The Pyramid Beneath the Pyramid
A Personal Geometric Hypothesis, a Folded Dollar Bill, and the Strange 2025 Giza SAR Claims
John Swygert
Ivory Tower Publishing
September 18, 2026
Sometimes an old idea becomes interesting again for reasons that could never have been anticipated when the idea first appeared.
Approximately 12 to 15 years ago—roughly 2011 to 2014—I developed a peculiar geometric interpretation using a folded United States one-dollar bill.
I cannot presently document the exact date on which I first constructed it. There may be old photographs, notes, or files among my records that eventually establish the chronology more precisely. If I locate them, they can be added to this account. For now, the date range should be understood as my personal recollection rather than a independently documented priority claim.
What matters here is the idea itself.
I folded the dollar bill deliberately so that elements already printed upon it became components of a three-dimensional conceptual model.
The pyramid on the Great Seal represented the structure at the surface. The large printed O, when positioned horizontally by the fold, represented the circular top of a cylindrical column or shaft. The surrounding folded geometry represented a spiraling path descending around that column.
At the bottom was a foundation or chamber.
And within the geometry of that lower structure appeared something that fascinated me most:
another pyramid.
The resulting concept was therefore not simply that there might be rooms beneath a pyramid.
It was a much more specific geometric idea:
Pyramid above.
Vertical cylindrical structure below.
Spiral descent around the column.
Foundation or chamber at depth.
Pyramid below.
For years, it remained little more than one of my unusual geometric observations.
Then came 2025.
The Khafre SAR Project
In March 2025, Filippo Biondi, Armando Mei, and Corrado Malanga presented results from what became known as the Khafre Project, based upon their analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar data associated with the Pyramid of Khafre at Giza.
Their conference abstract says that the investigation used publicly available SAR data from Capella Space and Umbra and examined dozens of tomographic images acquired from different viewing angles to produce three-dimensional reconstructions.
What they claimed to see beneath the Giza Plateau was extraordinary.
According to their own description, the reconstruction contained eight vertically aligned cylindrical structures, arranged in two parallel rows. The researchers interpreted these structures as hollow vertical wells surrounded by descending spiral pathways. They reported that these structures descended approximately 648 meters, where they connected with two very large cubic structures. They further proposed the existence of additional geometric anomalies extending considerably deeper beneath the plateau.
That does not establish that those structures actually exist.
The 2025 interpretation has not been archaeologically confirmed, and specialists have challenged whether the proposed SAR methodology can reliably reconstruct structures at the extraordinary depths claimed. Moreover, the team's earlier peer-reviewed work involving the Great Pyramid was subsequently retracted over methodological and statistical concerns; the later Khafre claims themselves were not part of that paper and were not independently peer-reviewed.
That distinction is essential.
This article is not an announcement that the structures have been discovered.
It is about something different.
It is about an extraordinary geometric correspondence.
Two Images Separated by More Than a Decade
Place my old folded-dollar model beside a conceptual reconstruction of what the Khafre researchers say their tomography represents.
The resemblance is difficult for me to ignore.
My model contains a pyramid at the surface.
Their proposed reconstruction begins beneath a pyramid.
My model uses the circular O as the top of a cylindrical vertical structure.
Their interpretation contains enormous cylindrical vertical structures.
My construction creates a spiral descending around that central column.
Their own conference abstract specifically describes their cylindrical structures as being surrounded by descending spiral pathways.
My model terminates in a substantial lower structure or foundation.
Their proposed cylinders terminate in enormous structures hundreds of meters beneath the plateau.
And my construction contains the image of a pyramid at the lower level.
That final feature should not be confused with the researchers' claim. I have not found evidence in their published abstract establishing that they have identified a literal second pyramid at the bottom of their cylinders. That portion belongs to my old model, not to their demonstrated results.
The correspondence is therefore not exact.
But it is remarkably specific.
An Older Historical Curiosity
There is another reason subterranean architecture at Giza has fascinated people for centuries.
Herodotus wrote about underground construction associated with the pyramids. In Histories, Book II, he described what Egyptians told him concerning underground chambers associated with Khufu, including water brought through a channel from the Nile. He also reported a tradition involving a built passage through which water surrounded an island associated with Khufu's burial.
Herodotus does not describe the extraordinary system proposed by the 2025 Khafre researchers.
He does not describe eight gigantic cylinders descending 648 meters.
He does not describe spiral pathways wrapped around those cylinders.
And he certainly does not verify my folded-dollar interpretation.
Nevertheless, his account demonstrates something historically important: stories of substantial subterranean construction associated with the Giza pyramids are very old.
That makes the modern controversy even more interesting.
What This Does—and Does Not—Mean
There are several completely separate questions here, and they should remain separate.
First is the chronology of my model.
My recollection places its creation approximately 2011–2014, twelve to fifteen years before I returned to it in 2026. I currently present that as recollection, not independently documented fact. If I eventually find a dated photograph, file, message, drawing, or other record, that evidence can establish a firmer date.
Second is the 2025 Khafre Project claim.
That claim unquestionably exists. The researchers themselves describe cylindrical structures, descending spiral pathways and massive deeper structures in their published conference material.
Third is whether those structures actually exist beneath Giza.
That remains unresolved. A computational reconstruction is not an excavation. An anomaly is not automatically architecture. And an interpretation of remote-sensing data is not archaeological confirmation.
Those qualifications do not diminish what fascinates me about the comparison.
They define it properly.
I do not need the SAR claims to be true in order to establish what my model means.
And my having conceived a similar geometry years earlier does not make the SAR claims true.
These are independent propositions.
The remarkable thing is simply that they intersect.
Why I Am Publishing the Comparison Now
I had not been actively thinking about this model.
Then, after finishing an entirely unrelated book, the old idea unexpectedly returned to me.
I looked again at the dollar construction.
Pyramid.
Circle.
Column.
Spiral.
Descent.
Foundation.
Pyramid below.
And suddenly I remembered the controversial images being circulated from the recent Giza research.
That stopped me.
Because whatever ultimately happens to the Khafre Project—confirmation, partial confirmation, reinterpretation, or complete rejection—the comparison between these two geometries already exists.
One came from a folded dollar bill and an idea I remember developing approximately twelve to fifteen years ago.
The other emerged publicly in 2025 from researchers claiming that SAR Doppler tomography had revealed enormous cylindrical structures surrounded by descending spiral pathways beneath the Giza Plateau.
Perhaps it is coincidence.
Perhaps the similarities arise because cylindrical shafts, spirals and pyramidal geometry naturally suggest certain structural relationships.
Perhaps future excavation will show that the SAR reconstruction bears little resemblance to physical reality.
Or perhaps something genuinely extraordinary remains beneath the Giza Plateau.
At present, we do not know.
And “we do not know” is not a disappointing conclusion.
Sometimes it is precisely where investigation should begin.
For now, I am simply placing the two images beside one another and recording the chronology as accurately as I presently can.
I had an old idea.
More than a decade later, researchers produced a controversial reconstruction bearing a remarkably specific resemblance to parts of it.
I cannot presently prove when I first made my model.
They cannot presently prove that their reconstruction represents enormous artificial structures beneath Giza.
Both of those things may someday become easier to establish.
Until then, the comparison stands on its own.
And I find it ridiculously fascinating.
John Swygert
Ivory Tower Publishing
Cumberland, Maryland
September 18, 2026
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