Jerome Bon/Flickr
A journal has retracted a paper by two Italian scientists who claimed to have found hidden structures inside of the oldest and largest of the Pyramids of Giza.
The study, published in Remote Sensing in October 2022, purportedly used synthetic aperture radar to penetrate the Pyramid of Khufu with energy pulses and process the echoes received, revealing a network of rooms, corridors and tunnels. The paper has been cited seven times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, as well as in a 2021 report by Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency.
The journal retracted the study on Aug. 10 after a reader “brought concerns to the attention of the Editorial Office regarding methodological issues with this article.” The editors investigated the claims and “confirmed serious methodological flaws and statistical errors that were deemed to undermine the scientific conclusions of the article.”
The scientists’ subsequent 2025 findings using synthetic aperture radar went viral — appearing most recently on the History Channel in an August episode of “The UnXplained” narrated by William Shatner and titled “What’s Really Hidden Beneath the Pyramids of Giza?” and on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Lawrence Conyers, an expert in the application of radar to archaeology, pointed out multiple issues with the study to Retraction Watch. In particular, Conyers said it’s physically impossible for synthetic aperture radar to penetrate through the pyramid, reflect off of internal structures and return to the satellite sensor. To claim otherwise is to ignore the fundamental laws of how electric and magnetic fields operate, Conyers told us.
F. Biondi, C. Malanga/Remote Sensing 2022
The researchers — Corrado Malanga, an organic chemist at the University of Pisa in Italy and Filippo Biondi, a telecommunication engineer who was a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland at the time — tried to get around the penetration problem by claiming “micro-movements,” or background seismic noise, could generate a 3D image by measuring the tiny motion changes in the radar signal.
But that explanation is technically unsound, Conyers said: A radar sensor can measure only what it directly “sees”; the tiny micro-vibrations involved are far below the level needed for a satellite to detect.
“I don’t care what magical properties you are using, it just doesn’t work,” said Conyers, who is professor emeritus at the University of Denver. Conyers was asked to peer review the original study and told the editor he would not recommend publishing it unless they got an additional reviewer who understood the paper’s many mathematical equations, Conyers told us.
Despite these concerns, Malanga, Biondi and colleagues held a press conference last March announcing an even more sensational discovery.
Following what moderator Nicola Ciccolo called the successful application of synthetic aperture radar “to reveal internal features of the Great Pyramid of Khufu,” the team expanded their scope to the entire Giza Plateau and reportedly identified five identical structures around the base of one pyramid. They then claimed to find eight cylindrical shafts surrounded by spiral pathways linking two massive cube-shaped structures the size of city blocks. A network of chambers and tunnels supposedly extends out from the base of the pyramid, reaching two kilometers in depth.
“It’s like having two giant underground halls or cavities, each fed into by four spiral-wrapped shafts from above,” Malanga said during the press conference. “The entire complex of structures seems to extend laterally and even deeper beyond the immediate area of the Pyramid of Khafre.”
While many scientists quickly dismissed these claims — which have not been published or peer-reviewed — the discovery was widely shared and covered by numerous outlets including the Daily Mail and the New York Post.
Two weeks after the retraction from Remote Sensing, Biondi shared a link to the History Channel episode with his followers on X.
Biondi and Malanga did not respond to multiple requests for comment. According to the paper’s retraction notice, Biondi and Malanga disagreed with the retraction.
Single aperture radar “can’t see through rock. Period. The end. It does not work,” Sarah Parcak, and archaeologist and Egyptologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham said in a YouTube video about these findings. “I could get any satellite imagery to look almost any way I wanted with enough manipulation,” Parcak said. “That’s what I think these guys have done — they’ve willfully misinterpreted the data.”
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