Experts Debunk Viral Chaco Canyon Mural Photo

The Viral Story of a Priceless Discovery

In September 2025, a captivating image began making the rounds online, telling the tale of a remarkable discovery. According to a popular Facebook post, a hiker named Sarah Johnson stumbled upon a "priceless" Ancestral Puebloan kiva mural while trekking through a remote part of New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historical Park back in October 2009. The story claimed that along with the mural, she found pottery sherds dating to around 1100 AD and later received a "citizen's commendation" for her incredible find.

The compelling narrative and stunning image quickly gained traction, leading many to wonder if this long-lost piece of history was real.

Unraveling the Hoax with Digital Tools

Despite the convincing story, several details quickly pointed to the image and its accompanying tale being a fabrication. A closer look using digital tools revealed the photo's modern, artificial origins. Online AI detection services, including Sightengine and Hive Moderation, concluded that the image was highly likely to have been generated by artificial intelligence.

Furthermore, a historical search for news about this significant discovery came up empty. Searches for Sarah Johnson's find in October 2009 across multiple credible news archives yielded no reports of the event. A find of this magnitude, supposedly worthy of a citizen's commendation, would have certainly generated significant media coverage.

Experts Spot Glaring Inconsistencies

Experts familiar with the park and its history provided the final confirmation that the story was false. Colin Purdy, an interpretive park ranger at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, noted that the mural in the image didn't resemble any of the existing imagery found at the historical site.

More tellingly, he pointed out a major botanical error: the image features a Saguaro cactus in the upper left corner. According to the U.S. National Park Service, Saguaro cacti grow only in the Sonoran Desert, which covers parts of Arizona, California, and Mexico—not in northern New Mexico where Chaco Canyon is located. Purdy also expressed doubt that such a delicate mural could survive the repeated flooding that occurs in the canyon.

Adding to the evidence, Steve Carr, director of communications at the University of New Mexico—the institution the post claimed had valued the mural—confirmed via email that the chair of the university's department that studies Chaco Canyon "indicated that the story and photos are fake."

While this particular mural may be a digital fantasy, the Chaco Culture National Historical Park remains a real and vital historical site, preserving the legacy of a thriving center for the ancestral Pueblo people from 850 to 1250 CE.