Mysteries of Machu Picchu, an Ancient Underground City in Turkey, and China’s Longyou Caves

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]the Joe Rogan Experience >> observations about stuff like >> recognize that things change.

[00:00:05]>> Yeah.

[00:00:06]>> Like subsaharan Africa used to be lush greenlands. I mean they find they find whale bones in subsaharan Africa in the desert. In the desert they find whale skeletons in the desert way before there were cars. Right.

[00:00:21]>> Okay. Way before there were plastic and power plants. So the the earth's climate has never been static. But the the the the Machu Picchu thing is I I really want to go there. Um my friend Luke Caverns, who's been on the podcast before, he's he's studied a >> three times.

[00:00:39]>> Has he really?

[00:00:40]>> But as a kid, that's what I meant. Like Yeah. So they're like, "Yeah, it's a 1-hour flight from Lima >> and then just take the train." But like >> Yeah. It's it's it's pretty wild. So you're saying it wasn't even the Aztecs.

[00:00:52]Is that what you told me?

[00:00:53]>> Well, that's Yeah. Well, that's the Incas. You're talking Incas.

[00:00:56]>> Yeah, it wasn't. They they don't think it was. I think the initial monolithic structures were or megalithic structures were an earlier previously unknown civilization because the the size and scope of their structures the way they build it and uh Graham Hancock has gone over this as well is so much different than the stuff that's on top of it. So what happens is you have this old stuff that's enormous stones that are cut like jigsaws, right? and almost like it's melted. Like the way it looks, it almost >> you can't put a piece of paper through it after 200 years of of like breakdowns. You still >> way more than 200 years. It's thousands of years. But the thing that's really nutty about it is that design is because when they have earthquakes, that way it won't fall off, >> right? It disperses the energy better as opposed to just stacking stuff on top of each other. That stuff falls. But when it's all interlocked in these weird forms like that [ __ ] >> that Yeah. So Chavar talks about a little bit where he goes so every Cusco is the gem of of South America. It was the it was the border of of the Andes where people would come in and do trade and everything. And you see this and the the Christians would come in take over and build like facads on it and put a cross on top to be like look what we did. We're more dominant than these people. And then an earthquake could come facade would fall and this would just remains over and over and over again and over again.

[00:02:16]>> These aren't even squares. Look at it's like an ele. It's like Tetris.

[00:02:19]>> Yeah. It's so cool. And that was on purpose. They did that because that what what would survive. But if you look at the stuff above it, that's the stuff that the Incas made. So the Incas made this stuff was like it's all just stacked. It's not as sophisticated and also not as large cuz they didn't have the technology. Whatever the [ __ ] these people had that was how big that rock is.

[00:02:38]>> Huge.

[00:02:40]>> I mean hundreds and thousands of tons.

[00:02:43]>> I mean these things are [ __ ] enormous. The really crazy one is the Lebanon ones >> in Lebanon.

[00:02:49]>> I've been there. Wait. How you >> I'm Jordan. Jordan I'm talking about is the >> So in Lebanon they have these massive stones. What are they called Jamie? The trilithon stones.

[00:02:59]So there's these stones that are like more than a thousand tons. And they're like several meters above the ground placed and then on top of them you have these Roman structures.

[00:03:12]>> Oh right.

[00:03:13]>> So if you see like there like that click that where you had your uh cursor.

[00:03:17]>> Yeah. Look at the size of that guy.

[00:03:19]>> Wow. And look at the size of that stone.

[00:03:21]>> Like and then you see the stuff on top of it is smaller. It's not as sophisticated. And then you had the Roman. Now the thing about the Romans is Romans had meticulous recordkeeping. And they talked about all the construction of all the different things they had.

[00:03:34]They don't even mention those stones.

[00:03:36]They don't mention how they No, I don't think it was them. I think it was a previous civilization. Look at that [ __ ] thing.

[00:03:42]>> Oh, bro. I'm about to You know Nazca lines?

[00:03:44]>> Yes.

[00:03:44]>> Okay.

[00:03:45]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:03:45]>> I saw them.

[00:03:46]>> Oh, did you?

[00:03:47]>> Yeah. I flew over them, >> bro. How weird is that?

