Grand Canyon, Comanche Point — The claim of a 4,000-year-old UFO found at the canyon floor originates from the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid that published entirely fabricated stories. No evidence has ever been produced. Tombstone page.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTING REPORT
4,000 Year Old UFO Found in Grand Canyon
This page preserves a widely circulated claim that a 4,000-year-old spherical UFO was discovered at the bottom of the Grand Canyon near Comanche Point by a secret military task force. The story originates from the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid that published entirely fabricated stories as entertainment. The named source, “Dr. Henry Leaumont, a California-based astronomer,” does not appear in any astronomical directory, university faculty listing, or peer-reviewed publication. No Grand Canyon crash wreckage has ever been documented by the National Park Service, the U.S. Air Force, or any archaeological or geological institution. The story is retained in the archive as an example of tabloid-origin UFO mythology, with this tombstone explaining its provenance.
⚠ FABRICATION — WEEKLY WORLD NEWS TABLOID ORIGIN ⚠
This story was published by the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid that operated from 1979 to 2007 (with a later online-only revival). The WWN was not a news organization. It was an entertainment publication that printed entirely invented stories — including Bat Boy, alien presidential endorsements, and celebrity ghost sightings — presented in newspaper format. Nothing published in the Weekly World News should be treated as factual reporting. The named expert (“Dr. Henry Leaumont”) is unverifiable. The “secret Air Force documents” have never surfaced. No corroborating evidence of any kind has ever been produced. This page is retained as a documented example of tabloid-origin UFO mythology that has entered wider circulation online, often stripped of its WWN attribution.
Date: Claimed crash date: approximately 2000 B.C.E. (per the article). Date of alleged discovery: not specified. Date of publication: not specified (Weekly World News, likely early-to-mid 1990s)
Sighting Time: Not Applicable (fabricated recovery claim, not a sighting)
Day/Night: Not Applicable
Location: Claimed: base of the Grand Canyon near Comanche Point, Arizona (Coconino County)
Urban or Rural: Remote wilderness (Grand Canyon National Park)
No. of Entity(‘s): Not Applicable (no sighting occurred)
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: The article claims cave paintings near the crash site depict “strange humanoid creatures with bulbous heads,” interpreted as the alien crew. No specific cave paintings at Comanche Point matching this description have been documented by the National Park Service or any archaeological survey
Hynek Classification: None — fabricated story; no observed event to classify
Duration: Not Applicable
No. of Object(s): 1 (claimed)
Description of the Object(s): Per the article: a spherical craft made of “an extremely light metallic fiber,” measuring approximately 50 feet across at its widest point and 102 feet long. Made of an “unknown metallic substance” emitting low levels of radiation. Atom-powered with a magnetic steering system. Cabin configured for a crew of 12–20 individuals smaller than humans who breathed oxygen. None of these details can be verified; they originate from a fabricated source
Shape of Object(s): Spherical (claimed)
Size of Object(s): 50 feet wide by 102 feet long (claimed)
Color of Object(s): Not specified
Distance to Object(s): Not Applicable
Height & Speed: Not Applicable
Number of Witnesses: None (fabricated story)
Special Features/Characteristics: Not Applicable — all claimed features originate from a fabricated tabloid article
Case Status: Explained (tabloid fabrication — Weekly World News)
Source: Weekly World News (supermarket tabloid, entirely fabricated content); attributed to “Dr. Henry Leaumont, a California-based astronomer” (unverifiable — no such person appears in any astronomical directory or academic database)
Summary/Description: A Weekly World News article, published without a specific date (likely early-to-mid 1990s) and datelined Flagstaff, Arizona, claimed that a secret military task force had recovered the wreckage of a 4,000-year-old spherical UFO from the base of the Grand Canyon near Comanche Point. The article quoted “Dr. Henry Leaumont” (unverifiable) citing “secret Air Force documents” (never produced). The story has circulated widely online, often stripped of its Weekly World News attribution, leading some readers to treat it as a genuine report. It is not. The Weekly World News was an entertainment tabloid that published entirely fictional stories. This page preserves the claim and documents its provenance.
