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| - The video showed at least two edited-together clips captured in different locations.
For more than a decade, online users have discussed a video purportedly showing a man following the path of a secret cave providing free entry into Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
In the video, the man holding the camera said, "Hi, I'm here at the entrance of the secret cave that goes into Disneyland. Now, if this works, and it actually does go into Disneyland, I have an annual pass, so I'm not trying to steal admission."
The clip, lasting roughly three minutes, featured the man using light from a glow stick, and ended with him emerging from a cave at the theme park's attraction, Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island. He continued, "I made it. I am in Disneyland. It worked. The cave is real."
In one TikTok video repost from March 2024, the user's caption read, "Weird how Disney [has an] underground tunnel that ends [in] the kid's restroom!!!" That clip received over 2.8 million views.
Another TikTok user, reposting the clip in October 2024, claimed, "This man found a cave that led to Disneyland's restrooms." That video received over 2 million views. Some users also claimed "Ryan" was the name of the man in the video, and that his exploration of "tunnels" confirmed unfounded conspiracy theories involving missing children and trafficking.
However, the video did not, in fact, depict a secret cave leading inside Disneyland. Had such a cave truly existed, news media outlets around the world would have broadcast and published reports about the find.
Also, the video did not confirm any unfounded conspiracy theories about missing children or trafficking.
An actor and writer named David August — not a person named "Ryan" — uploaded the original video to his YouTube channel in 2012. In our examination of the clip and its many comments, as well as August's years-old personal blog and Facebook page, we concluded the video showed at least two edited-together clips captured in different locations.
Another inauthentic (and in-jest) video mentioned in the description of August's video depicted him and another person purportedly finding a "secret tunnel into the White House." According to that video, a tunnel led through a door in the Oval Office's Resolute desk.
We contacted August by email to ask questions about his video, and also reached out to Disney Parks personnel to ask if they wished to comment. We'll update our story if we receive details.
'Secret cave into Disneyland' video, explained
August published his "secret cave into Disneyland" YouTube video on June 4, 2012. The original clip did not feature any spooky music or altered voices, unlike the later versions found on TikTok. Over nearly 13 years, the video received more than 400,000 views.
As of this writing, we had yet to determine the location where August captured the cave footage displayed in the first part of his video. We also did not know at what exact point he spliced together the two clips recorded in two different locations. One YouTube commenter guessed that August made his edit just after saying "So far, so good" at the 1:58 mark.
One feature unmentioned by commenters was the possible sound of ocean waves audible at the beginning of the video. On August's personal blog, we located an entry from June 30, 2011, in which he wrote about "sea cave exploration expedition" of the beach at Leo Carrillo State Park, located on the Malibu coast — dozens of miles from Disneyland.
On Jan. 24, 2012, in another creative video since made private but archived by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, August posted on his blog a "cave treasure vlog" recorded in a cave in the "cliffs of Malibu." In the video, he said he found gold pieces of "pirate bullion."
Weeks later, on Feb. 19, he posted a photo showing him posing with two other people in an unidentified cave. A glow stick visible in the picture appeared similar to the one from his "secret cave into Disneyland" video.
Then, on March 29, he posted a picture with the caption, "Searching for the entrance to the secret cave into Disneyland."
On June 5, just one day after publishing the "secret cave into Disneyland" YouTube video, August shared the clip in a blog entry.
In the years that followed, many different YouTube users asked in comments whether the video was real. August repeatedly responded to the commenters, "It is a real video." This repeated response appeared as a running joke on August's behalf. Another user replied to August, "Real video. Fake claim. Keep up the good work."
Some users commented under the video they believed August recorded his entire video on the Tom Sawyer's Island attraction. August responded to such claims, saying he did not record the beginning of the clip on Disneyland property.
One user commented about how some commenters, or perhaps the people who clicked to "dislike" the video, could not take the "joke" offered by the clip. August responded with a winking emoticon.
Tom Sawyer's Island annexed by Missouri?
During August's cave video, he mentioned one other rumor worth touching on. In the clip, he said of the cave, "This is supposed to come up on Tom Sawyer's Island, in Frontierland, which, in 1956, Walt Disney was have [sic] said to have given it to the state of Missouri and the governor of Missouri was supposed to have annexed it. However, the state of Missouri doesn't confirm that."
He then jokingly added, with a hint to viewers that his video might not be genuine, "So it's not, I'm not sure if we're coming up in California still."
The late David R. Smith, the Walt Disney Archives founder and former chief archivist, once debunked this rumor on the official Disney fan club website D23.com, publishing that it started with a "tongue-in-cheek letter" from the state's governor:
Q: There's a myth going around that Tom Sawyer's Island is actually part of Missouri because Walt Disney convinced the governor of Missouri to annex it and that no snacks can be sold on the Island due to that? I don't think this is true. What's the real story?
Jonathan, Universal City, Texas
A: The whole thing about Tom Sawyer Island being part of Missouri came from the opening ceremonies in 1956. Phil Donnelly, the Governor of Missouri, sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to Governor Goodwin Knight of California asking him "to take appropriate action which will cause the Tom Sawyer Island in Disneyland, California, to be deeded to the Sovereign State of Missouri, the only true and rightful possessor of any and all Tom Sawyer Islands in the world." Snacks were indeed sold on the island—as early as 1957, Nesbitt's operated a refreshment stand there, and there was a Canteen in Fort Wilderness that sold hot dogs, cider, and candy.
Dave Smith
For further reading, in 2024 we published reporting about a false rumor claiming Disney "canceled" Tinker Bell, as well as stories about ghosts spotted in Disneyland and questions about the park's once-secretive Club 33.
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