[00:03:49]>> They're so big you can't I the pictures won't do it justice because you'll see like a road they didn't know because from the ground level you can't see any of it >> and so they just build these roads through the desert and so you can see a car sometimes >> like so for perspective and you're like it's this dot on this giant monkey >> in the middle of the desert >> right >> for however many hundreds of years.

[00:04:09]>> Yeah. They don't even know how long.

[00:04:11]>> They're crazy.

[00:04:12]>> Weird.

[00:04:13]>> And they're all like signals to to something. There's all these theories on what it is >> in the sky. You have to see them from above.

[00:04:19]>> You can only see them from above.

[00:04:21]>> That's nuts.

[00:04:22]>> Pilots would go over there and then somebody's like, "What's that?" Go, "Oh, yeah. We don't know. We just kind of go over."

[00:04:26]>> Well, they found a bunch of them now because of AI. You know, they've like scanned the areas and found a bunch of previously undiscovered Nazca lines.

[00:04:33]>> Wow.

[00:04:33]>> Yeah. And the the weird thing about is that's also the place where they find these people with elongated skulls. They find like these weird skulls that have additional capacity. So they have like 30% more capacity and they they don't have the same lines in their skulls that we have like when we're babies, you know, we have these what are they called? Sagittal I forget what the lines are called.

[00:04:54]>> Sagittal these lines that we have in our skull, you know, like your skull is not just one piece, right? It's like there's a bunch of pieces that >> you can tie them off so they get longer as a sign of like >> Yeah. But some of these skulls don't have the same structure as ours. They're human skulls, but they're longer. They have more capacity like 30% larger capacity and they don't have those lines that we have. So it's like what was that? Were there different kinds of humans back then?

[00:05:26]>> Out.

[00:05:26]>> Were there were they flying around? Were they flying around and making these [ __ ] structures? Were they responsible for Saki Huan and Machu Picchu and all these other places and they just died off and all we have left is like some skulls that we can't totally explain.

[00:05:41]>> We don't have the means to explain it yet, >> right? Because if if it was 20,000 years ago or 30,000 years ago or whatever it was that these people were ruling back then, what would be left? [ __ ] nothing. Nothing. Very little.

[00:05:53]>> I mean, you look at Ankor Watt where it's like >> that's crazy.

[00:05:56]>> Yeah. If you didn't see it, it's shocking some any of it remained.

[00:05:59]>> Yeah. Well, anchor Watts crazy. And how about that other one in India where the entire temple's carved out of one stone?

[00:06:05]>> Or or the one in in Jordan, the um See, what is it? [ __ ] what is those?

[00:06:12]The Indiana Jones one.

[00:06:14]>> What's that called? That's where I went with my brother.

[00:06:16]>> Yeah. What is that called?

[00:06:18]>> See, >> what is it, Jimmy?

[00:06:19]>> Petra.

[00:06:20]>> Petra. Petra.

[00:06:21]>> It's It's nuts. You come through this canyon and it's just in a mountain. A giant threetory >> temple that is just carved out of the mountain. It wasn't added to, >> right? And where's the stone? Where' you'd put the stones? What' you do >> that view coming out of the middle one?

[00:06:36]Coming out of that cavern and seeing it after about an hour hike.

[00:06:39]>> That's crazy.

[00:06:40]>> That doesn't even You have to see a human. See how small that person is in the middle?

[00:06:43]>> That is so crazy.

[00:06:44]>> So like what?

[00:06:46]>> Right.

[00:06:49]Have you ever heard of Darren Kuyu?

[00:06:51]>> No.

[00:06:51]>> In Turkey.

[00:06:52]>> This is crazy. You want to hear this one?

[00:06:54]>> It's a place or a person?

[00:06:55]>> It's it's a place. So, um I think they found this because someone was doing like construction on a house. Yeah.

[00:07:04]>> And they found a P. Oh, so this is what it was. So, a guy kept losing his chickens. They would go through a hole and they would never come out. So, this guy was like, "Well, where the [ __ ] are these chickens going?" So, they broke down the wall to figure out where the chickens go. And they found an underground city that can hold 20,000 people. Turkey >> with many many levels.

[00:07:29]>> Like many levels deep into the ground.