Related Cases: Not Applicable
Detailed Report
The article, datelined Flagstaff, Arizona, and published in the Weekly World News (specific issue date not preserved in the available version), reported that a team of experts from a “secret joint military task force on UFOs” had discovered the wreckage of a spherical UFO at the base of the Grand Canyon near a location called Comanche Point. The craft was said to have crash-landed approximately 4,000 years ago (circa 2000 B.C.E.), to be made of an unknown metallic substance emitting low-level radiation, and to have been immediately removed to a secret location.
The sole named source was “Dr. Henry Leaumont,” described as a California-based astronomer who had been shown secret Air Force documents. Leaumont was quoted as saying the craft was “definitely of extraterrestrial origin,” carried a crew of 12–20 individuals smaller than humans, was atom-powered with magnetic steering, and measured 50 feet across by 102 feet long. He further claimed that Indian cave paintings near the crash site depicted “strange humanoid creatures with bulbous heads” who were the alien crew members, and that the crew had lived near their crashed ship for years after the impact.
The article concluded with Leaumont lamenting government secrecy and calling for the find to be shared with the world.
Researcher’s Notes
The Grand Canyon UFO — Comanche Point and the Weekly World News Problem
The Source: The Weekly World News (WWN) was a supermarket tabloid published from 1979 to 2007 by American Media, Inc., with a later online-only revival. It was not, and never claimed to be, a legitimate news publication in any journalistic sense. Its editorial content was entirely fabricated — fictional stories presented in newspaper format for entertainment purposes. Its most famous recurring character was Bat Boy, a half-human half-bat creature. Other regular features included alien endorsements of U.S. presidential candidates, Elvis sightings, and time-travel discoveries. The WWN’s editorial staff understood and intended their product as fiction. Attributing factual claims to the Weekly World News is equivalent to attributing them to a novel or a sketch-comedy script. Any story originating from the WWN should be treated as fabricated until independently verified by a credible source — and in this case, no independent verification of any kind has ever been produced.
- “Dr. Henry Leaumont”: The sole named expert in the article does not appear in the American Astronomical Society membership directory, any university faculty listing, any observatory staff roster, or any peer-reviewed astronomical publication. The name may be a complete invention (standard WWN practice) or a pseudonym. Without a verifiable identity, every claim attributed to Leaumont — the Air Force documents, the carbon dating, the crew configuration, the metallic composition — is unsourced assertion from an unidentified person in a publication that manufactured its content.
- Comanche Point and the Cave Paintings: Comanche Point is a real geographic feature on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Coconino County, Arizona. The Grand Canyon does contain genuine prehistoric rock art, including Archaic-period pictographs and petroglyphs documented by the National Park Service and academic archaeologists. However, no documented rock art at or near Comanche Point depicts “humanoid creatures with bulbous heads” in the manner described by the article. The appropriation of real geography and real archaeological traditions to lend credibility to a fabricated story is a standard tabloid technique — anchoring fiction to verifiable landmarks to create a veneer of plausibility.
- Why This Page Exists: The Grand Canyon UFO story has achieved wide online circulation, frequently reproduced on websites and social media without attribution to its Weekly World News origin. Stripped of the WWN byline, the story reads as a sensational but potentially credible report of a crash recovery — which is precisely why it needs a tombstone in the archive rather than quiet deletion. Deleting the page would leave readers who encounter the story elsewhere with no authoritative debunking in the thinkaboutitdocs.com archive. Retaining it with a clear provenance marker — “this is a Weekly World News fabrication, not a report” — serves the archive’s core function: documenting what was claimed, by whom, and what the source chain actually is.
There is no 4,000-year-old UFO at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. There is a tabloid story about one, and the archive notes the difference.
