Perhaps you're like me and you were born a skeptic. If you tell me you've found something strange, you'll have to show me and that's why I was particularly suspicious when I saw a claim that explorers found Egyptian relics in an Illinois tomb and/or cave. My hoax detectors are going off like crazy.

This Illinois cave claim came up on my radar when a YouTube short was just shared yesterday with the claim (their exact words) "Ancient Egyptian records found in an Illinois tomb"

What to make of this? The video infers pictures of the relics that were found or were those just placeholders?

Not content to just accept this claim without proof, I did my own research and I believe what the video creator may be referring to is a place known as Burrows Cave in Illinois. Wikipedia says this infamous place was allegedly discovered by Russell E. Burrows in 1982. It says he discovered "sealed portals, statues, mummies, bronze weapons, diamonds, parchment scrolls" using a metal detector that unearthed all of these Egyptian things after navigating many long corridors and portals.

It was claimed he found all of this inside of a 15 foot cave entrance in southern Illinois.

This story became so well known that even America Unearthed on The History Channel did a feature on it.

There's just one very big problem with all of this - There is no proof this cave or the artifacts even exist. Wikipedia says the supposed relics found in Illinois were declared forgeries.

Is it possible that some Egyptians made their way to America in centuries gone by? Sure. Is there solid proof of it? Nope.