[00:07:32]>> Wow.

[00:07:32]>> It's [ __ ] bananas.

[00:07:36]>> Wow. Anthill.

[00:07:37]>> I watched a documentary. Now you see >> Wow.

[00:07:41]>> Like you see the where where you uh could you please go back to that one image with the houses? Yeah. Like that.

[00:07:47]Like so this guy >> it was like behind a [ __ ] wall in a house. So these chickens would go into the hole and it would they would just disappear. So he's like, "Where's my [ __ ] chickens?" So the guy starts digging around to try to figure out where the chickens go. And they found this and I want to say they found this in like the 20th century. Like >> I think it was the 20s. I just saw >> 1920s.

[00:08:10]>> Like 29 maybe.

[00:08:11]>> Wow. So no, they forgot about >> Nobody knew about it. Nobody knew who made it. There's no record of it. And it it's it can it can house 20,000 people in there. What was it for?

[00:08:23]>> No one knows.

[00:08:25]>> No one knows when. No one knows who. No one knows nothing. There's other ones they found in China. They found this [ __ ] insane one in China that also has no records. It's enormous. Like enormous caverns with giant columns.

[00:08:41]It's all carved out of the stone. They they moved millions of tons of rocks out of there. No record. No one knows where the stone went. I was staying with the Lacondans, Mayans, whatever. And uh we were on a hike and there was this little like abandoned temple just the size of this room.

[00:08:57]>> And so the guide was like, "So now there's a tunnel in here to like the main temple. It's about a mile and a half away and there's a tunnel where you can go through it. It takes a couple hours to walk.

[00:09:06]>> Fuck."

[00:09:06]>> And he goes, "I did my brother once." He goes, "I'll never go back. It's so frightening. And there's [ __ ] pumas around and you don't know.

[00:09:12]>> Pumas in the tunnel."

[00:09:13]>> Yeah. You're like, "You can't see shit."

[00:09:15]He goes, "It's a bad place." But it's this long underground tunnel that was made however long ago. What the hell?

[00:09:20]>> This is the one in China.

[00:09:21]>> This is one of the caves.

[00:09:22]>> So this is one of these caves in China.

[00:09:24]By the way, no record, no historical record of when it was created or who created it.

[00:09:30]>> They put up Wow. 23.

[00:09:32]>> And this is another one that they found in 1992. They found it. Four farmers in Long Yu found the caves and they drained the water from five small ponds in their village. The ponds turned out to be five large man-made caverns. Further investigation revealed 19 more caverns nearby. They've been determined to be more than 2,000 years old and their construction is not recorded in any historical documents. Like look how crazy. Please show some of those images.

[00:09:58]>> Yeah, it's the only one on this page. Uh >> it's [ __ ] bananas. So they're just guessing that it's 2,000 years old. They don't know.

[00:10:04]>> Right. Right. They're just like >> cuz there's no record there's no record of it. But it's bananas. And they've also those carvings they think are uh post >> later people who came in >> post discovery >> that that's their way of doing um >> yeah because you see how like those lines on the walls that's how everything looks. It's just those carved straight lines and it looks like the other stuff was like more modern that they >> think those lines are so that the erosion wouldn't hurt it as much.

[00:10:30]>> I don't know. I mean that might have been how they did it. They might have had some sort of a device that they carve the stone out with. But the thing is it's like >> this where is this where is this on a map? Show me where where Long View is on a map.

[00:10:40]>> Yep.

[00:10:42]>> I want to visit a lot of China.

[00:10:44]>> There's some a lot of places in there that I'm like don't know about.

[00:10:47]>> China's a big ass.

[00:10:48]>> Back back out. Back out.

[00:10:50]>> China's so big.

[00:10:52]>> Long caverns.

[00:10:53]>> Keep going back.

[00:10:55]>> Keep going back in context.

[00:10:59]>> Oh my god.

[00:10:59]>> That's pretty deep in there.

[00:11:00]>> Yeah.

[00:11:01]>> Good luck.

[00:11:02]>> Good luck.

[00:11:02]>> It's near Wuhan. Look.

[00:11:03]>> Yeah.

[00:11:04]>> Take a train to Wuhan. Catch a catch a bug.

