Another Hidden City Beneath the Pyramids? We’ve Heard This Before

For decades, the Giza Plateau has been at the center of claims that history isn’t what it seems. From precise astronomical alignments to unexplained construction techniques, it’s no surprise that stories about what might lie beneath the pyramids continue to thrive. The latest comes from a team of Italian researchers claiming they’ve discovered a second “hidden city” beneath the Pyramid of Menkaure, complete with shafts, pillars, and spiral-like structures stretching thousands of feet below the surface.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Just a few months ago, this same team made headlines by claiming to find similar underground features beneath the Khafre pyramid. Their story went viral, attracting both fascination and sharp criticism. And long before that, influencer and self-styled researcher Billy Carson made nearly identical claims. He spoke of a multilevel subterranean city beneath the pyramids, filled with advanced architecture and evidence of a lost civilisation. Like this new story, his version was promoted heavily on social media and podcasts, but never backed by peer-reviewed research or any form of verifiable data.

That’s the common thread here. These underground pyramid claims often rely on the same formula: bold language, ancient mystery, and enough scientific-sounding language to seem plausible. But they rarely come with the one thing that matters: Evidence.

Take the new claim. The team says they’ve used ground-penetrating radar to detect structures more than 2,000 feet beneath the Menkaure pyramid. They argue this proves the pyramids are the “tip of the iceberg” of a massive underground complex built by a lost civilisation over 38,000 years ago. The problem? No current scanning technology, radar, seismic, or otherwise, can image solid structures at that depth with any real clarity. Ground-penetrating radar struggles beyond 100 feet, and while seismic tomography can detect general density changes further down, it can’t resolve spiral staircases or architectural pillars.

That’s not a minor detail, it’s a limitation of the technology itself.

Despite the headlines, none of these findings have been peer-reviewed, published in any credible journal, or independently verified. In fact, some experts, like famed Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, have dismissed them outright as “nonsense.” When someone claims to rewrite 4,500 years of accepted archaeology, it’s fair to expect more than blurry images and confident speculation.

The language surrounding these discoveries hasn’t changed much either. Billy Carson, who previously promoted the idea of a vast underground city beneath Khafre, is now making similar claims about a second city beneath Menkaure, with just as much enthusiasm and conviction as before, and with the same amount of actual evidence. The presentation is dramatic, filled with talk of lost civilisations, ancient floods, and hidden energy systems. But once again, they’re offering a theory without the evidence to support it. ?Unsupported by peer-reviewed research or independently verified data.

There’s also a pattern worth noting. The new team, like Carson before them, invokes global cataclysms, sacred geometry, and ancient flood myths. They point to the Edfu Temple texts and comet-impact theories to suggest a much older, advanced civilisation was wiped out, one that passed down knowledge to the Egyptians. These ideas are compelling and dramatic, but they blur the line between mythology and archaeology.

It’s not wrong to be curious. Human history is full of gaps, and our understanding of ancient civilisations is always evolving. But there’s a difference between healthy curiosity and misplaced certainty. When claims like this are presented as a groundbreaking discovery but fall apart under basic scrutiny, it does more harm than good. It undermines real research and fuels public mistrust in science. If the team had released their radar data for independent review or published it in a respected journal, the conversation would look very different.

In the end, stories about underground cities beneath the pyramids tell us more about the present than the past. They speak to our hunger for mystery, our distrust of institutions, and our hope that the world still holds secrets waiting to be uncovered. That’s a story worth exploring, but only if we do it with honesty, not hype.