I grew up visiting Peru often to visit my mother’s side of the family where I fell in love with the history, culture, and became fascinated by the ancient architecture of long forgotten civilizations.

When I was about 10, we took a trip to Machu Picchu. Exploring the site was a lot more relaxed then, and I remember wandering off into some caves where I saw something small gleaming in one of the walls. Investigating further, I scraped out seashells embedded into the wall. At 8,000 feet above sea level! This blew my mind.

1997 Home Video Screenshot

I’d come to learn of the exchange of goods between ancient cultures in Peru and of the many geological changes and cataclysmic events our planet has experienced.

This fueled decades of independent study and research, resulting in the acknowledgement that there is so much of our history left to be discovered,

Buried, Unexcavated Structures

especially as new findings continue to update and broaden our understanding of the past.

During those frequent trips to Peru, I remember visiting obscure ancient sites, wondering why more wasn’t being done to excavate, uncover their history, and why some locations had no protections in place after clearly being pilfered.

May 2024 Expedition

In May of 2024 I embarked on an epic 3 week journey, solo, into some of Peru’s most remote and uncharted territories; visiting locations I believed were ancient ruins I had seen on Google Earth that did not have any labels or place markers identifying them.

Driving over 3k kilometers, I’d make it to over 90 locations in 23 days. I’d hike for countless hours, traversing through fertile valleys, forging through rivers, conquering mountain peaks, and enduring arid deserts, on a search for lost ruins and forgotten pieces of history; additionally verifying my satellite surveying with 100% accuracy.

For some of these sites, this journey produced some of the only digital media that exists documenting them. Imagine what could be done with the proper resources.

I would come across locals who would recant stories and help guide me on my journey. I’d discover ancient cities reduced to rubble, sites revealing foundations buried over millennia, fortresses strategically perched on mountaintops, and geoglyphs etched into landscapes far from their known locations.

I’d navigate to places not listed on maps or official records, exploring undocumented temples and complexes, investigating un-excavated sites in ruin, examine mysterious construction methods, and analyze anomalies which would appear to indicate catastrophic events and environmental changes suffered by the civilizations that inhabited these areas.

A New Adventure

In regions surveyed but barely explored since the 1970s, I would be one of the first to travel to and document a hidden unexcavated complex consisting of over 15 platform pyramids and discover a surrounding necropolis with undeniable astronomical alignments.

I would chart a course through several savagely looted burial sites and, in shock, stand amongst ancient mummies whose dismembered skeletal remains were left scattered amongst ripped apart cotton and textile, that were once their original funerary wrappings.

In the pilfered debris I’d find elongated skulls, beautiful and detailed pieces of pottery, and an abundance of trash that made much of these sacred burial sites seem more like landfills. How was this possible, in this day and age?

Looted Mummies

Trash Heap at Archaeological Site

Satellite imagery indicated there were once structures at several locations I ventured to, which over the last few years appear to have been leveled over to make way for corporate agricultural expansion.

Archaeologists confirmed that this is a growing concern amidst non-existent oversight and relaxed regulation.

At these locations, it is clear there are man-made structures still buried, and although the untapped potential for real excavation and study could produce valuable historical information, the ability to do so seems to be becoming more and more compromised.