[00:11:06]>> Yeah. Go eat some armadillo. Panggalan.

[00:11:09]>> Pengalin. That's how you got leprosy eating normal with Panggalan. You're really not supposed to eat those things.

[00:11:14]>> Go back to the images, please. The images are nuts, man. It's like what what were these people doing? Like why?

[00:11:22]Who who made this?

[00:11:23]>> I love standing in a place like that and just like you just instantly get connected to the to the history of it.

[00:11:28]>> Could you imagine it's 1992 and you're just draining a pond? You're a farmer and then you drain the pond and you go, "Oh, there's like a cave in here.

[00:11:38]and you go and you see this [ __ ] >> and no one knows who made it. No. And China, again, China has extensive historical records because China has existed for thousands and thousands of years. It's one of the few countries that's essentially been just China for 5,000 plus years.

[00:11:57]>> Bananas, man.

[00:11:58]>> Aquarium for real dragons.

[00:12:02]>> Got to keep them somewhere.

[00:12:06]Well, I mean, who made it and how did they make it? Like, how did they do that?

[00:12:10]>> For what? And for what purpose?

[00:12:12]>> How did they make that 2,000 plus years?

[00:12:14]And by saying 20,000 is like you're just >> 20,000 means. So, there's a there's a Joan Ddian piece on um on um El Salvador uh from a long time ago. And she goes, "They don't use numbers the way we use numbers. They say 50, it means a bunch."

[00:12:30]>> Oh, like 72 virgins.

[00:12:32]>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean just a bunch like bro he he went there a million times.

[00:12:37]>> Tons of tons of like what is a ton?

[00:12:39]That's >> Oh, bro. I smoked tons of joints.

[00:12:42]>> Break it down.

[00:12:43]>> So, Perplexity, our AI sponsor says no one knows for certain who created the Long View Caves. Archaeologists agree they are man-made and probably over 2,000 years old, but there's no record of their builders or patrons. That's crazy, dude. That is so crazy. Oh, pottery and other finds inside date roughly to the late Quinn or Western Han period around 200 B.CE suggesting they were excavated at or before that time.

[00:13:09]But the thing is that pottery, >> but that pottery could have been someone who just left pottery later like thou it's like if you leave behind a cell phone in Egypt and 5,000 years from now people say, "Oh, this is an iPhone 16.

[00:13:21]This must be from >> But that means it has to be at least that old or older."

[00:13:25]>> At least that old or older. So, it's at least 2,000 plus years old. But how crazy is it that there's no known records?

[00:13:32]>> Should go in quick and just bury some like [ __ ] from a long time ago, get some artifacts and just leave it in there.

[00:13:37]>> How much [ __ ] like that is still out there in other parts of the world where they don't know about it that the Mayan guy said he was like, "Yeah, no one knows. No one he goes, me and my my friends know about it."

[00:13:47]>> [ __ ] >> So, it's just like everywhere. Well, we were talking about the Aztecs, about how the Aztecs, and this is another thing that I found out through Perplexity when I was just I was writing this thing about Mexico and about how crazy the history of Mexico is and you know that the Spaniards came over with essentially like 12 musketss and took over the whole country. But when they when the Aztecs were living in these temples, they didn't build them. They called them the place where the gods were born. So, they found them. So there's a previous civilization that like Teotuan Teiochitan and all these other beautiful pyramids and temples. They don't know who [ __ ] made them, man.

[00:14:26]>> Okay.

[00:14:27]>> So they don't know who made them.

[00:14:29]>> That cave in Vietnam was found in 1991.

[00:14:32]>> Oh, I saw the 60 Minutes thing on that.

[00:14:35]Did you see that?

[00:14:36]>> Look at that.

[00:14:36]>> That dude from 60 Minutes, like a dude and a lady from 60 Minutes went and visited this cave and I was like that >> haunted as [ __ ] One cool thing about something like 60 Minutes that they would do something like that because it's a long journey. Wow.

[00:14:50]>> You have to fly in, drive a long distance, then hike along.

[00:14:54]>> Some of these places aren't any nothing's there.

[00:14:56]>> You can fit skyscrapers inside of these caves.

[00:14:58]>> They have their own ecosystems. Like there's clouds in there.