsoons and never rusted, thanks to a protective film from phosphorus rich iron nobody made again. Lucky recipe, or knowledge lost on purpose?
What do you think about this? North Sea trawlers pull up mammoth teeth, flint tools and a carved harpoon from 120 feet deep. Until 8,000 years ago that seabed was Doggerland, a forested land the size of Britain, drowned by rising seas and a tsunami. The lost land of every old story?
What do you think about this? In 1974 a Florida family found a polished 22 pound steel ball in burned brush. It hummed when a guitar played, rolled across rooms on its own and changed direction. Navy X rays showed objects inside, origin unknown. Valve ball, or something that landed?
What do you think about this? The Whaley House in San Diego was built in 1857 where a man was slowly hanged five years earlier. A baby and a daughter later died inside. Visitors report footsteps in empty rooms and a pressure on the throat where the gallows stood. Old house, or long memory?
Field reports, theories, and intel from the X-Files straight to your inbox. No filler, no algorithms, just the work.
Phone is optional. If you add it, we may text you tour drops, book launches, and breaking news from the X-Files up to 4 messages a month. Reply STOP anytime. Msg & data rates may apply.